190 THE SEA. 



and tops of a cluster of small hills. Its outlying borders fringed off and thinned away 

 among the cedar forests, and there was no woody distance of curving coast or leafy islet 

 sleeping on the dimpled, painted sea but was necked with shining white points half- 

 concealed houses peeping out of the foliage. * * * There was an ample pier of heavy 

 masonry ; upon this, under shelter, were some thousands of barrels, containing that product 

 which has carried the fame of Bermuda to many lands the potato. With here and there 

 an onion. That last sentence is facetious, for they grow at least two onions in Bermuda 

 to one potato. The onion is the pride and the joy of Bermuda. It is her jewel, her gem 

 of gems. In her conversation, her pulpit, her literature, it is her most frequent and 

 eloquent figure. In Bermudian metaphor it stands for perfection perfection absolute. 



"The Bermudian, weeping over the departed, exhausts praise when he says, ( He was 

 an onion P The Bermudian, extolling the living hero, bankrupts applause when he says, 

 1 He is an onion ! ' The Bermudian, setting his son upon the stage of life to dare and 

 do for himself, climaxes all counsel, supplication, admonition, comprehends all ambition, 

 when he says, ' Be an onion ! ' When the steamer arrives at the pier, the first question 

 asked is not concerning great war or political news, but concerns only the price of 

 onions. All the writers agree that for tomatoes, onions, and vegetables generally, the 

 Bermudas are unequalled ; they have been called, as noted before, the market-gardens of New 

 York. 



Jack who is fortunate enough to be on the West India and North American Stations 

 must be congratulated. " The country roads," says the clever writer above quoted, " curve 

 and wind hither and thither in the delightfulest way, unfolding pretty surprises at every 

 turn ; billowy masses of oleander that seem to float out from behind distant projections, 

 like the pink cloud-banks of sunset; sudden plunges among cottages and gardens, life 

 and activity, followed by as sudden plunges into the sombre twilight and stillness of the 

 woods; glittering visions of white fortresses and beacon towers pictured against the sky 

 on remote hill-tops; glimpses of shining green sea caught for a moment through opening 

 headlands, then lost again ; more woods and solitude ; and by-and-by another turn lays 

 bare, without warning, the full sweep of the inland ocean, enriched with its bars of soft 

 colour, and graced with its wandering sails. 



"Take any road you please, you may depend upon it you will not stay in it half a 

 mile. Your road is everything that a road ought to be; it is bordered with trees, and 

 with strange plants and flowers; it is shady and pleasant, or sunny and still pleasant; it 

 carries you by the prettiest and peacefulest and most home-like of homes, and through 

 stretches of forest that lie in a deep hush sometimes, and sometimes are alive with the 

 music of birds; it curves always, which is a continual promise, whereas straight roads 

 reveal everything at a glance and kill interest. * * * There is enough of variety. 

 Sometimes you are in the level open, with marshes, thick grown with flag-lances that are 

 ten feet high, on the one hand, and potato and onion orchards on the other ; next you are 

 on a hill-top, with the ocean and the islands spread around you ; presently the road winds 

 through a deep cut, shut in by perpendicular walls thirty or forty feet high, marked with 

 the oddest and abruptest stratum lines, suggestive of sudden and eccentric old upheavals, 

 and garnished with, here and there, a clinging adventurous flower, and here and there 



