Notes on the Bermudas. 155 



plants, add warmth .to the general coJoring. Thus it is that 

 nature strives to cover with grace and beauty the otherwise nude 

 and barren rocks of the pea. 



Having said so much about the Natural History of these islands, 

 it would be ungracious not to say something of their inhabitants. 

 This is one of the Old World settlements. Here there were no 

 Aborigines, excepting the insects, the crabs and the birds. The 

 still vexed Bermoothes were supposed in Shakespeare's time to be 

 inhabited only by " Gorgons and Hydras and Chimaeras dire." Of 

 inhabitants in these days, Bermuda generally has in its garrisons 

 about 1000 soldiers, and in its hulks 1200 convicts; the civilians 

 amount to about 12,000, two-thirds of whom are "colored peo- 

 ple," — the emancipated slaves and their descendants. The whites 

 are for the most part a fine class of people, possessing the man- 

 ners of English gentlemen ; affectionate in their demeanor to 

 strangers and hospitable to the full measure of their ability. If 

 not remarkable for their piety they are at least religious. In 

 morals they are not worse than like classes of people in England. 

 Their education and intelligence are by no means behind the age. 

 With the exception of a few lawyers, they are all engaged in 

 commercial and agricultural pursuits, and are not devoid of enter- 

 prise or ability. The colored people here as everywhere exhibit the 

 characteristic features of the race. Emancipated from the slavery 

 and the tutelage of their owners, without the previous preparation 

 of education, they have not always shown that sagacity and wis- 

 dom in the use of their libei ty, and in the improvement of their con- 

 dition which might be desired. The antipathy between the I'aces 

 is besides very strong here. Neither in churches, schools, nor in 

 social life, do they associate together. It is however wrong, as a 

 recent American writer asseits, to say, that emancipation is here 

 a failure. It cannot be denied, even by the most prejudiced, that 

 the colored people are now in a greatly better social, moral, and 

 religious condition than they were in 1834. It is alleged that 

 they are lazy and wont work. Some of them certainly are so ; 

 but so are some whites. If the black man does not work, neither 

 does the white. Besides, he wont work for nothino- or without a 

 motive any more than the white. It is to us wonderful that con- 

 sidering the immoral influences to which the blacks were and are 

 exposed, that they are not worse than they are. Nevertheless, we 

 say, that they are upon the whole an industrious people. They 

 do almost all the work that is done on the island. They 



