492 ASCENSION. [cHap. xxr. 
ment. There is not a private person on the island. Many of 
the marines appeared well contented with their situation; they 
think it better to serve their one-and-twenty years on shore, let 
it be what it may, than in a ship; in this choice, if I werea 
marine, I should most heartily agree. 
The next morning I ascended Green Hill, 2840 feet high, 
and thence walked across the island to the windward point. A 
good cart-road leads from the coast-settlement to the houses, 
gardens, and fields, placed near the summit of the central moun- 
tain. On the roadside there are milestones, and likewise cis- 
terns, where each thirsty passer-by can drink some good water. 
Similar care is displayed in each part of the establishment, and 
especially in the management of the springs, so that a single 
- drop of water may not be lost: indeed the whole island may be 
compared to a huge ship kept in first-rate order. I could not 
help, when admiring the active industry which had created such 
effects out of such means, at the same time regretting that it had 
been wasted on so poor and trifling an end. M. Lesson has 
remarked with justice, that the English nation alone would have 
thought of making the island of Ascension a productive spot ; 
any other people would have held it as a mere fortress in the 
ocean. 
Near this coast nothing grows; further inland, an occasional 
green castor-oil plant, and a few grasshoppers, true friends of 
the desert, may be met with. Some grass is scattered over the 
surface of. the central elevated region, and the whole much re- 
sembles the worse parts of the Welsh mountains. But scanty as 
the pasture appears, about six hundred sheep, many goats, a few 
cows and horses, all thrive well on it. Of native animals, land- 
crabs and rats swarm in numbers. Whether the rat is really 
indigenous, may well be doubted ; there are two varieties as de- 
scribed by Mr. Waterhouse; one is of a black colour, with fine 
glossy fur, and lives on the grassy summit; the other is brown- 
coloured and less glossy, with longer hairs, and lives near the 
settlement on the coast. Both these varieties are one-third 
smaller than the common black rat (M. rattus) ; and-they differ 
from it both in the colour and character of their fur, but in no 
other essential respect. I can hardly doubt that these rats (like 
the common mouse, which has also run wild) have been imported, 
