43 
HISTORICAL. 
Wy years ago held its bi-annual vegetable, fruit, flower, and 
cattle shows, awarding prizes for the finest specimens. 
There are in the country 260 distinct properties, with about 200 
louses, valued at 66,000/. It naturally strikes a stranger as remark- 
able that, with so much available laud-and good land too, fertile soil 
which is produced by decomposed basaltic rocks is well known to be 
amongst the very best-the number of cattle and sheep should be so 
small m proportion, and still more so that these are, to a large extent 
imported from the Cape of Good Hope. Also that no aSides foi 
s.r ia ab r aneei 
ported, and while any amount of yams could be easily grown as 
was done formerly under the East India Company’s GovemmmT 
t 111 ported 1 from 
their lrni’hk 1 / J / arnierS even seem barel J able to exist upon 
passed ifto^ThT /^ Pert1 ^ Whi ° h ’ in man T instances, have 
place, and the r<Tu •’ ° “° St “ 0ne ? ed mercantile firms of the 
aoricnlti i- 't “ a mon °po]y ) with complete stagnation of 
I ° a ' al mterests - There are a comparatively large number of 
handsome country villa residences, with 80 or 100 acres of land 
attached, well suited for gentlemen’s seats, but many of them are 
mv vacant so far as the house is concerned, while the land is but 
f cultivated. The finest property in the Island is the Governor’s 
official residence, called “Plantation House,” a well-built, moderate 
d mansion > containing forty rooms, standing in the midst of 170 
acres of p.turesque park land, crowded with oaks, Norfolk pine* 
ch Ins, and other handsome trees from temperate as well as 
tropical chines. It was erected in 1791, is distant nearly three Ld 
a half miles from the town, at an elevation above the sea of 179^ 
feet, and is worthy of a visitor’s attention, who will do well 1 
ever, to totally disbelieve the guide boys’ anecdote when they’poTnt 
out a huge cave in the rock on the side of the lawn t-/ * 
where Sir Hudson Lowe confined Napoleon in f 8 pIa f e 
watch him from his front door steps ' " **““ te “« ht 
Nothing can be more deplorable than the state of the Island at 
tt p ;c , time - , Th : *r -“■* at *• »» rt ’ *■» cw tde a : 
ernnin f T y day - FormerI J. Who almost all vessels 
g from the East were compelled to make some intermediate 
