ed with great care. I
got a week's leave at this time, and, as I had letters to several
families, I contrived to spend my time pleasantly enough.

Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a cluster of islands in the middle
of the Atlantic. There are Lord knows how many of them, but the beauty
of the little straits and creeks which divide them no man can describe
who has not seen them. The town of St. George's, for instance, looks
as if the houses were cut out of chalk; and one evening the family
where I was on a visit proceeded to the main island, Hamilton, to
attend a ball there. We had to cross three ferries, although the
distance was not above nine miles, if so far. The 'Mudian women are
unquestionably beautiful--so thought Thomas Moore, a tolerable judge,
before me. By the by, touching this 'Mudian ball, it was a very gay
affair--the women pleasant and beautiful; but all the men, when they
speak, or are spoken to, shut one eye and spit;--a lucid and succinct
description of a community.

The second day of my sojourn was fine--the first fine day since our
arrival--and with several young ladies of the family, I was prowling
through the cedar wood above St. George's, when a dark good-looking man
passed us; he was dressed in tight worsted net pantaloons and Hessian
boots, and wore a blue frockcoat and two large epaulets, with rich
French bullion, and a round hat. On passing, he touched his hat with
much grace, and in the evening I met him in society. It was Commodore
Decatur. He was very much a Frenchman in manner, or, I should rather
say, in look, for although very well bred, he, for one ingredient, by
no means possessed a Frenchman's volubility; still, he was an
exceedingly agreeable and very handsome man.

The following day we spent in a pleasure cruise amongst the three
hundred and sixty-five Islands, many of them not above an acre in
extent--fancy an island of an acre in extent!--with a solitary house, a
small garden, a red-skinned family, a piggery, and all around clear
deep pellucid water. None of the islands, or islets, rise to any great
height, but they all shoot precipitously out of the water, as if the
whole group had originally been one huge platform of rock, with
numberless grooves subsequently chiselled out in it by art.

We had to wind our way amongst these manifold small channels for two
hours, before we reached the gentleman's house where we had been
invited to dine; at length, on turning a corn