n. The balmy sea air blows over each
little island as freely as it might blow over the deck of a ship.

The people have the same great merit which I had previously observed
among their Cornish neighbours--the merit of good manners. We two
strangers were so little stared at as we walked about, that it was
almost like being on the Continent. The pilot who had taken us into Hugh
Town harbour we found to be a fair specimen, as regarded his excessive
talkativeness and the purity of his English, of the islanders generally.
The longest tellers of very long stories, so far as my experience goes,
are to be found in Scilly. Ask the people the commonest question, and
their answer generally exhausts the whole subject before you can say
another word. Their anxiety, whenever we had occasion to inquire our
way, to guard us from the remotest chance of missing it, and the honest
pride with which they told us all about local sights and marvels, formed
a very pleasant trait in the general character. Wherever we went, we
found the natural kindness and natural hospitality of the people always
ready to welcome us.

Strangely enough, in this softest and healthiest of climates consumption
is a prevalent disease. If I may venture on an opinion, after a very
short observation of the habits of the people, I should say that
distrust of fresh air and unwillingness to take exercise were the chief
causes of consumptive maladies among the islanders. I longed to break
windows in the main street of Hugh Town as I never longed to break them
anywhere else. One lovely afternoon I went out for the purpose of seeing
how many of the inhabitants of the place had a notion of airing their
bed-rooms. I found two houses with open windows--all the rest were fast
closed from top to bottom, as if a pestilence were abroad instead of the
softest, purest sea-breeze that ever blew. Then, again, as to walking,
the people ask you seriously when you inquire your way on foot, whether
you are aware that the destination you want to arrive at is three miles
off! As for a pedestrian excursion round the largest island--a circuit
of thirteen miles--when we talked of performing that feat in the hearing
of a respectable inhabitant, he laughed at the idea as incredulously as
if we had proposed a swimming match to the Cornish coast. When people
will not give themselves the first great chance of breathing healthily
and freely as often as they can, who can wonder that consumption should