e water was quite smooth
and tranquil. The islanders collected on the beach, and guided us to the
best spot for landing, the huge boulders, heaped in many places, being
ugly impediments to a boat.

We were as warmly welcomed as if we had been old friends, and hospitable
attentions were showered upon us from every side. The people were
noticeably well-behaved, and, although there was something Crusoe-like
in their way of living, their manners and conversation were distinctly
good. A rude plenty was evident, there being no lack of good food--fish,
fowl, and vegetables. The grassy plateau on which the village stands is
a sort of shelf jutting out from the mountain-side, the mountain being
really the whole island. Steep roads were hewn out of the solid rock,
leading, as we were told, to the cultivated terraces above. These
reached an elevation of about a thousand feet. Above all towered the
great, dominating peak, the summit lost in the clouds eight or nine
thousand feet above. The rock-hewn roads and cultivated land certainly
gave the settlement an old-established appearance, which was not
surprising seeing that it has been inhabited for more than a hundred
years. I shall always bear a grateful recollection of the place,
because my host gave me what I had long been a stranger to--a good,
old-fashioned English dinner of roast beef and baked potatoes. He
apologized for having no plum-pudding to crown the feast. "But, you
see," he said, "we kaint grow no corn hyar, and we'm clean run out
ov flour; hev ter make out on taters 's best we kin." I sincerely
sympathized with him on the lack of bread-stuff among them, and wondered
no longer at the avidity with which they had munched our flinty biscuits
on first coming aboard. His wife, a buxom, motherly woman of about
fifty, of dark, olive complexion, but good features, was kindness
itself; and their three youngest children, who were at home, could not,
in spite of repeated warnings and threats, keep their eyes off me, as
if I had been some strange animal dropped from the moon. I felt very
unwilling to leave them so soon, but time was pressing, the stores we
had come for were all ready to ship, and I had to tear myself away from
these kindly entertainers. I declare, it seemed like parting with old
friends; yet our acquaintance might have been measured by minutes, so
brief it had been. The mate had purchased a fine bullock, which had been
slaughtered and cut up for us with great cele