with groves
of cedar, and many of them crowned with country-houses as white
as the drifted snow. But the fact is, that this appearance of
hill and dale is owing to the prodigious number of islands which
compose the cluster; there being in all, according to vulgar
report, not fewer than three hundred and sixty-five, of which the
largest exceeds not seven or eight miles in diameter. Yet it is
only when you follow what at first you are inclined to mistake for
a creek or the mouth of a river, that you discover the absence of
valleys from between these hills; and even then you are more apt
to fancy yourself upon the bosom of a lake studded with islets,
than steering amid spots of earth which stand, each of them
distinct, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

In the town of St. George's there is nothing to be seen at all
worthy of record. It consists of about fifty or sixty houses,
the glare from which, as they are all built of the chalk stone, is
extremely dazzling to the eyes. It is called the capital,
because here the court-house stands and the magisterial sittings
are held; but in point of size, and, as far as I could learn, in
every other respect, it is greatly inferior to Hamilton, another
town at the opposite extremity of the cluster, which I did not
visit. A little way from St. George's, and on the summit of a
bare rock, stand the barracks, fitted up for the accommodation of
a thousand men; and about a mile and a half beyond them are the
tanks, well worth the notice of travellers. The object of this
work is to catch and preserve the rain--a measure which the total
deficiency of fresh springs throughout the colony renders
absolutely necessary. There are, indeed, wells dug upon the
beach, but the water in these is nothing more than sea-water,
filtered and rendered brackish in making its way through the
sand, and by no means fit to be used, at least in any quantity.
To supply this deficiency, the bad effects of which were
experienced in the unhealthiness of many of the crews upon the
American station, Government was induced to build these tanks;
consequently the water contained in them is the property of the
king, and none but king's ships, with the troops in garrison, are
permitted, except in extreme cases, to be supplied from thence.

The climate of Bermuda has been extolled by many, and among the
rest by Mr. Moore in his odes and epistles, as salubrious and
delightful. It is possible that he, and the rest