d ceiling, there is no
reason why all the insects in the island should not come in at any one of
its seven open doors (I have no windows) if they choose.

The houses are very pretty, however, in spite of their being all doorway.
The polished floors--unhappily, mine are painted _red_, which is a great
sorrow to me--the large rooms, with nice furniture and a wealth of
flowers, give a look of great comfort and elegance to the interior. The
wide, low verandas are shaded on the sunny side by screens or blinds of
ratan painted green, and from the ceiling dangle baskets, large baskets,
filled with every imaginable variety of fern. I never saw anything like
the beauty of the foliage. The _leaves_ of the plants would give color and
variety enough without the flowers, and they too are in profusion. Every
house stands in its own grounds, and I think I may say that every house
has a beautiful shrubbery and garden attached to it. Of course, with all
this warm rain constantly falling, the pruning-knife is as much needed as
the spade, but the natives make excellent and clever gardeners, and every
place is well and neatly kept. Mine is the only overgrown and yet empty
garden I have seen, but, all the same, I have more flowers in my
drawing-room than any one else, for all my neighbors take compassion on me
and send me baskets full of the loveliest roses every morning. Then it is
only necessary to send old Bonhomme, the gardener, a little way down the
steep side of the ravine to pick as much maiden-hair or other delicate
ferns as would stock the market at Covent Garden for a week.

If it were not for everybody being in such a terror about their health,
this lonely little island would be a very charming place. But ever since
_the_ fever a feeling of sanitary distrust seems to have sprung up among
the inhabitants, which strikes a newcomer very vividly. The European
inhabitants _look_ very well, and the ladies and children are far more
blooming--though I acknowledge it is a delicate bloom--than any one I saw
in Natal. Still, you can detect that the question of health is uppermost
in the public mind. If a house is spoken of, its only recommendation need
be that it is healthy. There is very little society at night, because
night air is considered dangerous: even the chief attraction of
lawn-tennis, the universal game here, is that "it is so healthy." And to
see the way the gentlemen wrap up after it in coats which seem to have
been made for a