gray as granite, with a very gradual and perfect taper; without sign of branch or knot or flaw; the surface not looking like bark, but like granite that has been dressed and not polished.  Thus all the way up the diminishing shaft for fifty feet; then it begins to take the appearance of being closely wrapped, spool-fashion, with gray cord, or of having been turned in a lathe.  Above this point there is an outward swell, and thence upward for six feet or more the cylinder is a bright, fresh green, and is formed of wrappings like those of an ear of green Indian corn.  Then comes the great, spraying palm plume, also green.  Other palm trees always lean out of the perpendicular, or have a curve in them.  But the plumb-line could not detect a deflection in any individual of this stately row; they stand as straight as the colonnade of Baalbec; they have its great height, they have its gracefulness, they have its dignity; in moonlight or twilight, and shorn of their plumes, they would duplicate it.

The birds we came across in the country were singularly tame; even that wild creature, the quail, would pick around in the grass at ease while we inspected it and talked about it at leisure.  A small bird of the canary species had to be stirred up with the butt-end of the whip before it would move, and then it moved only a couple of feet.  It is said that even the suspicious flea is tame and sociable in Bermuda, and will allow himself to be caught and caressed without misgivings.  This should be taken with allowance, for doubtless there is more or less brag about it.  In San Francisco they used to claim that their native flea could kick a child over, as if it were a merit in a flea to be able to do that; as if the knowledge of it trumpeted abroad ought to entice immigration.  Such a thing in nine cases out of ten would be almost sure to deter a thinking man from coming.

We saw no bugs or reptiles to speak of, and so I was thinking of saying in print, in a general way, that there were none at all; but one night after I had gone to bed, the Reverend came into my room carrying something, and asked, “Is this your boot?” I said it was, and he said he had met a spider going off with it.  Next morning he stated that just at dawn the same spider raised his window and was coming in to get a shirt, but saw him and fled.

I inquired, “Did he get the shirt?”

“No.”

“How did you know it was a shirt he was after?”

“I could see it in his eye.”

We inquired around, but could hear of no Bermudian spider capable of doing these things.  Citizens said that their largest spiders could not more than spread their legs over an ordinary saucer, and that they had always been considered honest.  Here was testimony of a clergyman against the testimony of mere worldlings—­interested ones, too.  On the whole, I judged it best to lock up my things.