hardly use the oars, the 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,