Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/353

 OR, VULCAN S PEA it. 113 which, by creating new wants, might induce their subjects to devise the means of supplying them. The governor judged right ; for tastes are commonly ac quired by imitation, and when thus acquired, they take the strongest hold of those who cultivate them. The effect produced by the Colony Garden, or public grounds, was such as twenty-fold to return the cost and labour bestowed on it. The sight of such an improvement set both men and women to work throughout the group, and not a dwell ing was erected in the town, that the drill did not open the rock, and mud and sand form a garden. Nor did the go vernor himself confine his horticultural improvements to the gardens mentioned. Before he sent away his legion of five hundred, several hundred blasts were made in isolated spots on the Reef; places where the natural formation fa voured such a project ; and holes were formed that would receive a boat-load of soil each. In these places trees were set out, principally cocoa-nuts, and such other plants as were natural to the situation, due care being taken to see that each had sufficient nourishment. The result of all this industry was to produce a great change in the state of things at the Reef. In addition to the buildings erected, and to the gardens made and planted, within the town itseif, the whole surface of the island was more or less altered. Verdure soon made its appearance in places where, hitherto, nothing but naked rock had been seen, and trees began to cast their shades over the young and delicious grasses. As for the town itself, it was cer tainly no great matter; containing about twenty dwellings, and otherwise being of very modest pretensions. Those who dwelt there were principally such mechanics as found it convenient to be at the centre of the settlement, some half a dozen persons employed about the warehouses of the merchants, a few officials of the government, and the families of those who depended mainly on the sea for their support. Each and all of these heads of families had drawn their lots, both in the group and on the Peak, though some had sold their rights the better to get a good start in their particular occupations. The merchants, however, established themselves on the Reef, as a matter of necessity, each causing a warehouse to be constructed 10*