Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/393

 on, VULCAN S TEAK. 153 be used by horses, leading from farm to farm, along the margins of the channels; but the channels themselves were the ordinary means of communicating between neighbours. Boats of all sorts abounded, and were constantly passing and repassing. Here, as elsewhere, the vegetation was luxuriant and marvellous. Trees were to be seen around the houses, that elsewhere might have required three times the number of years that these had existed, to attain the same height. The visitation terminated at the Peak. This place, so aptly likened to the garden of Eden, and frequently so called, could receive very little addition to its picturesque beauties from the hand of man. Parts of it were culti vated, it is true; enough to supply its population (rather more than three hundred souls) with food : but much the greater portion of its surface was in pasture. The build ings were principally of stones quarried out of the cliffs, and were cool as well as solid edifices. They were low, however, and of no great size on the ground. At the go vernor s farm, his private property, there was a dwelling of some pretension; low, like all the rest, but of considerable extent. Here Bridget now passed much of her time; for here it was thought best to keep the children. So cool and salubrious was the air on the Peak, that two schools were formed here; and a large portion of the children of the colony, of a suitable age, were kept in them constantly. The governor encouraged this plan, not only on account of the health of the children, but because great care was taken to teach nothing; but what the children ought to learn. The art of reading may be made an instrument of evil, as well as of good; and if a people imbibe false prin ciples if they are taught, for instance, that this or that religious sect should be tolerated, or the reverse, because it was most or least in conformity with certain political insti tutions, thus rendering an institution of God s subservient to the institutions of men, instead of making the last sub servient to the first why, the less they know of letters, the better. Everything false was carefully avoided, and, with no great pretensions in the way of acquisitions, the schools of the Peak were made to be useful, and at least innocent. One thing the governor strictly enjoined ; and that was, to