In these, we certainly recognise the language of insulated ignorance; but when the author makes a jest of that exclamation of a native, who, in walking with him over a spot luxuriantly verdant, declared, that ‘if the whole island were like that part, it would be the richest spot in the world;’ the joke does not fit. I am well aware of the hyperbole of such an enthusiastic expression; but, from what appeared at the Government House, where, under the fostering care of Colonel Brooke, the late governor, wonderful improvements had been affected, especially in the culture of exotics; and having witnessed the great perfection to which vegetables had been raised, on a farm in the occupation of the late Major Edward Smyth, of the artillery; as well as the plantations upheld, under most inauspicious circumstances, by the late Deputy Governor Lieutenant-Colonel Robson: I feel no hesitation in avowing an opinion, that the now dreary, bleak, uncouth summits of St. Helena, might become both ornamental and useful; while the lower parts should teem with corn, wine, and oil. In a climate where no hurricanes destroy the crops, where the medium temperature is about 54°, where health and longevity seem to hold their court, and where there exist the greatest essentials towards culture, (viz. clay, lime-stone, sand, and manure, in the greatest abundance,) I really cannot see why this now neglected, and comparatively desolate, island, should not become a perfect paradise! That health should be a common blessing among the natives, does not appear wonderful; because they have not the means of excess, at least not in drinking; for wine, and spirits, are most exorbitantly dear. I happened to be at Governor Brooke’s on New Year’s Day, 1800, when intelligence was brought that the whole of the troops were plunged into the deepest affliction, by the loss of a cask of rum, served from the stores as the usual basis of annual festivity: in rolling up towards the barracks, the cask had burst, and spilled every drop of its precious contents. This, in any other situation, would not have given a moment’s uneasiness; the deficiency might have been easily made up: but, at St. Helena, where the most sparing economy, in regard to all articles of subsistence, is indispensably necessary, and where no private suttlers could fill up the blank, it was really a most uncomfortable circumstance!