Slave labor, cheap and plentiful, but unskilled, seems also to have been a contributory influence in the older houses, both in their planning and building and still more markedly in road building. Deep cuts through rock, and extensive building of substantial walls, that in the present day would be out of proportion in cost for the advantage gained, are frequent. Even the more modest smaller houses, with their dependent outhouses, butteries and garden walls, all in massive masonry, create an appearance of permanence and solidity, that is striking to one accustomed to the flimsier frame construction so common in modern America.
Through the general mechanical progress of the world and particularly through modern means of transportation and consequent contact with the outside world, Bermuda has no longer its isolation, and has lost perhaps much that was picturesque and interesting in the life that formerly existed there, and which naturally and without conscious effort had its expression and reflection in the architecture of its dwellings.
Other activities have replaced the largely seafaring life that many of the old Bermudians followed and the agriculture though important has changed its character. Small farms have replaced the larger plantations, and Bermuda exports to northern markets, vegetables, potatoes and onions chiefly, and imports for its own use fruit and other foods formerly produced on the Island.
A new and important source of revenue, the tourist trade, has sprung up, has made great strides in the last years and is still increasing. Great and ugly hotels have been built to accommodate the thousands of visitors and more hotels are in prospect. The climate and the sea are inherent assets and attractions of Bermuda, which may not be changed, but there are other things perhaps less obvious that help to draw people there, which Bermuda alone possesses. Among these and not the least, is Bermuda's own architecture; the little white houses that fit so well in the landscape, and which appeal to the imagination with suggestions of a life apart from the rest of the world, one in which peace and ease replace the confusion and strenuousness of the more energetic North.