Sitting on the streetside patio of a newly opened Indian deli in Hamilton's "back of town'', a group of young people are happily picking at beef-filled samosas and tandoori chicken when a stream of souped-up motorbikes furiously roars past, instantly shattering the quiet.

In a second al fresco restaurant, another cafe patron must lean forward to hear his companion over the din of nearby construction equipment and the clamour of passing trucks. The companion, who also shifts her seat forward to make herself understood, is sitting less than three feet away.

As most Bermudians may already have noticed, the Isles of Rest, as these once-tranquil islands have long been known, seem to have become the Isles of Un rest of late, with noise pollution levels at an unofficial high, and more and more residents voicing concerns over the subject.

In St. George's, for example, angry residents are drawing up a petition to halt noisy vibrations from the Royal Majesty cruise ship, which they claim is keeping them awake at night and even shaking pictures off their walls.

And the firm of Pearman Watlington & Company, which is trying to wean local car owners from their noisy, air-polluting fossil-fuelled vehicles, has championed the electric car for Bermuda as a means of combatting, among other things, its increasing incidence of noise pollution.

"Pearman Watlington has an interest in seeing an alternative-powered car in Bermuda. We are strongly concerned about the amount of ... noise pollution emitted from cars,'' the company's chief executive officer, Mr. William Cox, said when he presented a prototype of an electric automobile to the Island's National Trust last year.

And justifiably so. Over the years, numerous international studies have been conducted to prove that noise pollution, which can constitute everything from a loud yell to a jackhammer to the roar of a jet airplane, can have as much of a detrimental effect on a person's well-being as automobile exhaust or factory emissions.

Nonetheless -- and despite all of the increased attention that has been focussed on the problem here -- the response by local authorities to noise pollution has generally been uneven.

When, for example, the Hon. Ann Cartwright DeCouto held the Environment portfolio some years ago, she beefed up the law that ensured a homeowner's right to tranquillity into 24-hour protection.

Previously, the law had applied to after midnight only.

At the same time, however, it was a United Bermuda Party Government that also rescinded the legislation that prohibited the resale of cars in Bermuda -- a move that has made automobiles much more affordable to a greater segment of the population and consequently increased traffic considerably here.

"Government,'' Mr. Cox said in a thinly veiled rebuke of the authorities at the National Trust presentation, "has to play a role.'' And while the Transport Ministry has tried to make the cost of the noiseless electric cars more palatable to the consumer by reducing their duties by half, he has also called on Government to waive the applicable licensing fees, an act that would reduce the cost of the cars by a "significant'' $600 to $700.

In the case of the Royal Majesty , meanwhile, Government officials, who insist that they have been taking the matter "seriously,'' have been working "diligently'' with the cruise line to solve the vibration problem, which has been variously attributed to everything from "frequency or pitch'' to the layout of the Town of St. George itself.

Nonetheless, one of the most annoying aspects of the noise pollution question -- obviously and illegally souped-up motorbikes -- largely remains unsolved, drawing shrugs, for the most part, from the Police Service that is responsible for monitoring the issue.

"We don't get too many bikes coming in for noise,'' P.c. Samuel Lashley of the Service's cycle squad told Community last week. "We do get some, and these are taken down to (the Transport Control Department) for testing.'' In Bermuda, a motorbike can have a noise level of no more than 93 decibels, Transport Control explained.

Any cycle, moreover, that is found to be higher than that must be brought up to code by its owner, P.c. Lashley said, adding that the owner can also be prosecuted for insurance and licensing violations.

Contrary to what many Bermudians may think, however, very few auxiliary cycles are in violation of current road standards, the cycle squad officer claimed.

"Although they may sound loud on the road,'' P.c. Lashley told Community, "they are often within the limit -- if only barely -- when tested at TCD.'' Maybe so, but is the legal limit an appropriate standard when people who are sitting a few feet apart from each other have to strain themselves to hear each other? In the "Isles of Rest'' of the present, apparently so.

NOISY NEIGHBOUR -- One of numerous sources of noise pollution in Bermuda, the Royal Majesty has drawn fire from St. George's residents.