WHEN Janet Allen discovered a file full of old brochures, tickets, maps and menus from a honeymoon trip that her parents took to Bermuda 77 years ago, she knew it would be of value to someone.

In addition, Mrs. Allen, of Bloomfield, Connecticut, found an 8-millimetre home movie taken on the same trip, showing some remarkable scenes of old Bermuda.

Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Neal, ventured to Bermuda on the motorship in June 1929, just four months before the Wall Street crash.

They kept everything from their trip, from travel brochures to leaflets about hotels, from menus they dined from on the ship and in the old Hotel Frascati in Flatts Village where they stayed. They even kept their baggage labels. For Mr. and Mrs. Neal, it was clearly a holiday they never wanted to forget.

The material offers a glimpse into a long-gone era of luxurious liner tourism.

Mrs. Allen did not want the collection to go unappreciated and she knew a man who would be able to find a worthy home for the material. Travel consultant Richard Denno, also from Bloomfield, who represents The Ship Shop, has led 27 tours to the island over the past 17 years. He suggested that she donate her batch of memorabilia to the Bermuda Historical Society, which operates the museum next to the library in Hamilton's Par-la-Ville Park.

Mr. Denno was on the island this week and presented the historical treasures, all in immaculate condition, and the home movie which had been transferred onto a VHS video tape, to museum curator Herbert (Chummy) Zuill.

Mr. Zuill and the Society's president, Andrew Bermingham, were thrilled with the gift.

"We are delighted to receive this collection," Mr. Bermingham said. "I would describe it as a time capsule on what it was like to travel from New York to Bermuda in 1929.

"It's difficult to put a value on it ? suffice to say it's a historical treasure trove."

Bermingham added that the Society was considering making a DVD from the 12-minute video of the home movie to sell to the public.

It shows immaculately dressed passengers enjoying themselves on the and on the island amid scenery that has, for the most part, changed markedly over the years.

The language in the brochures seems quaint to the modern reader, but shows clearly how the island was marketed to American tourists in the late 1920s.

A leaflet advertising the charms of the old Inverurie Hotel is typical.

"Here have been combined and appropriated to an unusual degree those rare charms for which Bermuda is world-famous," the leaflet gushes. "On one side is the opalescent, sheltered sea, on the other the gardens that bring together much of the floral glory of this fairyland of nature."

It goes on to make extol the virtues of an island free of motor vehicles, as it was at that time. "Automobiles are not allowed, neither are there any railways or rattling tram lines or noisy factories to mar the beauty and serenity of this little island Eden.

"It seems almost too good to be true that so peaceful and so 'different' a place could be so near and accessible to our hurrying, worrying world."

Another glimpse at how the island was seen in those days appears in a beautiful, hand-illustrated booklet about the island and the steamships, entitled and published by The National Tours, a New York-based tour operator. It describes Bermuda as "the loveliest land that human eyes have ever seen".

A summary of sight-seeing trips available create an impression of what the much quieter Bermuda of those days must have been like.

One of the guided tours offered is in "The Jungle", an area now known as Walsingham, close to Tom Moore's Tavern.

The booklet describes it thus: "This is a tract of land in its wild and natural state, the most tropical spot in Bermuda. Winding paths have been so constructed that every turn presents a different scene.

"There are beautiful pools with highly coloured fish; an interesting feature is fishing for giant grouper fish. Here is the famous Calabash tree under which Tom Moore, the Irish poet, composed many of his poems.

"The Jungle abounds in caves, indescribably beautiful. Going further one faces pyramids of myrtle, groves of coffee, banana, lemon and orange trees, ferns and a dense growth of tropical plants."

The booklet also describes the Wonderland Cave, now known as the Crystal Caves, and Devil's Hole. It states: "Not to visit the Devil's Hole while in Bermuda is like visiting Egypt without seeing the Pyramids."

Another Bermuda brochure in the collection, published by travel agents Gillespie, Kinports & Beard, waxes lyrical about the island's charms.

Its introduction reads: "Bermuda offers so many pleasurable diversions for the traveller or vacationist that it is somewhat difficult to present her charms and attractions in orderly array.

"... The atmosphere and surroundings are quiet and restful and its picturesqueness and quaintness are unique. For the tired businessman, or the woman who just wants a change, there is no place in the world like Bermuda for a quiet, restful and enjoyable trip, so near and within easy reach of the United States, and yet so delightfully foreign."

The batch of historical treasures also sheds light on the cost of various things in 1929. For example, Foley-Madden Co, a travel agency based in Hartford, Connecticut, were offering a "$107 and up" package deal, which included round-trip steamship fare to Bermuda, four days at a hotel, sightseeing tours and the $5 US Revenue tax, from October 3 to 11.

There is a leaflet on transportation rates, spelling out the cost of carriage rides to different parts of the island. Different rates are shown for the two classes of carriage: the "single victoria", which had room for three passengers plus the driver, and the double, which could hold two more passengers. Examples of rates from Hamilton in a double were two pounds and eight shillings to Dockyard and a pound to Flatts Village. The exchange rate was listed as $4.80 to the pound.

The rate to hire a sailboat "with competent pilot" was two pounds and ten shillings per day, while you could rent a bicycle for two shillings an hour.

En suite room rates of the day at various Bermuda hotels are listed and included $8 per day at Elbow Beach and the St. George Hotel and $12 a day at The Bermudiana.

As for tipping, the booklet advises tourists to tip wait staff the same as in the US and adds the following guideline: "The driver of your carriage will gleefully acknowledge a gratuity of about 25 to 50 cents per person on each outing.

"These drivers carefully explain the names of the different trees and flowers passed, stopping at particularly fine views in order that one may take snapshots, pick flowers for the ladies, specimens of fruit, etc."

The depth of local knowledge possessed by the carriage drivers was apparently expected of many more people working in the hospitality industry in those days.

Mr. and Mrs. Neal kept several menus from the Hotel Frascati. One of them, a lunch menu dated June 24, 1929, includes the following note at the bottom: "Our waiters are all chosen from picked men and are thoroughly familiar with all parts of the island and its flowers, trees and other vegetation. Feel privileged to enquire as far as you wish on anything to do with Bermuda."

The Neals also kept a remarkably detailed brochure all about the vessel that brought them to the island in 1929, the . Though many of the liners that carried holidaymakers across the high seas in that era were steamships, the was an oil-burning motorship.

like modern brochures, pictures of the vessel's impressive interior abound. But unlike today, the first half of the 20-page glossy publication is given to the ship's machinery, especially its four Doxford opposed-piston engines.

The ship, which weighed 19,086 tons, was 547 feet long and was fitted with engines that produced 11,200 brake horsepower, could cover the 666 miles from New York to Bermuda in approximately 40 hours.

The ship, which was built at the Workman, Clark and Co. shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland, regularly served the New York-Bermuda route, but was designed for world cruising.

The photographs show the ornate magnificence of the old passenger liners. The smoke room, with its oak panelling, Persian rugs, decorated with swords and shields, is typical of the luxuriant ambience the offered.

There were also reception rooms, a Grand Social Hall for dancing, a dining room, a library and writing room, an observation lounge, a Spanish Terrace Caf? and a swimming pool. And for those who think that a gym is a more modern concept, think again. The boasted a gymnasium, "decorated in the simple tastes of the sportsman" and fitted with "a horse-riding machine, camel riding machine, rowing machine, golf machine, cycle racing machine and various others".

Tucked into the back of the brochure are detailed plans of the ship, showing the floor plan deck by deck, and the dimensions of different aspects of the vessel.

Asked whether the memorabilia would go on display at the Bermuda Historical Society's museum. Mr. Bermingham said: "We are looking at our options. Maybe the Department of Tourism should have a look at it and maybe it should be part of the Bermuda Government Archives. But this is a wonderful addition to our collection."