for his buildings and fences, throw the soil over the unoccupied area, and let the trees and shrubs spring up and grow again. Streets have been cut through the hill in the rear of the town for material for public buildings. When a street is made, the top soil is scraped off the whole length, leveled; then pulverized coral is spread over it. The rains, and even the slight dews, by operation on the lime, cement it together, and in a brief time you have an undeviated road, as level as a floor, perfectly clean, and dazzling to the eye. We never have seen streets so perfect and so clean. They are narrow, and no two of them parallel, being laid out on the plan of the Spainards, who first commenced the town. There is not a chimney in a dwelling house from one end of the town to the other. No fires are wanted for a century, except for mechanical purposes, or for cooking, and the kitchen is a little building by itself, and far off in the rear of the back yard as it can conveniently be built.

Fruits peculiar to the islands are numerous; among them are the orange and lemon, and half a score of other varieties of the citric genus. They range from the citron and shaddock, which are nearly the size of a man's head, to the tiny lime of an inch in diameter. The pine apple, the banana, the plantain, the sapadille, the mammee, the pawpaw, the mange, and a dozen other kinds of fruit grow almost spontaneously. Here and there are a few stray trees of the date palm, the bread fruit, and the fig. Grapes and peaches, which no tropical fruit except the orange and pine-apple rival in the deliciousness of their flavor, will not thrive upon the islands.

Sweet potatoes and yams are abundant. Of so easy cultivation are these roots, that it is said that from a single acre of land can be produced perpetually, supply for the daily wants of a family of five persons. The vegetables common to our latitude can all be produced between the months of October and March, although but little attention is paid to their culture. Squashes, turnips, beets, corn, and corn fodder, cabbages, radishes, lettuce, and potatoes can be found in the Nassau market, evidently, however, the results of unskillful and negligent culture in a climate where they could easily be brought to perfection.

All the soil upon the islands is triturated or pulverized coral, mingled with a meagre vegetable accumulation. Here are afforded striking and conclusive illustrations of the fact, that vegetation derives a large share of its nutriment from the atmosphere. Trees of magnitude grapple themselves upon almost a bare surface, insinuating their roots into every hole and crevice. Small forests of pines thus sustain themselves. Scattering trees are found of mahogany, lignum vitæ, and the other hard woods and dye woods, which become such valuable articles of commerce, where they exist of greater size and in greater abundance. The braziletto, a dye wood, from which the wide-stretching empire of Brazil derived its name, has been an article of limited export. Wide areas are covered only with intangible thickets of briars, vines, shrubs, varieties of the cactus, and brush wood. In the town of Nassau, one is struck with the rich verdure of the evergreens. Several varieties of the acacia abound. Among flowers, the hibiscus and the oleander are the most brilliant, the oleander overtopping the houses in height, rolling out its flowers in gorgeous clusters.

Of late years persons "from the States," with impaired health, have resorted to New Providence in limited numbers to escape the rigors of

our severe and changeable climate. The peculiarity of the climate is its great uniformity. During the months of December, January, and February, the average temperature of the hours between sunrise and sunset was 76° Fahrenheit, the average temperature of the nights was 67°. The average of November and March was 81° for the day time, 79° for the night. During summer, the themometer rarely rises above 90° at mid-day, and during winter, during the coldest hour of the night, it never sinks below 60°. The average temperature from November to March, inclusive, taking both night and day into account, was 73°.

The prevailing winds, which blow with almost the regularity of the trades, are from a northeasterly direction. Indeed, they may be called trade winds. Blowing as uniformly and gently now as then, they are the same breezes that wafted over Columbus and his frail shallops in safety. There is no chill in the winds, blow though they may, from any direction. In Italy, people try to get along without fires, but chilling and penetrating blasts, the "tramontanes," often sweep down from the Alps and the Appenines, and the consequence is, that all delicate persons, and indeed most strangers, suffer from the contact. Cold winds come down from the Alleghanies over the peninsula of Florida. "Northers" sweep over the attractive table lands of Texas. Only during a few days in the year do winds reach the Bahamas from the northwest, and then they are modified by crossing the Gulf Stream which stands at the temperature of 78° or more. The atmosphere is vitiated by few fogs, and no smokes or miasma of any kind, and few places on the globe can be found where the air is more uniform, and less mingled with alien ingredients. At the same time there is an almost imperceptible dampness pervading the atmosphere of the night, of which a person in sound health is not conscious. At Key West, on the same latitude, this moisture causes a slight mould upon books, furniture, &c. Among a thousand invalids, no two would be affected exactly in the same manner. In the nature of the case some would be affected injuriously. What is balm to the many, might be poison to the few. Perhaps invalids who always find themselves worse upon the sea shore, had better seek a high interior table land than the Bahamas.

The first effect of the climate upon a northern constitution is enervating, there being no bracing effect from any breeze. A cold clear air may be exactly what some invalids require, and this may account for the fact, that not only here, but at Madeira, in Florida, and elsewhere, some invalids begin to sink more rapidly simultaneously with their landing.

Marvelous tales are told of the recovery or renovation of persons who have resorted to the islands for relief. Several American gentlemen restored to health, have engaged in business there, and become permanent residents. During the last winter about seventy Americans visited Nassau for health, there being an average of about fifty there during the four months from December to April. All who had few ailments, real or imaginary, regarded the climate as a very great luxury. The entire change in habits and diet, and relief from the aggravating causes of disease, seemed to enliven and invigorate them. At home, they were nowhere comfortable. Here, they were everywhere comfortable. Really the secret of disease in many persons who imagine themselves to be rapidly tending to pulmonary consumption, is in the fact that the skin, the liver, the stomach, or other vital organs refuse to perform their functions.

Sometimes no organ is in its normal condition. Restore the other organs, and the lungs perform their functions again. Perhaps the true philosophy of change in climate consists alone in the better opportunity afforded to bring back all the human functions to an harmonious action and co-operation. While so much is said favorable to the climate, truth requires the statement that some invalids seemed to be precipitated rapidly towards their end by their change of residence. In a few cases their disease did not seem to be arrested, and there was neither waste nor improvement visible to their friends.

Charming as the climate may be, there is great doubt whether Nassau, or any other part of the Bahamas, will become a favorite resort of invalids from "the States," on account of the great inconveniences to which they are subjected for want of suitable hotels and boarding-houses. Government has erected an hotel, yet of very limited accommodations. All experience proves that such establishments in the long run will be poorly and extravagantly kept, and their charges proportionally exorbitant. Invalids must have nutricious food in variety. Simple it may be, but it must be good and regularly supplied. Food is, in one sense, medicine. An invalid coming from the cold and bracing North, and from the comforts of a Northern home, chafes and suffers under meagre regimen. Again, invalids should find recreation and exercise in the open day. The climate of the Bahamas prohibits exercise in the open air, except to robust persons, between the hours of nine and four. Yet still the invalid should find attractions out of doors. Exercise on horseback is desirable to some, in protected vehicles to others. The roads, though they afford little variety of scene, are perfect. Again, invalids come from the mass of the people, the majority poor. Young professional men with limited means, constitute nearly one-balf of the invalids of our country, who fly from the rigors of our climate. Many invalids must be accompanied by one or more of their families. High prices may shut them out entirely. The tendency at Nassau now is to glide into extortionate charges for every possible luxury, and some of the necessaries of life. It is now positively so, in regard to horse and carriage hire. Invalids will not resort to Nassau, if they can reside at Tampa Bay at half the cost. The expense now of poor accommodations is quite reasonable. We speak of the dangers and the tendency. Let the boarding-houses be furnished as the hotel established under government auspices now is. Let ice be supplied constantly, which the government itself is encouraging by bounty. Let the best of meats and provisions be supplied by the regular packets. Let adequate attention be given to raising garden vegetables. These added to the excellent fruits, fish, and turtle peculiar to the islands, will enable landlords to furnish satisfactory board at reasonable rates. Last winter milk was twenty-eight cents per quart. Eggs were thirty-eight cents per dozen. The best of turkies were three dollars each. Sugar cured hams were twenty cents per pound. Good fresh meats were sold at same or higher price. The price of many vegetables in the market were equally exorbitant, where they can actually be raised cheaper than we could produce them. Why is it? The population being dependent on government employment, on wrecking, on sponge raking, turtle fishing, &c., all precarious or semi-gambling pursuits, but little attention is paid to agriculture, or those industrial employments that require steady, devoted industry. In this connection we might say that all domestica ed animals are of an inferior kind.

The chief pursuit of the people of all the Bahamas, except perhaps Turk's Island, is wrecking. Huzza! the negroes are running! the drays are rattling a whole fleet of small schooners are entering the harbor with flags gaily streaming. What does it all mean? Two large ships bound from New York to New Orleans, laden with merchandise, have been wrecked, and the fleet of wreckers, more than thirty of them, are coming in loaded with the rescued cargoes. The ships were wrecked on the Banks just eastward of the Gulf Stream. Look at the charts, and you will perceive that for thousands of miles of area, the soundings laid down are but from two to four fathoms, with here and there sharp coral reefs cropping out. A very eligible ground, you see it is, for either accidental or designed wrecks. Remember, the Bahamas stretch for hundreds of miles, directly across one of the world's greatest highways, affording few channels between them, and intercepting almost the whole of the gigantic commerce of the Gulf of Mexico with the rest of the globe. All the wrecks or cargoes are brought into Nassau, inasmuch as the Admiralty Court sits there. Salvage is, however, generally settled by a reference to the Chamber of Commerce. That salvage is always liberal, ranging from thirty to eighty per cent.

The extent of the business is hardly credible. During the first three months of the present year sixteen vessels were wrecked, injured, or picked up upon the Bahamas, ranging from a ship of 1,000 tons to a small schooner of 145 tons. Their aggregate tonnage was 5,150 tons. The aggregate value of vessels, cargoes, and freights was about $700,000. The aggregate property lost was $475,000. The amount saved was $225,000. But the salvage, expenses, commissions, &c., must have been $125,000, leaving to owners and underwriters $100,000, out of $700,000, or one-seventh of the whole. These estimates are made from the best information that could be acquired. From data obtained at Nassau from persons cognizant of the current business, we found that the aggregate value of eighty vessels wrecked, and their cargoes and freights, during fifteen months previous to the first day of January last, was over $2,600,000. About the same proportion, one-seventh, was saved. The hulls are almost universally scuttled and burned.

There are about 250 licensed wrecking vessels, embracing those of every shape and size, and about 2,500 men licensed to pursue the business. Some of them have other regular occupations, but take out licenses that they may be prepared for emergencies. The two chief ports of the wreckers are Nassau and Harbor Island. The wreckers are sailed on shares, the officers, the men, and the vessel drawing stipulated proportions of the salvage awarded. The crews are principally colored men. So also are some of the captains. The wreckers are very adventurous. As divers they exhibit almost incredible skill and daring, often diving into the lower holds of vessels, through two hatch ways, and there among floating goods, and in water tainted with dirt, groceries, dye stuffs, and all sorts of villainous compounds, fastening the grappling irons to packages, and escaping to the light again unharmed. This is done by men, who, on dry land, cannot be persuaded or hired to do one day's work of profitable labor a week.

Wrecking is regulated by provincial statutes, which are very full, providing for punishment of every abuse, and upon the face of them appear equitable and just, but they seem to be cobwebs, restraints in theory and

not in practice. The nature of the pursuit enables transgressors to escape detection, and there is too much reason to believe that a large proportion of the vessels are designedly run into danger, and willfully abandoned to wreckers by the masters and crews of the vessels wrecked. The merchants of the town and "Out Islands" own the wrecking vessels. They buy the cargoes at auction at about sixty per cent of their value, except cargoes of cotton, coffee, &c., for which competition now compels the purchase at something like their value. They close up the business on commission. They decree the salvage, as a Chamber of Commerce. Thus, by snug arrangements all around, handsome profits are saved, and the town therefore is financially prosperous and wealthy.

The contrast between wrecking at Key West and the Bahamas is very striking. The number of vessels licensed at Key West is about forty, and of men 240, some of whom pursue also the business of fishing. Their field of disasters extends 200 miles, from Cape Florida to the Tortugas. Vessels incur precisely similar dangers as among the Bahamas, and their rescue is no more difficult or hazardous. Yet while nineteentwentieths of the hulls of vessels wrecked on the Bahamas are totally lost, four-fifths at least are saved upon our own coasts. The following tabular statement of the number of vessels wrecked during ten years upon the Florida Reefs and islands, their value, salvage, and expenses, is taken from Judge Marvin's able and valuable work on "Salvage":

It thus appears that while on the Florida shores about eighty-seven per cent of the total value of vessels and cargo is saved, on the Bahamas but about fourteen per cent is saved. What renders these comparative results still more amazing, is the fact that the wreckers of Florida are mostly native Bahamans or their sons. They are nicknamed "Couchs," and the portion of Key West they inhabit is called "Couch-town," (coucha is Latin and Spanish for shell, from which the words "couch" and "couch" shells are derived.) Of the tonnage three-fourths, and of the total property lost on the Bahamas during the last winter, seveneighths belonged to the United States. The total annual loss of American shipping and property on the Bahamas cannot be less than two millions of dollars, an amount equal to the net earnings for export of 300,000 of our people, taking the aggregate national exports as a test. Such an appalling destruction will in some way work out its remedy, for it is perfectly demonstrated in Florida, that measures can be taken comprehensive and efficient enough to prevent or to save three-fourths of the loss. American commerce owes a great debt to the Hon. William Marvin, United States Judge for the Southern District of Florida, for the fearlessness, fidelity, and ability, with which he has administered justice over this important and delicate subject.