in all directions by pathways of sparkling, silver gravel. Nothing more fascinating, more fairy-like, can be imagined. You expect at any moment to see Venus or one of her nymphs - or, perchance, old Edward's Sable Aphrodite-rise suddenly to the surface from this abode of cool delights.

Involuntarily the world-renowned description of the bottom of the sea was brought to my mind,

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalu'd jewels,

All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls, and, in those holes,
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,

That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,

And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by."

A scene very similar to the one described by Shakespeare has been seen in these clear waters after a wreck. Many years ago, when a hurricane of unusual violence swept over the islands, and there were several ships lost in the usually glassy harbour, people, when calm set in again, had the horror of studying, from their boats, the tragic condition of the wrecked vessels at the bottom of the bay. They could see the drowned dead below, whom some weight oppressed and forbade to rise. I well remember, though 'tis long years since, the dread impression produced upon me by the sight of the "phantom ship." In the days of the Spaniards, a vessel of importance, a man-of-war, was wrecked and sunk opposite a place called Hog Island-Horace Greely's lovely daughter,

Gabriele, re-christened it Isle of Porcina. This vessel fell a victim in due time to the greed of those wondrous ants of the sea, the coral insects, who, with infinite industry, soon contrived to coat it with their microscopic huts, and now you see it lying full five fathoms deep beneath you, all white and hoary in its coraline encasement. The deck, the hull, the tattered rigging, ropes and chains, are all white with corals, and around the ghastly ship rise the pale blue walls of its sea prison.

The moonlight nights at Nassau, although marvellously beautiful, are not a little dangerous to fresh arrivals, on account of the heavy dews. I remember one evening we all went out to see the ruins of the fort built in 1788 by the Earl of Dunmore, memorably connected with the American Revolution. It certainly was a lovely sight, and the old grey walls and tower looked as well as any ruin on Rhine or Nile by that argentine radiance, approaching sunlight in its tropical brilliance, which renders things more or less romantic, be they ever so commonplace. The tall palms rustled in the breeze, and the bay was like a sheet of shivering quicksilver, just over where the imprisoned phantom ship rests, five fathoms down, "woo'd for ever to the slimy bottom of the deep." The sight was exquisite. The price more than one visitor ultimately paid in aching head and stiff rheumatic bones was anything but light!

And with this glimpse at an Isle of June, as New Providence has been aptly called-introduced into this book merely as a contrast-I take my leave. Vale-gentle reader!-fare thee well.

APPENDIX I.

THE BOYHOOD OF COLUMBUS.

No historical question has been more keenly disputed than that of the real place where Christopher Columbus was born. The majority incline to believe him to have been a native of Genoa, or else of the neighbouring town of Savona. One learned gentleman has even asserted in a very elaborate pamphlet, published not long ago, that he came from Cremona. The Abate Casanova of Ajaccio, in another pamphlet, attempts, on the strength of a very ancient but equally obscure tradition, to prove that Columbus was a Corsican. He goes so far as to point out the very house in the Vico del Filo at Calvi, in which he firmly believes the Discoverer first saw light. His statements, ingenious as they are, lack contemporary evidence to substantiate them, and very little research suffices to scatter them to the winds. I have lately seen a curious and rare French pamphlet, in which Columbus is declared to be a native of Marseilles, and yet another, the author of which endeavours to convince his readers that the Discoverer was born at Albenga. In short, a voluminous literature has sprung out of this vexed question, but to the serious student of the life and times of Columbus Genoa and Savona alone appear worthy of respect,

To the Marquis Staglieno of Genoa, one of the most enterprising of modern Italian historians, and to Mr Henry Harrisse, a learned and indefatigable American student of the life of Columbus, the definite determination of the great Navigator's birthplace is really due. He was born in Genoa, in a house standing still, near the ancient and recently restored gate of St Andrea, at the top of a long, steep street known as the Portorio, in the parish of San Stefano.

Domenico Colombo, the father of the illustrious navigator, is described by Washington Irving and other writers as a "wool comber," but in all the contemporary documents discovered by the historians just named he is invariably said to have been "a woollen manufacturer,"-a position very different from that of a wool comber, the difference being that between a mechanic and a tradesman. No wonder that Ferdinand Columbus indignantly contradicted an assertion which most of us, even in this democratic age, would keenly resent. Although never in affluent circumstances, Domenico and Susanna Colombo, Christopher's parents, were evidently highly respectable tradespeople, who spent the whole of their lives. between Genoa and Savona. Probably Domenico Colombo was born at Quinto, a village not many miles distant from the capital of the Genoese Republic. His father, Giovanni Colombo, undoubtedly lived there, for, in a document dated 1439, he is described as "Giovanni Colombo of Quinto, the father of Domenico of Genoa." This Giovanni was, it seems, according to another and still more ancient

deed, the son of a certain Giovanni Colombo, of Fontanarossa, another village in the district. As the inhabitants of this village were engaged in sheepdealing, it is probable that this Giovanni was a wool merchant, and since Fernando Columbo, with the justifiable vanity of the son of a great man, seems to have been always desirous of claiming a social position, and signs himself, on signs himself, on more than one occasion, as "of Fontanarossa," we may go so far as to conclude that the Colombo (or Columbus) family was, according to its own tradition, the principal in that place. The family and Christian names of the great-grandmother and grandmother of the Discoverer of the New World are lost. His mother, however, was Susanna of Fontanarossa, a native of the suburb of Bisagno. This is proved by a document in the Savonese archives, whereby, on the 7th August 1743, "Susanna, daughter of Giacomo of Fontanaruba (the Latin for Fontanarossa), in the Bisagno, agrees to allow her husband, Domenico Colombo of Genoa, to sell a house situated in that city, near the Olivella Gate." It is described as a house with a pleasant garden, in the parish of San Stefano, and next door to the house and property of Nicola Paravagna, and adjacent to the property of Antonio Bondi. "The house faces the principal street, and is close to the old wall of the town." In this document Domenico Colombo is specially designated as a citizen of Savona-because, as he had by this time resided there some years, he was entitled to citizenship.