Its

rode through the pines to the lake, which stretches up and down for three miles. water is a beautiful green, like that in the harbor, and the banks, which were cut up into picturesque little bays and peninsulas, were heavily wooded, except in one spot, where a hill running down to the water's edge had been cleared and planted with pineapples. Going out on a rude little pier we saw a couple of negroes in a boat, returning from a duck-hunt. One of these we hired to row us to the pine-apple plantation, about a mile away, leaving our stately driver to enjoy the shade of the wild orange and lemon trees until our return.

A pine-apple plantation was something entirely new to us, and this was a very large and fine one. The plants were set out all over the field about two or three feet apart. The alternations of bright pink, purple,

Killarney, its apple-green waters sparkling between its darker-hued shores, while back to the left, you see another and a larger lake shimmering in the distance, and back to the right, over the masses of foliage that stretch away for miles and miles, you can see the ocean, with the steeples of the town peeping up along its edge.

We took another long ride-the road running by the beach all the way-to what are called the Caves. Two of these are good-sized caverns near the shore, but there is another one, better worth seeing, which is nearly a mile back in the country and to which we walked, for there is no road across the fields. The outer portion or vestibule of this cave is divided into two portions at right angles with each other, and one of them is not at all unlike a small cathedral, with altar, pillars, a recessed

chancel, and long cords like bell-pulls or supports for chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The latter were slender rootlets, or rather branches seeking to become trunks, which came down from banyan-trees on the ground above, and finding their way through crevices in the roof, took root in the floor of the cave. I took away one of them, about onethird of an inch in diameter and some fifteen feet long, and coiling it up, put it in my trunk. When my travels were over, and I had reached home, I hung the coil on a nail in the wall, and there, at least three months after it was cut, that bit of banyan, which had remained perfectly green and flexible all this time, began to sprout out rootlets down toward the carpet, and these are now six or seven feet long. This ridiculous piece of wood is growing yet, without water, without earth, and with no other culture than that of being packed in a trunk and hung up on a nail.

As to the main cavern, which opens from what I have called the vestibule caves by means of a four-foot hole, and which extends for a half mile or thereabouts toward the beach, we did not visit it. We were told by our negro guide, with many gesticulations, that this was a wonderful cave, and that if we had candles and plenty of matches it would be a good thing to go in, but that if we should accidentally be left there in the dark we would never, never come out alive!

The Hog Island beach is one of the best places that I know about Nassau. It is a short row across to the island, which is so narrow that a minute's walk takes

one to the other side. Here the shore is high and rocky, rising, in most places, twenty feet above the water-level. The rocks are what are called "honey-comb rocks," and are worn and cut by the action of the waves into all sorts of twisted, curled, pointed, scoopedout, jagged forms, so that it is difficult to pick your way over them, although their general surface is nearly level. The surf comes rolling in on the rocks, and dashes and surges and leaps against them, while every now and then a wave larger and mightier than its fellows hurls itself high up on the shore, throwing its spray twenty or thirty feet into the air, like an immense glittering fountain.

In many places the rocks are undermined for a considerable distance, and the sea rolls and rumbles in under your feet. Here and there are holes, three or four feet wide, down which you can look into the submarine caverns and see the water boiling and surging and hissing, while occasionally, a great wave rushing in below sends a waterspout through one of these holes, high into the air. When the wind is from the north the sight here must be magnificent. There is a reef a short distance from the beach which breaks the force of the surf somewhat, but when there is a strong wind blowing directly on shore, the waves often leap clean over Hog Island and dash into the

A PINE-APPLE IN ITS NATIVE SOIL.

harbor. At such times the light-house on the point would be a better place to view the scene than the rocks where we usually sat.

Toward the eastern part of this island, there are several little coves with a smooth beach, of the very whitest sand that a beach can have. Here the surf is not high, and the bathing is excellent. A comfortable sea-bath in winter-time-a bath in water that is warm, and under skies that are blue with the blueness of our summer mornings, is a joy that does not fall to the lot of every man. But here you may bathe in the surf almost any day, and along the water-front

of the city there are private bath-houses, for still-water bathing, and I was told

that others are to be erected for the use of the Royal Victoria, which gathers under its wings nearly all the winter visitors, though there are one or two small hotels in Nassau, one good American house of the first class, and some boarding-houses.

Once a year there are regattas at Nassau, and the occasion is made a grand holiday by all classes the principal holiday of the year. We were lucky enough to be there on regatta day, which fell on the sixth of March, and it would have warmed the cockles of anybody's heart to see so many happy people. All the places of business were shut up, and everybody came to see the sights. The buildings fronting on the water were crowded with white folks, and the piers and wharves, and coal-heaps, and piles of lumber, and barrels, and boxes, and posts were covered with negroes, as ants cover a lump of sugar. And better than sugar to ants was this jolly day to that black crowd with so few shoes and so many hats. Like the shore, the water was crowded. Craft of every kind were to be seen: sloops just in from sponging expeditions or voyages to the "out islands;" vessels at anchor; sail-boats shooting here and there; and among all, wherever there was room for a row-boat, there a row-boat was. There were races for schooners, yachts, fishing-smacks, spongers, and for row-boats of all grades; and there were swimming matches, and a "duck-hunt," in which an active fellow in a little boat was chased, for a wager, by other boats. But the best thing of all, to me, was the per

formance of "walking the greased pole." This amusement is far superior to climbing a greased pole-there is something æsthetic about it-when the grease is thick. A long round spar is projected horizontally over the side of a vessel, and at the extreme end of it hangs a bag containing a pig. The upper surface of the pole is covered with a coating of grease. Along this pole the competitors must walk and seize the prize-the pig in the bag. About a dozen young negro men, clad in nothing but short muslin trowsers, gathered on the deck to engage in the sport. One at a time, these fellows would walk cautiously out, doing everything in their power to keep their balance and to avoid slipping, and then, before they knew it, up would go their feet, and down they would tumble, head foremost, into the water, amid yells and screams of laughter from the excited crowds on shore. But they did not mind the water, and would climb up the ship's side and try it again. After about fifty attempts, during which the negroes on the wharves became so excited that if they had all tumbled overboard amid their wild yells and gesticulations, I should not have been surprised, a long, thin, black fellow made a run along the pole, slipped off the end, but seized the bag in his fall and hung fast to it. The crowd screamed in one mad spasm of delight, and the thin black man got the prize.

But it is not necessary to participate in a regatta in order to have good sailing in Nassau waters. Sail-boats and yachts are continually cruising about in the harbor, and you can always hire a craft for a sail.

two young negro divers. Captain Sampson is a fine sailorly-looking darkey, and if you believe him, he can take you in his little boat and sail you to the lowlands low, or the highlands high, or to any other place on earth accessible by water. He certainly can sail a boat, and he took us away on about five Japanese fanfuls of wind, up the harbor, and past the town, and close by Potter's Cay-a narrow island lying lengthwise between Hog Island and the mainland; and past the long suburb of little cabins and cottages belonging to fishermen, and spongers, and other folk with watery occupations, and among the little fleet of small craft always to be found here, and so on to the end of Hog Island, where a strip of channel, called "The Narrows," separates it from Athol Island, which here relieves Hog Island of the duty of harbor guard. We sailed through the Narrows, and in a short time were anchored on the reef, in about ten or twelve feet of water. Here, the captain had told us, we should see "a farm under

purple and green, that spread themselves out from spurs of coral; sea-feathers whose beautiful purple plumes rose,three or four feet high, and waved under the water as trees wave in the wind; curious coral formations, branched like trees, or rounded like balls, or made up into any fantastic form or shape that one might think of, and colored purple, green, yellow and gray, besides many-hued plants that looked like mosses, lichens, and vines growing high and low on the coral rocks. All among the nodding branches of the curious sea-plants, swam the fish. Some of these were little things, no longer than one's finger, colored as brilliantly as humming-birds,blue, yellow and red,-and there were large blue-fish, and great striped fish, with rich bands of black and purple across their backs. Down into this under-water garden we sent the divers to pick for us what we wanted. Whenever we saw a handsome coral, or a graceful sea-feather or sea-fan that pleased our fancy, we pointed it out to

doubted royal blood. We first went to see the governor. He is a native African, Sampson Hunt by name. About forty years ago, a couple of slavers, containing select cargoes of Africans, were captured by an English man-of-war, and the liberated negroes were brought to the Bahamas. They settled down on the outskirts of Nassau and have since kept pretty well together, the older ones using their native language among themselves, although most of them can speak English. Sampson Hunt is their governor and lives in a little two-roomed house with a tall flag-staff in front of it. He is an intelligent man, and showed us a portion of the Bible printed in his language, the Yuruba. Among these Africans, when they were captured, was a young queen, who still lives, enjoying her rank, but hav

posted bedstead, but not much. In one of its two rooms we found her majesty, sitting in a rocking-chair in front of the door, while on a bench at the side of the room sat four grizzled old negro men. The queen was a tall woman, with a high turban and a red shawl wrapped majestically about her. She stood up, when we entered, and gave us each her hand, making at the same time a low courtesy. She either felt her royal blood or had the lumbago, for she was very stiff indeed. She did not seem to be able to talk much in English, for the governoress spoke to her in African and her majesty made a remark or two to us in that language. Here was a chance for my phrases, so said I to the queen, "Oqua galla," which is equivalent to "good evening." What the queen said in answer I don't know, but the