CHAPTER I. 



Man and the Migratory Birds. An Ocean Voyage in 3Iid-winter. A 

 Wasted Snow Storm. A Model Steamer. Savannah. A Pleasant run be- 

 ticeen the Sea-Islands and the Mainland. The Cumberland Islands. Dun- 

 genness. St. Mary. Fernandina and its Amelia Beach. Arrival at Jack- 

 sonville. Crossing the Gulf Stream. Landing at Nassau. 



"The sails were filled, and fair the light winds blew, 

 As pleased to waft him from liis native land." — Byron. 



Nature's special favorites are the birds. With the sjDced of 

 the wind, and a flight almost as noiseless, they ever follow Sum- 

 mer wliere she leads, bask in her sunlight, and repose in her 

 grateful shadows. As Winter, snow-clad and frozen, advances 

 or retreats, they folloAV in his footsteps, and sport in the forests of 

 verdure, and in the fields and bowers of bloom, that soon clothe 

 his track of desolation with wondrous beauty. 



What nature denied, man has acquired for himself — a speed 

 .■-'upcrior to thai; of the birds and outstripping the wind. His 

 thoughts travel witli the lightning, and, practically, space is 

 almost anniliilated by his steam chariots upon iron roads. 



Science, meanwhile, 1ms explored and mapped the great ocean 

 Avorld, sounded its profoundest depths, discovered and described 

 its slioals and rocks and winding shores, and, wedded to mechan- 

 ical ingenuity, has enabled man, in the glowing language of the 

 east, to '* take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost 

 parts of the earth. " 



13 ^ 



