felJRiED LAKDS. 37 



and size of tlio principal Bahama islands, exclusive of the keys 

 which cluster around them. 



This extensive and singular group of islands, so unlike the 

 New England that the author had left l)oliind him, charmed by 

 its novelty, and elicited entliusiastic admiration. 



"He found in all that met his eyes, 

 The freshness of a glad surprise." 



They repose in the lap of unending summer. Daring enter- 

 prise, resistless courage, and the intense activities of busy human 

 life, do not cross the great ocean river. No blighting and kill- 

 ing frosts are ever found between its eastern margin and the 

 rising sun. To all that we have been accustomed, or ever ex- 

 perienced before, it liad been i)ractically the stream of oblivion — ■ 

 the river of death. The ancient seers Avho saw and pictured 

 heaven dwelt in warm sunny climes. None of the streets of the 

 New Jerusalem which they saw with spiritual vision, were paved 

 with ice or blockaded with snow. We here found the sea so 

 smooth, the wind so mild, the air so agreeably warm, the sky 

 so serene, the clouds so soft and delicately tinted, and our mind 

 and lieartwere pervaded by such a spirit of resignation, content- 

 ment and peace — of love to God and good will towards man — 

 while the past appeared so unreal and dreamy, — we at times were 

 almost ready to believe that our "mortal had put on immor- 

 tality," But the regular ])t'riodio return of luingcr, and an 

 appetite that gave a keen rclisli to tlie gross food of earth, soon 

 convinced us that we still inhabitrcd our old bodies, and fly-like, 

 adhered to the surface of one of the sun's revolving satelites. 



In tliis new world our curiosity was awakened and greatly 

 stimulated. What part, we in(piircd, have those imnnuise banks, 

 with their clustered isles played in the world's history? In 

 what manner were they made? How nuiiiy thousands of years 



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