PREFACE. 7 



to devote himself exclusively to the law ? Why did he presume to write a 

 book, and having written it, fossilize it with type, and coffin it in gilded 

 covers ? 



These questions are legitimate, and they shall be honestly and frankly an- 

 swered. 



While treading the deck of a New York and Savannah steamer, after hav- 

 ing been a day or two at sea, and while gazing with a pleasing awe upon an 

 ocean mysterious, restless and sky-bound, he heard, like the author of Revela- 

 tion, a voice saying unto him "PF/'rte/" and without pausing to think or 

 inquire whether the injunction came from heaven or elsewhere, he obeyed 

 with alacrity. It did not appear to be a matter of choice, but of uncontrolable 

 necessity. He had taken with him neither ink nor paper, but the ship's 

 purser kindly provided him with botli and with a seat at his table. When 

 the author's pen was fairly started, it was lilvC the artificial leg which an in- 

 genious German invented — it could not be stopped ; so he continued to write 

 as he traveled, and to travel as he wrote, and this volume is the result. 



Visiting for the first time " the home of summer and the sun," the author 

 was constantly surprised and charmed with new phases of that wondrous 

 beauty which ever, in the vicinity of the tropics, rests lilve an atmosphere upon 

 sea and land. His nerves were sootlied and quieted by a climate whicli the 

 Gulf Stream and trade-winds delightfully tempered and medicated. Lulled, 

 soothed, and pleased by such novel surroundings, it was a relief to tlie mind 

 to give expression to its agreeable sensations, and shed some of its thoughts. 

 To gratify and amuse his friends at home, many of his impressions and pen- 

 pictures were forwarded for publication in the New Haven Journal and 

 Courier. They met with unexpected favor, and if his vanity had not, as he 

 trusts, departed with his youth, he would have been proud, as he certainly 

 was gratified at the warm, hearty and general commendation Avith which his 

 published letters were received. Much enlarged, and to some extent re- 

 written, they are now issued in book-form at the request, frequently and ur- 

 gently expressed, of many of the readers of his newspaper communications. 

 The author has the more readily yielded to these requests because he believes 

 his book will meet an unsupplied want, there being no work in the market 

 which gives the information it contains. A literary tent has only at long in- 

 tervals been pitched for a few days upon the Bahamas, and the coral isles 

 have yielded to letters very meagre though valuable harvests. Enjoying to 

 some extent the fruits of the labors of others, the author has also cropped new 

 fields, and while he has not exhausted or very much impaired the fertility of 



