66 ISLE?; OF SUMMER. 



they wear, and no brains give out in the ceaseless and crazy 

 struggles for wealth and power. Voluptuous idleness is the 

 hapj^y offspring of these charming isles of the sea, where frosts 

 are unknown, and health and happiness float on each passing 

 wave of the soft, perfumed air. 



Some of the military officials having very kindly designated a 

 time when they would show the iuterior of Fort Charlotte, in- 

 cluding its extensive subterranean works, to some of the hotel 

 guests, we were enabled through the politeness of Edward N. 

 Shelton, Esq., of Derby, Ct., to participate in the pleasure of 

 the excursion. 



This fort, in its completed form, is not a hundred years old, 

 and yet neither history or tradition are able to inform us positively 

 when or oy whom its foundations were laid. Mr. Charles Mosely, 

 an old resident of Nassau, long an editor and publisher of one 

 of its newspapers, says in his almanac: "It is supposed to have 

 been begun by the Spaniards. It was finished about 1790, but 

 the information regarding its history is very meagre and incom- 

 plete." Thus the same air that stimulates into rapid and vigor- 

 ous growth the vegetable world, operates as an opiate upon ani- 

 mal life, puts the Genius of History to sleep, and makes the 

 Present too indolent to prepare and preserve records of the most 

 important passing events. 



Fort Charlotte is uj^on the summit of the hill upon which 

 Nassau, in a state of semi-tropical torpor, reposes. It is west of 

 the city, and commands the principal or west entrance to the 

 harbor. We passed a small open shore battery, and, ascending 

 the hill by a winding roadway, soon reached and crossed a draw- 

 bridge over a dry moat, ascended a flight of steps cut in the rock 

 within the fort's walls, to the high rocky table within the ram- 

 parts, where we found our military escort waiting to receive and 

 welcome us. We felt no desire to enter the fort as prisoners of 



