168 ISLES OF SUMMEE. 



While sailing in the Bahama waters, the famous sargasso or 

 gulf weed, cannot fail to attract attention. It is constantly in 

 sight, and in that portion of the ocean world, is 



"Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 

 On the shifting 

 Currents of the restless main." 



Columbus encountered it upon his first voyage to the new 

 world, a few days after he left the Canary islands. The frequent 

 mention which he makes of it in his journal is evidence that it 

 abounded then as now. He also noticed the crabs that it con- 

 tained — for little Crustacea, it seems, have long been accustomed 

 to have their domicils in these fragile and floating abodes, which, 

 no doubt, withstand the violence of an angry ocean better than 

 the strongest ships of oak and iron that man can make. This 

 weed is sometimes encountered in such quantities as to consti- 

 tute what has not been inappropriately termed "sea gardens." 



The following very interesting and suggestive description, we 

 copy from Kingsley's "At Last:" 



"One glance at a bit of the weed as it floats past, shows that 

 it is like no fucus of our shores, or anything we ever saw before. 

 The difference in looks is indefinable in words, but clear enough. 

 One sees in a moment that the sargassos, of which there are sev- 

 eral species on tropical shores, are a genus of themselves and by 

 themselves; and a certain awe may, if the beholder be at once 

 scientific and poetical, come over him at the first sight of this 

 famous and unique variety thereof, which has lost ages since the 

 habit of growing on rock or sea bottom, but propagates itself 

 forever floating; and feeds among its branches a Avhole family of 

 fish, crabs, cuttlefish, zoophytes and mollusks, Avhich, like the 

 plant that shelters them, are found no where else in the world. 

 And that awe, springing from the "scientific use of the imagi- 



