200 ISLES OF SUMMER. 



trees are torn up by the roots, houses blown down, and some lives 

 destroyed, but health and happiness pitch their tents upon the 

 ruins. Since the great hurricane of 18G6, and until the year 

 1880, the yellow fever, so far as we have been able to learn, 

 though domiciled in Havana, has been a stranger in the Bahamas. 

 We trust Nassau will for many years to come be free from its 

 visitations. 



Altliough Nassau's sanitary character has not always been un- 

 sullied, and it has occasionally suffered a "fall from grace," its 

 reputation as a sanitarium has generally been not only good but 

 well deserved. It never has been and never will be safe, espec- 

 ially in countries where frosts are unknown, to violate the laws 

 of health which nature has imposed. The operation of these 

 laws, and the enforcement of their penalties, is as sure and silent 

 as the revolutions of the stars. Disease and death sleeplessly 

 watch from their coverts at the gates of every stronghold of 

 health. Eternal vigilance is the price of safety. "A little 

 slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep " in the drowsy air, 

 by the boards of health, has caused many happy homes to be 

 made desolate in the past, as it will in the future, when hard but 

 salutary lessons are forgotten. 



If Nassau, for six consecutive months out of every twelve, is 

 not one of the healthiest places in the world, it is the fault of its 

 people. From November to April, the seeds of malignant dis- 

 eases will not germinate in its healing and healthful air, if wise 

 sanitary regulations are made and enforced. She owes it to her- 

 self, and to valetudinarians in the British American Provinces, 

 and in the States of the Union, who desire to seek for health 

 within her limits, to sec to it that the pure air which nature 

 wafts to her constantly from the ocean, and the 23i-^i'e distilled 

 water from the clouds, artificially or naturally stored in its coral- 

 line rocks, shall not be polluted and made inimical to health by 

 a criminal neglect of the first and plainest hygienic principles. 



