214 ISLES OF SUMMER. 



hama waters, and afford one of the principal attractions for 

 those who visit this part of Queen Victoria's possessions. "We 

 have seen and studied them at various times and under different 

 circumstances, and yet we feel, not only that our knowledge of 

 them is imperfect and superficial, but that we can convey to 

 others only a crude and unsatisfactory reflection of the impres- 

 sion they made upon our own mind. The effect is heightened 

 by all the surrounding circumstances. There is nothing to an- 

 noy or produce any but pleasurable sensations, New but con- 

 genial friends meet together by a subtle law of attraction, recline 

 on the cushions, occupy the comfortable chairs, or sit on the cir- 

 cular seats of the ''Trident," the ''Gazelle" or the "Frolic." 

 It is, to be sure, mid-winter, but no northern summer air ever 

 seemed half so soft, soothing and voluptuous. We have not known 

 each other long, and yet there is such an absence of reserve, such 

 an interchange of thought, such an expression of pleasurable 

 emotions, and such a telling of rich and racy anecdotes, that a 

 looker-on would have supposed we were life-long acquaintances 

 and friends. Feasting and surfeiting upon types and forms of 

 beauty never seen or even imagined in our colder climes, it was 

 a relief to be aided in the audible expression of delightful emo- 

 tions by the combined vocabularies of our little group of ex- 

 plorers. 



Visits to the coral beds and reefs are made exceedingly attrac- 

 tive by reason of the peculiar clearness and beauty of the water 

 over which we sail to reach them and in which they are found. 

 No snow fed mountain torrent was ever more clear and trans- 

 parent, and, as the water-bed is white limestone, objects at the 

 bottom can be seen with great distinctness. On one occasion of 

 relatively smooth water, a mile or so outside of the bar of Nassau 

 harbor, we clearly saw the bottom at a depth of about seventy 

 feet. The sounding line showed seventy-six feet, but some dis- 



