340 ISLES OF SUMMEE. 



ers to interfere with their trade. They pay sometimes to pilot a 

 vessel, and pilot her ashore — then they come in for salvage. 

 ** See," said he *' she has no cargo aboard, and her boat is on her 

 davits ready to be launched. You can't keep any account of 

 goods taken from a wreck, and, running into Jupiter inlet, it is 

 an easy matter to secure the plunder. Depend on't, them fellows 

 are wide awake and watching for business. Their vessel shows 

 no name and can't be reported." 



An old resident of Nassau informed us that formerly there 

 were persons doing business in that city, who were well known 

 to be in collusion with certain ship owners who desired to sell 

 their vessel property and cargoes to the insurance companies. 

 When one of these men visited Xew York, very soon afterwards 

 New York vessels would be wrecked in the Bahama waters. The 

 masters of vessels purposely wrecked their vessels, an arrange- 

 ment having been previously made with the wreckers, and a cer- 

 tain division of the salvage money agreed upon. It is believed 

 and hoped that such cases do not often now occur. 



Having no communication with the silent man at the wheel 

 who held in his hands our lives upon, the sea, we seldom knew 

 precisely where we were, while we ''floated like bubbles onward.'* 

 Our steamer's prow still persistently pointed to the south, and 

 we skirted the eastern shore of the Peninsula of Florida, in what 

 is called "the Florida Gulf." Along sand beach gave to the 

 blue sea a fringe of snowy whiteness. Beyond this, and between 

 it and the sky. Southern Florida was sand witched. A low, nar- 

 row, monotonous belt of green was all that we could see of the 

 wet, wooded and flowery land, with its luscious fruits^ beautiful 

 birds and loathsome reptiles. As we approached the latitude 

 of St. Augustine, our course was so far to the east that "the 

 shining shore " was with more difficulty discerned. We almost 

 envied the few long-sighted passengers who seemed to see and 



