A WINTER ^■IS^T TO THE BAHAMA ISLANDS. 211 



twenty-four hours ; superintend the captain and first officer as they 

 take the sun and wonck'r why it takes thirty minutes to figure out a 

 five minute problem ; hineli ; admire tlie great persistence of a; 

 Hock of sea-gulls that for forty-eight hours and for five hundred 

 miles hover over the track of the steamer ready to pounce upon 

 whatever the cooks may throw overboard ; wonder whether they 

 can have any abiding place but the deep sea, or whether it may not 

 be a handy thing after all to be able to make yourself comfortably 

 at home wherever you may happen to be ; count the sti'okes of the 

 engine and estimate the revolutions of the screw to make the pas- 

 sage ; dine ; discuss the McKinley Bill and lose your patience, if 

 not your temper, as you try to make your companion understand 

 how a tariff is a skilful device for making foreign nations pay your 

 own taxes for support of the Government ; find quiet for your per- 

 turbed spirit in looking upon the glories of the sunset as the fiery 

 ball drops gently below the horizon ; as the twilight deepens 

 into night and darkness draws her sable curtain over the deep and 

 pins it with a star, you linger at the taffrail to watch the fascinat- 

 ing phosphorescence of the wake which the steamer is leaving 

 miles astern. This experience is repeated day after day, varied 

 only by an occasional sail, a flight of flying-fish, pursued by a 

 lazily rolling dolphin, or a jaunty nautilus sailing by in its buoyant 

 bark. At last the steamer is brought to anchor in forty-five 

 fathoms of water, off a low-lying shore, where a stuffy little steamer 

 comes alongside to take the freight and passengers ashore, and you 

 realize that Nassau has a prohibitory bar which effectually closes- 

 her harbor to all steamers or vessels that draw more than fifteen 

 feet of water. This bar is not of shifting sand, as frequently 

 occurs, but good hard coral limestone which would effectually 

 settle the fate of any vessel going upon it. 



Approaching the wharf one is easily persuaded that about all of 

 the floating population of the town has gathered there to greet him, 

 but, on considering that there are but three or four hundred out of 

 twelve thousand or more, he modifies his conclusions, as he does 

 concerning the importunate beggars that beset him on every hand 

 and clamor for alms. In his vexation the traveller will say these 

 people are all beggars, but when he reflects that there are but a 

 score or two of the persistent pests, and these only about the 

 wharves on steamer days, he concludes that mendicancy is not so- 

 common and gives credit for there not being more of it. 



