THE GULF STREAM. 27 
With the return of prosperity under the banner of peace, im- 
proved and more safe communication by rail will follow as a 
necessary consequence. 
After spending a few days in Florida (rendered necessary by 
the fact that no opportunity existed for sooner continuing our 
journey) we at last were able to cross over to Nassau on the side 
wheel steamer Secret. The passage occupied fifty-two hours, 
She was advertised to make the run in thirty-six hours, but the 
time was purposely understated in order to make the trip appear 
more attractive to the seckers of health and pleasure. The Secret 
was about fifteen years old, English built, sheathed outside with 
iron and was constructed somewhat after the model of a Connec- 
ticut river shad, being very long and very narrow. According to 
a Jacksonville newspaper, her length was 231 feet, and her breadth 
26 feet. She was built for a blockade runner, aud was consid- 
ered a good sea boat. We found her state rooms and berths too 
small for comfort, and the approaches to the dining saloon long, 
narrow, unpleasant and unsavory. But we are disposed to apply 
the bridge rule to steamboats, and to speak well of those which 
carry us safely. : 
Before leaving home we doated on the Gulf Stream. It was 
our ideal salt water, and bore the same relative position to the 
rest of the ocean world that the Garden of Eden did to all the 
islands and continents outside. When the fifty separate and 
distinct persons on as many different occasions asked us if we were 
not afraid to take an ocean voyage in winter, and more especially 
when every newspaper was and had for some time been filled 
with accounts of terrific storms, accompanicd by winds before 
which the strongest ships were like so many egg shells, the ready 
reply which then so satisfied us seemed to be equally satisfactory 
to them; ‘‘ Oh, no; we do not fear or dread it at all, for in thirty 
hours from New York we will be in the Gulf Stream, where the 
