OHAPTER III. 
New Providence. Killarney and Cunningham Lakes. Caves and Cave 
Earth. The Mermaids Pool. Nassau—its Streets, Publicand Private Build- 
ings, and Population. The Poor and Happy Negroes. Fort Fincastle and 
its Signals. Grants Town and other Suburban Villages. Fort Charlotte— 
its Subterranean Rooms and Charming Out-look. Lunching at the Expense 
of the British Queen. Removal of the Old Barracks. Fort Montague. A 
Lusuriant Growth of Titles. Nassau Harbor and its Bar. Observing the 
Breakers. Shells and Shell-work. Nassau’s Public Library. 5 
“This sceptered isle; 
This earth of majesty; this seat of Mars; 
This other Eden—demi-paradise.” —SHAKESPEARE. 
“The poor contents him with the care of heaven.”—Pors. 
THE island of New Providence, although small in size and 
greatly deficient in soil, far transcends in importance all the is- 
lands with which it is more immediately associated. Nassau, 
the Bahama capital, reposes in calm, quiet dignity upon the 
northern slope of the hill that rises to a height of ninety feet 
above its northern shore, bathes its feet in the sheltered sea, and 
lifts its municipal head above the heights that overlook Grant’s 
Town. Itis to the entire archipelago what Athens was to Greece 
and the rising sun to the old Persian fire-worshippers. << Paris 
is France ;”—Nassau is New Providence and the Bahamas. But 
for its harbor and favorable location, it never would have risen 
from the rocks, or reposed under the shadows of its tropical and 
semi-tropical trees. Its superiority as a shelter for ships, caused 
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