64 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
foaming trains, always secures a high degree of pleasurable ex- 
citement. We always welcomed the showers of glistening pearls 
that on such occasions greeted, enveloped and followed us, as a 
holy baptism from Neptune’s sacred but unseen altars. 
The inscription upon a coraline monument which occupies a 
conspicuous position upon the sea bank opposite the western or 
main entrance to the harbor, is strongly suggestive of the danger 
which attends the crossing of the bar on some occasions. Below 
the names of five men is the following testimonial. 
“‘Who perished on the bar of Nassau harbor, February 26th, 
1861, while gallantly volunteering their services in the effort to 
save two men belonging to the pilot boat, which had been upset 
by a heavy sea. This monument is erected by the legislature of 
the Bahamas, to commemorate their gallant conduct and self- 
sacrificing heroism.” 
Thus does this monumental stone serve a double purpose. It 
honors not only the dead but the living, for the men who, in 
this substantial manner, recognized the noble virtues that ani- 
mated and inspired these obscure heroes in humble life, and thus 
caused them to inculcate a lesson of selt-sacrifice to every passer 
by, at the same time, all unconsciously, provided a memorial of 
their own justice, goodness and practical wisdom. 
On the first day of March, 1879, aided by a good glass, we 
witnessed a grand and extensive display of breakers from the 
cupola of the Victoria Hotel. The reefs, rocks, shoals, and out- 
lying keys were all marked and enlivened with the constant dash 
and play of the foaming breakers. The plucky resistance of 
Hog Island to the angry and impetuous assaults of the sea,. chal- 
lenged our admiration. The light house, which rises from that 
island’s eastern terminus, a spindle of limestone sixty-eight feet 
high, had its top obscured with the spray of high breakers that 
threatened to sweep it into the sea. Wecould not but muse and 
