1:4 ISLES OF SUMMER, 
from famous and gifted men, and great gatherings of represen- 
tative men in science, religion and politics, and for moral 
reforms, must inevitably be as rare in the Bahamas as skating 
rinks. During the wild excitement that prevailed in Nassau 
when, during the late rebellion, it was practically a confederate 
port, under the protection of the flag of Great Britain, a stone 
building was erected for theatrical exhibitions. The astonished 
winds immediately blew its roof off and otherwise damaged it, 
so that its bare monumental walls alone remain to commemorate 
the important part which Nassau played in the great war of the 
Southern rebellion. But no inference can properly be drawn 
from the fact of its destruction by the angry elements, that the 
theatre was especially objectionable to the spirit that rides upon 
the whirlwind and directs the storm, because churches as well as 
other public and many private buildings were blown down at the 
same time. We have no doubt that the Bahama governnient, in 
these calm sober days, would prefer as a paying investment, warm- 
ing pans to theatres. 
Nassau and its surroundings have much to interest a stran- 
ger, especially if he has spent his life in more northern latitudes; 
but to her own citizens, it must be a very dull place notwith- 
standing an occasional hurricane and frequent wrecks, In the 
winter of 1878, 79, a traveling circus company chartered a steam- 
boat and visited some of the West India Islands. Their arrival 
in Nassau produced a deep and profound sensation. “The landing 
of Columbus and his followers upon a neighboring ‘sland nearly 
four centuries before, with gilded cross and emblzoned banner, 
was not a greater surprise or productive of half the pleasure. 
No alloy of fear marred the happiness which the arrival of the 
acrobats occasioned. Heralded from afar, ancaccompanied in 
their grand march through the streets of Nassau by musicians 
who made the soft and languid air vibrate with a melody it never 
