146 : ISLES OF SUMMER. 
the événing from eight to eleven o’clock; Friday at the ‘“ Govern- 
ment House,” (the. Governor’s residence,) and Tuesdays at the 
houses of the other members. They play nothing but whist, and 
loyally follow the English custom of putting up sixpenny stakes, 
‘just to increase a little the interest, and keep things lively,” 
as my informant expressed it. We were also told that on these oc- 
casions ‘‘they never drink to excess, and no excess of any kind 
is indulged in.” Excess, as applied to drinking, is a very flexible 
uncertain word.. Such of the high officials as we saw drink could 
not be called ‘‘hard ” drinkers, for we never saw men drink more 
easy than they did, or appear to take to it more naturally, or en- 
joy it more. In carrying capacity, also, they are at least the 
peers of their American cousins. The belief is wide spread, that 
spirituous liquors moderately used asa beverage in warm climates, 
are conducive to health. Where malarial poisons are exhaled; 
quinine and alcoholic drinks are considered by many absolute 
necessaries. We have no doubt about the value of quinine as a 
tonic and malarial antidote, but have no sufficient basis of fact 
in regard to the use of alcohol, in such cases, upon which to form 
an opinion satisfactory to ourselves, or of value to others. It isa 
question which has two sides. If that which we saw drank was 
used for sanitary reasons, the quantity imbibed indicated a 
country most alarmingly unhealthy. The treatment we thought 
partook of the “heroic.” 
- Nassau formerly had a yachting club, and in all probability its 
organization remains, but nothing occurred while we were there 
to indicate that it still lives. It certainly was torpid if not dead 
—chloroformed by climate. No regattas, as of yore, pleasantly 
disturbed the ocean tides, or the dreamy quiet of the city’s every 
day life. Something of the sadness which follows in the wake 
of pleasure, and of the melancholy which hovers over departed 
joys, surrounds and envelopes the yacht club’s silent boat-house. 
