AMUSEMENTS. 147 
The ambition of the young men is not excited or incréased by 
bat and ball, or boat and oar. Archery, an out-door diversion, 
which connects the high-toned men and maidens in England to- 
day, with the people of pre-historic times, and which, with 
feathered shafts and twanging bow, projects the distant stone 
age into the age of gold, has not as yet, been re-established upon 
these islands, where it flourished in the time of Columbus. Re- 
quiring little physical exertion, arousing no fierce passions, stir- 
ring the bosom with only pleasurable excitement, its highest en- 
joyment secured when both sexes participate in its sport, a semi- 
tropical climate would scem to be peculiarly favorable to its prac- 
tice and cultivation. But the more violent games of foot-ball 
and polo flourish instead, and call out many spectators on the 
afternoons of Tuesday and Friday of each week, including the 
élite of the town in carriages. Polo results occasionally in’ a 
broken bone, ‘and foot-ball excites to spirited struggles for the 
mastery. The negroes in the military department when off duty, 
are perhaps more to be commended, for, when not idle, or occu- 
pied with their lady friends, they are satisfied, (according to one 
of the official medical reports,) with flying paper kites, and the 
lowly and quiet game of marbles. Nodoubt many of the Queen’s 
ebony subjects would rather be the humble turtle, that idly basks 
and meditates upon a rock in the sun, than the most beautiful 
antelope that ever scaled the craggy heights of a mountain. 
With the thermometer in the eighties in the shade, I could the 
better understand the wisdom and good sense of such a prefer- 
ence. But, then, upon us high-toned English precedents pro- 
duced but little effect. , 
One result of the absence at Nassau of the innumerable and 
~ varied private sports and public amusements which exist in all 
cities and large towns in the States is, to give greater prominence 
and importance to the church. Religion has its social side, and, 
