156 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
adorns with exquisite loveliness, all forms and every variety of 
matter which it touches. 
There being no mountains upon any of the Bahamas, and no 
high surrounding hills, those who seek for health and pleasure 
upon the water at Nassau, have very little to apprehend from 
sudden and dangerous gusts of wind during the visiting season. 
These, sometimes occur, but the Bahama winds blow with re- 
markable uniformity and steadiness. There is, at times, too 
much wind, but it is rarely unsafe to sail in Nassau harbor, on 
account of its strength, and we were only twice becalmed, and 
then only for a short time. On one of these occasions, we soon 
came in with the tide. 
The Nassau yachts, as a rule, have a good breadth of beam, 
are strong and staunch, and with competent boatmen at the 
helm, they are much safer than ocean steamers. They have no 
complicated machinery to get out of order, no large and infernal 
looking furnaces to threaten purgatorial fires in advance of the 
appointed time, and no high pressure steam boilers or drunken 
officials to blow one up. It is true, however, that the master of 
a Nassau pleasure boat is just as liable to be overcome with liquor 
as the officers of steamships, but they do not have bar rooms on 
board their yachts, and if sober when they take their passengers 
on board, it may be safely assumed that they will remain so until 
the return of the boat to her dock. 
It is reported that Captain Sampson, a few years ago, some- 
times when on shore, failed to put a sufficient quantity of water 
in his rum, or, to speak perhaps more charitably, occasionally, 
by mistake, put more rum in his water than was necessary to 
neutralize the effects of the unhealthy salts it contained when 
taken from Nassau wells, and that, like his great namesake, when 
on a certain occasion his hair was cut too short, he-was tempor- 
arily weakened and unmanned, 
