184 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
more frequently from the south and the weather was, as in the 
States, exceptionally hot, and for that reason Nassau was much 
less attractive. 
The Royal Victoria Hotel is provided with tanks for the stor- 
ing of rain-water, which are said to have a capacity of 300,000 
gallons. The water is exclusively used for drinking and culi- 
nary purposes, and it always appeared to be of most excellent 
quality. Ice, from the state of Maine, is procured under a con- 
tract which the government made for the supply of the city, of 
which there was always an abundance at the hotel. The water 
of the hotel is therefore most excellent and unexceptional 
provided proper care and vigilance are exercised in cleaning 
the tanks, and guarding and keeping them from impurities. 
During the latter part of the hotel season of 1878-9, after a 
long protracted drouth, dysenteric complaints were alarm- 
ingly prevalent at the Victoria Hotel, and, although physicians 
were numbered among its guests, no one seemed able to dis- 
cover their cause. There was nothing disclosed in the taste, 
color or smell of the drinking water which indicated that it had 
anything to do with the trouble. The more we pondered upon 
the cause, the more we were puzzled. Before leaving Nassau we 
read the “‘ Brief Auto-biography” of the former rector of one of 
the churches in Nassau, the late Rev. Wm. Strachan, D. D., who, 
‘in 1822, established a church and was for sometime its rector 
upon one of the Turks Islands. The latter part of the following 
extract from the little book (p. 58) excited in us some incredulity: 
“I found no wells in the island, and learned that the only 
water to be had, either for drinking or cooking purposes, was 
the rain which drops from the clouds, and is received into capa- 
cious tanks attached to the several houses. A stranger must be 
cautious how, and in what quantities, he imbibes the rain-water 
-at first, as it is liable to produce a severe dysenteric attack.”. 
