186 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
The dews at Nassau are often very heavy, and it is prudent to 
follow the poet’s advice, and 
“The dews of the evening most carefully shun, 
Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.” 
Some old residents of Nassau informed us that they considered 
the evening air in Nassau prejudicial to health. One of them— 
a lady—said that she was obliged to exclude herself from it to 
avoid lung discase. But when night after night so many bright 
stars call to us from a cloudless sky to come out and look up— 
and especially when the moon rides in great splendor across the 
bluest of heavens on purpose to be seen, it seems hardly courteous 
or creditable to ignobly ensconce ourselves under mosquito bars, 
and be content with indolent repose or oblivious sleep. When 
we occasionally accepted of the invitation, it was only to be over- 
whelmed with the magnificence of the display, as was Moses on 
Sinai. 
_The official Bahama mortuary statistics which we examined, 
failed to discriminate between the races, and to so localize the 
results that a comparison can be made between Nassau and its 
suburbs. The medical reports of the military department de- 
scribe the colored troops as being very licentious, and a large 
portion of them suffer from venereal diseases. These complaints 
are said to have been introduced into Grant’s Town by French 
troops, when, upon the breaking up of Maxamillian’s Government 
in Mexico, the vessels which were transporting them to France 
stopped on their way at Nassau. 
As a matter more of curiosity than of practical utility, we sub- 
join an abstract of the reported causes of death in all the Bahama 
islands in 1864. It is taken from Gov. Rawson’s report for that 
year. 
