$00 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
neighboring keys, set like jewels in liquid colors so peculiarly 
rich in shades of green and blue that written language is too 
poor to furnish terms with which to describe them—and then, 
turning toa new world of trees, shrubs, vines and flowers, we 
seemed to commune with that great spirit of the past, and to par- 
ticipate in the wonder and astonishment with which his mind 
was absorbed and filled, when, nearly four hundred, years ago, he 
preceded us in making the acquaintance. of those fairy isles in 
that dreamy and seemingly unreal part of the world. Indeed, 
at times, it seemed as if we could almost feel the gaze of his gray, 
thoughtful and prophetic eyes. 
The foot-fall of the great Genoese discoverer upon one of the 
long, low, Bahama islands, has ennobled the whole group. The 
subtle influence of that grand historic event pervades the sur- 
rounding air, and imparts a brilliant and prismatic radiance to 
objects in other respects insignificant. The woods and waters, 
the flowering shrubs, the climbing vines, the trees with their 
xich glossy foliage and luscious and golden fruits, and even the 
sable forms and faces of the happy negroes, glow with an added 
lustre in the light’of that ever memorable event. Were those 
coral isles to-morrow ‘‘in the deep bosom of the ocean buried,” 
their memory would remain, for the Genius of History will ever 
keep and guard it in her imperishable archives. Ocean has no 
abyss deep and dark enough to hide it from the view of the men 
of the future. 
A diabolical presence also—the ghosts of bad men who have 
passed away—seems at times, even in our day, to lurk in the 
shadows, and to infect with distrust the light, upon the island 
of New Providence. Strong natures cannot be wholly shut up 
in hades. It is more than a hundred and fifty years since Black 
Beard rendezvoued at Nassau, and held his court under one of 
its trees. No robber of the sea, ancient or modern, surpassed 
