g of
the kind on this trip.

Early the next morning, we reached Nassau, the largest town in the
Bahamas, on one of the smallest islands, and found it semi-tropical
enough to suit even Mr. Chipperton.

Before we landed, we could see the white, shining streets and
houses,--just as calcareous as they could be; the black negroes; the
pea-green water in the harbor; the tall cocoa-nut trees, and about five
million conch-shells, lying at the edges of the docks. The colored
people here live pretty much on the conch-fish, and when we heard that,
it accounted for the shells. The poorer people on these islands often go
by the name of "conchs."

As we went up through the town we found that the darkeys were nearly as
thick as the conch-shells, but they were much more lively. I never saw
such jolly, dont-care-y people as the colored folks that were scattered
about everywhere. Some of the young ones, as joyful skippers, could have
tired out a shrimp.

There is one big hotel in the town, and pretty nearly all our passengers
went there. The house is calcareous, and as solid as a rock. Rectus and
I liked it very much, because it reminded us of pictures we had seen of
Algiers, or Portugal, or some country where they have arches instead of
doors; but Mr. Chipperton wasn't at all satisfied when he found that
there was not a fireplace in the whole house.

"This is coming the semi-tropical a little too strong," he said to me;
but he soon found, I think, that gathering around the hearth-stone could
never become a popular amusement in this warm little town.

Every day, for a week, Mr. Chipperton hired a one-horse barouche, and he
and his wife and daughter rode over the island. Rectus and I walked, and
we saw a good deal more than they did. Corny told us this, the first
walk she took with us. We went down a long, smooth, white road that led
between the queer little cottages of the negroes, where the cocoa-nut
and orange trees and the bananas and sappadilloes, and lots of other
trees and bushes stood up around the houses just as proudly as if they
were growing on ten-thousand-dollar lots. Some of these trees had the
most calcareous foundations anybody ever saw. They grew almost out of
the solid rock. This is probably one of the most economical places in
the world for garden mould. You couldn't sweep up more than a bucketful
out of a whole garden, and yet the things grow splendidly. Rectus said
he supposed the air was earthy.

Corny enjoy