ies" consist of many miles of beach, and one
bathing-house, in which ladies exchange their shore finery for their
sea-weeds. Two brisk young fellows, Messrs. Whitey and Pypey, had come
over in the same boat with us. We had fallen into a traveller's
acquaintance with them, and listened to the story of the pleasant life
they had led on the island during previous visits. We lost sight of them
on the wharf. We found them again near the bath-house, in the hour of
their glory. There they were, disporting themselves in the clear water,
swimming, diving, floating, while around them laughed and splashed
fourteen bright-eyed water-nymphs, half a dozen of them as bewitching as
any Nixes that ever spread their nets for soft-hearted young _Ritters_
in the old German romance waters. Neptune in a triumphal progress, with
his Naiads tumbling about him, was no better off than Whitey and Pypey.
They had, to be sure, no car, nor conch shells, nor dolphins; but, as
Thompson remarked, these were unimportant accessories, that added but
little to Neptune's comfort. The nymphs were the essential. The
spectacle was a saddening one for us, I confess; the more so, because
our forlorn condition evidently gave a new zest to the enjoyment of our
friends, and stimulated them to increased vigor in their aquatic
flirtations. Alone, unintroduced, melancholy, and a little sheepish, we
hired towels at two cents each from the ladylike and obliging colored
person who superintended the bath-house, and, withdrawing to the
friendly shelter of distance, dropped our clothes upon the sand, and hid
our envy and insignificance in the bosom of the deep.

And the town was brilliant from the absence of the unclean
advertisements of quack-medicine men. That irrepressible species have
not, as yet, committed their nuisance in its streets, and disfigured the
walls and fences with their portentous placards. It is the only clean
place I know of. The nostrum-makers have labelled all the features of
Nature on the mainland, as if our country were a vast apothecary's shop.
The Romans had a gloomy fashion of lining their great roads with tombs
and mortuary inscriptions. The modern practice is quite as dreary. The
long lines of railway that lead to our cities are decorated with
cure-alls for the sick, the _ante-mortem_ epitaphs of the fools who buy
them and try them.

"No place is sacred to the meddling crew
Whose trade is----"

posting what we all should take. The wal