ving blossoms, which detach themselves before your eyes
and rise in air, and flutter away by thousands to settle down farther
off, and turn into wheat-colored husks once more ... a whirling
flower-drift of sleepy butterflies!

Southwest, across the pass, gleams beautiful Grande Isle: primitively a
wilderness of palmetto (latanier);--then drained, diked, and cultivated
by Spanish sugar-planters; and now familiar chiefly as a
bathing-resort. Since the war the ocean reclaimed its own;--the
cane-fields have degenerated into sandy plains, over which tramways
wind to the smooth beach;--the plantation-residences have been
converted into rustic hotels, and the negro-quarters remodelled into
villages of cozy cottages for the reception of guests. But with its
imposing groves of oak, its golden wealth of orange-trees, its odorous
lanes of oleander.

its broad grazing-meadows yellow-starred with wild camomile, Grande
Isle remains the prettiest island of the Gulf; and its loveliness is
exceptional. For the bleakness of Grand Terre is reiterated by most of
the other islands,--Caillou, Cassetete, Calumet, Wine Island, the twin
Timbaliers, Gull Island, and the many islets haunted by the gray
pelican,--all of which are little more than sand-bars covered with wiry
grasses, prairie-cane, and scrub-timber. Last Island (L'Ile
Derniere),--well worthy a long visit in other years, in spite of its
remoteness, is now a ghastly desolation twenty-five miles long. Lying
nearly forty miles west of Grande Isle, it was nevertheless far more
populated a generation ago: it was not only the most celebrated island
of the group, but also the most fashionable watering-place of the
aristocratic South;--to-day it is visited by fishermen only, at long
intervals. Its admirable beach in many respects resembled that of
Grande Isle to-day; the accommodations also were much similar, although
finer: a charming village of cottages facing the Gulf near the western
end. The hotel itself was a massive two-story construction of timber,
containing many apartments, together with a large dining-room and
dancing-hall. In rear of the hotel was a bayou, where passengers
landed--"Village Bayou" it is still called by seamen;--but the deep
channel which now cuts the island in two a little eastwardly did not
exist while the village remained. The sea tore it out in one
night--the same night when trees, fields, dwellings, all vanished into
the Gulf, leaving no vestige o