sau reaping thereby a fabulous
harvest in cash. This was quite demoralizing to honest industry, and,
as might be expected, a serious reaction has followed. Legitimate
trade and industry will require years before they can reassert
themselves. Sudden and seeming prosperity is almost sure to be equally
transitory. We were told that, during the entire period in which the
Confederates resorted here under the open encouragement and protection
of England, the town was the scene of the most shameful drunken orgies
from morning until night. Lewdness and crime were rampant. Officers
played pitch-penny on the veranda of the Victoria Hotel with gold
eagles, and affiliated openly with negresses. The evil influence upon
all concerned was inevitable, and its poisonous effect is not yet
obliterated.

Three quarters of the present population are negroes, but of course
all trace of the aborigines has disappeared. It is curious and
interesting to know what Columbus thought of them. He wrote to his
royal mistress, after having explored these Bahamas, as follows: "This
country excels all others as far as the day surpasses the night in
splendor; the natives love their neighbors as themselves: their
conversation is the sweetest imaginable, and their faces are always
smiling. So gentle and so affectionate are they that I swear to your
highness there is no better people in the world."

The negroes are mostly engaged in cultivating patches of pineapples,
and yams, sweet potatoes, and other vegetables; a large number of the
males employ themselves also in fishing and gathering sponges. It will
be remembered that from this locality comes the principal supply of
coarse sponge for Europe and America. There is also a considerable
trade, carried on in a small way, in fine turtle-shell, which is
polished in an exquisite manner, and manufactured by the natives into
ornaments. Though the Bahama sponges are not equal to those obtained
in the Mediterranean, still they are marketable, and Nassau exports
half a million dollars' worth annually. It is a curious fact that
sponges can be propagated by cuttings taken from living specimens,
which, when attached to a piece of board and sunk in the sea, will
increase and multiply. Thus the finest Mediterranean specimens may be
successfully transplanted to the coral reefs of these islands, the
only requisite to their sustenance seeming to be a coralline shore and
limestone surroundings. Another important industry w