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Wherefore rejoice, ye Continentals, and be thankful, and visit the Nassauese, bringing beef, butter, and beauty, bringing a few French muslins to replace the coarse English fabrics, and buxom Irish girls to outwork the idle negro women, bringing new books, newspapers, and periodicals, bringing the Yankee lecturer, all expenses paid, and his drink found him.
The principal event in the memory of the citizens seems to be a certain most desirable wreck, in consequence of which, a diamond card-case worth fifteen hundred dollars was sold for an eighth part of that sum, and laces whose current price ranges from thirty to forty dollars a yard were purchased at will for seventy-five cents. That was a wreck worth having! say the Nassauese.
All these good things, and more, the States have for the Nassauese, of whom we must now take leave, for all hands have been piped on deck. We have jolted for three weary days over the roughest of ocean-highways, and Cuba, nay, Havana, is in sight. The worst cases are up, and begin to talk about their sea-legs, now that the occasion for them is at an end.
They are a pallid race, the Nassauese, and retain little of the vigor of their English ancestry. One English trait they exhibit, the hospitality which has passed into a proverb; another, perhaps, the stanch adherence to the forms and doctrines of Episcopacy. We enter the principal church; they are just lighting it for evening service; it is hung with candles, each burning in a clear glass shade.
Eggs are quoted at prices not commendable for large families with small means. On the other hand, fruits, vegetables, and sugar-cane are abundant. The Nassauese, on the whole, seem to be a kind-hearted and friendly set of people, partly English, partly Southern in character, but with rather a predominance of the latter ingredient in their composition.
The conversation runs a good deal on the hopes of increasing prosperity which the new mail-steamer opens to the eyes of the Nassauese. Invalids, they say, will do better there than in Cuba, it is quieter, much cheaper, and the climate is milder. There will be a hotel, very soon, where no attention will be spared, etc., etc. The Government will afford every facility, etc., etc.
The Nassauese all bought largely during their short stay; and even their little children held up with exultation their fragments of tickets, all good for something, and bad for something, too.
The price of milk ranges from eighteen to twenty-five cents a quart; think of that, ye New England housekeepers! That precious article, the pudding, is nearly unknown in the Nassauese economy; nor is pie-crust so short as it might be, owing to the enormous price of butter, which has been known to attain the sum of one dollar per pound.
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