No. 4, my last, is only a sketch;—­circumstances allowed no more.  Can Grande, the great dog, has been got up out of the pit, where he worried the stewardess and snapped at the friend who tried to pat him on the head.  Everybody asks where he is.  Don’t you see that heap of shawls yonder, lying in the sun, and heated up to about 212 degrees Fahrenheit?  That slouched hat on top marks the spot where his head should lie,—­by treading cautiously in the opposite direction you may discover his feet.  All between is perfectly passive and harmless.  His chief food is pickles,—­his only desire is rest.  After all these years of controversy, after all these battles, bravely fought and nobly won, you might write with truth upon this moveless mound of woollens the pathetic words from Pere la Chaise:—­Implora Pace.

But no more at present, for land is in sight, and in my next you shall hear how we found it, and what we saw at Nassau.

NASSAU.

Nassau looked very green and pleasant to us after our voyage;—­the eyes enjoy a little fresh provision after so long a course of salt food.  The first view of land is little more than “the feeling of the thing,”—­it is matter of faith, rather than of sight.  You are shown a dark and distant line, near the horizon, without color or features.  They say it is land, and you believe it.  But you come nearer and nearer,—­you see first the green of vegetation, then the form of the trees,—­the harbor at last opens its welcome arms,—­the anchor is dropped,—­the gun fired,—­the steam snuffed out.  Led by a thread of sunshine, you have walked the labyrinth of the waters, and all their gigantic dangers lie behind you.

We made Nassau at twelve o’clock, on the sixth day from our departure, counting the first as one.  The first feature discernible was a group of tall cocoa-nut trees, with which the island is bounteously feathered;—­the second was a group of negroes in a small boat, steering towards us with open-mouthed and white-toothed wonder.  Nothing makes its simple impression upon the mind sophisticated by education.  The negroes, as they came nearer, suggested only Christy’s Minstrels, of whom they were a tolerably faithful imitation,—­while the cocoa-nut-trees transported us to the Boston in Ravel-time, and we strained our eyes to see the wonderful ape, Jocko, whose pathetic death, nightly repeated, used to cheat the credulous Bostonians of time, tears, and treasure.  Despite the clumsiest management, the boat soon effected a junction with our gangway, allowing some nameless official to come on board, and to go through I know not what mysterious and indispensable formality.  Other boats then came, like a shoal of little fishes around the carcass of a giant whale.  There were many negroes, together with whites of every grade; and some of our number, leaning over the side, saw for the first time the raw material out of which Northern Humanitarians have spun so fine a skein of compassion and sympathy.