Morning journal and courier., 1880-12-11

Nassau, N eyH on
 the Wharf-GO Bargains A Fine
 Fruit Crop-The CoIored PeopIe-Money Hog Island - Wrecxers - Services of
 Song.
 ROYAL VICTORIA HOTEL. NASSAU, N. F.,
 December ?.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 This beautiful place has been much written about, and your readers will, many of them, remember the interesting letters of our towns man, Hon. Charles Ives, who has visited Nassau the last two winters. We arrived here week ago to-day, Thanksgiving day, on the steamer City of Austin, after an un- usually rough voyage Capt. Stevens said he didn't have ''dry deck" three hours be- tween New York and Nassau When we reached the island the surf was too heavy to cross the bar, and we lay 'off and on" out side from midnight until l p. m. Then we came up in fine style. I suppose the scene Is about the same to the passengers of every steamer. Certainly it is one never to be for gotten by one coming here for the first time. What astonishes one most is the apparently unlimited number of colored people waiting on the wharf, of all sizes, shades and condi- tions and the perfect wilderness of straw hats. Everybody here wears straw hat, and, among the colored people, the ladies wear the
 
 depth of water enough for our steamer to reach the wharf and it was an amusing sight to see the colored boys in the water shouting "Chuck us a dime, boss" and then to see them in the perfectly clear water catching the coins before they half way reached the bot tom. The passengers tired of thls before the boys did The proprietor and staff of the 'sRoyal Victoria" came on the steamer from New York with us; and as laborers had for weeks been giving the hotel 8 thorough over hauling and cleaning, 1t was all ready when we arrived and the first meal in 1t this season was served that evening. Mir. $. 5. Morton, of the Morton House, Greenwich, is the pro- prietor, and Mir. T. D. Winchester, of New York, manager. There are only few guests as yet, the 'Eheight'' of the season not being reached until February. During that and the succeeding month in thisyear, 1S80 the hotel was over full, and some guests were obliged to room in private houses The hotel is very fine building, magnifcehtly situated, and 1t must be very lively place when crowded with guests. At present. the boys, girls, men and women who crowd around the outer door, with oranges, shells, suger cane, shell work, lace, turkeys, hens, eggs and almost everything to sell, ind but limited demand among the fifteen or twenty guests. Consequently, as most of them have Seen no money since the hotel closed last spring, and are very anxious to get some, ex- eellent bargains can be made. These mer- chants invariably ask more than they expect. For instance, lot of shells for which $2.25 was the price were sold for 80 cents another lot for 90 cents brought 20 cents, and other thingsin proportion.
 Nothing more can be said of Nassau than has been written before, but it is certain it's attractions cannot be too highly spoken of, especially the temperature of the place The average of the thermometer last winter was 779, and during the week since our arrival it has scarcely varied more than two or three degrees from that. One can sit out in the air at any time without catching cold, except when the wind is southerly, and then in the evening there is a heavy dew. One sheet is plenty of covering any night, and sometimes that is too heavy. Last Monday some of us went over to Hog Island and took bath in the Atlantic Ocean, and never found the