tion and decay usually seen in cities that have stopped growing." As first seen from the upper deck of the steamer, at a distance of some miles, its general aspect suggests the idea of a conspicuously clean but somewhat ill-arranged oriental toy-shop. The houses are a confused jumble of adobe and red tile. You perceive no open spaces, and wonder whether there are really any streets. The little blocks of houses appear to have been set up at random, and painted in all the varied colors of the rainbow, though yellow seems to be the favorite. There is not the slightest pretension to architectural proportion or beauty, and nothing like harmony or uniformity. "Great dormer-windows peer out upon the most unexpected places, and gloomy-looking warehouses raise three and four stories beside little flatroofed shops and cottages that remind you of antiquated Dutch ovens." Crow-step gables and tall ill-proportioned towers shoot up into the air like inverted stairways, and massive tile-covered enclosures of stone or adobe often rise to the very eaves of the little flat cottages.

The streets, when you get near enough to see them, are quite a study. Mr. Curtis has described them as "beginning anywhere and leading nowhere." As you traverse them, "you can never be quite sure whether you are making a circuit of the town or are going to be suddenly headed off by some high adobe wall." You start out for a stroll on what appears to be one of the principal thoroughfares, and the first thing you know you are hemmed in between high walls in some gentleman's back lot. If you start in almost any given direction, you are liable to become bewildered in the maze of narrow lanes and alleys, and after a walk of a few minutes to find yourself near the place whence you started. But there is one redeeming quality: these tortuous little

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lanes, dignified by the name of streets, are generally well paved and scrupulously clean.

The island has changed owners many times, and has had a variety of masters; yet, amid all its vicissitudes, it has steadily adhered to its old Dutch civilization. First discovered and occupied by the Spaniards in 1527, it was subsequently conquered and settled by the Dutch West India Company and remained a Dutch possession by the Treaty of 1648. In 1807 it was taken from the Dutch by the English, who eight years afterwards ceded it back to Holland, its present owner. In 1827, Willemstad was made a free port and opened to the flags of all nations. Ever since then it has been a sort of inter-depot or free-distributing point of commerce between the northern states of South America, the Antilles, Europe, and the United States. It has likewise been a sort of smuggler's paradise, and has given the revenue officers of Venezuela and Colombia no end of trouble; and for nearly half a century it has been a convenient resort for unsuccessful "revolutionists" of both those countries.

The entrance to the harbor is a narrow frith not exceeding four hundred feet wide, but of marvellous depth, and commanded on both sides by two massive forts. It would be quite impossible of entrance by a belligerent vessel, and it requires the nicest kind of sailing to get in, even with the friendly assistance of the port authorities. After passing the forts, the channel gradually widens a little before reaching a great oblong bay some miles inland. The channel, however, has a fine quay on each side, and affords safe anchorage for the heaviest naval vessels. Only a few feet from the shore the depth of water is said to be hundreds of fathoms. Some years ago a heavy ocean steamer met with an accident here, and went down suddenly within less than

ten feet from the quay; yet such is the marvellous depth of the water that the smokestacks and spars of the sunken vessel were many fathoms below the draught of the heaviest naval vessels, which passed and repassed over the wreck without the slightest apprehension of danger.

This deep channel divides the city into two sections, and until quite recently the only means of communication between them was by boats and canoes. That is all changed now. Within the past ten years our former consular representative there, who in early life had been a seafaring man, conceived the idea of spanning the channel by a movable pontoon. A heavy tug, a few flat-bottom boats, and a little pine lumber imported from our Georgia coast were the necessary materials. At a signal from the forts, the steam-tug swings the eastern end of the bridge around to the western bank, and leaves the narrow channel open. When the vessel passes in or out, as the case may be, the steam-tug replaces the floating bridge. Then drays and carriages and pedestrians resume their passing and repassing, paying a few cents at the toll-gates. The gross receipts during any given month of the year average a snug little sum daily, and it is said that the enterprise has already made its promoter a wealthy man. I once asked a sturdy old Dutch merchant of the place why nobody had thought of this simple and inexpensive contrivance before. His reply was that, "Nobody ever imagined such a contrivance necessary or possible, until that Yankee consul of yours had already formulated his plans and built the pontoon."

The soil of the island, in so far as it can be said to have any (for it is little else than alternate beds of coral and phosphate), is arid and non-productive. There is an

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old tradition that, at the time of its discovery by the Spaniards, early in the sixteenth century, the entire island was covered with forests of cedar and palms. One can hardly realize that this was ever the case. any rate, we now see nothing but a few cacti and dwarf thorns. In some sections there is the nispera and a species of the citrus called the "sour orange." The nispera shrub resembles the crab-apple, and bears a most delicious fruit, which, however, is too perishable for transportation. The little sour orange, which is totally unfit to eat, is utilized in the manufacture of a delicious after-dinner cordial, known to commerce as curaçao, deriving its name from that of the island, though oftener than otherwise it is made in Amsterdam. Occasionally you will see a few long-neck collards which some thrifty Dutchman has somehow coaxed to grow in his garden without water or apparent moisture; but you naturally wonder what possible use he is going to make of them; for the leaves are as tough as leather, and even the little half-starved donkeys will not attempt to eat them. Even the hardy Bermuda grass, which is supposed to thrive almost anywhere in the tropics, cannot be made to grow here, and you never see any lawns or flower gardens. The ladies do sometimes force a few roses and pinks to grow in flower-pots; but the soil and water necessary to their subsistence are both imported from the Venezuelan coast.

The climate is hot, but dry and healthful. There are no malarial fevers, and such maladies as neuralgia, rheumatism, pleurisy, and consumption are unknown. Even "yellow jack," the common scourge of the tropics, cannot live here; and about the only disease indigenous to the island is elephantiasis, or other forms of leprosy. These, however, are fearfully common, especially among the lower and dissolute classes. On