Captiva is a dream of loveliness, lying like a pearl on the sapphire-blue, ever changing waters of the Gulf of Mexico--an enchanted garden where all the ordinary troubles and cares of life seem to have no place. As we landed for the first time on its snowy beach, where the brilliantly green trees and vegetation come down almost to the water's edge, and cast intense violet shadows on the low-growing cactus, with its yellow, starlike blossoms and redly purple fruits, and gazed out on the wondrous waters of the Gulf, where every exquisite shade of palest and brightest emerald green gradually deepened into softest yet most vivid blue, we felt we had indeed chanced on the Land of the Lotus Eaters, and that here we could spend our days in dreaming blissful dreams, far away from the multitudinous cares of civilisation. Life was so simple there, one's requirements narrowed down in a remarkable way. The climate is so exquisite, with the blazing sun tempered by breezes from the Gulf, and the hut we had was a simple structure of two or three poles thatched with palm leaves, into which you entered by a square hole in the wall. Guiltless of furniture was the hut, beyond two trestle-like tables, on one of which I erected my bed, to escape the numberless cockroaches which infested the thatch. Our meals we had in the other hut, where cooking went on, and what delicious repasts they seemed to us. They generally consisted of fish, soup or chowder, a sort of "olla podrida" of bits of chicken, vegetables, green corn, anything our _chef_ could lay his hands on, or fried fish fresh caught, and such delicious varieties of these there were too, and bananas fresh or cooked. We always marvelled at the inventive genius of our coloured Soyer. But in reality you never think of being hungry, or thirsty, or tired, or anything else at Captiva, you feel quite superior to all bodily wants. We used to bathe at night in the mystical moonlight, when the air was heavy with scents, a belated mocking bird's song perhaps mingling with the soft rush of the tide on the shelly beach. Then we would sleep sounder than we had ever done before, till 4-30 or so, and awake keen and eager for another delightful, long, busily lazy day. It used to be my greatest delight to get out on the beach, before any of the old sailors even were about, and watch the daily miracle of the sunrise over the shining waters of the gulf, when the air seemed stilly waiting for the wonderful moment when the golden glory of the sun should flood land and sea, and chase away the dreamy evanescent hues of greys and rose and blues, which had clothed the world but a moment before.