AN AFFRAY IN NASSAU Christy's first care was to look about among the guests of the hotel gathered on the piazza, in order to ascertain if there was any person there whom he had ever met before.

Very few of them were what could be classed as genteel people, and some of them were such people as one would not expect to see at a first-class hotel.

They were dressed in seaman's garments for the most part, though not as common sailors; and doubtless many of them were commanders or officers of the vessels in the harbor.
Putting on an indifferent air he walked about the veranda, observing every person he encountered, as well as those who were seated in groups, engaged in rather noisy conversation, intermixed with a great deal of profanity.

He breathed easier when he had made the circuit of the piazzas on the first floor, though there were two others on the stories above it, for he found no one he could identify as a person he had seen before.
There were quite a number of steamers in the harbor, or in that part of it which lies inside of the bar and in front of the town, with at least three times as many sailing craft.

No doubt many of the latter, as well as the former, had brought cargoes of cotton from Confederate ports; for though the blockade was regarded as effective, and treated as such by foreign nations, many small vessels contrived to escape from obscure harbors on the Southern coast.