YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

y3stK.

THE ISLES OF SUMMER J

Vassau and the ©ahamas.

"A listless climate that, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, nor cared e'en to play."
Thompson's Castle of Indolence.

gtln$U%te& <$-3iti0*u

By CHAELES ly^lS, M. .A..,
X MEMEEB OP THE KEW HAVEN BAB.

New JJaven, Ponn.:
published by the author.

&& Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S80,
Is By CHARLES IVES,
Wr* In the office ofthe Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

nl Hoggson & Robinson, Printers, [~||
W  New Haven.  LJ

E. B. Sheldon & Co., Electrotype rs,
New Haven,

TO HIS WIFE,

' ¦ ,,

THE COMPANION OF HIS TKAVELS,
WHO GBEATLY INOBBASBD THE PLBASTJEBS TO WHICH
NEW SCENES GAVE BIETH,
ENOOUBAGED AND AIDED HIM IN HIS LITEEAET LABOKS,
AND HELPED TO INSPIEE HIS BEST THOUGHTS,
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED,
BT ITS AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

In offering this book to the reading public the author of the Isles of Summer
is not unmindful of the maxim that "silence is golden." But silence is often
a grave mistake, and may be a crime. The gift of speech has rendered possi
ble the intellectual development which distinguishes the human race. The
different stages in .the progress and perfection of language are the tide marks
of civilization. Take from man the power to express his thoughts, and you
degrade him to a beaSt. There is a time to speak and a time to abstain from
speaking. More than golden are those gems of thought which inspired genius
has in by-gone times wedded to imperishable language and given as a rich
legacy to the ages. But he is a wi3e man who knows how properly and when
to address the great public and challenge its attention. The loud din of a
garrulity stale and insipid, is ever mingled with the elevated and ennobling
notes of inspired voices. Many of the utterances that evidence man's divine
origin, to which the Present listens, broke the stillness of dim and distant
ages in the morning of civilization, while the genius of each succeeding age
has imparted to the literary air vibrations of its own, that mingle with those
of the past, and a great tide of melody that never ebbs, rolls grandly down
to our own times.
It would seem to be sufficient for the Present to sit at the footstool of the Past
and listen. The public ear is not only filled but trained, educated and critical,
so that a new voice has no more chance of being heard, than a little ripple of
attracting attention when ocean's great heart throbs with the quickening
breath of a hurricane. A new book by a new author is like a new leaf amid
the evergreen and varied foliage of a tropical forest. "When one unknown to
fame, takes his first born literary child in manuscript sheets to any of the
notable publishers in either of our great cities, the cordiality with which he is
received is like that with which a tramp is welcomed at the front door of a
palatial dwelling. The chance that the latter is an angel in disguise, is con
sidered-equal to the probability that the former is inspired. In many cases,

6* -PREFACE.
probably In most, the publisher is too busy to even look at the literary bant.
ling, although, for aught he knows, it is a little, live, genuine literary Moses,
nestled among the reeds and bulrushes of the river of immortality.
It sometim*es happens that in the firmament of letters, brilliant with the light
of stars unfading and quenchless, great intellectual luminaries appear unher
alded, " Whose sudden visitations daze the world.
And flash like lightning ; while they leave behind
A voice thai in the distance, far away,
i- Wakens the slumbering ages,"
and, as publisher's are not infallible, and do not by intuition know every
thing, it has occasionally happened that they have found out, when it was too
late, that they have ignorantly confounded these celestial wanderers with the
countless fire-flies that rise from literary meadows, and disappear with the
warm summer night that gave them birth and made their short-lived existence
possible. . Publishers are book-brokers, or middle men, who bring producers and con
sumers together. They are the merchants of literature, and merely dispose
of the brain crop. Generally indemnified against loss, theirs is the lion's
share of the profits when profits are realized. Authors, even the most suc
cessful, receive but a very small percentage of the profits realized from the
sale of their works. Great publishing houses accumulate great fortunes;
while great authors die poor, and leave to their families only a brilliant and
enduring name, which is impotent to keep the wolf of hunger from their doors.
But publishers are to authors a convenience if not a necessity. They supply
the wings which are required to enable a new candidate for literary honors to
ascend sufficiently high in the world of letters to be seen. As notable pub
lishers have at times fastened to dead weights, they have become exceedingly
incredulous and cautious, and look with great suspicion upon all who have not
demonstrated their ability to float and fly in the upper air of popular favor.
As doorkeepers they guard the entrance of that great stage upon which the
new author must stand in order to be widely known, but they are so chary of
their favors that only an occasional novice is allowed to tread the boards, and
take his chance of being hissed or applauded by the great public whose atten
tion he presumes to challenge.
As the author of the Isles of Summee was well aware of these facts, and
had no standing place in the great world of letters, why did he not continue

•PBEFACK 7
to devote himself exclusively to the law ? Why did he presume to write a
book, and having written it, fossilize it with type, and coffin it in gilded
covers ?
These questions are legitimate, and they shall be honestly and frankly an
swered. While treading the deck of a New Tork and Savannah steamer, after hav
ing been a day or two at sea, and while gazing with a pleasing awe upon an
ocean mysterious, restless and sky-bound, he heard, like the author of Revela
tion, a voice saying unto him "Write!" and without pausing to think or
inquire whether the injunction came from heaven or elsewhere, he obeyed
with alacrity. It did not appear to be a matter of choice, but of uncontrolable
necessity. He had taken with him neither ink nor paper, but the ship's
purser kindly provided him with both and with a seat at his table. When
the author's pen was fairly started, it was like the artificial leg which an in
genious German invented — it could not be stopped ; so he continued to write
as he traveled, and to travel as he wrote, and this volume is the result.
Visiting for the first time "the home of summer and the sun," the author
was constantly surprised and charmed with new phases of that wondrous
beauty which ever, in the vicinity of the tropics, rests like an atmosphere upon
sea and land. His nerves were soothed and quieted by a climate which the
Gulf Stream and trade-winds delightfully tempered and medicated. Lulled,
soothed, and pleased by such novel surroundings, it was a relief to the mind
to give expression to its agreeable sensations, and shed some of its thoughts.
To gratify and amuse his friends at home, many of his impressions and pen-
pictures were forwarded for publication in the New Haven Journal and
Courier. They met with unexpected favor, and if his vanity had not, as he
trusts, departed with his youth, he would have been proud, as he certainly
was gratified at the warm, hearty and general commendation with which his
published letters were received: Much enlarged, and to some extent re
written, they are now issued in book-form at the request, frequently and ur
gently expressed, of many of the readers of his newspaper communications.
The author has the more readily yielded to these requests because he believes
his book will meet an unsupplied want, there being no work in the market
which gives the information it contains. A literary tent has only at long in
tervals been pitched for a few days upon the Bahamas, and the coral islea
have yielded to letters very meagre though valuable harvests. Enjoying to
some extent the fruits of the labors of others, the author has also cropped new
fields, and while he has not exhausted or very much impaired the fertUity of

8" tKEFACE.
the soil, he trusts his book will not only minister to the pleasure but beof
some practical value to those of his fellow citizens who, for any reason, desire
to avoid the severity of the weather at the north during the winter and early
spring months. It is but a chance seedling, but valuable fruit is sometimes
found upon trees by the wayside and in hedge-rows which no professional
pomologist has planted. II in the fruit gardens of literature the Isles of
Summee shall take root and flourish in the warm sun of popular favor, its
author will be gratified; and lie believes he will not be greatly troubled should
it.be consigned as rubbish to the brush-heap —
'For he wrote not for money, nor for praise,
Kor to bo called a wit, nor to wear bays."
He seems to himself not so much an actor as a spectator having little inter
est in the result. The freedom of his will has in this matter, to a large de
gree, been dominated and controlled by circumstances. The movements of
the pen which recorded his thoughts seem like yesterday's heart-beats — they
left so little impression upon mind and memory.
Seven of the wood cut illustrations in this book, being those which in the
table of illustrations are numbered respectively 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13 and 14, are
by permission of C. H. Mallory and Company of New York, the proprietors
of the steamship line now running between New York, Nassau and Matanzas,
copied from an illustrated pamphlet which they have printed for the benefit
of the patrons of their line. The other wood engravings have been made for
this work and are with two exceptions from photographs taken in Nassau by
Mr. J. F. Coonley of New York. The lithographic plates are from drawings
made by Mr. J. H. Emerton of New Haven, and are mostly from specimens
which the author's wife collected in the Bahamas. The author takes pleasure
in acknowledging his indebtedness to Prof. A. E. Verrill, of the Sheffield
Scientific School, for valuable suggestions and for the scientific names of the
specimens in natural history pictured upon the lithographic plates
Iveston, near New Haven, Ct.
December 13, A. D., 1880.

CONTENTS.

Chap. 1.— Man and the Migratory Birds. An Ocean Voyage in Mid-Winter. A Wasted
Snow Storm. A Model Steamer. Savannah. The Route between the Sea-Islands and
the Mainland. The Cumberland Islands. Ruins of Dungenness. St. Mary's, Fer-
nandina. Amelia Beach. Arrival at Jacksonville. Crossing the Gulf Stream. Arrival
at Nassau  p. 13
Chap. II.— A Break-water of Islands, Rocks, Reefs and Banks over 2,000 miles long. The
Bahama Archipelago. The Gulfs, Sounds and Ship Channels that penetrate and sur
round the group. Hidden Chapters of the Earth's Autobiography Discovered by Mod
ern Scientists. Monuments of Buried Lands. Ocean Thoroughfares. TheBermudas—
their Gradual Subsidence.  p. 31
Chap, in.— New Providence. Killarney and Cunningham Lakes. Caves and Cave Earth.
The Mermaid's Pool. Nassau — its Streets, Public and Private Buildings, and Popula
tion. The Poor but Happy Negroes. Fort Pincastle; its Marine Signals. Grant's
Town and other Suburban Villages. Fort Charlotte; its Subterranean Rooms and
Charming Outlook. Lunching at the Expense of the British Queen. The Removal of
the Old Barracks. Fort Montague. A Luxuriant Growth of Titles. The Harbor and
Bar of Nassau. The Breakers. Shells and Shell-work. Nassau's Public Library, p.43
Chap. IV.— The Royal Victoria Hotel. Scenes daily witnessed In its Court. Sacred
Songs of the Negroes  p. 69
Chap. V.— Flora of the Isles of Summer. Fertilizing Air. Large Trees on the top of
Stone Walls and in Limestone Quarries. Trees that will not Die and cannot be killed.
Trees Within Trees. The MoDkuy Tamarind, the Wild Fig. and the Ceiba or Silk
Cotton Trees. Thompson's F'-lly. Palm Trees— lhe Cocoanut, the African, the Cab
bage and the Palmetto. The India Hubber Tree. The Singing Tree. Tamarind
Trees, and Trees Valuable for Timber, for Dyes, for their Spicy Bark, and for .Medic
inal Purposes. The Natural more Wonderful tban the Supernatural. . . p. 79
Chap. VI.— Fruits and Flowers of lhe Bahamas. Fruits in Bills of Fare. The Orange,
the Pine Apple, the Sapodilla, the Cocoanut, the Hog Plum, the Shaddock, and the
Forbidden Fruit. Other Bahama Fruits. Flowering Trees, Shrubs and Vines, p. 99
Chap. VH.— Soothing, Languid Air; its Effects. Ambition Dies. The Bahamas not in
cluded in the Primal Curse. The Island of Indolence. Soothed Sharks. Lazy air and
Lazy blood Putting Insect Plagues to Sleep. Mice and Men alike Affected. A large

10 CONTENTS.
Fish Story. Sea Turtles Resigned to their Fate. Contented and Happy Negroes.
Good Order in Nassau. How a Millenium can be Secured. Agricultural and Manu
facturing Industry not Rooted in the Rocks. Sugar making. Small Islands unfavor
able to Intellectual Development  p. 113
Chap. VIII.— Absence of Wild Animals upon Coral Islands. - Pleasures of the Chase Un
known. Diet of the Aborigine* How Alligators Taste. The Guanas as a Table
Luxury. They are Intoxicated with Whistling Music. Vassar GirlB Charming
Turtles. Mountain Crabs. The Hermit Crab a Freebooter. The Lizards ; Cl. anging
their Color and Hunting Game. Animals upon the West India Islands when Discov
ered. Snakes. -Sta Turtles. Turtle Shells. How Sponges Grow and form Commu
nistic Communities. The Sponge Fisheries. Value and Quantity of Bahama Sponges
Exported  p. 123
Chap. IX.— Amusements. Small and Isolated Communities thrown npon their Own Re
sources. Visit of a Circus Company to Nassau. Its Effect upon the Negroes. Whist
and Boating Clubs. Base-bull and Polo. Military and Marbles. Religion Utilizing
the Idle Hours. Streets Placarded with Notices of Solemn Fasts. Absence of a Color
Line in Churches. Amateur Fishing. The Boatmen Canvassing for Customers. Capt.
Sampson a Fisher of Men. He Describes and Discusses the Sharks. . . p. 143
Chap. X.— Yachting' in Bahama Waters. Sampson and his Triton. Testing a Sail-boat.
Searching Outside in a Good Wind for the Line Storm. Sampson's Visit to New York.
His Experiences and Impressions. Reliable Wind— Delightful Views— Congenial
Friends. The Log of the Pleasure Seekers. Newly Discovered Poets. The Gulf
Weed  p. 153
Chap. XL— Nassau as a Sanitarium. Its Mild and Generally Salubrious Climate. Its
Freedom from Cold Waves of Air and Cold Currents of Water. Its Vulnerable Points.
No Absorbing and Filtering Sands. Impurities Endangering its Water Supply and
Pois-oning the Air. A High Degree of Ilcat in the Sun. Di-eascs upon the Islands.
Small but Crowded numan Ant Hills. The Yellow Fever in Nassau in 1S80. Tho
Pestilence iri other Neighboring Cities nt Other Times. Tho Angel of Health Rides
Upon Hurricanes. Cleansing tho City. Constant Vigilance aud Activity of Nassau's
Board of 11 ealth Essential to its Safety. Who may Hope for Relief and Core in Nassau.
Not the Best Place in which cither to be very Sick or to Die. Frost a Factor in the
Problem of Civilization. Human Development aud Progress Dependent upon Ice.
Sea Bathing all Winter  p. 171
Chap. XII.— Corals and Coral Reefs. Tho Marvclon9 Beauty of the "Marino Garden."
It9 Corals, Coralincs, Qo-.-gonias, Algae, Sponges and Wonderfully Colored Fishes.
Water Glasses. Natural Aquaiiums. Coral Bowers and Grottoes. Sea Urchins.
The Colored Divers. L fe in thc Rock  p. 209
Chap. XIII.— Tho Extent of tho World of Waters nnd its Wonderful Fauna. Bahama
Fishes. Sr.mo Eminently Distinguished for their Brilliant Colors, aud Others for
their Singularity, described. Fisli that nro Poisonous. Table Fish. Tho Bahamas
Rich in Beautiful Mollusks. They Harmouizo with tho other Exqusito Forms of Life

C6NTEtfT§. li
ana with the Brilliant Waters. The ShoreB Paved with Shells Wonderful In Form
and Color. The Conch  p-2as
Chap. XIV.— Moonlight and Starlight in the Bahamas. New Heavens. The Crescent
and the Cross. The Starry Cross of Southern Skies. Midnight Watchings, with their
Results  p 241
Chap. XV.— The Coral Isles the- Home of Beautiful Birds. Their Scarcity in Nassau and
its Causes. The Necessity of Legal Enactments to Protect the Birds. The Flamingo.
The Bahama Mocking Bird. A Brief Account of the Visitant and Resident Birds of
the Bahamas.  p. 247
Chap. XVI.— The Influence of the British Court and Arlstrocracy upon the People of
Nassau. The Landing of Prince Alfred upon the Island of New Providence. Nassau
and the British Gi vernment During the Late War of the Rebellion. Blockade Run
ning. Nassau Practically a Confederate Port. International Laws Construed and
Enforced^o as to Greatly Damage the United States. Fortunes Rapidly Made, Squan
dered and Lo«t. Wild Excitement and Great Dissipation. Great Increase of Disease
and Crime in Nassau  p. 263
Chap. XVLT.— The Bahama Constitution. Opening of the Colonial Legislature. Imposing
Ceremonies. The Negroes Made Happy. The Governor and his Military Guard of
Honor. " Parliament " Prorogued. Martial Music and Booming Cannon. Engrossed
Bills Approved and Signed. Small Annual Crops of New Laws. No Color Line in the
House of Assembly. Wrecks and Wrecking in the Bahamas. Salvors and Salvage.
Bahama Hurricanes  p. 27s
Chap. XVIII.— The Social Life of Nassau. Society Pervaded ivy Natural Chrystalizing
Laws. English Forms and Titles well Rooted. Citizens of the Great Republic Am
bitious to Mix and Mingle in High-toned Society. Social Gayeties— Picnics and Balls,
Wine and Waltzing, the "Sound of Revelry at Night." Highways Made and Repaired
to Accomodate the Victims of a trio Generous Hospitality. A Governor who Appre
ciates the Dance, and docs not Underestimate the Value of His Titles. A Doctor of
Divinity Made Happy. In What Places Hospitality is Indigenous. . , p. 287
Chap, XIX.— The First Grent Voyage of Columbus. Ho Solves the Dark Problem of the
Ages. His Landfall. Thc Whole Group Made Forever Memorable. The Spirits of
Columbus nnd Black Beard Indelibly Impressed Upon tbe Islands. Eminently Good
and Bad Men Not Dead When They Die. The Natives As Columbus Found and De
scribed Them. The West India Islands Occupied by Substantially One People. The
Caribs. The Search Among the Bahamas for thc Fountain of Youth. . p. 293
Chap. XX.— Spanish Perfidy and Cruelty. The Natives by Force and Fraud are Carried
to Hispaniola and Perish in its Mines. The Islands without Inhabitants. An English
Captain Discovers New Providence. George HI of Englaud makes a Royal Grant of
the Bahamas to Six Proprietors. Pirates Infest the Islands. Black Beard. He Es.
tablishes Himself Upon New Providence. The Early Governors. Summary Punish
ment Inflicted by the Spaniards, and by the French and Spaniards. Nassau Built and

13 C6N-MNT3. -
Named in 16&4. the British Government Purchase the Proprietary Title to the Islands.
Nassau is Captured and Abandoned by the Americans Under Commodore Hopkins .
In 1781 it is Captured and Garrisoned by the Spaniards. It is Re-taken by American
Loyalists. The Abolition of Slavery  p. 313
Chap. XXL— Nassau Revisited. Lack of Confidence in the Northern March. Missing
Trunks; Man and His Clothes. The New York and Nassau Steamboat Line. The
Western Texas. Notable Passengers. The Fountain of Youth on Litchfield Hill.
Fernandina. Picturesque Shores. Sea-birds. The Month of the St. John's. The Bar
and Breakers. A Visit to St. Nicholas. Incidents and Scenes in the Gulf of Florida.
"Bank Shark9." Porpoises. Crossing the Gulf Stream. Dolphins. Sun-set Views.
Arrival at Nassau  ,  p. 327
Chap. XXII — Pleasant Return Voyages. Waiting in Florida the Arrival of Summer at
the North. Making Apologies to a Tropical Sun. The Steamer City of Austin— Capt.
Stevens. A Leaf from the Chapter of thc Captain's Nautical Experiences. Little
Sankey Transported and Transplanted. Reciprocal Welcomes. . . . p. 349

ILLUSTRATIONS.
WOOD ENGRAVINGS.
1. Frontispiece— View from high ground back of Nassan.
2. Map. pp.12-13.
3. Screw Steamer City of Savannah, pp. 16-17.
4. Glass Window at Harbour Island, pp. 32-33.
6. Fort Fincastle. pp. 50-51.
.6. View in Grant's Town. pp. 56-57.
7. View from Fort Fincastle. pp. 64-65.
8. The Royal Victoria Hotel, pp. 73-73.
9. The Ceiba or Silk Cotton Tree. pp. 90-91.
10. Shore View west of Nassau, pp. 112-113.
p. Nassau from Hog Island, pp. 160-161.
12. George Street and the Government House, pp. 288-289.
IS. A Private Residence in Nassau, pp. 296-297.
14. Bay Street, west end of Nassau, pp. 312-318.

LtTIIOGBAPHS
15. Bahama Reptiles, pp. 130-131.
16. " Sponges, pp. 140-141.
17. " Corals. 1 „ „,„ „,_
IS. " Flexible Corals. fPP'216-217
19. " Echinoderms. pp. 224-225.
20. " Fishes, pp. 232-233.

21. Bahama Fishes, pp. 232-233.
22. Squid. Octopus, pp. 234-235.
23. Bahama Shells, j pp ^^
25. Flamingo, pp. 248-249.
26. Dolphins, pp. 344-34$,

CHAPTER I.
Man and five Migratory Birds. An Ocean Voyage in Mid-winter. A
Wasted Snow Storm. A Model Steamer. Savannah. A Pleasant run be
tween the Sea-Islands and the Mainland. The Cumberland Islands. Dun-
genness. St. Mary. Fernandina and its Amelia Beach. Arrival at Jack
sonville. Crossing the Gulf Stream. Landing at Nassau.
"The sails were filled, and fair the light winds blew,
As pleased to waft him from his native land." — Byron.
Nature's special favorites are the birds. With the speed of
the wind, and a flight almost as noiseless, they ever follow Sum
mer where she leads, bask in her sunlight, and repose in her
grateful shadows. As "Winter, snow-clad and frozen, advances
or retreats, they follow in his footsteps, and sport in the forests of
verdure, and in the fields and bowers of bloom, that soon clothe
his track of desolation with wondrous beauty.
What nature denied, man has acquired for himself — a speed
superior to that of the birds and outstripping the wind. His
thoughts travel with the lightning, and, practically, space is
almost annihilated by his steam chariots upon iron roads.
Science, meanwhile, has explored and mapped the great ocean
world, sounded its profoundest depths, discovered and described
its shoals and rocks and winding shores, and, wedded to mechan
ical ingenuity, has enabled man, in the glowing language of the
east, to " take the wing3 of the morning and fly to the uttermost
parts of the earth."
» 3

14 ISLES OF SUMMER.
Hence, after the dwellers in the north have each in his genera
tion for untold thousands of years been snow-bound and ice-
anchored, their descendants in our day are able at winter's
approach, to migrate with the birds, and thus secure perfect
exemption from its discomforts. To many, suffering from dis
ease, or with blood which age has made sluggish, this is a great
boon. In the winter of 1879, and again in 1880, the author influenced
mainly by sanitary considerations, fled from frost to the islands
of unending summer, spending sometime in Florida when going
and returning in 1879, and again on his way home ih 1880. The
knowledge he was thus enabled to acquire, is in part contained
in these pages. Most of his notes upon Florida may perhaps
form the ground work of a future volume.
On a clear morning in January, A. D. 1879, the author looked
out of his office window upon New Haven's beautiful "Green,"
and saw its noble elms in their maturity, lifting their long bare
brown arms towards heaven as if in supplication, while a white
and beautiful carpet of snow revealed the shadows and reflected
the sunlight. Three days afterwards, he sat upon the deck of
an ocean steamer, in a pleasant summer atmosphere, within one
hundred and fifty miles of the city of Savannah, with nothing
in view but thc blue dome of the sky, the restless ocean waves,
and some daring sea birds which hovered high in air above the
steamer's foaming track, and watched with their telescopic eyes,
and waited for their share of the noon-day meal. The contrast
was most striking; the change from a life of care and of continu
ed moil and toil, to a state of calm and peaceful rest, was as
agreeable as it was marked and sudden. But life is full of start
ling and unexpected contrasts. There is seemingly no stability
but instability, nothing constant but unrest. Change itself be
comes changeless in its unvarying mutability.

A MID-WINTER OCEAN VOYAGE. 15
Friday has acquired a bad name, especially among those who
have their "home upon the rolling deep." But for the author,
it had no terrors — particularly as he never made it a matter of
conscience to keep its fasts or to diet exclusively upon its fish.
He did not therefore hesitate to take passage on board the steamer
Elm City for New York, on Friday evening, the 17th of January,
A. D. 1879. Never in summer did he more comfortably pass
over Long Island Sound, or awaken after it feeling more invigor
ated and refreshed. A short while previous the little light snow-
flakes had noiselessly fallen upon the great city of New York,
effectually barricaded its immense net work of streets and ave
nues, and more effectually held it in subjection than could a
great and powerful army with banners. With a feeling of great
relief we soon exchanged its dirty and slippery sidewalks for
the busy deck and luxurious saloons of the screw steamer City
of Savannah, a floating palace of the sea.
At about half -past three o'clock, p. ji., on Saturday, the 18 th
of January, we left pier No. 43, North River, steamed down
the harbor of New York, between thc pleasant but then cold
shores of Long Island and New Jersey, into tho broad Atlantic,
and fancied its gentle, murmuring, dancing and slightly foam-
crested waves gave us a friendly greeting, and as warm a welcomo
as was possible at that frigid season of tho year.
At thc mention of a winter's voyage, before a blazing fire or
near a comfortable steam radiator, one involuntarily shudders,
shivers and recoils. But had wo not just got to the end of a
long series of storms, and fierce, cold winds ? Had not the wind
god of winter exhausted himself, and would ho not now stop to
take breath? We thought so, and soon found that we were right.
Saturday afternoon and night the Atlantic was in one of its mild
est moods. Sunday the wind took us directly aft, rounded out
our foresail, forctopsail and foregallant sail, billowed the water's

18 tSLES OF StXMMER.
surface just enough with snow-white crests .to please the eye, but
not enough to awaken feelings of danger even in timid minds.
The clouds gradually thickened overhead, a few snowflakes with
seeming reluctance noiselessly descended, and were instantly lost
in the mysterious depths of the ocean — for a snowflake and a
steamship are alike insignificant so far as old ocean is concerned.
Soon we experienced the pleasure of seeing, what is not very often
witnessed, a heavy snow storm off the capes of Virginia, and it
seemed so queer to see the snow fall hour after hour and leave
not a trace behind. No rocks, no shrubs, no evergreen trees
were glorified by it, but ocean, with cold indifference, received
this gift from heaven unmoved and- unaffected. Earth may well
welcome the snow storm which protects and saves its priceless
floral treasures, but what is the use of wasting snow storms upon
the ocean?
At half-past six o'clock on the evening of January 19th, the
snow storm being over, we saw at a distance of some fifteen miles,
the revolving light of Hatteras. Can it be, we inwardly ex
claimed, that this is the place that navigators of the sea would
be so glad to avoid ; the home of the strongest and most fitful
winds, and of wildest storms; a place loved only by-wreckers?
Our steamship still spread her sails to the wind, and her rocking
was so gentle that not a passenger's seat was empty at the supper
table. It was not long before spittoons commenced a game of
ten-pins upon the floor of the main saloon, the wind howled and
hissed at ns as it passed; the propeller uttered its cry of alarm,
as, in the rolling and pitching of the vessel, it protruded out of
the water; strong jnen staggered and reeled, while during the
short momentary intervals of comparative repose, they moved
from one holding-on place to another; the ladies sought refuge in
their state-rooms, and, devoutly thankful that he had not broken
any of his or his fellow-passengers' bones, the author soon fol-

>_

t__
c*-1 '.

tfc1I*s

A "MID-WINTER OCEAN VOYAGE. 1-7
lowed their good example. We were steaming away from Hat
teras, when the demon of the stormy cape sent some of his
specimen blasts after us. Our captain deemed it best to "lie
to" awhile until that "little spell of weather" was over.
During the night nearly all the passengers were more or less
sick, and the cold was sufficient to freeze water on the deck of the
steamer from stem to stern. The next day the weather was all
that could bs desired ; the atmosphere calm, agreeably cool and
bracing, while the sea was as smooth, quiet and peaceful, as if it
had not yet been awakened from a night of profound repose and
quiet sleep.
The " City of Savannah " is one of a line of steamers built and
owned by the Georgia Central Railroad Company, for the trans
portation of passengers and freight between Savannah and New
York. At an expense of one million of dollars — being one-fifth
of its capital — it secured the building at Chester, Penn., of four
steamers, named respectively, the "City of Macon," the " City
of Columbus," the " Gate City," and the " City of Savannah."
They are all substantially alike, and tho last was placed upon the
line in the summer or fall of 1878, and the first about a year
previous. Our steamer was almost a novice upon the ocean. A few months
before in the State of Pennsylvania, and from the west bank of
the river Delaware, it first took to the water. Yet how grandly,
with an air of conscious power, it made its Avay over the path
less, fathomless and boundless sea ! When no land-marks are
seen upon the horizon's verge, and no guiding stars in the sky,
it still speeds confidently and unerringly on its way over the
trackless wilderness of water.
Born to an inheritance of labor, the author experienced a new
sensation — he had nothing to do. He determined therefore to
make the acquaintance of the ship, and thus utilize some of his

18 ISLES OF SUMMER.
leisure hours. No expense was apparently spared to make it ih.
all respects first-class, and in it are embodied the latest and best
improvements and appliances of marine architecture.
The length of the Savannah, measuring fifteen feet from the
water line, is 260 feet ; its length over all is 275 feet. It is 38
feet 6 inches beam molded. Her depth from base line to tip of
spar deck is 26 feet 10 inches ; depth of hold 24 feet ; total depth
below spar deck 75 feet. Her registered tonnage is 2,092-1JVcr
tons. She can carry at one time 4,000 bales of cotton. She has
three decks besides the hurricane deck. The spar deck is entirely
of iron ; the main deck is partly of iron, and the deck frames
are all of iron. She was at first brig-rigged, and could spread
5,000 yards of canvass ; but the spars on the mainmast have
been taken down, as it was found that they were not needed, so
that now her rigging is that of a hermaphrodite brig.
The dining saloon is located aft the main hatch on the main
deck, and is 50 feet by 29 feet at a distance of 30 feet from the
main stairway. Aft of and near the dining saloon, is the
main saloon with rows of state-rooms ; each state-room is ele
gantly and conveniently fitted up, and has a window looking
out upon the ocean. A small saloon over the dining saloon is
called "social hall," and being so fortunate as to have a room
which opened into this " hall," the author is able to testify that
"social hall" is decidedly the best part of the ship. There is
another saloon with state-rooms aft the main hatch, but it is
much less desirable than the other two.
The saloons are elaborately and most beautifully finished
with the choicest woods that money .could secure. The natural
grain has been preserved and the polished surfaces are as hard
and smooth as glass. Cherry, mahogany, black walnut, bird's
eye maple, tulip wood and amaranth are so combined as to pro
duce the best esthetic effect, and one never tires looking at and
studying them.

DESCRIPTION 6F STEAMER. 19
Each state-room is provided with roomy berths, first-class
spring matrasses, and patent wash slabs and bowls, with conve
nient fixtures, — the latter superior to any we had ever seen.
Stationary chairs, with revolving backs, along the dining tables
are a very desirable improvement.
The engines of this great steamship are a credit to the age in
which we live. As tide-marks of intellectual development and
monuments of man's dominion over matter and over the hidden
and latent forces of nature, they far transcend the pp*amids that
have excited the wonder and admiration of the world for thous
ands of years. While propelling us through the ocean at the rate
of thirteen miles an hour with a 1,650 horse power, there was
almost no noise, and every part is so perfectly adjusted that the
motion of the vessel was as gentle as the rocking of a cradle —
indeed, more so, for the author found no more difficulty in writing
at a table in the purser's room, within six feet of the engines,
than he would at a table in any private house.
Her boilers, tubular cylindrical, are four in number, each 12
feet 8 inches in diameter, and 10 feet 6 inches in length. The
working pressure is 80 pounds to the square inch. The stroke
of the pistons is 54 inches.
Tho ship has a patent condenser of 3,000 feet condensing
surface, by means of which her supply of Croton water taken
in at New York is vaporized and condensed constantly during
the voyage, thus avoiding the necessity to a great extent of using
sea water, and making a very great saving of the boilers, fuel,
and labor.
The propeller has a diameter of 14 feet 3 inches, and it makes
70 revolutions per minute. It is of the Hirsch patent, and has
four blades, which are so fastened that they can be removed
when necessary.
It is interesting to see in how many ways steam power ia
brought into requisition to save labor on this ship. Two donkey

SO ISLES OF SUMMER.
engines -are used for clearing the bilge and for some other pur
poses ; three or four for loading and unloading cargoes ; one
for the anchor and the sails; one in part for supplying water
closets Avith water; one for operating a steam steering apparatus;
one for operating a newly devised governor, which so controls
and governs the propeller that it cannot make more .than a cer
tain number of revolutions per minute. This last takes the place
of a man who had formerly to devote all his time to this work.
These engines are in addition to the main engine for pumping
out the ship. There are six water tight iron compartments in
the ship, and if one should be stove in or should spring a leak
from any cause, the others would float her while the great cir
culating pump of the condenser would be brought into requisi
tion, whose power to discharge water is very great.
The crew number forty-seven, and the monthly pay-roll is
about $2,000. The powerful and complicated machine requires
constant watchfulness and the greatest care. To lubricate it
one and one-half barrels of oil are used every trip. The aver
age consumption of coal is 130 tons for a round trip. The aver
age length of the voyage is from fifty-five to sixty hours. The
Savannah has once gone from dock to dock in fifty-two hours
and thirty minutes.
The regular sea route from New York to Savannah is not
through any part of the Gulf Stream, that immense river of
warm water, a thousand times larger than the Mississippi, which
flows in a cold water bed, and helps to temper the severity of
the frigid and frozen North ; but between that great and, as yet,
inexplicable phenomenon of the ocean, and its beautifully wind
ing western shore, our steamer grandly plowed its way. Like
the "shining shore" of the "better land," we well knew, that
although invisible to our material eyes, it was near at hand.
This passing in a few hours from ice-bridged rivers with snow-

SAVANNAH RIVER. %t
enshrouded banks to fields of perennial green, so forcibly sym
bolizes man's passage over the river of death, that the -author
sometimes more than half believed that he had indeed made the
"journey to that mystic realm between which and earth the travel
is all one way.
We approached the bar off the mouth of the Savannah river
in the morning twilight of January 21st, passing quite a number
of ships at anchor in the offing. From prudential reasons our
captain so timed the steamship's progress that we crossed the
bar at high tide. As we entered the river, we turned to waft
npon the mild and gentle air a silent but heartfelt blessing to
old ocean for having treated us so well during our voyage, and
we inwardly hoped that nothing in the future would occur to
make us like each other less.
The color of the waters of the Savannah river closely resembles
that of a New Haven mud-puddle, and after leaving our New
York steamer and its excellent Croton water, it was a constant
study with us how not to drink it, there being but a small and
inadequate supply of condensed water on our next steamer. We
approached the city between low sedgy meadows, some of which
are utilized for the cultivation of rice. Forts, with their large
guns still in sight, and low mud batteries, remain to keep alive
the memory of the recent " unpleasantness," while new saw-mills,
large lumber yards, spacious warehouses, bales of cotton, barrels
of resin and turpentine, twenty-five or thirty first-class ships
and three-masted schooners moored to wharves — ail a mile below
the city and near the eastern terminus of a branch of the Gulf
railroad, told of northern capital and enterprise, of the healing
and healthy influences of peace, and of a growing feeling of
fraternity between those so recently engaged in a life and death
struggle for the mastery in the dreadful ordeal of battle on sea
and land. Everything was so quiet and peaceful, it was hard to

23. ISLES OF SUMMER.
realize that that whole section was so recently a vast military
camp, ruled and governed by a despotism such as only war
necessitates and breeds. Although defeated, it must be a grateful
luxury for the southern people to inhale the glorious air of free
dom once more, undisturbed by war's alarms, and battles whose
very victories were purchased at a cost of evils only equaled by
their defeats.
The few hours that intervened between the arrival of one
steamer and the sailing of another, were pleasantly occupied in
making a cursory examination of Georgia's principal seaport. It
is a city of parks — some twenty or more we believe, in all, great
and small, so arranged that some one of them is within easy ac
cess of every citizen's dwelling. The avenues, pleasantly shaded,
turn every two blocks to the right and left, and surround emer
ald parks — reminding one of the rivers of Florida, those blue
ribbons upon which the jewelled lakes are strung. The largest
and most beautiful of the parks upon Bull street, is the " Pulas
ki." Semi-tropical trees of large size and luxuriant foliage, some
festooned and draped in gray moss, gave it a very attractive ap
pearance. A large new park has been laid out and enclosed,
adjoining this, called the Pulaski Extension, upon which a large
and handsome confederate monument has been erected. We
were pleased to see no evidence anywhere of the ruin and waste
that so often mark the bloody footsteps of war. Sherman's
grand march to the sea rendered the city's surrender without a
struggle an inevitable necessity. Its forts and batteries were of
no use with a large victorious army entering its back door.
The tourist at Savannah, bound for Florida, can make the
journey in a few hours by railroad, or go by either of two lines
of ocean steamers, one of which takes the route outside the
islands, and the other avoids the hazards of the open sea and the
discomforts of sea sickness, by passing between the coast-islands

THE INSIDE ROUTE. 23
and the mainland. As time was of little consequence to ns, we
concluded to take the latter.
The people of the north, during the late war, were made ac
quainted with the fact that the Southern Atlantic States have
their sea coast protected by a long succession of islands, between
which and the main land steamers of light draft can safely pass
along their whole extent, as far south as the mouth of the St.
John's in Florida. Batteries, torpedoes, shoals and tortuous
and intricate channels protected this portion of the southern
seaboard, so that our navy found it impossible to destroy or
seriously cripple confederate communication by water along this
portion of the coast. One needs to go through these inside chan
nels to fairly comprehend them. We think of the Connecticut
coast shielded by Long Island, but along a portion of the coast
of Georgia, instead of a Sound thirty miles wide, we have narrow
and winding water-ways more like Mill river at the base of East
Rock. We took the side-wheel steamer " City of Bridgeton " at
Savannah for Jacksonville in Florida — a boat that brought to
mind the steamers of the New York and New Haven line "long,
long ago." It has since been modernized and very greatly im
proved, so much so that we recognized this year very little of the
old boat except its name, and even that gloried in a sort of new
birth. Following the doublings and sharp curves of the inside route,
as we neared the river St. John's the colored man at the
wheel required and exercised constant vigilance and the greatest
care. Much local knowledge and great practical skill were
brought into constant requisition, and only once was the bow
of the boat run into the soft bank. The shores of the 6edgy
marshes were white with extensive beds of oyster shells, while
countless beds of small oysters were everywhere to be seen as the
tide receded. Occasionally we passed islands rich with tropical

24 ISLES OF SUMMER.
VBgetation, where nature seemed to be reveling in a perfect wil
derness of beauty, and nothing was wanting, unless perhaps an
occasional rocky bluff and mountain peak to give more variety
and sublimity to the scene. The clear sky and balmy air Were
in perfect accord with the beautiful panorama that opened con
stantly before ns as we glided over the quiet water. Towards
the lower end of this charming route, near the close of day, the
whole blue dome of heaven, with all its rich adornment of sun
set* clouds gorgeously illumined, was more perfectly reflected in
the still clear water than the author ever saw it before — save
once only on the river St. John's, in the British province of New
Brunswick. That surpassed anything of the sort he had ever
seen or conceived, and this, on the whole, excelled that, for soon
the side-wheels of the boat caused great circling eddies- of skies,
frescoed and wonderfully and indescribably colored, to follow
the steamer, until gradually, as the daylight vanished, this re
markable phenomenon passed away — remaining, however, indel
ibly pictured upon the memory.
As we neared Fernandina, we passed the Great and Little
Cumberland islands. The largest is said to be from twenty-five
to thirty miles long, and two to three miles wide. It abounds
with game, including hundreds of deer, while fish are very
abundant in the surrounding waters.
In full view from Cumberland Sound, which separates it from
Fernandina, still stand the roofless and windowless walls,pf what
was once one of the most splendid residences of the Southern
States and perhaps of the New World. Deserted by its owner
during the war, some miscreant's torch made it a ruin.
This island has a history, and romance and poetry will un
doubtedly hereafter draw from it inspiration. It will live in
deathless song and enduring story. It lies between the calm
and healthy waters like an island of the blessed, and the soft

DUNGENNESS. THE AMELIA BEACH. 25
zephyrs that pass over it, born of the not distant ocean, borrow
perfumes from its aromatic trees, its spicy bowers and sweet-
scented flowers.
The State of Georgia, as a token of gratitude to General
Nathaniel Greene, of revolutionary fame and memory, conveyed
to him one-half of the island. He died too soon to derive much
benefit from a gift which reflected back a pleasing lustre upon
the donors. The General's widow married a wealthy man by
the name of Miller, who made the island his home and spent his
money most lavishly in erecting a palatial mansion, opening
splendid drives, laying out the grounds, and adorning them with
all the choice trees and flowers that are found or can be made to
live in the vicinity of the tropics.
The place is called "Dungenness." Upon the island are the
remains of " Light Horse Harry Lee," one of the heroes of 1776,
and the father of General Lee, the Commander-in-Chief of the
late Confederate armies. Excursion parties visit Dungenness
from Fernandina frequently, and in the future it will no doubt
grow in popular favor. We visited the island the present year
but defer, for the present, a more particular description of it.
The Bridgeton made a detour for the purpose of stopping at
St. Mary, situated near the mouth of the river of that name
which constitutes in part the dividing line between Georgia and
Florida. In the palmy days of the Georgia planters St. Mary
was quite a place of fashionable summer resort, and considerable
money was spent upon its docks, avenues, buildings and gardens.
But it suffered severely during the war, its docks and warehouses
were destroyed, and not much remains to indicate what it haa
been. Its climate, cooled by the ocean, is said to be very fa
vorable to health.
Our steamer stopped at Fernandina just long enough to enable
us to ride through its streets, upon one of which we were pleased
3

26 ISLES OF SUMMER.
to see the recently raised frame for one new house, as evidencing
the fact that enterprise is here awakening, though very slowly,
from its long sleep. We rode a mile over a sandy road through
a thicket of palmettoes and wild vines and bushes, beyond the
"city," to its famous Amelia Beach, which is one of the finest
ocean beaches we have seen. For eighteen or twenty miles the
white beach of a uniform character extended, the dip being so
gentle that a wide belt was left between the sand hills and low-
water mark, which the incoming ocean tides had pounded and
compacted until but little impression was made upon it by the
hoofs of our horses. The shoals near the shore caused the waves
to break into stretches of white spray crests, and gave a pleasing
variety to the ocean view. The gentle waves, as they approached,
rolled up as they reached the shore, and adorned the extreme
edge with a beautiful white border of foam in an unbroken line
of many miles. The mildness and softness of the air, and the
pleasing and soothing murmur of the water, so gently rolling
in upon the white sand beach, almost as far as the eye could see,
caused us to prolong our stay to the very last minute of our
allotted time. The hard, smooth beach of Fernandina, with its
unobstructed ocean view on the one side, and sand hills on the
other, as we saw it then, will ever occupy a sunny spot in our
memory. It was eleven o'clock at night when we reached the Windsor
Hotel, at Jacksonville upon the St. John's river, thankful that
thus far our ocean trip in midwinter had been so extremely pleas
ant, and that nothing had occurred to give us a moment's uneasi
ness. It is true, the same kind Providence would have been over
us had we made our journey by land, but some persons who came
that way, seemed more inclined to the opinion that in the con
struction and operation of southern railroads some evil genius
had been permitted to have things pretty much his own way.

THE GULF STREAM. 27
With the return of prosperity under the banner of peace, im
proved and more safe communication by rail will follow as a
necessary consequence.
After spending a few days in Florida (rendered necessary by
the fact that no opportunity existed for sooner continuing our
journey) we at last were able to cross over to Nassau on the side
wheel steamer Secret. The passage occupied fifty-two hours.
She was advertised to make the run in thirty-six hours, but the
time was purposely understated in order to make the trip appear
more attractive to the seekers of health and pleasure. The Secret
was about fifteen years old, English built, sheathed outside with
iron and was constructed somewhat after the model of a Connec
ticut river shad, being very long and very narrow. According to
a Jacksonville newspaper, her length was 231 feet, and her breadth
26 feet. She was built for a blockade runner, and was consid
ered a good sea boat. We found her state rooms and berths too
small for comfort, and the approaches to the dining saloon long,
narrow, unpleasant and unsavory. But we are disposed to apply
the bridge rule to steamboats, and to speak well of those which
carry us safely.
Before leaving home we doated on the Gulf Stream. It was
our ideal salt water, and bore the same relative position to the
' rest of the ocean world that the Garden of Eden did to all the
islands and continents outside. When the fifty separate and
distinct persons on as many different occasions asked us if we were
not afraid to take an ocean voyage in winter, and more especially
when every newspaper was and had for some time been filled
with accounts of terrific storms, accompanied by winds before
which the strongest ships were like so many egg shells, the ready
reply which then so satisfied us seemed to be equally satisfactory
to them; " Oh, no; we do not fear or dread it at all, for in thirty
hours from New York we will be in the Gulf Stream, where the

28 ISLES OF SUMMER.
water, flowing in a stream a thousand times larger than the Mis
sissippi river, from hot equatorial regions, is always warm, and
the air, loaded Avith ozone, saline and other health imparting
ingredients, is as warm and pleasant as that Avhich we breathe
at our best seaside resorts in summer; storm-caught .and ice-
coated vessels run into it to thaw out." But alas! all our ideals
vanish into thin air and disappear forever the moment we at
tempt to seize them Avith our hands of flesh. The beautiful
vision of tbe Gulf Stream exists for us no more. It will never
return. We have been there. We were from eight to ten hours
crossing it at an oblique angle. We rolled and tossed "in and
over " it to the content of our hearts and the disturbance of our
stomachs. As it piled up its huge waves higher than our ship,
one after another of the passengers seemed to have "a call" to
go someAvhere else, and left the deck, first bending over the guard
rail, with their faces turned mysteriously towards the angry
waters, with an agonized expression, as though they had caught
sight of some large sea serpent. One gentleman was asked by
an innocent. sympathizer if he Avas sick. The quick and forcible
reply seemed to be perfectly satisfactory, "Do you think I am
such a d — n fool that I am doing all this for fun?" Having
personally paid unwilling tribute to Neptune, we turned our back
upon the foam-crested billows and took refuge in our little sar
dine box below, Avhere, with the port hole closed, we lay above
the heaving bosom of this enchanting ocean-river. And now,
ever and anon, upon all sorts of occasions, the Gulf Stream, disen
chanted, calls up the same memories and fills us Avith the same
feelings of thankfulness and gratitude which Sancho Panza
experienced Avhenever he thought of the blanket in which he
was ingloriously tossed in the yard of the Spanish inn. The
steamer in which we left New York, had carefully hugged the
shores of the Atlantic States and kept out of it, and we skirted

approach to Nassau. 29
the east coast of Florida below Jacksonville for some twenty-
eight hours before we turned near Jupiter Light to enter and
cross it.
One cannot understand the phrase "A wilderness of waters"
until he actually sails day after day with nothing in view but
the deep beloAV and the deep above. On the second day out
from Jacksonville we first sighted, off our starboard quarter, a
faint trace of curling smoke in the distance, and soon, after
crossing our bow, a Havanna steamer exchanged flag salutations
Avith the Secret.
The character and disposition of people are often strikingly
displayed on shipboard. Some are so kind, so considerate, so
mindful of their fellow-voyagers, so forgetful of themselves.
Others seem to believe that the world, and all that it contains
that is worth having, was made expressly for themselves. They
seem lineally descended from the man whose only prayer to God
was that He would "Bless me and my wife,
My son John and his wife,
Us four — and no more !"
And also to be very nearly related to the individual who owned
one-half of a negro, and who was accustomed to request the di
vine blessing for "myself, my wife, and my half of Jake."
A novel sight presented itself as we approached the ship's
dock at Nassau. The perfectly clear and transparent water, ex
quisitely and indescribably colored; the old, weather-worn vessels
at anchor; the forts and sea-walls; the white streets and white
stone buildings, all of coral limestone, contrasted oddly with the
crowds of persons, mostly colored, that filled all the docks,
streets and standing places at and near the landing. We were

30 ISLES OF SUMMER.
within several rods of the dock when a dozen nearly naked
little Africans commenced the sport of diving off the dock into
the deep water after the coins which the passengers threw over
board. They seemed to be amphibious and were all expert
swimmers. They generally succeeded in securing the much
coveted prizes before the latter reached the bottom. But little,
in fact no real annoyance, aside from the delay, was experienced
from the custom house officials, and Ave soon found ourselves at
home in the Royal Victoria Hotel, one of the finest buildings of
the kind in the Western world.

CHAPTER II.
A Break-water of Islands, Rocks, Reefs and Banks over 2,000 miles long.
The Bahama Archipelago. The Gulfs, Sounds and Ship Channels that pene
trate and surround the Group. Modern Science discovering Hidden Chapters
of tlie Earth's History. Monuments of Buried Lands. Ocean Thorougli-
fares. The Bermudas — their Gradual Subsidence.
"We sailed the sea, thick sown with clustering isles." — Viegil.
"These precious stones set in a silver sea." — Shakbspbaeb.
Having determined to visit the Bahamas, the author com
menced immediately to brush away the dust which had during
a number (please excuse him from not specifying more particu
larly how many) of decades of years, covered and obliterated the
geographical knowledge of his school-boy days. Learning is like
wealth — not to have it is less discreditable than unfounded pre
tensions. His life Avould have been worth but very little had it
then depended upon his ability to accurately locate and particu
larly describe Nassau and the island of New Providence, or the
group of which that island forms a part. Is it too much for him
to assume that his ignorance was not exceptional, and that nearly
all of his readers can truthfully make a similar confession ? Let
the favored few who occupy the geographical front seats excuse
the author, and grant him their kind indulgence, while, for the
benefit of others, he airs a little his recently resurrected, and, to
some extent, newly acquired geographical knowledge.
31

32 ISLES OF SUMMER.
It will be seen upon referring to any good map of the West
India Islands that an immense number of islands are distributed
upon a line over two thousand miles long, which trends south
easterly from a point relatively near the coast of Florida, to the
mouth of the Orinoco River in South America. Sprinkled
among these are many reefs, thousands of rocks, and little islets
which are called by the English keys and by the Spaniards cays.
The north-Avesterly portion of this chain is composed of the
Bahama archipelago, and embraces thirty-nine islands, six hun
dred and sixty-one keys, and two thousand three hundred and
eighty-seven rocks.
This Island system constitutes a vast breakwater, and shelters
from the winds and waves of the wide and stormy Atlantic, the
Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, which bodies of water are
perfectly land-locked on their other sides. Were the ocean
waters drawn off, Ave should have, in place of this island system,
the Bahama and Caribbean mountains, a lofty range, elevated
thousands of feet above the neighboring plains and valleys,
towering high up in the air as they now do in the water, with
large areas of high table land. The location of the islands to the
windward of the banks has favored the formation and growth of
the latter.
The Bahama group rises out of several submerged tables of a
soft calcareous rock, the tAvo largest of which are knoAvn respec
tively as the Great and Little Bahama Banks. The water upon
these banks attains a maximum depth of several hundred feet.
The Little Bank is the most northerly, and is only seventy miles
from the coast of Florida. It embraces a superficial area of
5,560 square miles, including 1,200 square miles of islands, and
has a breadth of from thirty-five to sixty miles. Its principal
islands are Great and Little Abaco and Grand Bahama. The
two former are separated from each other by a narrow channel,

3 1

s-a,

Bit

The Bahamas. S3
and with their,numerous keys extend along the eastern edge of
the Little Bahama Bank for nearly a hundred miles. At the
southei'v extremity of Abaco is the famous " Hole-in-the-Wall"
— a large opening through and below the top of a ridge of calca
reous rock. Also a light house bearing the same name. A lady
informed us that several years since, while sailing past Abaco,
she saw the sun at its setting through this "Hole-in-the-Wall,"
and that the globe of fire, in its setting of rock, left an indelible
picture of rare and exquisite beauty upon her memory.
The north-Avest and north-east Providence Channels separate
the Little from the Great Bahama Bank. The distance between
the Banks varies from fifteen to forty-five miles.
"The north-east Providence Channel separates Abaco from
the island of Eleuthera and the keys on its northern shore, which
lie tAventy-seven miles to the south-east of the Hole-in-the-Wall."
" The whole of the trade from North America and Europe to
the Gulf of Mexico," says Gov. Rawson, "passes by the north
of' the Bahama Islands. Steamers bound to the south, stem the
rapid current of the Florida Channel," between the Banks and
Florida. Sailing vessels pass between Abaco and Eleuthera
through the Providence Channels, within forty miles of Nassau,
into the Gulf of Florida. "All the return-bound trade to the
north, whether using steam or sails, passes with the [Gulf] stream
through the Florida Channel."
"From Eleuthera follow, in the same direction, south-east
and then south, a succession of long narrow islands, viz. : — St.
Salvador or Cat Island, Long Island, Ragged Island and its keys.
* * * Outside the bank, forty-eight miles east of the south
of St. Salvador, lies Watling Island, * * * and twenty-four
miles from the north-east end of Long Island lies Rum Key;"
*,, between which and the island of St. Salvador, is the small island
oi Conception.

34 ISLES OF SUMMER.
South-east of Long Island, beyond the Great Bank, and
separated from it by a channel twenty-five miles wide, is Crooked
Island ; then succeeds Acklin's Island, with a very shallow con
necting channel, once reputed fordable in its narrowest part.
To the north-east of Crooked Island is Sumona, or Atwood Key.
Plana or French keys are east of Acklin's Island. Then successive
ly follow in the same direction (south-east), the Caicos, the Maya-
guana and the Turks Islands — the last of this inhabited chain
of islands, six hundred miles in extent, which stretch from a point
seventy miles from Florida to within a hundred miles of St.
Domingo. The Caicos and the Turks Islands once were within
the governmental jurisdiction of the Bahamas, but are now po
litically associated with Jamaica.
Three smaller banks, separated by channels thirty to fifty
miles wide, and called respectively Mouchoir, Carre, Silver and
Navidad, extend still further to the south-east, for about one
hundred and fifty miles.
Nearly in the latitude of the Turks Islands, and from sixty
to seventy miles south of Acklin's Island and Mayaguana, are
Great and Little Inagua or Heneagua, detached, and some sixty-
five miles north of the north-western extremity of St. Domingo. -
Great Inagua is one of the largest and best of the Bahamas.
Exuma, with its extensive chain of keys, lies upon the eastern
edge of the Great Bank, and upon the western side of Exuma
Sound. This Sound has an average width of forty miles, ex
tends north-westerly about one hundred miles, and breaks the
continuity of the Great Bank between St. Salvador and Long
Island. A very deep sound called The Tongue-of-the-Ocean is pro
jected into the Great Bank a distance of one hundred and ten
miles. Major General Nelson, R. E., describes it as having the
deep blue color of oceanic depths, *v\*hile "the color of the wafer

¦THE BAHAMAS. §3
ai'ound the islands is usually that of the aqua-marine of beryl."
On its western edge, and skirting the Great Bank lies Andros
island, much the largest of the group, being ninety-five miles
long and having a maximum width of thirty-eight miles.
The Berry islands are north-east of Andros ; they are arranged
in the form of a crescent. Tho horns point to the east, and are
separated by a distance of some forty miles. The south-west
shore of Abaco, on the opposite side of the north-west Providence
Channel, is only thirty miles distant from these little islands!
The Biminis are two small islands rendered famous from the
fact that the Fountain of Youth Avas reported, in the time of
Ponce de Leon, to be located upon one of them. They are
twenty-five miles south of the north-western portion of the
Great Bahama Bank, and are described as "small, pretty and
fertile." The Santareen and Old Bahama Channels are south of the
Great Bahama Bank. West of the former is situated the Cay
Sal Bank, embracing fourteen hundred and thirty square miles,
including some uninhabited Keys; Avhile south of the latter
channel is the island of Cuba.
Gov. Rawson states that "all the trade from North America
to Cuba, St. Domingo, Jamaica, the Gulf of Honduras, and tho
northern coast of South America passes south to the AvindAvard
[i. e. east] of the group, and close to the shores of Inagua.
The return trade, and all the European trade froip. the same
countries passes north, either through the Crooked Island pas
sages, or the Inagua or Caicos Channels. These islands there
fore lie in the track of tAVO great streams of trade, and, at times,
scores of vessels pass daily by the ' Hole-in-the-Wall,' and the
south western point of Inagua."
New Providence, upon which Nassau is situated, is upon the
northern edge of the Great Bahama Bank, fifty miles south-west

3f3

iSLES OF SUMMF.R.

of the north-east extremity of the bank, at the eastern entrance
of "The Tongue-of-the-Ocean," and is approached through
either the north-west or north-east Providence Channels, the
former of which connects it with the Florida Gulf and is trav
ersed by the steamers which bring Nassau's winter visitors from
the states.
The following table is copied from Gov. Rawson's report :

3.
4. 5.6.

1. Andros, 
2. Abaco, Great, 
" Little, 
Inagua, Great, 
" Little, 
Grand Bahama, 
Crooked Island, 
Acklin's Island, 
7. Fortune Island, (Long Cay),
8. Eleuthera, 
Spanish Wells 
9. St. Salvador, 
10. Long Island, 
11. Exuma, Great and Little,
12. Mayaguana, 
13. New Providence, 
14. Watling's Island, 
15. Rum Cay, 
16. Biminis, North, 
" South, 
17. Ragged Island and Cay 
18. Berry Island, Great 
Harbour Cay,". 
19. Harbour Island, 

Square Miles.

G80) 90 ,'
5301 30, 76)
121)- 8)

5ii

1,600 776 560
430 204 164 i
ico2
130 110 96
85CO
29

5U

Extreme Length.

Miles.

9570
24 34 8
66 19
41 10574260322319|13 si
3i
5i6"

ExtremeBreadth.

Miles.

38 17 5
25 7
11 8
10 li
1114 Bi7
6 7
65Hll
2f H

Average
Breadth.

Miles.

22 12 4
16 8*75
4 !
4
"4 Si2i
4" 5
U3" i
1
1*

Total, .

4,424

The foregoing table shows proximately the length, breadth

fcUEIED LANDS. 3t
and size of the principal Bahama islands, exclusive of the keys
which cluster around them.
This extensive and singular group of islands, so unlike the
New England that the author had left behind him, charmed by
its novelty, and elicited enthusiastic admiration.
" He found in all that met his eyes,
The freshness of a glad surprise."
They repose in the lap of unending summer. Daring enter
prise, resistless courage, and'the intense activities of busy human
life, do not cross the great ocean river. No blighting and kill
ing frosts are ever found between its eastern margin and the
rising sun. To all that we have been accustomed, or ever ex
perienced before, it had been practically the stream of oblivion — ¦
the river of death. The ancient seers avIio saAv and pictured
heaven dwelt in warm sunny climes. None of the streets of the
New Jerusalem which they saAv with spiritual vision, were paved
with ice or blockaded with snow. We here found the sea so
smooth, the wind so mild, the air so agreeably Avarm, the sky
so serene, the clouds so soft and delicately tinted, and our mind
and heart were pervaded by such a spirit of resignation, content
ment and peace — of love to God and good will towards man —
while the past appeared so unreal and dreamy, — Ave at times were
almost ready to believe that our "mortal had put on immor
tality." But the regular periodic return of hunger, and an
appetite that gave a keen relish to the gross food of earth, soon
convinced us that we still inhabited our old bodies, and fly-like,
adhered to the surface of one of the sun's revolving satelites.
In this new world our curiosity was awakened and greatly
stimulated. What part, we inquired, have these immense banks,
with their clustered isles played in the world's history ? In
what manner were they made ? How many thousands of years
4

88 ISLES OF SUMMEft.
were involved in their construction? What great cosmic and
geological -truths is this murmuring ocean endeavoring to reveal?
In groping after truth, man passes over the bridge of the
known to the dark and shadowy regions of the unknown. Up-
Avard he treads the rounds of a ladder bottomed upon earth but
lost in impenetrable clouds. Yet, Avhen considered in connec
tion with human insignificance, there is much which man has
been enabled to learn, and in no department of human knowl
edge has greater progress been made than in that of geology, —
a science that underlies, and, to some extent, explains the facts
of physical geography.
"The Egyptian priests told Herodotus that from the time of
their first king, Avhich- was eleven thousand and odd years, the
sun had four times altered his course; that the sea and the earth
did alternately change into one another."* New evidences of
some of these changes, clear and indisputable, haA*e been found
in our oavii time and country. Upon the American continent,
man Avalks and Avorks, and muses upon mountains and plains
once a portion of the ocean's bed. Vast quantities of the skele
tons of "monsters of the deep," and marine fauna, of families
and genera and species supposed to be iioav extinct, are entombed
in tho profound depths of its rocks. Upon the low, long and
narroAv islands and keys composing the Bahama Archipelago, in
the soft, languid and voluptuous air, Aye pensively muse above a
continent that nature, in one of her sublime convulsions, or by a
sIoav but no less grand process, requiring cycles of time of vast and
inconceivable extent for its completion, has buried from human
sight in the unfathomable depths of a wild waste of waters.
There is something grand and appalling in the chapters of the
eartli's autobiography as disclosed by its continents and ocean
isles. Like the astronomer Avho discerns and translates for us

?Montaigne.

BURIED LANDS. 39
"the thoughts of God in the sky," so the geologist who reads to
us from the book of the rocks, seems, like Moses upon Sinai, to
commune with Jehovah and to have his lips hallowed with a
divine inspiration.
To man's inquiring tliought, the ocean responds only in dirge-
like harmonies. In its mystic and profound depths, during the
long and silent ages, the sea has kept its secrets well. But in
our own time — thanks to a Danvin, a Dana, a Marsh, and an
Agassiz — the key of the knoAvn has unlocked many of the mys
teries of the unknown, and in these rocky isles Ave noAV behold
the head-stones of lands that the sea engulfed !
Prof. Dana, in his work upon Corals and Coral Islands, after
alluding to "the northern continental upAvard movements Avhich
introduced the glacial era," and stating that "Avhile the earth's
crust was arching upward" at the north, "it may have been
bending downward over the vast central area of the great ocean, "
adds: "The changes which took place, contemporaneously, in the
Atlantic tropics, are very imperfectly recorded. The Bahamas
show by their form and position that they cover a submerged
land of large area, stretching over six hundred miles from north
west to south-east. The long line of reefs, and the Florida
keys, trending far away from Southern Florida, are evidence
that this Florida region participated in the downward movement,
though to a less extent than the Bahamas. Again, the islands
of the West Indies diminish in size to the eastward, being quite
small in the long line that looks out upon the broad ocean, just
as if the subsidence increased in* that direction. Finally, the
Atlantic beyond is water only, as if it had been made a blank by
the sinking of the lands."
""¦p ^ !}C Jj*i IfS J(! >(!
" The peninsula of Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas, look, as

46 ISLES OF SUMMeS.
they lie together, as if all were once part of a greater Florida or
south-eastern prolongation of the continent. The north-western
and south-western trends, characterizing the great features of
the American continent, run through the whole like a warp and
woof structure, binding them together in one system."
To the author of this book it seems probable, from a simple
examination of a good West India map, that the subsidence ex
tended in the same general direction to South America, a dis
tance of some fifteen hundred miles further. While the crust
of the earth Avas being elevated, depressed and rolled "like a
scroll," it would have been a slight matter to have enlarged the
area of disturbance to the extent supposed.
In the shalloAV water, upon the mountain tops, the corals
planted their colonies, and these islands, and banks, these coral
rocks and coral sands, entirely destitute as they are of primitive
or volcanic rocks, and of fossil remains, are their monuments.
Geologically speaking the Bahamas are of a very recent age.
This is indicated by the fact that their hammocks and Avoods are
almost destitute of soil, yet the growth of coral islands is exceed
ingly slow. The coral groves and boAvers are individually of
small extent, very unlike the "illimitable forests" of the floral
world, and the limestone annually secreted seems in quantity re
latively insignificant. The vast areas of coral limestones and of
coral sands, are composed only of the detritus, torn, grounded
and scattered by an ocean never at rest, and often exhibiting an
energy and power almost divine, and of fragments of marine
shells broken, pounded and rounded in the same way. Shells
of existing species are found ir? the rocks, and Charles Burnside,
Esq., son of a late Surveyor-general of the Bahamas, informed
us that in a Nassau quarry upon his grounds Avhich we visited, a
large and perfect egg was taken from the rock at a distance of
sixteen feet below the rock's surface. It is clear that ocean has

fiUEIBD LANDS. 4i
been and is one of the grinding mills of the gods, and that dura
tion or extent of time is only a conception of man. It is said to
require under favorable circumstances a thousand years to make
five perpendicular feet of coral limestone, and that coral rock
exists in the Pacific ocean two thousand feet thick. In contrast
with such almost infinite durations, well may the Chinese phil
osophers and sages compare the life of man Avith the little insig
nificant span of the measuring worm.
The important part taken by the Bahama shell fish in the
formation of the banks and rocks of the Bahamas is indicated
by their very great abundance. Major-General Nelson states
that "at Six Hills (Caicos Group) the mass of Conch Shells
(Stronibus gigas) is so great and sufficiently cemented together
as to form not only a rock, but an island several hundred feet in
length." While the highest land in the Bahamas is 230 feet above the
sea, generally the hills on the larger islands are much under 100
feet in height, and from 10 to 50 feet on the islets. They abound
with "pit holes" and "rock marshes." The water upon the
lower flats is brackish and rises and falls, though not contem
poraneously with the tide, or at a uniform rate. • There are many
ordinary and mangrove swamps, small and shalloAV, more or less
connected with the sea. So far as there is any soil it is found in
the little pockets in the rocks, and is scant and fertile. There
are also large areas of "pine barrens" where the pine and the
palm flourish side by side— the north and the south to this
extent meeting and mingling harmoniously in the floral world.
Lakes of salt or brackish water mirror the heavens and add a
neAV charm to the landscape upon many of the islands. Andrus
alone boasts a fresh water lake and a few small out-flowing fresh
water streams. The rocks are all calcareous, soft and easily
worked below the surface, white and dazzling Avhen first quar-

42 ISLES OF SUMMER.
ried, but they acquire a flinty hardness of surface, and assume
a subdued and darker shade (an ashen gray) when exposed to
the sun and air.
The Bermuda Islands are closely allied to the Bahamas, having
the same formation and being surrounded by coral reefs. They
are situated in the same latitude with Charleston, S. C, and are
seven hundred and eighty miles distant from Cape Hatteras, and
seven hundred miles south-east of New York. Science has dis
covered, and historical records have furnished most reliable evi
dence, that this group of coral islands, since their first discovery
in the early part of the sixteenth century, have been in a state
of subsidence, so that they are iioav far less extensive than they
were betAveen three hundred and four hundred years ago. Prof.
Dana says : " Twenty miles to the south-west by west from the
Bermudas there are two submerged banks, twenty to forty-seven
fathoms under Avater, shoAving that the Bermudas are not com
pletely alone, and demonstrating that they cover a summit in a
range of heights ; and it may have been a long range."

CHAPTER III.

'.

New Providence. Killa/rney and Cunningham Lakes. Caves and Cave
Earth. The Mermaid's Pool. Nassau — its Streets, Public and Private Build
ings, and Population. The Poor and Happy Negroes. Fort Fincastle and
its Signals. Grant's Town and other Suburban Villages. Fort Charlotte — ¦
its Subterranean Booms and Charming Out-look. Lunching at the Expense
ofthe British Queen. Removal of the Old Barracks. Fort Montague. A
Luxuriant Growth of Titles. Nassau Harbor and its Bar. Observing the
Breakers. Shells and Shell-work. Nassau's Public Library.
" This sceptered isle ;
This earth of majesty ; this seat of Mars ;
This other Eden — demi-paradise." — Shakespeake.
" The poor contents him with the care of heaven." — Pope.
The island of New Providence, although small in size and
greatly deficient in soil, far transcends in importance all the is
lands with which it is more immediately associated. Nassau,
the Bahama capital, reposes in calm, quiet dignity upon the
northern slope of the hill that rises to a height of ninety feet
above its northern shore, bathes its feet in the sheltered sea, and
lifts its municipal head above the heights that overlook Grant's
Town. It is to the entire archipelago what Athens was to Greece
and the rising sun to the old Persian fire-worshippers. " Paris
is France ;" — Nassau is New Providence and the Bahamas. But
for its harbor and favorable location, it never would have risen
from the rocks, or reposed under the shadows of its tropical and
semi-tropical trees. Its superiority as a shelter for ships, caused
43

44 ISLES OF SUMMER.
it to become for these islands the seat and focus of civil, political,
ecclesiastical, and military power. Without its geographical and
topographical advantages, it is not probable that within its nar
row borders a Colonial Governor would ever have had his resi
dence, an Episcopal Bishop his seat, or two companies of her
majesty's colored troops their barracks. No old and rusty guns
would have given to the crests oi its hills a military and warlike
aspect; jurisprudence would have sought elseAvhere room for ner
highest courts, and no colonial representatives or lords would
have occupied imported high-backed chairs in its legislative
halls. New Providence has an extremo length of about nineteen and
three-eights miles from east to Avest; an extreme Avidth of about
seven miles from north to south; an average width of about five
miles; and embraces a total area of about eighty-five square
miles. From the north shore in front of Nassau, the distance
across the island is between five and six miles. With the excep
tion of a very few square miles occupied by Nassau and its sub
urbs, there is little upon the island except Avater and wilderness;
the former brackish, and throbbing and in some places appear
ing and disappearing with the long pulsations of the sea's diurnal
tides, and the latter, to a large extent, a dense low jungle, with
stretches of pitch pine forests rising from a thick undergrowth
of scrub palmettoes, all being root-fastened to the rocks and ap
parently living like Dr. Tanner during his recent forty days' fast,
exclusively upon air and water.
The western extremity of Noav Providence is called Clifton
Point, and its eastern extremity, East Point. In a south-west- -
erly direction from Nassau, at a distance of probably seven or
eight miles, Lake Killarney is situated — a body of shalloAv, brack
ish water nearly three miles in length from east to west, and
about two and three-fifth miles in width from north to south.

LAKES AND CAVES. 45
The Blue Hill range is about seven miles long, and running east
and Avest, separates this lake from Lake Cunningham — a smaller
body of shallow Avater, half a mile Avide, and tAvo and two-thirds
miles in length from east to Avest. The negro drivers, by design
or ignorance, palm off this lake upon strangers for Killarney — it
being nearer and more accessible than the latter. Cunningham,
with its little mangrove islands, is Aveil worth visiting, and the
drive for a mile or tAvo through the pine woods and scrub pal
mettoes, rendered necessary to reach it, gives one an opportunity
to see something of the Ioav, Avet, rough, and rocky make up of
portions of the island. Wild flowers and palmetto leaves, gath
ered by the wayside, often give a gay and festive appearance to
the A'ehicles of tho excursionists upon their return near the
close of day or in the edge of the evening. The Blue Hills
attain an elevation of 120 feet.
Caves exist in the western extremity of the hill that separates
the two lakes, and there is always connected with caverns in the
rocks enough of the Aveird and Avild and mysterious to make them
objects of interest. We found it so with these. Indeed their
proximity to a sea so recently infested by pirates, and their loca
tion upon an island not very long ago in possession of a iioav
vanished race of men, suggest many a question which only the
dead can answer. As Ave folloAved our dusky guide and passed
from one chamber to another over the rocks, disturbing' and
driving from their dark retreats the bats, it was not difficult to
imagine that the ghosts of the cruel and reckless buccaneers, and
the shades of the unfortunate and "grossly wronged Indians,
were peering at us in 'the darkness and gloom. But after
building a fire in the deepest, darkest and most dismal chamber
of them all, Avhich was entered through a small opening in a
partition of rock, Ave experienced a feeling of relief, knowing that
the elfs of evil, vanish with the light.

46 ISLES OF SUMMER.
In quite a number of instances the ceilings of the rocky cham
bers had partially fallen in, and, through the openings, the roots
of wild fig trees had made their way, dropped from ten to twenty
feet to the bottom, where, entwined among and running over the
rocks, they seemed in the dim light like huge anacondas, whose
repose it might be dangerous to disturb.
Catesby, a century ago, in writing in regard to the natural
history of the Bahamas, observed, that " many of these islands,
particularly Providence, abound with deep caverns containing
salt Avater at their bottoms. These pits, being perpendicular
from their surface, are frequently so choked up and obscured by
the falling of trees and rubbish, that great caution is required
to prevent falling into these ' unfathomable pits ' as the inhabit
ants call them, and it is thought that many men who never
returned from hunting have perished in them."
We called the attention of an intelligent native and old resi
dent of Nassau to this passage and he assented to its truth. To
this day, the island, though so small, is largely an unknown
country to its people. This seems incredible, but it is none the
less true. Stimulated by a crisp and frosty air, northern people
fit out exploring expeditions to the North Pole and the interior
of Africa; but the citizens of Nassau care not to explore the
dense jungles that exist a short distance from their doors.
An article appeared in the Nassau Gazette a year or two since
in which a correspondent describes a natural reservoir of fresh
water called "The Mermaid's Pool," or "The Black Water
Pool," which seems to resemble the deep caverns or pits to which
Catesby refers, except that it is filled with fresh water. This
writer states that it is located in the south part of the island of
NeAV Providence, about a mile from the shore, near an extensive
cocoanut plantation, then belonging to the Hon. J.NS. George,
a gentleman who is since, we believe, deceased. " It is in a rocky,

THE MERMAID'S POOL. NASSAU. 47
wooded plain, so perfectly level that it would be difficult for a
rabbit to find a hillock sufficiently high for concealment." It is
about one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, sixty-five feet in
depth, and without banks. The water comes " to the very brim,"
and it has " a depth of forty feet at the very edge, which is the
more remarkable as the adjacent sea is so shallow that it would
be necessary to go five miles from the shore or six miles from the
pool, before a depth equal to that of the pool is reached." Al
though a great natural curiosity, and but a few miles from the
city, the writer says " it is almost unknown to the people of
Nassau." He gives the substance of a wild, romantic legend
concerning this "Mermaid's Pool," in which a dusky island
princess and a foreign shipwrecked prince act prominent parts.
Strange noises are heard there at night, and in the form of a
mermaid the princess at times emerges from the dark pool in the
dim moonlight, seizes any unfortunate damsel who happens to be
in the vicinity, and carries her a prisoner to her watery home in
the rock.
Thc Bahamas yield a " cave earth " composed of phosphates
of lime and some ammonia. It is a kind of guano, and has suf
ficient value as a fertilizer to cause it to be exported to other
countries, principally to the United States. The total value of
this guano exported has often been about $20,000 a year, at
about fifteen dollars a ton. It is not used in the colony.
Nassau is situated in latitude 25° 51' north, and longitude 77°
21' west. The rock upon which it is situated has furnished the
materials for the outer-walls of all its public and many of its
private buildings. Nature seehis to have had regard to the fact
that the people who were to live in this enervating air would
never voluntarily quarry granite or any similar stone, and there
fore she has provided them with a rock that is soft below the
surface and easily worked, but hardens Avhen exposed to the air.

48 ISLES OF SUMMER.
Many gardens, orchards, and ornamental grounds are enclosed
with high Avails made of this rock. These walls are stuccoed,
and covered on top Avith fragments of glass embedded in mortar,
all which impresses one Avith the conviction that petty larceny is
an offence not unknown upon this happy and innocent-looking ,
isle. Very many of tlie houses have large, heavy blinds on the sides
exposed to the street and the sun, Avhich enclose spacious piazzas,
and thus secure cool air and seclusion. The blinds, in connec
tion with the garden Avails, give them, to northern eyes, some
thing of the appearance of Turkish harems, and the impression
is deepened by the additional fact that one seldom gets even a
glance at the beautiful ladies who are supposed to occupy these
pleasant homes.
We are unable to give accurately the population of Nassau.
In 1861, the population of the Bahamas Avas 35,287, of which
number 11,503 Avere upon the island of New Providence, and,
according to Gov. Rawsou, "of these, upwards of 10,000 lived in
Nassau and its suburbs;" and as Grant's town and Bain's town,
two of the suburbs, then contained a population, the first of
2,398 and the second of 1,315, it left only 6,287 for Nassau. The
population of the Bahamas in 1871, according to Moseley's Al
manac, Avas 39,102, an increase of a little less than 4,000. If
we allow Nassau and its suburbs their proportionate share of this
increase (one-third) and add an equal number for the increase
since 1871, it Avill make the present population of Nassau and its
suburbs between 12,600 and 12,700. There is, however, nothing
to indicate that there has been much addition to the white pop
ulation of Nassau.
Bay street monopolizes nearly all the business of the city, and
is its principal thoroughfare. It skirts the harbor, is shaded by
rows of almond trees, stretches east and west for several miles

' "'iww-i-

dMSHttHHi

¦I >S

Looking down George st. from the Government House. Statue of Columbus
in the foreground. The Cathedral on the right. The Vendue House
at the foot of the street. The Harbor, Barrier Island,
and Ocean north of the city.

NASSAU. 49
beyond the limits of the city, and is made lively and attractive
by trade and travel. The docks and landings, the public market,
the stone barracks with their iron framed and stone-paved ver
andas, Fleming Square and the officers' quarters, the airy unin-
closed Vendue House, numerous stores and dwellings, a few small
hotels and private boarding houses, the eastern Parade Ground,
and an old cemetery still further to the east — all give tone, char
acter and importance to the street, and confer upon it a very
great pre-eminence over all the other streets of the city.
For several miles, during all parts of the day, Bay street is
thronged with people, almost exclusively colored. Many of them
are women and children, merchants in a very small way, bearing
their stock in trade upon their heads. Idlers abound. No one
is in any hurry. "How are you to-day, massa ?" — "God bless
you, massa" — "Can't you give me a penny, boss?" are among
the common salutations. The elderly colored women, when in
formed that we feel pretty well to-day, with much gravity of
look and a devout expression, ejaculate "Thank God!" and pass
along. The diminutive black vocalists remember our interest in
their sacred songs, and have another song which they are anxious
to sing to us.
Nothing so impressed us with the evident poverty of the colored
people of Nassau as a class, and of the difficulty they experience
in getting a good and honest living, as the large number of colored
women and children to be constantly seen during every business
day upon Bay street bearing in their hands, or, (when walking,)
upon their heads, their little stocks in trade — here a few pennies
worth of candy, and there a little trifle of cake; some with small
quantities of peanuts, and others having small supplies of flowers
or fruit — the appearance of the latter often suggesting the
thought that it had been prematurely picked to meet wants that
were pressing, and would not wait. A capital of twenty-five
5

50 ISLES OF SUMMER.
cents appeared amply sufficient to enable most of these street
or curb-stone merchants to have a good start in life. The good
nature and generosity of the colored people as a class was
very marked. They freely gave to each other from their lit
tle stores, and never seemed to either fret, fume, worry or
hurry. Truly blessed are these destitute children of the sun,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven — if heaven is the state or
condition of being contented and happy — or if it is a country
Avhere nothing that makes a man rich in this ever enters. It is
Avorth a journey to Nassau to learn the extent of man's artificial
wants. The streets of Nassau are to a large extent made in and upon
the surface rock, the paving having been previously done when the
shell and coral sands were hardened into stone. By filling up
the holloAvs with broken stone, the roads are easily kept in good
repair, as the rains soon dissolve the lime in the rock sufficiently
to form a cement which makes all compact and solid. Prisoners
in small squads, ornamented and secured by chain and ball, are.
daily seen working upon the roads — sitting sometimes, while.
Avorking with their hammers, unshielded from the hot sun, in
the dazzling light reflected from the Avhite surface, while the
thermometer registers from 140° to 150°.
Sherley street runs next south of and parallel with Bay street,
and is the second street in extent and importance. East Hill
street runs for a short distance back (south) of the Boyal Vic
toria Hotel. A feAV cross streets extend southerly from Bay
street — most of them but a short distance. The principal
of these are : 1st, Market street, leading to Grant's Town, the
north terminus of which is at the City Market; 2d, George street,
Avhich, commencing at the Vendue House, passes in front of the
"Cathedral" or Christ's Church, and extends to the foot of a
long flight of steps leading to the Government House or residence

'^'¦¦'^___\i^^Sw_\^<- it-^v^^tiWm
iJ*-:llifl ' 'flHR:
1 Illi SSSfe

SP

i*V< Fincastle.

FORT FINCASTLE — ITS SIGNALS. 51
of the Governor of the colony; 3d, Frederick street, upon which
is the Wesleyan Trinity Church, and St. Andrew's Presbyterian
Church; 4th, Parliament street, on the east side of which, at its
northerly terminus, are the legislative and judicial buildings,
while the Victoria Hotel is on the same side at its southerly ter
minus;- 5th, East street, which, passing the hotel, leads to Fort
Fincastle, on the crest of the hill.
This fort commands a good view of the ocean and is utilized
as a signal station. Whenever any vessel approaches either en
trance to the harbor of Nassau, ifhe direction from which it
comes and its character are indicated by flags hoisted upon its
flag staff. It is a queer looking affair, running at one end to a
point, and looking like some old sharp-bowed ante-diluvian
water craft, ossified and turned into stone, which from the bot
tom of the sea had been pushed up into the air and the sun-light
when the rock upon Avhich it rests Avas elevated. Little negro
cabins cluster around and cling to its side like so many large
barnacles. SIGNALS UPON FORT FINCASTLE.
Flags at mast-head denote the description of approaching ves
sels. Small quarter flags at the point of the yard arm indicate the
number of approaching vessels. Four halyards attached to the
yard arm are thus used; — one on the first halyard signifies one
vessel; on the second, two vessels; and so on.
If more than eight vessels are approaching from one quarter,
the fleet flag is hoisted at the mast-head, and the quarter flags at
the point of the yard arm.
A Mail Packet Steamer is indicated by a Red Pendant at the
yard arm, over the quarter flag.
When the mail steamer anchors, a Union Jack is hoisted on

52 ISLES OF SUMMER.
the Public Abutment; when the mails are landed it is hauled
down. A Red Pendant is hoisted at the mast-head of the fort when
a vessel of war approaches; and should the Union be flying from
the fort, the Bed Pendant is hoisted under it.
A Large Union is hoisted on Sundays, all public days, and
Avhenever the royal standard is unfurled at Government House.
It is kept flying, except in bad weather, from eight o'clock A. M.
until sunset.
A Small Union hoisted at mast-head over the signal Avhich de
notes the description of the vessel approaching, indicates that
the Governor is on board, and is kept flying until the vessel an
chors. His excellency is evidently the Queen Bee of the little
hive. MAST-HEAD SIGNALS.
Red and yellow (vertical bars), steamer.
Red and white cross, brig.
Red, ship or barque.
White with red cross, brigantine.
Blue with white cross, fore and aft schooner.
Blue, top-sail schooner.
Blue and yellow (horizontal), fleet.
White and blue (horizontal), distress.
YARD ARM SIGNALS — (QUARTER FLAGS.)
Yellow, west.
Blue and yellow (vertical), north-west.
Blue, north.
Blue and red, north-east.
Red, east.
Very near to its north wall a deep cut has been made in the

SUBURBAN1 VILLAGES. 53
rock through the hill, as if for the purpose of obstructing by
an artificial chasm the approach to the fort by a hostile land
force from the north. In this deep gorge there is a long high
flight of stone steps, which are dignified by the name of " The
Queen's Staircase." It is an interesting spot and much visited.
Back of Nassau, over the hill, towards the west is Delancy's
Town — a suburb of the city occupied by colored people ; Grant's
Town and Baine's Town lie also back of the city below and beyond
the crest of the hill, but are further to the east.
These suburban villages are inhabited largely by manumitted
slaves and the descendants of those who have been enfranchised.
Some, it is said, still use their native African dialects, and har
bor some of their old superstitions. We frequently visited these
suburbs, and were always much interested in their teeming popu
lation, huddled together around their humble dwellings, sit
ting upon the rocks, or leaning upon the rude division and front
walls of tlieir village lots. With no corroding cares, no trouble
some anxieties about to-morrow, and no wants not easily supplied,
they seemed more to be envied than many of the tired toilers in
colder, climes. Excepting the divers, we saw none of the
"nearly naked negroes " that others have described. Once while
sailing before a good breeze, a boat passed that was sculled by a
small boy, whose costume consisted only of a shirt, or, as a lady
very forcibly expressed it, " two sheets in the wind, or one flying. "
His diminutive size, ebony complexion and comical attitude,
self-satisfied air and " ascension robe," contrasted strikingly with
the size of his boat, the dignity and gravity of his passengers,
the clear and exquisitely beautiful water, and the green back
ground of Hog Island, whose southern shore he was approaching.
But little money is, however, spent for dry goods, and many are
barefooted, while the poor apologies for shoes which others have,
make it impossible for them to walk except with a noisy, shuffling

54 ISLES OF SUMMER.
gait, which equally grates upon the ear and offends the eye of
people from the States. Those whom we have seen Sundays
have been well and neatly but not expensively dressed.
The streets of these suburbs are narrow and cross each other
at right angles. Building lots have been laid out upon them,
upon which there is usually a small one-story house, and some
times two or more, emboAvered in orange, tamarind, cocoanut,
banana, sapodilla and other trees, and with fiowering shrubs
and vines. Here, as elseAvhere generally upon the island, so far
as we have seen it, the trees rise up out of the bare and naked
rocks. Gov. Rawson in his report for 1864, speaking of this
locality, says: "Fruit trees of various kinds are crowded around
the dwellings and cottages, growing luxuriantly, but planted
without order, unselected, unpruned, and unimproved, often
finding a place and nourishment for their roots in crannies and
fissures in the rocks into which it would appear impossible for
them to penetrate. "
One can hardly believe his own eyes in looking at them. The
plow and the spade, the harrow and the cultivator, the scythe
and the reaper would be as much out of place here as snowballs
in a baker's oven. The only implements of husbandry that can
be made available are the pick and the crowbar. By prying up
the end of a stone, or finding a crevice or making one in the rock,
a place is found for slip, root, or seed, and when thus utilized,
small rootlets start out, follow all the minute inequalities of the
porous limestone, penetrate all the little pockets in the rock, run
over and down ledges ten to twenty feet high, searching for fis
sures and crevices in the hard bottom of stone below, as if guided
by intelligence, and impelled onward by a strong and most tena
cious love of life, while, at the same time, buds and twigs and
stems and branches push upwards, enlarge and multiply, draw
ing rich supplies of food from a hot sun that warms but never

GfeANrs Towif. 55
wilts, and from the deAvs and shoAvers that come down from
heaven for their sustenance, until a dense and seemingly impen
etrable forest, fast anchored to the rocks, and a wild tangle of
vines and bushes, blushing with floAvers that perfume the air,
cover all the apparent sterility of nature with a beauty which
seems like childhood's dreams of fairy land.
The houses of the negroes are built mostly of wood, but some
have limestone walls, while the roofs are covered — some with
shingles and others with a thatching of palmetto leaves. It is
rare to see a house with glass windows — board shutters take the
place of sashes, and fire-places and chimneys are unknown. A
little fire out doors, for cooking, made of dead wood gathered in
the forest or thickets, which is transported in little bundles upon
the heads of women and children, is all that is required in this
warm climate. The walls are not sheathed or plastered, and the
furniture of the houses is of the rudest and most simple kind.
The colored people in the day time live out of doors in the open
air, so that in riding through these suburbs, the whole popula
tion comes under review. Nobody appears to be at work. In
sunshine or shadow, having nothing and wanting nothing, taking
no thought for to-morrow, they live on like the birds from day to
day, not needing to take lessons of the ant nor of any other of
the world's greedy and grasping toilers. All are merry, light-
hearted and joyous; nobody frets or scolds; not a child cries; and
the dogs, crouching beside their indolent masters, are literally
too lazy to bark. All the thieving is of the petty kind — it would
be too much like work to plan and execute robbery on a large
scale — and what is the use of committing burglaries and grand
larcenies when a little sugar-cane or a handful of fruit fills to
overflowing the measure of their wants! There are no trades-
unions, no commercial revulsions, and no strikes for higher
wages. No heads ache from the pressing weight of the crowns

56 ISLES OF SUMMER.
they wear, and no brains give out in the ceaseless and crazy
struggles for wealth and power. Voluptuous idleness is the
happy offspring of these charming isles of the sea, where frosts
are unknown, and health and happiness float on each passing
wave of the soft, perfumed air.
Some of the military officials having very kindly designated a
time when they would show the interior of Fort Charlotte, in
cluding its extensive subterranean works, to some of the hotel
guests, we were enabled through the politeness of Edward N.
Shelton, Esq., of Derby, Ct., to participate in the pleasure of
the excursion.
This fort, in its completed form, is not a hundred years old,
and yet neither history or tradition are able to inform us positively
when or oy whom its foundations were laid. Mr. Charles Mosely,
an old resident of Nassau, long an editor and publisher of one
of its newspapers, says in his almanac: "It is supposed to have
been begun by the Spaniards. It was finished about 1790, but
the information regarding its history is very meagre and incom
plete." Thus the same air that stimulates into rapid and vigor
ous growth the vegetable world, operates as an opiate upon ani
mal life, puts the Genius of History to sleep, and makes the
Present too indolent to prepare and preserve records of the most
important passing events.
Fort Charlotte is upon the summit of the hill upon which
Nassau, in a state of semi-tropical torpor, reposes. It is west of
the city, and commands the principal or west entrance to the
harbor. We passed a small open shore battery, and, ascending
the hill by a winding roadway, soon reached and crossed a draw
bridge over a dry moat, ascended a flight of steps cut in the rock
within the fort's walls, to the high rocky table within the ram
parts, where we found our military escort waiting to receive and
welcome us. We felt no desire to enter the fort as prisoners of

mwm

ill fc^^9?5fei^*
-«SHIIiwS5.*^l^wBfii''i^K
m-itf^wB^-wS^^I*?: ¦

FORT QHARLOTTE. 57
war, and no ambition to take possession of it for and in the name
of the Great Bepublic, although, if somewhat reduced in size,
and safely floated over the ocean, it might add a pleasing interest
to some great American Museum or Inter-national Exposition.
We were well satisfied to enter it as willing captives of British
and Bahama hospitality.
To our civilian eyes its armament did not appear formidable.
Its old and rusty ordinance seemed little better than Quaker guns.
No doubt, however, they exert as salutary a moral influence upon
Nassau's suburban colored inhabitants as would the best rifled
and breech-loading peacemakers of modern times.
To us the fort had a special value by reason of the extensive
and picturesque views it affords. In front, and far away to the
right and left, were the strings of beaded keys with which the
shores of New Providence are exquisitely jewelled. Numberless
rocks and reefs, lying in ambush in the shallows of the sea, were
revealed by the white, foaming breakers that dashed over them.
The iris colored and ribboned waters, with their settings of islands
and keys, constituted a lovely sun embroidered border for the
dark, deep blue dress of the ocean, which, in wide and waving
folds, brushed against the sky. Turning to the opposite side, the
contrast was most striking. The hill upon which we stood,
Prospect Hill to the right, and the Blue Hills in the distance,
are densely wooded banks and water sheds of a low, wet wilder
ness. We were very near to a colonial capital in which we had
witnessed, in rather a small way, something of the pride and
pomp and glory of this world. From our commanding positions
we were able to observe its " back country," and to see no small
portion of the island, yet Ave looked in vain for green pastures
and flowery meads, for villages and farm houses, for orchards
and gardens. The glassy surface of a small, salt and shallow
lake alone broke the continuity of the low, thick, impenetrable

58 ISLES OF SUMMER.
jungle. There was much to please the eye, but not a little of
the beauty was eliminated when we paused to muse and meditate.
Before we had an opportunity to do much of the latter, we
were invited by our military friends to explore that portion of
the fort which exists below the surface, in the very bowels of the
limestone hill. Colored subordinates attended with lanterns,
while the military officials devoted themseh'es to their guests,
and, with a gallantry characteristic of military men, personally
aided the ladies in treading the dark and dismal corridors, and
exploring the windowless rooms which have been excavated in
the rock. We entered the mouth of a small, round, deep well
hole, and descended a long flight of spiral stairs cut in the rock.
We traversed slowly and carefully in the darkness, one after the
other, the small convolutions of this long, perpendicular, immov
able, excavated stone cork-screw. Our memory of this artificial
military cave is not clear cut. It partakes somewhat of the dark
ness of the caverns we explored. The rooms and corridors, with
their sides, and floors, and ceilings of stone, were no doubt made
after some deeply cogitated and wise plan, but the most we rec
ollect is that they were / dark and dismal dungeons. Here and
there we remember to have seen loop holes, through which, from
safe coverts, musketeers might shoot the men who should succeed
in scaling the walls.
If the reader desires, in a cheap and comparatively easy way,
to experience the delightful sensations which a visit to Fort
Charlotte's subterranean rooms is so well calculated to produce,
he has only to go into some large deep cellar and follow a negro
with a lantern for half an hour in the darkness, and his curiosity,
if he is a reasonable man, will be fully gratified.
Not far from our first landing place at the foot of the spiral
stairs, we remember endeavoring to peer into the darkness of a
well hole in the rock which had been sunk to the foundations of

THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER. 6§
the bill, and to have drank some cool and pleasant-tasted water
which was drawn from it.
Nor would we if we could forget " The Queen's Chamber,"
where, for the first time in our lives, we ate and drank at the
expense of the British Government. With cheese and crackers
and wine, the darkness was in a measure dispelled, and the re
presentatives of the old and new worlds there assembled, in those
artificial Bahama caverns, drove a few nails into the great inter
national Platform of Peace.
After drinking to the health of the British Queen, and to the
prosperity and speedy and rapid promotion of the military gen
tlemen who had so kindly given us their time and attention, we
ascended into the sunlight, and soon, resuming our carriages,
returned to our hotel.
The military barracks formerly occupied at Nassau an eleva
ted position on the grounds of Fort Charlotte. They were com
menced in 1790, and finished in 1794, and cost the home govern
ment about $150,000. After being used for between forty and
fifty years, they were condemned as unhealthy, and taken down.
An obelisque has been erected upon their site, which is utilized
as a land-mark by vessels entering the harbor. Some of the
Nassau people, we were told, claim that this removal was accom
plished under a false pretext; that it was "a put up job;" that
tho military officers desired to be nearer to Nassau while doomed
upon the island of New Providence to play the part of Napoleon
Bonaparte at St. Helena. The sickness complained of they
allege, was caused by imprudence; some of the soldiers, after
spending an evening in the city, were too heavily loaded with
liquor to get back to their barracks without lying down to rest
and sleep in the damp night air. Hence the fevers from which
they suffered. But as the prevailing winds swept over the low
wet lands of the island before they reached the old barracks, it

60 , iSLES OF SUMMEfe.
is quite probable that, at least during the wet rainy season, they
were unhealthy.
Little Fort Montague has been keeping watch and guard at
the eastern entrance of Nassau harbor for a little less than a
century and a-half. It was finished in 1742. Lieut. Bruce,
who planned it, and superintended its construction, had suffi
cient skill as an engineer, and talent as an author, to ensure its
transmission to our own times doubly preserved. Its walls re
main intact, and the pen of its engineer secured for it an abiding
place in letters.
It is only as a relict and reminder of the by-gones that it has a
present value. It is not garrisoned, but its old and rusty guns,
in appearance at least, continue to guard Nassau's back door.
Although we never entered its walls, it always calls up pleasant
memories, as we often passed near it during the forenoon sails
and afternoon rides that did so much to fill our cup of pleasure
at Nassau.
The Governor of these islands, while Ave were in Nassau, sent
a written message to the Bahama legislative assembly, signed by
himself, in which he asked for an appropriation of £50 (about
two hundred dollars) to " His Excellency in Council, to cause to
be collected and printed the judicial decisions of the Superior
Court of this colony during the last quarter of a century." Does
this not indicate a great amount of legal business ?. What an
opening exists in this extensive group of islands, keys, rocks,
and banks for young and aspiring members of the legal pro
fession! Only £50 Avanted to collect and print all the deci
sions of all the Bahama Superior Courts for twenty-five years !
And two dollars will purchase sugar cane enough to support a
man and keep him fat and healthy for three months. Observe
also how the Governor regards the maxim that "A man cannot
expect others to think any better of him than he thinks of him-

lUXURIAN'T GROWTH OF TITLES. 61
self," — and styles himself "His Excellency!" The more we
study the royal institutions of the Bahamas, the more satisfied
we become that our boasted republic is a failure, popular gov
ernments a mistake, and that it is about time to give some of
our most skillful artists a liberal order for crowns, scepters,
thrones, and all the gilded trappings necessary to set up one of
those lofty imperial governments which are " ordained of God."
Perhaps it may be well to start one first upon the " Thimble
Islands,55 that our people may see with their own eyes how beauti
fully tho thing works.
In a newspaper which is issued there semi-weekly, entitled
"The Nassau Guardian" &c, we find under date of February
24th, 1879, a letter of welcome to the newly elected Bishop of
the diocese from the rector, wardens and vestry of a church up
on Harbour Island (one of the Bahamas) upon his first visit to
that island, and the bishop's reply. The correspondence has no
particular interest to the outside world except as it shows how
great, windy titles thrive when transplanted upon these wonder
fully productive calcareous rocks. The Harbour Island church
officials addressed this successor of poor and humble apostles as
follows: "The Right Reverend Dr. Francis A. Cranmer-Roberts, Lord Bishop of
Nassau, Reverend Father in God."
The Bishop in his reply concluded as follows:
"Believe me to remain,
"Your affectionate Father in God,
" Fkanois-Nassatt."
NoW if these little rocky isles of the ocean can sport " Fathers
in God," "Lord Bishops," and other high ecclesiastical digni-
6

62 ISLES OF SUMMER.
taries, in addition to a Governor and lords temporal enough to
stock a great empire, isn't it about time for the people of the
states to wake up and do something ? Haven't we all the materials
necessary for the manufacture of whole regiments of "lords
temporal" and "Fathers in God," and why shouldn't we have
our share?
Nassau harbor is about one and one-half miles long, and two-
fifths of a mile wide. Potter's Key runs mid-way down the har
bor from the east, and separates the eastern half into two parts.
The quays and landing places are on the south side of the
harbor, opposite the east end of Hog Island. The shipping
occupy the south side of the channel, which is separated from
the north side by a bank having fifteen feet of water. The
ordinary tides rise from two to three feet. It is not generally
practicable for vessels to enter the harbor from the east which
draw over nine feet of water.
Old wrecks and storm-worn and condemned vessels abound,
and suggest to a stranger Nassau's importance as a seaport. Her
back door is open only to small vessels, while her front door is
barred. That the bar at the main entrance to Nassau harbor is- often
a very serious obstruction to navigation, is evident from the fact
that the authorities have established the following bar signals :
" If the harbor is approached with a northerly wind, and there
is an uncertainty as to the state of the bar, should it be danger
ous to cross, a red flag will be hoisted on the signal staff near the
lighthouse. * * Should it be possible, but too dangerous to
get out, a white flag will be hoisted, and the pilot-boat will be
seen in waiting just within the breakers, showing a flag red and
white horizontally," &c.
The Governor in his report for 1878, stated that in September
of that year, for six successive days, no vessel was able to cross

THE HARBOR AND BAR. 63
the bar, on account of the disturbed state of the water, caused
by the high winds and storms which had prevailed outside. Also
that the harbor had not before been thus closed for so long a
period within the memory of the oldest inhabitants. One can
easily understand the danger of crossing at such times who has
watched the high breakers, Avith foaming crests, leap along the
bar from the back of Hog Island. Iti"s"oTten a pleasant and ex
citing pastime to approach this bar in a yacht, and watch the
high waves as they approach, getting near enough to them to
realize their power, and be baptised in their spray. How grandly
they approach, with their high and foaming crests, "white as
carded wool," or an Alpine torrent! The waves seem marshalled
for the onset. Like the measured tread of an army, they roll in
upon the honey-combed and trembling isle at short and regular
intervals. Here and there a daring column of assault leaps over
a depression in the rocks, but the main body, baffled in its pur
pose, rolls and foams along the rocky rim of the shore, envelopes
the lighthouse in a mantle of spray, traverses the Avhole length
of Nassau bar, and spends itself at last upon the white shore of
Silver Key. Like the heavy roll of distant thunder, but with
more exultant tones, loud voices from the troubled ocean mingle
with the hoarser and louder reverberations that arise from the
long line where sea and shore meet and struggle for the mastery.
Following the first great breaker there is always a second, which
in turn is succeeded by a third, at short and regular intervals.
All travel the same path, and, like SAvift moving snow-clad rail
road trains, glide rapidly across the bar. It Avas easy to believe
them strange monsters of the sea, they sampled so well its mys
tery and power.
A short lull occurs after the third breaker, of sufficient length
to enable waiting vessels to cross the bar. This novel race by
high mettled, spray-enveloped ocean steeds, with their long white

64 isles Of summer.
foaming trains, always secures a high degree of pleasurable ex
citement. We always welcomed the showers of glistening pearls
that on such occasions greeted, enveloped and followed us, as a
holy baptism from Neptune's sacred but unseen altars.
The inscription upon a coraline monument which occupies a
conspicuous position upon the sea bank opposite the western or
main entrance to the harbor, is strongly suggestive of the danger
which attends the crossing of the bar on some occasions. Below
the names of five men is the folloAving testimonial.
" Who perished on the bar of Nassau harbor, February 26th,
1861, while gallantly volunteering tlieir services in the effort to
save two men belonging to the pilot boat, which had been upset
by a heavy sea. This monument is erected by the legislature of
the Bahamas, to commemorate tlieir gallant conduct and self-
sacrificing heroism."
Thus does this monumental stone serve a double purpose. It
honors not only the dead but the living, for the men who, in
this substantial manner, recognized the noble virtues that ani
mated and inspired these obscure heroes in humble life, and thus
caused them to inculcate a lesson of sell-sacrifice to every passer
by, at the same time, all unconsciously, provided a memorial of
their own justice, goodness and practical wisdom.
On the first day of March, 1879, aided by a good glass, we
witnessed a grand and extensive display of breakers from the
cupola of the Victoria Hotel. The reefs, rocks, shoals, and out
lying keys were all marked and enlivened with the constant dash
and play of the foaming breakers. The plucky resistance of
Hog Island to the angry and impetuous assaults of the sea,, chal
lenged our admiration. The light house, which rises from that
island's eastern terminus, a spindle of limestone sixty-eight feet
high, had its top obscured with the spray of high breakers that
threatened to sweep it into the sea. We could not but muse and

***•*

THE BREAKERS. SHELLS AND SHELL-WORK. 65
meditate upon the question of its desirableness as a summer resi
dence, with a cyclone outside traveling at the rate of one hundred
miles an hour. For we well knew that at times, not only
" The startled waves leap over it ; the storm
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,
But steadily against its solid form
Press the great shoulders of the hurricane."
As we saw it on that occasion, we realized more than ever be
fore its great importance, and the beneficence of its mission.
We seemed to hear its hopeful and inspiring voice above the roar
of the angry breakers :
" 'Sail on!' itsaid, 'sail on, ye stately ships,'
And with your floating bridge the ocean span,
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse,
Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!"
The Bahamas offer special attractions to the conchologist.
Their waters abound with a great variety of handsome shell-fish,
and the shells, profusely scattered along the shores of the islands
and keys, as the tides ebb, are exquisitely beautiful in form and
color. They are mostly small, and so delicate and varied that
with them the natives have long been accustomed to make vari
ous articles for the adornment of persons and parlors. They
display much ingenuity and taste, and are said to be, if not su
perior, at least unsurpassed in this department of industrial
esthetics. Some of the products of their skill, as well as shells
that have been simply gathered from the beach and cured, are
most always to be found for sale in the court of the hotel. Also
delicate ornaments ingeniously made from the small scales of
fish. In this connection, the conchs deserve special notice, as in the

66 ISLES OF SUMMEB.
past they furnished to the natives a most important article of
diet, while the conch shells have been in demand in other coun
tries for their beauty, and have also to a considerable extent,
been utilized in the manufacture of various articles of personal
adornment. The conch also often secretes a pearl of considerable
value. The exportation of conch shells for five years, from 1856
to 1860 inclusive, aggregated $75,230, and for the next four
years, (during the war of the rebellion), only $15,445. In the
Governor's report for 1878 no mention is made of this item of
trade, and I infer the value of conchs exported that year must
have been very small. The conch is obtained by diving, and
sometimes has been found in very extensive beds. This may be
inferred from a passage on page 204 of McKinnen's Tour, A. D.
1803, in which he says — that the day after they passed Exuma,
they "steered toAvards a passage named Conch Cut, from a pro
digious quantity of conch shells which have been rolled from the
[Great Bahama] bank or adjoining shores, and thrown together
near this narrow pass." At the time of tho American revolution
oi 1776, the Bahama people relied far more upon the water than
the land for their support. Its fruitage of fish and wrecks never
Eailed. They had no more occasion than the birds to sow and
reap. At that time they acquired the sobriquet of Conchs.
A writer from the Bahamas in 1824, states that many persons
of the highest respectability were then distinguished by that
name, and that they appeared to be not very proud of it, — which
is not to be wondered at, as one might be expected to be equally
pleased to be called an oyster or a clam. The wreckers of Key
West, Fla., whose ancestors came from the Bahamas, are,weare
informed by an old sea captain, to this day also called conchs.
The surfaces of the inner spiral convolutions of the shell of thc
conch are highly polished, and have a most beautiful pink color,
which suggested to our mind the inquiry whether the living oc-

Nassau's public library. 67
cupant of this little but exquisitely furnished tenement is itself
conscious of the gracefulness and beauty of the inner chambers
of the house it occupies upon the submerged shelf of the ocean.
It was a very pleasant surprise to find at Nassau a well selected
Public Library of over seven thousand volumes. It does much
credit to the government which established and sustains it, and
evidences wise statesmanship. Some of the other islands it is
said, are similarly favored. A person, entitled to draw books, is
permitted to take out five volumes at a time — a very liberal num
ber, and probably more than could be alloAved if its patrons were
more numerous. Isolated as New Providence is from the great
world beyond the sea, the stranger, with the works of his favorite
authors before him, is lonely no more. He is in the midst of a
congenial world — the great world of letters — and no longer a
stranger in a strange land. His mind is enriched and seeded
with the great thoughts of the world's greatest thinkers, present
and past. Philosophers unlock the secrets of nature, and spread
her most profound and subtle laws at his feet. Bomance lays
bare for him the mysteries (to some extent distorted and too
highly colored) of the human heart, and the lights and shadows-
of all phases of human life. History, with graphic pen, dipped
alike in truth and fable, portrays the rise, the decadence, and
the fall of states and empires, and points out the deep-seated
causes that make and ruin nations. Divines cluster around him,
and, while some for a greater or less fee permit him to look
through their little pieces of smoked glass at the invisible world,
others, with lips hallowed with celestial fire from God's own
altar, discourse eloquently upon the mysteries of life, death and
immortality. While the poet, in soothing numbers, sings in
spired songs, conducts him on fancy's wings through all space,
and opens for him alike grim purgatorial doors and the golden
gates of the celestial city.

68 ISLES OF SUMMER.
Even in the drowsy air of the Bahamas a studious man is not
satisfied or happy if withdrawn entirely from the world of letters.
He must wander at will in what to him is the very garden of the
gods — those literary fields where is found the choicest fruitage
of the most gifted and cultivated minds. In the mild climate of
Italy, the great Cicero found coveted rest and repose, not in list
less idleness, but in a change of literary work. Mind, equally
with muscle, is toned up and strengthened by exercise, and soft
ens in voluptuous repose. The tired intellectual worker who
seeks in Nassau rest, may, therefore, in moderation avail himself
of the benefits of its library. With leisure and a library, his
mind will not become flabby Avhile his body grows fat.
The building used for a library is of octagon form, built of
stone, and was formerly a prison. Each of its eight alcoves has
a Avindow, so that it is well supplied with light and air. Con
nected with the library there is a newspaper and magazine de
partment, which adds materially to its value. A beginning (a
small nest egg) has also been made for a museum of natural
history.

CHAPTER IV.
The Royal Victoria Hotel. Scenes daily witnessed in its Court. Sacred
Songs of the Negroes. " Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn." — Shenstonb.
The words above quoted need to be qualified, for a landlord's
welcome is purchased by his guest's money, and disappears the'
moment tnat gives out. The destitute traveler is not presumed
to be a disguised angel, and the doors of few public or private
houses swing open at his approach, except for the purpose of
letting the dogs loose on him. Hotels are not kept for tramps,
and the latter receive but a cold welcome even in poor houses
which the public maintain in part for their benefit.
We were much pleased with the Royal Victoria Hotel, and re
ceived many little attentions and kindnesses at the hands of its
proprietor, (Mr. J. M. Morton), which it is a pleasure to ac
knowledge, but the visitors from the states must remember that
Nassau's justly celebrated hostelry is conducted on business prin
ciples, and that plenty of money or a good letter of credit is an
essential requisite of "the warmest welcome " of which the poet
Shenstone sung.
In a subsequent chapter, reference is made to the object for
which this hotel was built by the Bahama government, and to
the important part it played in the blockade running business
69

70 ISLES OF SUMMER.
during the late American Avar. It is so essential to the health
and comfort of invalids and tourists visiting Nassau, that we add
such other facts concerning it as strangers proposing to visit the
place will naturally desire to know.
This hotel stands upon high ground, a little below the crest of
the hill upon which Nassau is built. Three-fourths of the square
enclosed by Sherley, East, East Hill, and Parliament streets, is
occupied as a site for the hotel and for hotel purposes. It faces
the north, and commands, from all its front Avindows and piazzas,
a very fine view of the harbor, its sheltering island, some neigh
boring keys, and the out-lying ocean. It overlooks the judicial,
legislative and library buildings, and many private buildings
Avith their embowering trees. Its elevation and exposure to the
full force of the prevailing winds, secures for it the full benefit
of those from the ocean, which, freighted with refreshment and
health, seldom cease to blow.
The hotel proper is two hundred feet in length, four stories
high, and is well and substantially built of coralline lime
stone, and is surmounted by an observatory which commands
, a very extensive and fine vieAV. Piazzas ten feet wide surround
each of the three upper stories, upon which the windows, gen
erally reaching to the floor, open; thus furnishing convenient
places for promenades and sittings in the outside air, though
interfering somewhat at times, with the much to be desired
quiet and privacy of the adjacent rooms. Projecting from
the center of the building, directly over and of the same size
with the main parlor, there is a piazza in the third story, open
on the east, north and south sides, which affords an extensive
view greatly diversified and charmingly beautiful. Spacious
halls extend through the center of each story of the long build
ing, with tiers of rooms upon each side. The old King's College
School building constitutes a part of the hotel. It is in a line

THE ROYAL VICTORIA HOTEL. 71
with the new hotel building, and is connected with it by large
heavy blinds. It has stone stuccoed columns in front, its prin
cipal rooms are large and Aveil lighted, and admit of more privacy
and quiet than most of the rooms in the new building. The
dining room occupies all of the first floor north of the central
portion of the hotel, and large windows surround it upon three
sides. It has three tiers of tables, and is unusually light, airy
and pleasant. A refreshing sea-breeze seldom failed to make it
agreeably cool in the middle of the hottest days, and in no in
stance while Ave were there was it at night too cool or hot for
comfort. Hotel parties, and occasional evening entertainments
Avere given in the dining room, and when its walls Avere adorned
with palmetto leaves, and decorated with English and American
flags, it did not need the gay dance, SAveet music and the land
lord's generous and bountiful entertainment to make it attractive
even to the mere looker-on.
The parlors are smaller than those of large hotels at the north,
but the climate is so mild the parlors are less frequented.
The hotel is neatly furnished and well kejit. The meats,
many canned vegetables, and the smaller fruits and other sup
plies for the establishment, are i mported from NeAv York. Packed
in ice, in large refrigerators, every steamer brings large additions
to the landlord's stores. A very superior class of colored Avaiters,
uncommonly intelligent, and efficient, materially add to the com
fort and happiness of the guests. A gentleman well qualified to
judge in such matters expressed to us the opinion, founded on
his personal knoAvledge, that there is no hotel in the West In
dies equal to the Victoria, though some have cost more money.
We were informed by some of the visitors at Nassau, that this
fine hotel has not always been *v-rell kept, and that its patrons
have some times fared badly, and been the victims of extortion.
With an incompetent landlord in charge, and no other suitable

72 ISLES OF SUMMER.
house to go to, Nassau would be far less desirable as a winter
resort than we found it. For the invalid especially a good tem
porary home is essential to both health and comfort. We re
member to have heard only one complaint of its management
while we Avere there, an'd that was because the breakfast and
dinner tables were for only a portion of the season supplied with
oranges, many deeming that fruit almost a necessary of life in
Florida and the Bahamas.-
Bath rooms, supplied with hot and cold water, constitute a
part of the establishment, and accommodate those who do not
indulge in the luxury of a bath in the sea, there being nothing
in the temperature of the air or water to prevent sea bathing at
Nassau every day in the year. The price of board is three dollars
a day, and while for many it is a large sum to pay, yet persons
who had boarded for a while at some of the cheaper houses in
formed us that they obtained more for their money at the Royal
Victoria than any where else. Washing is an extra, the charge
being seventy-five cents per dozen.
A small building at the west entrance of the hotel grounds is
used as a barber shop, and for drinking and billiard purposes.
North of it is the hotel garden.
The court in front of the principal north entrance of the Royal
Victoria Hotel i&entered on three sides through eight large, high
archways, and its ceiling separates it from the main parlor of the
hotel, which is projected out from the main building. Being
large, airy, and shaded at all times, it is a favorite place of resort
by the guests of the house. As a consequence, the colored yacht-
men, including the smooth-tongued, experienced and skillful
Captain Sampson, and the good-natured, capable, but less showy
Captains Johnson and Mitchell, vyhen not on the water, were
ever, during the pleasant days, to be seen arranging for marine
exploring parties. The varied attractions of the adjacent waters,

THE HOTEL COURT. 73
islands and keys were portrayed with a fervid eloquence which
never ceased to interest. Near by were numerous carriages for
hire, which were much patronized. This court is also a great
bazaar, to which the colored people of all ages and of both sexes
who have anything to sell, resort in large numbers to dispose of
their wares. Here, therefore, is offered an excellent opportunity
to study the products of these rocky islands and of the adjacent
waters, which is much improved and enjoyed. Many kinds of
fruits, flowers and other vegetable products, corals in great
variety, sugar cane and candies, sponges of all sizes and qualities,
shells exquisitely shaped and beautifully colored, shell-work of
unsurpassed excellence, canes of the orange, lignum vitae, ebony,
satin and other woods, and many other articles make up their
stock in trade. Here also the colored boys came to scramble,
in the most laughable manner, for pennies, thrown to them for
that purpose upon the hard pavements of lime-stone and brick.
When down, and struggling for the prize, in a Avild tangle of
arms and legs, they seemed a hideous, writhing mass of black and
ragged reptiles of the most lively kind. When up, with faces
beaming with fun and frolic, their eager calls for " massa " to
" trow a penny dis way " soon dispelled the delusion. In these
contests, as well as on other occasions, their good nature and
amiability are pre-eminently exemplified.
For some days after we first arrived at the Royal Victoria,
young Africa gave frequent vocal entertainments in the court of
the hotel. The voices of some were soft and musical, and they
sang the religious songs which they had learned in " the shouting
meetings," with perfect abandon, and with a fervor and zeal that
glorified their dusky faces, swayed their bodies, and extended
down their arms to the tips of their fingers. A sacred waltz was
sometimes performed by ' ' Sankey " and his cousin, two little dots
of children, in the most cunning and comical manner imaginable,
7

74 ISLES OF SUMMER.
while they sang to the rhythm of the dance, " 0 it will be joy
ful," &c. When the miniature boy and girl near the close sepa
rated a little, alternately approached each other and withdrew,
ogling, twisting, bowing and coquetting, while they continued
to sing with many repetitions — " Meet to part no more; meet
to part no more," the gravity of the audience was sure to give
way in laughter and applause.
The songs sung on these occasions probahly have never been
printed or reduced to writing. Having taken some of them
down, we subjoin them for the benefit of those of our readers
who may have a curiosity to know something in regard to their
character, although the words alone give only a faint representa
tion of their merits when wedded by these uncultured people to
music, and sung with a fervid enthusiasm, born of a native love
of melody and of genuine devotional feelings. A prominent
member of the choir is Charley, the basket boy merchant — a
smart, bright, wide-awake little fellow, who ever has a sharp eye
to business.
A marked feature in the following was the rendering of the
" Oh's," the notes ascending and descending the scale in a very
lively manner, and the musical expression and richness of tone
added greatly to the effect.

I'd rather pray my life away,
Oh! oh! oh! oh!
Than go to hell and burn away.
Chobus.
Save me Lord from sinking down,
Oh! oh! oh I oh!
Save me Lord from sinking down.

SACRED SONGS OF THE NEGROES. 75
2.
I had a book — 'twas given to me, —
Save me Lord from sinking down,
In every line was victory.
Chorus.
' Save nie, &c. 3.
I had a book — 'twas given to me,-
In every line was victory ;
I had a book — 'twas given to me,
And every line convicted me.
Choeus.
Save me, &c. 4.
Satan made a catch at me,
He miss my soul and he catch my sins.
Choeus.
Save me, &c.

WRESTLING WITH THE ANGELS.
Tell me Lord, shall I be there now,
To sit on Zion's hill ;
To wrestle with the angels all night,
Until the break of day.
I'll wrestle with the angels
'Till the break of day.
Tell me Lord, shall I be there
To sit on Zion's hill all night,
And take a wrestle with the angels,
All night I all night I
Until the break of day?

76 ISLES OF SUMMER.
O tell me God, shall I be there now,
O tell me God, shall I be there now,
O tell me God, shall I be there now,
To sit on Zion's hill,
To wrestle with the angels
All night! All night!
Till the break of day .
To an uncultivated, excitable people, strongly imbued with a
taste for music, there is something grand and inspiring in the
great volumes of melody which issue from the organ, when its
keys are skillfully manipulated. Thrilled by the great tidal
waves of harmony, no wonder that it serves them as a symbol of
the ravishing music Avith Avhich all the arches and domes of
heaven are supposed to resound. Hence the following:
Unbelievers— hear the organ roll !
Hear the organ roll !
Hear the organ roll !
Don't you hear the organ roll,
On Mount Calvary!
N Hear the organ roll !
Street strollers — hear the organ roll
Hear the organ roll !
Hear the organ roll !
Don't you hear the organ roll !
On Mount Calvary!
In the next verse " Rum Drinkers " and afterwards "Back
sliders" and others are each in like manner called upon to "Hear
the organ roll," and the enthusiasm and poAver of musical ex
pression of the vocalists seemed to increase until all appeared at
last to have reached tlie very top of Mount Calvary, — a moun
tain they evidently believe exists someAvhere in the happy land
which lies just over the river of death.

SACRS6 SO#GS Of THE rfEGROES. 9t
The following is indicative of the fact that to some extent the
negro mind in Nassau has been affected by its contact with Ro
man Catholicism here, or upon some of the Spanish islands.
Go and carry the news.
Go and carry the news to Mary,
I'm bound down to Glory I
Go and carry the news to Mary,
Go and carry the news to Mary,
I'm bound down to glory I
When Satan says I need not fear,
He'll have my soul in the judgment day ;
I'd rather pray my life away,
Than go to hell and spend one day;
Go and carry the news to Mary,
Go and carry the news to Mary,
I'm bound down to glory 1
Carry the news,
Go and carry the news!
Sister — carry, carry the news 1
I'm bound down to glory.
Go and carry the news!
Go and carry the news I
Go and carry the news I
I'm bound down to glory!
Here is a sacred song which is particularly adapted to the in
dolent habits of life of this idle people. A heaven which neces
sitated labor would have very little attraction for them:
Come along my sister, come along,
Come along my sister, come along,
For the angels say there's nothing to do
But to ring the charming bell.
We are almost gone, we are almost gone,
But the angels say there's nothing to do

*?8 ISLES OF SUMMER.
But to ring that charming belL
Come along my sister, come along,
For the angels say there's nothing to do
But to ring that charming bell.
The following little piece is said to have been composed by a
colored girl a short time before her death. In the ringing of
heaven's bells, the singing of the angels, and mounting the hill
of Zion, her vivid imagination anticipated and had a foretaste of
the happiness that aAvaited her in the other world. It certainly
produced a cheery, comforting effect when musically and spirit
edly rendered by the dusky vocalists:
The heavenly bells are ringing,
Archangels singing.
The heavenly bells are ringing, —
O rise loving sister,
Let us go to Zion's hill !
Let us go to Zion's hill 1
The heavenly bells are ringing,
Archangels singing,
The heavenly bells are ringing,
In the morning.
At last the penny scramblers and the sweet singers of Nassau
caused so much noise, and such a disturbance of the quiet which
usually prevades these dreamy shores, that a man with a long
unsentimental Avhip Avas sent, Avhenever they assembled, to drive
them aAvay. Still, hoAvevcr, they occasionally appeared, and,
for the base coins of the strangers, exercised those gifts divine,
which, like milk in a cocoanut, one, from outward appearance,
would never for a moment suppose to exist.

CHAPTER V.
Flora of the Isles of Summer. Tlie Fertilizing Air. Large' Trees from
Stone Quarries, and upon the Tops of Stone Walls. Trees that will not Die
and cannot be Killed. Trees Within Trees. The Monkey Tamarind, the
Wild Fig, and tlie Ceiba or Silk Cotton Trees. Thompson's Folly. Palm
Trees — the Cocoanut, the African, the Cabbage and the Palmetto. The India
Rubber Tree. The Singing Tree. The Tamarind Trees, and Trees Valuable
for Timber, for Byes, for their Spicy Bark, and for Medicinal Purposes.
The Natural more Wonderful than the Supernatural.
"And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
With one continued sound, —
A slumbrous sound, a sound that brings
The feeling of a dream."
When visiting for the first time the isles of unending summer,
one cannot fail to be deeply impressed by their new, diversified,
and curious forms of vegetable life. It matters not that he is
not a close observer of nature, or an educated and trained botan
ist. Perhaps if he Avere he could not, by reason of his profound
technical learning, so well communicate to common minds, the
impressions and thoughts which such scenes make and inspire.
The learning of some seems to make them useful only to scholars.
Upon the island of New Providence we trod what Avas to us a
new world, and every climbing vine and flowering shrub, and
branching tree ministered to our happiness. We seemed to our
selves to be a newly made Adam first introduced to his garden,
79

80 ISLES OF StfMMEft.
fortunately relieved, however, from all obligation to " dress and
keep it." If we had the learning of an old and experienced
botanist, we should have seen too much. As it was, we saw as
much as, untrained and unpracticed, Ave could Aveil master, or
describe in a single chapter. A feAV pen-photographs of some of
the more striking floral scenes and pictures which we Aritnessed,
may communicate to our readers something of the interest and
pleasure Avhich the reality produced upon the mind of the author.
The first impression was one of astonishment at finding upon
such almost naked rocks anything above lichens and the smaller
and simpler forms of vegetable life. 'But nature is never as un
just or partial as she often appears to the casual observer. When
she withholds with one hand, she, with the other, is busy
dispensing lavishly her gifts. The principle of compensation
exists everywhere throughout her wide domain. Human life
and human experience teem with evidences of this great and
universal truth, Avhile the material Avorld, in all its varied and
wondrous forms, is permeated Avith the same great principle.
Upon the Bahama islands it is manifested on every hand. The
want of soil to cover the nakedness of the rocks finds material,
though not full compensation, in a climate so happily constitu
ted that life exists and thrives largely upon air.
Mr. Charles Burnside (whoso kind and obliging attentions we
are glad of this opportunity to gratefully acknoAvledge) took us
to the coral limestone quarry upon his premises, to which Ave haA*e
already referred, from which, for a hundred years or more, stone
has been taken for building purposes — including stone for the
Royal Victoria Hotel. On the floor of that quarry, bottomed
upon rock, and upon nothing else, Ave saAv in full and lusty vigor,
a wild fig tree, a species of the banyan, Avhich in forty years had
attained a great size, its many large branches toAvering high up
in the air with a lateral spread of about eighty feet. It was full

WILD' FIG TREES. 81
of fruit in every stage of development, the ripened figs being of
the size of the end of one's little finger, but as perfect in their
parts as the larger figs of commerce. Little lizards, like embryo
monkeys, were here and there seen through the green foliage,
while below, sheep were browsing, and eating the fallen fruit,
docile and happy, growing for the shearer their wool, and
fattening their carcasses for the butcher. These figs are to the
taste sweet and pleasant, and, though so small, their immense
number make them valuable. Children eat them, and upon them
hogs are fattened. Under this tree, the top of the rocky floor
was covered with a net work of its roots, one of which pene
trated the cellar of Mr. Burnside, some three hundred feet distant.
We saw tAvo of the same species of banyan tree that had ob
tained a large groAvth from seed blown by the wind or depos«
ited by birds on top of a stone wall. This wall was composed of
irregular fragments, and was two and a-half feet wide at the top
and about four feet high. The seed there germinated, pushed
out their little fibrous roots, which crept down each side of the
stone wall, and fastened to and extended among the rocks in the
fields which the wall in part inclosed. These rootlets enlarged
with the growth of the trees, while from the top of the wall
stems pushed up into the air. One of the trees had five stems
whose diameters varied from six to twelve inches. On the top
of a stone wall within the grounds of the Victoria Hotel, there
is the stump of a tree a foot in diameter, which unquestionably
grew there, as its roots are still seen where they entered and
pushed out from among the stones of the Avail. Having had
some experience in setting out, manuring, watching and water
ing trees in Connecticut, the pluck, enterprise, persistence and
independence of these wild Bahama trees challenged our warm
est admiration.
Mr. Burnside also called our attention to a banyan tree upon

82 ISLES OF SUMMER.
his grounds near his front gateway, having a spread of about one
hundred feet, inside the body of which there is the dead and
decayed body of a Pride of India tree. Mr. Burnside is about
thirty-five years of age, and when a boy, as he said, he "often
went all through the Pride of India tree, and there was nothing
of the banyan tree to be seen." A banyan seed in some way —
perhaps as the result of one of the experiments in raising trees
of some bold and intelligent bird — found lodgment where the
branches of the old tree diverged from its stem, from ten to
fifteen feet from the ground, and, ho way dismayed at the dis
couraging prospect, it did not repine at its hard destiny, or
arraign the goodness of Providence, but concluded to make a
bold and heroic struggle for existence. Its little, minute fibrous
rootlets started out upon a seemingly hopeless mission. To the
Pride of India, with its graceful branches, beautiful foliage,
and large and fragrant clusters of flowers, they were like so
many gossamer threads. But the days and months and years
rolled on. The rootlets noiselessly and stealthily passed down
upon all sides of the trunk that was giving them a support,
fastened into the rocks, and the doom of the Pride of India was
forever sealed. The law of "the survival of the fittest" was
exemplified. The little rootlets around the trunk enlarged into
stems, perfectly encircled the old tree with a living wall of a tree
of a most rampant habit of growth, and noAV, only by a close and
critical inspection, can a stranger ascertain that this immense
banyan tree perfectly encloses the dead body of a victim, whose
life it has, anaconda fashion, crushed out.
Mr. C. Watertoninhis " Wanderings," states that in Demerara,
S. A., the Avildfigtree in a similar manner often " rears itself from
one of the thick branches of the top of the mora," feeds upon
the juices of the latter, and in turn is taken possession of by
vines, and doomed to contribute a portion of its juices towai'ds

TEtf ACtTY OF TREE-LIFE. §3
their support and growth, so that " with their usurpation of the
resources of the fig tree, and the fig tree of the mora, the mora,
unable to support a charge which nature never intended it should,
dies under its burden, and then the fig tree and its usurping pro
geny of vines, receiving no more succor from their late foster
parent, drop and perish in their turn. " The piratical fig tree Ave
have described appeared to be receiving all its nourishment from
the rocks to which its net-work of roots Avere fastened, and from
the air that enveloped its wide spreading and lusty branches.
No usurping vines imperilled its life.
In the destructive hurricane of 1866, some six or seven large
trees were torn up by the roots in one of Mr. Burnside's lots.
One tree which Avas completely prostrated, still adhered to the
rocks by a few of its unsevered roots, and we saAv it green and
growing still, as if nothing unusual or adverse had happened.
A large Jamaica tamarind tree, four or five feet in diameter
at its base, was at the same time also prostrated, and it had thus
far resisted all the efforts of the father of Mr. Burnside during
his life, and of his son since his death, to kill and get rid of it.
Fires were built around it, but it Avas too full of sap to burn, and
the baffled fires Avent out. They " hacked' it " as they had time
and opportunity, but the wounds soon healed and Avere covered
with new bark. It Avas in the Avay, but they had thus far been
unable to wholly abate the nuisance. At one time a large section
of the trunk was detached and afterwards removed with very
great difficulty by piece-meal. After more than twelve years,
some six or seven feet in length of the butt remains. It is fas
tened to the rocks by a very small number of the old, and by large
re-inf orcements of new roots, which this butt end of the old trunk
has pluckily and persistently formed and tied to the under-lying
rocks. Every wound it has during all these years received, has
been perfectly healed, and over the whole of the part from which,

84

ISLES OF" SUMMER.

the section was detached — a circle not far from four feet in
diameter — a new and healthy bark has grown, While small new
sprouts have in different places made their appearance. Such
tenacity of life and recuperative energy we had not supposed ex
isted anywhere. Were the climate of the Bahamas as stimulating
to mind as it is to matter in some of its forms, its inhabitants
would intellectually far excel all other people past or present.
Notwithstanding the " never say die " pluck of this memento of
the great hurricane of '66, its continuance for many years is also
in part traceable to the absence of proper tools and appliances for
its removal. The mechanic arts are there still in a state of rude
and primitive simplicity. Aside from the building of small ves
sels of not exceeding a hundred tons, and at rare intervals a new
store or dwelling, there is little skilled labor, and an official re
port states that their only manufactures are ropes, baskets and
palmetto hats.
Two or three small sugar mills run by horse power, and a grind
stone in the rear of the hotel, rotated by hand, were the only
labor-saving machines we saw upon the island. The pine trees
are cut doAvn often, and perhaps generally, with long knives.
They are not very large, and the swinging of an ax Avould require
too great an exertion in this climate to suit the taste of its ami
able, good-natured and politically free negroes.
The Jamaica tamarind tree is sometimes called the Monkey
Tamarind, from the fact that occasionally in Jamaica a monkey
Avill insert its paw, Avhen open and extended, through the end
of the large, hard, Avoody jnod, which the tree produces, for the
purpose of obtaining the seeds Avhich it contains. Grasping
these, his paAV, Avhen closed, is too large for the hole, and either
because he is too stubborn and Avillf ul to open his paAV, or because
he has not sufficient intelligence and presence of mind to do so,
he holds on and pulls, and pulls and holds on, until one very

THE BANYAN TREE. 85
much his inferior in climbing trees discovers and captures him.
Though higher in the scale of life, and rounding out a larger
and more showy link, man, in ways equally stubborn and stupid,
often rushes upon and invites his own destruction. Let us there
fore, pity these unfortunates, and not laugh at them.
A specimen of the Ficus Indica, or banyan tree of India, is
erroneously supposed to exist near Nassau, and strangers often
leave that city firmly convinced that they have added to their
new and pleasant experiences a personal acquaintance with that
famous tree of the Orient. An intelligent native merchant of
Nassau, Avho is officially connected with our oAvn Government,
informed us that the (so-called) banyan tree near Nassau had
been imported — that it bore no fruit, and that it is the only gen
uine India banyan tree upon the island of New Providence.
He did not intentionally misrepresent, and would generally be
considered good authority, but he was mistaken. Confident that
we had seen little figs groAving upon the tree in question, we
visited it again, examined it more critically, and severed and
carried away from it branches of Avild figs in every stage of de
velopment. It is a species of thc Ficus, has the same habit of
growth Avith the Ficus Indica, but is identical in kind with the
other wild fig trees upon the island of New Providence, and ex
hibits far more strikingly than any of the others those peculiar
ities which have made the banyan tree of India so famous.
An intelligent and pleasing correspondent of the Troy Budget
(the Hon. C. L. McArthur) writes concerning the Nassau ban
yan tree, that " after its main limbs have grown out from its
trunk some twenty or thirty feet, the branches tum down to the
earth, taking root, and forming a column of support for its pa
rent branch, as well as another tree of itself." "It is a very
curious tree, furnishing friendly shade, ever extending by new
trunks, ever widening its circle by its top striking down and
8

86 ISLES OF SUMMER.
taking root, and every new growth and stem being still a part
of the parent tree to which it is ligamented as were the Siamese
tAvins." No doubt Mr. McArthur visited the tree he has under
taken to describe, and being a man of ability and literary culture,
his testimony is that of a credible witness — and yet, he is con
tradicted by the facts. He was, as all are who see it, astonished
and delighted to find a tree possessing such a peculiar habit of
growth, and multiplying itself into a large grove or small forest
But he failed to make such a close and critical examination as
was necessary in order to enable him to enlighten his readers in
regard to the method by which the singular result is produced.
Had he done so, he would have discovered that the branches do
not "turn down to the earth and take root," nor does "its
top strike down and take root," but from the outstretching
branches, at various distances from the stem or trunk, roots de
scend a distance of from ten to fifteen feet through the air, fasten
to the rocky bottom, enlarge from year to year, and thus by sin
gle and clustered living columns support the immense branches
from which as roots they descended. These roots thicken and
enlarge as they grow, and we saw some on their way to the sur
face rocks from one to three inches in diameter, bearded at the
end with a long hairy fibrous covering, which, we presume, ab
sorb nutriment from the surrounding air.
Milton makes a similar mistake, and if he did not originate
the error he has given it a wide circulation. He refers to the
Ficus Indica, but this tree also is extended by means of roots
which the lateral branches send doAvn to the ground from an
elevation above it of a number of yards. In the following lines
in Paradise Lost he has, in describing it, drawn in this respect
upon his imagination:

THE BANYAN TREE. 87
" The fig tree, not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such, as at this day to Indians known
In Malabar or Decan, spreads Tier arms,
Brandling so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade,
High o'er arched, and echoing walks between."
These roots grow and become important columns of support
to the wide and ever extending branches, many of them being
multiform or clustered, forming
" Huge trunks — and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine,
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved—
****** a pillar'd shade."
Some of these root trunks are not only singularly entwined
and twisted, but they have looped upon and attached to them
small aerial rootlets which add a new feature unlike anything we
had observed. Evidently little roots, in dropping down from the
nearly horizontal branches, stopped on the way at different dis
tances, varying from a few inches to a foot or more, to rest and
establish new bases of supply, and fastening, by a living growth,
to one of the root columns of support, they have pushed out
again into the air, and after making a further groAvth of a feAV
inches, they have again stopped for a similar purpose, fastened
to the same column in the same way, then pushed out again, re
peating the process until either the rocks are reached or they are
absorbed and lost in the older and larger growth to which they
have in different places adhered.
This tree is situated upon a clearing a little to the east of Nas
sau, and a few rods from the highway which skirts the harbor.
It is near a dwelling house known as "Thompson's Folly" — a

88 ISLES OF SUMMER.
tall wooden building, unsheltered, and so exposed to the wind
that the natives believed that it would fall an easy prey to the first
hurricane that should visit Nassau after its erection. They
therefore gave it the name which it still bears. But the evil *
prophets of Nassau seem to have been uninspired, and, as if to
discredit and confound them, the fearful and most destructive
hurricane of 1866, while it turned many a solid and costly struc
ture into a ruin, left this house intact and unharmed. Although
it survived the hurricane, it has been ruined by a bad name.
There it stands, gloomy and solitary — treeless, unprotected, and
unoccupied. Commanding a fine view, cooled by the trade winds,
fanned by every breeze that ruffles the surface of the neighboring
ocean, stately as an English official, seemingly in a good state of
repair, and having a very famous and curious tree for its nearest
neighbor, it has been rendered absolutely worthless, good for
nothing but for fire-wood in a place where fires are a nuisance,
because some meddlesome people have given it a bad name.
Thus has it often happened that Slander has given to Innocence
a name which has ever after remained like the brand of the divine
displeasure upon the forehead of Cain.*
A low terrace has at some time been made under this tree out
of small fragments of coral limestone, thereby securing a more
level surface for those who might repose or have picnics in its
cool and grateful shade. This is.now thickly covered with a net
work of roots, and the branches and roots have extended far be
yond its limits. Springing out of the rocks under the tree there
* Since this was written, and during the time of our second visit to Nassau,
"The Folly " was temporarily occupied by a medical gentleman and his fami
ly, who, it was currently reported, for prudential reasons, left their more
central city residence, (located not far from our hotel,) which a malignant
disease had invaded. In a subsequent chapter this disease will be more par
ticular^ mentioned and considered.

Slack beard's tree. ais plants. 89
Is growing a species of cactus, wild coffee bushes, and vines and
shrubs with which we were not familiar. The top of the tree
towards the harbor, being more exposed to the wind, was evi
dently rudely trimmed and dismembered by the hurricane, and
the growth and development appear to have been mostly on the
opposite side.
It Avas under a wild fig or banyan tree that Black Beard, the
noted pirate, in the early history of Nassau, "used to sit in
council amongst his banditti, concerting or promulgating his
plans and exercising the authority of a magistrate." The trunk
of it existed and Avas seen by McKinnen nearly a hundred years
afterwards, in 1804, as he states in his " Tour through the West
Indies." The author of "Letters from the Bahama Islands,
written in 1823-4," states that "the remains of an immense tree
are to be seen on which it is said the renoAvned Black Beard hung
his prisoners, and it is supposed by many that large treasures
were buried near it by the pirates. " A recent Nassau magazine
writer states that "Black Beard's tree" used to stand at the
north-west corner of the eastern parade ground.
Some of the highway fences in the outskirts of Nassau furnish
strong evidences of the favorable influence of this climate upon
vegetable life and growth. The posts in a green state, unhewn
and unmorticed, having in some ingenious manner been made to
assume an upright position, are pushing out and developing
branches, apparently unconscious that from some tree in the
forest they have been dismembered.
There are upon the island many species of air plants, and one
of these being suspended upon the wall of our room, obtained
nutriment enough from the surrounding air alone to make it an
object of attraction to a vegetable parasite, and a beautiful and
delicate little vine was soon discovered feeding upon its juices,
which grew, budded, blossomed and flourished, until the poor

9-3 Isles of summer.
little air plant, tired of keeping boarders while only living upon
air, turned yellow and died.
A most remarkable specimen of the ceiba or silk cotton tree
may be seen in the rear of the central one of a collection of pub
lic buildings Avhich form three sides of a quadrangle at the south
west corner of Bay and Parliament streets. It has a spread of
one hundred and sixteen feet from east to west, and of ninety
feet in the opposite directions. Its trunk is immense. Around
and forming part of it are huge leaves or partitions of wood some
five or six inches thick, which are more or less twisted; these
start from a point from ten to fifteen feet from the ground and,
reaching the earth at an angle of something like forty-five degrees,
form around the tree half-a-dozen large openings or chambers
resembling somewhat horse-stalls. There are a number of silk
cotton trees upon the grounds of the Royal Victoria Hotel, and
being deciduous, and developing their leaves at different times,
we were much interested in observing the rapidity with which
they fully leaved out after their buds commenced to swell. One
of these is very large, many of its huge branches are almost hori
zontal, and a spacious platform-, with seats for the accommoda
tion of musicians and others, erected in the tree, is reached
by a wide wooden railed stairway. These trees have large seed
pods, which are packed with cotton of a soft silky texture. The
long large roots, like huge anacondas, traverse the surface of the
limestone rock, and fasten the trees down with innumerable liv
ing clamps and threads. As if aware of the fact that they have
been brought by man from a land of comparative meteorlogical
quiet and repose, to an island that lies in the favorite track of
the hurricane, it does not, like the cypress of Florida, the pines
of the North-west, or the elms of New England, proudly push its
branches high up in the air, but Avith more modesty and prudence
than elegance, abruptly stops the upward growth of its limbs,

___Wm'%mM&

WlfibSM

The osiba, or silk cotton' TREE. 61
and makes up in lateral spread what it lacks in elevation. The
first mentioned silk cotton tree is believed by an apparently well
informed Nassau writer, whom we have heretofore quoted, to
have been brought from South Carolina, and, as he thinks, all
the others upon the island have been derived from it. None of
the latter that we saw, exhibit the wonderful formation of booths
around and constituting a portion of the stem Avhich characterizes
and makes famous their "ancestral tree."'
" The negroes," says Charles Kingsley, " are shy of felling the
ceiba. It is a magic tree, haunted by spirits. There are ' too
muchjumbies in him,'' the negro says, and of those who dare cut
him down, some one will die or como to harm within the year."
The one we have described looks indeed as if it was "possessed,"
and it is easy for any one to imagine that viewless goblins sport
among its roots and branches, and repose in the strange open
chambers of its buttressed trunk. Mr. Gosse says that in Ja
maica the negroes believe that "if a person throws a stone at the
trunk [of a ceiba] he Avill be visited Avith sickness or other mis
fortune," and that " Avhen they intend to cut one down they first
pour rum at the roots as a propitiatory offering. " We have no
doubt but that the favor of many embodied spirits has likewise
been secured by a liberal use of good Jamaica rum, a little differ
ently administered.
An old writer states that the silk cotton tree sometimes grows
so large that fourteen thousand persons can assemble under its
branches. There is a remarkable specimen of this singular tree at Trini
dad, which is thus described by Mr. Higgins, an English gentle
man, in his recently published "Notes by a Field Naturalist." ,
" We came almost suddenly upon a true monarch of the woods,
a silk cotton tree, (Bombax Ceiba), said to be the largest tree but
bne on the island. When young, the trunk of the tree is round,

62 ISLES OF SUMMER,
and beset with sturdy spines, capable, as we well know, of in
flicting a severe wound. As it increases in age and size, the
thorns fall off, and five or six broad buttress-shaped supports are
developed, star-wise, from the trunk, propping the tree in various
directions against the enormous overhanging force which must
bear upon it during tropical storms. * * * A rough estimate
of the buttresses gave a circumference of eighty yards, or a
diameter of about eighty feet. The compartments between the
buttresses resembled small angular courts separated by high
walls." He estimates that in these compartments, outside of
the solid trunk, if the thin dividing buttress were removed,
"2,400 people could stand round this ceiba," allowing each two
square feet of standing room.
In tropical and semi-tropical countries there is no tree or bush
which so attracts the attention and interests the mind of the
stranger from the North as the palm. It is one of God's most
valuable gifts to man, and he has few physical wants that it can
not be made in whole or in part to supply, while it greatly min
isters by its strange and varied beauty to his esthetic taste.
Botanists in classifying and arranging it divide it into five or
more families, seventy to a hundred genera, and a thousand or
more different species. In South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida,
we made the acquaintance of two of these, — the scrub palmetto,
with its beautiful long, green, radiating leaves, from which palm
leaf fans are made, and the palmetto tree, from whose tall,
straight, branchless stem or body, a rich cluster of similar leaves
spread out in every direction at the top.
The cocoanut palm has the same habit of growth, and thrives
upon the island of New Providence. But its leaves are quite
unlike those of the palmetto, being long and graceful, crowning
the tall, straight, branchless stein, and drooping in beautiful
curves over the thickly compacted fruit that nestles under the
shadows of its evergreen wings.

THE CABBAGE PALM. 93
There are in and near Nassau a few African palms which are
much admired. They are tall, stately, branchless and truly royal
trees, pre-eminently graceful and beautiful. The stem of this
palm is very delicately moulded, of small diameter, enlarging at
or near the center, and gradually tapering each way, presenting '
a novel and pleasing outline. Its long, feather-shaped, curved
and drooping leaves stretch out from its top on all sides, a chap-
let, light, airy and so exceedingly attractive that we never ceased
to look at it but with regret. While strongly resembling the
cocoanut palm, this tree appeared to expend less of its vital ener
gies in the production of fruit, and more in the development of
a higher type of beauty. The palms, esthetically considered,
rank high among the trees of the forest, and in the perfection
of grace and comeliness the African palm surpasses them all.
In this connection, the cabbage palm is entitled to a passing
notice. In some more favorable localities it is said to attain a
height of one hundred and twenty feet — nearly twice that of any
we saw in the Bahamas. As if animated by a noble ambition,
it wastes none of its energies upon "side issues," but, pushing
its branchless stem up boldly towards the heavens, it towers
above its less successful rivals, and in the bright, Avarm sunlight
of the upper air matures those long, drooping, graceful and
feathery leaves which reveal, even to the casual and distant ob
server, the noble family to which it belongs. Young, tender
and succulent leaves, at the base of those which are fully devel
oped, are formed and compacted into a light-colored head, which
is eaten as a salad. It is also cooked and prepared for the table
like the cabbage — hence its name.
Mr. Kingsley in his "At Last," gives the following descrip
tion of some cabbage palm trees which he saw in the West Indies.
" We stopped at a manager's, with a palmiste (oreodoxa olera-
cea) or cabbage palm on each side of the garden gate — a pair of

94 ISLES of summer.
columns which any prince would have longed for as ornaments
for his lawn. It is the fashion here, and a good one it is, to
leave the palmistes, a few at least, when the land is -cleared, or
to plant them near the house, merely on account of their won^
derful beauty. One palmiste was pointed out to me in a field
near the road, which had been measured by its shadow at noon,
and found to be one hundred and fifty-three feet in height. For
more than a hundred feet the stem rose straight, smooth and
gray. Then three or four spathes of flowers, four or five feet
long each, jutted out and upward like; while from below them,
as usual, one dead leaf, twenty feet long or more, dangled head-
downwards in the breeze. Above them rose, as always, the
green portion of the stem for some twenty feet; and then the
flat crown of feathers, as dark as yew, spread out against the
blue sky, looking small enough up there though forty feet at
least in breadth. No wonder if the man who possessed such a
glorious object dared not destroy it. "
In the low, wet, rocky hammocks the scrub or dwarf palmetto
is abundant. With consummate art nature thus hides her blem
ishes with a countless number of palmetto fans, brightly and
beautifully adorned with "living green," and supplemented with
a luxuriant growth of flowering shrubs and climbing vines. Is
it a cropping out and development of the divine in woman
when she utilizes the fan to hide her beauties ? The palmetto
yields a fibre, from' Avhich, Avhen reduced to a pulp, the strong
paper is made upon which the bills of the National banks are
printed. An ingenious gentleman in Washington has lately in
vented a machine by Avhich the tedious process of crushing the
fibre by hand is avoided.
Upon the premises of Mr. Charles Burnside we were shown an
India rubber tree — one of a class Avhich, thanks to American
genius, has proved in modern times to be of incalculable value.

INDIAN RUBBER TREE. SINGING TREE. 95
Ithas been utilized for man's benefit in so many ways that it has
become almost a factor in the problem of civilized existence. As
a representative tree, filled with juices of such great practical
value to the whole civilized world, we approached it with a feel-
.ing of reverence and of gratitude. Like all true merit it was
unostentatious and modest, and put on no airs. It flaunted no
gaudy colors, while looking down from its giddy elevation upon its
less gifted neighbors. It was perhaps as large as a medium sized
maple, and its leaves were thick and leathery, resembling some
what those of the magnolia grandi flora, but of a darker shade,
and less glossy and waxy. When Mr. Burnside's boys desire
rubber balls they, by tapping the tree, quickly secure an abundance
of sap, which hardens into rubber upon being exposed to the air
and sunlight. Upon the banks of the Amazon, where it abounds,
man is satisfied to simply live and propagate his lazy and indo
lent race, but the stimulus of the crisp and frozen airs of north
ern climes, thousands of miles away from the source of supply,
oauses a demand that essentially aids in the development of com
mercial enterprise — as Creative Wisdom intended it should.
Several kinds of trees in Nassau mature their seeds like the
bean, in pods. One of these has upon its branches in the winter
season a large number of delicate light-colored, silvery, translu
cent pods, about eight inches long, Avhich, being swayed and
shaken by the wind, so fill the air with soft, soothing music, that
the tree has been called the "singing tree." Some sour, cross,
crusty and ungallant individual has had the temerity to name it
"woman's tongue" — because it is never still!
This tree is of a large size, and loses its leaves some time after
it has flowered. Its blossoms have been described as particularly
beautiful but odorless, resembling the finest floss silk. Before
the tree leaves out, the blossoms hang, crescent shaped, from the
top of long stems. We arrived too late for its flowers, but in
season for its soft murmuring music.

»6 isles of summer.
A northern person naturally looks for the tamarind upon tropi
cal vines, but it grows in green pods, in great abundance, upon
trees tall and widespread. Negroes frequently brought for sale
to the court of the hotel a few of the green pods. They were
purchased, not so much for use, but as objects of curiosity,
although the tamarinds, when unpreserved, have a pleasant acid
taste, and, with the aid of sugar, make a palatable drink. From
the tamarinds of commerce the pods are removed, but the seeds
are enveloped in a second covering, and are connected together
with a fibrous string, as the reader has no doubt observed.
The trees of the Bahamas which grow valuable timber are
principally pitch pine, Madeira mahogany, horse flesh mahogany,
olive, cassava, mastic, fustic, cedar, button, white and black
torch, satin and lignum vitae.
Some Bahama trees, like the cinnamon, are valuable for their
bark; others, like the logwood, for their dyes; while certain trees
and many plants possess valuable medicinal qualities.
While at the Bahamas, we were more than ever before im
pressed with that Divine Wisdom Avhich pervades, as with a
living spirit, the most common phenomena of nature. If man
should first observe them in the maturity of his intellectual pow
ers, he would be lost and overAvhelmed in wonder and astonish
ment. In the early daAvn of his existence, before the reflecting
and reasoning faculties are developed, he sees and accepts them
as facts, and thus swallows unawares and without difficulty,
whole caravans of camels. Having thrived upon such a diet,
and experienced no injury from his childish credulity, it seems
foolish, in the later stages of life, to wrench and strain himself
over the little troublesome gnats that float, like moats in sun
beams, in an atmosphere mysterious and apparently supernatural.
Living upon the same meagre diet of rock, water, air and sun
shine — and upon nothing else — it seems incredible that the small

MYSTERIES PROFOUND IN* THE NATURAL, 97
islands constituting the Bahama group should produce forms of
Vegetable life so widely dissimilar and infinitely varied. Nature
has provided but one table, with a bill of fare exceedingly short
and simple, for all the wondrous display of fruits and flowers and
forests which these islands exhibit — a table which must, to the
rampant growers, look very discouraging. In the valleys and deep
rich soils of the river bottoms in the United States, the observer
naturally concludes that the vegetable commissary department
is in quantity, quality and variety, on a scale corresponding with
the magnificent floral world which it supports. But with a soil
nearly as scant as that which is found upon the Belgian pave
ments of northern city streets, the miracle of producing much
out of nothing is performed under our eyes.
Roots creep over the rocks and penetrate their crevices and
crannies, searching and collecting materials for the green, pol
ished, waxen leaves — the pure, white, and exquisitely perfumed
flowers — the golden balls and delicious pulp of the orange.
Near them are other roots entwined among and persistently
pushing into the little pockets of the same and similar rocks,
and, by an inexplicable alchemy, obtaining from them nutriment
for the growth of the tall stately stem, the large and graceful
plume, the dry husks, the hard shells, the soft and palatable
pulp, and the cool, sweet milk of the cocoanut palm. In like
manner the sapodilla, with its russet apples of " sugared honey "
— the long, large leaved, branchless banana, feather-crested like
the palm, with its large, pendent, purple fruit bud at the end
of a long drooping stem, around which its gloved ambrosial
fruit is thickly clustered — the lime, the lemon, the pawpaw
the pine apple, the guava, the star apple, the bread fruit, the
shaddock, the mango, the date, the almond, the sweet sap, the
sour sap, the fig, plums of different kinds, and many other
fruit-bearing and other trees, each, from lowest root to topmost
9

98" ..._; ISLES OF SUMMER,;
branch, having its "own marked and widely dissimilar charac
teristics and qualities,, fasten to the same common rock and
eliminate and perfect* their juices out of the same scanty and.
most unpromising materials. So also Avith the flowering shrubs
and vines, — a world of itself, -teeming with, blooms in unending!
variety, radiant with, every shade of color, and redolent with
unnumbered perfumes of marvelous sweetness,— upon the outer.
margins of which Ave stand appalled, and lay down our descrip
tive pen, conscious that we cannot do it justice. ..
How such Avon drous groAvths are rendered possible upon islands
so destitute of the rich fertilizing elements which are deemed*.
necessary for the proper development of vegetable life at the.
North, it is difficult to understand or conceive, and we are com-*
pelled to fall back upon that Divine fiat, whose faint murmurs,
recorded in Genesis, come to us through the dim shadows of a
past that shroud.the mysterious beginnings of time.

CHAPTER VI.
Fruits and Flowers of the Bahamas. Fruit in the Bills of Fare. Special
Notice of the Orange, the Banana, the Pine Apple, the Sapodilla, the Cocoa-
nut, the Hog Plum, the Shaddock, and tlie Forbidden Fruit. The Flowering
Trees, Shrubs and Vines.
"Pomona bore me to her citron groves,
To where the lemon and the piercing lime,
With the deep orange glowing through the green,
Their varied glories blend." — Thompson.
' ' Gorgeous flowrets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay."
Whether we adopt the theory that nature has stocked the
earth with luscious fruits for man's benefit, or created man for the
benefit of the fruit, and to secure its more perfect deA-elopment
from the sour, crabbed, wild, unseemly, primitive condition, in
which, when uncultivated, it exists, Ave must admit that fruit is
an important, if not an essential factor, in the problem of the
health and happiness of the human race. At all stages, and in
all conditions of life, man craves and requires the ripened fruits
in their season. One of the pleasures incident to visiting foreign
lands arises from the opportunity Avhich is thus afforded to pluck
and eat them in their freshness and maturity. In these days of
rapid transit by sea and land, when the ends and distant corners
of the earth are brought together, and space is almost annihilated,
99

100 ISLES OF SUMMER.
so that oranges in our cities are nearly as cheap and plenty as
apples, it is less necessary to visit the lands where they are indig
enous, or in which they have become naturalized, in order to
enjoy their beauty of color, delicious fragrance, and exquisite
flavor. But some fruits are too delicate and destitute of keeping
qualities to admit of exportation to distant lands. Others are
taken from the trees before they are fully ripe, and never acquire
on shipboard or in northern markets the perfection which only
the tropical sun and air can impart. Besides, a tropical orchard
loaded with fruit, some in all stages of development from flower
to fruit, is a most charming sight, and alone compensates for the
discomforts and fatigues of a long journey. Each member of
the whole citrus family must be seen at its home to be fully ap
preciated. Boxes, barrels and baskets are a very poor substitute
for the waxen and varnished leaves in which the golden balls
nestle by thousands in the closely compacted tree tops.
In Nassau, as well as in Florida, oranges and bananas and
other tropical fruits have a prominent place, in their season, in
the breakfast and dinner bills of fare. Every morning at the
Victoria Hotel, Avith some few exceptions, as soon as we had
taken our seats at the breakfast table, there was placed before
us a large fruit dish filled with oranges and bananas, together
with a bill of fare, a pencil and a slip of paper. After making
out and giving to our neatly dressed, polite, and generally effi
cient table servant, our breakfast order, the fruit, regaled and con
soled us while our breakfast was being prepared. With the fruit
dish before us, there was no limit to our indulgence except that
which appetite and a wise discretion imposed: We found the
Bahama oranges of good size, and excellent flavor, a trifle sweeter
than those of Florida, owing, Ave conclude, to the fact that they
matured and ripened in a warmer climate. The bananas were
of a superior quality. After the long fast of the night, the rich,

ORANGES Affb BANANAS. 16l*
sub-acid juices of the former were particularly agreeable and grate
ful. They soothed and gratified the nerves of taste, took away
the rough edges of appetite, and prepared the stomach for the
heavier work it was soon to be called upon to perform. At din
ner the same thing was repeated, except that the order was re
versed, and the tempting dish of golden and yellow fruit came
to stimulate the appetite after it had been subjected to the tempt
ing influences of along and varied bill of fare. It does not take
a great while for these agreeable customs to become deeply and
firmly rooted. Oranges to daily break our fast in the morning,
and delightfully croAvn our afternoon meal, are felt to be a neces
sity. Without them the most elaborate feast fails to satisfy.
New Providence relies upoii Abaco for a very material part pf
the oranges which its market requires, and in the spring of 1879
our landlord imported some from Florida, and yet the island
abounds with wild, waste land and idle people.
The banana resembles the pear in this, that its quality is im
proved when it ripens dissevered. The long stem, thickly
covered with fruit in various stages of development, hangs pen
dent, with a large purple terminal bud, which constantly ma
tures rings of fruit blossoms as it grows and gravitates towards
the earth, with its leaves — narrow, very long, green and grace
fully drooping, — rising from a green sheath, is beautiful to
behold, and its novelty never wore off, so that almost daily we
had to stop and admire it. Our readers are all familiar with
this fruit, for it is in New York and in other northern cities
what it is in and near the tropics; its habit of growth, aside
from its large and beautiful terminal bud, is readily seen in the
bunches so extensively exhibited wherever at the north southern
fruits are offered for sale.
The opinion we heard frequently expressed that the banana is
unhealthy. Some assured us that it always distressed them when

'» ISLes Of suMMeS.
ey ate it. . Others indulged in its use freely and with apparent
ipunity. We were at first very incredulous when stories reached
: seriously reflecting upon it as a disguised enemy of the human
omach and constitution. We gave it our confidence, and also
om very near to our hearts. We defended it to the best of
ir ability, with zeal if not with knowledge. We said it Avas an
ipeachment of Divine Providence to allege that its golden links
most delicious sweetness — so tempting to the four senses —
[•"ht, touch, taste and smell — Avere indigestible, health-destroy-
g, deceitful and bad. But Ave began finally, to have doubts,
id at last thought Ave perceived after eating them, an unpleas-
it sensation right in the center of one of our seats of happiness.
'e inquired concerning it of physicians, and found, as in other
ses where experts testify, that they Avidely and materially dif-
red. Very reluctantly and Avith some misgiAings, we are com-
slled to admit, that, being plucked when quite green, for that
some other reason, it does not agree Avith all, and in many
ses is injurious to health, yet the banana is said to be " exten-
rely used for food, and in many of the Pacific islands it is the
a/ple on Avhich the natives depend. In its immature condition,
contains much starch which on ripening changes into sugar.
* * From the unripe fruit, dried in the sun, a useful and nutri-
ms flour is prepared." — [British Encyclopedia.] It would seem
Dm the published analysis of the fruit, and of the flour made
_m it, that it must generally be a healthy article of diet for
althy people, and our advice, if asked, would be that once given
us by a skillful and experienced physician — "eat of it, if you
:e, until you ascertain by your personal experience that to you
is hurtful."
The banana is an herbaceous plant, and, after fruiting, its top
js, but it annually sprouts again from its roots. It attains a
ight of from fifteen to twenty feet, and its curved and droop-
j leaves have a width of from one to two feet.

•:::.' PINE APPLES. "-- 103
Among the tropicalfruits that we were always pleased to give
house room in the "frozen north, was the pine apple, and now that
we were upon one of its native rocks, or upon rocks where it had
become thoroughly naturalized, we had a desire to see for our
selves the manner of its cultivation, and the processes and stages
of its growth and development. Our curiosity was gratified in
the following manner:
In going to the caves in the Blue Hills we took the shore
road, or the extension of Bay street to the west, and skirted for
several miles Delaport Bay — a body of water which Silver, Long,
and North Keys, with their connecting submerged reefs, shelter
from the ocean, and which as you approach Nassau, after cross
ing its bar, stretches away to the right. Passing the caves nearest
to the highway, we ascended a little hill, turned abruptly to the
left, followed for a few rods a carriage road through the dense
low woods, and, leaving our carriages near some small negro
cabins, and following our very dusky guides, started on a foot
path for the more extensive caverns which hide in the hill from
half to three-quarters of a mile further to the east. The trail
led us through the center of a pine apple field which covered
fifteen acres. It was termed an " orchard," but there was no
thing in its appearance suggestive of such a name. We found
it humble, lowly and modest. It put on no airs, and evidently
had no ambition to occupy a conspicuous position and make a
show in the world. This West India " apple " does not grow in
clusters like the cocoanut, nor upon high, wide branching trees
like its northern namesake— -but singly upon plants which attain
an average height of about one and a-half feet. The lowly plant
has long narrow leaves or fronds, hard, thick, coarse, bayonet-
shaped, and with sharp serreted edges. A single fruit stem
pushes up from the center of the root, blossoms, and in about
eighteen months from the time of planting matures a single

104 ISLES OF SUMMEft.
apple. One plant, producing one apple at a time, will contihue
to yield an annual crop for three or four years. There are three
varieties; the Sugar Loaf, which is juicy, of excellent flavor,
and excels the others in keeping qualities ; the Cuba, which is
.of larger size, firmer texture, and less sweet than the sugai loaf
and commands a higher price ; the Bird's-eye, the cultivation
of which has been pretty much abandoned because of the de
struction of the crop by rats and land-crabs. Gov. Rawson states
that of a forty acre field of the sugar loaf variety, the rats de
stroyed 6000 dozen, or one-third of an annual crop. Land-
crabs, he says, "like locusts elsewhere, march straight through
a field and consume all the fruit in their course."
It is raised from slips — 2000 dozen of the sugar loaf, and 1600
•dozen of the Cuba to an acre. In the "orchard" we crossed,
the cocoanut had been planted among the pines so as to insure
a cocoanut grove when the pines ceased bearing. The rocky sur
face was covered and concealed by the pines, and in " clearing "
the plantation, (they evidently could not if they would hoe it),
it is said "the laborers are obliged to wear canvas leggings and
gauntlets to protect them from the spines of the leaves." Gov.
RaAvson says, the fields are " or ought to be cleaned six times in
the year!" He states also that the average weight of the sugar
loaf is three pounds, that it yields one-third of the quantity
planted, and lasts five years ; that the Cuba has an average
weight of three and a-half pounds, yields one-half of the quan
tity planted, lasts only three years, and will thrive upon soil
considered unsuited for the other varieties ; also that the Cuba
is preferred in the United States, and that the sugar loaf, by
reason of its superior keeping qualities, is preferred for the
English market ; that it is uncertain whether the pine apple
is a native of the Bahama Islands, or has been introduced from
the Windward Islands or Cuba ; that the value of 229,226 dozen

PINE APPLES." "SAPODILLAS. 105
exported in 1864was £21,299— which makes theih 'average-abdi.it
four cents a piece; that in shipping the pine to the United
States it is stripped of every thing but its head, while the whole
plant was formerly sent to England, the leaves and shoots being
wrapped round the fruit to keep it fresh, but that since 1858
only the shoots are left on the stalks ; that the fruit is arranged
in tiers, great attention being paid to ventilation; the hatches are
left open during the voyage ; serious losses often occur on ship
board arising from exceptionally bad weather and long voyages,
as well as from other causes. The shoots are used for new plan
tations, and as these are sent with the apples to England the
price is for that reason increased. There are two annual cut
tings : the Cuba is cut early in May and late in June, and the
sugar loaf from the 1st to the 20th of June, and in July and
August. As in 1879 and also in 1880 we left the Bahamas in
April, much to our regret we were unable to test the quality
of pine apples fully ripened in the field.
The sapodilla is very abundant and cheap in Nassau. The
tree is large and is a good bearer. The fruit is of a uniform dull
dark brown color, and almost unpromising in its outward ap
pearance as a cocoanut; Its skin is very thin, its flesh yellow,
soft and sweet, its shape oval, and its diameter from two to three
inches. A taste for it has to be acquired, so that while it is dis
carded by the many, the few strangers who have learned to love
it, esteem it very highly. It is conceded to be a very healthy
fruit. We saw but two -varieties. Some specimens of the fruit
in size, flavor, and richness of the coloring of the flesh, were very
much superior to those offered ordinarily for sale.
The cocoanut is cultivated in the Bahamas, and thrives in some
parts of New Providence. Gov. Rawson includes it in a table
containing the names of twenty-three varieties of fruit which
were growing upon the Bahamas in 1864, and which he claimed

106 ISLES OF SUMMER.
were indigenous. Others, however, think that it is an exotic.
Upon general principles we should, in the absence of positive
testimony to the contrary, incline to the Governor's opinion.
It flourishes best in the vicinity of salt water, and is found up
on most of the inhabited islands all over the ocean world within
and near the tropics. It is, perhaps, God's most valuable gift to
the people inhabiting not only almost innumerable islands, but
large portions of the main land. Every part of it ministers very
materially to man's wants. The milk and meat of its fruit con
stitute a considerable part of the food of the people who bask in
its shade or live where it grows. In the island of Ceylon (it is
credibly stated) the wealth of men is estimated by the number of
cocoanut trees which they own.
This one fruit of itself furnishes full and ample evidence, to
an observing and thoughtful mind, of the existence and good
ness of God. Having made it, and in so many ways fitted it to
supply the prime necessaries of human life in those parts of the
world where frosts are unknown, He has provided in a most won
derful way for its preservation and propagation. Wrapped up
in a shell so hard and impervious that it is carried a thousand
miles and more for the purpose of holding the cool water brought
to the earth's surface in " the old oaken bucket that hangs in the
well," we find the life-germ from which it is developed. Around
that shell are placed and compacted innumerable threads which
require, when dry, the aid of an axe to detach them from the
treasure they so persistently guard. Around these wrappings
there is another hard vegetable shield, wisely designed and curi
ously made, and the whole is so wonderfully contrived and ad
justed that it will float safely for months upon the ocean in calm
or storm, secure from molestation by reason of its outward des
titution of comeliness, flavor and fragrance, from any of the
hungry and voracious monsters of the deep, until, at last, some

dOCOAltUTS. THE HOG PL-fr-M. TriE SttADDOcfe. 107
huge, angry mountain waA'e hurls it, as if in anger, a seemingly
useless thing, high upon the land, where, when the fingers of
decay have sufficiently loosened the strings and hard envelopes
which have so securely confined and guarded it, the enclosed.
life-germ sends down its little rootlets into the congenial soil, a
vigorous stem pushes up into the air and the sunshine, as if, like
a little Columbus, to learn what sort of a new world it has finally
landed upon after its long sea voyage. From this little and un
promising beginning, on many an ocean isle, the invaluable and
graceful cocoanut palm has multiplied and extended, and made
it possible for man to live and flourish in comparative idleness,
Avith few substantial wants that the cocoanut cannot abundantly
supply. Upon Mr. Charles Burnside's grounds we saw a " hog plumb "
tree with a plentiful supply of small, green fruit in clusters upon
the branches — but not a leaf in sight. The juices are not in this
instance perfected in the leaves for the growth of the fruit.
The shaddock was there with its large glossy leaves, and per
fumed the air with its white blossoms. The misletoe had estab
lished itself upon its branches, and, as if lineally descended from
the old Nassau pirates, flourished upon the rich sap it had done
nothing to eliminate. Both the shaddock and the grape fruit
belong with the orange, lime and lemon, to the citrus family.
The former is sometimes over two feet, and the grape fruit over
one foot in circumference. Almond trees, large and beautiful,.
Avere just leafing out. Mr. Burnside showed us also, the " For
bidden Fruit " tree, and we would willingly have followed the
example of Adam and Eve, and tested the quality of its sweet
fruit, if we had had an opportunity to do so, even at the risk of
being forever banished from the pleasant fruit garden where, it.
was growing.
Gov. Rawson states in his report, that "The soil and climate

lOe. ISLES OF SUMMER.
of the Bahamas are admirably adapted for all tropical and semi-
tropical fruits." His table of those which are indigenous em
braces the following: the sapodilla, cashew, pine apple, sweet-
sap, sour-sap, papaw, sour orange, lemon, star-apple, cocoa plum,
cocoa nut, seaside grape, water melon, mamee, plantain, banana,
love-in-a-mist, guava, Spanish hog plum, hog plum, scarlet hog
plum, tamarind, and wild grape.
"The luscious fruits, which of their own accord
The willing ground, and laden trees afford."
The following, he states, have been introduced at different
times: the Jamaica (custard) apple, ground nut, broad fruit,
ackee, citron, orange (citrus aurautium), mandarin orange (cit
rus decumana), two species of shaddock, lime, rose apple, fig,
mangoe, avocado pear, pomegranate, date, balsam apple, mul
berry, broad-leafed almond, grape and jujube.
In Nassau, as elsewhere, every month has its own special and
peculiar floral display, although many flowers continue from
month to month to unfold their blossoms. Some varieties of
indigenous floAvers are always to be found in the wild and tangled
woods. The ladies, rettTrning from their rides near the close of
day, generally bring with them the curious growths of tree, and
shrub, and vine, which nature has spontaneously produced and
scattered with lavish profusion on every hand. The flowers are
massed in trees and ambushed in thickets. Here a flowering
vine festoons a wayside tree Avith garlands of beauty, and reaches
out for a caress as the stranger rides by; Avhile there, from their
little many-hued censers, flowers of more rank and stately growth
shed upon him their sweet tributary incense. One soon is com
pelled to adopt as his own, the enthusiastic sentiment of the
charmed poet who sings:

Indigenous flowers. 109
"Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining,
Far from all voice of teachers or divines,
My soul would find in flowers of thy ordaining,
¦ Priests, sermons, shrines."
The following extracts from "Letters from the Bahama
Islands," written by an American lady in 1823-4, give an account
of some of the more prominent flowers to be seen in Nassau and
its suburbs.
" The indigenous plants and floAvers, and flowering shrubs are
abundant and beautiful; and, it is said, there are five thousand
varieties. I am very fond of the mignonette tree; it bears pale
yellow and green flowers, and has the most powerful and delicious
fragrance. The acacia is very different from that of the same
name with us; the flower is a little, round, yellow ball, about
the size of a chestnut, looks like a tuft of fringe, and is filled
with a yellow powder and has a sweet perfume. The blossom of
the mahogany tree is beautiful, and so is the yellow and crimson
flower fence or Barbadoe's pride. The coral tree is very curious;
the flower looks like a bunch of red, cut coral, and grows at the
top of the branch distinct from any leaves; the stem, which is
five or six inches long, stands perfectly erect, and, though beau
tiful, it is ungraceful. The coral vine bears a blossom of the
same color and shape, and runs in Avild profusion over all the
stone walls and hedges, but has no odor. Myrtles, jessamines,
tuberoses, and roses, the amaryllis of every species, the convolvu
lus, the sensitive plant, and Arabian jasmine, are seen in every
direction, and grow wild among the rocks. Groves of the olean
der are very common, and, prized as they are with you, are
thought almost vulgar here, as well as the beautiful south-sea
rose. The mutable rose is a native of this climate; the bignonia
bears a yellow trumpet flower; the blue passion flower, which
10

116 ISLES OF SUMMEfi.
hides its head among clusters of dark green leaves, is one of my
favorite flowers. * * * The yellow jessamine, and a variety
of flowering myrtles, fill the air with their perpetual fragrance.
* * * I have seen the sweet briar and the multiflora rose in
blossom, growing very luxuriantly. "
" The bayonet plant is properly named for its leaves are thick
and sharp like those of the aloes, and point upwards like those
of the pine apple ; it grows about thirty feet high, and forms an
impenetrable hedge. From the center of the leaves, directly on
the top, bursts a stem about two feet long which is thickly cov
ered with dazzling white flowers, the size and shape of a crown
imperial ; the inside of the calyx is of a pale yelloAv, and hun
dreds of these little bells hanging downwards, cover the stem,
and the whole is two or three feet in circumference. It has the
most powerful and oppressive fragrance. The flower of the
cocoanut is very beautiful. There is no end to the variety of
pretty flowering vines and shrubs which spread forth their rain
bow colored flowers to charm the eye, and mingle their spicy
odors with the soft winds to delight the senses. The coffee and
cotton trees are not very numerous, but the air is eternally
filled with the fragrance of the orange, lemon and mahogany
blossoms. There is a wonderful variety of medicinal plants here,
and almost every leaf affords a panacea for some disease."
Oleanders are very common and grow to a large size. They
adorn many homesteads, but lose something of their value by
reason of their great abundance. They continued in bloom dur
ing all the time we remained in Nassau; the blossoms of some
were white, others pink, and others a dark red color. A prickly
pear species of cactus of a vigorous, large, rank growth, is also
found upon the island, and is in many localities very abundant.
A large, exquisitely beautiful, plume-like and delicate blossom,
called the shell plant, was frequently offered for sale in the court

tLOWESS. Ill
of the hotel, and was greatly admired. Colored girls daily fre
quented the court well supplied with beautiful boquets of flowers
of various kinds, and particularly of roses, to give to their friends
whose good will they wished to cultivate, or to exchange for the
money of the strangers. There is also to be seen a beautiful
running vine which blooms about Christmas time, and for that
reason is called the Christmas flower. It is not a favorite with
the agriculturists of Nassau because of its rank and persistent
growth. Occupying conspicuous places in the floAver borders in front of
the hotel were large clusters of rank growing lillies, whose bells,
suspended upon long stems, with silent eloquence spoke to the
mind and rang out peals of perfume upon the surrounding air.
They also grow wild upon the island. We were surprised to learn
that the healing balm of which squills are composed is obtained
from the bulbous roots of this species of lilly. The little negroes
are accustomed to steal these and other flowers belonging to the
hotel before they have time to fully mature, and with as inno
cent a look as they can command, offer them at the court of the
hotel for sale. But while fully appreciating the delicious per
fumes that gave such a charm to the soothing air, and the end
less variety in form, habit of growth and color of the flowers,
we could not at times refrain from unfavorably contrasting the
animal life of the Bahamas, with their flora, and to harbor the
thought which one of Shenstone's stanzas, slightly altered, ex-

" Boast, favored islands, boast thy flowery stores,
Thy thousand hues by chemie suns refined;
'Tis n.e the dress or mien the soul adores,
But the rich beauties of the immortal mind."
The floral display upon the islands and in Florida was less

112 Isles of summer.
abundant and brilliant than usual in the early part of -the year
1879, by reason of the fact that the season was exceptionally
dry.

S3"

¦**•*•*."s
I ¦:
CH.

l-^i  Jit.

m

CHAPTER VIL
The Soothing Languid Air and its Consequences. Ambition Dies. The
Bahamas not Included in the Primal Curse. The Island of Indolence.
Soothed Sharks. I_aey Air and Blood Putting Insect Plagues to Sleep.
Mice and Men alike Affected. A Large Fish Story. Sea Turtles Resigned to
their Fate. Negroes Contented and Happy. Good Order in Nassau. How
a Millenium can be Secured. Agricultural and Manufacturing Industry not
Booted in the Rocks. Sugar Making. Small Islands Unfavorable to Intelleat-

"Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
Shall ever medicine thee to such sweet sleep." — Shakespeare.
The Bahama air is very soothing, and soon makes itself felt
upon nerves that are sensitive, disordered or unstrung. It en
ervates like an opiate, and the neAvly arrived stranger soon suc
cumbs to its influence. It is difficult to do anything in the
warm and languid air, when not overcome by sleep, but muse
and dream. It is very entertaining to observe the neAV comers
from the states when a passenger steamer arrives. They step so
quick, and talk so fast, and inquire so earnestly, and commence
so soon to crowd an immense amount of walking, riding and
sailing into a single day, economising time, and drawing upon
their capital of latent strength and vitality as though in vigor
and endurance they were millionaires. The amount of sight
seeing they accomplish in two or three days is astonishing. But
in less than a week the warm air takes all the frost out of them,
and wilted, languid and limpsy, they loll, and lounge and loaf
113

114 ISLES OF SUMMER.
in the shade as though "to the manor born." It requires the
stimulus of a steamer nearly ready to return to the States, to
energize one sufficiently to write a letter home. It is a luxury to
breathe and feel the soft air, but it inclines to repose; it puts us
in a state or condition of rest. Bold enterprise and tireless energy
are quickened into life by cold winds from the snow-fields.
" There's iron in our northern winds,
Our pines are trees of healing."
Not only is ambition not indigenous in the Bahamas, but,
like many other exotics, it has but a sickly and short-lived exist
ence when introduced from abroad. The primal curse that
doomed man to a life of labor, does not seem to have extended'
to these isles of unending summer. In fact, it is only in such a
climate as these islands possess that labor is a curse and not a
blessing. Indolently reposing in the shade of a tropical orchard,
fanned by the sea^god's invisible wings that seem ever in motion,
the inhabitants of these favored islands have no occasion to work
(as we of the north understand that word) in order to supply
their simple wants. It is therefore apparent that the original
Garden of Eden must have been less favorably situated for lazy
people than this part of her majesty's possessions.
New Providence has been called by one of its enthusiastic ad
mirers, in the pages of Scribner, "The Isle of June." It may
with equal propriety be named The Isle of Indolence. At all
times, in sunlight and starlight, it seemed as if unseen spirits
"Spread forth their downy pinions, scattering sleep
Upon the drooping eye-lids of the air."
Man there soon passes into a semi-torpid state, and while the
wear and waste incident to an active life is avoided, the recuper-

SHARKS CHLOROFORMED* BY CLIMATE. 115
ating powers are, as in sleep, quietly at work. Entering the
dining room of the Victoria Hotel for our breakfast soon after
eight o'clock one morning, and finding as usual at that early
hour nearly a hundred seats at the tables unoccupied, Ave said to
the head waiter, " There are a good many lazy persons in this
hotel." "Yes," he replied; "it's the place to* be lazy — that's
what people are here for. " It is only occasionally that the ama
teur fishermen have life and vim enough even to fish, being, like
the author, satisfied to simply sail over the beautiful Avaters.
Some persons explained to us, upon their return from a fishing
excursion, that the fish they caught Avere not " gamy," and made
none of those heroic struggles for freedom which give spirit and
zest to piscatory sports in northern Avaters. The fish Avhich they
caught were large, fat and beautifully colored. Sharks abound,
and come near enough to the surface to be soothed and quieted
by the Bahama air. As the tempting bait floats near the top of
the water about three rods from the boat, it is very interesting
to watch, in the clear water, the movements of the sharks as they
reconnoiter and cautiously approach the savory but deceitful
prize. The larger ones manifest the prudence so characteristic
of age, while those smaller and younger, as our sable yachtman
forcibly expressed it, "jess like de children what den no' no bet
ter," impetuously rush forward and are caught, towed to the
boat and shot for their temerity. One of the captured was, with
out any court-martial trial, shot in the head, and, with his jaws
extended to their utmost capacity, exhibited in the court of the
hotel. It was seven and one-half feet long, and had a capacious,
well-armed and ugly looking mouth — extremely repulsive to all
except those who have a romantic desire to take part in the old
drama of "Jonah and the Whale." It should be said to the
credit of the Nassau sharks, that while the black divers in the
clear and transparent waters of the Bahamas must look to them

116 ISLES OF SUMMER.
exceedingly attractive, especially when hungry, we heard of only
a single instance in which any one of these usually voracious
monsters has dined upon a negro, and the report in that case is
not very well authenticated.
While in Florida, a gentleman having a plantation upon the
St. John's, mentioned to us that he could not give credit to all
the claims that had been made and published concerning the
Bahamas, and upon being pressed to state particularly what
claims he considered unfounded, he replied — "Well, take for
instance the Bahama sharks; it is affirmed that they never injure
people. Now I can't believe that story. Why, last summer, at
the mouth of the St. John's, Mr.  and his family left their
cottage to bathe in the river. His wife entered the water first,
and while she was wading out, in the presence of her husband
and children, she uttered one loud scream of pain and terror and
disappeared. Her body was afterwards recovered, minus one
arm., A shark had seized her by the arm, drawn her under
Avater, and bitten her arm off. I do not believe that over in
Nassau where sharks are plenty, they are so different from ours."
It is^proverbial that every story has more than one side — and
we found it so in this case. Upon inquiry, we ascertained from
some friends of ours who own a cottage at the mouth of the St.
John's, that the lady in question, in company with another lady,
went out upon a sand bar, and remained there about an hour;
that in the mean time the tide rose, increased the depth of the
water, and the force of its current between them and the shore;
that in attempting to return, one lady got into a hole beyond
her depth; that her companion, in endeavoring to rescue her,
also got into deep water; that one was in consequence drowned,
while the other floated away quite a long distance, upon the sur
face of the water, but was rescued at last unharmed, by a gentle-.
man who went in a boat to her relief, passing on his way through

SOOTHING EFFECTS OF CLIMATE. 117
Water infested with sharks, a dozen or more of them being in
sight. A gentleman who has spent considerable time in the West
Indies, assured us that sharks are cautious if not cowardly, and
that they will never bite a man if he splashes the water. Per
haps, before trusting too much even to the Avarm water sharks,
it will be prudent to first make sure that their hunger has been
satisfied. When looking for his breakfast or his dinner, in the
absence of fish, now and then a shark may make a bold dash for
human flesh. The very great clearness of the Bahama waters
may operate in favor of safety, and the fish that they crave for
food may be less abundant in the colder water of the Florida
Gulf. If the Bahama sharks are very dangerous, it is singular
that so few facts are reported which indicate it, and that the
divers continue to be so numerous and so bold.
In our sleeping room at Nassau, it was sometimes found nec
essary to use the mosquito bars with which our bed was provided.
'We found this insect unlike the little nocturnal musicians so
common at the north. When hunted upon the wall in the morn
ing, a Nassau mosquito appears strangely indifferent. Often
when first struck at and not hit, it does not seem at all disturbed
and remains in the same place. Then when aroused sufficiently
to fly from the threatened danger, it makes a very short journey
to another resting place not far from the first, and looks around
with a calm quiet expression of supreme indifference. A lady
justly remarked — "you don't see them sitting 'round that way
at home, but here they breathe a lazy atmosphere and live on
lazy blood."
Little facts and circumstances evidence great truths. The
influence of climate may be as well shown by a mouse as by a
man or a mammoth. Therefore, it is, that we give another little
, incident that came under our observation.

118 ISLES OF SUMMER.
With more curiosity 4han discretion, a mouse one day came
out of its hole to look at some of the newly arrived guests of the
Victoria Hotel. Upon being pursued, it took refuge under a
mat at the foot of the grand stair-way. A little girl turned up
the end of the mat, and we then expected to see a lively display
of the quickness and agility of the pursuer and pursued. But,
to our astonishment, the mouse, Avith quiet resignation, remained
perfectly passive, and made no noise, while the little girl seized
it by the tail with her fingers, and suspended it, head doAvnwards,
in the soft and soothing air. Such passive resignation in a cold
climate would have been impossible.
In further evidence of astonishing climatic results, we copy
the following seemingly incredible* fish story from a Aveil written
article upon Nassau by Epes Sargent, the proprietor of the Sar
gent House in that city. Speaking of fish, he says :
" The jew-fish supplies the place of our Northern halibut. It
is cut into steaks and fried in a similar manner. It is the largest
edible fish we have, often weighing six hundred pounds. At
certain seasons this fish lies dormant at the bottom, and refuses
to take the hook. Under these circumstances the fishermen dive
down and place the hook in his mouth/ This may appear to you
to be a very heavy fish story, but it is nevertheless true, as can
be vouched for by many here."
Mr. Sargent, who thus affirms the truth of this story, is a
highly respectable citizen of Nassau, but it will be noticed, he
does not claim that his testimony is founded upon his personal
observation. If the fish has regular hibernating periods, its torpid
ity at such times may not be chargeable to the climate. It seems
that this singular mode of capturing large fish is not Avithout its
perils, for Mr. Sargent adds, that "at Long Cay a man had his
hand taken off while performing this feat. "
Our landlord kept his hotel well supplied Avith green sea turtle.

SEA TURTLES RESIGNED. NEGROES HAPPY. 119
One turtle we particularly examined. It had then recently
been taken from the water, weighed fifty-seven pounds, was alive
and fat, and was soon, in the form of soups and steaks, to grace
the tables of the dining-room. This huge reptile, (though quite
an infant compared with some of the same species), while he
must have had some vague suspicions of the cruel fate in store
for him, and was turned over upon his back so that he could not
crawl away, and rudely punched to wake him up and to see if he
was fat, seemed perfectly contented and happy.
A large number of servants of both sexes were employed in and
about the Victoria Hotel, yet there AVas no jarring, scolding, com
plaining or quarreling. Some were grave, but none appeared sad
or discontented. Light hearted and good natured, polite and re
spectful, attentive and faithful, they performed the'tasks assigned
them in a very unexceptional manner. Petulant and unreason
able complaints did not disturb their equanimity or elicit tart
replies. When a number were assembled to perform some labor
in common, they lightened their tasks by finely singing with
rich musical voices sacred songs. They were never boisterous,
and ever exhibited a respectful deference and a politeness which
was the more agreeable because unstudied and natural.
We seldom heard in any of the suburbs of Nassau, teeming as
they do with colored people, a harsh or profane word ; we never
there witnessed a fight, nor do we remember to have heard a
child cry. When sailing on one occasion, Ave heard some loud
unpleasant talk between two white men, near a public dock,
each on board and apparently in command of a vessel. Finally
one said to the other — " Now look'er here ! If you get me mad
I'm going to wrestle, or run, or do something !" This old salt
had evidently breathed the air of the Bahamas for some time.
It seemed to us while in Nassau that if we had any enemies .
any where in the wide world that it was a good time to heartily

120 ISLES OF SUMMER.
forgive them while we were not only too lazy to get mad, but too
languid to keep fast hold of any but the most pleasant and sen*
suous emotions, and before we returned to a climate where one's
nerves are all so " strung upon wires " that they vibrate painfully
when the atmosphere is in th? least disturbed by untoward events.
Nor did we feel like the very sick Dutchman who promised if
he died to forgive his enemy, but to give him a good licking if
he recovered. We would also suggest to those restless spirits
that cannot wait for the coming of the millenium in the due
course of time, and who are anxious to have the lion and the
lamb, without any further delay, lie down together in peace, the
propriety of trying the efficacy of physical forces, independent
of or in conjunction with moral ones, and that they now in
augurate a great migratory movement, by which the whole
human family shall be transported to the Bahamas, or to other
similar islands, Avhere men lack the life and energy to commit
crime, or to accumulate fortunes, or to engage in great enter
prises, and every passion (save one) is as torpid and seemingly
dead as though it never had a lodgment in the human heart.
We suspect that when the millenium is witnessed in the northern
states, great climatic changes will have first taken place.
As might be expected Nassau is a very quiet and orderly city.
Strangers are much impressed by the absence of scenes of vio
lence, drunken brawls and profane, abusive and irritating lan
guage in the public streets and places of popular resort. We
were told that more persons are arrested for improperly wagging
their " unbridled tongues," than for more serious offenses. The
" keeping of the peace " is not, however, due to the climate alone.
The criminal code, the swift and sure administration of justice
by the courts, the police department Avith its efficient and fine
looking black patrolmen — all are material factors in accomplish
ing so desirable a result. Convicts are made to labor upon the

GOOD ORDER IN" NASSAU. 121
streets, and the chain gangs, in their white prison uniforms,
while at work in the hot sun, exert a moral influence which is
widely and deeply felt. A future punishment by hard work and
not by fire is what makes an impression on the indolent mind.
Nor should the peaceful and conservative operation of a very
efficient Church — represented by a goodly variety of different
sectarian organizations, from the humble Methodists with their
untiring zeal and spiritual sledge-hammers, up, through the more
pretentious cathedral, to the loftiest kind of high church, with
its choir of colored urchins in holy vestments within the walls of
" Saint Agnes," in Grantstown, back of Nassau, be omitted.
The extent of its salutary influence may be fairly inferred by the
manner in which Sunday is here kept. The first day of the week
is marked by solemn stillness, entire absence from all secular
employments, a display of neat and tasty costumes, and by a
general attendance upon the devotional services of the churches,
as strongly as it is in any of the country towns of New England.
In this respect the neighboring island of Cuba, with its Sunday
theatres and bull fights in its chief city of Havana, furnishes a
most striking contrast, and leads the seeker after the best practi
cal ecclesiastical system to ask, whether English Protestantism
or Spanish Catholicism furnishes the most desirable religious
foundation for a prosperous and well ordered community.
It is apparent that the Royal Victoria Hotel is an active agent
in demoralizing the colored boys who frequent its court. Nov
elty speedily degenerates into nuisance. To them the crowds of
winter visitors are like the sugar hogsheads to northern summer
flies. The "rich Northerners" constitute a great living tide,
with deep, broad currents of unfailing wealth, and all are most
eager to catch some of the drops of the golden spray. Not all
of them who have a love of money are endowed with the gift of
song, and as the choirs are not selected, and most of the black
11

122 . ISLES OF SUMMER.
urchins believe that the louder- they scream the better they sing,
the extent of the disturbance and annoyance may be in some
small degree comprehended. This, together with an inveterate
habit of begging at all times and on all occasions for money — a
Vicious practice constantly encouraged and fostered by the welU
meant liberality of the guests — occasionally causes some of the old
habitues of the hotel, when the salutary influence of the lash is
not brought into requisition, to hire them to go away.
Although you have only to tickle the Bahama rocks with a
crowbar to make them smile with tropical and semi-tropical har
vests, yet agriculture languishes and maintainsbut a sickly strug
gle for life, the wildness of untamed nature being only here and
there to a very limited extent disturbed. In and near Nassau
many places, once made beautiful by enforced slave labor, now
look sadly neglected. A thick growth of bushes and small trees
cover the rocky fields, and many dwellings, once the happy homes
of men who owned their workmen, have a deserted, tumble-down
look not at ^,11 in keeping with their natural attractions. Some
sugar cane is raised, and several small sugar mills are in opera-
tion^ The cane is crushed by horse poAver between three small
cylinders, connected together at the top by projecting cogs, so
that while one cylinder is turned by a horse traveling in a circle
at the end of a long connecting arm, (as in the old-fashion
cider mill), the other cylinders are made to revolve. They are
so adjusted that the third cog gives the cane a tighter squeeze
than the first, two. One of the receiving cylinders has either
Vertical grooves or spaces which help to maintain and keep ahold
upon the cane, constantly fed to the machine by a negro seated
on the ground by its side. While in operation, a steady stream
of saccharine cane-juice, haA*ing a strong' corn-stalk taste, runs
into a large tub, from which it is taken in pails to :~ie sugar
house, where it is boiled in large kettles; the cane from which

NO FACTORIES— THE MECHANIC ARTS. 123
the juice has been extracted is used for fuel in making the sugar,
and is fed to stock. Some lime is put into the juice when it is
boiled. Six men were employed in the mill we visited, who
worked from 5 o'clock in the morning until sundown. Each
horse grinds twice a day, tAvo hours at a time — making four
honrs per day for each horse. The mill yields only one and a-half
barrels of sugar per day. It was made in Cincinnati, Ohio. One
of the other three mills on this island makes four barrels of sugar
per day. It is only quite recently, we believe, that sugar has
been made upon the island of New Providence. Commencing
in December, sugar-making continues four months. The sugar
seems of very fair quality.
A marine railway for the repair of vessels is maintained upon
Hog Island, but we searched in vain for a single factory upon
any of the Bahamas, bearing the faintest resemblance to the
thousands that are found in every northern state. A very few
little shops, like those often seen in small American villages,
where some of the simplest of the mechanic arts are practiced,
exist. But there is very little demand for skilled labor. We
have a photograph of a Nassau joiner shop. It is very roomy,
being located out-doors. It is well ventilated, having for its
ceiling the blue vault of heaven. It is stable, being founded
upon a rock. It is amply furnished and manned for the succes-
ful prosecution of a limited business, as it has a single joiner's
bench and jack plane, which are in the sole possession and use
of one of the Queen's colored subjects. A negro, mounted upon
a rather unprepossessing looking mule, is the nearest approach
which the Bahamas have yet made towards establishing either a
steam or horse railroad. Telegraphs and telephones are of course
unknown. Nassau has been described to be "a city without
chimneys," though a few have been built for culinary purposes.
A lady of our party having broken either the main-spring o*r

124 ISLES OF SUMMER.
chain of her watch, it was placed in the hands of a man who
held himself out to the world in Nassau as competent to repair
it. He kept it some four or five weeks, and until the owner was
on the point of leaving the island, and charged her a good price
for his worse than useless services. She found her watch in a
worse condition than she believed it would have been if she had
sent it to a northern blacksmith ot average mechanical ingenuity
and intelligence.
While Prof. Dana concedes that a coral island is a good tem
porary sanitarium when well supplied with foreign stores, "in
cluding a good stock of ice," and is especially attractive to those
"who ean draw inspiration from its mingled beauties," he well
says, that "even in its best condition, it is but a miserable place
for human development, physical, mental and moral," although
"there is poetry in its every feature." " How much," he per
tinently asks, " of the poetry and literature of Europe would be
intelligible to persons whose ideas had expanded only to the
limits of a coral island? What elevation in morals should be ex
pected upon a contracted island, so readily overstocked that
threatened annihilation drives to infanticide, and tends to the
cultivation of the extremest selfishness. "Assuredly," he adds,
"there is not a more unfavorable spot for moral or intellectual
progress in the wide world than the coral island."
The situation of the city of Nassau, and its commercial rela
tions with the outside world, save its people in a measure from
the consequences which naturally result from a location upon a
small island, of very limited resources, entirely destitute of
mountains, and where neither rivers nor rivulets are seen wend
ing their way to the sea, to the music of their everflowing waters.
The generosity exhibited by many of the poorest of the negroes,
was often the subject of favorable comment by people from the
States.

CHAPTER VIII.
Absence of Wild Animals upon Coral Islands. Pleasures af the Chase
Unknown. Diet of the Aborigines. How Alligators Taste. The Guanas as
a Table Imxury. They are Intoxicated with Whistling Music. Vassar Girls
Charming Turtles. Mountain Crabs. The Hermit Crab a Freebooter. The
Lizards — Changing their Color and Hunting Game. Animals upon the West
India Islands when Discovered. Snakes. Sea Turtles. Turtle Shell. How
Sponges Grow and form Communistic Communities. The Sponge Fisheries.
Value and Quantity of Bahama Sponges Exported.
"The world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but studied and
contemplated by man." — Thomas Brown.
But upon the Bahamas man finds few animals to study and
contemplate. At the time of their discovery by Columbus in
1492, they were destitute of all the higher forms of animal life.
The Bahamas belong to a recent geological age, and are some of
the ornamental appendages with which the earth was decorated,
thousands, and perhaps millions of years after it was made, and
while, with its little partner, the moon, it was, as now, waltzing
around the sun. This, in connection with the fact of their small
extent and isolated position, accounts for that absence of animal
life to which we have referred. Some domesticated animals —
the cow, the horse, the hog and the sheep— are now found upon
the islands, but they are a part of the old world's gift to the new.
That pet of many a household — man's friend, companion, guard
and protector — the much abused dog — is not only frequently met
with upon the islands, but it is reported that a native breed once
existed that never barked. While we are unable to vouch for
135

lib

ISLES OF SUMMER.

the truthfulness of the tradition, we are ready to believe tbat
even ill-natured beasts would soon become amiable in the mild
and soothing air, and that a canine millennium might, by the
silent operation of natural laws, soon be established on those
emerald isles. Perhaps we owe an apology to the dogs of the
Bahamas for having stated that they are too lazy and indolent
to bark— it may be that Ave should have said instead, that they
are too amiable. The loud and persistent crowing of the roos
ters, during all the hours of the night, we have been recently
assured is the crow of hunger, and not the genuine John Bull
expression of a self-satisfied sentiment of conscious superiority.
Killing for sport, and "the pleasures of the chase," whether
brutal or refined, could not have been among the pastimes of
those who received and welcomed Columbus and his companions
when they first landed upon the shores of the New World. And
they had yet to learn the game of cruel and merciless war from
the more educated and cultured savages of a higher civilization.
In that they had no accumulated capital they were poor indeed,
but free from the fevered dream of ambition, the unquenchable
thirst of avarice, and the tortures of nnsupplied and constantly
increasing wants, they were vastly richer than any of the envied
millionaires of either ancient or modern times. Simple, amiable
and guileless children of nature, unlearned and uncultivated,
happy and cheerful as the birds that flaunted their gay plumage
in the spicy and perfumed air, they lived and loved in tlieir little
Gardens of Eden, with no ban upon the delicious and golden
fruits of their uncultivated tropical orchards.
These fruits, a limited supply of vegetables, and the fish which
the surrounding ocean supplied at all times in great abundance,
constituted their food. A vegetable and piscatory diet infused
no frenzied fever in the blood or brain; and with no wild beasts
ih the forests or jungles, there was no savagery to be transmuted.

ALIGAIORS AS fc-USLE LUXURIES. THE GUANA. l2t
Mr. McKinnen in his " Tour," when speaking of his visit to
Acklin's Island in 1802-3, says: "Alligators were sometimes
brought in for the table, but it required considerable address to
destroy them. The negroes, however, never display so much
ingenuity or patience as in pursuit of prey. The flesh of an
alligator which I tasted was hard, white and very much resembled
the sturgeon's." We heard of no alligators at New Providence,
and, as the Bahama Islands are destitute of rivers, we think it
probable the alligators referred to had strayed away from their
accustomed haunts, and that this huge reptile contributed little
to the support of the ancient Lucayans.
Lizards of small size are very common in New Providence.
They are from six to twelve inches in length, and their ancestors
could not here have very materially contributed to the mainte
nance of human life. But Mr. McKinnen, speaking of the con
dition of the island and their inhabitants in his own time, states
that "the guana [iguana] of the lizard tribe is found in the
holes in the rocks in all the islands. In the cultivated parts the
guana soon disappears, as they are easily taken, and their flesh
is much esteemed by the negroes."
Mr. Bryan Edwards, of the island of Jamaica, in his history
of the West Indies, published in Dublin in 1793, says, concern
ing the island, that
"The woods were peopled with two very extraordinary creat
ures; both of which anciently were, and still are, not only used
for food, but accounted superior delicacies. These are the iguana
and the mountain crab." The former " is a species of lizard —
a class of animals about which naturalists are not agreed whether
to rank them with quadrupeds, or to degrade them to serpents.
* * * From the alligator, the most formidable of the family,
measuring sometimes twenty feet in length, the gradation is
regular in diminution of size to the small lizard of three inches;

128 ISLES OF SUMMER.
the same figure and conformation nearly (though no*t wholly)
prevailing in each. The iguana is one of the i ntermediate species,
and is usually about three feet long, and proportionally bulky.
It lives chiefly among fruit trees, and is perfectly gentle and in
noxious." He says they had then "become generally scarce,"
except in places seldom visited by man. Also that " the English,
even when they were more plentiful, did not often serve them
at elegant tables, but their French and Spanish neighbors, less
squeamish, still devour them with exquisite relish." Also that
a lady " of great beauty and elegance," assured him, from her
own experience, that they are " equal in flavor and wholesomeness
to the finest green turtle." That "P. Labat likewise speaks of
a fricasseed guana with high approbation. He compares it to a
chicken for the whiteness of its flesh and the delicacy o f its flavor. "
He quotes from the~work of this " good father," (Tom iii, p.
316,) his description of the novel mode then in vogue of captur
ing this species of game. "We were attended," he says, "by a
negro, who carried a long rod, at one end of which was a piece
of whip cord with a running knot. After beating the bushes for
some time, the negro discovered our game basking in the sun on
a dry limb of a tree. Hereupon he began whistling with all his
might, to which the guana was wonderfully attentive, stretching
out his neck and turning his head, as if to enjoy it more fully.
The negro now approached, still whistling, and advancing his
rod gently, began tickling with the end of it the sides and throat
of the guana, who seemed mightily pleased with the operation,
for he turned on his back, and stretched out like a cat before the
fire, and at length fairly fell asleep, which the negro perceiving,
dexterously slipt the noose over his head, and with a jerk brought
him to the ground; and good sport it afforded to see the creature
swell like a turkey-cock at finding himself entr apped. We caught
others in the same way, and kept one of them alive seven or eight

MUSIC LOVING REPTILES. 129
days, but it grieved me to the heart to find that he thereby lost
much delicious fat."
That other members of the reptilian family are also keenly sen
sitive to whistling music, and greatly pleased and soothed by itj
is evidenced by the following account which the author received
from his daughter. She says: "Upon the college grounds at
Vassar, there is a small artificial lake which is utilized for boat
ing in mild weather, and for skating in winter. It is well stocked
with turtles, varying in size from one to about nine inches in
length. It was common for the lady students to keep small
ones in their rooms as pets. Perceiving that the one I had thus
utilized and "adopted" had evidently an ear for certain kinds
of music, especially whistling, I was induced to try an experi
ment upon other and larger turtles in the lake. The result far
exceeded my anticipations. Pushing out from the shore in my
little row boat, I could always, when so disposed, secure at once
at my whistling concerts for turtles, a numerous audience of all
sizes, from three to nine or more inches in length. They would
mount a log close to me, first one and then another taking its
place, until the sittings were all occupied, and listen with wrapt
and pleased attention. While the whistling continued, they
turned their heads from side to side,' and stretched them out
from their shells to the farthest possible extent, as if anxious* to
see and hear to the uttermost. They would suffer me, at such
times, to handle them, and the music, if such I may be permitted
to call it, appeared to produce a very quieting effect upon them.
They seemed intoxicated with what must have been to them a
hew and strange pleasure. They would remain so long as I
Would whistle, and jump off into the water when the whistling
stopped. They liked the soft sweet airs, and were frightened by
a lively tune, but I found that I could retain them as auditors
of the more spirited tunes if I first quieted them and secured

130 ISLES OF SUMME&.
their confidence by whistling tunes which harmonized better with
their sluggish natures. When the whistling stopped, the reptilian
audience retired, and carried, perhaps, the news of the strange
sounds they had heard to the more domestic turtles which had
remained below in their watery abodes. They were not all alike
gifted with a musical taste, for some evidently enjoyed it very
much more than others. I found, after a time, that this novel
sight caused often the attendance upon the shore of a large num
ber of the lady students, who were much interested and amused
at these whistling turtle concerts."
No doubt the New Providence guanas were long since exter
minated. The small lizards of to-day are certainly in appearance
not very attractive as table luxuries. Capt. Fox, a near neigh
bor of ours at the hotel, secured a few living specimens, and held
them in captivity for a few days, that he might critically examine
them and observe their movements. We were, by his courtesy,
also enabled to learn by personal observation some of their pe
culiarities, although generally we are content to get our reptilian
knowledge second hand.
The Bahama lizards possess the power of changing their colors,'
like the chameleon. How this result is accomplished we do not
know. They may have little vessels containing fluids variously
colored, and as one set is expanded or contracted upon the sur
face, the lizards blossom out in brown, red, green or satin as the
case may be. Thus each, without changing its dress, has at
pleasure all the benefits of an ample and varied wardrobe. This
may result in frequent cases of mistaken identity, and cause
much trouble and possibly no little innocent amusement. Their.
eyes have movable lids; some species have dew-laps, which look
like pouches under their chins, and all are considered harmless,.
although possessing teeth, which are simple in their structure.,
They have an elongate round body, a snaky looking tongue, fourf.

REPTILES.
1. Chelonia imbricata. "Hawkbill Turtle." About one-sixth natural
size, from Holbrook's Herpetology. Tortoise shell, used for combs, jewelry,
&c, is taken from this species.
2. Sphceriodactylus notatus. Natural size. 3. Head of same, enlarged.
4. Foot of same, enlarged, showing the suckers. From Report of Mexican
Boundary Survey.
5. Anolis principalis. Natural size. From Holbrook's Herpetology.
Color, bright green, changing to brown, acording to health and weather.

L*iih>\LnaoL*SOTi&Cr!'T*:"irrJ NcwHavdn.Ot

REPTILES.

¦Tfii! iirZAfefi. 18l
short legs, each with five digits, and travel upon the rocks and
over the bushes and trees with considerable dexterity and agility,
being essentially aided by a wiggling motion of their bodies and
long tails. They always excited in us such a decidedly repugnant
feeling, that we did. not consider ourselves at all slighted when
we observed on their part an evident desire to avoid us as disa
greeable intruders; and yet these reptiles are decidedly good
looking and attractive when contrasted with another genus of the
same family in Australia, whose ferocious appearance, armed as
they are with horns on their heads and spines on their bodies,
have secured for them the descriptive and suggestive name of
"Horrid Molochs."
One of our passengers from Nassau to Fernandina in the
Western Texas, was Mr. Albert H. Phelps, of West Pawlet, Vt. —
a self-educated naturalist, only seventeen or eighteen years of age,
having a most ardent love for natural history, who, while at
Nassau, so taxed and exposed himself in the intensely hot sun,
collecting and preserving as many specimens as possible of the
singular forms of life in and out of the water, that he was at
tacked with a dangerous and malignaut fever, and nearly lost
his life. In regard to the New Providence lizards, he in sub
stance said: " I have ten or more species; some of them, includ
ing their long slender tails, are ten inches long. One, of a dark
brown color, is very showy. It has five golden spots, and its
back is so raised as to form a ridge. It has also a dew lap.
After I knocked it down with a cane, the bright colors and the
dew lap disappeared, and the reptile was all of a pale ash color.
I killed another before he had time to change color. It was of
an umber brown, with clusters of lemon yellow spots, very minute,
so that a little distance off each cluster seemed a little spot.
The dew lap was a rich shade of dark umber brown, with a rich
stripe of yellow 'round the small bone under its jaw, and 'round

1<&~ ISLES OF SUMMER.
its forehead and head of its nose. I read in Appleton's American
Encyclopedia that there are no four footed reptiles that are dan
gerous. I have allowed the lizards of all descriptions to bite
me, and never suffered any inconvenience from it. Their bite
is like that of turtles; they pinch hard, and have great strength
in their jaws. The small lizards will stand and turn their heads
and listen if you whistle. It is amusing to see them out hunting.
They hunt insects that are large enough to attract their atten
tion. At a place where I used to go to get sea-eggs to dry, flies
collected, and I would sit and watch them. They would see a
fly Avhen two feet distant, and then lie down and creep towards
it like a dog after a wood-chuck, or a cat after a mouse. I have
seen them jump and catch flies, and catch them on the wing.
Salamanders are not dangerous. I have tamed little red ones so
that they would walk 'round on my finger. I never could get
one of them to bite me. They are perfectly harmless."
In a communication received from our young friend, Mr.
Phelps, of Vermont, while this chapter was in the printer's hands,
he states: " Many of the people of Nassau consider the flesh of
the iguana a great delicacy. I was unable to test it personally,
because none were offered for sale in the Nassau market. I ob
tained one from Cuba for my collection. They grow to a length
of from three to four feet, including the tail, which is two-thirds
the entire length. The head is large, and its capacious mouth
is armed with about fifty teeth upon each jaw. The dew-lap has
a depth about equal to the diameter of the head; it is triangular,
and has about a dozen separations on its anterior border. Along
its neck and back is a comb-like crest of fifty-five scales, which,
extending to the tail, becomes simply a serrated ridge. The
color above is greenish, with blue and slate tints; below it is a
greenish yellow; generally, upon the sides, there are brown, zig
zag bands, with a yellowish border; on the front of the shoulder

THE LIZARD. 133"
there is a yellowish band; some are dotted with brown, and have
yellow spots on the limbs. The tail is ringed broadly with alter- .
nate brown and yellowish green colors."
Mr. Phelps adds: " There are a great many small iguanas every
where about Nassau. The most numerous species are about five
inches in length, and are generally of a light gray color, but like
the chamelion, they can change to several different hues at will.
It is constantly on the hunt for small insects, and may at any
time be seen on trees, walls and houses, running about in quest
of its prey.
" Another small species abounds in all gardens. It is about
seven inches long, and of the brightest grass-green color. It is
much more slender than the one just described, has a tail which
is twice the length of its body, and a very prominent dew-lap of
a rich umber-brown tint. The dew-lap is peculiar to this order
of lizards. It is capable of expansion and contraction at will,
and, through its changes, an interchange of ideas seem to be
effected; sight taking the place of sound as a medium for trans
mitting thought.
" The blue-tailed lizard frequents hot, sandy places, and may be
commonly seen about the battery. It is about ten inches long.
" The lizard is small but very useful. Its mission is to keep
insect life in tropical countries within reasonable and proper
bounds. They are exceedingly spry, and very amusing in their
habits. They never molest any one, and their mission, so far as
man is concerned, is decidedly friendly and beneficial. "
Mr. Phelps states that he saw upon the island of New Provi
dence, three species of the tree frog, one of which was very large.
Also that he had collected while at Nassau, from fifteen to
twenty species of crabs, including three or four kinds of land
crabs. Mr. Edwards, in his history of the West India Islands,
speaking of the mountain crab, says:

134 ISLES OF SUMMES.
" It is, without doubt, one of the choicest morsels in nature. '**
It formerly was found in immense numbers, and the observation
of Du Tertre that they were " a living and perpetual supply of
manna in the wilderness, equalled only by the miraculous bounty
of Providence to the children of Israel when wandering in the
desert," is said to have been no exaggeration. The Indians re
lied upon them with confidence when all other provisions were
scarce, and the supply was always equal to their wants.
When Edwards wrote it still existed in large numbers, but he
thought the time of its extinction was then near at hand.
Du Tertre described them as living in a kind of orderly soci
ety in their retreats in the mountains, and as having annual night
marches to the sea, by the shortest and straightest lines, like a
well drilled and admirably organized army under able and ex
perienced commanders. The waves relieve the crabs of their
spawn; the eggs are soon hatched in the sand of the shore, and
millions of young crabs, impelled by a power invisible, mys
terious and divine, are soon seen slowly making their Avay to the
mountains. Crowding each other upon the eastern coast of the
Atlantic states, the human instinct has to be quickened by the
loud clarion notes of command to induce the young men to "go
West," but these little crabs seem to be endowed with more
practical wisdom, and to push inland of their own accord.
The hermit crab, a singular and well known species, is com
mon upon the shores of the Bahamas. It has very loose ideas
upon the subject of the personal rights of its fellow creatures,
and is to the full extent of its capabilities, a first-class freebooter.
Having captured a little circular shell fish, it uses the shell of its
prisoner to cover and protect the vulnerable portion of its own
organism, makes itself perfectly at home in its new but stolen
house, occupies it as tenant in common, pays no rent, compels
its captive to make all the repairs, and to accompany it on its
travels over the rocky shore.

WEST INDIA INDIGENOUS ANIMALS. 135
Mr. Edwards states that there anciently existed upon the
Windward or Caribbee Islands all the animals that were found
upon the larger islands, and some others in addition. The latter
were found at the time when he wrote in Guana, and feAv or
none of them in North America, which helped to make him be
lieve that the Windward Islands were anciently peopled from
the south. He mentions only eight kinds of land animals as
having been found in the West Indies, viz. :
1. The agouti — ("the mus aguti of Linnaeus, and the cavy
of Pennant and Buffon") "constitutes' an intermediate species
between the rabbit and the rat. " He believed it extinct except
in the larger islands.
2. The pecary — (" the sus tajaeu of Linnaeus, and the pecary
and Mexican musk hog of English naturalists.") It differed
from the European hog in that it had a gland upon its back
from which there was a musky discharge, while it sported gay
colors, its bristles being pale blue tipped with white. It was
also more courageous, and would attack the dogs that hunted
them. In 1793 it had been exterminated in the West Indies, but
it abounded in some portions of Mexico.
3. The annadilla was called "the nine banded. It was cov
ered with a jointed shell or scaly armor, and rolled itself up like
the hedge-hog. As an article of diet it was very delicate and
wholesome. " It was once found in all the West Indies, but was
extinct when**Edwards wrote.
4. The oppossum (or monilou) grows its own bag in which
under its belly, it shelters and carries its young. This animal
like the pecary, Edwards thinks was unknown in the larger
islands. 5. " The raccoon was common in Jamaica in the time of
Sloane, who observes that it was eaten by all sorts of people."
It was believed to have been exterminated when Edwards wrote.

136 ISLES OF SUMMER.
6. The musk rat; — (the pilaris of naturalists) — abounded on
some of the islands, and may have been the agouti.
7. The alco or native dog, that did not bark, was carefully-
fattened by the natives, and esteemed a great delicacy as an
article of diet. Edwards quotes the following from Acosta: " In
St. Domingo at first there were no dogs but a small mute creature
resembling a dog, with a nose like that of a fox, which the na
tives called alco. The Indians were so fond of these little ani
mals that they carried them on their shoulders wherever they
went, or nourished them in their bosoms. "
8. Monkeys. These Avere used for food, and are said to have
very much the flavor of hare. Englishmen seem to have had a
sort of Darwinian instinct, and to have deemed an invitation to
dine upon monkeys substantially the same as to pick the dry
bones of their dead ancestors.
The only snake we saw while at the Bahamas, was discovered
and killed near the west gate of the hotel enclosure. We think
they are neither numerous or dangerous.
Mr. Phelps writes that the chicken snake is the only represen
tative upon the island of New Providence of the whole family of
serpents; that it resembles the milk snake; and that it is reported
to attain sometimes a length of fifteen feet, but that the largest
one he saw and measured was six feet long, and two inches in
diameter in the largest part. He adds: "They are perfectly
harmless. The only venomous creatures on the island are the
tarantulas, or ground spiders, as they are called by the natives.
They are found but rarely, and only upon the plantations. In
my many excursions I never came across either a tarantula or a
scorpion. My specimens were obtained of the negroes, whose
services were secured through the stimulating influence of pecu
niary rewards. Centipedes are occasionally met with, but their
sting, though very painful, is not fatal."

8BA T-URTLES. IB?
Several large and valuable kinds of sea turtles are found in the
Bahama waters, as was evidenced by the bountiful supply of ex
cellent turtle soups and turtle steaks often seen upon the dining
room tables of the Royal Victoria Hotel. The Hawk's Bill tur
tle yields the beautiful tortoise shell that figures so prominently in
ladies' toilets. The shells of the Green, and also of the Yellow
or Mulatto turtles, are said to be in lamina too thin for practical
use. The name " Green Turtle " we suppose was given them on
account of the green color_of the fat under their shells. Turtle
steak is very light colored, and looks and tastes like the tender
meat of a chicken. Stepping upon a platform adjoining a Nas
sau dock, we looked down through a trap door into a crawl which
contained a large number of sea turtles, varying in weight we
should think, from fifty to one hundred or more pounds. The
shells of some of them at least, equalled in size the one the poet
Wadsworth thus very unpoetically describes:
" The shell of a green turtle, thin
And hollow ; you might sit therein
It was so wide and deep."
We, observed them with much interest. They appeared con
tented and happy although somewhat restless. Our first impres
sion was that they were either holding a mass meeting or a
sociable. Then we queried whether they had not come to Nassau
on a marooning excursion. But they were so dignified and
solemn, and seemed so loaded down with a heavy weight of cares,
we finally concluded they were holding a session of the sub-marine
reptilian "Parliament." That they were loyal and patriotic
may be inferred from the fact that they were soon to lose their
lives for the public good. Turtles and turtle shells are ex
ported from the Bahamas of the annual value of from three
thousand to four thousand dollars. It is said that the sea turtle

13S ISMS OF SUMMER.
will live several weeks without food — consuming meantime we
suppose, its own fat. Upon unfrequented and desolate little
islands or keys, covered with sand, weeds and bushes, the sea
turtles lay their eggs in great numbers, which are incubated by
the sun — each newly hatched little reptile thereby, all uncon
sciously, acting the part of the infant Moses in the bulrushes.
The turtle as a pedestrian is not a great success, as his four legs
are very short and widely separated. But it is apparent from the
size of the turtle steaks that he has great muscular power, and in
' ' paddling his own canoe " in the water, although weighted Avith
a complete coat of mail, he can make very good time.
The aborigines of the island of Cuba captured the sea turtle
by a process novel and ingenious. Tying a long cord to the tail
of a sucker-fish, which the Spaniards called the reves, (of the
Fcheneis genera,) they cast it into the water in the narrow and
winding channels frequented by the sea turtles, and the fish
first fastening its suckers, which surrounded a flat disc upon its
head, upon the turtle's coat of mail, retains its hold until the
piscatory captor and captive were safely drawn out of the water.
Columbus alleged that the reves would suffer itself to be dismem
bered rather than relax its hold upon its unfortunate victim. It
may be presumed that this singular method of fishing for turtles
was followed by the natives of the Bahama Islands. Humboldt,
in his " Island of Cuba," states that when this new mode of fish
ing was reported in Europe, the story was discredited and con
sidered "only a traveler's tale." He adds that on the eastern
coast of Africa, near Cape Natal, a similar artifice was used.
The most valuable product of the Bahama waters is the Spon-
gida, which yields the sponge of commerce— an article which
ministers in so many ways to the comfort and wants of man. It
has been growing in popular favor for the past forty years, as its
capacity for varied and extensive usefulness has been gradually

SftftfG-ES. 1§§
developed. Fastened to the rocks by roots, maturing germs like
buds, and looking like a fungus, an ordinary observer can hardly
believe the learned men of science when informed by them that
it is an animal. The spongidae are found in water from twelve
to thirty feet deep, and are detached from the rocks by divers or
by fishermen with the aid of long poles having hooks with two
prongs. Water glasses, like those hereafter described in our chap
ter upon corals, are also used when the Avater is rough. A large
number of boats and men are employed in the business.
Wben we went to Nassau we supposed we knew sponges, but
we were greatly mistaken. When taken from the water they are
dark colored, and in appearance resemble liver. The sponge of
commerce consists of the flexible fibrous skeletons of a large colony
of sponges. The very small and clustered animals are so closely
united, and so arranged, as to form a mass of tubes, through
which the sea water containing their food is made to circulate
by means of very small hairs or cilia which line the cavities, and
vibrate at the will of the animal, so that each can take its ap
propriate nourishment as the water passes through. It seems to
be a communistic community, where each works for the common
benefit of all. The principle Avorks well, and would produce
equally good results in human societies if man had only a little
more of the nature and disposition of a sponge conferred upon
him. The water is discharged through the larger orifices. It
has been well said that " the sponge represents a kind of suba
queous city, where the people are arrayed about the streets and
roads, in such a manner that each can appropriate his food from
the water as it passes along." The supply of water is stopped
when the orifices or gates of these marine cities are closed, but
how such multitudes of animals, that are inseparably united and
permanently attached to one spot, can be so regulated and man
aged as to secure harmony and the common good of all, we cannot
fully understand.

140 ISLES OF SUMMER.
Aside from its many curious forms, some of which are beauti
ful, the sponge when first taken from the water has a very
unpromising appearance, and its odor is offensive. The sponge
of commerce is merely its skeleton or framework. This is sur
rounded by a glairy, gelatinous substance, which formerly was
removed by burying the sponges in the sand for a few days, and
afterwards whipping them with sticks. But now they are kept
upon deck for two or three days, when they lose their vital
ity ; afterwards they are placed in a crawl* and kept there from
eight to ten days; then they are cleansed and bleached in
the sun and air upon the beach. Afterwards, upon their ar
rival in Nassau, the roots are cut off, and they are trimmed
and packed for exportation. Some of those offered for sale in
the hotel court were doubtless bleached with chemicals. The.
result in such cases is that the strength of the fibre is impaired.
The sponges grow sometimes in forms so singular and unique
that they command from strangers a good price as curiosities.
We were shown at Judge VanVolkenberg's house in Florida,
what seemed to be a package two or three feet in length, of beau
tiful small glass threads, and were very greatly surprised to learn
that it was a species of Japanese sponge. It was obtained in
Japan when the Judge filled the office of United States minister
to Japan.
We also saw in the little embryo museum which is connected
with the Nassau public library, a delicate foreign sponge, packed
in cotton wool, which closely resembled handsome thread lace.
In a recent official report of the Governor of the Bahamas, he
states that it has been discovered in Germany that the sponge
may be propagated by cuttings from living specimens, which,
when fastened to pieces of board, are placed in the sea. Skilful
cultivation may hereafter result in the production of the more
valuable sponges in many parts of the ocean world where they
are not at present found.

SPONGES.

1 Tuba plicifera. " Bouquet Sponge."
2. PachychaUna rubens. " Silk Sponge." Color, when living, red. ,
3 Hircinia purpurea. "Wire Sponge."
4. SW« tutmlifera. "Finger Sponge." A peculiar variety of the
'Glove Sponge."

J TI Emer-ton -tram nature

PundersoaS-CnsanCl Nsmj Haven.'Jt.

SFONGES

SPONGES. 141
Our Bahama experience has secured for the sponge a con
spicuous and pleasant place in our memory. It is no longer
what it has been. It has become glorified and hallowed. We
look at it with neAV eyes, and handle it with a feeling of re
spect akin to reverence, for it reflects something of that divine
and creative wisdom that caused it to grow, in part at least for
man's benefit, upon the white limestone floor over which the
clear, warm waters of the ocean surrounding the coral islands
ceaselessly roll. Perhaps a more thorough and extensive explor
ation of the beds of the ocean world may bring to light new and
valuable additions to the sponge-producing waters. In the sea
dredging off the coast of Massachusetts some specimens of Spongi-
dse have been obtained.
The Bahama sponges differ very much in quality, and conse
quently in value. Some are quite small and fine — others large
and coarse. Some have a texture so firm that the hardest wring
ing and pulling does not tear them. Others, having the same
general appearance, are easily picked to pieces with the thumb
and finger. The difference in softness is also very marked. The
novice needs to be on his guard, and to exercise much caution
in making purchases, for he is not only in great danger of buying
a poor and perhaps Avorthless article, but of imposition in the
matter of price. It is never pleasant to feel that we have been
imposed upon, but it is mortifying for one boasting of Caucassian
blood to be cheated by an ignorant and unlettered negro.
Sponges are daily offered for sale in the court of the Royal
Victoria Hotel. They are strung together, a dozen or more upon
a string, and most visitors purchase a supply for home use. They
are much cheaper than those sold at retail in the States, and
when dried and pressed occupy but little room. In the waters
surrounding the islands of Abaco, Exuma and Andros the
sponges are found in the greatest abundance, and the Abaco

142 ISLES OS SUMMER.
sponges were represented to be the best by those who sold sponges
at the hotel.
For the purposes of sale the Bahama sponges are divided into
eight classes, and though they find a ready market, they are con
sidered inferior to those which are found in the Mediterranean —
and this is equally true of corals. I was informed by an exten
sive dealer in sponges, that the Florida waters produce sponges
of a quality superior to those of the Bahamas, though not equal
to those of the Mediterranean.
The quantity and value of sponges annually exported from the
Bahamas has not been uniform. In 1855, sponges were exported
of the value of nearly $50,000; in 1861, of over $150,000; in
1877, over $90,000; in 1878, nearly $125,000; and the aver
age for ten years prior to 1864 Avas nearly $87,000. The increase
in quality and value in 1878 was caused by the re-opening of the
Cuban sponge fisheries which were closed during the Cuban in
surrection. The Bahama sponge fleet entered last year the Cuban
waters, and by over production soon broke down the market.
Some of the finer qualities were exported to France, but the
largest portion of the Bahama sponges are sent to the United
States and to England.

CHAPTEE IX.
Amusements. Small and Isolated Communities thrown upon their Own Re
sources. Visit of a Circus Companr to Nassau. Its Effect upon the Negroes.
Whist and Boating Clubs. Bass-Gall and Polo. Military and Marbles.
Religion Utilizing the Idle Hours. Streets Placarded with Notices of Solemn
Fasts". Absence of a Color Line in Churches. Amateur Fishing. The Boat
men Canvassing for Customers. Capt. Sampson a Fisher of Men. He Describes
and Discusses the Sharks.
The people of Nassau, owing to their isolated condition, are
compelled to rely upon their own resources for amusement. A
Bahama nimrod has no horn or hoof or hide among his trophies.
His game is in the sea. In the variety and abundance of its
fauna, the ocean to some extent, makes up for the absence of
animal life in the impenetrable jungles. The birds have mostly
been compelled to build their nests and rear their young upon
secluded and uninhabited islands. Nassau's " back country" is
small in extent, and the continuity of the shade and the profound
depth of the solitude Avhich ever rests upon the island beyond
the city's borders, can hardly be said to be broken by the two or
three little hamlets where a few negroes have their humble homes.
Hence the almost entire absence of the thousand and one enter
tainments that compete for a portion of the time and money of
the people in all the cities of the Union. These, with us, are
largely due to our facilities for inter-communication. They mul
tiply as oit steam commercial marine increases, and with every
enlargement of our railroad system. Theatrical exhibitions,
menageries, concerts by companies of eminent musicians, lectures
"143

lxi ISLES' OF SUMMER.
from famous and gifted men, and great gatherings of represen
tative men in science, religion and politics, and for moral
reforms, must inevitably be as rare in the Bahamas as skating
rinks. During the wild excitement that prevailed in Nassau
when, during the late rebellion, it was practically a confederate
port, under the protection of the flag of Great Britain, a stone
building was erected for theatrical exhibitions. The astonished
winds immediately blew its roof off and otherwise damaged it,
so that its bare monumental walls alone remain to commemorate
the important part which Nassau played in the great war of the
Southern rebellion. But no inference can properly be drawn
from the fact of its destruction by the angry elements, that the
theatre was especially objectionable to the spirit that rides upon
the whirlwind and directs the storm, because churches as well as
other public and many private buildings were blown down at the
same time. We have no doubt that the Bahama government, in
these calm sober days, would prefer as a paying investment, warm
ing pans to theatres.
Nassau and its surroundings have much to interest a stran
ger, especially if he has spent his life in more northern latitudes;
but to her own citizens, it must be a very dull place notwith
standing an occasional hurricane and frequent wrecks. In the
winter of 1878, '79, a traveling circus company chartered a steam
boat and visited some of the West India Islands. Their arrival
in Nassau produced a deep and profound sensation. The landing
of Columbus and his followers upon a neighboring island nearly
four centuries before, with gilded cross and emblazoned banner,
was not a greater surprise or productive of half the pleasure.
No alloy of fear marred the happiness which the arrival of the
acrobats occasioned. Heralded from afar, and accompanied in
their grand march through the streets of Nassau by musicians
who made the soft and languid air vibrate with a melody it never

A CIRCUS. GOVERNMENTAL SHOWS. 145
had before experienced, richly clad in costumes, striped, bespan
gled and radiant with burnished silver and shining gold, they
seemed to many an unlettered and untraveled looker-on, four
fold more the children of the sun than did the Spanish discoverers
of 1492. The new Jerusalem, as seen in the fervid dreams
of Nassau's dusky, religious devotees, surely cannot boast so
gorgeous a chariot, nor do horses of equal grace and beauty tread
the golden and jewelled streets of their celestial city. A wild
and bewildering excitement took possession of Grant's Town,
and, like an electric atmosphere, pervaded the thoroughfares and
by-ways of Nassau itself. While the show lasted, the contribu
tions levied upon the guests of the Royal Victoria Hotel, to
enable the little negroes to see it and be forever happy, were quite
formidable in number if not in amount. Indeed, some of the
juveniles were smart and enterprising enough to make it an ex
cuse for obtaining a good supply of shillings for future use. We
suspect that the circus as a motive power and moral force in the
world has been underestimated. We esteemed it more highly after
we witnessed its effects in that island of unending summer. In
dolence retired, and ambition came out of its tomb of death at
its approach. Long live the circus !
As we have elsewhere shown, the forms, ceremonies, symbols,
trappings and paraphranalia of a royal government, furnish au
integral and very important part of Nassau's amusements. In
this point of view, colonial institutions on a monarchial model
are a real godsend. For people living outside of the limits of
the great world of human activity and life, without railroads,
telegraphs, steamboats, telephones, capital, enterprise, or busi
ness, it seems to be a pleasant but expensive diversion.
A whist club exists-at Nassau. It is composed of .the governor,
and a few high officials and prominent citizens, numbering, as we
were informed, some fifteen in all. They meet twice a week, in
13

146 ISLES OF SUMMER.
the evening from eight to eleven o'clock; Friday at the " Govern
ment House," (the Governor's residence,) and Tuesdays at the
houses of the other members. They play nothing but whist, and
loyally follow the English custom of putting up sixpenny stakes,
" just to increase a little the interest, and keep things lively,"
as my informant expressed it. We were also told that on these oc
casions "they never drink to excess, and no excess of any kind
is indulged in." Excess, as applied to drinking, is a very flexible
uncertain word. Such of the high officials as we saw drink could
not be called " hard " drinkers, for we never saw men drink more
easy than they did, or appear to take to it more naturally, or en
joy it more. In carrying capacity, also, they are at least the
peers of their American cousins. The belief is *wide spread, that
spirituous liquors moderately used as a beverage in warm climates,
are conducive to health. Where malarial poisons are exhaled,
quinine and alcoholic drinks are considered by many absolute
necessaries. We have no doubt about the value of quinine as a
tonic and malarial antidote, but have no sufficient basis of iact
in regard to the use of alcohol, in such cases, upon, which to form
an opinion satisfactory to ourselves, or of value to others. It is a
question which has two sides. If that which we saAv drank was
used for sanitary reasons, the quantity imbibed indicated a
country most alarmingly unhealthy. The treatment we "thought
partook of the "heroic."
Nassau formerly had a yachting club, and in all probability its
organization remains, but nothing occurred while we were there
to indicate that it still lives. It certainly was torpid if not dead
— chloroformed by climate. No regattas, as of yore, pleasantly
disturbed the ocean tides, or the dreamy quiet of the city's every
day life. Something of the sadness which folloAvs in the wake
of pleasure, and of the melancholy which hovers over departed
joys, surrounds and envelopes the yacht club's silent boat-house.

AMUSEMENTS. 141?
The ambition of the young men is not excited or increased by
bat and ball, or boat and oar. Archery, an out-door diversion,
which connects the high-toned men and maidens in England to
day, with the people of pre-historic times, and which, with
feathered shafts and twanging bow, projects the distant stone
age into the age of gold, has not as yet, been re-established upon
these islands, where it flourished in the time of Columbus. Re
quiring little physical exertion, arousing no fierce passions, stir
ring the bosom with only pleasurable excitement, its highest en
joyment secured when both sexes participate in its sport, a semi-
tropical climate Avould seem to be peculiarly favorable to its prac
tice and cultivation. But the more violent games of foot-ball
and polo flourish instead, and call out many spectators on the
afternoons of Tuesday and Friday of each week, including the
elite of the town in carriages. Polo results occasionally in a
broken bone, and foot-ball excites to spirited struggles for the
mastery. The negroes in the military department when off duty,
are perhaps more to be commended, for, when not idle, or occu
pied with their lady friends, they are satisfied, (according to one
of the official medical reports,) with flying paper kites, and the
lowly and quiet game of marbles. No doubt many of the Queen's
ebony subjects would rather be the humble turtle, that idly basks
and meditates upon a rock in the sun, than the most beautiful
antelope that ever scaled the craggy heights of a mountain.
With the thermometer in the eighties in the shade, I could the
better understand the wisdom and good sense of such a prefer
ence. But, then, upon us high-toned English precedents pro
duced but little effect.
One result of the absence at Nassau of the innumerable and
varied private sports and public amusements which exist in all
cities and large towns in the States is, to give greater prominence
and importance to the church. Religion has its social side, and,

148 ISLES OF SUMMER.
in tbe States, it is apparently often deemed advisable if not nee-
essary, to unite all who worship or statedly attend devotional
exercises in the same place, in what is practically a social club.
It is difficult for the church to secure the attendance of people
generally to its meetings of a purely religious and devotional
character, where the cities are constantly placarded, and the
columns of the newspapers teem with notices and advertisements
of an endless variety of shows and public entertainments. Hence
the number of church fairs, church festivals, church feasts,
church concerts, and church picnics. It has been deemed nec
essary, not so much to aid the church as an aggressive force in
the world, but in self-defense, to surround religion with some of
the rational enjoyments and healthy diversions which otherwise
will be practically used by the devil to undermine its influence
and destroy its power. At Nassau, religion dominates without
these adjuncts, as it did in New England in the days of the pil
grims — and for the same reason.
Public attention is called to some of the holy days and fasts of
the church by placards, printed in large type and posted upon
the street corners and in other public places. Good Friday was
thus announced, and the following we copied from one of the
hand-bills.
"Good Friday.
"Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
" Good Friday is the most solemn, the most aAvful day in the
whole year to the Christian.
" On Good Friday, the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the nature
of man, suffered on the cross of shame, dying that He might
save you.
" It is everything to you that He died, for He suffered for your
sin— yes, your's!

ASH WEDN-ESDA***"1. 149
"How then will you spend Good Friday? If yOur father,
mother, wife, or husband, son or daughter, died — if they died to
save your life, would you choose the anniversary of their death to
make merry and take a holiday? No, you would not."
We omit the three concluding paragraphs.
Another street hand-bill read as follows:
"Ash Wednesday.
" The first day of Lent;
" The church's special call to repentance.
" Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn as
sembly; —
" Gather the people; sanctify the congregation; assemble the
elders; gather the children and those that suck the breasts; let
the bridegroom go forth out of his chamber, and the bride out of
her closet.
" Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the
porch and the altar, and let them say, spare thy people, 0 Lord,
and give not thy heritage to reproach, that the heathen should
rule over them; wherefore should they say among the people,
where is their God?" — Joel ii, Chap. 15 — 17 verses.
That these solemn occasions are to many quite attractive is
doubtless true. They diversify the every day life of the people,
although they are not, in the strict sense of the term, amuse
ments. But they are a real recreation no doubt, for some, and
not a cross. The old lady exhibited something akin to this feel
ing when she complained of the solitary situation of her dwelling
house; she did not like it, she said there was " nothing going on
there — no funerals, nor nothing."
Could Black Beard and the other pirates who rendezvoused
and dominated in Nassau in the early historic times, walk its
streetB to-day, they could not but be greatly impressed with the

ISO . ISLES OF SUMMER.
moral and religious changes which have taken place. While the
little capital has doubtless its full share of the vices which mar
the civilization of modern times, and is by some declared to be
a very wicked place, yet, compared with what it was in Black
Beard's day, it is the very garden of the Lord.
Judging from outward appearances, religion at Nassau is built
upon a very democratic basis. In their public assemblies all are
"one in Christ." There is no "color line."
No seats are set apart in the cbsirches, where the white element
preponderates, for colored people. The blood of the two races is
greatly and curiously mixed, mingled, and combined. The line
that marks the division between day and night is not more uncer
tain and difficult to determine than the color line in Nassau. A
prominent Avhite citizen informed us, and it seemed both to amuse
and astonish him, that the whites upon Abaco island persist in
exclusively occupying one side of the church. These people,
Avho place such a high value upon their blood, descended, he said,
from the pirates! Much to their chagrin the Governor appointed
a negro to fill the office of resident magistrate upon that island,
because he excelled them in a competitive examination. The
black squire occupied a seat in the isle which separated the
"children of darkness" from the "children of light."
Many of the visitors at Nassau find in fishing pleasant and
useful occupation for some of their leisure hours. Arrangements
for boats and bait are consummated, the party made up, and the
time and place agreed upon a day or two in advance. The ex
penses, divided per capita among the gentlemen forming the
party, are trifling. Good sailing and good fishing can be calcu
lated upon with confidence, as it is very rare indeed that there
is any failure of a favorable wind, or of an abundance of piscatory
game. The boatmen are accustomed to bring "the catch " to
the court of the hotel, where their captors, with a laudable pride

PEN PHOTOGRAPH OF SAMPSON. 151
exhibit the substantial evidences of their skill. Sometimes a
huge shark is thus exhibited. The great variety of the fish,
(often a dozen or more different kinds,) the large size of most,
and the brilliant colors and wonderful beauty of many when first
taken from the Avater, attract the attention of the guests of the
hotel, and secure many exclamations of astonishment and pleas
ure. Some usually are then given to the hotel steward, and the
balance to the boatmen. But the dead sharks often yield up
their large and well armed jaws, and sometimes their spinal col
umns, as trophies to tlieir captors, who esteem them as souvenirs.
It is often amusing, and ahvays interesting, to watch and listen
to the boatmen while they canvass for customers. In this busi
ness Sampson is an adept, and always eminently conspicuous.
His good sense, experience, volubility and zealous and persistent
attention to his business, place him'naturally in advance of his
competitors. His dress is always neat and showy, but his ward
robe is evidently pretty well stocked, for he frequently blossoms
out in costumes of varied styles and colors. Neither does his ever
active tongue vibrate always alike, or his thoughts and illustra
tions run in the same well oiled groove. We add a little pen
picture as a sample of what is daily seen and heard on such oc
casions. To a group of gentlemen and ladies sitting cosily in large arm
chairs in the cool shade of the court of the Royal Victoria, Samp
son is telling his story, and answering questions. He is about
six feet high, muscular, well-formed, bright, active, ingenious,
good-natured, and cunning. He on this occasion sports a clean,
white jacket, with a Avide turn-over collar, lined with blue cloth,
and having a white line running round it. Its pockets are adorned
with blue binding. In one of the pockets is a white handkerr
chief, ornamented with red lines and red corners. His shirt has
no collar, but it is well laundried, and its bosom sports a gold

152 ISLES OF SUMMER.
stud. A substantial palm leaf hat of good quality rests jauntily
a little on one side of his head, the body of which is encircled
and almost covered with a wide, black ribbon, upon which is
stamped in golden capitals, the word "Trident," the name of
his yacht. He has on a pair of neat, dark colored, woolen panta
loons, turned up a trifle at the bottom, which, by their length,
are suggestive of the probable fact that they once belonged to a
man who boasted a longer and probably whiter pair of legs.
He addresses his remarks more particularly to several gentle
men who arrived in the last steamer, with a dignity and gravity
calculated to inspire respect and confidence. He insists that
"If de gentlemen choose ter go, dare aint no difficulty 'bout
der fish — I ken promise yer dat. We'll just anchor der boat at
soundings, with her tail to der ocean, when we get where der fish
ar. The moment I gets over whar day ar, you haint got to feel
for 'em, but jess pull 'em in. If der sharks don't bother yer,
there's no mistake about it. We ken wait till Thursday, 'cause
der wind is sou-east now; it will be south to-morrow, and Thurs
day she'll fetch 'round all right. I want to wait till Thursday,
'cause I knoAV for sure Thursday."
"I3 there no danger of accident, Sampson?"
" Deres no trouble if der boatman don't lose his head. Sam
son has got along so far and never lost his head, thank God. I
never had any accident; God has spar'd me thus far; hope I
shall alers get along and not lose my head."
" Sampson, now tell us truly, have you ever studied circum
navigation ?"
" I karnt say honest, I knows dat. I don't claim I ever lamed
circumnavigation; but I do know for sure that I ken sail der
Trident any whar in dese yer waters when any one can, and I
don't kar who he is."
" But how about the sharks, Sampson?"

SAMPSON ON* SHARKS. 153
"Der sharks bother us sometimes. Dey comes in wid der
tide. T'other day one jest swallowed der bait, hook and all, and
towed der boat where he liked. We wouldn't let him go, and
der shark couldn't get away. After that my boat hit him with
an oar and confused him. We brought him ashore, and had
him in a hand-cart, a great big fellow. It was a bonnet-cub
shark. We'll kill some when we go fishing, but they'll not let
us bring 'em ashore now 'cause of der smell."
"You call 'em bonnet-cub sharks — why is that?"
"Kause there's something 'bout dar heads that looks like an
old fashion ladies' bonnet.'-'
"Aren't the sharks dangerous, Sampson? Don't they some
times attack men?"
" I never see 'em hurt any one. One year arter der war I was a
drying for conchs, the water was deep, and I took der first shell I
could find. Then I has a way of putting my foot on der bottom
and giving a shove to come up. I was finning up, and when I
got near my boat, what did I see but a great big bonnet-cub
lying there looking at me. He was seventeen feet long. Wasn't
I skar'd! He was as long as my boat. He looked at me kinder
anxious like. When I got to my boat I rolled in all in a heap,
quicker — you may bet on that. He just missed me. He
'peared disappointed like, wiggled his tail and went off. I've
been skar'd ever since. I don't forget his eye and der look he
gin me. I never knew dey had eyes in der outer edge of der
heads that way afore."
" You don't mean to say, Sampson, that you was afraid, of a
shark?" " I mean to say he confused me. I had a heap rather look at
'em from der Trident, den to see 'em star at Sampson in der
water so wicked, der way he did."
" But do you think if they are not disturbed they will attack

154 ISLES OF SUMMER.
people? Some say if you splash the water it will frighten them
away; that they are timid, or at least cautious and scary."
"Every one of 'em will eat men. I wouldn't trust any of
em. Der last shark we caught had a dozen fish in him, and
leads, and lines, and hooks, all to pieces in him. We got one
t'other day seven feet long. Some are twelve feet and more.
A man went fishing some time ago to Andros island, in his boat.
His name Avas Carter. He didn't come back. They 'spected
something had happened, and sarched for him next day. When
they got near der reef whar he war, they saw his boat; — der man,
he Avarnt there. The boat either swamped or tipped over. It had
some turtle and fish in it he had caught. Der man was gone.
Afterwards, two large cubs Avere seen cruising 'bout dar. One
was caught, and in him they found some turtles and two-quarters
of a man — so I 'spose der sharks divided even. "
Sampson's persistent zeal and unfailing eloquence made him
always a success in securing his full share of business, and his
experience and skill as a boatman were always conceded by his
customers.

CHAPTER X.
Yachting in Bahama' Waters. Sampson and his Triton. Testing a Sail
boat. Searching Outside in a Good Wind fm- the Line Storm. Sampson's
Visit to New York. His Experiences and Impressions. Reliable Winds —
Delightful Views — Congenial Friends. The Log of the Pleasure Seekers.
Newly Discovered Poets. Tlie Gulf Weed.
"The Avinds, full of sound — they go whispering by,
As if some immortal had stooped from the sky, "
And breathed out a blessing— and flown 1" — John Neal.
For safe and attractive boating facilities, Nassau is pre-emi
nently distinguished. Its navigable waters combine more ele
ments of varied beauty than we often see crowded into the same
number of square miles. In ordinary weather, when the bosom
of the ocean gently rises and falls in graceful undulations, the
eye searches in vain for some trace of the grand, the thrilling
and the sublime. The waters ripple with a silvery and soothing
melody. "The airs we feel,
Which 'round us steal,
Seem murmuring to the murmuring keel."
Clouds of satin and silver float in the soft air, the fitting dra
pery of slowly moving but invisible gods of idleness and repose;
while upon the sea and its fairy isles, in unending variety, are
seen in great profusion, the evidences of a hand divine, that
165

156 IfeLES OF SUMMER.
adorns with exquisite loveliness, all forms and every variety of
matter which it touches.
There being no mountains upon any of the Bahamas, and no
high surrounding hills, those who seek for health and pleasure
upon the water at Nassau, have very little to apprehend from
sudden and dangerous gusts of wind during the visiting season.
These, sometimes occur, but the Bahama winds blow with re
markable uniformity and steadiness. There is, at times, too
much wind, but it is rarely unsafe to sail in Nassau harbor, on
account of its strength, and we were only twice becalmed, and
then only for a short time. On one of these occasions, we soon
came in with the tide.
The Nassau yachts, as a rule, have a good breadth of beam,
are strong and staunch,, and with competent boatmen at the
helm, they are much safer than ocean steamers. They have no
complicated machinery to get out of order, no large and infernal
looking furnaces to threaten purgatorial fires in advance of the
appointed time, and no high pressure steam boilers or drunken
officials to blow one up. It is true, however, that the master of
a Nassau pleasure boat is just as liable to be overcome with liquor
as the officers of steamships, but they do not have bar rooms oh
board their yachts, and if sober when they take their passengers
on board, it may be safely assumed that they will remain so until
the return of the boat to her dock.
It is reported that Captain Sampson, a few years ago, some
times when on shore, failed to put a sufficient quantity of water
in his rum, or, to speak perhaps more charitably, occasionally,
by mistake, put more rum in his water than was necessary to
neutralize the effects of the unhealthy salts it contained when
taken from Nassau wells, and that, like his great namesake, when
on a certain occasion his hair was cut too short, he was tempor
arily weakened and unmanned.

•YACHTS AND YACfi-JflttG. 15?
But Sampson's good sense proved to be stronger than his ap
petite, and the native force of his character secured a very cred
itable victory for his higher moral nature, and vindicated the
goodness and strength of his judgment. When sailing with him
on one occasion, after we had delicately alluded to this subject,
he said, — " I ha'nt drinked no sperits since '76. I know'd it
wouldn't do. Why, when I used to drink, I was 'fered to talk to
the missuses — 'cause I 'fered they'd smell my breth. But now
I isn't 'fered at all. I goes 'round 'em, and 'mong 'em, and to
windward of 'em, or any how — and none of 'em kan't smell no
liker when Sampson talks to 'em, 'bout goen sailen in his boat."
We have been informed that in Boston harbor several lives are
lost every summer from the capsizing of pleasure boats; that
Boston yachts are long and narrow, and that in their construc
tion, as well as in sailing them, safety is subordinated to speed.
But here, surrounded by intricate channels, and the waters
abounding with submerged rocks and reefs, where the vessels of
commerce, in formidable numbers, are stranded, and the busi
ness of "wrecking" is pursued by many of the islanders under
licenses purchased of the government, Ave have yet to learn of
an instance where a serious accident has ever happened to a
pleasure boat. The " Triton " carries eight thousand pounds of
iron ballast and draws five feet of water. It grounded once when
we were on board of her, upon a bank of coral, and a ton of bal
last Avas thrown overboard to get her off, but Sampson declared
such a thing never happened to the " Triton " before, and he
would npt have the affair known for fifty dollars. He was over
board in the water so long trying to get her off, and was so ex
cited and nervous about it, that, alas for the fast color of his
ebony complexion, he fairly turned white. Aided by the friendly
crew of a passing boat, the " Triton " was extricated from her
difficulty at last, and the diplomatic Sampson made all his pas-
14

158 ISLES OF SUMMER.
sengers happy by a perfect shower of encomiums upon the noble
and unexampled manner in which they " laughed at their calam
ity," declaring that never in his life had he before seen ladies
and gentlemen behave so well.
An old U. S. naval commander, (Capt. Fox), addressing our
favorite yachtman one day, said:
"When you go out with sailing parties and have ladies on
board, Avhy don't you take along your small boat, for, ballasted
with 8,000 lbs. of iron, if the 'Triton' should upset she Avould
go right straight to the bottom like a shot. In the United States
navy they will not allow a boat to be ballasted with anything
but water, so that it cannot sink. Now, with four tons of ballast
on board, what would you do should your boat with its load of
passengers upset?"
With emphatic and graceful gestures and a flashing eye, Samp
son answered:
" But de ' Triton ' karn't upset — 'tis impossible. Why I sails
all round dese yere waters in all kinds 'er Aveather for mor'n ten
years, and I knows what she ken do, and I tells yer der ' Triton '
karn't upset — kause I wont let 'er."
" Well, Sampson, you think she'll not upset, and a great many
men as experienced and capable of managing boats as you are,
and equally confident, have been drowned at last. Now why
don't you take your small boat along so that if an accident hap
pens, and you have ladies on board, they may be saved?"
"I say," replied Sampson, speaking with an energy and earn
estness with which a native deference, respect and politeness were
singularly and pleasantly combined, " I know'd what der Triton
ken do; for many a time, when I ha'nt got no passengers, I goes
all alone by myself and tries her in every place 'bout yese here
waters, and I studies her, and tries her, and larns what she ken
do, and I tells yer*-*not to say as how I do'snt 'spect your opinion

YACHTING. 159
— I knows de Triton, and I knows she karn't upset — 'taint possa-
ble — 'cause Sampson wont let her. Why, Sampson karn't 'ford
ter have 'er upset — 'twould ruin him. I couldn't live. No; I
keeps watch all der time; I keeps my eye on 'er; I doesn't 'pend
on luffin' 'er up alone, but yer see — with one hand on her tiller,
I hold the main-sheet in t'other hand on a bite, so I ken instantly
shake der wind all out of 'er main-sail if I seed it coming nor
furrer den dat house. And if I 'spects der wind any, I makes
one man hold 'er jib sheet on a flying turn — 'cause e'en if I emp
ties 'er main-sheet, der wind in der jib mite upset her — no sah!
I tells yer der Triton can't upset — 'cause Sampson wont let 'er.
But I 'spects yer opinion, an' 'twont do no harm to take der small
boat along — but no sah ! she karnt upset. "
And Capt. Charley Mitchell, (now, we regret to say, deceased,)
between whom and Sampson a friendly rivalry formerly existed,
upon another occasion expressed equal confidence in the Frolic,
(a center-board yacht which he sailed, ) and in his ability to avoid
serious accidents while prosecuting his vocation in water around
the island of New Providence. "Why," said he, "nows'pose
Mr. I., ye're way off heah, ever so far from yer home, with only
a hundred dollars in yer pocket — wouldn't you be karful of dem
hundred dollars? Wouldn't yer mind and study how yer spend
'em? Well, now, der Frolic is for Mitchell dem hundred dollars.
No, sah! Mitchell isn't gwine to lose his boat, 'cause he'd starve. "
It is pleasant at times, notwithstanding some increase of dan
ger, to sail outside the natural breakwaters of the harbor of Nas
sau, and cultivate a more intimate acquaintance with an ocean
which has and requires great continents to restrain and confine
it Avhen tossed and maddened by the tempests, or when stirred
to its profoundest depths by the hurricane. A little peril adds
an agreeable condiment to prosaic life, and breaks a monotony
which finally becomes oppressive even in an atmosphere that

160 ISLES OP SUMMER.
seems ever freighted with sensuous pleasures, and never stimulates
to heroic deeds, or to labors and duties which in colder latitudes
characterize all forms of life outside of tho vegetable kingdom.
We were therefore predisposed to respond favorably to the propo
sition of Sampson, when, upon the morning of the 20th of March,
1879, the day the equinoctial storm arrives at the north, if it is
on time, he proposed that, as tho wind was more lively than
usual, a few gentlemen should put the Triton to the test as an
ocean boat by going outside thc bar. He is always a ready and
fluent speaker, but on this occasion he seemed to have more and
better wind than usual to fill tho capacious sails of his eloquence.
Like his great namesake, of biblical fame and memory, he accom
plishes great results with a "jaw-bone."
"I don't want no ladies dis time," said he, "there's aleetle
too much wind to take der ladies along. I jess want to shake all
der reefs out of der Triton's sails and let her go. I'd like for
once to show der gemmen what der Triton ken do."
Half an hour afterwards two gentlemen and the author were
seated in Sampson's boat, and flying down the harbor of Nassau
under full sail. Amos, from Harbour Island, a colored man of
much nautical experience in Bahama waters, and of more than
average ability, was greatly complimented by the captain, because,
without Avaiting to be told, he went quietly to work and prepared
the yacht before crossing the bar for the washings he evidently
anticipated she was destined to get. He lashed to' the boat the
anchor and the oars, put carpets and cushions away in the little
forecastle, made fast every coil of rope, got ready for immediate
use the large sponges which are here employed to keep boats dry,
and brought out for the use of the passengers oil-cloth suits, more
useful than ornamental, and sufficiently capacious to keep the
salt water on the outside of a man in case the ill-mannered waves,
presuming too much on our very limited acquaintance, should

*Sfe

lipl

Mill

*-^lE£§s

Nassau from _ Hog Island.

TESTING THE TRITON. 161
persistently attempt to take possession of our temporary "house
and home." William, also from one of the outer islands, obeyed
orders, and made himself generally useful.
We were soon out upon the broad Atlantic, and Sampson, like
the rider of a winning horse at a race, experienced.a gratification
he could not entirely conceal, as, with the gracefulness and seem
ing speed of a sea gull, his yacht pluckily met and mounted the
high rolling billows, which we could not but remember had, in
their angry moods, strewn with wrecks the neighboring shores.
A portion of one of those wrecks was in sight, being all that re
mains of a blockade runner, whose captain took his steamer to
the left instead of the right of Nassau lighthouse. Some claim
the officers were all drunk; others say, "it was a put up job;"
but all the boatmen united in affirming, that, as a consequence,
" boots and shoes were plenty on Hog Island " — those articles
having constituted a part of her cargo. Certain it is, that hav
ing sailed out of Nassau harbor one afternoon, the vessel returned
in the evening of the same day, and was beached. Sampson said,
with an exultant chuckle, after alluding to the cargo scattered
along the shore, that " der Cap'n mistake Nassau light for der
' Hole in der Wall,' " (a well known light upon Abaco, nearly six
teen miles distant.)
The larger waves moved toAvards us in stately grandeur, in a
regular order of succession, as if marshaled and marching over
the bosom of the ocean under the guidance and direction of some
invisible god of the seas. After every nine smaller waves had
passed by, and under us, the long liquid platoon was marked
and bounded by a billow whose approach was watched Avith much
interest, and with an exhilarating but peculiar pleasure, as it
would often not only wash our forecastle and submerge our gun
nels, but drench us from head to foot, and make lively work for
William and his sponges. The pure ocean air, pleasantly cool

163 ISLES OF SUMMER.
and more than usually lively; the soft white clouds moving so
majestically across the clear blue sky; the exquisite beauty of
the islands and keys, and of the city of Nassau, which quietly
rested upon the rocky hillside, spiced with an excitement pro
duced by a sail designed to demonstrate "what der Triton could
do " in a free -wind outside of the shelter which the natural break
waters of Nassau afford — all combined to give us a very high
degree_ of exquisite and unalloyed pleasure.
After we had sailed in a northerly direction out into the ocean
to vindicate the truth of Sampson's claims in reference to the
good qualities of the Triton in rough water, we sailed in an
easterly or northeasterly direction along the windward side of
Hog Island, crossed Silver Key bar, entered water that seemed as
warm as any confined and heated by a July sun upon a northern
shore — skirted the southern line of Silver Key — passed through
"the Marine Garden," a region of submarine coral bowers of
marvelous and wondrous beauty, situated between the east end
of Hog Island and the west end of Athol Island, — then, turning
to the west, we traversed the easterly portion of the harbor of
Nassau, and were landed safely at the stone steps of the wharf
which we had left some three hours before. The latter portion
of our sail having been in waters somewhat sheltered, Sampson
was better able to amuse us with a chapter or two taken from the
A*olume of his personal experience.
The account he gave of his visit in the summer of 1878 to the
city of New York was particularly interesting. The impression
made upon his wondering and astonished mind, graphically and
faithfully described, furnished an entertainment of the most droll
and comical character. Quick to see, sensitive to feel, and gifted
to describe with a genius and eloquence all his own, this unlettered
and untraveled negro, mounted upon any northern platform,
could not have failed to convulse and bring down the house.

SAMPSON1 IN NEW* YORK CITY. 163
Never before had he left the peaceful quiet of this little island
Avorld. Passing over nearly a thousand miles of a solitude such
as only the immense, pathless, treeless Avastes of the ocean can
produce, he landed at last in that immense, seething, boiling,
noisy whirlpool of intensified human life — the great city of New
York. Afraid of being cheated — afraid of being robbed — afraid
of being run over — afraid of being, in a hundred ways neAV to
him, killed — not merely a stranger in a new land, but an ignorant,
semi-tropical, Bahama African in a babel and pandemonium far
surpassing anything his imagination had ever conceived, he seemed
for a time to have every particle of life taken out of him. The
ferryboats, constantly passing and repassing loaded with passen
gers — the immense labyrinth of streets and avenues, stretching
away in every direction farther than he could see — the great,
elaborate and expensive buildings of every description — the street
railroads, and particularly the vast crowds that made it necessary
to carry people on elevated railroads over the heads of those rush
ing in a ceaseless tide below — and the loud, harsh, deafening and
infernal mingling of noises that ever ascended day and night —
all wonderfully impressed him, and revealed a much more new
and strange world to him than his oAvn Bahamas did to Columbus
nearly four hundred years ago. He got lost in New York seven
times the first day after his arrival; paid ten cents to go to Cen
tral Park, and, after a long ride, he was astonished (and almost
scared at the seeming witchcraft) to find himself at the precise
place he started from. " Why," said he, "der ting had turned
round and I know'd nothing 'bout it, and I had to pay my ten
cents over agin." He still retains a vivid impression of the de
licious flavor of northern strawberries, but ate so many he de
clared that at night "dey confused " his stomach. His sea voyage
seasoned to his taste everything he ate. " Why," said he, "I'd
give more for jess wun mutton chop like as dat I had in New

164 Isles of summer.
York, den for all der mutton in Nassau." Thdugh touch in
terested in, he was glad to escape from New York, and affirmed
that he did not get the deafening din of its horrible noises out
of his head for more than two weeks after he left that city.
For two or three hours after we landed, we were busy at times
Aviping the crystals of salt out of our eyes, which were occasioned
by the waves outside of Nassau light endeavoring to take posses
sion of our boat. As we recall this rather foolhardy sail, it brings
to mind the anecdote of the newly-converted negro who was per
suaded to be baptized by immersion in the ocean, and having
accidently slipped from the grasp of the officiating clergyman
while his woolly head was under water, declared, so soon as he
could get the sea out of his eyes and mouth — "Some gemman
kum nare losing a good nigger by dis yere cussed foolishness."
Man is a gregarious animal, and when circumstances bring to
gether a large number of persons who are mostly strangers to
each other, they soon feel the influence of some subtle social law,
and form into groups. The foolish walk in company over the
paths of folly in search of pleasure, Here music binds together
with her tuneful strings and harmonious cords, those whose
hearts are attuned to melody. There, sparkling wit, and amus
ing story, and clever anecdote, flash and scintillate from the
crystalizing centers of another happy group. The staid, sedate,
practical, matter-of-fact people, in their little corner, meditate
and moralize upon the solid and substantial things of life, and
mourn over the fast and foolish ways and the constantly increas
ing extravagance of the present degenerate age. Some are soli
tary, and get all the light and heat they seem to need by burning
oil in their own little lamps.
We cannot explain how it happened, but at Nassau we gener
ally found ourselves surrounded by congenial people. We fre
quently speculated upon what we had lost by not having known

the gazelle's log. 165
them bSfope, aad Wondered, when we finally separated, if we
should ever meet in this world again.
The yachting circles to which Ave were attached, form clusters
of unfading flowers in the garden of memory. They were com
posed of persons as enthusiastic as we were in their expressions
of delight when viewing the exquisite beauties of the Bahama
isles and waters. Some were successful merchants from the
cities of the great west, who had run away from business, and
left all their heavy cares behind them. They seemed as gay and
sportive as children at play. Light-hearted and joyous, they
winged with a peculiar pleasure the flying hours. A log Avas
kept, and it was the source of much amusement. Its keeper,
being the head of the log, was voted to be, without any inten
tional disrespect to the turtles, a loggerhead. Many wandering
ideas and gay fancies were shot on the wing, captured, and em
balmed in its pages. It contained much entirely new matter,
which never had been before and never will be again added to
the wide domain of letters.
Several portable mills ground out upon the water detached
stanzas of machine poetry. It was soon suspected that some of
our party, when preparing to enter upon the voyage of life, had
made mistakes, and gotten on board the *wrong boats. Teas and
not tragedies, sugars and not songs, pork instead of poetry, had
occupied their time and engrossed their thoughts, to the great
loss of themselves and the world.
A dignified, courtly gentleman, who, several years before, had
crossed the dividing line which runs mid- way between youth and
old age, and in whose bright and pleasant eyes humor was lurk
ing in ambush, on one of our sailing excursions perpetrated the
following: We venture in the gay Gazelle,
Because with Amos all is well,
But what may happen none can tell.

166 isles of summer;
Instantly, upon his giving utterance to the last word of the
last line, a lady added as a refrain or snapper, -r-" my mudder !"
borrowing it from a tenderly filial poem which little Sahkey
sometimes gave us, standing in a chair in the court of the hotel.
It would have brought down the house had there been one. ;
This caused the crank of another mill to revolve, and the fol
lowing stanza was thereupon ground out:
Who learned us all this much to tell,
While sailing in the gay Gazelle,
And o'er us came this magic spell?
My mudder.
After the laughter and applause had sufficiently subsided, a
third stanza was added by still another of our happy group, as
our yacht glided before the wind.
To landsmen all we say, farewell!
Your troubled hearts you now may quell,
With Capt. Amos all is well;
My mudder.
A lady contributed in pencil the following, which was read by
the keeper of the Log: A POEM. Canto I.
It was in breezy, blustering March
That we, a jolly crew,
Went sailing in the gay Gazelle
Upon the waters blue. To be continued;
This literary gem was deemed all that could be expected in
such a climate as the result of mill Avork for one forenoon.

YACHTING DIVERSIONS. 167
The loggerhead, meanwhile, had not- been idle, and occasion
ally added a stanza to complete the literary bill of fare. We
give them connectedly: Like mountain lake— as smooth and calm —
The waves are hushed in dreamy sleep,
While perfumes float from isles of balm,
And murmuring voices from the deep.
We float like sea-birds on the tide,
We tread the deep with muffled keel,
Like spirits of the air we glide,
And something of their rest we feel.
Like sunset isles in western skies,
Where -viewless spirits joyous flit,
Before us lie the coral isles,
And happy angels, wingless, sit.
When weary toilers picture heaven,
Unending rest is their ideal ;
That boon to coral isles is given,
Here soon we learn that heaven is real.
On some of these excursions we took along Thompson's " Cas
tle of Indolence," and when the wind Avas not too strong, it was
read aloud and very greatly appreciated. It seemed as if its
author must have visited the Bahamas before composing the
poem, his pictures so perfectly mirror what one there ever sees
and feels. Take, for example, the following:
" A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half -shut eye,
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing 'round a summer sky;
There ekes the soft delights that witchingly
Instil a wanton softness through the breast."

168 ISLES OF SUMMER..
While sailing in the Bahama waters, the famous sargasso or
gulf weed, cannot fail to attract attention. It is constantly in
sight, and in that portion of the ocean world, is
"Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main."
Columbus encountered it upon his first voyage to the new
world, a few days after he left the Canary islands. The frequent
mention which he makes of it in his journal is evidence that it
abounded then as now. He also noticed the crabs that it con
tained — for little Crustacea, it seems, have long been accustomed
to have their domicils in these fragile and floating abodes, which,
no doubt, withstand the violence of an angry ocean better than
the strongest ships of oak and iron that man can make. This
weed is sometimes encountered in such quantities as to consti
tute what has not been inappropriately termed " sea gardens."
The following very interesting and suggestive description, we
copy from Kingsley's "At Last:"
" One glance at a bit of the weed as it floats past, shows that
it is like no fucus of our Shores, or anything we ever saw before.
The difference in looks is indefinable in words, but clear enough.
One sees in a moment that the sargassos, of which there are sev
eral species on tropical shores, are a genus of themselves and by -
themselves; and a certain awe may, if the beholder be at once
scientific and poetical, come over him at the first sight of this
famous and unique variety thereof, which has lost ages since the
habit of growing on rock or sea bottom, but propagates itself
forever floating; and feeds among its branches a Avhole family of
fish, crabs, cuttlefish, zoophytes and mollusks, Avhich, like the
plant that shelters them, are found no where else in the world.
And that awe, springing from the "scientific use of the imagi-

THE GULF WEED. 169
nation," would be increased if he recollected the theory — not
altogether impossible, that this sargasso (and possibly some of
the animals which cling to it), marks the sight of an Atlantic
continent sunk long ages since; and that, transformed by the
necessities of life from a rooting to a floating plant,
"Still it remembers its august abodes,"
and wanders 'round and 'round as if in search of the rocks where
it" once grew."
" When fresh out of the water it resembles not a sea weed so
much as a sprig of a willow leaved shrub, burdened with yellow
berries, large and small; for every broken bit of it seems growing
and throwing out ever new berries and leaves — or what for want
of a better word, must be called leaves in a sea weed. For it
must be remembered that the frond of a seaAveed is not merely
leaf, but root also; that it not only breathes air, but feeds on
water; and that even the so-called root by Avhich a seaweed holds
to the rock is really only an anchor, holding mechanically to the
stone, but not deriving, as the root of a land plant would, any
nourishment from it, therefore it is that to grow while uprooted
and floating, though impossible to most land plants, is easy
enough to many seaweeds, and especially to the sargasso."
The expense of yachting at Nassau is generally apportioned
per capita, and the charges of the boatmen are quite moderate,
so that a great deal of enjoyment is thereby secured for a very
little money. Although there is a good circulation of air on
shore, the change to that of the harbor is, when the hot sun is
well up, a decided improvement, and outside of the barrier keys
the wind over the ocean seemed more strongly medicated and
tonic. For sanitary reasons, therefore, we vrould strongly rec
ommend Nassau visitors to spend a portion of each pleasant day
15

170 ISLES OF SUMMER.
upon the water. There is no part of our Nassau experiences
which, when far away, gives us more happiness in the retrospect;
and often The white-winged boats with sable crew,
The fleecy clouds that draped the skies,
The gales of health that constant blew,
The waters striped with brilliant dies,
The cradle- waves that ever rocked
'Gainst far off cloud-embroidered wall,
The skies whose blue the deep sea mocked,
The sunny hearts that gilded all —
Return with e'en an added power
To brighten many an idle hour.

CHAPTER XI.
Nassau as a Sanitarium. Its Mild and Generally Salubrious Climate. Its
Freedom from Cold Waves of Air, and Cold Currents of Water. Its Vulner
able Points. No Absorbing and Filtering Sands. Impurities Endangering
its Water Supply, and Poisoning the Air. A High Degree of Heat in the
Sun. Diseases upon the Islands. Small but Crowded Human Ant Hills.
The Yellow Fever ih Nassau in 1880. The Pestilence in other Neighboring
Cities at Other Times. The Angel of Health Rides Upon Hurricanes. Cleans
ing the City. Constant Vigilance and Activity of Nassau's Board of Health
Essential to its Safety. Who may Hope for Relief and Curein Nassau. Not
the Best Place in which either to be very Sick or to Die. Frost a Factor in the
Problem of Civilization. Human Development and Progress Dependent upon
Ice. Sea Bathing all Winter. " The breath of a celestial clime,
As if from heaven's wide open gates did flow
Health and refreshment on the world below." — Beyant.
If Nassau has any great value to the American people, it is as
a health resort. It is claimed to be the ' ' Great Sanitarium of the
Western World." Much that is written and published upon this
subject is inspired by personal interest, and in such cases a one
sided and warped presentation of the facts of the case is a natural
consequence. Many confidently express crude opinions, hasti'ly
formed, and bottomed upon a feAv ill-digested surface facts, and
thus act the part of blind leaders of the blind. We have strongly
felt the great responsibility Avhich rests upon those who volunteer
their advice or opinion in matters so important.
It is not without a good deal of hesitation that we publish the
result of our diagnosis of the Bahamas. We made the best of
m

172

ISLES OF SUMMER.

our limited opportunities, and we have endeavored to collect and
decide upon the facts with judicial fairness. We do not ask the
reader to adopt our views, but only to take our testimony for
what it may seem to be worth, and to consider it in connection
with that of others whose opinions may be entitled to more
weight. The climate of the Bahamas, in its normal condition, seemed
to us fairly described in the lines we have quoted at the com
mencement of this chapter, although they were written of the
mountain air of Western Massachusetts. But when the poet
declares — (we substitute the word "ocean" for "mountain") —
that "Suns cannot make
In this pure air the plague that walks unseen ;
The ocean wind, that faints not in thy ray,
Sweeps the blue stream of pestilence away,"
he states what cannot be truthfully said of Nassau or its suburbs,
and what is not probably true of any of the thickly inhabited
portions of the globe.
Nothing is easier than to poison the purest air. Without con
stant care and vigilance, the waste matter — the sewage incident
to permanent abodes — will become any and everywhere, (the re
gions of unending frost alone excepted,) the prolific source of
disease and death. Through window and door, through crack
and crevice the pestilence will enter. Nature affixes penalties
to her sanitary laws which execute themselves. The code of
health which she has established is learned at a fearful cost in
sick rooms, in cemeteries, aud in mortuary records. In pushing
our inquiries into the sanitary conditions of Nassau, it will not
do to look only at her ocean winds, "the breath of a celestial
clime." We must examine "the earth, and the waters under

SANITARY AND METEOROLOGICAL l7#
the earth." It is proverbial that there may be "death in the
pot;" but we should never forget that it is equally true that there
is often death in the pitcher and the pail; and good physicians
in our day, when a malignant disease is developed, immediately
examine the character and condition' of the water supply.
The reader must, in regard to this question of health, keep
ever in mind those peculiarities of the Bahama islands which we
have endeavored to describe. Perfectly shielded from the cold
by the Gulf stream, which throws its warm, wide, watery arm
around them on the west and north — a shield which the frost
king finds absolutely impenetrable — it is ensured an atmosphere
of unending summer. Winter, in our sense of the word, is liter
ally unknown; while, at the same time, the islands are exempt
from the dry, scorching heat, which banishes the white race from
tropical regions in many parts of the world. The polar currents,
aqueous and aerial, are completely transformed when they en
counter the Gulf Stream, and all the discomfort is quickly taken
out of them, so that the Bahamas, languidly reclining in the lap
of summer, are slightly but agreeably refreshed by the coldest
winds that ever reach them from the north and west.
It is in this that their superiority as a winter resort for the
American people over the states of the Gulf consists. Upon the
main land, the north winds make a clear sweep to the Gulf of
Mexico. There is nothing to obstruct their course. The valley
of the Mississippi seems to have been scooped out to facilitate
their progress. With the Appellachian chain of mountains on
one side, and the Gulf Stream on the other, a great highway is
formed for Boreas over both the land and water sides of our At
lantic coast. And he travels over it in his icy chariot altogether
too frequently for the health and comfort of those who leave their
northern homes to search for summer in either of the states of
the south.

174*

iSLfiS OF SUMMER.

The remarkablo uniformity of the temperature of Nassau will
appear from an examination of the following meteorological table
copied from the official report of Gov. Rawson for 1864, page 14,
compiled from the records kept at Nassau's Military Observatory.
It gives the "Mean of Daily Observations on Week Days for
Ten Years, from 1855 to 1864."

Thermometer at 9 a. m.

Wind at 9 a. h.

Rainfall

Max.
Med.
Min.
Four Chief Points in Order of
Prevalence.
in
Month.
Inches.
Jan.
75
70
66
N.E.
E.
S. E.
N.
2.4
Feb.
76
71
66
N. E.
E.
S. E.
S.
2.4
Mar.
78
72
66
E.
S. E.
N. E.
N.
4.5
April
81
75
68
N. E.
E.
S.
S. E.
2.4
May
84
78
71
N. E.
S. E.
E.
S.
6.9
June
88
81
74
S. E.
E.
N. E.
S.
6.4
July
88
83
75
E.
8. E.
S.
N.E.
6.5
Aug.
88
81
75
E.
S. E.
S.
N.E.
6.7
Sept.
86
81
75
E.
N. E.
S. E.
N.
5.2
Oct.
82
77
73
N.E.
E.
S. E.
N.
7.4
Nov. ,
79
74
70
N.E.
E.
E.
S. E.
2.8
Dec.
¦77
73
69
N.E.
E.
S. E.
N.
2.4
Average
82
76
71
4.6
From the foregoing and from an examination of other special
tables contained in his report, Gov. Rawson draws the follow
ing conclusions:
1. Barometer. That the mean height of the barometer at
Nassau is exactly thirty inches.
. 2. That it attains its greatest height in the three months from
December to February, and is lowest in October and November.
METEOROLOGICAL. 175
3. That there is a constant difference in the observations
taken in the morning and afternoon, averaging for the whole
period a decrease of 0.05 height in the afternoon.
4. That the difference between the average of maximum and
minimum observations in the ten years has fluctuated between
0.25 and 0.46.
Thermometer. 1. That the four months, June to Septem
ber, are the hottest, and of nearly equal temperature, viz. : 88°.
2, That January, February and March are the three coldest
months, and of nearly equal temperature, viz. : 66°.
3. That the greatest maximum heat exceeds the average heat
by not more than 12°, and that the greatest mimimum falls short
of it 10°. The extreme variation, therefore, is 22°.
Rainfall. 1. That the chief yearly rainfall is from Mayio
October, and is heaviest in October. During these six months
it amounted to forty-four inches, and during the remaining six
months to nineteen inches; and that the greatest rainfall does
not correspond with the greatest pressure of wind.
Wind. ' 1. That the highest winds prevail in November and
January, and the average from October 1st, March inclusive,
greatly exceeds the average of the remaining six months, and
that there is little difference between morning and afternoon.
2. That north-easterly and easterly winds are the most preva
lent from September to February, during which months they
blow during one-half or two-thirds of the whole time. North
erly winds seldom blow except during those months, and then
only for three days in a month. From June to August, the
average is less than a day. Easterly and south-easterly winds
prevail chiefly from March to August. South-western are most
prevalent in February and March, to the extent of two to three
days in a month; westerly winds from February to April to the
extent only of one to one and a-half days in a month, and dur«

176

ISLES OF SUMMER.

mg the rest of the year of less than a day monthly; northwesters
from November to March, about two days in a month. Tlieir
relative frequency throughout the year is shown in the following
statement of the percentage proportion of days in a year, during
which they prevailed at 9 a. m.

North,  7.2percent.
North-east,  26.3 "
East  24.4 "
South-east,  18.6 "

South,  11.0 per cent.
South-west,  5.0 "
West,  2.3 "
North-west  5.3 "

The following tables are copied from official reports:
METEOROLOGICAL TABLE FOR 1878.

THERMOMETER.

EAINFAIX.

Months.

Max. in
shade at
9 a. st.

Min. in
shade at
9 a. >i.

Max. in
sun
in 24
hours.

Mean at
3 P. M.

¦*3 "
-al

° i.
|f
It

S CO
A 7.
¦ . o
rs ~,

February, 

76.5
78.0
82.582.2
86.589.8
89.5
88.887.2
83.5 79.077.5

61.062.565.2
70.075.5
71.0
74.5
78.8
78.075.5
71.0
65.8

140.0146.0149.5150.2156.5
154.0
159.0157.9
153.0
153.0157.5
155.0

73.373.976.780.4
81.884.085.8
¦ 85.884.2
81.176.1
73.8

5.15 7.052.363.19
7.286.56 6.05
9.25
7.157.372.84 1.38

1611 787
19
20 182412 10 7

1.10
2.00 1.05

1.00

2.40

1.60
.Tiiiv 
1.88
2.13
1.60
4.50 1.21
0.55
1001.0
848.8
1830.7
956.9
65.64
159
21.02
83.5
70.7
152.6
79.7
5.47
13
1.75
1
 r—
METEOROLOGICAL.
METEOROLOGICAL TABLE FOR 1879.

177

1 THERMOMETER.

RAINFALL.

Months.

Max. in
bhade at
9 a. m.

Min. in
sbadc at
9 a. m.

Max. in
^un
, in 24
hours.

Min. in
sun at
3 P. M.

S3

ES*
11

Max. fall
in 24
hours.

<_as

77.0 76.5 78 5
82.8 83.8
85.588.088.587.5
85.0
81.578.2

61.0 612 69.573.5 70.574.071.2
77.0 70.074.5
66 5
67.0

145.0 148.0153.5 154.0 155.5155.0 157.0
157.0
153.5153.0
148.0150.5

73.6
74.4 75.6 78.880.582.4
85.3
86.484.6
81.977.2
76.6

0 92
1.29
2.840.423.85
12.77 7.43
9.85
8.026.50
7.98 1.60

6865
131418 13
2018* 6
11

0 41
0.952.450.200.905.37 1.80
3.11
2.271.60
7.41
0.95

23

It

14

3
May, 
9
26
3(1
16
12
25
7
1
992.8
839.1
183.0
957.3
63.47
138|
27.42
82.7
69.9
152.5
79.8
5.29
11
2.28
G-ov. Eobinson vouches for the correctness of these tables by
inserting them in his reports for the cofonial Blue Books.
The weather was so charming when we were at Nassau in 1879,
the thermometer at 7 a. m., week after week, marking sub
stantially the same temperature, with no storms, and only an
occasional shower, that Capt. Fox believed that we were favored
with weather exceptionally good, and through the kindness of
the librarian of the Nassau public library, he obtained from the
Nassau military observatory the following table, showing the
highest and lowest temperature and the rainfall at the end of
every week, for six months, from November to April, both in
clusive, for the years 1878 and 1879.
178

ISLES OE SUMMER.

1877.

1878.

Week Ending

Thermometer.

Thermometer.

Week Ending
Rainfall.
Deg.
Deg.
Deg.
Deg.
Nov. 3
.12
90
72
Nov. 2
.54
87
71
10
3.98
99
71
9
.19
81
67
17
.49
84
65
- 16
2.44
82
64
24
.24
82
66
23
.11
82
65
Dec. 1
.80
85
61
30
.10
. 85
66
8
.19
85
67
Dec. 7
.68
82
62
15
.00
78
65
14
.55
81
65
22
.20
78
67
21
.13
82
65
29
1.26
83
61
28
.02
82
63
1878.
1879.
Jan. 5
.00
80
56
Jan. 4
.00
83
62
12
1.50
82
61
11
.03
81
62
19
2.12
84
59
18
.05
85
62
26
.32
82
59
25
.84
83
58
Feb. 2
1.13
81
59
Feb. 1
.00
74
71
9
1.00
81
59
8
.03
74
64
16
2.19
85
62
15
1.09
74
68
23
1.44
83
60
22
.02
76
66
Mar. 2
2.42
84 .,
? 6163
29
.15
75
66
9
.40
83
Mar. 8
.10
72
69
16
.04
89
66
15
2.50
75
73
23
1.87
84
64
22
.24.
76
73
30
.05
89
63
29
.00
78
76
April 6
.56
89
62
April 5
.20
80
74
13
1.20
83
61
12
.00
79
74
20
.31
86
65
19
.15
83
74
27
.22
85
67
£6
.02
78
73
There are serious discrepancies between the tabulated reports
which we are unable to reconcile or Explain, and we give them
to our readers as we find them. It appears that the temperature
at Nassau from November, 1877, to May, 1878, was not very dif-.
MM-EOROLOGICAL. i*i§
ferent from that of the same months in 1878 and '79; but the
rainfall during the same months in 1878 and '79, aggregated only
10.18 inches, while during the corresponding period in 1877 and
'78, it amounted to 24.05 inches. Indeed, during our visit in
1879, there was so little rain that a consequent failure of the
fruit crop was apprehended. The average rainfall for the ten
years covered by Gov. Rawson's summarized meteorological table,
during corresponding months, is 16.9 inches. It thus appears
that the Nassau weather from November, 1877, to May, 1878,
was very exceptionally ^et, while during the next following cor
responding period the weather was exceptionally dry.
While at Nassau in 1879, we were accustomed to daily observe
the thermometer and barometer, and a pencil meteorological
record upon the white wall of the hotel court was made by a very
intelligent and reliable gentleman from Canada, every morning
at 7 o'clock. The unvarying steadiness of the temperature and
atmospheric pressure, seemed so incredible to some of the guests,
that, half in earnest and half in jest, they declared that the ther
mometer and barometer had been "fixed up and doctored." I
give the state of the thermometer at 7 a. m., for each day, from
February 1st, to March 12th, inclusive:
1879—68, 67, 63, 64, 66, 68, 72, 77, 70, 70, 71, 70, 71, 70, 69,
68, 69, 71, 70, 69, 65, 65, 68, 70, 69, 70, 72, 72, 70, 69, 68, 69,
70, 69, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 71 degrees, For the four last days, at
two p. m., the thermometer stood at 75, 74, 74, 75 degrees, and
generally the difference between seven A. m. and two p. m. was
very small in the shade. The barometer varied but a trifle from
thirty inches.
But in the noon-day sun, especially in the narrow streets lead-
up from the water, over the hard, white limestone, and between
the high white- washed stone walls, the heat is very excessive,
and, but for the breeze that constantly blows from off the water,

1"80 ISLES OS* sUMMfitt.
it would be too much for any but salamanders and Congo negroes.
This side of the" picture is seldom given to the public. The
tables I have copied from Gov. Eobinson's reports are a marked
exception in this particular, to which the reader is referred. It
is easy, however, to avoid exposure at mid-day, and to take one's
rides or walks in the morning or in the latter part of the after
noon. While yachting, little inconvenience is experienced from
this cause, as it is customary to take along a supply of umbrellas
to assist the sails in throwing shadows upon the passengers. The
water is, without exception, of a most ftgrooable temperature,
and the tireless wind, that with remarkable constancy, ruffles its
surface, while leaving a tawny and enduring impress of its most
welcome caresses, is freighted with the grateful benisons, uttered
or unexpressed, of all who feel its cooling and rejuvenating in
fluences. The simile, "as fickle as the wind," seemed there to
have little applicability.
Writing from beneath the shade of one of her noble moss draped
live oaks, at Mandarin, upon the right bank of the St. John's
river, in Florida, the gifted author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, speak
ing of Florida, says in her " Palm Leaves:"
"Sudden changes from heat to cold are the besetting sin of
this fallen world. It is probably one of the consequences of
Adam's fall, which we are not to get rid of till we get to the land
of pure delights. It may, however, comfort the heart of visitors
to Florida to know that if the climate here is not in this respect
just what they would have, it is about tlie best there is going."
If the word "about," in the last sentence quoted, is' used in
the sense of "near to," then it is strictly correct, for the climate
of Florida is "near to," (being only two days sail from) that of
the Bahamas. Whatever may be said to the discredit of these
islands, they are certainly not chargeable with that " besetting
»in of this fallen world" to which Mrs. Stowe refers.

UNIEORM tEMP*ERA*tURS. 181
While no one can be any more sure in Nassau than he is at
home, or anywhere else, of escaping an exceptionally wet, and
to that extent disagreeable, winter, he can rely with great confi
dence upon having there, night and day, an atmosphere of a
pleasant and uniform summer temperature.
It is difficult for a native and untraveled Bahamian to appre
ciate what is written at the north about "the domestic hearth,"
and "cheerful fire-side." As poets do not confine themselves
exclusively to the truth, but use their "poetic license," the Ba
hamians naturally deem Longfellow's lines the out-cropping of
a wild fancy when he sings:
"Each man's chimney is his golden milestone ;
Is the central point from which he measures every distance,
Through the gateways of the world around him."
Certain it is, there are few such "milestones" in Nassau.
Persons who, for any reason, find it necessary to avoid the
cold, damp winds and storms of the North, will find at Nassau
a climate that fully fills the measure of their wants from the
middle of November to the middle of April. But temperature
and clear skies are not the only points to be considered in deter
mining the question of the importance of Nassau as "a great
sanitarium," and we have therefore extended our observations
and pushed our inquiries in other directions.
The drhiking^water, the drainage, the existence and observance
of sanitary regulations, the topography and condition of the ad
jacent back country, as well as the quality and direction of the
winds that pass over it, are all important factors in the problem
of health, and should be carefully examined and critically con
sidered. It is just here that Nassau's most vulnerable points are discov
ered, and, but for the superior sanitary arrangements of the Royal
16

18$ Isles of SUMMER.
Victoria Hotel, they would be much more damaging to the place
as a health resort. Wells and cisterns, in the absence of sand,
are sunk in the soft, porous, limestone rock, in the vicinity of
cesspools and privy vaults, so that the water they contain can
hardly fail to become more or less unwholesome. In many wells
the water is said to rise and fall with the tide, but whether its
quality is impaired by sea water we are not informed. There
being no general sewerage system, the surface rock is likely to
become saturated with the waste and effete matter that is suffered
to accumulate around human habitations where the climate dis
inclines to exertion, and exhalations may be expected to arise
therefrom, which will jeopardise health and life.
The colored people who are crowded together in the suburbs
of Nassau, pay little, if any regard to nature's sanitary laws, and
apparently conform to few of the conditions of healthy human
existence. While they live in the open air during the day, they
at night are crowded together in the one or two rooms of their
little cabins, from which the outside air is religiously excluded
by closed doors and wooden shutters. Perhaps they have learned
by experience the necessity of thus excluding the damp and
poisoned air that rests upon the low, wet lands of the interior of
this island. Their poverty denies to them the advantages of a
generous diet of varied food which is everywhere within the reach
of honest labor in the States.
That the seeds of disease, at least during the night, float in
the air above the swamps and lagoons of the central portions of
the island of New Providence, is apparent to any thoughtful ob
server who either crosses it or sees it from any of the neighboring
hills. The germs of sickness existing there are never destroyed
or rendered torpid by frost. In the mild, soft, damp air, disease
is present, and often dispenses his fevers with a liberal hand, as
the official records and statistics clearly demonstrate. Consunvp-

UNSANITARY CONDITIONS. 18S
tion also, upon a galloping steed, rides in the suburbs of Nassau
with an unchecked rein to his goal— the portal of death. It is
possible for leprosy to lurk in the dense chaparral of low lands,
and under the thick mangro groves that, with living arches and
festoons, beautify and adorn the miniature islands that rise out
of the shallow waters of the brackish and stagnant lakes.
The city of Nassau, as we have shown, is, in a sanitary point
of view, very favorably situated. Bottomed upon a rock of a
porous nature, which dips towards the harbor, and speedily ab
sorbs or carries off the heaviest rainfalls, facing the north and
skirting the sea, having within its limits no low and wet lands,
the prevailing winds come to it directly from the ocean laden
with refreshment and health. We examined the annual medical
reports of the surgeon connected with the military department
at Nassau for eleven years, from 1867 to 1878. Only that of
1873 gave statistics of the wind. From that report it appeared
that during the year 1873 the wind blew from the south at nine
o'clock A . m. only three times — once in June and twice in Novem
ber — and at three o'clock p. m. only once during the entire year,
and that was in November. The report states that in 1873 the
wind blew from the north-east on 175 days, at nine A. m,, and
from the south-east 111 days, and that at three^p. m. it was north
east 185 days, and south-east 121 days; while it blew from the
west only two days. During the ten years covered by Gov. Raw-
son's table, which we have quoted, the wind from the south is
stated to have averaged eleven days in a hundred. The wind
was from the south very rarely while we were at Nassau ia 1879,
but it atoned for its long intervals of absence by being very sul
try, debilitating, and exceedingly disagreeable. As it sweeps.
over the low, wet surface of the center of the island, we believe
it unfavorable to health, although the distance is measured by a
very few miles. While we were at Nassau in 1880, the wind was

184 iSLES OE SUMMER.
more frequently from the south and the weather was, as in the
States, exceptionally hot, and for that reason Nassau was much
less attractive.
The Royal Victoria Hotel is provided with tanks for the stor
ing of rain-water, which are said to have a capacity of 300,000
gallons. The water is exclusively used for drinking and culi
nary purposes, and it always appeared to be of most excellent
quality. Ice, from the state of Maine, is procured under a con
tract which the government made for the supply of the city, of
which there was always an abundance at the hotel. The water
of the hotel is therefore most excellent and unexceptional
provided proper care and vigilance are exercised in cleaning
the tanks, and guarding and keeping them from impurities.
During the latter part of the hotel season of 1878-9, after a
long protracted drouth, dysenteric complaints were alarm
ingly prevalent at the Victoria Hotel, and, although physicians
were numbered among its guests, no one seemed able to dis
cover their cause. There was nothing disclosed in the taste,
color or smell of the drinking water which indicated that it had
anything to do with the trouble. The more we pondered upon
the cause, the more we were puzzled. Before leaving Nassau we
read the "Brief Auto-biography" of the former rector of one of
the churches in Nassau, the late Rev. Wm. Strachan, D. D., who,
in 1822, established a church and was for sometime its rector
upon one of the Turks Islands. The latter part of the following
extract from the little book (p. 58) excited in us some incredulity:
" I found no wells in the island, and learned that the only
water to be had, either for drinking or cooking purposes, was
the rain which drops from the clouds, and is received into capa
cious tanks attached to the several houses. A stranger must be
cautious how, and in what quantities, he imbibes the rain-water
at first, as it is liable to produce a severe dysenteric attack."

DYSINTERIC COMPLAINTS. 185
In calling the attention of one of the military officials at Nas
sau to this subject, and to the paragraph we have quoted, he
said :
" Soon after my first arrival in Nassau, I was, in common with
some other officers of the garrison, troubled with severe griping
pains in the bowels, which I suspected was caused by impure
water, and I caused the water in the cisterns to be drawn off.
At the bottom I found a dark colored, dirty deposit, two to
three inches thick. I had the cisterns thoroughly cleaned, and
the result was the griping pains disappeared."
When in April, 1879, we returned to Jacksonville, Fla., we
learned that dysenteric complaints had made their appearance
among the guests of the St. James Hotel, that the water in the
cisterns of the hotel was discovered to be very impure, and offen
sive to the taste and smell. In Jacksonville as well as at Nassau
there had been a long season of dry weather, so that the cisterns
were drawn down low, and the dirt at the bottom no doubt in
both places poisoned the water — hence the sickness that followed
its use.
Upon our return to the north we sent the substance of the
foregoing facts to the proprietor of the Royal Victoria Hotel,
and he promised to have the cisterns of his hotel emptied and
cleaned. Thus disease and death sometimes lurk, and wait, and watch
for victims, where they are looked for least. While at Nassau,
in 1880, we had no evidence of the existence of any of the dysen
teric troubles that existed in 1879. Spring water is utilized at
the hotel for some purposes, and a bountiful supply is carried to
tanks elevated over the water-closets by means of a steam pump,
and a suspicion existed when the bowel complaints made their
appearance, that some of it had been used for cooking purposes.
The hotel officials, however, denied that it had been so used.

186 ISLES OE SUMMER.
The dews at Nassau are often very heavy, and it is prudent to
follow the poet's advice, and
"The dews of the evening most carefully shun,
Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun."
Some old residents of Nassau informed us that they considered
the evening air in Nassau prejudicial to health. One of them —
a lady — said that she was obliged to exclude herself from it to
avoid lung disease. But when night after night so many bright
stars call to us from a cloudless sky to come out and look up —
and especially when the moon rides in great splendor across the
bluest of heavens on purpose to be seen, it seems hardly courteous
or creditable to ignobly ensconce ourselves under mosquito bars,
and be content with indolent repose or oblivious sleep. When
we occasionally accepted of the invitation, it was only~to be over
whelmed with the magnificence of the display, as was Moses on
Sinai. The official Bahama mortuary statistics which we examined,
failed to discriminate between the races, and to so localize the
results that a comparison can be made between Nassau and its
suburbs. The medical reports of the military department de
scribe the colored troops as being very licentious, and a large
portion of them suffer from venereal diseases. These complaints
are said to have been introduced into Grant's Town by French
troops, when, upon "the breaking up of Maxamillian's Government
in Mexico, the vessels which were transporting them to France
stopped on their way at Nassau.
As a matter more of curiosity than of practical utility, we sub-
ioin an abstract of the reported causes of death in all the Bahama
islands in 1864. It is taken from Gov. Rawson's report for that
year.

NIOHT AIR. MORTUARY STATISTICS.

187

Catjses.

Average Quarterly
Number.

.sa O <U

Percentage Proportion.

J3

Fevers :
Ordinary, 
Yellow, 
Scarlet Eruptive, &c,
Diseases of Lungs and Heart,..
" " Bowels and Liver,
Dropsies, 
Diseases of Brain and Nerves :
Apoplexy and Palsy 
Convulsions and Spasms,
Sudden and "Violent, 
Stillborn, 
Childbirth, 
Other causes 
Total, 

32 1
1434 14 76
24 10 22
45

38 56
3822 5
4
14
10 1
3
47

6335125526 6

21 7
2 3
43

5814 9
26 19 76
27 915
46

16.6 .4
7.3
17.8 7.3
3.6
3.1
12.6 5.0 1.21.0
24.1

19.7 2.42.9
19.8
11.4

2.1
7.45.0 .7
1.3
24.7

23.012.7 4.4
20.1 9.42.1 1.1
7.5
2.7 .6
1.2
15.2

25.4 6.13.7
11.5 8.5 3.1
2.6
12.0 4.1 .6
2.4
20.0

192

192

274

230

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

Gov. Rawson says, "The inferences to be drawn from this
table are that the latter half of the year is much more fatal to
the population, to the extent of nearly one-third, and that this
is owing chiefly to the prevalence of fevers, including yellow
fever, which contributed one-third to the excess."
" These islands are, without exception, remarkably healthy.
They are free from, and are seldom visited by epidemic diseases.
Intermittent fevers, which prevail to so great an extent on the
neighboring continent, are comparatively infrequent here, and
usually assume a mild form. During the last thirty-five years,
Nassau has been visited by the' cholera but once, viz. : in 1852;
by small-pox in 1845 and 1860, when it was introduced in both

188 ISLES OE SUMMER.
instances from St. Domingo; and by the yellow fever at distant
intervals, and attended with very slight mortality, viz. : in 1829,
1845 and 1853, until 1861-2, when from transient circumstances
it assumed a more malignant form, and carried off a greater num
ber of victims, including the first bishop of the diocese. It re
peated its visits in 1863-4.
"The inhabitants are, for the most part, a hardy, robust race.
They consume little animal food, and live chiefly on Indian and
Guinea corn, vegetables, fish and shell-fish. Many of the petty
cultivators on the Windward Islands, who cling to their small
plots, and refuse to seek- employments as hired laborers in their
own or other islands, are often reduced to much distress when
their meagre crops of corn fail them through drought or other
causes; and these are in the course of deterioration, both physi
cal and mental, enervated, indifferent to improvement, and bring
ing up their families in ignorance and sloth.
"Nassau is usually very healthy and free from disease. In
1862-64, during the height of the blockade-running trade, when
the town was filled with strangers, the lodging houses were over
crowded, and the elements of disease were festering in the heart
of the city, it is not surprising that the yellow fever, whether
introduced by vessels coming from infected ports, or engendered
by the unusual condition of the city, should have broken out.
But it was confined to strangers and to unacclimated persons,
and was not by any means fatal as compared with other places.
" The Board of Health, a body constituted under a local Act,
with large powers for the protection of the health of the colony,
reported that in 1861-62, about 400 persons were attacked, and
ninety-five died, in a population numbering in 1861, 11,503; and
that in 1864, out of a population estimated at 15,000, the num
ber of cases was 700, and of deaths 137. Of these, 153 cases
resulting in forty-five deaths, were admitted into the Quarantine
Hospital from the shipping and lodging houses."

SANITARY CONDITION. 189
It should be considered that in the settlements upon some of
the islands, the population is very much crowded, and that the
health of the people suffers in consequence. Gov. Rawson, in
his report for 1864, estimated that the population of Dunmore
Town, upon the island of Eleuthera^ was 2,500, and that the
density was " about forty persons to the acre, or 124 square yards
to each individual, which is nearly six times the average of the
781 principal towns in England " in 1861. He adds, "the con
sequence is that for the last two or three years the place has been
very sickly, and typhoid fever has committed considerable rava
ges among the inhabitants.
Upon a little key at the extreme north-west point of Eleu
thera, and about five miles from Harbour Island, the settlement
of Spanish Wells is situated. Gov. Rawson states in his report
of 1864, that the inhabitants of Spanish Wells "have continued
to divide and sub-divide their lots among their children, so that
the houses almost touch each other, and in some places the (so*
called) street is not over three or four feet in width. .The area
of the settlement does not exceed three acres; so that the popu
lation is upwards of 150 to the acre." He adds, "they are un
cleanly in their habits, and all attempts to introduce sanitary
rules among them have hithertp failed. Consequently, typhoid
fever has lingered here, too, for the last three years."
Gov. Rawson also speaks of another settlement upon Eleu
thera, called Governor's Harbor, where, he says, "the density
of the population equals, if it does not exceed that of Spanish
Wells." He says it is situated upon a rock, about 300 yards
long, by 100 yards wide, which is connected with the main land
by a narrow neck of land, and that this rock is "in miniature,
very like the Rock of Gibraltar."
He also states that "the people at Devil's Point, upon St.
Salvador, have the worst reputation of any upon that island,"

190

ISLES OF SUMMER.

and of "being not only lazy, but addicted, to the most viciflUs
and immoral habits," Also, that upon Acklin's Island, "the
commonest comforts and the ordinary necessaries of life are evi
dently wanting," which he attributes in part to the indolent
habits of the people. He says that upon Fortune Island, the
people (numbering 470) "are all poor and unable even to repair
their own dwellings, and that but for the fish, conchs and crabs,
they would absolutely suffer and perish from want of the com
monest necessaries of life, for they are too indolent and inactive
to go where their labor would be useful to themselves and others."
We give these facts, not as fairly indicating the average char
acter and condition of the people living upon the Bahama islands,
but as illustrating, 1st, that no air, however pure and delight
fully tempered and medicated it may be in its normal condition,
will save a people from diseases of a malignant type when laws
of health are disregarded; and 2d, that very elaborate health
tables are of little value if they fail to discriminate between places
where the sanitary conditions and habits of life of the people are
very unlike — although they have some degree of geographical
and political unity.
We did not learn of any cases of yellow fever, cholera or small
pox, from 1864 to 1879. In Gov. Robinson's report for 1878, he
states that "an epidemic of whooping cough prevailed for sev
eral months, causing much distress and some mortality amongst
the children of the laboring classes." One would suppose that
in such a climate, if whooping cough made its appearance at all,
it would have been of a very mild type. It seems to have been
otherwise in 1878.
During the winter and spring of 1880, a malignant fever re
sulted in quite a number of deaths at Nassau, and it is our belief
that it was yellow fever, and we will state the evidence upon
which our opinion is predicated.

THE YELLOW EEVER. 191
"Upon the morning of the day the steamer left New York, on
which we had engaged our passage out, a gentleman startled us
a little by announcing that "Nassau had got a black eye." He
said it had been reported in the States that the yellow fever had
broken out in Nassau, but that the Governor of the Bahamas and
the foreign consuls at Nassau had published cards denying the
truth of the report. Our steamer stopped at Fernandina, and a
gentleman there told us that a physician, recently from Nassau,
and then at the Egremont Hotel, in Fernandina, stated that be
fore he left there had been in Nassau two deaths from that dis
ease. The steamer City of Austin had then just arrived at Fer-
nandina from Nassau, and one of its passengers assured us that
there was not any yellow fever in Nassau when he left. None
of our passengers were alarmed sufficiently to alter their plans,
and when upon the day of our arrival in Nassau we entered
the dining room of the Victoria Hotel, and saw how merry and
healthy and hungry everybody seemed to be, the last vestige of
the yellow fever scare disappeared. For some days no allusion
was made to "Yellow Jack," but after a while pretty well authen
ticated reports reached us of quite a number of cases of sickness
and death within the city limits, but outside of the hotel. It'
appears that the disease attacked .at first the children of the'
natives, some twenty or more of whom died. It was said that
it could not be yellow fever, first, because it was confined to the
children, and second, because none but children belonging in
Nassau had been attacked; whereas unacclimated adults were the
first to be stricken down when yellow fever prevails.
After which we learned of a few cases of alarming sickness
among the visitors from the States and elsewhere, several of which
resulted in death. One of the latter was the wife of Dr. Aiken.
She_was previously a healthy woman, but the doctor was an in
valid. They had been boarding with a Nassau gentleman who

192

ISLES OF SUMMER.

held the office of Assistant United States Consul. This case oc
curred in a house situated upon high ground very near to the
hotel, which the owner and his family thereupon, for prudential
reasons, vacated. Dr. Aiken then came to the Victoria Hotel to
board, and he was afterwards our fellow passenger when we left
Nassau for Florida. He told us that the disease was yellow fever,
and that the sanitary conditions of the Vice-Consul's premises
outside of and close to his dwelling house were very offensive and
bad. Our young friend from Vermont, Mr. Phelps, arrived at Nas
sau in November with his invalid mother. He had the fever,"
but his mother escaped, although she took care of him night and
day, with the exception of two nights, when, by advice of a local
physician, she entrusted her son, while convalescent, to the care
of a nurse whom the doctor recommended. This nurse got drunk,.
neglected the sick man, who took cold in consequence, and had
a relapse. His life was then despaired of by the physicians, but
he was saved at last by an experiment which the mother had the.
sagacity and courage to make upon her own responsibility, and
without the knowledge of the medical attendants. She admin
istered, in connection with the prescribed medicines, some kind
of salts, (we have forgotten what kind,) first in small but frequent.
doses, watching him closely all the while, and had the great sat
isfaction of seeing the fever gradually give way, and finally dis
appear. The doses were increased as the salutary operation of
the medicine was developed. When she afterwards told the
doctors what she had been doing, they were (as she represented
to us) offended, although she had apparently saved the life, of
her son after they had announced tbat he could not recover.
With the exception of keeping a little piece of camphor gum in
her mouth, she did nothing to escape the contagion of the dis
ease. One of the attending physicians, who was accustomed to

REASONS FOB, LEAVING. 193,.
sit.upon the bed of the sick man, she believed carried the disease
to- his own home, for two of his daughters thereafter had the
fever and died. He then abandoned his house upon East Hill
street, within a block or block and a-half of our hotel, and moved
with the remainder of his family to " Thompson's Folly," where
he was sure of the best kind of Bahama air, and a plenty of it,
although he took the chance of being blown some day half across
the Atlantic ocean by a hurricane. The disease was not pesti
lential but sporadic, and although it was near to, it did not enter
the hotel. It was evidently a very undesirable fever to have,
whether entitled to be called yellow or not. Two out of three of
the resident physicians persistently denied that it was yellow
fever, while the third one, who was in Nassau when the yellow
fever prevailed at the time of our late American war, differed
with them on this point. A gentleman on familiar terms with
the prominent men of Nassau, informed us before we left, that
it was not at first believed to be yellow fever, simply because it
was confined to children, and especially to the children of natives,
"but now," said he, "that it has attacked adult strangers, they
admit it to be yellow fever." These admissions were not publicly
made or generally known.
Our attention was occasionally attracted by consultations, pri
vate and mysterious, of persons who traveled in company. A
growing and constantly increasing desire to speedily return to
the land of the starry flag was discernable, and we learned, after
a while, that the state-rooms in the Nassau steamers for their
return trips had been secured for sometime in advance by certain
wise and thoughtful ones — among whom we, alas, were not
numbered. There was no panic, but only a quiet and commend
able exhibition of prudence. So far as we could learn, no cases
of fever had occurred at our hotel, and nothing was observed in
its immediate vicinity calculated to generate or invite disease.
17

194

ISLES OF. SUMMER.

Unfavorable rumors floated more or less loosely in the soft and
silky air, but, notwithstanding, the wings of fear were kept
wonderfully well clipped. Nor did we permit ourselves to be
made unhappy by unfavorable possibilities. We knew that bor
rowed troubles are worse than real ones; but still the fact was
too patent to be overlooked or ignored, that only a single floating
bridge, of limited capacity, connected us with Florida's wet and
flowery land, and that if it, for any cause should give way, as
several of its predecessor's had done, it might be some weeks be
fore its owners in New York would learn of the disaster, and span
the Florida gulf with a substitute. Nor did we feel any strong
desire, personally, to " lie down to pleasant dreams " in the white
coraline rock of "the greatest sanitarium of the western world,"
even though a colonial capital should in consequence thereof be
beautified and made forever famous by our monument.
After a while our turn to depart came, and a feeling of great
satisfaction — not to say relief — came over us when we bade adieu
to the great sanitarium, and the charming picture of jewelled
isles in a turquoise sea disappeared from view. Proudly our
steamer skimmed the smooth, untroubled and tranquil world of
waters, slowly and grandly the day god "Steeped
His fiery face in billows of the west,"
while the night was made glorious with its canopy of brilliant
stars. It spoke well for our ship, and for the hotel in which We
had spent so" many happy hours, that in neitlier of them had
there been a single case of serious sickness of any kind.
Mr. Phelps and his mother, and Dr. Aiken, were our fellow-
passengers, so that it seemed— especially while they detailed to us
their sad experiences— that we were brought almost into the very
presence of the much to be dreaded fever itself. But a kind and

A CROWDED STEAMER. 195
merciful Providence so ordered it, that we escaped entirely
unharmed the perils of sickness and of the sea, and as our
steamer had a clear bill of health, we were saved from numbering
among our experiences, a practical acquaintance with the inde
scribable attractions of the quarantine system in southern ports
in very warm weather.
About four weeks afterwards we took passage in the screw
steamer City of Austin, at Fernandina, for New York. She had
just arrived from Nassau with a large number of passengers, in
cluding Mr. Morton, the proprietor of the Royal Victoria Hotel,
together with his principal assistants. The children of the
American Consul were also on board, and we learned that the
Consul and his wife designed to follow them so soon as his official
duties would admit of his leaving. We had also the Episcopal
Bishop and his children. The Bishop's wife was one of the vic
tims of the fever, and we had no doubt he had left Nassau because
he was not willing to incur the hazards incident to a residence
there during the warm and wet season of the year. We could
not but deeply sympathise with him in his great affliction, and
half regret that we had allowed ourselves to be amused at the
high sounding titles which, upon his arrival the year previous,
helped so much to inspire the Bahamians with reverence, if not
with awe. Upon ship-board there were certain peculiarities in
his every day costume, as striking as a Chinaman's pig-tail, which
were well calculated to attract attention. They were strongly
suggestive of the fact that the man whom they adorned was not
an ordinary individual. But in the shadow of his great bereave
ment, surrounded, as he was, with his pretty but motherless little
ones, we were not disposed to unfavorably criticise or inwardly
smile at the peculiarities of his costume. We did not make the
Bishop's acquaintance, but he was dignified without seeming vain
and conceited, and his intelligent, amiable and good natured
countenance quite prepossessed us in his favor.

196

ISLES OF SUMMER.

Our ship was very much crowded, and some passengers slept
upon the fioor of the main saloon, but being favored by pleasant
weather, and no pestilential or other diseases having made their
appearance, little inconvenience was experienced. We ought not,
perhaps, to omit one instance of sickness which occurred on
board, and was said to have occasioned at first some uneasiness.
The sick man was employed upon the steamer, and a physician,
after looking him over, and making a thorough diagnosis of his
case, reported that his patient had only an attack of "whiskey
fever," and that he would be all right in the morning.
As we made our way up the beautiful harbor of New York in
the early morning of a charming day, and felt the thrilling and
exquisite pleasure incident to a safe return to our native shores,
we almost forgot that a malignant disease had recently thrown
unpleasant occasional shadows over us upon one of the isles of
summer, and had almost brushed against us with the hem of its
garment as it passed by.
Mr. Phelps has written us that he has, since his return, received
letters from Nassau, and his mother has entertained several per
sons who reside in Nassau, at her house in Vermont ; that his
Nassau corespondents stated that at the time of their writing,
the yellow fever prevailed extensively in Nassau, and that it
had occasioned many deaths; that the wife and two children of
the Wesleyan minister at Nassau, Major Simpson and two of
his children, and a lady visitor from Ontario, Canada, were
numbered among its victims. Also, that the local physicians
there now admit that Mr. Phelps had " the genuine yellow
fever." Another gentleman, whose sources of information through
correspondents in Nassau are at least equally good, though less
disinterested, writes us as follows: "The fever has shown itself
spasmodically at Nassau this summer, but to very little extent.

YELLOW FEVER Iff SOUTHERN CITIES. IS?
The town has been very thoroughly cleansed, and if the recent
hurricane has visited Nassau, as it probably has, the germs of
the disease will be destroyed." It is, therefore, now altogether
probable, that the sickness which occurred in Nassau in the win
ter and spring of 1880, was of the yellow fever type. That it
did not more generally prevail, is no doubt due to the fact that
Nassau is so well ventilated with ocean winds. In certain locali
ties there existed conditions favorable to its spread, and in these
the fever germs took root, so that the disease was sporadic and
not pestilential, and the result of local causes.
The fact should in this connection be stated, as a matter of
justice to Nassau, that all the cities of the Southern States and
of the West India Islands, have been occasionally subject to the
same disease.
An apparently intelligent and well-informed correspondent of
" The Semi -Tropical," — a monthly magazine formerly published
in Jacksonville, Florida — in the December number of that peri
odical for 1877, gives some instances of the prevalence of this
disease which are worthy of consideration. He says: " In 1857,
Jacksonville was visited by a fatal epidemic, generated by the
opening of the railroad through a swamp hole in the heart of
a little hamlet during the warm season, when the exhalations
were foetid with miasma. It was confined at first to those resid
ing in the immediate vicinity of this swamp, and radiated from
that center, but did not cross the river. It was as destructive
as yellow fever, though in many respects, it lacked some of the
essential features of that disease. It proved fatal to an alarming
degree, but more from the impossibility of securing nurses and
proper assistance, than from any necessity of the disease." He
adds that before that, yellow fever cases from the West Indies
had not spread.
He also refers to "a few fatal cases of what is termed in the

16§ tSLES 0* SUMMER.
West Indies, butcher's fever, which occurred two years since,
[1875,] in Jacksonville, Fla., about the market."
Under date of November 20, 1877, while his article was part
ly in type, he adds — " Yellow fever has been proclaimed in Jack
sonville, and in such a manner as to cause the most false ideas
and groundless apprehensions abroad. " He adds that ' ' not more
than five cases have occurred, and in regard to these, some of our
most experienced physicians express the greatest doubt." But
it seems to be consistent with the code of medical ethics, to doubt
and deny if thereby the spread of disease may be prevented or
checked. The materia medica includes moral as well as physi
cal poisons, experience having shown that they are the antidotes
of fear. A medical man from Boston, told us in Nassau that
Dr.  of Nassau, could not be much of a physician, for if he
was, he would not say that yellow fever existed there, even if it
did in fact.
The magazine writer refers to the exemption of St. Augustine
from yellow fever for fifty years during its occupancy by the
Spanish and British authorities, and to its prevalence in 1821.
We were assured that cases of this disease occurred in St. Augus
tine a few winters since, and some cases are occasionally to be
expected perhaps in all cities not favored with frost.
He says that "in 1822, the yellow fever was introduced into
Pensacola, by a cargo of spoilt fish being cast upon the wharf."
That, "when the yellow fever prevailed in the town of St.
Mary's, Ga., about 1808— a place of great general health— such,
he was informed, was the state of the atmosphere, that beef,
twenty-four hours killed, fell from the hook by putrifaction, and
water drawn from the well in the evening, was in a state of mu
cilage next morning."
In 1878, the yellow fever prevailed at Port Royal, and we were
tbere told, that fifty persons died of the disease. And yet, the

YELLOW FEVER IN SOUTHERN CITIES. 199
place is quite small. The fever is supposed to have been caused
by digging up the ground to make certain improvements which
the railroad's freighting business demanded.
The city of Fernandina in Florida, is pleasantly situated on a
rise of ground upon Amelia Island. Its vicinity to the ocean,
whose winds and the tides that flow through the spacious water
ways that lead to it, would seem to secure for it immunity from
malignant diseases, although there are low and wet savannahs in
its immediate neighborhood. It is something of a health resort
in winter. We learned while there, from some of its residents, ,
that the yellow fever scourged the city in the summer of 1877.
The magazine writer whom we have quoted, refers to it in his
article, and says that in a population of 3000 there were 1000
cases of yellow fever, which resulted in 100 deaths. He states
that it was caused by opening ditches through wet lands in hot
weather, and by the discharging of a large amount of ballast from
a vessel with yellow fever onboard, " into the heart of the town,
and in the midst of this reclaimed swamp;" and that, " accord
ing to a well established law, the introduction of a quick, viru
lent disease will drive out or characterize all local diseases, and
become epidemic."
Notwithstanding the grave and serious importance of the sub
ject, one can hardly refrain from smiling when he sees the in
habitants of a fever-stricken city looking to a hurricane for their
deliverance, as travelers and pioneers upon the great western
prairies sometimes fight fire with fire. Destructive cyclones have
commissions of mercy and beneficence to execute; and God not
only makes " the wrath of man," but the angry winds "to praise
him." The blessed angel of health, when driven out of its
strong-holds in the cities of the South, and upon the beautiful
coral isles, harnesses itself to a hurricane and returns, driving
out, scattering and destroying its enemy. Incidentally huge

200

ISLES OF SUMMER.

trees are torn up by the roots, houses blown down, and some lives
destroyed, but health and happiness pitch their tents upon the
ruins. Since the great hurricane of 1866, and until the year
1880, the yellow fever, so far as we have been able to learn,
though domiciled in Havana, has been a stranger in the Bahamas.
We trust Nassau will for many years to come be free from its
visitations. Although Nassau's sanitary character has not always been un
sullied, and it has occasionally suffered a "fall from grace," its
reputation as a sanitarium has generally been not only good but
well deserved. It never bas been and never will be safe, espec
ially in countries where frosts are unknown, to violate the laws
of health which nature has imposed. The operation of these
laws, and the enforcement of their penalties, is as sure and silent
as the revolutions of the stars. Disease and death sleeplessly
watch from their coverts at the gates of every stronghold of
health. Eternal vigilance is the price of safety. "A little
slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep " in the drowsy air,
by the boards of health, has caused many happy homes to be
made desolate in the past, as it will in the future, when hard but
salutary lessons are forgotten.
If Nassau, for six consecutive months out of every twelve, is
not one of the healthiest places in the world, it is the fault of its
people. From November to April, the seeds of malignant dis
eases will not germinate in its healing and healthful air, if wise
sanitary regulations are made and enforced. She owes it to her
self, and to valetudinarians in the British American Provinces,
and in the States of the Union, who desire to seek for health
within her limits, to see to it that the pure air which nature
wafts to her constantly from the ocean, and the pure distilled
water from the clouds, artificially or naturally stored in its coral
line rocks, shall not be polluted and made inimical to health by
a criminal neglect of the first and plainest hygienic principles.

Nassau's general good reputation. 201
" It is an ill-wind that blows no one any good," and the peo
ple of Nassau live largely upon the misfortunes of others. Disa
bled hulks from the stormy ocean, and from the troubled sea of
human life, fly to it as a harbor of refuge, and the amount paid
for salvage in each class of cases, aggregates every year a large
sum. By a liberal expenditure of money in mapping and light
ing the channels of commerce, the British government has cur
tailed one source of income, which will be in a measure made up
"by the adoption and rigid enforcement of wise sanitary laws.
For the benefit of our readers, we give the views of a number
of intelligent gentlemen in regard to the merits of Nassau as a
health resort. They were written from different stand points,
and cover periods of time widely separated.
Peter Henry Bruce, an English engineer, was commissioned
in 1741, to build and make good the defenses of Nassau. After
speaking in his Memoirs of its- climate, and characterizing it
"as the most serene and most temperate in all America," he
says, "it is, therefore, no wonder that the sick and afflicted in
habitants of this [English] climate fly here for relief, being sure
to find cure here." Thus it appears that its fame as a health
resort in winter was well established nearly a century and a-half
ago. Dr. W. T. Hutchinson, of Providence, R. I., highly recom
mends Nassau for those who suffer from diseases of the nervous
system, and who require rest for body and mind, for brain and
muscle. Dr. W. KLirkwood, of Florence, Italy, affirms his belief "that
the climate of Nassau, during the winter months, is superior to
any winter resorts for pulmonary invalids " which he has visited,
and he had spent four years in Italy and the South of France..
But we conclude it was a hasty opinion based upon a short ex
perience of Nassau's mild and uniform climate.

302 ISLES of summer.
Gen. James Watson Webb, said in 1870, that "from the first
of November to the first of June, there is not, in all probability,
any spot on the face of the earth so desirable for persons suffer
ing from pulmonary complaints." From the facts and opinions
we have given, the reader will judge whether this unqualified
recommendation is not too broad and sweeping.
Dr. F. A. Castle, editor of " New Remedies," with more dis
crimination, and we think truth, said in 1877, that " in those
forms of lung trouble where there is profuse expectoration and
perspiration, we should hardly think of recommending patients
to visit the Bahamas. But in the early stages of chronic pneu
monia and catarrhal pneumonia, in tubercules, convalescence
from acute diseases, and in exhaustion from over- work and worry,
the advantage of being able to live, if necessary, out of doors,
without tlie fatigue of heavy clothing, the comparative freedom
from risk of catching cold, and the purety of the atmosphere,
render this one of the most healthful as well as available resorts
of which we have any knowledge."
The Rev. Dr. Nelson Millard, writing from Nassau in March,
1876, said, " Such a climate, if resorted to in time, often works
with wondroUs curative power upon affections of the throat,
bronchia and lungs — as in the case of bronchitis, I can testify
from personal experience. "
Epes Sargent, Esq., a gentleman of considerable literary cul
ture, but whose opinion may be unconsciously biased from the
fact that he keeps a boarding house at Nassau, says, " that for
all [?] diseases of the lungs, throat, liver, kidneys, or spine, there
is no climate on the face of the earth superior, and I doubt if any
equal, to the climate of Nassau." And again, "some most won
derful cures of pulmonary diseases, asthma, rheumatism, neural
gia and bronchitis have been performed almost entirely by the
climate. In the first stage of the disease, recovery is almost

favorable testimony. 203
Certain." Mr. Sargeant has had unquestionably superior oppor
tunities of learning the facts, and his opinion, notwithstanding
his personal interest, is entitled to considerable weight.
We were interested in 1879, to hear two of our Nassau friends
who had been at the Bermudas, compare them with Nassau. One
declared that the Bahamas weakened and debilitated, while his
system in the Bermudas was refreshed and invigorated. Both
winter resorts have the ocean air, but one is cool and tonic — the
other so warm it wilted and unstrung him. He did not want to
see the Bahamas any more. The other declared the Bermudas
no place at all for a sick man; that it rained there all the time,
and was therefore damp and wet, while its temperature was sub
ject to great fluctuations, and was very trying to invalids. But
Nassau, he affirmed, was just the place for a sick man to enjoy
himself and get well. A large, healthy looking and intelligent
man who was returning home with us after a six months' resi
dence at Nassau, spoke very strongly against it. He did not
like boating, and preferred to take his exercise on foot. When
the sun was up he could not walk out because it was so very hot,
while the damp and unhealthy night air made out-door exercise
at that time unsafe. He had no desire to go there again. Other
passengers on the Savannah steamer in 1879, including the author,
felt that to them Nassau had been a great sanitarium, while its
bland air, beautiful waters, coral bowers and bright skies, will
ever secure for it a most prominent place in the mind's store
house of pleasant memories.
The wife of the author of this book was relieved of bronchial
and asthmatic troubles at Nassau, in 1879, which did not return
while she was at our sea-side residence upon the north shore of
Long Island Sound during the following summer. In the suc
ceeding fall and early winter the old troubles again made their
appearance in a modified form, but the air of Nassau in March)

&04

ISLES OF SUMMER.

1880, supplemented by that of Florida in April, affected an ap
parent cure.
We knew of an instance where a person suffering from catarrh
of the bladder found great relief at Nassau.
A judge from the city of New York was stopping at the Vic
toria Hotel when we arrived in 1879, who was suffering from
what was thought to be a softening of the brain. In such cases,
perhaps, a more tonic atmosphere is desirable. He attempted
to resume his judicial labors soon after his return, but found
himself incapacitated.
We made the acquaintance at Nassau, in 1879, of a lady who
was then apparently cured of a bronchial disease, but she had
some return of it the following summer in the mountains of North
Carolina. It is impossible in a great many cases to know beforehand with
certainty what effect the air of the Bahamas will produce — wheth
er favorable or unfavorable. It is not adapted to meet the neces
sities of all. Nassau is unlike the pool of Siloam, that cured all
comers. Some are prostrated in its warm enervating air. A
medical gentleman informed us that in confirmed consumption
it relaxes the tissues, and that severe hemorrhages follow. If
good in that complaint at all, it is only in its early stages. Thi3
we learned both from observation and from the testimony of
physicians on the spot. One of these said to us, "Don't recom
mend these islands for consumption and rheumatism." A resi
dent physician of good repute declared the climate bad for rheu
matism. A young clergyman, prostrated by a pulmonary com
plaint in the dawn of what promised to be a most useful life,
went over in the same steamer with us, in 1879, and for sometime
it seemed doubtful if he would ever be able to leave the island
alive. We were told in Nassau, in 1880, that his health was
improved.

•WHO MAY EXRECf BENEEIT. 205
As Nassau's position is isolated, and so far removed from the
cities of the north, with only one weekly line of steamers, and
no telegraph, as yet, to connect it with the States, it is not the
place one would ordinarily select in which to be very sick, and
many better places nearer home can be found in which to die.
A physician whom we met in Nassau, in 1879, said to us: "It
costs a thousand dollars to die here. In one instance, last year,
(1878,) $300 dollars was paid for the use of a small building as
a dead house, and other charges were in proportion." If one is
dangerously sick, there is no place for him like home, with its
comforts and unbought sympathies.
To those who are weak, debilitated, over-worked and run down,
whose feeble hold on life is constantly endangered by sudden
fluctuations of temperature, and the severe storms and cold winds
of the north, the warm and beautiful Islands of Indolence and
Sensuous Repose, attract with flattering promises of permanent
benefit. New leases of life are doubtless accessible to many
such in Nassau. But we do not believe that either shore of the
Mediterranean Sea, the banks of the Nile, Madeira, Florida, or
any Isle of Unending Summer, can furnish desirable homes for
white people in health. We have only to compare the natives
of the States north of the old Mason's and Dixon's line (includ
ing cold and bleak New England), and their works, with "the
children of the sun " and their neglected opportunities, to be sat
isfied on this point. The cold north wind stimulates, braces
and builds up. Every blast, fearlessly and boldly breasted, in
vigorates the healthy body^ enriches the blood, and gives vitali
zing and enduring strength and power to the mental and moral
forces. In the temperate zone the mental, moral and physical
powers of man reach their highest development. Frost is an
essential factor in the problem of civilization. All human pro
gress is bottomed upon ice. The great and profound truths, the
18

Sod

ISLteS OF SUMMER.

hidden laws of the world of matter and mind are born of the
north wind sweeping over the snow fields.
Wandering through the wilderness of streets in the noisy Babel
of the Empire State, only seventy-four miles from home, a little
unassimilated globule in a great eddying, boiling sea of human
life, separated and isolated from familiar scenes and faces, and
from warm and sympathetic hearts, a murky and crushing feel
ing of loneliness that we cannot dispel pervades the soul, and
life for the time loses its value by reason of its comparative in
significance. But the frequent mails, the long lines of railroad,
the locomotive with its ribs of steel and mouth of fire, the bridges
of steamboats over all the deep separating water-ways, the perfect
net-work of telegraph and telephone wires, like great life-roots,
still closely unite and bind to the familiar places and faces that
we have left behind us; while the morning press, that miracle of
modern enterprise and invention — seems to so closely connect us,
that we realize that we are indeed a component part of the great
world of human life, and we feel every pulsation of its great
heart. But upon the little island of New Providence — a rock
fast anchored in the great ocean — communication with the out
side world is so infrequent and contingent, that we seem when
anxiously waiting, watching, and vainly longing for the arrival
from Jacksonville of the only steamer that connects these islands
with the mainland, like a little colony of Robinson Crusoes.
On stepping from the deck of a steamer, upon one of the
docks at Nassau, we have a consciousness that we are mere waifs
on the ocean of life, dissevered and far away drifted from every
thing that makes a residence upon the sun's little satelite desir
able. The tired worker, needing absolute quiet and rest, can find it
there. But he must make up his mind not to be anxious or
ifuBsy about friends and business in his distant home. If, da*f

ISLAND SOLITUDES. SEA-BATHING IN WINTER. 207
after day, the expected steamer fails to arrive, and he looks a
hundred times in vain for the signal of her approach upon the
flag-staff at Fort Fincastle, he must not allow himself to think
even of the possibility that she has foundered at sea, or has been
wrecked on some of the dangerous rocks or reefs or shores that
have made the Bahamas so noted in the past. He must not in
dulge in speculations upon the probable results of such a misfor
tune, nor strive to find out how long it will be before the outside
world will hear of the disaster and make provision for his return
to the living busy world from which he is separated. If he has
a sick relative in charge, he must not undertake to solve the con
undrum what he ought to do in case the sickness assumes a very
dangerous form, and how he will manage in case of death. But,
on the other hand, by all means let him feast and fill his soul
with the sensuous, ambrosial delights that surround him, thank
God for the clear, blue skies, the mild uniform temperature,
the soft and balmy airs, the tranquil and beautiful seas, the
strange, wonderful fauna of the emerald water, the picturesque
islets and keys, and the new and most charming vegetable world
that is ever spread out in unfading beauty before him; let him
enjoy the present, trust in the future, and in a Divine Providence
that wisely directs, rules and overrules with unerring wisdom
and unflagging benevolence, and leave to fools and madmen the
bad business of distilling, like wasps and hornets in flower gar
dens, poisons from present joys.
While considering Nassau's advantages as a health resort in
winter, we ought not to omit to mention the facilities which it
offers for sea bathing. In this particular nature has done for it
all that could be reasonably asked or desired. She has furnished
both air and water of a most agreeable temperature at all seasons
of the year, and during all the hours of both day and night.
No cold currents of either air or water are encountered. The

208 Isles of summer.
islands are situated within the limits of the isothermal ielt, that
in the neighborhood of the equator, nearly encircles, with a warm
watery girdle, the earth. The Gulf Stream protects it upon the
west and north, while the strong winds, that sometimes prevail,
seem unable to bring to the surface the colder water that fills
the bed of the vast oceanic basins. Besides private bath houses
along the city's harbor front, bathing facilities are furnished near
Fort Montague. Crossing the harbor in a row-boat, the north
shore of Hog Island is soon reached, where the surf rolls in from
the ocean, and bathing of a lively and exciting description can be
enjoyed by those who experience an exhilarating pleasure in
breasting the strong and foaming billows. Some gentlemen who
occasionally tried surf bathing there before breakfast, spoke very
highly in its praise, but regretted that no one had life, energy
and enterprise enough to smooth the surface of the rocks — a work
requiring but a few hours of labor with a hammer.
Some indulged every morning in a sea-water sponge bath in
their rooms.

CHAPTER XII.
Corals and Coral Reefs. Tlie Marvelous Beauty of the "Marine Garden."
Its Corals, Goralines, Gorgonias, Algee, Sponges, and Wonderfully Colored
Fishes. Water Glasses. Natural Aquariums. Coral Bowers and Grottoes.
Sea Urchins. The Colored Divers. Life in the Rock.
" There with a light and easy motion
The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea,
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid the bowers of stone,
While the waters murmur tranquilly
Through the bending twigs of the coral groves." — Peeoival.
While at Nassau it was our happy destiny to make the partial
acquaintance of some of the members of a family of the most
ceaseless, and indefatigable builders that have ever existed since
the world first commenced to keep step to the " music of the
spheres," and sweep in grand cycles around the sun. Called into
existence by the fiat of Jehovah, in that vague and mysterious
"beginning" when "the earth was without form," and "dark
ness was upon the face of the deep," the little corals, with the
first peep of creation's early dawn, commenced, in the warm clear
waters of the great primeval sea, their silent, unobtrusive and
apparently insignificant work — evidences of which, clear and in
disputable, the researches of modern scientists have discovered
far inland, hundreds and thousands of miles from where the
Western Atlantic billows "beat the sounding shore." In an
unbroken line of descent, from tho depths of a past so vast and
209

SIO ISLES OF SUMMER.
profound that the minds of the wisest men reel, tottef and
give way when they attempt to grasp and follow it, the little,
tireless, plodding, stone-secreting corals of our own times have
descended. The monuments of their Past are the islands and
continents, whose foundations they laid, that have arisen out of
the sea — while the Future patiently, in solemn majesty, awaits
the completion, in tropical and semi-tropical latitudes, of those
new foundations, now being so quietly and noiselessly laid by
these diligent builders, upon which the "new earth " of prophecy
is to rest.
Looking at them in the perfectly clear waters of the Bahamas,
how insignificant they appear! Studying them more carefully
in the light of the vast results which they have already accom
plished, they seem foremost among the great builders, made and
set apart by God for the erection of homes, in a vast and wild
waste of waters, for all the varied forms of vegetable and animal
life. Individually they are seemingly as insignificant as the motes
in a sun-beam. Collectively, as seen through the dim mists
which shroud in gloom the vast unknown periods lying back of
the small cycles of recorded time, they glow and are hallowed
with a radiance reflected from a divinity whose decrees they ex
ecute. " The mill of the gods grinds slow;" to Him who had no
beginning and is ever existing, "a thousand years are as one
day," — and as we, from time to time, gazed at and reflected upon
these little but most important creatures in their ocean homes,
they revealed to us more of the divine than did. ever the lofty
cloud-capped mountain in its sublimity, or the vast ocean when
vexed and tossed by the wildest and most angry storms. Upon
our arrival in Nassau they were the first to attract our attention,
and, before leaving, they were among the last to engage our
thoughts and employ our pen. When we would propose the task
of attempting some description of them, we felt an indescribable

CORALS'. mv
reluctance to commence, and were awed into silence, knowing
that we could make but a faint picture of the corals as they
appear to the eye, or give satisfactory expression to the moody
speculations which they naturally suggest to an inquiring mind.
The coral was formerly believed to belong to the vegetable
kingdom, but naturalists have for some time agreed that it is one
of the lowest forms of animal life. To those whom " proud science
never taught to stray," it appears, upon casual inspection, to be
in some of its forms nothing but a cnrious and beautiful kind of
limestone, and in others a marine vegetable having such a stony
habit of growth as closely to ally it to the inanimate rock upon
which it builds, and to which it is securely attached and appar
ently rooted. It belongs to the large family of coralligerous
zoophytes, and is found not only in the Bahama waters, but off
the coast of Florida, around the Bermuda and West India islands,
Madagascar and Mauritius, off the coast of Zanzibar, in the Per
sian Gulf, in the Red and the Mediterranean Seas, and in the
Indian and Pacific oceans; but, as it cannot live and work except
in water of the temperature of not less than 68° of Fahrenheit, it
is only found within a belt of ocean thirty-six hundred miles
wide, through which the line of the equator runs. In colder
latitudes, and off the western coast of South America and Africa,
it is not found. Some of its reefs are over a thousand miles
long. The most important of the coral-making animals are the Polyps,
which in external form and delicacy of coloring Prof. Dana com
pares to the garden aster. Both have a central disc, fringed
with petal-like organs called tenacles. Below the disk the coral
polyp has a stout cylindrical pedicel or body which contains the
stomach and internal cavity of the polyp. The mouth is in the
center of the disk. The coral animal is very domestic, from ne
cessity, being as it were, " tied to its own door-post." Like a tree

218 ISLES OF SUMMER.
or shrub, through its little round of life it remains fastened to
the same spot, and the process of increasing and multiplying
never stops. Closely compacted in compound groups, a single
zoophyte is formed by a budding process differing little from the
budding process in vegetable growth. The coral animals while
thus closely associated, living together and constantly multiply
ing, secrete the beautiful corallum or coral of commerce and cab
inets, which is merely the skeleton on which the soft and perishable
portion of the animal rests, and to which it adheres. Coral reefs
are, in their outer surfaces, mainly composed of great communi
ties of these flowering zoophytes, below which the dead skeletons
are compacted and solidified.
The coral reefs were divided by Charles Darwin in his Voyage
of a Naturalist, published many years ago, into three classes.
The first, which are found in the immediate neighborhood of the
land, in shallow water, he called fringing reef corals; and the
second, barrier reef corals. These two surround islands or skirt
continents, but they are separated from the neighboring shores
by navigable channels, while their outer margins often border
ocean depths as vast as those seen from lofty mountain tops. A
barrier coral reef is formed off the coastof Australia, of sufficient
length to more than reach from Nassau to New York. It is from
twenty to thirty miles from the shore, and is a breakwater to a
great natural highway, having a depth of water of from sixty to
six hundred feet. The remaining class of coral reefs are circular
in form and are called atolls. They encircle great lagoons, or
large areas of ocean water, to which access is generally obtained
through breaches or openings upon their leeward sides — where
we would naturally anticipate the little corals would be most ac
tively at work, as they would be there less exposed to the force
and fury of the ocean when its billows are storm-tossed. But
Creative Wisdom has secured their services for the windward side

THE CORALS AS BUILDERS. 213
by making it a law of their existence not merely that- they shall
be constantly under water which is clear and of a temperature of
not less than 68° Fahr., but that the water shall be asrated; the
ceaseless dashing of tho waves against the rocks and reefs on the
windward side saturates them with air, as the foaming breakers
and sparkling spray clearly indicate; and hence it is that here,
in the ever seething, boiling, foaming waters, these silent, unob
trusive and seemingly unimportant creatures, with a lineage
reaching back to " chaos and old night," are found in the great
est numbers, reach their highest development, and accomplish
the best results Thus do the ocean depths below us, where by
an alchemy far surpassing the skill and genius of man, the little
corals secrete from the ocean waves the limestone foundations for
islands and continents that are yet to be, equally with the depths
above where suns and systems of worlds revolve, forever reveal
to the observing eye and inquiring mind the perfect and profound
wisdom of their common Creator.
We have spoken of the corals as builders, and in practical re
sults, such they pre-eminently are, but, as Prof. Dana has shown,
they do not labor like the bird in constructing its nest or the
beaver in making its dam, but, by a law of their nature, they se-
"crete the corallum or coral as man makes his own bones or the
oyster its shell, and the vast coral formations found upon the
land and in the ocean are composed of the skeletons which they
have left behind them.
No costly sarcophagus of deceased royalty — no mausoleum
which human skill and ingenuity has ever erected — no Egyptian
pyramid rising grandly out of the shadows of four thousand de
parted years, can even in a remote degree rival in beauty and
sublimity the vast and varied tumuli of these little dwellers in
tropical and semi-tropical seas.
The corals and corallum in extensive beds abound in the Ba-

21* ISLES OF SUMMER.
hama waters, and afford one of the principal attractions for
those who visit this part of Queen Victoria's possessions. We
have seen and studied them at various times and under different
circumstances, and yet we feel, not only that our knowledge of
them is imperfect and superficial, but that we can convey to
others only a crude and unsatisfactory reflection of the impres
sion they made upon our own mind. The effect is heightened
by all the surrounding circumstances. There is nothing to an
noy or produce any but pleasurable sensations. New but con
genial friends meet together by a subtle law of attraction, recline
on the cushions, occupy the comfortable chairs, or sit on the cir
cular seats of the "Trident," the "Gazelle" or the "Frolic."
Ik is, to be sure, mid-winter, but no northern summer air ever
seemed half so soft, soothing and voluptuous. We have not known
each other long, and yet there is such an absence of reserve, such
an interchange of tliought, such an expression of pleasurable
emotions, and such a telling of rich and racy anecdotes, that a
looker-on would have supposed we were life-long acquaintances
and friends. Feasting and surfeiting upon types and forms of
beauty never seen or even imagined in our colder climes, it was
a relief to be aided in the audible expression of delightful emo
tions by the combined vocabularies of our little group of ex
plorers. Visits to the coral beds and reefs are made exceedingly attrac
tive by reason of the peculiar clearness and beauty of the water
over which we sail to reach them and in which they are found.
No snow fed mountain torrent was ever more clear and trans
parent, and, as the water-bed is white limestone, objects at the
bottom can be seen with great distinctness. On one occasion of
relatively smooth water, a mile or so outside of the bar of Nassau
harbor, we clearly saw the bottom at a depth of about seventy
feet. The sounding line showed seventy-six feet, but some dis-

BEAUTIFUL SEA WATER. 215
count must be made, because, as our yacht was in motion, the
line could not have been perpendicular.
The water of the harbor is most exquisitely colored. It is a
soft, delicate, brilliant green, wholly unlike any of the countless
shades of green seen in tne vegetable world. When the waves
are gently rolling in a brilliant sunlight, they gleam and sparkle
in a manner but faintly represented by the most beautifully tinted
silks when their graceful folds are in motion under a strong light.
It cannot be properly described upon paper, and if faithfully imi
tated upon canvass by the most gifted artist he would be charged
by art critics and connoisseurs with painting the ideal, and with
being color mad. One never tires of looking at it, but soon gets
out of descriptive and eulogistic adjectives, and rests with a final
declaration that it is a brilliant, moving, liquid, sparkling, lovely
torquoise. At times, when the winds and sunlight are particu
larly favorable, such color effects are produced that practical,
prosaic men seem to vie with the more susceptible and apprecia
tive ladies in their exclamations of astonishment and pleasure.
A lady in our party on one occasion when we visited the corals,
exclaimed while gazing, feasting and almost getting intoxicated
upon this wonderful exhibition of color, " What would our
friends at home say if they could only see this! They think that
they know water, but they don't."
Occasional rifts in the limestone bed of the harbor vary the
prevailing color with ribbons of the deepest and darkest blue,
while the ocean outside is seen to darkly mirror the softer blue
of the sky. Often also there is at midday a warm glow above
the horizon like that which heralds the ushering in of a new day.
As we near the homes of the corals the foaming and dashing
of the breakers over coral reefs and submerged rocks reminds one
of our party of the icy spray of an Alpine avalanche, and adds a
new and pleasing variety to the view, while the neighboring

216 ISLES OF SUMMER.
islands with honeycombed shores, and short patches of white
sandy beaches, also contribute other elements of beauty. The
purple haze resting upon the island of New Providence also re
calls the aerial investiture of the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
We are soothed and lulled by a soft silvery melody, the water
rising and singing sweetly to us as we glide along ; the music
perfectly harmonizes with the calm and voluptuous beauty which
nature has lavishly bestowed upon this favored locality.
Snatches of poetry long concealed in some of the nooks and
corners of the mind, and forgotten — the gathered gems of earlier
years — emerge from their hiding places amid scenes and sur
roundings so congenial, (just as the beautiful and perf umed blos
soms of the arbutus awaken from their winter's sleep in the warm
breath of the opening spring,) and we again exclaim with Fay :
"Blow scented gale, the snowy canvass swell,
And flow, thou gleaming eddying current, on ;
Grieve me to bid each lovely point farewell,
That, ere its graces half are seen, is gone.
"Nor clouds in heaven, nor billows on the deep,
More graceful shapes did ever have or roll,
Nor came such pictures to a poet's sleep,
Nor.beamed such visions on a poet's soul."
The "Marine Garden," through which the reader may remem
ber we passed when returning from our yachting excursion to
test the capabilities of Sampson's Triton in a strong wind outside
the bar, is nearer to Nassau and more accessible than any of the
other localities where the corals abound in this vicinity. Hence
it is the most visited and the best known. Situated between
two islands, it is more sheltered from the wind, and the conse
quent comparative smoothness of the water enables the visitors
at all times to examine it. Being a flower garden under water,

JH Bmerton irom na tiere.

Pundcrscm&U'jsana "NewHaven.Ot

CORALS

WHITE STONY CORALS.
1. Agaricia agaricites. A piece from the edge of a large mass. Natural
size. In life each hole was occupied by an animal with separate mouth and
tentacles, but connected at the base with all the others around it.
2. Porites clavaria. End of a branch. Natural size.
3. Eusmilia fastigiata. "Rose Coral." A branch. Natural size.
Formed of four distinct animals, two of which are nearly divided across the
middle. 4. Millepora alcicornis. " Sea Ginger." When fresh it has a biting taste.
A branch from a large piece. Natural size. This belongs to the Hydroids,
a different class from most corals. In life the soft parts of the animals are
extended through minute holes on the surface, marked by dark spots in the
figure. 5. Madrepora prolifera. "Finger Coral." Branch from a large piece.
Natural size. Each animal forms a cup-shaped projection. The terminal
one, from which those below have branched, is larger than the others.
6. Manicina areolata. A young specimen. Natural size. Attached to
the rock. From Agassiz's Report on Florida Reefs.

FLEXIBLE CORALS (GORGONIAS.)
Corals with a hard, flexible core, covered with a softer outer layer, which
is usually brightly colored.
1. Muricea muricata. A branch. Natural size. Light orange-color in
life. 2. Gorgonia flabellum. "Fan Coral." Light purple or bright yellow in
color. A small specimen. Natural size. The black spots along the edges
of some of the branches mark the holes from which the mouths and tentacles
extended when the coral was alive.
3. Gorgonia setosa. "Sea Feather." One-fourth natural size. Color,
light pink or purple.

''^m^wm1 m War

J.H Emerton. Srom. jiatxrre.

Punderscui&Ci isand Kew-Haven Ct

CORALS

THE MARIXE GARDE""**". 217
the eye cannot explore it when the surface is rough. Each boat
is therefore provided with " water glasses," wooden boxes about
eight or ten inches square, open at the top, with window
glass bottoms ; to the boxes are attached wooden handles from
eighteen inches to three feet long. Holding this little instru
ment over the side of a boat at anchor, in such a manner that
the glass bottom is immersed, the observer who looks through
the open end of the water glass can see all the " wonders of the
deep " in the line of his vision as plainly as he could if no water
intervened. This marine garden is made up of the most exquisite submerged
coral bowers and grottoes, which rival the choicest productions
of the floral world in form and color. We can hardly believe
our eyes when such charming and unexpected beauties are first
revealed by tbe water glass. The madrepora or branching coral
is very abundant, and is here and there seen of a large size. The
astrasa or brain coral also abounds, and masses of it are seen many
feet in diameter. Alcyonoid polyps, (delicate coral shrubs,) vie
with the gay, varied and luxuriant algse in decorating the garden
with their curious growths. They are peculiarly delicate in form,
graceful in motion, and attractive in color. The gorgonias or
sea-fans, also diversified in size and color, unite with the large
clusters of tall, purple sea-feathers in challenging the admiration
of all beholders, as they gracefully wave in the clear water like
tall flowering shrubs in the wind.
Sponges are here also seen, clustered and combined in their
little miniature cities, and immovably fastened to the rocky shelf
upon which the warm, clear, beautiful waters rest. New and
exquisite forms of coral beauty startle and charm us as our yacht
slowly circles round her anchor in different portions of this curi
ous nautical exhibition. Into deep alcoves and recesses, and far
under shelving masses of corals, we inquiringly gaze, but an im-
18

218 ISLES OF SUMMER.
penetrable mystery hides in the shadows where no sunlight enters,
and, by a most striking contrast, helps to glorify and adorn the
beautiful and unique forms that the light reveals.
New and wonderful combinations of these (to us) strange forms
of marine animal and vegetable life, when first observed and
closely studied, is the occasion of new expressions of delight. If
sea-nymphs and ocean fairies exist anywhere in the world of
waters, their chosen home should surely be in these coral bowers
and grottoes; and if they are ever embodied, their outward adorn
ments cannot in color surpass that of the fish we saw sporting in
the sunlight, and darting into the dark recesses of this beautiful
submerged coral world. Exquisite in form, the perfection of
gracefulness in motion, the peers of birds of gayest plumage in
color, they seemed specially adapted to harmonize with, and grace
and adorn this lovely spot. As with water, so " our friends at
home think they know fish— but they don't. " Some are brilliant
yellow, others a rich scarlet, and others a glossy indigo blue.
Here are seen fish in suits of emerald green, and others in clerical
black. Costumes of satin and silver may also be observed. Be
sides all these there is in the piscatory dwellers among the corals
a most gorgeous color display, resulting from the ringing and
striping and fringing and tipping and spotting of the fish. In
deed, it seems as if all the tints of the floral world and of the
rainbow had been used in the most perfect and lavish manner
to beautify and adorn these small specimens of the native dwellers
' of the ocean world. One of these, most gorgeously colored, was
brought to us in a pail of sea water at our hotel, and we had an
opportunity to more critically examine it. It was six inches long
Capt. Sampson called it the humming bird fish. TV e bottled it
in alcohol, but its beautiful colors soon faded away. A descrip
tion of some of these remarkable fauna of the sea the reader wil
find in the next chapter of this book. The real m the coral
bowers is more gorgeous than the ideal.

THE AQUARIUMS. S19
Besides the coral beds there are two "aquariums," as they are
very appropriately termed, in the harbor of Nassau, easily acces
sible, which few, if any, of Nassau's visitors fail to see. One
consists of the keel and small portions of the attached ribs of a
wrecked vessel lying upon the bottom of the harbor. The other
is what is left of another vessel wrecked not far from the first,
with its load of lime in barrels; these barrels are distinctly seen
in the clear water. Great quantities of fish like those we have
partially described, are at all times to be seen swimming in and
around these old wrecks; as the coral bowers are so much more
beautiful, we conclude they are here not from choice but from
compulsion, and that they have been driven out of the Marino
Gardens of Eden to these forbidding-looking places on account
of their piscatory "indiscretions." Possibly they colonized for
want of sufficient room. Perhaps, like ourselves, they are "on
an excursion." It may be that they have some religious system
and are here doing penance for real or imagined sins, or hope to
secure divine favor by thus renouncing the gay world in which
the voluptuous marine Epicureans are indulging. For surely no
one can doubt that living, as such fish for the most part do, in a
little world of more than oriental magnificence of fact and fable,
they have a delicate and refined taste and an esthetic nature
which peculiarly fits them for the enjoyment of nature's most
lavish gifts to them of the beautiful in form and color.
Another marine garden very much visited is called " the coral
reef." Being much farther off, and lying to the windward, in
a position more exposed to the ocean, it is only occasionally that
there is such a combination of force and direction of wind as to
favor a visit to the reef. It must be sufficiently fair to enable
the yacht to go and return in a certain limited time, and not so
strong as to make rough sea. The water at this reef being more
aerated, the corals thrive better, and their works are on a more

220

ISLES OF SUMMER.

extensive s6ale. Here the branching coral of a large size is very
abundant — a variety familiar to all our readers. When taken
from the water, it is of a light drab or yellow color, and for
a while has a disagreeable odor, both of which it loses when ex
posed for a time to the air and the sunlight. We took the lib
erty to give this "reef" a better descriptive name, and, with the
.permission of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and of her official
representatives in the Bahamas, to call it, " Coral Bowers and
Grottoes "—for such it literally is. dt is the " Marine Garden "
enlarged and magnified. It abounded with " wood paths wild,"
in miniature forests of coral, — dark recesses in groves that
gleamed in brightness and beauty — alcoves carved in forms gro
tesque but beautiful, and profusely ornamented — vaulted isles
of an architectural design and finish that dwarfed and belittled
the products of human skill and genius — cave openings, elabo
rately wrought and strangely configured and adorned, yawning
beneath coral banks and bowers wild and endlessly varied — all
constituting a vast natural aquarium, the home of large numbers
of fish like those seen in the Marine Garden, brilliantly and most
gorgeously colored, which bore the same relation to the little
aquariums that man makes that the vast and magnificent tropi
cal forests, clothed in perennial green, adorned with graceful
vines, teeming with flowers of every hue, and vocal with count
less birds of the most varied and of the richest plumage, bear to
a lady's little but luxurious boudoir, with its evergreen branches,
climbing vines and captive birds in their small but gilded cages.
Turning our eyes upward, surfeited as they were with the truly
wonderful display below the surface of the -water, it was restful
to look again at the soft but resplendent beauty of the blue heav
ens, here and there draped with light curtains of satin and silver,
and at the gem-like setting in the green and blue waters of the
islands, keys and rocks, with their varied outlines and colors

THE CORAL BEDS. S*Sl
visible in every direction, while we inhaled, meanwhile an at
mosphere delightfully cooled and medicated by the ocean, and
yet sufficiently warm to saturate us with an indolence we could
not shake off, and with a feeling of languid and voluptuous ease,
satisfaction and content. We seemed tenants of a new world
where ambition is unknown and the passions are either dead or
lost in a sleep profound and dreamless. Let not the reader for
a moment indulge in any suspicions that this picture is over
drawn, for it is not within the power of any man to so color his
descriptions of the coral bowers as to convey any proper idea of
their marvelous beauty, or to do justice to the original. The
most gifted pen can only caricature nature's perfect works. He
who is not greatly exhilarated, excited and charmed while view
ing the coral beds of the Bahamas, under the favoring circum
stances which we have attempted to describe, is certainly color
blind, and, as H. W. Beecher would say, "dead in the eye." In
the language of Shakespeare, when speaking of music, "let no
such man be trusted."
On a charming forenoon in March, 1879, when sailing in the
" Gazelle " in a very light wind, we were for the first time be
calmed just as we came to anchor over a large bed of coral to
which we were piloted by Capt. Johnson, of the existence of
which we were until then ignorant. For half an hour the wind
failed to make itself felt, and the water was perfectly smooth
and glassy. To our great joy we found that we could stand up
on the deck of our yacht and see, without water glasses or any
artificial aid, an extensive tract of corals with their swarms of
beautiful fish, and even the shadows of some of them on the
white bottom of the harbor, at a distance, we judged, of about
twenty-five feet from the surface. Among the corals we observed
here, as elsewhere, many algae, gorgonias and sponges growing
upon the limestone floor to which they were attached. One

222

ISLES OF SUMMER.

sponge was of the size and shape of a half bushel basket. It wag
secured for us, but proved to be old and rotten.
Here also, as in the "Marine Garden," and in the "coral
bowers and grottoes," way down in the edges of the lowest and
darkest shadows, we occasionally observed fishes repulsive in form
and diabolical in expression, whose movements were most de
cidedly stealthy and suspicious. What business had they to grope
in the caverns and peer into the sunlight? What was their mis
sion in the garden of the sea gods? Were they piscatory bull
dogs to guard and protect, or piscatory demons bent on marring
a happiness which their lower nature was unfitted to enjoy?
Our crew consisted in part of expert divers, who, as soon as we
anchored over or near to a coral bed, entered the little forecastle,
and soon re-appeared in costumes, not of Parisian, but of the
Garden of Eden cut — and truly "Solomon in all his glory was
not arrayed like one of these." When a growth of coral was dis
covered by any one of tbe passengers, peculiarly beautiful and
coveted, the diver immediately plunged overboard and soon de
tached and brought it to the surface, unless it proved to be too
large and heavy, or tod securely fastened for his strength. It
is a novel and very amusing spectacle, and we could not refrain
from speculating upon the probable impression these black in
truders made upon the gay and sportive dwellers in coral bowers.
If to us they seemed like imps of destruction, marring a beauty
they could not make, and disturbing a felicity they could not
appreciate or enjoy, no doubt the little gorgeous finny philoso
phers were not only shocked and appalled by the desecration and
destruction which they witnessed, but sorely puzzled to reconcile
it with tlieir ideas of what infinite justice and goodness should
either do or permit.
Slowly moving out into view from under cover at the base of
the corals there is seen at times the sea-urchin, a shell fish from

SEA URCHIN'S. LIFE IN THE ROCK. 223
ttfo to foUr inches in diameter, which bristles with long, black,
needle-like spines. When these spines are removed it is seen to
be a shell-fish, round but flat like a large biscuit, very prettily
shaped and marked. The negroes daily bring these shells to the
court of the hotel and sell them to visitors under the name of
"sea eggs."
These curiously armed shell-fish appear to perform police duty,
and their sharp spines often cause the colored intruder discom
fited to retire. One of onr divers was made quite lame by one
of these creatures, the broken spine in his foot irritating and in
flaming the flesh, and requiring for its proper removal the in
struments and skill of the surgeon.
The barbs with which the spines are covered, are like so many
minute fish hooks; they readily admit the entrance of the spines
into the flesh of man or fish, but prevent their removal; so that
as an enemy, although small, they are somewhat formidable.
In consulting the works that have been occasionally published
concerning the Bahamas, we have been astonished at finding in
them so little in regard to the great clearness and brilliant hues
of the water, and the strange and exquisitely beautiful sub-aque
ous world which the water glass reveals. Catesby appears to
have seen and described more than most, if not all, the authors
who have succeeded him.
There was occasionally brought to us by the divers specimens
of corals and gorgonias with some of the soft coraline rock to
which they adhered, and to which they seemed rooted, and we
were surprised to see that these fragments of the rocky floor of
the sea gardens abounded with worms and other forms of life.
Mr. Phelps states that he broke a large piece of this rock into
small fragments, and found in it a number of small crabs, two
or three small star fishes, three or more shrimps, three worms
organized like a centiped, and some monopod worms. He be-

224

ISLES OF SUMMER.

lieved it contained not less than fifty living creatures. Channels
had also been cut in the stone six inches deep, by stone-boring
mollusks. When Capt. Basil Hall wrote a description of the
corals in his "Voyage to the Islands of Loo Choo," which the
author of "The Pelican Island" used as a text for his poem, he
evidently supposed that corallum is the work of the " worms of
different lengths and colors" with which the bottom rock is
" full," — hence the great mistake which both authors made.
We deem it not improbable that it will ultimately be discovered
that corals, as well as sponges, can be artificially propagated; if
so, we see no reason why the more valuable red varieties may not
be successfully cultivated in the Bahama waters. The colonial
government, at a small expense, can by wise legislation cause
experiments looking to such a result to be made. The old world
h;is colonized the new with men, choice live stock, delicious fruits
and destructive insects — why should it not give us its superior
sponges and corals?
Referring the reader to the excellent work of Prof. Dana, upon
"Corals and Coral Islands," for full and complete information
from a scientific standpoint upon the subject of this chapter, we
take leave of the corals for the present, fully aware that we have
hardly crossed the threshold where we would have been only too
happy, had we been able, to fully enter and thoroughly explore.

ECHINODERMS.
1. Echinanthus rosaceus. Upper side. One-third natural size, covered
with short purple or olive spines when alive.
2. Oreaster gigas. Itis sometimes'more thanafootin diameter. Covered
with hard knobs connected by low ridges. Bright red or orange, when alive.
3, 4. Cidaris tribuloides. 4. A small specimen in its' natural state.
3. The same after the spines have been removed, showing the knobs to which
they are attached. One-haif natural size.
5. Diadema setosum. A "Sea Egg" with very long spines. Black, or
banded with black and yellow. When the spines are removed it resembles
fig. 3, but the knobs are smaller and more numerous. One-half natural size.

J fi Ednertoii **rrom Jia.*rxi:re.

Punii'TSC'i-S-Cnsancl Nr -j Have

EGHINODERMS

CHAPTER XIII.
Tlie Extent of the World of Waters and its Wonderful Fa/una. Bahama
Fishes. Some Eminently Distinguished for their Brilliant Colors, and Others
for their Singularity, described. Fish that are Poisonous. Table Fish. The
Bahamas Rich in Beautiful Mollusks. They Harmonize with the other Ex
quisite Forms of Life, and with the Brilliant Waters. The Slwres Paved with
Shells Wonderful in Form and Color. The Conch.
"In the free element beneath us swarm
Fishes of every color, form, and kind, —
Strange forms, resplendent colors, kinds unnumbered —
Which language cannot paint, and mariner
Hath never eleswhere seen. " — Montgomery.
When we consider that the sea occupies more than two-thirds
of the earth's surface ; that its normal temperature is, from
the equator to the arctic circle, nearly uniform every where,
below a few hundred perpendicular feet of its surface; that its
depths are most profound, being measured by miles; that al
though it is for man's convenience geographically divided, and
called by different names, yet that all the so-called oceans are
in fact one, and that it abounds throughout the whole of its vast
extent with animals that are created and fitted to live- in the
water as others are upon the land, we cannot fail to see that in
all probability its fauna is far more extensive and varied than
that of the land, and that man's knowledge concerning it is very
meagre, superficial and imperfect. It is quite recently that the
gigantic cuttle fish has been taken out of the realm of fable and
886

226 ISLES OF SUMMER. /
placed in the wide domain of fact. While Victor Hugo's " devil
fish," closely resembles, in many particulars, the gigantic cuttle
fish, yet, to some extent, it is a creature which the imagination
has constructed upon a substantial basis of fact. A scientific
gentleman, learned in all the piscatory learning of the present
day, stated in our presence before the Connecticut Academy of
Arts and Sciences, that he had no doubt of the existence of the
sea serpent, and that before many years it will be captured and
critically examined by scientific experts. There is something
truly grand in the movements of the monsters of the deep
through the vast depths and immense spaces of the great world
of waters. But it is apparent that while some fish are able to
wander at will in various directions around the world, others are
localized by their necessities, and complete their little circle of
life very near tlieir family spawning ground. Hence the water
that surrounds the Isles of Summer, and that covers the Banks
out of which they rise, has its own peculiar and wonderful fauna,
some glimpses of which were revealed to us while we were look
ing through the water glasses at the corals, and tin curious and
wonderful forms of life which surround and adorn them.
Many of these fish Mr. Phelps secured and preserved, and
having carefully and critically examined them at his home in
Vermont, and closely studied them both in and out of the water
during his five months stay in Nassau, he has furnished us de
tailed descriptions of some of them, which we have utilized. We
have edited his notes, and shaped them somewhat to fill the
limited space that we have been able to spare for them in a vol
ume which treats of so many other subjects. We did not our
selves make the fish a special object of study. We have retained,
as far as possible, the language of Mr. Phelps, and to him and
Mr. Catesby should be given credit for whatever of merit there
may be in nearly all our piscatory pen pictures.

*B*EAUTIFUI MSS. $2t
The Rainbow fish is from six to twelve inches long. Its color
is a dark green. Its scales are large, and their tinted margins
reflect the light in all the colors of the rain-bow — hence its name.
Its teeth are like those of the bluefish, with two plates upon each
jaw, which protrude fromits lips.
The Parrot fish is most brilliantly colored. It is principally
of a bluish green, with purple marks on the back and near the
mouth, and yellow and red marks near the tail. The scales are
edged with a dark wine color.
Catesby's description of it is more full; he says the body of the
Parrot fish is covered with large green scales; the eye is red and
yellow; the upper part of the head brown, the lower part and
gills blue, bordered with dusky red; a streak of red extends from
the tail to behind the gills, at the upper end of which there is a
bright yellow spot. It has five fins; one extends almost the
length of the back, and is of a bay or cinnamon color; there are
two behind the gills blended with black, green and purplish col
ors, with their edge verged with blue. Under the abdomen is
another red fin, verged with blue; under the anus extends another
long, narrow green fin, with a list of red through the middle of
it. At the basis of the tail, on each side, is a large yellow spot.
The tail is large, forked, and green, with a curved line running
through the middle, parallel to the curve of the tail, and ending
in white points. It is more remarkable for its beauty than es
teemed for delicacy.
The Spanish Hog fish is about ten inches in length, and weighs
about one pound. The color of its upper portion — being all above
a line drawn from the extremity of the dorsal fin to the pectoral
fin — is a dark purple wine color, with dark brown bands on the
edges of the tail; below this line the color is yellow, deepening
in some places into orange. It is beautiful but poisonous.
The Yellow Angel fish is unsurpassed for the admiration which

228 IsIes Of summer.
its beauty elicits. Colored plates are necessary to give any ade
quate idea of the wealth of coloring with which it is endowed,
The body is short and high. The dorsal and anal fins are very
large, protruding at the anterior parts, and thick at the-base and
corners with scales, so that they seem to be a continuation of the
body. The scales are large and delicate, of a brown color, with
a shade of olive green, and each of them is edged with a lighter
tint. The chin, nape, upper eyelid, base of the pectoral and
neutral fins, and the margin of the dorsal and anal fins are a
bright cobalt blue, with lines of the same color extending over
the operculum. The caudal fin, and the continuation or append
age of the longest spines of the dorsal and anal fins are bright
yellow. The motions of this, as of all the other angel fish, are
slow, and it is usually to be seen about tlie docks, reefs, and old
wrecks. Its flesh is not much prized.
The Black Angel fish is of a much larger size than the preced
ing, and is of an uniform black color. The inner surfaces of the
pectoral fins and the margin of the tail are of a bright yellow.
The Spanish Angel fish is one of the most beautiful of fishes.
The anterior part of the body is a jet black, while the posterior
and tail are a light yellow. The edges of the gills, and margin
of the tail are a salmon red color. It is seldom over five inches
in length, and is caught in nets and traps, its mouth being too
small and delicate for the hook.
Catesby truthfully says, that this fish is "gorgeous, and may
be called the butterfly of the sea, it is so beautiful."
The Moon or Cresent Angel fish has a body much compressed
and elevated. It has six dark vertical bands. The third dorsal
spine is elongated, and the anterior portion of the dorsal and anal
fins are protruding. The four cresent-shaped marks on the body
are of a bright yellow, the margin of the tail is edged with the
game tint. It sometimes is found eighteen inches long.

fe-EAUTllFUL FISH. 229
The Four-Eyed Angel fish has a black spot on each side of its
tail. The fishermen believe these spots to be an extra pair of
eyes — hence its name. The color of the body is a pearly gray;
the vertical fins are a bright yellow, and a black band runs across
the eye. It has a nearly circular outline, with a projecting and
protruding snout. It is a delicate, graceful fish. It is seen
among the sea-feathers, and around the coral reefs. It seldom
exceeds four inches in length, and must be caught with net or
trap, as its mouth is too small for the hook.
The Bahama Turbot is of a bright bluish green above, and of
an orange and orange blue beneath. The dorsal and anal fins
are very large, and these, with the tail, have long continuations,
all of which are of a dark green color. There is a light green
band between the tail and body. Extending round from the
mouth are two curved, slate-tinted marks running back to the
gills. The pectoral fins are small. From the eyes radiate slen
der umber-brown lines, some of which pass around in front of
the head from eye to eye. The scales are very rough and strong,
and are often used for scouring and polishing wood and metals.
The first dorsal fin is very prominent; the first spine, being very
stout, is often used as a weapon. The body is very much de
pressed, and resembles that of the angel fish.
The Trumpet or Unicornfish, much resembles the turbot in
structure, but its body is more elongated and compressed, being
about twenty-four inches in length, and nearly half an inch in
thickness. Unlike the turbot, the dorsal and anal fins "are very
transparent, with a slight yellow tinge. The tail is long and very
small; the mouth is situated on the upper edge of the snout; the
teeth are large and compact; the color is a light ash tint, with
many peculiar lines and marks of a light slate blue; a long slen
der" spine rises from the head — hence its name. The scales are
minute and resemble those of the shark.
30

230 ISLES OF SUMMER."
Catesby says that this fish is sometimes three feet long; that
it is shaped like a rolling-pin, and tapers towards the head and
tail; that it can raise, and point backwards and forwards at its
pleasure, the tapering sharp pointed bone that is found a little
behind the eyes, but that this bone is brittle and easily broken.
He also states that this fish -feeds on shells and coralline sub
stances, and is considered poisonous, and" is found where corals
are plentiful.
The Cow fish is from five to twenty inches in length. The
appearance of this fish is exceedingly queer and comical. This
is especially true of its face, which is that of its great namesake
in small miniature. Whether this shell fish has infringed upon
the cow's facial copyright, or the cow upon that of this odd fish,
we are unable to decide. Its body is shaped like a beech nut,
being triangular. The shell in which it is entirely enclosed (ex
cept the lips, base of fins, hind part of tail and eyes), is composed
of hexagonal osseous scales; the parts excepted are covered with
a soft skin; over each eye there is a prominent conical spine,
which points straight forward, and helps much to give the face
of the fish its cow-like appearance. On each neutral ridge there
is a flat spine directed backward. The earopace is of a rich,
bright blue color, with brown lines, and is very beautiful when
seen in a good light, but it changes a good deal and the colors
soon vanish after death. Its motions are slow and cautious, and
it sometimes ejects water from its mouth to a distance of four
feet. The Triangular fish or Cuckold Shell-fish, (as it is called by
the natives), is about twelve inches in length, and sometimes
weighs two pounds. The integuments of the body are modified
into a three ridged earopace, composed- of hexagonal osseous
scales. The snout-like mouth,- the basis of the fins, and the
hind part of the tail are covered by soft skin. On each neutral

BEAUTIFUL FISH. £31
ridge is a flat prominent spine, directed backwards. The color
is quite changeable; it is usually of a bluish cast, with brown
spots and marks. It is a slow swimmer, and is often seen rest
ing on the bottom. It will live several hours out of water with
out undergoing any apparent change, but when returned to the
water, it is at first unable to sink to the bottom on account of
the air it has absorbed. Its pectoral fins are constantly in mo
tion, apparently for the purpose of fanning a current of water
through the gills. Its flesh is of a light color, and its appear
ance and taste is like the breast of a chicken. It is best baked,
but is said to be at times poisonous.
The Squirrel fish is very beautiful. Its color is scarlet, and in
brightness exceeds that of the gold fish. Its body is elongated
and slightly compressed. Its head is well proportioned, and has
prominent spines. It swims quickly and vivaciously. The local
name refers to a noise uttered by it which resembles the bark
of a squirrel. It is very common in the Bahamas, and is usually
the angler's first prize. It is little valued as a table fish on ac
count of its small size.
The Hindis a very common and very handsome fish, and some
times attains a length of eighteen inches. It is of a brownish or
rosy-white color, and is marked with numerous deep rose-red
spots. Being very voracious, it is easily caught. Its flesh is
finely flavored, and is seldom, if ever, poisonous.
The Blue fish is from ten to eighteen inches long, and weighs
about two pounds. Its color is ultramarine, with a few pink
marks about the head and eyes. Catesby says the iris of its
eyes is red. Its scales are relatively large, and are used in the
manufacture of fancy work.
The Bone fish has scales which are used in making the most
exquisite fancy work. The scales, after being washed in several
waters, are cut into the desired shape, and pierced in two places

232

ISLES OF SUMMER.

for the very small silver wires with which they are fastened.
Several weeks time is required to make a single scale basket.
The Alewife is of a greenish color, and is closely allied to
Slippery Dick.
The Great Hog Fish is named from its swine-like profile and
dentition. Its body is compressed and elevated; its snout point
ed; its dorsal fin protruding, and its skin resembles brown and
red marble, being light beneath. When it swims, the dorsal fins
and their long streamer-like appendages give it a singular and
graceful appearance. It is quite common, attains a length of
thirty inches, and a weight of thirty pounds. Its flesh is hard,
white and exquisitely flavored, and it is numbered among the
choicest table fish.
The School Master is fifteen inches in length, weighs three
to four pounds, and its color is an attractive bronze. It is not
a safe table fish.
The Porcupine Fish, or Sea Hedge Hog, is a truly wonderful
creature on account of its peculiar armor, and of its capacity to
swallow either air or water, and thereby become ball-shaped.
Its body is covered with triangular plates, from each of which
rises a sharp spine, and some of the spines are an inch in length.
When alarmed, it fills its body with air or water, thereby assum
ing a globular form, erects all its spines, and presents a formid
able appearance. In this position it resembles an immense ches-
nut burr. Its color is brown above and light beneath, with spots
of darker brown near the operculum. One of ~the smaller ones
which Mr. Phelps secured, he says, was five inches long, and four
inches in diameter.
The Swell Fish, or Puffer, is of an olive green color, and its
surface is roughened with prickles. Its body is oblong and cylin
drical. It derives its name from the swollen ball-like shape which
it assumes when taken from the water, and irritated. It is from

f-fci \ ' JL.J , ?1- rl. ,

J hi Emerton

I iithPttndersoa&O i__:-H JtsvHarisn ,_-.

FISHES.

FISHES.
1. Echeneis albicauda, "Sucker," from "Storer's Fishes of Mass." One-
fourth natural size. Attaches itself to other fishes by the sucker on its head.
3. Fistularia tabaccaria, "Trumpet Fish." One-fourth natural size.
3. Malthea vespertilio, " Bat Fish." One-half natural size.
4. Coryphmna Mppurus, "Dolphin." Colors, metallic green and yellow
with black spots. Remarkable for its changes of color when taken from the
water. 5. Zygoma tudes, "Hammer-head Shark."
6. Chilomycterus reticulatus, "Porcupine Fish." One-fourth natural size.
7. Ostracion quadricornis, "Trunk Fish," " Cow Fish." One-fourth nat
ural size. This and the last are drawn from stuffed specimens.
8. Chcetodon striatus, "Angel Fish." One-half natural size.
9. Eques lanceolafus. One-half natural size.
Figures 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9 are reduced from Cuvier.

J JI EriiSTton

LUTxPundorscniaC^Jsand.rTeivHaveri.OL.

FISHES.

THE SUCKING FISH. POISONOUS ElSH. $33
rix to twelve inches long, but has no value as a table fish. It is
abundant near Nassau, and is sometimes called the Globe fish.
The Sucking fish has a flattened disk on the upper part of its
head, into which the first dorsal fin is transformed. This disk
is composed of numerous transverse, cartilaginous, movable
plates. By means of the suction or adhesive power of this disk,
its owner fastens to a shark or other free and far-roving swimmer,
"dead-heads " itself about the ocean without any labor or expense
to itself, visits distant seas, and forages its supplies from the
marine monsters that provide it, nolens volens, with a free, un
limited traveling ticket for life. This is the fisher fish to which
we have heretofore referred.
Catesby says it isa foot in length, and that its head is equal
in size to its body; that " the crown of its head is flat, and of an
oval form, with a ridge of rising, running longitudinal and cross-
ways to its sixteen ridges, with hollow intervals between, by which
structure it can fasten itself to any animal or other substance;"
that he has taken " five of them off tho body of a shark, which
were fixed so fast to different parts of its body, that it required
great strength to separate them;" that he has "seen them dis
engaged and swimming very deliberately near the sharks without
the latter attempting to swallow them."
Some of the Bahama fish are very poisonous. We were told
by a Nassau gentleman that in some cases the question of the
safety of eating certain fish depends upon the place where they
are caught — the same kind of fish being in one place wholesome,
and poisonous in another. Some are said to be safe for the table
only when young. It is probable from these facts that the fish
are poisoned by their food,- but whether that food is of a min
eral nature, (which we are inclined to doubt,) or vegetable or
animal, we are not informed. Very likely some localities pro
duce marine vegetable growths which are poisonous to the fish

234 ISLES OF SUMMER.
that feed upon them. As some kinds of Bahama fish are always
poisonous, these may infect other fish when they happen occa
sionally to dine upon them. The toad fish is so poisonous that
in one case the exhalation from it severely affected a gentleman
who was mounting it.
Flying Fish are very plentiful in the Bahama waters. While
yachting outside of Nassau harbor, and during our steamship
voyages between Florida and the islands, it was an agreeable
pastime to observe them. They lookgd like small birds, and
skimmed along above the water like flocks of ducks, maintaining
themselves in the air for so long a period of time that those not
familiar with them would naturally suppose them to be a species
of water fowl. Catesby says that this singular fish has a somewhat
long and round body, and a small mouth, without teeth; that
the two fins behind the gills are extraordinarily large, and spread
very wide; that upon the hind part of its back there is another
small fin; that under it- there is a fourth one, thin, large and
forked; that its scales are like those of the herring, but of a darker
color; that, as they are a prey to both fish and fowls, nature has
given them large fins which serve them not only for swimming,
but for flight, and that it is a good table fish.
The Rudder Fish is described by the same author as being
quite small, but able, notwithstanding, to keep pace with ships
of the largest class. The upper part of its body is brown, with
large specks of dusky yellow. The under part of its body is
alternately streaked with white and yellow. He adds that in
crossing the ocean, ships are seldom free from them.
The Murray, says Mr. Catesbj**, in its structure resembles the
common eel; the iris of the eye is white; two fleshy barbels hang
from the nostrils; a fin with an oven white ridge begins behind
the head, and extends the whole length of the back. The whole
body is covered with a light gray skin, sprinkled with innumer-

CEPHALOPODS.
1. Loligo Pleii, "Cuttle Fish." One of the " Squids." One-half natural
size. Color light yellow with dark spots, changeable. Reduced from D'Or
bigny's figure.
2. Octopus vulgaris, "Devil Fish." One-fourth natural size. A specimen
with arms five feet long is said to have been found at Nassau. Color, dark pur
ple and reddish brown, changeable. Reduced and altered from D'Orbigny's
figure.

J.h.lir.

SQUID - OCTOPUS

tm cultLE iiSH. 235
able black spots. One kind of this fish is green and spotted in
rhe same manner with the black; perhaps it is of a different sex
only. He adds — "the inhabitants of the Bahamas will eat only
the green sort; they reject the black as poisonous. It is custom
ary for this fish, as they lie lurking among the hollow rocks and
corals, to bite peoples' legs that are exposed to them, though the
bite is of no other ill consequence than fetching blood. "
The Mutton fish, he also states, for the excellence of its taste,
is in greater demand than any other at the Bahama islands. It
has five fins ; a long spiny one on its back, like that of the perch,
of an amber color. The upper part of its head is a dusky black;
the irides of the eye are a bright red; the upper part of the back
is a dark reddish brown, the red brightening gradually to the
portion below, which is white, faintly traced with red. The gills
are shaded partly with purple and red.
The common Cuttle fish, (Loligo special,) is found in the
vicinity of Nassau. It has two large prominent eyes of a greenish
hue — one upon each side of its head; eight arms project out from
its head and surround its mouth. These arms have on their
inner sides rows of suckers in the form of muscular cup-like discs
with serrated edges, with which the animal can strongly fasten
itself to any living or inanimate object within its reach. It is
also armed with two long tentacles which push out from the head
and resemble the arms, but exceed them in length. At the end
of each tentacle or long arm there is a sort of fingerless hand,
armed also with suckers. This curious creature has a sack in
which it secretes a brown or black fluid, which contains a large
amount of a carbonaceous pigment, ("sepia,") and various min
eral salts. When pursued by an enemy, this colored fluid is dis
charged in jets, and by means of its color, and perhaps by reason
of its offensive character, it aids the cuttle fish in escaping from
or contending with enemies who are not prepared for this kind

236* ' isles o* summer.'
of sub-marine warfare. The coloring matter of its " ink " is very
indestructible, and has been handed down with fossils from a far
distant geologic age. In making sepia paint it was formerly
utilized. The cuttle fish is a kind of sea acrobat, and frequently
walks by the aid of its arms upon the bottom of the sea, not ex
actly upon its head, but head downwards. When troubled, its
arms enable it also, while in a perpendicular position, to swim
through the water.
The integument of the cuttle fish consists of several layers,
one of which (corresponding to the lowest layer of the epider
mis) contains numerous large cells which are filled with pigment
granules; and the expansion and contraction of these cells causes
the marvelous play of changing colors, which the cuttle fish ex
hibits when excited.
A gentleman who was recently gathering algae in the harbor
of Nassau, unintentionally shook hands with a cuttle fish which
was clinging to a rock in the water. He mistook it for a rare
marine plant, and experienced considerable difficulty in inducing
his new piscatory acquaintance to let go. The latter was finally
disabled and captured. We are informed that another species of
the cuttle fish is found near Nassau.
The star fish and other members of the family of radiates are
found in the waters of the Bahamas.
Mr. Sargeant, in giving some account of the Bahama fish, says:
" The hound fish are shaped very much like an eel, for which
it is a good substitute. It is semi-transparent, with bones re
sembling light blue glass thread. Its snout or bill is often eight
or ten inches long, slim and sharp, with a row of teeth running
the entire length on either side. The maray and stingray are a
species of the eel. The whipray has a body shaped like a floun
der, with a tail often ten feet long, tapering from about one inch
in diameter at the butt, to one-eighth of an inch at the small end.

J K , iimerton fromjiauii:

itKPundorsan«Cr]sana.*feMHavsri ft

SNAIL SHELLS.

shells of mollusks.
1. Tectarius muricatus. Natural size. Color gray and purple.
2. UvaniUa. Natural size. Color yellow and pearly white.
3. Scalaria. Natural size. Color light brown, with a silky lustre. Ribs
white. 4. Triton variegatus. " Trumpet Shell." One-third natural size. Brown,
with dark spots.
5. Cassis cameo. "King Conch." One-quarter natural size. The smooth
Up is light brown, with dark brown markings. From this species of shell
cameos are cut.
6. Cypreea exanthema. " Cowrie." One-half natural size. Brown, with
white spots.
7. Strombus bituberculatus. "Small Conch." One-half natural size. In
side of the lip white and pink.
8. Solarium granulatum. Top view. Natural size. Color gray, with
brown and white stripes.
9. Fasciola/ria tulipa. One-third natural size. White, with- brown spots
and spiral lines.
10. Oliva litterata. Natural size. Polished white, with brown zig-zag
lines. 11. Janira ziczac. One of the "Scollops." One-half natural size. Color,
brown. 12. The same seen from the side. Lower valve nearly flat.
13. Tellina radiata. "Rising Sun." Natural size. White or pale yel
low, with pink radiating stripes.
14. Callista maculata. Natural size. Light brown with darker spots.
15. Pecten nodosus. A "Scollop." One-half natural size. Dark red.
16. Byssoarca Nom. "Noah's Ark." One-half natural size. Brown and
white, partly covered with a rough epidermis.
17. Avicula Atlantica. One-half natural size. Color, brown and green.
Rough on the outside and pearly within.
18. Ostrcea folium. " Racoon Oyster." Attached to root of a mangrove
tree growing in the water. Small specimen. Natural size.
19. Chione paphia. A small one. Natural size. Polished white, with
brown markings.

B.EAUTIFUL SHELL-FISH. 237
When dried it resembles whalebone, and makes a very nice coach
whip. Our bone fish are very similar in flavor and appearance
to the northern shad."
Mr. Sargeant states, that the dolphin, king fish, Spanish
mackerel, bonita and rock fish weigh from fifty to one hun
dred pounds, and that the jew fish often weighs six hundred
pounds. Among the remaining Bahama fish, he mentions the
margate, cat, king, Hamlet, Miss Nix, grunt, runner, yellow tail,
snapper, stripped snapper, gray snapper, pork, soldier, jack,
goggle-eyed, cockeye, pilot, mullet, plate, grouper, shad, goat,
trumpeter, sunset, porgy, sailor's choice, sand porpoise, balahoo,
and crawfish or lobster.
The shell-fish found in the Bahama waters harmonize perfect
ly with the element in which they live, and with all the varied
forms of vegetable and animal life with which they are surrounded.
Exquisitely beautiful are they all. There is no shock to the most
delicate and refined taste in passing from corals and corallines to
the fish that live and sport in the stony submarine bowers and
grottoes, — and from gorgonias and algae to mollusks — all are
wonderfully beautiful in form and color, and live in water that
pleases by its warmth, and charms by the sparkling brilliancy of
its hues. These combined, constitute exquisitely pictured leaves
of a most captivating chapter in the book of nature which God
himself has illustrated. The perfection of the work will not
surprise us if we reflect that the Artist is divine. It has been
estimated that there are not less than four thousand different
species of shell-fish in the waters of the Bahamas, and Mr. Phelps
claims to have collected of the shells nearly one thousand. The
shores abound with them, and they seem in many places almost
as numerous as pebbles. We were astonished to find how large
a number of handsome specimens we were able to collect withhi
a small circle almost anywhere upon the shore without changing

238 ISLES OE SUMMER.
our position. They constitute an important item in the daily
stock in trade of the negroes who frequent the court of the Royal
Victoria Hotel. Excepting the conchs, they are generally of
small size and very delicate. No lady, and very few gentlemen,
leave Nassau without securing a large supply for home use
and distribution, and they constitute when away, happy re
minders of amusing scenes in the hotel court, and of occasional
rambles upon the honey-ecftnbed and shell strewn shores of the
islands and keys, when healthful pleasures filled the flying hours.
Large, richly but darkly colored and finely polished turtle shells
are secured by many at a cost of from two to fifteen or twenty
dollars each.
The common Conch, (strombus gigas) the "winged-shell," is
by far fhe most valuable shell-fish of the Bahamas. It is from
six to twelve inches in length, and weighs from one to five
pounds. It weighs from four to sixteen ounces after it is dressed.
It constitutes an important article of diet, and its shell is utilized
in various ways. The conch often secretes a pearl of a light pink
tint, mottled with water marks and having much the appearance
of the eggs of dragon flies. Many persons obtain a livelihood by
diving for conchs, in which they become quite expert; some di
vers, it is said, being able to thus secure them in water ten fath
oms (sixty feet) deep. The local market for them is at Nassau,
where they are carried when alive. After breaking off the apex
of the shell, the animal is taken from its shell and first examined
for pearls, and then sold for food. They are considered, by some,
a very good substitute for clams. Some are eaten raw, and
others made into fritters. They are generally considered pala
table, and are said to be nutritious. The shells are used in the
States for ornamenting gardens, and in Europe in the manufac
ture of cameos. Lime is made of them in the Bahamas.
The King Conch is less useful than the strombus gigas, being*

\\f^&_WB»

J H.Ettierton from nature. ^ai:h.P1.iriersan&Cnsan& Nc-tfHaveri.OL
BIVALVE SHELLS.

CONCHS. WHALES. 239
chiefly prized for its beautiful shell, the color of which is a light
cream profusely mottled with brown umber and black. Its rarity
and beauty secures for it a relatively very high price.
The Queen Conch is far more common than the King Conch,
and its shell is larger in size and somewhat smoother in outline.
The back of the shell is pure white, and the tip a yellow tint,
while the interior is a dark brown. It is extensively used- in the
manufacture of cameos.
The Tioist Conch, (triton tritonis), is very rare and always com-
mands from visitors a high price. It is regular in form and
beautifully mottled with brown and wine colors. Mr. Phelps
deems it unquestionably the most exquisitely beautiful shell of
its size found in the Bahamas.
A separate volume with illustrations, would be required to do
anything like justice to the small mollusks whose shells pave and
adorn the shores of the Bahamas.
Mr. Bruce in the work from which we have already quoted,
published nearly a century and a-half ago, expresses the opinion
that, "a beneficial whale fishery might be established here, [in
the Bahamas,] as that fish comes in great numbers to wean their
young among the islands, and several have been thrown ashore
full of spermaceti." While we were at Port Eoyal, S. C, re
cently, we learned that several vessels from that vicinity are
now prosecuting a successful business in capturing whales off
that coast. Between Nassau and Florida, we also occasionally
observed specimens of that great mammal of the ocean, which
has done so much to dispel the darkness of the civilized portion
of the world.
In taking leave of the Bahama fishes, so far as unsatisfactory
printed descriptions are concerned, it is a consolation to know
that they and their gorgeous surroundings will continue with us
through life— for memory has embalmed them. The poet sings

&4-0 ISLES OF SUMMER.
of flowers "blushing unseen," and "wasting their fragrance on
the desert air," merely because they are not enjoyed by man.
This is an exceedingly contracted view to take of the matter,
and is bottomed upon man's egotism. There is no insect how
ever small, no reptile however repulsive, no fish in any brook or
sea, no animal that roams in pathless woods, and no- bird that
disturbs with its wings or songs the deepest solitude of the sea
or land, that does not find much which its nature is fitted to
enjoy in the great world of which they as well as man, form an
integral part. The same great Father made all and provides for
all, and when we looked into the coral grottoes, caves and bow
ers, and saw the lavish display of exquisitely beautiful forms and
colors which the water glass reveals, we felt that it was no more
made for man than is the magnificence of the celestial world
made for the few spirits outside, who, perchance, may occasion
ally be permitted, with or without eye glasses, to look at the
inner glories through the key-hole of heaven's great front door.
A book has been recently published in England by Mr. Higgins,
entitled " Notes by a Field Naturalist." The author spent a few
days in Nassau, visited the " sea garden," and after giving some
account of what he saw there and in its vicinity, he adds —
"At last ! There it all was, even as the great naturalist of
H. M. S. "Beagle" had said more than thirty years before, 'how
be it, I believed not the words until I came, and my eye had
seen it — and, behold, the half was not told. ' Description is not
the proper vehicle for conveying the impressions made by such
a spectacle. If the description be full, it is labored; if concise,
it is nothing. I longed for the power of putting it into music."
" There is no doubt that the 'garden' is a thing of beauty,
and that of a very high order."

CHAPTER XIV.
Moonlight and Starlight in the Bahamas. New Heavens. The Crescent
and the Cross. The Starry Cross of Southern, Skies. Midnight Watchings,
with their Results. ,
" The stars— they are the poetry of heaven,
And in their bright leaves we may read the fate
Of men and empires."— Child Haeold. "The eye
Breathed on by fancy, with enlarged sense
Through the protracted and deep hush of night,
May note the fairies, coursing the lazy hours
In various changes, and without fatigue ;
A fickle race, who tell their time by flowers,
And live on zephyrs, and have stars for lamps,
And night dews for ambrosia." — Simms.
We found in the Bahamas not only a new earth, but the canopy
of stars at night was in some respects unlike that to which we
had been accustomed. Our astronomical knowledge was too
limited to enable us to indulge in a roll call of the heavenly hosts;
but, from the extreme north, old stars had disappeared, while
others, new to us, with seeming modesty, shone with a subdued
light from lowly positions in the southern sky. Planets and
great central suns appeared to have wandered from tlieir spheres,
and, with renewed fires, brilliantly gleamed from new positions
in night's blue dome. The constellations of Orion and the Great
Bear were, with a few others, too marked in their individuality
841 21

$4% ISLES OE 8UMMEB.
not to be readily identified, notwithstanding their changed posi
tions and the increased brilliancy of their quenchless fires. The
moon, when at and near its full, mounted almost to the zenith,
glorified Nassau as she lay embowered amid trees of fadeless ver
dure, imparted to the long, narrow, encircling islands a sort of
weird and unearthly aspect, and illumined with dancing light the
waters of the harbor and of the more distant ocean.
Among the stars of those "new heavens," which are unknown
to the northern skies, and which we especially desired to see,
were those composing the Southern Cross. Many of the Moham
medans — the followers of the Crescent — discover in every new
moon which hallows and adorns the unfathomable and awe-in
spiring depths of ether, a divine recognition of the supernatural
origin of their religion, and are more confirmed in their belief
in the truthfulness of its doctrines, the wisdom of its precepts,
and the sacredness of its rights and ceremonials. A Christian
may be pardoned for earnestly desiring to see with his own eyes
the universally recognized symbol of the religion he professes
emblazoned among the stars. In various articles of personal
adornment — on sword and shield and scepter — in the form and
ridge lines, and in the internal and external embellishments of
the largest and most costly churches — upon altars, sepulchres and
decorative slabs — in knightly adornments, kingly crowns, and
imperial diadems — and upon national banners proudly floating
over the land and sea, The Cross has symbolized and proclaimed
a widely dominant system of religious belief and faith. Christian
voyagers in southern seas discovered in their lonely vigils this
characteristic, significant and hallowed emblem, gleaming with
all the brilliancy of quenchless fires, in those distant heavens, and
naturally hailed it as a divine token that from the world's "be
ginning," when "the morning stars sang together," the Great
0 ¦¦_ it.n* had placed upon the sky this prophecy and endorsement
. . uhe dominant religion of their time and country.

THE SOUTHER]-* CROSS. 343
The Southern Cross consists of four stars, and their relative
positions, when seen upon the meridian, is indicated by the fol
lowing:

Were the upper and lower stars connected by a straight line,
and the remaining two also connected by a straight line, the form
of the cross would be apparent. When, in looking at the stars,
this symbolic form is suggested to the observer, then (as in the
case of seeing the face of a man in the moon) the resemblance is
ever afterwards so vividly impressed on his mind, that the stars
never fail to remind him of the cross whenever he sees them oc
cupying a similar position. When they are not upon the merid
ian the form of the cross is not revealed.
Nassau being some distance north of the equator, the star gazer
from that point can only see the cross when the stars which com
pose it occupy a position near the southern horizon, and he is
consequently obliged to look at it through a large extent of the
earth's atmosphere, resting so near to the land and sea as to be
charged with their vapors. He who desires to see at Nassau the
Southern Cross, will be more likely to have his wishes gratified
if he makes his observations from some elevated position, where
the air is particularly clear and the wind is blowing with some
force from the north.
It was upon a favorable evening in March, 1879, that on going

8^4 ISLES OE SUMMER.
te bed, we imposed upon our mind the task of waking our "body
up a little before midnight, in order that we might make an
effort to see this beautiful symbol from tho cupola of the Royal
Victoria Hotel. We awoke on time, and, only so far dressing as
to meet the supposed demands of the -invisible spirits of the
night, we made our way through long corridors, up several
flights of stairs, and into the profound darkness of the attic of
the hotel, where, like many another seeker after "the light of
the cross," we groped our dubious way. Finally a faint glimmer
from above gave us hope, and after ascending another flight of
stairs we emerged into a spacious glass enclosed observatory, from
the inside of which and from its surrounding gallery, in the star
light and moonlight, we watched and waited for the cross. Here
and there above the southern horizon, a few scattered stars ap
peared for a few moments through the rifts of slowly passing
clouds, while a thin veil of mist curtained a low belt of sky from
view. But having concluded to find the cross, we were not dis
couraged but determined to persevere, knowing full well that
though for the time unseen, it was surely there. The sea air
was delightfully cool, and we seemed more than ever before to
realize how " Sweet are the gentle winds at night
That breathe when all is peaceful 'round,
As if some spirits downy flight
Swept silent through the blue profound."
Below us the city of Nassau, with its low diamond-shaped roofs
and tropical and semi-tropical trees, was clearly and beautifully
revealed; the harbor with its shipping and beacon light, was
sb>htly ruffled, and reflected a soft and silvery radiance; the
barrier islands disclosed tlieir picturesque shores, and beyond
their low but verdant summits, the Atlantic seemed soothed and

BEAUTY 05? THE NIOHT. 245
lulled to sleep by the sweet murmur of its own gentle billows.
Above us were the new heavens* to which we have referred, and
in the resplendent light of its eternal stars, we seemed but an
atom of thought in the boundless and magnificent universe of
God. Nor could we banish the pleasant thought that there may
bo a deep and broad basis of fact in the mystic dreams and
visions of the poets and prophets of the buried ages, whose men
tal vision discovered not only in all the surrounding air, but also
in the profound depths of illimitable space, a vast universe of
spirits viewless as the wind and swift as the sun-beams. Amid
the chaotic desolation of the bleak summit of Mount Washing
ton, with a piercing cold wind blowing at the rate of seventy
miles an hour, we instinctively look earth-ward for fairies and
fairy land, spirits and spirit land, but in the warm, clear, aro
matic air of the summer isles, sporting in the moonlight and
starlight, or lurking in the soft shadows, it is easy for supersti
tion and credulity to believe in the existence of invisible spirits
whose actual presence the quickened senses seem to actually per
ceive and recognize.
While gazing upward at the magnificent stellar -display, the
crushing feeling of one's utter insignificance was somewhat re
lieved by the comforting thought that the human soul was
created by the same divine power that filled the vast dome above
us with its brilliant display of revolving suns and systems of
worlds; that great and small are relative terms invented and used
only by mortals; and that an indestructable thread, real but in
visible, connects and binds all to each other and to God.
If this is so, we can give an affirmative answer to Whittier's
momentous question —
" This conscious life, is it the same
That thrills the universal frame f "

S46 isles of summeb.
And the tiny insects hum, the song of the feathered minstrels,
man's hymn of praise and adoration, and the music of the
heavenly spheres, are not separate and discordant sounds, but
one harmonious anthem, or, as Longfellow expresses it:
"And the poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self -same universal being
Which is throbbing in his brain and heart."
And still musing, wondering, watchful and appalled, we hope
fully .waited until we should seeablue banner unfurled above the
southern horizon glorified and emblazoned with the gleaming
and quenchless light of its cross of stars. Nor did we long wait
in vain, for one star after another emerged from behind its cur
tain of vapor, occasionally again disappearing, until at last we
had the great gratification of seeing, clear and indisputable,
gleaming at that still midnight hour, above the earth's great
central encircling line, from the unfathomable depths of space,
that heavenly sign and symbol of the religion of the most ad
vanced civilization of modern times — "The Southern Cross."
Reaching at last the meridian, it was fully and completely re
vealed in all its. fair proportions, a beautiful cross of stars!
Soon afterwards we retraced our steps, entered the darkness.
and gloom of the attic of the Royal Victoria Hotel, descending
long staircases, and traversed seemingly interminable corridors,
but the mind was luminous and buoyant, for it still glowed with
the light of that starry cross in the sky. Thus, amid the doubt,
darkness and gloom of the world, may the Christian Cross "tow
ering above the mists of time," as a true and faithful type of a
higher life in this world, and a happier life in the world "over
the river," ever cheer, elevate and inspire with a faith that never
wavers and a hope that is ever steadfast and enduring.

CHAPTER XV.
The Coral Isles the Home of Beautiful Birds. Their Scarcity in Nassau
and its Causes. The Necessity of Legal Enactments to Protect the Birds.
The Flamingo. The Bahama Mocking Bird. A Brief Account of the Visi
tant and Resident Birds ofthe Baliamas.
 "The birds, great nature's happy commoners,
That haunt in woods, in meads and flowery gardens,
Rifle the sweets, and taste the choicest fruits,
Yet scorn to ask the lordly owner's leave." — Rowe.
The islands and keys of the Bahamas furnish every year, for a
longer or shorter period of time, a pleasant and appropriate home
for a great variety of birds, some quite rare, and many very beau
tiful. And yet, at Nassau, the absence of bird life is very notice
able. Surrounded by perpetual verdure, and inhaling in mid
winter the softest airs of a northern June, we naturally expected
to be awakened at day break, or to have our morning dreams
shaped and colored by the rich and rare music of feathered song
sters. But we were doomed to disappointment, and had to be
satisfied with the unmusical vocalism of hungry roosters.
The cities of Florida~'in this respect are eminently superior,
and upon landing, both at Fernandina and at Jacksonville, noth
ing impressed us more than the bird melody with which the air
resounded. The turkey buzzard, that, important member of the
Sanitary Boards of our Southern cities, performs no scavenger
duties at Nassau. Dr. Bryant states that it is abundant upon
the islands of Andros, Abaco, and Grand Bahama, and he at-
247

248

ISLES OF SUMMER.

tributes its absence from Nassau to the fact that it cannot find
there its appropriate food, as the blacks literally devour all the
offal and waste of slaughtered animals, while death from disease
or old age yields very meager and inadequate supplies. The
buzzards are too wise and sagacious to remain in a place so poor
and healthy as not to furnish them with a decent support, and the
"living" which "the world owes " them they seek elsewhere.
Many birds frequent the pathless solitudes of the interior of
the island of New Providence, and some parts of its shores and
Lake Killarney abouhd with water fowl.
We have no doubt the absence of birds from Nassau and its im
mediate vicinity, is the result of a persistent and long continued
war upon them by the people. For sport, for food, and for sale,
they have been killed or captured, and children have no doubt
thoughtlessly and wantonly rifled and destroyed their nests. To
the court of the hotel we have seen young fledglings brought,
and money paid by sympathetic ladies to secure their release.
Had suitable laws been made and enforced for the protection
of the birds upon the island of New Providence, Nassau and its
suburbs would present a new and very attractive source of en
joyment for visitors from abroad, hardly second to any for which
it is now distinguished. Nature was almost as bountiful in
giving to the air of the coral isles gay and beautiful forms of
life, as she has been to the waters which encircle them. But
this part of the colonial capital's inheritance of beauty and mel
ody has been thoughtlessly squandered. Wise legislation may
do much to retrieve the loss, and to cause the soft, warm air to
vibrate as in the olden times, with the rich and varied melody of
tropical birds. The orchards with waxen leaves and golden fruit,
the fadeless foliage of* shade trees and forest, and the thickets
with their flowering shrubs and climbing vines, belong rightfully
to the beautiful birds. For their benefit they were in part
created, and their possessory title is older than that of man's.

J Tf EmertoTi

Tilth Pimder-sari&Cn sand .Tfew Haven, Ot

FLAMINGO.

THE FLAMINGO. 249
A large and finely illustrated volume entitled " Birds of the
Bahama Islands," has, during the present year [1880], been pub
lished in Boston by its author, Mr. Charles B. Corey. It contains
the fruits of his own personal observations, and valuable infor
mation derived from other authors. We glean from it most of
our information concerning the ornithology of the islands.
The Flamingo, for the size and brilliancy of its plumage, is
most remarkable. To be appreciated it must be seen. With a
small delicate neck longer than its body, and with lean and lank
legs longer than its neck, it stands more than five feet high,
dressed entirely in scarlet, and with lake-red legs. Most of its
primaries are black, as is also the terminal half of its bill; the
basil half of the lower mandible is orange. The only bird of
this kind which vie saw in Nassau was tame, and was kept as
an unique and beautiful curiosity. Mounted upon stilts, it was
quite amusing to watch it stalk around among feathered creatures
less curiously made and less flashily dressed, and still more
amUsing to see it drink — which feat it accomplishes only by
turning its head upside down so as to use the beak as a cup —
a feat which is rendered quite easy of accomplishment by reason
of its long flexible neck.
Mr. Corey says: — " This beautiful species was at one time very
abundant throughout the Bahama Islands, but of late years they
have been so persecuted by thc inhabitants that at the present
time they are to be found in any numbers only upon the inland
ponds and marshes of Inagua and Abaco; they are gradually dy
ing off, or seeking some more inaccessible locality as yet undis
turbed by the presence of mankind, and in all probability, with
the next century the flamingo will bo unknown in the Bahamas.
The inhabitants find their breeding places, and gather hundreds
of their eggs. They kill great numbers of the young birds be
fore they are able to fly, and carry away nearly as many alive to

250 ISLES OE SUMMER.
sell to passing vessels, most of which dio for want of care. They
are killed by hundreds for tlieir feathers, and thus gradually
their ranks are being thinned, until at last the Flamingo, like
the Dodo and Soltaire, will be a thing of the past. * * * *
While on the nest, this bird sits with its legs hanging down on
either side, and it presents a most ludicrous appearance."
They were formerly seen in immense flocks, and Mr. Sargeant
states that one flock which he saw numbered five thousand — but
he omitted to add that he counted them.
Whether seen upon the beautiful water of the shallow lakes
and mangrove swamps, or among the green leaves of a tropical
forest, a large flock of flamingoes, with their bright scarlet uni
forms, must present a most gorgeous appearance.
Mr. Corey's book contains a " General Catalogue of the Birds
of the Bahamas," in which he gives the names of one hundred
and forty-nine species. Of these, all but twenty-five it seems,
are also found in the United States. Some are limited in their
range, being confined to certain islands.
THRUSHES.
Plumbeous Thrush, (called by the natives Blue Thrasher).
This bird is found upon New Providence and Abaco, but remains
generally concealed in thickets.
Paw-paw Thrush. It inhabits Inagua.
Little Mocking Bird. It is a common resident at Inagua.
Bahama Mocking Bird. It is very abundant throughout the
year in the Bahamas. Dr. Bryant says: " On those keys which
are barely large enough for any land birds to inhabit them, this
bird is sure to be the first settler; and on some of them, as Ship
Channel Keys for instance, which are only a few acres in extent,
there would be two or three pairs, each occupying its own domain,
which they did not allow to be invaded by the others without

WARBLERS. 251
giving battle at once. It was singular as well as pleasing, to
hear on one of these lonely and almost desert keys, this graceful
bird, mounted on the topmost spray of some dwarf shrub, sing
ing with as mucli fervor and satisfaction as if surrounded by
listeners, instead of having for sole auditor his faithful mate."
Cat Bird. It is only a winter visitor.
Blue-gray Gnat-catcher. It is a resident of the Bahamas, and
Dr. Bryant found it abundant at Inagua.
WARBLERS.
The Black and White Creeper is not uncommon during the
winter upon some of the larger islands. It searches the stems
of trees for insects, like the Woodpecker.
The Blue Yellow-backed Warbler is not uncommon during the
winter, and Mr. Corey found it among the small trees bordering
the road at Nassau.
Tlie Worm Fating Warbler was seen by Mr. N. B. Moore
while at Nassau in November, December and January.
The Dedrceca Petechia. This warbler was not uncommon at
Inagua and Long Island in May and June.
Gundloch's Warbler. This was abundant in summer, but not
seen north of Long Island.
The Yellow-rumpled Warblers were numerous near Nassau in
December and January. It is tame and pretty, frequents the
heavy growth, and is recognized by the yellow on the rump.
Black-poll Warbler. Dr. Bryant found it abundant in the
Bahamas from the 1st to the 10th of May. It searches the
trunks of trees for insects.
Chestnut-sided Warbler. Dr. Bryant saw a few early \i\ May.
Black and Yellow Warble-. Dr. Bryant thinks it as abund
ant as it is in the United States.
Cave May Warbler, It is found in the Bahamas in winter,

S52

ISLES OF SUMMER.

but is not abundant. On tho 26th of January, Mr. Corey saw
several in the trees in front of the hotel.
Prairie Warbler. Pretty and abundant.
Yellow-throated Warbler. Common in winter. It frequents
tall trees — generally the pines.
Kirtland's Warbler. It is rare and prefers the thick brush.
Yellow Red-poll Warbler. Pretty, and in winter abundant.
It runs along the roads and in low brush.
" Pine-creeping Warbler. A winter visitant, abundant in the
pine woods.
Golden Crowned Thrush. It prefers the thick undergrowth.
Dr. Bryant found it common in Nassau in 1866.
Water Thrush, (local name, Night Walker). It prefers damp
ground, and to be surrounded with impenetrable undergrowth,
hence rarely seen, although a regular winter visitant.
Maryland Yellow-throated Warbler. A beautiful ground
warbler, and common in the larger islands. Dr. Bryant saw a
flock which was two hours constantly flying past his vessel, though
not in a compact body. He states that on May 10th, " they
were still abundant in the neighborhood of Nassau."
Greater Yellow-throated Warbler. Local and rare. All the
known specimens have been taken upon New Providence.
Redstart. Abundant in winter upon the larger islands.
CREEPERS.
Bahama Honey Creeper. Pretty, small and abundant upon
all the islands visited by Mr. Corey. It is fond of the honey in
the blossom of tho loaf of life ( Verea Crenata), which it obtains
by thrusting its bill througli the petals — according to Mr. N. B.
Moore. When this supply fails, it devours the juice and pulp
of the sour orange, and the small insects attracted to the sour
orange trees, according to Dr. Bryant.
82

BAHAMA BIRDS. &53
SWALLOWS.
Bahama Swallow. Small and beautiful, confined to these is
lands; it was found by Mr. Corey abundant in the neighborhood
of Nassau in June. Dr. Bryant " saw them during the whole
of his stay at Nassau, but only on the first mile of the road lead
ing to the west of the island. They were so abundant there that
thirty or forty could be seen there at almost all times," skimming
along the road near the ground.
White-bellied Swallow. Seen occasionally during stormy
weather at Nassau. VIREOS.
Black-whiskered Vireo. Very abundant after May 1st.
CommonVireo. Small and abundant throughout the islands.
It is a resident, and Mr. Corey found it especially common in the
neighborhood of Nassau. FINCHES.
Purple Grosbeak; (local name, Spanish Paroquet.) It is abun
dant throughout the Bahamas, is very retiring in its habits, and
in the thick undergrowth its peculiar notes are heard. Gosse
says that at the extremity of "an immense horizontal limb of the
silk cotton, or some other gigantic and hoary tree in the forests
of Jamaica, "it builds a nest of rude materials, as large as a half
bushel measure, the opening being near the bottom." Dr. Robin
son, (speaking of this bird as we suppose,) says: "the black
bull-finch builds a nest as big as a blackbird's cage, and, by the
artful contrivance of this little volatile, the whole has the ap
pearance of a heap of trash, flung on the bow of some tree as if
by accident, so that nobody could suppose it to be anything else. "
Those which Mr. Corey saw showed no signs of a purple color.

254 ISLES OF SUMMER.
Black Grosbeak; (local name, Black Charles.) Mr. Corey
found it common on Inagua during May and June.
English Sparrow. It is said to have been introduced into the
Bahamas within the last few years.
Nonpareil. It sports blue, green, red, black and brownish
red colors, and is believed to be only an occasional visitor.
Indigo Bird. Mr. Moore saw it in Nassau in November.
Black-faced Finch. It is small, domestic, likes human society,
and is abundant everywhere.
Bahama Finch. A beautiful bird with an olive green jacket;
is abundant upon the island of New Providence, and "is one of
the first birds that attracts the visitor's attention, on account of
its brilliant coloration." STARLINGS.
Bobolink. Dr. Bryant saw flocks of them in May. They were
called Rice Birds.
Red-winged Blackbird. A common winter visitor, and perhaps
a resident. Mr. Corey found it to abound about the ponds on
Andros Island. FLT-CATCHERS.
Gray Fly-catcher. An abundant summer visitant, and perhaps
a resident. It is common south of New Providence.
Rufous-tailed Fly -catcher. A resident, but less abundant
than others of the same family.
Least Bahama Fly-catcher. Small and abundant in some
localities. Bahama Kingbird; (local name, Fighter.) A constant resi
dent and abundant.
Goat Sucker; (local name, Death Bird.) Not common, and
rarely seen on account of its nocturnal habits. It has a peculiar .

BAHAMA BIRDS. 255
cry, resembling the syllables "chuck- wills-widow," and remains
concealed during the day. The negroes believe that whenever
it is seen a person in the vicinity will die in a short time.
Little xWighthawk; (local name, Pirami-dink.) It is abun
dant, and flies swiftly about sun-set in search of insects. It does
not remain during the winter. HUMMING BIRDS.
Bahama Woodstar; (local name, Hummer.) It is very abun
dant in the neighborhood of Nassau.
Lyre-tailed Humming bird. Like many others of its family,
it is restricted to a single island. It is found only upon Inagua.
RicoreVs Humming bird. Interesting in plumage and habits,
it prefers the vicinity of the shore, and is common on Andros
Island. Some writers suppose it confined to Cuba.
Brace's Humming bird. It has been seen near Nassau.
KINGFISHERS.
. Belted Kingfisher. It is common in the winter, generally fre
quents small lakes and ponds, and Mr. Corey always, when visit
ing Lake Cunningham, near Nassau, saw it there.
CUCKOOS.
Bahama Cuckoo. Mr. Corey saw one near Nassau.
Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Mr. Brace has taken it in the vicinity
of Nassau.
Mangrove Cuckoo. Abundant on the larger islands, and
common near Nassau. It remains through the year, and keeps
concealed in the thick undergrowth.
Ani; (local names, Rain Crow, Blackbird.) A very abundant
resident, and is generally in flocks. Abundant around Nassau.

256 TISLES OF SUMMER.
WOODPECKERS.
Hairy Woodpecker. Common at Nassau.
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker. Abundant near Nassau in winter.
PARROTS.
Parrot. Formerly abundant upon the islands; now common
only at Inagua. It frequents the cornfields in large numbers in
July. OWLS.
Bam Owl. It is found near Nassau, and has many names.
Florida Burrowing Owl. Mr. Brace secured one at Nassau.
FALCONS.
Marsh Hawk. An occasional visitor.
Sharp-shinned Hawk. Seen near Nassau sometimes.
Peregrine Falcon. Not common.
Sparrow Falcon. Has been seen at Nassau, and at Great
Stirrup Key.
Red-tailed Hawk. One was taken at Nassau, and one at Inagua.
Fish Hawk. An abundant resident in the Bahamas.
VULTURES.
Turkey Buzzard; (local name, Crow.) Abundant at Andros,
Abaco and Grand Bahama. PIGEONS.
White-headed Pigeon. Is found on the islands, and in summer
repairs in immense flocks to the outer keys to breed.
Zenaida Dove; (local name, Wood Dove. ) A beautiful species;
is found throughout the Bahamas, but is not very abundant, and
does not collect in flocks.

BAHAMA BIRDS. 25?
Ground Dove; (local name, Tobacco Dove.) Very tame,
graceful and abundant.
Key West Dove. Beautiful and abundant.
PARTRIDGE.
Partridge; (local name, Quail.) Numerous near Nassau.
THE PLOVERS.
Black-bellied Plover. A regular winter visitant, but not com
mon. It frequents the salt marshes and beaches.
Golden Plover. An occasional visitor, and frequents the
marshes. Kildeer Plover. An abundant winter visitor, frequenting the
fields and marshes.
Wilson's Plover. A resident and abundant. It frequents the
long open beaches, and the shores of salt ponds.
Ring-necked Plover. An occasional visitor.
Piping Plover. Abundant in winter.
OTSTER CATCHERS, ETC.
Oyster Catcher; (local name, Sea Pie.) Rather a common
resident. Frequents beaches and sand bars.
Turnstone. Abundant in winter, and frequents tbe beaches.
It loses in winter "the varied colors of its nuptial dress."
STILTS.
Stilt. Abundant aa summer advances. Its trailing legs give
it, when flying, a singular appearance. It utters, while flying,
loud, sharp notes. SNIPES,
Wilsonys Snipe. Abundant in some localities in winter.

25& ISLES OS summer.
Red-breasted Snipe. Mr. Corey found three specimens upon
Inagua in May.
Semi-palmated Sandpiper. An abundant winter resident.
Least Sandpiper. One of the most abundant winter visitants.
Very social, and found in flocks on open beaches.
White-rumpled Sandpiper. A regular winter visitor, but not
common. Sanderling. A rather scarce winter visitant. It frequents
beaches and soft marshes.
Willet. Abundant on many of the islands.
Greater Yellow-leg. Not uncommon in winter.
SPOONBILLS.
Spoonbills. Curious, gaily colored, beautiful and abundant at
Inagua. HERON'S.
Great Blue Heron, (local name, Arsnicker). Frequently met
with on the beaches, or in the small inland ponds.
Inagua Heron. Very abundant in Inagua in Summer. They
breed in large communities.
Reddish Egret. A resident, and much more abundant than
any other species of its family.
Little Blue Heron. Abundant in winter.
Green Heron. An abundant resident, frequenting marshes.
Yellow-crowned Night Heron. Very abundant throughout the
Bahamas. Least Bittern. A rare visitant. It has been taken at Lake
Cunningham. RAILS, ETC.
Clapper Rail. Claimed for the Bahamas by Dr. Bryant.

BAHAMA BIRDS. 253
Carolina Rail.. . A regular winter visitant; not abundant.
Florida Gallinule. Resident and abundant when Dr. Bryant
wrote. Mr. Corey could not find it.
Purple Gallinule. Dr. Bryant saw but one specimen.
Coot. Some remain all summer; large numbers arrive in the
winter from the United States. They annoy the sportsmen, be
cause they frighten away more desirable game, by their incessant
clamor. DUCKS.
Tree Duck. A not uncommon resident on some of the larger
islands. It frequents the mangrove ponds.
Bahama Duck. A small, pretty species, which Mr. Corey
found frequenting the large salt ponds of Inagua.
Blue-winged Teal. A winter visitant, beautifully adorned
with finely colored plumage. It is abundant upon several of the
larger islands, and frequents the ponds in flocks.
'Green-winged Teal. It is common during the winter, and is
sometimes seen upon Lake Cunningham.
Lesser Black-headed Duck. It visits the lakes in winter.
Ring-necked Duck. It is abundant in winter, and is sometimes
seen in flocks with other species.
. Red-headed Duck. A winter visitant, and is abundant upon
the New Providence lakes.
Ruddy Duck. A winter visitant. It is abundant in the lakes
near Nassau. It is an expert diver, and will swim under water
to a hiding place in time of danger.
GANNETS.
Booby Gannet. About the 1st of February birds of this species
repair to desolate, uninhabited, unfrequented places to breed.
Small keys of a few acres in extent, some lying so low that they

260 ISLES OF SUMMER.
are washed by the waves during severe storms, are, during the
breeding season, literally covered with them, of all ages, but
mostly young. At such times the old birds manifest little dis
position to get out of the way of intruders, but will make savage
attacks with their powerful bills if too closely approached. They
are very quarrelsome, and make frequent malicious attacks upon
each other. Dr. Bryant says it is the most expert diver of any
birds with which he is acquainted.
There is also another species, lighter colored.
PELICANS.
Brown Pelican. A resident, and breeds in great numbers on
some of the islands. A tame one at Nassau exhibited more in
telligence than Mr. Corey supposed this bird possessed. It went
to the fish market every morning, and helped itself to fish when
ever it could elude the owner's vigilance. On one occasion it
made known its wants, and secured the services of Mr. Corey
when it wished to enter the closed gate of its owner, by " tugging
at his trousers with its bill," while Mr. Corey was passing.
CORMORANTS.
Florida Cormorant. An abundant species. " Nothing could
tempt" one which Mr. Corey had "to eat a fish which had been
dead over night." FAM. TACHTPETID.
Man-of-War Bird, sometimes called Frigate. It frequents
all the Bahama islands, and remains during the year. Dr. Bryant
visited some of their breeding places, the largest of which was
upon one of tho Ragged Island Keys, and was five or six acres in
extent. He says: " The nests, thickly crowded together, were

BAHAMA BIRDS. 261
placed on the tops of prickly pears, which covered the ground
with an almost impenetrable thicket. * - * * I have visited
the breeding places of many seahirds before, and some well worth
the trouble, but none so interesting to me as this. It was a most
singular spectacle; thousands and thousands of these great, and
ordinarily Wild birds, covered the whole surface of the prickly
pears as they sat on their nests, or darkened the air as they
hovered over them, so tame that they would hardly move on
being touched. * * * Incubation is carried on by both male
and females. * * * Its food is principally derived from the
Booby, whom they rob as the Bald Eagle does the Fish Hawk.
Why the Booby should submit to this, being much more power
ful, and armed with a most formidable bill, is strange." He
watched them for hours, but never saw them catch a fish. While
quite tame during the breeding season, it is shy and suspicious
at other times. TROPIC BIRDS.
Tropic Bird. It is called by the inhabitants Egg Bird. An
"elegant and graceful species, and in summer abundant. Its
flight is hurried and rapid, resembling that of the duck more
than that of the gull. They closely resemble the Terns in their
habits and appearance. " Mr. Bryant says that they breed in holes
in the horizontal and perpendicular surfaces of the rock, which
are often so winding that, though their harsh notes can be heard,
they can only be procured by demolishing the rock.
GULLS, TERNS.
Laughing Gull. It is abundant throughout the Bahamas
after April. About the time the winter visitors leave Nassau, it
may be daily seen in Nassau harbor.

'262 /SLES OF SUMMER.
Bonaparte's Gull. Probably an occasional visitor.
Gill-billed Tern. Common in summer upon the southern
islands. Royal Tern. Abundant throughout the Bahamas, and dis
tinguished for its large size.
Sandwich Tern. An interesting species, occasionally found in
summer. Mr. Corey found them qnite abundant during the
latter part of May, at Bird Rock, Acklin Island. He adds that
their flight is strong and very graceful, and that they dive and
fish with great dexterity.
Common Tern. Probably rather uncommon in the Bahamas.
Roseate Tern. A beautiful, regular summer visitant, but not
abundant. The adult male has a showy rose-colored breast.
Least Tern. Common in the southern islands in summer. It
breeds in large flocks.
Sooty Tern. They frequent in large numbers the reefs and
small islands.
Bridled Tern. Mr. Corey found it abundant at Long Island
during June.
Noddy Tern. During the summer months immense numbers
repair to the reefs and small islands to breed.
PETRELS.
Wilson's Petrel. Abundant a short distant off the coast.
Dusky Shearwater. An abundant resident, and very shy. It
remains far out at sea during the day, often in large floeks, and
does not return to the land until the darkness prevents it from
being distinguished. Mr. Corey says: "that all night long their
mournful cries can be heard, but that long before dawn they are
off again." They breed in holes or under projecting portions of
the rock, seldom more than afoot from the surface. Dr. Bryant
says, " Why these birds and the stormy petrels never enter or.

BAHAMA BIRDS. *2*58
i - - ...
leave their holes in the daytime, is one of the mysteries of nature,
both of them feeding and flying all day, are yet never seen in the
vicinity of their* breeding places before dark. When anchored
in the night-time near one of the keys on which they breed, their
mournful note can be heard at all hours of the night. During
the day they may be seen feeding in large flocks, generally out
of sight of land. They do not fly round much, but remain most
of the time quiet upon the surface of the water. I did not see
one on the banks, and never saw them dive or apparently catch
ing any fish, though they are often in company with Boobies and
different species of Terns, all of which are actively employed in
fishing. About half way from Andros to the Bank, I saw on
the 26th of April a flock of Boobies, Sooty Terns> Noddies,
Cabot's Terns, and the Dusky Petrel, that covered the surface
of the water, or hovered over it for an extent of at least a square
mile. Their number must be enormous." The inhabitants
call it Pemblico. GREBES.
St. Domingo Grebe. A pretty little resident, which prefers-
the dark recesses of the mangrove swamps, and is not uncommon
upon Andros and some other islands.
Mr. Corey states that " the small keys which, during the win
ter present a desolate appearance, in the summer season teem
with bird life; thousands of Terns of different species repair to
these deserted spots to breed, and their eggs might be gathered
by the barrelful, as the rocks and sand are, in places, almost cov
ered with them."
For the benefit of any of our readers whose love for the birds
m-iy i'Hino them to vuit the Bahamas in the summer season,
ou^-it perhaps to add that Mr. Corey says: that "the south-

$«4 ISLES OF SUMMER.
ern islands are almost uninhabitable by reason of the myriad of
insects by which they are infested." Even the horses, according
to the testimony of the inhabitants, are sometimes killed by
them. Several of the islands, Mr. Corey thinks, have never as
yet been by any naturalist fully explored.
We are happy to recommend Mr. Corey's " Birds of the Bahama
Islands " to all desiring extended and particular information con
cerning the subject matter of this chapter.
We cannot close this chapter without again respectfully sug
gesting to the people of Nassau the very great importance of
securing the enactment aud enforcement of such wise laws as
will secure the return of the birds of the Bahamas to their woods
and waters, and to their gardens and orchards.
The Mallard was omitted by mistake from the account of the
ducks of the Bahamas on page 259. It is of a large size, and
has a glossy green head. A white ring encircles the lower part
of its neck; its breast is of a purple chestnut color, and its wings
are tipped with white and black. It is a regular winter visitant,
and frequents the lakes and ponds. Audibon says: " its progress
through the air I thought might be estimated at a mile a minute,
and I feel confident that when at full speed, and on a long jour
ney, they can fly at the rate of a hundred and twenty miles an
hour."

CHAPTER XVI.
The Influence of the British Court and Aristocracy upon the People of
Nassau. Tlie Landing of Prince Alfred upon the Island of New Providence. ,
Nasiau and the British Government During the Late War of the Rebellion.
Blockade Running. Nassau Practically a Confederate Port. International
Laics Construed and Enforced- so as to Greatly Damaje the- United States.
Fortunes Rapidly Mads, Squandered and Lost. Wild Excitement and Great
Dissipation. Great Increase of Disease and Crime in Nassau.
"No voice of friendly salutation cheered us,
None wish'd our arms might thrive, or bade God speed us." — Rowb.
As the child apes the man, so the practices and sentiments of.
the court and aristocratic circles of Great Britain give tone and
character to society in the dependencies of the British crown in.
all the ends and corners of the earth. In Nassau, English in-:
fluences dominate,: although from the geographical position of
the Bahamas, and the natural course of trade, they are commer-:
cially more closely allied to the United States. As the home-
government retains and exercises the power of filling the high
executive and judicial offices, and has the ultimate and deciding-
voice in all important legislative and judicial matters, a great
check exists against the growth of a natural sentiment in favor
of political independence, and free institutions. Much is done
in the Bahamas to foster, keep alive and deepen the feeling of
reverence for and true allegiance to the Queen, her family and
her government. The landing of Prince Alfred upon the island
of New Providence, upon the 3d day of December, A. D. 1861,
365 23

266 ISLES OF SUMMER.
caused the 3d day of December in all future years, to be declared
a public holiday. The flight of stone steps which lead, from the
harbor to Rawson's Square, upon which on that occasion he first
stepped, were called by his name on account of that auspicious
event, and thus keep him in perpetual remembrance. Not that
Alfred had developed great genius, or purchased fame by his
fcttai-mn'-ents and exploits; not that the soft balmy air of those
coral isles had vibrated with a single great thought from his royal
lips that would be heard in future times; not that from his pen
" A small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought,
Had made thousands, much less millions, think;"
not that he had lightened the heavy burden of a single tax, or sug
gested -administrative or governmental reforms, or caused any of
the wild and now waste crown lands of the islands to be conveyed
to their landless poor— but, being a prince, it was a crowning
glory, an event never to be forgotten in the coming years and
distant ages, that he had actually gone ashore at Nassau. By
reason of his royal blood, his mere foot-fall has left a permanent
impress upon Bahama history, like the fossil traeks of great an
imals upon sandy shores in pre-historic times. We trust that
we entertain a proper respect for Prince Alfred, both on his own
account and on account of his parents, whose virtues are sufficient
to make them illustrious, but to make the day of his landing a
fcn_&t historic event because of his blood, looks very much like
Sn effort on the part of somebody to purchase favor at the court
of the Queen. There is a day in the history of the Bahamas
which the outside world will keep in perpetual remembrance —
the day upon which the Old World first had an introduction to
the New. - No column, obelisk or temple, is seen upon Watlin's
island, 'where; as we believe, Columbus first landed, knelt, and
gave thanks to God. . No public recognition of that event has

NASSAU AND THE BLOCKADE RUKNERS. 26.7
been made by the Bahama government, and we doubt if many
of the islanders know where it occurred — but they will not
be permitted to forget the day the Prince of Wales was born,
nor the time his sailor-boy brother first trod the white lime
stone streets of their little colonial capital. This is the result,
no doubt, of governmental policy. Distance — the mists of space
— impress the African mind, and Victoria's golden crown, on the
other side of the broad Atlantic, reflects a mystic light, like that
of "the great white throne " beyond the limits of time. The
nearness of the Bahamas to the United States — the intervening
waters of the Gulf of Florida being to some extent spanned by
a bridge of ocean steamers — tends more and more to strongly
bind them to the States by the strong ties of commercial inter
course. At least a hundred Americans visit those islands for a
longer or shorter time, to one Englishman, and republican in
fluences, if not studiously counteracted, would soon predominate.
The British ministry and aristocracy during the late civil war
in the United States, from political and commercial considera
tions, openly and heartily sympathized with the South, and great
ly prolonged the war by the aid and comfort they rendered the
would-be founders of a great slave-holding oligarchy. Nassau
practically became a most important naval station and depot of
supplies for the Southern Confederacy.
Under the friendly flag of Great Britain, secessionists and
oiockade runners held high carnival upon the "Isle of June."
Commanding, as New Providence to a limited extent does, our
South Atlantic coast, the approaches to the West India Islands,
and the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, Nassau is very favorably i
situated to do great damage to our commercial marine in time
of war; and the Confederates, with the British government and
aristocracy on their side, were not tardy in availing themselves of
its advantages. The wildest excitement prevailed. Steamers

268 ISLES OF SUMMER.
I and sailing vessels, built for speed, were constantly arriving and
departing. King Cotton was enthroned at Nassau and upon
Hog Island. The cotton famine districts of England, and the
destitute armies of the South, alike looked to Nassau for mate
rial assistance. Brave, daring and dashing men in gray were the
lions of the day, and were courted and feted by the high digni
taries of Church and State in this miniature seat of royal and
sacerdotal pomp and power. , Fortunes were rapidly made, and
the Bahama treasury overflowed with gold, which came in rich
streams from its custom house. All the Bahama negroes who
had anything to sell were made happy. The crumbs from the
Confederate tables that dropped upon Capt. Sampson and his
fellow boatmen, are vividly remembered to this day, and it is
very amusing to hear Sampson, in his graphic way, while his
yacht is bounding over the billows, describe the golden but now
departed days of Nassau during the war. The Bahama govern
ment was soon enabled to wipe out its debt of £47,786 (over
$238,000). The Royal Victoria Hotel, for the erection of which
the Bahama legislature made an appropriation in the year 1859
of only £6,000, that, valetudinarians might be suitably accommo
dated in Nassau, was elaborately and expensively finished in
the early part of our late war, at a total cost of over $100,000,
and the Nassau people were in consequence enabled to sumptu
ously entertain their Southern friends— the daring and dashing
wearers of the gray. Gov. Rawson states in his official report
accompanying the Blue Book of the Colony for the year 1864,
that the hotel cost " up to the close of 1864, £19,804." As the
appropriation for the hotel in 1859, was only £6,000 it is proba
ble that the tide of wealth which in consequence of our war,
filled to overflowing the coffers of the colonial treasury, led to
the erection of a more elaborate and expensive building, that the
Confederates and blockade runners might be suitably entertained.

NASSAU A CONFEDERATE POR*. §6§
Indeed, Gov. Rawson says, that "without such an establishment
it would have been almost impossible to have provided for the
influx of persons connected with the blockade trade." But alas!
how unstable are human hopes! How speedily the shadows suc
ceed to the sunlight! Changes great and unexpected thwart
" the best laid schemes of mice and men."
A few short and fleeting years since then have passed, and the
bold, rich and dashing Confederates are there nowhere to be seen,
but in their places come the once hated Northerners, including
not a few Yankees from-troublesome New England, to repose in
the pleasant chambers, and feast in the banquet hall of the Royal
Victoria Hotel, so lately honored by the advocates and champions
of "the lost cause." The Great Republic meanwhile rises with
new strength and vigor from its baptism of blood, far more for
midable than it ever was before as a rival in peace and an enemy
in war.
Blockade running culminated in 1864 and the early part of
1865. The imports of Nassau in 1860 were in value only £234,029
and its exports £157,350, but the imports in 1864 were ofthe value
of £5,346,112 and the exports £4,672,398. In January and Feb
ruary 1865, twenty steamers ran the blockade, and landed at
Nassau 14,182 bales of cotton, which were of the total value of
two and three-quarters million of dollars. Every one was wild
with excitement. Fortunes-were made in a few weeks or months.
Gold eagles, and twenty dollar gold pieces were pitched instead
of pennies, by fickle fortune's new favorites, in the Court of the
Royal Victoria Hotel. Money was spent and scattered in the
most extravagant and lavish manner; and, as a natural conse
quence, immorality and crime affected the moral atmosphere,
and disease nestled and watched for its victims in the soft and
balmy air of this great natural sanitarium.
In these calm and peaceful days a vivid imagination will find

270'

ISLES OF SUMMER.,

itself impotent to conceive the extent of the dissipation, the prof
ligate waste, the mad revel and riot, and the wild frenzy and
delirium which everywhere prevailed. What a contrast they
afforded to the mild, soft and lambent air, — the clear, placid and
beautiful waters, — the calm and quiet majesty of heaven's blue
dome, — and tho fairy bowers with their flowers and unfading
verdure, which characterize this favored part of tho New World !
But like the occasional groat tidal waves of the ocean, which after
they subside leave little but wreck and ruin upon thc shores which
they visit; — when, soon after, the Confederacy collapsed, and only
the Stars and Stripes fluttered in a free air over all the recently
dissevered States, silence resumed its reign in the streets of Nas
sau, and much that existed, in the shape of fixed capital, was
turned into a ruin by the great hurricane of 1866. A lasting
monument was erected to commemorate and keep alive the mem
ory of those days, which every inhabitant of these islands sees and
feels, in the form of a colonial debt of over a quarter of a million
of dollars.
If the American eagle and the British lion hereafter quarrel,
we recommend the former, (in settlement of accounts), to make
a breakfast of the Bahamas some pleasant morning, — saving their
insignia of royalty for our Peabody Museums.
Two rules were adopted by the English government during
the war, which operated (as it was well known at the time that
they would, and as it was designed that they should,) very much
to the benefit of the Confederates, and to the prejudice of the
United States government. One provided that if there was a
Confederate vessel and also a Union vessel in a British port, and
one sailed out first, the other should not leave until twenty-four
hours had elapsed. Now, as our vessels of war were always the
pursuing party, the rule greatly and exclusively aided the South.
To put it mildly, this was unfriendly conduct, and had for its
object the permanent dissolution of the American Union.

UNFRIENDLINESS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 271
And when an armed Confederate vessel entered an English
port, she was permitted to take in coal sufficient to enable her
to reach a southern port. This was according to the rules of
international law. But the English authorities gave it, (in the
interest of the Confederates), a practical construction which con
formed to its letter but violated its spirit. They held that a
Confederate steamer having coaled once in an English port and.
departed, might return as often as its officers pleased, for fresh
supplies of coal, without any troublesome questions being asked.
So that, under this rule, a Confederate privateer, without mak
ing a home port, was able to continue its cruise along the great
ocean highways frequented by our commercial marine, run into
Nassau when it pleased for coal, capture our merchant ships,
and levy forced contributions upon or destroy them. They held
that no violence was thereby done to the principles of national
neutrality, because the British government did not know and
was not obligated to inform itself whether or not the privateer
had since its previous coaling, returned to a home port, nor what
had become of its previous supplies.
The unfriendliness of the British government to the American
Union at that time, furnished a solid foundation upon which
the rebellion rested its hopes. It greatly protracted the war, and
largely increased the harvests of suffering and death, and, as a
necessary consequence, impoverished the South, wasted the sub
stance of the North, and stirred up bitter feelings of hostility
between the two nations after the memories of old and bloody
family quarrels had nearly faded away. And whatdid England
and her colonies thereby gain ? The cotton she received "from
blockade runners during the war, formed but a very small frac
tional part of the, entire crop. The value of her vessels and car
goes captured by. our cruisers while endeavoring to run the
blockade, aggregated many millions of dollars. Nassau was

272 ISLES OF SUMMER.
rendered wild and delirious by becoming for a time a great com
mercial center, and awoke to find herself only weakened by the
dissipations which the great carnival had caused; while England
was humiliated by an award which compelled her to* pay heavy
damages for injuries we suffered from the rebel cruisers which
she permitted to be fitted out in her ports. The two countries
are bound together by the strongest of ties — blood, -language,
mutual dependence, religion, literature and law — but the love
and respect of children for their mother can be greatly impaired
and even turned into hate. It should never be forgotten, how
ever, that the British Queen stood faithfully by the Union in the
days of its sorest peril, and that the great body of the British
people were also with us.
The yellow fever prevailed at Nassau in the years 1861r 1862,
1863 and 1864, and resulted in the loss of many lives. —
The statistics of crime, disease and death, during this period
in Nassau, clearly prove this bad business to have been equally un
favorable to sound health and good morals. There were commit
ted to prison in the Police Court in Nassau in
1861,  Males, 375, Females, 189,
1863  " 523, '' 233.
1863  " 689, " „ 189.
1864,  " 891, " 221.
There were tried for the more heinous offences in the General
Court in 1861,  17.— Convicted, 13, Acquitted, 4.
1863  34.- •- 22, " 12.
1853  S2.— " 59, " 23. -
1864,  £9.— " 75, " 24.

NASSAU AND BLOCKADE RUNNING.

27a

The following table from Gov. Rawson's report exhibits the
number of vessels which arrived from and departed for the south
ern states at Nassau, from 1S62 to 1865:

Arrived from Southern States.

Departed for Southern States.

Yeabs.

Steamers.

Smnll Sailing
Vessels.

Steamers.

Small Sailing
Vessels.

186118621863 1864
1865

2
33
113105 35

2
74
27 6

3
46
173165 41

1
109 48 2

Total,

287

109

428287

160"

/ 109

Excess o

f Departures,

141

- 5l"

Of these, forty-two steamers are known to have been captured,
and twenty-two to have been wrecked,, chiefly off the ports of
Charleston and Wilmington. Thirty-two were confederate -ves
sels. Of the twenty-three steamers which remained m the harbor
of Nassau, or arrived in it after the Southern ports were taken,
twelve cleared for England, four for Halifax, two for Bermuda,
three for Havana, one for St. Thomas, and one for Matamoras.
During the whole period, 1861-1865, 164 steamers, connected
with the trade of the Southern States, entered the port of Nassau.*
Of these, 108 brought cargoes from the coast. Fifty-six are re
corded as having left tho port of Nassau, but do not figure among
the arrivals from the coast. Fifty-one steamers made but one
voyage each, and twenty-three two voyages'each. Two steamers'
made ten trips, and the Syren eighteen. On her nineteenth
voyage she was captured.

274

ISLES OF SUMMER.

In 1863 the expenses of a vessel which could carry 800 bales
(including wages, coal, provisions, labor, repairs and agent's com
missions,) were about £3000 for a round, trip, to and fro. In
the following year the expenses were increased to £5000. The
salary of the captain rose from £600 to £1000 for the trip, with
the privilege of carrying ten bales of cotton on his own account.
The purser and first officer received each £300, with the privilege
of carrying two bales each, and the pilot received £1000, with the
privilege of carrying five bales.
A first class steamer would run from Charleston or Wilmington
to Nassau, in about forty-eight hours. She could be discharged
in twenty-four hours, the laborers working day and night. But
three days for loading and unloading was considered good dis
patch. . The excitement, extravagance and waste which prevailed
under such circumstances may be easily imagined.
During the war, had the colored people who compose about
three-fourths of the population of the Bahamas, known that the
question of the enfranchisement of five millions of their race was
involved in the struggle, we should at least have had their warm
sympathies on our side. But nearly everything relating to the
war that was published in Nassau, so far as we have been able to
learn, was favorable to the rebel side. This may also be fairly
inferred from the fact that the only battle of that war that
the publisher of the " Nassau Guardian" has noticed in the col
umns of important events inserted in his Nassau Almanac for
1879, is that of Bull Run, July 21, 1861.
It is charitable to conclude that the editor and compiler has
never heard of the great Union victories that culminated in a
restored Union, and we trust, a permanent peace between the two
sections of our common country.

CHAPTER XVII.
The Bahama Constitution. Opening of the Colonial legislature. Impo
sing Ceremonies. The Negroes Made Happy. The Governor and his Military
Guard of Honor. "Parliament" Prorogued. Martial Music and Booming
Cannon. Engrossed Bills Approved and Signed. Small Annual Crops of
New Laws. No Color Line in the House of Assembly. Wrecks and Wrecking
in the Bahamas. Salvors and Salvage. Bahama Hurricanes.
"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus ; and we, petty men,
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves." — Shakespeaee.
In 1879, the day after our arrival at Nassau was distinguished
by the opening of a new session of the Bahama Legislature. Our
landlord kindly secured for us tickets of admission, for only those
thus favored were allowed to witness the ceremonies. They bore
the official signature of the President of the Council. The chief
executive officer of the Bahamas was Governor William Robinson,
a man with black hair and eyes, a heavy moustache and long
beard. He was apparently not over forty years of age, five feet
eight or nine inches high, rather good looking, and had a practi
cal business air about him. He appeared in most excellent phys
ical condition. With the thermometer; even in the winter
ranging in the shade among the seventies, he bore up under the
following heavy weight of titles and descriptive appellations.
"His Excellency William Robinson, Esq., Companion of the
•most distinguished order of St, Michael and St. George, Governor ,
S75

m

ISLES OF SUMMER.

and Commander-in-Chief in and over the Bahama Islands, Vice
Admiral and Ordinary of the same."
These titles are not only harmless, but, under British rule,
they very likely serve a useful purpose, and help to make the
people respect and reverence those whom it is the pleasure of the
home government to appoint and send out to rule over them. A
Bahama negro especially, may be expected to be very greatly im
pressed when a new governor comes upon tho island to represent
the Queen with such an imposing array of titles.
In this case, we felt less disposed to be amused when we ob
served that the governor's public utterances indicated practical
administrative talents, and a desire to promote the general wel
fare. There is an Executive Council, composed of nine members;
four who hold other high offices, are members ex officio.
"Parliament" (as in common speech here the General As
sembly is termed) is composed of eight Councilmen, who are
appointed for life by the Queen upon the nomination of the
Governor, and a "House of Assembly" composed of forty-one
delegates from this and neighboring islands, who are elected for
seven years. To be eligible, they must own real estate of the
value of $2,500. They receive no pecuniary compensation for
their services.
It is common for citizens of Nassau to represent in the Assem
bly the people of some of the other islands. They desire the
honor, and can better afford to hold the office, as the Legislature
meets near their houses and places of business. This gives Nas
sau a controlling influence in all legislative matters.
Thus it will be seen that the Colonial government follows
closely the English model. It is eminently fitted to secure sta
bility, and we think, wise legislation.
The constitution is not based upon any charter, but originated
jn successive Royal Commissions to the governors empowering

OPENING OF "PARLIAMENT." 21?1?
them to convoke a General Assembly. The number who voted
in 1861, was 4,351.
The common law is the foundation of the jurisprudence of the
colony, but the amendments introduced from time to time in
England have been generally adopted without delay. In 1848,
the Attorney General was made public prosecutor, and it was
provided that in all civil cases, and in all but capital criminal
cases, the verdict of two-thirds of the petty jury might be taken,
and that injcapital cases two-thirds might acquit but not convict.
We confess that we had a curiosity to witness the ceremonies
attending the opening of a "parliament" possessing certain
limited legislative powers over such a large number of islands,
inhabited and otherwise.
To secure favorable seats, we went early to the Council Cham
ber. One o'clock, p. M., was the hour appointed for the services
to commence. Our little piece of pasteboard was duly respected
and honored by the colored officials who guarded the approaches
to the Council Hall.
This hall is unpretentious, and can seat comfortably about 150
persons. It has windows on three sides. At one end of it was
a platform slightly raised above the main uncarpeted floor, with
its own backing all draped with red bunting, and surmounted by
the red cross of St. George. Upon this platform stood the chair
of the presiding officer.
The sound of martial music in the street as the hour of one
approached, was quickly followed by the entrance into the hall
of the members of the upper house. They were mostly not far
from seventy years of age, intelligent looking, and had every
appearance of being the right men in the right place. To see
them was to have confidence in them. No Connecticut Senate
ever impressed us more favorably. They occupied arm chairs
with high backs, upholstered with leather, near ro and in front
of the president's chair. 34

^

isles 'Of summed.

A police force was in charge of the hall and its approaches,
and gave seats to the citizens and visitors from abroad, who soon
occupied all the seats back of the table of the Legislative Council.
These policemen were all young and black, yet very bright look
ing. They wore blue jackets, white pantaloons, and fatigue caps.
Belts encircled their waists, to which were secured clubs like
those carried by policemen in northern cities. They seemed to
be picked men, and were polite and gentlemanly in every respect,
having nothing of that offensiveness of manner so common when
ignorance and brutality are invested with a little brief authority.
The people there assembled to witness the ceremonies were
evidently highly cultivated and intelligent, and all seemed to
appreciate and enjoy the honor of this novel entertainment.
The Governor, having left the Government House, was received
at the Legislative building by a colored military guard of honor
in gay uniforms and white turbans. They formed a detachment
from the First West India regimsnt, and presented arms while
the national anthem was played by the band. The Zouave uni
form has special attractions for the negro.
Soon the Governor, accompanied by high officers of state, and
followed by the officers and members of the lower house, entered
the Council Chamber, took a position upon the raised platform,
gave a dignified bow to the venerable members of the upper house,
who all rose to receive him, surveyed deliberately and with seem
ing satisfaction, his brilliant audience, and then, while still stand
ing, read from manuscript his speech. The members of the
Assembly and others who came with him remained also standing
on his right. He was dressed in blue, while a moderate quantity
of gold lace, and a sheathed sword by his side, indicated that
while Governor he also filled the position of a military commander.
His army then in commission at Nassau, consisted of two com
panies of colored troops. In the division of Legislative honors

" PARLIAMENT " PROROGUED. 279
the negroes had a portion allotted to them, several of them being
members of the lower house.
The Governor's speech was ably written, and effectively de
livered. It covered matters of practical importance, and would
compare well with the speeches and messages of our State execu
tives. The address concluded by a suggestion that sounded very
home-like, that the present session of the Assembly might be
even shorter than the last, which in brevity surpassed its prede
cessors. After delivering his speech, His Excellency and his suite with
drew, and the members of the lower house retired to their cham
ber. Both houses afterwards voted replies. As the Governor
left the building a salute was fired from three field pieces, the
troops concluded their escort duty, and all the colored population
of Nassau which had assembled to see the show, followed His
Excellency's example, satisfied and gratified with the short epi
sode which had broken the monotony of tlieir every day life.
Before we left Nassau in 1879, the Bahama Parliament was
prorogued by the Governor with imposing formalities. At the
appointed hour, His Excellency, accompanied by his Secretary
and other high officials, was escorted from the Government
House, (as his residence is called,) to the building in which the
Senate holds its sessions, by the colored troops, while martial
music imparted life and spirit to the indolent air. The semi-
royal pageant was a god-send to the negroes, as it broke in pleas
antly upon the dull monotony of their every day life, and, in Bay
street where the procession passed, they constituted, to the eyes
of northern strangers, the most interesting part of the show.
The legislative " dissolving views " were witnessed by those only
who had been favored with tickets which secured them a free
pass to the Senate Chamber, and, being numbered among the

280 ISLES OF SUMMER.
fortunate ones, we repaired in good season to the appointed place,
inspired by a natural curiosity to witness the " giving up of the
ghost" by an integral and important part of the law making
power of this out-lying portion of the Queen's possessions.
The Senators, (or colonial lords,) grave, dignified and prepos
sessing in their appearance, took possession of their high-backed
arm chairs, and in low tones conversed with each other, until
the sound of approaching footsteps indicated the arrival of their
more youthful and less experienced superior in official rank and
honors. In the presiding officer's chair, (which was decorated with ban
ners and bunting,) the Governor was soon comfortably seated and
enthroned. His military dress and sheathed sword were mildly
suggestive of the power which upholds government, and gives
effect and potency to law. He received, as before, the speaker
and members of the lower house, the former accompanied by his
large and conspicuous mace of office, brought to Nassau from
South Carolina by the royalists after the revolution of 1776,
while a clerk or secretary carried tho parchment rolls upon which
were engrossed the unsigned bills of public acts which had suc
cessfully run the gauntlet of the two houses. Each roll was
successively handed to the speaker, who, in an audible voice, in
dicated its character by reading its title, and handed it to the
Governor, who signed it in the presence of both houses of the
colonial parliament, and thus, by his approval and signature,
united with the legislative branch of the government in making
it a law of the colony. There were in 1879 but five rolls, so that
only five laws were enacted at one entire session of the Bahama
Legislature. We had no means of determining to what extent
this extremely short law crop was chargeable to the climate. In
the crisp, cool air of the north, crime is tirelessly active, and con
stantly assumes new and unexpected forms, rendering additional

"parliament" PROROGUED. $81
enactments necessary, while the rapid growth of new industries,
the great accumulations of wealth in ever changing forms, and
the constantly increasing complications of human affairs, public
and private, give rise to countless and unending changes in the
laws. But rest, repose, quiet, torpor, sleep — lie down and nestle
in the soothing, languid air of the isle of unending summer.
Industry and enterprise wilt and wither in an atmosphere that
seems made for disordered nerves, and worn and weary minds,
and for the development and growth of vegetable life and beauty.
Only five new laws in one entire legislative session! But for the
wrecking business, the ten commandments, with suitable penal
ties, appended like snappers to whips, would almost meet the
requirements of these happy islanders so far as law is concerned.
There were sixteen engrossed bills in 1880 that received the
Governor's signature upon a similar occasion when we were pres
ent. The Governor, after giving his sanction, and adding his sig
nature to the enactments, addressed the two houses separately
and collectively, after the manner of the British Queen in Par
liament, and said:
" Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Honorable, the Legisla
tive Council;
"Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Honorable House of As
sembly; "I am glad to be able to relieve you from your parliamentary
duties, and thank you for your cooperation in all matters that
have been submitted for your consideration;
" Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Honorable House of As
sembly; "I am much indebted to you for the very liberal supplies
which have been voted."
The Governor alluded to the government as " my government,"

282

ISLES OF SUMMER.

which together with his reference to the supplies which had been
voted, made the idea prominent that his excellency was the gov
ernment itself, and not merely an executive officer authorized to
see that a government of written laws is duly enforced.
After complimenting the Assembly by telling its members
that "they had kept pace with the legislation of the mother
country," he said:
"By virtue of the power invested in me by her majesty, I now
prorogue this parliament until the 11th day of May next." The
Governor then retired, accompanied by the officials who had
graced and honored the occasion with their presence. They were
followed by the members of the two houses, and by tho amused
and gratified spectators. The latter, for awhile, mingled with
the crowd outside, whose loyalty may be fairly presumed to have
been intensified by the inspiring notes of martial music, the
thunder of deep-mouthed cannon, and the showy uniforms and
soldierly bearing and evolutions of the colored troops who acted
as a guard of honor to his excellency.
As the legislature was only adjourned for three or four weeks,
the affair would have been a waste of time and powder, if time
had there any money value, or public shows had been more com
mon. On those occasions when we attended the meetings of the
House of Assembly, its sessions were in the evening, and only
routine business that did not consume more than half an hour,
was transacted. Members, rose languidly from their easy seats
and addressed a few words to the speaker in a low tone of voice.
The speaker had reduced parliamentary brevity to a fine point.
In putting a question, he very quietly said — "negatives rise — it
is carried." This mode insured an unanimous vote in the affirm
ative, as something extraordinary would be required to induce a
member to rise out of his comfortable and roomy chair. The

HHE WRECKIS****- BUSINESS. ^8*^
Colored members looked intelligent, appeared well, and seemed
to command the respect of their white associates.
WRECKS AND WRECKING.
Much may be truthfully said in commendation of the delicate
silken web of the spider, as its gossamer threads, gemmed with
dew-drops, glisten in the morning sunlight, — but to many gay,
sportive insects it is a trap of death. Little do they think of the
lurking peril as they fan the warm air with their tiny wings, and
voice their happiness in gentle murmurs. Thus in the clear
warm waters of a summer sea, the Bahamas attract by their
beauty, and lull and disarm suspicion by their soft and languid
air. But a more dangerous place is nowhere to be found in all
the paths of commerce. Numerous islands, keys, rocks and
reefs, deceitful currents and cross currents, and extensive shoals
and banks, constitute only a part of the perils which ever lurk
in these much frequented waters, for wreckers have succeeded
the pirates, and the salvage of the salvors, and the legal and other
expenses, not unfrequently absorb all that the destroying elements
and engulfing waters have left. Deprived of the means of sup
port which the varied industries of colder climates so lavishly
furnish, hundreds of the Bahamians wait aud watch for wrecks,
as our northern cats wait and watch for summer birds.
The government officials and the courts of admiralty, under
the broad aegis of colonial revenue acts and maritime law, are
handsomely provided for in the division of the spoils of the sea,
so that in many cases the owners in distant States have to thank
Nassau for little more than a convenient and sufficiently roomy
burial place for their property and their hopes.
The number of wrecks reported in seven years, from 1858 to
1864, was 313, of which 259 were claimed to be total loss.es —
which means, we suppose, total so far as their owners were cou-

284 Isles of summer.
cerned; the wreckers and government and court officials took all
that was saved as a compensation for their services. The hurri
cane months are August, September and October; yet of these
313 cases, 199 occurred during the six months ending May 1st
of each of these seven years, being nearly two-thirds of the whole
number. The amount of salvage awarded from 1855 to 1864, in fifty-
nine derelict cases, was £11,318 10s. 5d., and in thirty-seven
salvage cases, £59,955 14s. 8d., making a total salvage for those
ten years, of over $350,000, being about six times more than
w,as paid to the proprietors by the English crown for the whole
group of islands. In 1865 the owners of the American steamer
Herman Livingston, which was stranded and got off, paid,
under an agreement with the master and salvors, $30,000. The
salvors, after discounting the bill, received £5,480 3s. This was
divided among thirty-two vessels and boats.
Governor Rawson says: "It is stated on good authority, that
the average salvage allowed, chiefly by arbitration, which twenty
years ago amounted to sixty per cent., has not during the last
five years, (1859 to 1864,) exceeded forty per cent, and that the
charges for commissions amount to ten per cent, on the mer
chandise saved, and for labor, storage, &c, to four per cent.
more. From the above, the extent may be inferred, to which the
population of thc colony, maritime and commercial, has been and
continues to be interested in this source of employment and in
come." The total value of wrecked property, including hulks and
materials, paying ad valorem duties of twenty per cent., auction
duties of five per cent., and specific duties and of property re
exported, aggregated £638,864.
Gov. Rawson also states that -wrecking has had the necessary
and usual effect of demoralizing the persons engaged in such

HURRICANES.

285

occupations, of diverting their attention from agriculture or any
other industrial pursuit, exposing them to the trials and tempta
tions of alternate abundance and want, and accustoming them to
Tejoice in the misfortunes which bring calamity and ruin to
others. The local legislature has endeavored to bring the wrecking
system under control by a law which requires licenses to be taken
out for men and vessels, provides for the appointment of wreck
masters, apportions the share of salvage which each vessel and
its crew may claim, and imposes penalties for certain acts of mis
conduct. In 1858 there were licensed 302 vessels and 2, 679 men;
in 1865 only 176 vessels and 712 men. The late civil war in the
States occasioned this difference. HURRICANES.
As the hurricane has a great sanitary mission to perform in
purifying the air and destroying the germs of malignant diseases
in the West India islands, it is seldom that more than three or
four years pass by without some manifestations of its presence
and power. At such times the wreckers reap a rich reward.
The following list of hurricanes that are known to have passed
over the Bahamas is taken from Gov. Rawson's report:

1780, October,  3 to 4.
.".  4 to 16.
1796, "  3 to 5.
1801, September,  5 to 6.
1804, "  7 to 9.
1813, July  23 to 24.
" August,  22 to 24.
1R21, September,  1 to 2.
1827, August,  20 to 22.
1830, "  13 to 14.
1835, "  14 to 15.
1837, "  2 to 3.

1838, September,  5 to 8
1842, August  2 to 4.
1844, October,  5 to 6.
1846, "  10 to 11
1848, August,  .*  22 to 23.
1853, "  18 to 20.
1856, "  25 to 27.
1857, November  , 10 to 12,
18";8, October,  16 to 19.
1861, August  13 to 15.
1862, "  27 to 28.
1865, October,  23 to 25

286 ISLES OE SUMMER.
This list includes those hurricanes only concerning which Gov.'
Rawson had reliable information. Probably there were others
during the period covered by his table. We suppose also that
taany of the hurricanes mentioned visited only a portion of the
Bahamas. The terrible hurricane which inflicted such serious
damage upon Nassau in August, 1866, desolated many other
islands, and damaged and destroyed a very large number of ves
sels. The recent hurricane that caused such a destruction of
property in Jamaica, and wrecked the steamer Vera Cruz in the
Gulf of Florida, with great loss of life, must have been felt to
some extent on the island of New Providence. Very favorable
official reports have since been received from Nassau in regard to
the health of that city.

CHAPTER XVIII.
The Social Life of Nassau. Society Pervaded by Natural Chrystalising
Laws. English Forms and Titles will Rooted. Citizens of the Great Repub
lic Ambitious to Mix and Mingle in High-toned Society. Social Gayeties—
Picnics and Balls, Wine and Waltzing, the "Sound of Revelry at Night."
Highways Made and Repaired to Accommodate the Victims of a too Generous-
Hospitality. A Governor who Appreciates the Dance, and does not Under
estimate the Value of His Titles. A Doctor of Divinity Made Happy. In
What Places Hospitality is Indigenous.
"Fill the bright goblet ; spread the festive board;
Summon the gay, the noble and the fair ;
Let mirth and music sound the dirge of care,
But ask thou not if happiness be there —
Lift not the festal mask !"— W. Scott.
The social life of a people cannot but be a matter of absorb
ing interest to the stranger, even if he does not acquiesce in the
sentiment of the poet, who affirms that
" The proper study of mankind is man."
In its main roots and cardinal elements human nature is the
same everywhere; but traditions, education, customs, climate and
other influences and surrounding circumstances, wonderfully
varied and widely dissimilar, produce new and unlooked-for re
sults which arrest the attention, awaken inquiry, furnish food
for reflection and materials for a criticism which is only in appear-;
ance sometimes unfriendly. In Nassau, we were in such a hap-
887

288 ISLES OF SUMMER.
py frame of mind, being relieved from all the harrassing cares
and severe labors of professional life, and having all our nerves
soothed and quieted by a most delightful climate, that while we
were ready to heartily assent to one line of the poet that "every
prospect pleases," we were by no means willing to unite in the
severe charge partially concealed and ambushed in the expression
that "only man is vile." But our eyes were neither blind nor
bandaged, and no one tried to pull Bahama wool over them.
Small communities are inclined to overestimate their impor
tance, magnify their merits, and to be unconscious of defects
and foibles which immediately" attract a stranger's attention.
They often feel disturbed when unfavorably criticised, and the
pen of the traveler sometimes leaves upon a thin and morbidly
sensitive epidermis, an enduring mark. In our country, (which
we are pleased to call " The Great Republic,") the inflated blad
der of conceit has often been remorselessly punctured by Eng
lish tourists. Across the wide and stormy Atlantic the derisive
laugh has been distinctly heard. It has penetrated the depths
of primeval forests, and embittered the perfumed air of the
boundless prairies of the Great West. The people of the old
world are amused and astonished to find their Yankee cousins so
thin skinned. The latter are more vexed because they cannot
successfully retaliate. Hoary with age, and rich with the vast
accumulations of many centuries, the great countries of Europe
know little and care less what may be published concerning them
in the New World.
We found so much to enjoy and commend in the Bahamas,
we trust its people will not consider us unfriendly if we allude
to some few things which are less complimentary.
Completely isolated — an oasis in a wide waste of waters — Nas
sau is necessarily a little microscopic world, but slightly connect
ed with the great old and new worlds which the vast ocean, which

SOCIAL LIFE OF NASSAU. 289
> i -
surrounds the island upon which it is situated, divides and sepa
rates. This isolation has very naturally tended to foster some
degree of self-exaltation, which could not have existed had its
people been brought in closer contact with the great tides of
human life and activity thousands of miles away.
It is proper, however, to suggest that our observations of the
social life of Nassau were taken from an outside stand-point, so
that the reader may very properly allow a wide margin for mis
takes and imperfections. We did not plant our feet upon a sin
gle round of Nassau's social ladder, but, like Jacob of old, we
occasionally saw as we supposed, the angels ascending- and de
scending upon it. Had we been permitted by a kind Providence
to climb, as some were to crawl, up the dizzy heights of official
and social life in that little colonial capital, and been sufficiently
calm and s'elf-possessed to have observed with an undazed eye,
and to take notes with a steady hand, we should be better quali
fied to reflect back upon our readers a little of that intoxicating
pleasure, which, like a philter, is supposed to pervade that upper
and truly aristocratic air. But, landing upon one of the wharfs
of Nassau utter strangers to her people, we had no letters of
introduction that opened for us the door of a single private
dwelling. The Royal Victoria Hotel, with its numerous guests,
varied and constantly changing, was a little miniature world in
which we were satisfied to live and revolve, making but few out
side acquaintances, and those slight and casual. We had no
desire to commence a fresh set of books for new and short-livecl
friendships, nor to gratify an idle curiosity by crossing the thresh
olds of hospitality; but as one can learn much, and all he desires
to know, about a gale of wind without being exposed to its fury,
so a close and careful observer upon the outer margin of society
sees many things — feathers in the air — that disclose to him much
cf the "true inwardness" of a high life of fashion and folly.
25

$90 ISLES OF SUMMER.
The eye of such an observer is not blinded, nor his judgment
warped, by the subtle influences that envelope, like aromatic
odors, the festive board, and infect the air where invited guests
assemble to add new and stronger ties to friendships that are not
always sincere, disinterested and genuine. .
Small cities exhibit in miniature the different phases of human
life which exist in large ones. Their inhabitants are never en
tirely homogeneous. The integral parts are radically unlike,
and persistently refuse to assimilate. Great natural formative
and organizing laws, subtle but powerful, are ever in operation,
crystalizing and stratifying the elements of which society is com
posed. Brains and blood, rank and fortune, that never would
be felt or known in a great metropolis, ruffle and disturb with
their little eddies the insipid and otherwise stagnant waters of
a small town.
However much we may admire the happy and contented spirit
of the grim, hard-headed, stoic Greek philosopher of the tub,
who wanted nothing of the dispenser of royal patronage but such
a change of position as would secure the full benefit of the light
and heat of, an nnclouded sun, it cannot with truth be denied
that the love of rank, social position, office and high sounding
titles is with most persons inborn and inbred. It is in the warp
and woof of their souls. Nor can that be said to be an " infirm
ity of noble minds," which an all- wise Creator has made a part
of their nature. Looking a little below the surface, we see and
learn that these seemingly light and trivial objects of desire are
great impelling forces, constantly stimulating and urging their
possessors upward and onward. Gewgaws and trinkets are not
to be ignored, belittle^pr despised, if, as objects of human de
sire, constantly coveted and labored for, they furnish healthful
stimulus to indolence, and cause valuable additions to be made
to man's stores of material and intellectual wealth.

LADIES AMBITIOUS AND Ai"*J>IRING. 291
In a little town upon a small island, from our position on the
outside, perhaps we were inclined to be cynical and uncharitable,
when we allowed ourselves to be amused at the apparent official
and social exaltation of some of its more favored people. If the
Governor at times seemed to us a little airy; if the young, newly-
appointed and freshly imported Chief Justice, who blossomed
out in a scarlet robe of office and a wig, (judicial toggery before
unknown upon the judicial bench of Nassau,) seemed to us much
more elated than any Chief Justice we had seen in the States;
if the Bishop sported titles but little in harmony with the humble
and modest spirit of the Apostles of the olden times; and if to
our superficial view "the upper classes" appeared somewhat
proud, supercilious and exclusive, it may have been because at
the time we failed to remember that they were only exhibiting
traits of character common to our race in all parts of the world;
that they were playing the game of life, as it is everywhere played,
only the stage upon which the chief actors performed their several
parts was relatively small and insignificant.
But as we looked from our quiet nook upon the different phases
of life in Nassau, what astonished us most was the great desire
which certain ladies from the States manifested to mingle on
terms of social equality with the- aristocracy of Nassau, and to
receive attentions from officials with high sounding titles. The
poet is not correct when he affirms that
"Women, lik? moths, arc ever caught by glare,"
though it is true that they frequently are, and a very large title
occasionally surrounds with an attractive and dazzling effulgence
small, bad, and repulsive men. As woman's sphere is domestic
and social, it was natural that the lady guests at Nassau, finding
themselves isolated and eut off from the outside world, should

293

ISLES OF SUMMER.

desire to cultivate the acquaintance, and stand or kneel on the
same social platform with her majesty's Bahama representative,
with his then reputed wealthy and very popular official secre
tary, with the brand new "lord" bishop, with his excellency's
counsellors, with the venerable and very dignified members of
the Bahama house of lords, with the honorable speaker of thc
lower house of the Bahama parliament, and with the few un
titled gentry composing the 'elite of the town. It was perfectly
natural that some of the more enterprising and ambitious should
use all their arts, and every attractive and alluring blandishment,
together with full and free libations of expensive wines, and other
stronger, and, to some, more attractive beverages, in order to
accomplish a result so much desired and coveted. It is true that
the blood of a portion of the " gentry " is said not to be perfectly
pure, but it is difficult in some cases of mixture to accurately
draw the color line, and it is wise to ignore it, and ask no ques
tions of one's partner in the voluptuous waltz, which might result
in banishing the inquisitor from high-toned society. It is at
times injudicious to scrutinize closely hair that appears straight
or nearly so. One lady was quoted as saying that she preferred
Nassau to London, because it is not so difficult in the former to
gain admittance into good society, and move in its best circles.
To the few and favored strangers who have the entree of the
homes of the leaders of Nassau society, we have no doubt the
social sky glows with a fervid and impassioned warmth unknown
to colder climates, and sparkles with a fascinating brilliancy like
the neighboring phosphorescent waters in the moonlight. Pas
sions are more fervid in the warm latitudes; love is more ardent,
friendship more demonstrative, and hospitality more liberal, open-
hearted, kind, and assiduous to please. The islanders have
established an enviable reputation for the agreeable and polite
attentions which they bestowed in the past upon strangers so-

SOCIAL GAYETIfiS. 893
journing among them. Formerly, from their isolated position,
intercourse with the outside world was infrequent, but now, with
a steamboat load of fresh arrivals in a small town once a week
during the winter season, what can'the poor islanders do? Hos
pitality withdraws appalled, if not disgusted, while Avarice and
Cupidity stalk boldly to the front, and with an enterprise and
industry remarkable in such a wan-p. and enervating climate,
scramble for the greenbacks and gold of the new-comers. Like
a few choice plants in a green-house, a little of the old time hos
pitality is preserved.
In the "Letters from the Bahama Islands," written by a lady
more than fifty years ago, much space is occupied with descrip
tions of the social gayeties of Nassau. Then, as now, picnic
parties upon some of the islands, or "at some rural spot " in the
suburbs of Nassau, were of frequent occurrence. " Most families "
were accustomed to "devote each Saturday "to festivity," and
marooning parties upon that day were common. All but the
invited guests contributed to the entertainment. The particular
things which each furnished were previously determined by a
ticket drawn by lot from those which the managers prepared.
The authoress adds:
" The evening is generally passed at the town house of one of
the party, at cards and conversation, and ends with a petit souper,
and I am afraid the opening of the Holy Day finds many of these
Saturday revelers too dull and drowsy for morning prayers. "
The same writer speaks of frequent and most charming dinner
parties which she attended, and of other festive occasions, when
the ladies "were pledged in full bumpers;" of supper upon the
deck of a brig after a marooning excursion upon Rose Island, when
" champagne and the choicest wines flowed like the waters below
them in sparkling abundance, and the hours flew swiftly and
gaily on;" of the storm that kept them out " in a pelting rain

294 Isles Of suMMEfi.
till two o'clock Sunday morning;" of " state dinners n at half
past six o'clock given by G  , a bachelor; of supper at twelve;
also of supper on another occasion at one o'clock at night, fol
lowed by music and dancing for she did not know how many
hours; of a ball in the Assembly Room, when the Governor and.
suite were saluted by the band with the "King's March;" of re
tiring at four a. m. ; of a bfj-,11 in honor of the King's birth-day,
when flags ornamented the shipping in the harbor, guns were
fired, fire-works displayed, and the " dear five hundred " were
permitted to unite with their superiors in doing honor to their
sovereign. The pictures were drawn by a friendly hand, and though made
more than half a century ago, we are inclined to believe that,
with slight modifications, they will answer very well for the pres
ent day. From the little which we saw, and from information
derived from others, we are of the opinion that the picnics, the
balls, the nightly revels, the feasting and drinking, the whist
parties and early morning hours for retiring, characterize to a
considerable extent the fashionable and high life of this miniature
colonial capital to-day, as in 1823-4. To the ball which the
Governor gave at the Government House while his wife and chil
dren were in England, some few of our hotel guests we know
went late and returned in the small hours of the morning. His
Excellency manifested in our presence at the ball which some of
the ladies of our hotel gave in its dining hall, a great fondness
for the waltz, and was reported to have taken part in each of the
eighteen dances at the ball given by himself. One gentleman
who attended the latter observed that the Governor was so occu
pied, while the heavy load of official cares was laid aside, in
honoring his lady guests by kindly consenting to embrace and
spin them around in the rhythmic circles of the voluptuous dance
of the German, as to seemingly forget what genuine politeness

A BAHAMA GOVERNOR. 295
and ordinary courtesy demanded of him for the proper entertain
ment of his other guests. But as he has not then occupied his
exalted and honorable position for ,many years, having been so
recently as in 1873 simply " William Robinson, Esq.," and fervid
passions lurk in the warm air, while the ladies who received his
assiduous attentions were greatly pleased and flattered thereby,
we must not criticise him too closely or judge him with severity.
It is something to be a Governor of a British colony, even though
it is poor and sparsely populated, especially where one, in addi
tion to the free use of a palatial residence with ample grounds,
has a salary of $10,000 a year. When we saw in the public library
of Nassau a little volume made up of his official report of the
exhibits of the British colonies in the Vienna Exposition, and
observed upon the first blank leaf, in his own hand-writing, this
entry: " Presented to the Nassau Library by H. E. Gov. Robin
son, the author," we were at first disposed to smile, for we knew
that certain of the able and very modest men of Connecticut,
whom it had been our privilege and good fortune to personally
know, while occupying the executive chair of a State that has
brains and wealth, and industry and enterprise, and population
sufficient to make a great many Bahamas, could never have been
induced to write " His Excellency the Governor " before their
honored names. But when we reflected that the Governor of
the Bahamas had been educated and trained under institutions
and a political system less^democratic and radically different from
our own, and where rank and honors and high-sounding titles
are held in very high esteem, and when we further considered
that Her Majesty's most loyal subjects upon these little islands
had been trained and educated to treat with the most profound
and deferential respect the men whom the Queen from time to
time sends to them to represent her sovereign authority and
power, we thought perhaps His Excellency knew what his sub-

296 ISLES OF SUMMER.
jects (mostly colored) required better than we did, and that pos
sibly prof ound political wisdom existed, though concealed in act?
that to plain democratic eyes appeared ludicrously egotistical and
vain. An old author states that "the general character of the West
Indians is extremely pleasing to strangers. They are frank, lively
and generous, and hospitality is carried to an extreme which is
unknown in England; and there are few persons, we believe, who
have ever visited these islands who have not separated from many
of the inhabitants with regret." Speaking of the people of
Kingston in Jamaica he says: " It is their pride to send away
their guests so mellow as to be scarcely able to find their way.
On this account much extraordinary attention is paid to the roads
in Barbadoes." "The streets of Jamaica may almost be said to
be paved with glass bottles." How many of these bottles had
done service in "entertaining angels unawares," is among the
matters mysterious and unknown. The miles of stone walls
which enclose the private grounds of the people of Nassau, are
to a large extent surmounted by the broken fragments of glass
bottles, laid in mortar; the broken glass is strongly suggestive
of the convivial habits of Nassau in the earlier times. One would
suppose it extremely unwise to engraft the habits of the English
aristocracy, who are accustomed to raise the damp and chilly fogs
which envelope them with the contents of the bottle, upon the
customs of a people who live in an atmosphere of almost tropical
heat. But the leaders of fashion in Nassau are not only extremely
loyal to their most excellent queen, but seem to aspire in every
way to mould their habits and conform their lives to English
models, without any regard to the wide differences which exist in
all the circumstances which surround them. We should antici
pate that, as a natural and necessary consequence, a rapid wasting
of all the vital energies of mind and body, and a material short
ening of the term of human life.

" ^w* ftSHftmi

vl Private Residence in Nassau.

NASSAU fiOSPITALITT. 297
The pleasant and agreeable attentions which are shown by the
local clergy of Nassau and some prominent church members to
ecclesiastics from abroad, who, by letter or otherwise, make them
selves known, may be inferred from the following extract from
a short descriptive and highly eulogistic account of Nassau, com
municated to a New York religious paper by a clergyman. He
writes under the date of Mai*ch 25, 1876: "The hospitality of
the inhabitants is as warm and genial as their clime. The polite
cordiality extended to non-residents makes them forget they are
strangers in a strange land. " A burrowing animal from its little
hole in the ground is about as well qualified to describe a universe
which it has not seen, as is a Doctor of Divinity to accurately
portray the hospitality of a place, because the doors of certain
good, pious and appreciative persons have always been flung wide
open at the approach of one of God's favored ambassadors. We
doubt if the learned doctor was invited to the high-toned enter
tainments, where cards and wine and the waltz shortened the
hours of midnight and of the early morning, and helped to place
in full accord the best blood of the Bahamas with the aristocratic
and royal blood of the mother country. And we know from ob
servation and experience, what any one may know is true from
the nature of the case, that forty-nine out of fifty strangers so
journing in Nassau will never know, except from report, that
there is such a thing as a generous hospitality anywhere upon
the island. This is. not exceptional, for the same thing is and
must be true in all places where strangers arrive regularly at short
intervals and in large numbers. In a small, poor city, they con
stitute rich golden placers to be sedulously worked, and not dis
guised angels to be entertained.
We all know by report, and not a few by personal experience,
the warmth and glow of a hospitality, noble and unselfish, that
was indigenous to the soil, and flourished with tropical luxuriance

298 isles of Summer.
in many of the Southern States in former times. When certain
loyalists fled with their slaves to the Bahamas after the breaking
out of the American revolution of 1776 from the States of the
Carolinas and Georgia, they carried their hospitality with them,
and found that it flourished better than cotton upon those rocky
isles. And no doubt it still survives, but circumstances have
greatly changed. While retaining an allegiance to the mother
country that, if mistaken, challenges admiration, they did it
largely at the expense of their fortunes, and at Nassau the -ex
ercise of hospitality on a large scale, sufficient to meet the require
ments of weekly boat-loads of strangers, who are willing to be
received with open arms and to be entertained with princely
liberality, would soon result in their financial annihilation. But
any gentleman of respectability and of fair social position, who
is able and willing to take with him to Nassau a large supply of
the choicest wines and other liquors, will only need to let his
position be known in order to be surrounded with troops of high-
toned friends, officially and otherwise well up among the gentry
of the island. Liquors will open doors better than letters, and,
as a social currency that will circulate everywhere, even cheek
must give way to champagne.
But, as in the floral world, the shrubs that from leaf and flower
load the air with sweetest perfumes, seldom, if ever, spring spon
taneously from the soil where trade has established her thronged
and busy marts, so it is in countries sparsely populated, and sel
dom marked with the impress of stranger foot-steps, that the resi
nous, spicy and aromatic perfumes of a free, genuine and grate
ful hospitality rise like incense from censers sacred and golden.

CHAPTER XIX.
The First Great Voyage of Columbus. He Solves the Dark Problem of the
Ages. His Land Fall. The Whole Group Made Forever Memorable. The
Spirits of Columbus and Black Beard Indelibly Impressed Upon the Islands.
Eminently Good and Bad Men Not Dead When They Die. The Natives As
Columbus Found and Described Them. The West India Islands Occupied by
Substantially One People. The Caribs. The Search Among the Bahamas
for the Fountain of Youth.
" There are great deeds that will not pass away,
And names tliat must not wither, though the earth
Forgets her empires with a just decay."— Bykon.
The Bahamas are objects of great historic interest to the whole
civilized world, but to the inhabitants of the Western Hemi
sphere they have a peculiar cliarm. The life and voyages of
Christopher Columbus, the son of a Genoese wool-comber, when
faithfully recorded, give to literature a treasure of inestimable
value, and to the department of fact, the absorbing attraction
and dazzling brilliancy of fiction. For several weeks after our
first arrival in Nassau, the groat navigator and discoverer was
almost constantly in mind. While yachting in the perfectly clear
and transparent waters, so exquisitely colored, borrowing their
rich hues not only from the skies but from tho white sand beds
and coral shelves and reefs over which they flow, we thought
how, after his long and anxious voyage, he must have been im
pressed; and every ride we took over the hard limestone roads,
upon the island of New Providence, now looking out upon the

§06.

ISLES of summer.

neighboring keys, set like jewels in liquid colors so peculiarly
rich in shades of green and blue that written language is too
poor to furnish terms with which to describe them— and then,
turning to a hew world of trees, shrubs, vines and flowers, we
seemed to commune with that great spirit of the past, and to par
ticipate in the wonder and astonishment with which his mind
was absorbed and filled, when, nearly four hundred, years ago, he
preceded us in making the acquaintance of those fairy isles in
that dreamy and seemingly unreal part of the world. Indeed,
at times, it seemed as if we could almost feel the gaze of his gray,
thoughtful and prophetic eyes.
The foot-fall of the great Genoese discoverer upon one of the
long, low, Bahama islands, has ennobled the whole group. The
subtle influence of tbat grand historic event pervades the sur
rounding air, and imparts a brilliant and prismatic radiance to
objects in other respects insignificant. The woods and waters,
the flowering shrubs, the climbing vines, the trees with their
rich glossy foliage and luscious and golden fruits, and even the
sable forms and faces of the happy negroes, glow with an added
lustre in the light of that ever memorable event. Were those
coral isles to-morrow "in the deep bosom of the ocean buried,"
their memory would remain, for "the Genius of History will ever
keep and guard it in her imperishable archives. Ocean has no
abyss deep and dark enough to hide it from the view of the men
of the future.
A diabolical presence also — the ghosts of bad men who have
passed away — seems at times, even in our day, to lurk in the
shadows, and to infect with distrust the light, upon the island
of New Providence. Strong natures cannot be wholly shut up
in hades. It is more than, a hundred and fifty years since Black
Beard rendezvoued at Nassau, and held his court under one of
its trees. No robber of the sea, ancient or modern, surpassed

COLUMBUS AND BLACfi BEARS. 301
him in courage, in cruelty or in crime. Columbus, by simply
skirting the shores and landing upon one of the summer isles,
secured for the whole group an immortality of fame. Black
Beard infected them with an infamy as enduring as the memory
of his crimes. The foot-fall of one hallowed the coralline rocks,
the presence of the other so polluted the air as to permanently
give to it the shadowy gloom of a lurking fear. The most charm
ing flower bed loses much of its fragrance and beauty as soon as
it is known that a serpent has nestled there.
Death cannot wholly destroy men who are good and great.
They are not dead when they die. They enter upon that journey
where the travel is all one way, and yet do not wholly leave us.
Their suns descend behind the hills, but a zodiacal light still
lingers in the heavens. So when earth's moral monsters pass
away, shadows dark and chilly are for centuries projected into
the sunlight. Hence we observed, that over the bright and beau
tiful waters, and along the shining shores of the emerald isles,
the soft air is even now impregnated with amoral poison derived
from pirates who have been dead more than a hundred yeass.
In the Old World the traveler is often so occupied with the
relics, monuments, history, traditions and legends of a past
hoary and venerable with age, that he is inclined to overlook the
present. In the new world the dark and impenetrable shadows
extend to modern times, and leave but a few centuries for the
historic period. But even contemporaneous history is not wholly
reliable, because of the bad habit of covering with the gay robes
and bright ribbons of fiction, the simplicity and nakedness of
truth. It was upon Friday, (a day which superstition has branded as
unlucky) August 3d, 1492, at eight o'clock A. M., that Columbus
with his three caravals, two of which were only decked fore and
aft, sailed from Palos upon what the world generally believed
36

302

ISLES OF SUMMtelt.

to be a "fool's errand." Reaching the Canaries in safety, he
left Gomora on the Cth of September. At 10 o'clock p. m., Oc
tober 11th, A. D. 1492, Columbus saw or supposed he saw a mov
ing light gleaming fitfully in the darkness. For three weeks,
Herons, Pelicans and several other species of birds, bad appeared
in sight almost daily, as if to cheer and welcome him on his
lonely way. Some even alighted on his vessels, and were hailed
as the bearers of good tidings. Other mute, but most reliable
witnesses, in constantly increasing numbers, had been encountered
by his caravals, floating in thc calm, warm waters, and had con
veyed to him thc joyful intelligence that the great object of his
search was near at hand. Four hours later, a gun fired from the
Pinta, the vessel that led the little fleet, conveyed the thrilling
intelligence that terra firma itself was actually in sight. In
that supreme moment of his triumph a wild intoxication would
have possessed a less lofty and heroic mind. Thc inspired proph
et of the fifteenth century, casting his eyes upwards, humbly
returned his thanks to that Divine Being that had enlightened,
sustained, guided and protected him in the great work to which
he had devoted himself for so many years, and for the brilliant
success with which at last his labors were crowned.
The author of the "Land Fall of Columbus" has, with great
boldness and apparent success, attacked the opinion heretofore
so generally conceded to be true, that Columbus first landed upon
the present island of St. Salvador, (sometimes called Cat Island.)
The old belief received the endorsement of Washington Irving,
(who did not deem it best "to disturb the ancient landmarks,")
and also of Baron Humboldt, but the author of the " Land Fall "
has reproduced the original text of the journal which Columbus
kept of his first voyage of discovery, as embodied in the letters
which he wrote at the time, closely and critically examined its
statements, and, with the assistance of modern official charts,

THE LAND FALL OF COLUMBUS. 303
carefully followed the great navigator's every movement, as min
utely described by himself, from his first landing upon the island
which the natives called Guanahani, until he anchored off the
island of Cuba. He arrives at the conclusion that Columbus
first landed upon Watling's Island and named it San Salvador,
and that he did not visit at all the island now known by that
name. After carefully considering the facts which lead to this
result, we are clearly of the opinion the author of the' "Land
Fall " is entitled to the credit of exposing a great historical error
after it had received the sanction of eminent writers, and been
hallowed by time.
Watling's Island is one of the Bahamas, and nearly or quite two
hundred miles distant in a north-easterly direction from Nassau.
The great importance of this discovery as seen in the light of the
four centuries which will soon be completed — so apparent to us —
far exceeds all that Columbus had imagined in his wildest dreams.
No wonder that Europe was thrown into a ferment of intense
excitement when the intelligence of his wonderful success was
made known. Many a long cycle of a thousand years had been
completed, during all which time no human being, standing upon
the eastern shores of the Atlantic, could discern anything™ or be
yond the illimitable Waste of waters but a Great Unknown. A
deep and profound mystery, like the pall of the darkest night,
ever brooded over the billows that received the setting sun.
Philosophers gazed but to speculate, men of fervid imaginations
to dream, and poets, in measured numbers, to sing their weird
and wildest songs.
Upon the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, ^-in Abyssinia
and Upper Egypt,— down the fertile valley of the Nile, — and
upon both shores of the Mediterranean Sea, civilization, empire
and imperial power had for thousands of years made their slow
but grand and solemn march, only to be at last barred and baffled
by a vast and unknown waste of waters,

304 ISLES OF SUMMER.
Columbus, with his little fleet of three vessels, solved the prob
lem of the ages, dispelled the deep and profound mystery, and
bridged the dark and unfathomable abyss. Landing upon the
Bahamas, he impregnated the newly found Western world with
the seminal principles of the old Eastern civilization. This clus
ter of keys and islands constitute the cradle in which Young
America, with all his inventions and revolutionary ideas in em
bryo, was first rocked. How murky were the shadows that four
centuries ago shrouded equally the Christian church and the most
famous institutions of learning! Out of them the tall and com
manding form of Columbus rises, radiant with an effulgence that
seems divine, ennobled and glorified by great truths in advance
of his age. For eighteen long years he bore with marvelous forti
tude and equanimity the unsupplied and pressing wants which
his poverty engendered, the delusive and broken promises of
kings, the mistaken fears and bigotry of the good, the narrow-
mindedness of the learned, and the ridicule and contempt, the
scoffs and jeers of the ignorant and doubting world.
The lesson of Columbus should never be forgotten by the emi
nent theologians and divines who minister at the altars of religion,
and guard its profound mysteries in their small but sacred arks;
nor by the votaries of science, who seem, while they explore the
wonderful phenomena of nature, as disclosed upon our earth, or
travel among the stars, to literally "walk with God." Let them
ever remember that outside of cloistered cells and institutions
richly endowed and furnished, in the future as in the past, the
most valuable germs of progress will probably be found; that no
proposition should be ignored because it is bold and startling; no
truth ostracised because it is new. At the same time it may be
well for some of the long haired, unshaved, and unkempt seers
of our day, who have, as they think, some great revolutionary
and reformatory mission to fulfill, to consider that it may not be

THE BAHAMA INDIANS. 305
less than two or three thousands of years before another Colum
bus will be born, and that like rank and noxious weeds in a good
garden, superstition and error had root and flourished by the side
of truth in the mind of the great discoverer of the New World.
Mr. Moseley, in his Nassau Almanac, states that Columbus
visited New Providence and called the island Fernandina, in
honor of the king of Spain. This is very clearly a mistake.
The author of the Land Fall agrees with Washington Irving that
Exuma is the island which Columbus thus discovered and named.
If we remember rightly, Bruce makes the same mistake in his
Memoirs. The visitor at Nassau has ample time to muse and meditate.
He is not wholly satisfied with the present. Looking at the dark
murky shadows lying back of a few hundred years that envelope
human history upon these islands, he asks the tangled woods,
the coralline hills, the rude water-worn caverns, and the shell-
strewn and honey-combed shores— What of the Past? There
is no response. Neither reeords nor ruins furnish even historic
riddles for its solution. Let us, therefore, stand where Colum
bus and his companions stood in October, 1492, and listen while
he gives to his sovereign a description of what he then saw. We
copy from his epistolary journal under date of the 13th of Octo
ber, the day after his "Laud Fall:"
" All were young persons, as I said before, and of good stature,
and withal handsome, who came to the shore. The hair of these
islanders is not crisp or wooly, but long and straight like that of
Asiatics. The forehead is wide, more so, indeed, than any peo
ple I have yet seen. They have large handsome eyes, and are
not black, but of the color of Canaries, as might be expected,
since they are due west from the island of Hierro, one of that
group. They are all well made, even to their hands; not pot
bellied, but exceedingly well formed.

30$ ISLES 6E SUMMEfi.
" They came to the ship in canoes, formed from the trunk of
a tree, as long as a boat, and all from one log, curiously worked
after their own fashion, and large enough to carry forty or fifty
persons. Others they have, also, sufficient to contain one per
son. They are propelled by a paddle shaped like a baker's shovel,
and glide about rapidly. They overturn and right them again
when on the water, emptying them with calibashes which they
have alw'ays with them. They bring balls of cotton thread, and
other things too numerous to mention, and would exchange them
for anything in return. I watched them very narrowly, to see
if they had any gold, but could only see that they had a little
piece hanging from the nose."
In a subsequent letter be writes: " They swam out to our boats,
bringing parrots and balls of cotton thread, with spears and sev
eral other things, all of which they exchanged for what we chose
to give them — glass beads and hawk's bills. In fact we traded
together most amicably, but they appeared to be a very poor race
of people, deficient in many things. They go about naked as
they were born, the women also, although I did not see but one
[old] young one. Indeed every one that I saw was young; every
one appeared to be under thirty years of age.
" The hair of some was thick and long, like the tail of a horse.
The hair of some was short, brought forward over the eye-brows;
some wearing it long and never cutting it. Some again are
painted, and the hue of their skin is similar in color to the Cana
ries — not black nor white. Some are painted white, and some
red, or any other color. Some paint only their faces, and others
their whole person, and some only tlieir eyes and noses.
" They have no weapons and appear to know of none, for I
showed them swords, and they took them by the blade and cut
themselves from sheer ignorance. They have no iron. Their
spears are long, and instead of iron are pointed with the teeth of

fiEsc'feiiTIONS BY COLUMBUS. 307
a fish, and such hard substances." He says that some had scars,
caused by wounds received when repelling* invaders, (Caribs un
doubtedly. )
" This is a tolerably large island, very level, with pine trees
and plenty of water, and a large lake in the middle of it, without
mountains, all covered with verdure which is pleasant to the
eye. " These people are very amiable, and desirous of having our
things, for when they have nothing to give us for them, they
take what they can and jump into the water and swim off with
it. But anything they have they give us readily for whatever
we will exchange for it. They will even barter for broken crock
ery and glass."
Upon going to another part of the island, when the people saw
the Spaniards were not going to land, some of them, he says,
"rushed into the sea and swam out to us, and we understood
them to ask if we had come from the skies. One old man even
got on to the boat, and others, men and women, called out at the
top of their voices — ' come and see the men who have come from
the skies; bring them something to eat and drink.'
"They are a simple-minded and handsomely formed race.
"I went after a canoe which shot away faster than any boat
could ; for speed they have great advantage over us. "
Again he writes: " The islands are very fertile, and have a fine
air. " I saw even cotton cloth, made like mantles, and the people
appeared more orderly, and the women wore a piece of cloth,
which, however, scarcely concealed their sex.
"There appears to be no kind of religion among them."
He also speaks of the fishes as "of the most beautiful color*
as if painted of a thousand different hues, and so brilliant that
they astonish every one, who, on this account, is anxious to see

30§ iSles oE summer.
them. There are whales, also parrots and lizzards, but of beasts
I have seen none. "
Again he says: " The people, one with another, are all of the
same race, naked alike, and of the same stature.
" * * * Onr men, who had gone for water, told me they
went into their houses, which they found swept very clean, and
that their beds and furniture were of cotton net. Their houses
are like tents, and of a good height, with chimneys. But I have
not seen among the many settlements I have met with, any one
with more than twelve to fifteen houses."
Again: "The married women wear cotton aprons, but the
girls none, excepting some above eighteen years of age." One
man " had a piece of gold in his nose about the size of a half
dollar. "Your highness may depend that this country is the most
fertile, temperate, and even there is in the world."
"My eye can never tire admiring so much beautiful verdure,
and so different from ours too.
" And the singing of the birds, and the flocks of parrots which
are so numerous as to obscure the sky, are so delightful that no
one could desire to leave it. The birds are so numerous, and so
different from ours that it is quite wonderful. And there are a
thousand different kind of trees, and all with fruit and delicious
perfume." Under date of October 22d, 1492, he writes: "And many
natives came to see us, similar to those of the other islands, all
naked and painted, some white, some red, some black, after tlieir
fashion. They brought spears and some cotton balls for trade.
* * * Some of them wore bits of gold in their noses."
The West Indian islands include the Bahamas, and, when dis
covered by the Spaniard*, they were occupied by substantially
one people. There existed minor differences, the results of their

THE ABORIGINES OF THE WEST INDIES. 309
separation, but the early writers give them a common description.
The Caribbean Islands were inhabited by a very different people.
The two races were no doubt off-shoots from different portions
of the neighboring continent. While the Caribs were bold, rug
ged, aggressive and warlike, the former were amiable, docile,
kind-hearted, generous and affectionate, and only fought when
driven to it by the instinct of self-preservation. The contrast
was that of the wolf and the lamb. The blood of the Caribs had
not been exposed to the soothing influences of the atmosphere of
their island homes long enough to have eliminated the cruel
and savage taint it acquired in the cold, bleak, barren region
where it no doubt received its race-mark. The inhabitants of the
West Indies were confiding, frank, gentle and good-natured. The
sexual passion was strong. " Love with this happy people was
not a transient and fitful ardor only, but the source of all their
pleasures, and the chief business of life. * * * They gave
full indulgence to the instincts of nature, while the influence of
the climate heightened the sensibility of the passions."
" They had less strength and endurance than the Spaniards.
Their limbs were- pliant and active, and in their motions they.
displayed both gracefulness and ease. They were expert divers,
and their agility was eminently conspicuous in their dances,
wherein they delighted and excelled, devoting the cool hours of
night to this employment. It was their custom to dance from
evening to dawn." Herrera says that their public dances, (for
they had others highly licentious, ) were appropriated to particular
solemnities, and being accompanied with historical songs, were
called Arretoes.
They had an elastic ball game like that of cricket, Which was
called Bato. The ball was not caught in the hand, or returned
with an instrument, but received on the head, the elbow or foot,
"and the dexterity and force with which it was repelled was as
tonishing and inimitable."

310 ISLES OF SUMMER
" They had remarkable sweetness of temper, and native good
ness of disposition." " All writers agree they were unquestion
ably the most gentle and benevolent of the human race."
To their superiors they were submissive and respectful; to
their enemies forgiving; while for their ancestors in spirit land
they entertained an undying affection.
Superstition, that old inhabitant of earth, indigenous in all
climes, and existing in all ages, was domiciled upon the coral
islands at the time of the Spanish discovery, and was as active
as the indolent character of the climate permitted in forging
fetters for the human mind, and holding men in bondage to fear.
Priests performed ridiculous rites and ceremonies, interpreted
the decrees and communicated the messages of deities whose evil
designs they sought to placate with prayer. They were also the
medical attendants of the sick. The union of the clerical and
medical professions is to be expected wherever disease is believed
to be the result of diabolical agencies, and not the executed pen
alty for violated physical laws.
The islanders believed that the heaven which awaited the good
after death, was a pleasant valley of luxurious repose and indo
lent tranquility — of cool shades and murmuring brooks, abound
ing in guavas and other delicious fruits, never scorched by drough t
or desolated by the hurricane. Its chief happiness consisted in
a re-union, forever indissoluble, with the loved friends and re
vered ancestors from whom they had been separated by death.
They believed in one Supreme Being, and in many lesser
divinities, but sought to win the favor of the demons who were
permitted to rule and desolate their island world, by worshiping
hideous idols which symbolized their unseen presence, and clearly
manifested diabolical power.
The authority of their caziques was hereditary, and it has been
claimed that, in determining the succession, the children of a

THE ABORIGINES. 3ll
cazique's sisters were preferred on account of the greater certainty
of royal blood. The sovereigns were looked up to with reverence
and obeyed with submission. Royal ornaments, numerous at
tendants, and a multitude of wives attested their royal power.
Heroic songs, hymns of praise, public dances of honor, together
with the notes of musical instruments made of shells, and the
deafening noise of rude drums, formed a part of their funeral
obsequies. The Bahamas interested but did not satisfy the the Spaniards.
They sought in vain in the coralline rocks for the golden ores
that gilded their fevered dreams. The passion for
"Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold, "
was all pervading, and so absorbing and intense that they seemed
dead to every tender sentiment and ennobling impulse. For a
time poverty did for the islanders more than the greatest riches
could have accomplished: — peace and security, and the strange
visitors whom they were ready to worship as divine, departed.
Guileless, unsuspecting, generous and unselfish themselves,
how could these aborigines understand the wonderful beings, who,
from the vast solitudes of an illimitable ocean, had suddenly
landed upon their picturesque shores? In the distant east from
whence the strangers had come, only the morning sun, in golden
effulgence, had ever before emerged. Were not these then, the
children of the sun ? Had they not all of the divine and none
of the human? No wonder, that as Herrera states, they were
at first never satisfied with looking at the Spaniards, but knelt,
lifted up their hands and gave thanks to God, calling upon each
other to admire the heavenly men!
Afterwards, a new and strange interest invested these islands

312 ISLES OF SUMMER.
of perpetual and unfading verdure. It was reported and believed
by Juan Ponce de Leon and other bold navigators, that upon one
of them existed water medicated and endowed by nature with
most wonderful potency. In tangled wood or rocky cavern, bub
bled in the shadows or sparkled in the sunlight, that old dream
of thc ages— the fountain of perpetual youth; and men toiled,
suffered, sickened and died in the vain search for the wonderful
waters of immortality. It is indeed fortunate for the world, con
sidering the infamous character of many of thoso Spanish adven
turers, that this pleasing dream had no basis of fact upon which
to rest.
It has not been considered very strange, in an age which teemed
with marvels of fact which far transcended in interest, novelty
and importance, the wildest conceptions of the imagination, that
men of intelligence implicitly believed in the existence of
"A bright floral isle,
The jewel of a smooth and silver sea,
With springs in which perennial summers smile,
A power of causing immortality;"
and that some were willing to risk their money and their lives in
efforts to discover it. But the thread of life upon which these
dreamers were suspended, continued to weaken as it shortened,
and they soon found, as a practical fact, that the rejuvenating
spring is situated upon the other side of the dark turbid waters
of the river of death.

Bay Street, west end of Nassau.

CHAPTER XX.
Spanish Perfidy and Cruelty. The Natives by Force and Fraud are Car
ried to Hispaniola and Perish in its Mines. The Islands without inhabitants.
An English Captain Discovers New Providence. Gsprge III of England
makes a Royal Grant of the Bahamas to six Proprietors. Pirates Infest thi
Islands. Bla-Jc Beard. H.E_ij._li,hes Himsilf Upon New Providence. The
Early Governors. Summary Punishment inflicted by the Spaniards, and by
the French and Spaniards. Nassau Built and Named in 1694. The British
Government Purchase the Proprietary Title to the Islands. Nassau is Cap
tured and Abandoned by the Americans Under Commodore Hopkins. In 1781
it is Captured and Garrisoned by the Spaniards. It is Re-taken by American
Loyalists. The Abolition of Slavery.
"O nature! what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a flead
In such a paradise?"— Shakespeaeb.
" I do not give you to Posterity as a pattern to imitate, but an
example to deter." — Junius.
Columbus was a zealous member of the Church of Rome, and
Yds mind seemed ever imbued with a strong religious sentiment.
Eeligious zeal did much to encourage him to undertake and prose
cute with tireless energy and unwavering faith his voyages of
' ''discovery. He believed himself raised up by Divine Providence
for the purpose of communicating to the heathen a knowledge
of the true God. But his royal master, Ferdinand of Spain,
saw in the amiable, credulous and confiding Bahama Indians
not men having immortal souls to be saved, but only living
mechanisms capable of being stolen and utilized in money mak-
313 21

314 ISLES OF SUMMER.
ing. He did not merely tarnish his reputation, but he earned
for himself eternal infamy, and the scorn and contempt of good
men in all future times, by a royal order under which the entire
native population of /the Bahamas were conveyed to Hispaniola,
and forced to labor in its mines. The removal was brought about
by the grossest fraud. The "children of the sun" promised to
take them to those Elysian isles where they could enjoy the society
of their dead ancestors, and revel with them in supreme and never
ending delights. Subjected to tasks to which they were unaccus
tomed, and for which they were unfitted, disappointed and broken
hearted, it did not require many years for death to do for them
all that the Spaniards had promised;
" The whole race sank beneath the oppressor's rod,
And left a blank among the works of God."
The "heavenly men" proved to be greater demons than any
those unfortunate islanders had ever, by prayer and sacrifice,
endeavored to appease and conciliate.
For a time the Bahamas were without human inhabitants;
" Still nature spread her fruitful sweetness round,
Breathed on the air, and brooded on the ground."
The fairy isles lost nothing of their charming loveliness; the
soft, perfumed, and medicated air retained all its healing and
attractive qualities; while the ocean kissed with its crested waves
the white beaches and honey-combed shores, and ceaselessly
uttered its regretful murmurs.
Capt. William Sayle, an English navigator, entered the harbor
of Nassau in the year 1607, and gave to the island of New Provi
dence its present name, in commemoration of his escape from
threatened shipwreck. England claimed the Bahamas as an

BAHAMA PIRATES. 315
appendage of the British crown, upon the ground of his discovery,
although more than a hundred years before Columbus had made
the acquaintance of some of them, sailed through the group, and
claimed all for Ferdinand and Isabella. Soon after this alleged
discovery by Capt. Sayle, Charles the Second of England made
a royal grant of all the Bahamas, including the islands which
Columbus visited in 1492, to the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven,
Sir John Caterel, Lord Berkley, Lord Sibley, and Sir Peter Cole-
ton — the proprietors of Carolina; who did very little for the
islands which was of any service to England%or to themselves.
Afterwards, the outlaws of civilization and savages of the sea,
frequented the islands, and made them the center of their hostile
operations against the commerce of the world. With vessels of
light draft, they mastered the intricacies of the tortuous chan
nels, and made themselves familiar with the points of special
danger, the safest lines of approach and retreat, the harbors of
refuge, the best places for concealment, and the strongholds of
defense. No light-houses, buoys or reliable charts warned the
mariner, or guided him in his course over the perilous waters.
Countless rocks and reefs, extensive shoals and banks, intricate
currents and cross-currents, severe storms, and an occasional
hurricane, would seem to have been sufficient without the still
more fearful peril of armed and demoniac brigands of the sea.
The pirates who succeeded the original inhabitants must have
been lineally descended from the early inhabitants of England,
if the following description of the latter by Greene is to be credi-,
ted: " From the first, the daring of the English race broke out
in the secrecy and suddenness of the pirate's swoop, in the fierce
ness of their onset, in the careless glee with which they seized
either sword or oar. ' Foes are they,' sang a Roman poet of the.
time, 'fierce beyond other foes, and cunning as they are fierce;
the sea is their school of war, and the storm their friend; they
are sea-wolves that prey on the pillage of the world. ' "

316

ISLES OF SUMMER.

The most violent of the sea-wolves that infested the waters of
the Bahamas, and the neighboring seas, was a native of Bristol,
England, by the name of Edward Tench. The historic name of
Black Beard was conferred upon him by his cotemporaries on
account of the color and quantity of hair which helped so much
to give him a wild and savage appearance. He first made himself
felt and feared as a privateer. Sailing in that capacity in the
early part of the eighteenth century, from the island of Jamaica,
he soon distinguished himself by his daring intrepidity and reck
less courage. Between privateering and piracy there is but a
single short step. A little practice in capturing, robbing and
destroying the merchant ships of one nation, is a good prepara
tory and training. school, in which an apt scholar, like Tench, iis
soon prepared for the business of waging merciless war on the
commerce of the world.
Black Beard soon had a piratical fleet well manned and powers
fully armed, which, for a short time, was a terror to all honest
men who frequented the West India Islands or the neighboring
shores of the main land. His audacity and power are indicated
by the fact that the city of Charleston was once coerced into
furnishing him with a valuable supply of medical stores, by the
assurance that if his demands were refused, he would burn the
vessels and kill the prisoners then in his possession which he had
captured, and send the heads of the latter fo the Governor of
South Carolina. He .was finally hunted down and killed in a
bloody hand to hand fight among the inlets of North Carolina.
It is difficult at the present day to realize tli3 extent and char
acter of the peril from pirates to which a century and a-half ago
persons were subjected who sailed in the waters which penetrate
or surround the Bahamas. Tho black flag with its death's head
and cross-bones, is a thing of tho past. A marine police, mount
ed upon powerful and fast sailing steamers, and armed with

CAPTURED AND PUNISHED BT SPANIARDS 311}"
breech-loading cannon, have driven the freebooters from the sea.
But while history and tradition still preserve their memory, tlieir
blood, to some extent, courses down to our times in the channels
of descent. The motto upon the Bahama Coat of Arms, and
which is engraved upon its Great Seal — "Expulsis Piratis, Res-
titutia Commercia" — is an official and durable testimonial of
• the power which the pirates possessed, and the terror they in
spired in former times.
Tho proprietors in 1670, appointed one Collingworth (or Chil-
lingworth), Governor of the Bahamas, but the inhabitants con
cluded they had no need of him, and therefore took forcible
possession of his person, and shipped him off to Jamaica.
In 1077 the proprietors conferred the vacant gubernatorial
crown upon one Clark, whose great exaltation was purchased at
the price of his life. His piratical subjects, by their filibuster
ing excursions, had so exasperated their Spanish neighbors, that
the latter invaded New Providence, destroyed the houses upon
it by fire, took all the inhabitants captive who did not find refuge
in the woods, carried Governor Clark to Cuba, and, it is. said,
tortured him to death and roasted him.
In 1684, the Spaniards again surprised the people upon the
island, and, after destroying the improvements which had been
made, they carried off some of the inhabitants. After the inva
ders left, such of the inhabitants as survived, emerged from their
hiding places in a forlorn and necessitous condition, again started
a settlement, and in 1687 chose a Presbyterian minister by the
name of Bridge, their governor — a rather heavy and cumbrous
title considering the limited number and poverty of the people.
He held his high office three years.
In 1690 the proprietors sent out one Jones to be Governor
" in and over " the Bahamas. He tyranized over the people with
a high and unscrupulous hand, being aided by the pirate Avery

'3 le. ISLES OF SUMMER.
who commanded a ship with 42 guns. When the latter was
away, the outraged people put the Governor in prison, and chose
Ashley, one of their number, President. The pirates returned
and set Jones at liberty, who in turn imprisoned all whom he
suspectedof hostility to himself, and desired the pirates to carry
them off the island and make way with them.
In 1694, Jones was superceded by one Trott, whom the pro
prietors appointed in his place. He liberated the imprisoned in
habitants, but allowed Jones to depart without a trial. Cowed
by his fears, he also permitted the pirates to land with their
plunder upon the island. The inhabitants fraternized with the
freebooters, who remained unmojested. To protect themselves
from the Spaniards, the inhabitants built a small fort upon which
they mounted twenty-two cannon. " They also built a town of
160 houses which they called Nassau."
In 1697 Webb was appointed Governor. After holding that
office two years, the discretion of his excellency got the better of
his valor, and he loft for Pennsylvania.
In 1699, while away, he, without the knowledge of, the pro
prietors, installed in his place a mulatto by the name of Eldridge,
a man of most infamous character, who secured the pirates for
his protectors and patrons, and thus was enabled to retain his
title and his power for two years.
In 1701 the proprietary "lords " conferred the office of Gov
ernor upon one Haskel, who put his immediate predecessor into
prison, and also some of the inhabitants, whom he caused to be
prosecuted for abetting the pirates. His zeal proved to be greater
than his power, for in five weeks after his arrival upon the island,
his turbulent subjects seized and ironed him, and after keeping
him a close prisoner for six weeks, shipped him back to England.
These practical believers in self-government appointed one of
their associates named Lichtwood, (or Lightfoot,) president and

FRENCH AND SPANISH INVASIONS. 319
deputy Governor, who held his office for two years, when the
French and Spaniards surprised, captured, and burned Nassau,
plundered its inhabitants, destroyed the fort, and carried the
president and a number of prisoners to Havana. Shortly after
wards these formidable enemies returned to Nassau and captured
and carried away all the inhabitants and negroes they could find.
The few who remained fled to Carolina and Virginia, and the
island for a short .period was uninhabited. The pirates then for
a number of years made it their general place of rendezvous, and,
it is said, buried their booty in its woods.
Soon after the last invasion, Burch was appointed Governor
by the proprietors, but, upon his arrival at Providence, he dis
covered that subjects and ruler were all consolidated in his own
person. Like a horseless rider, he could perambulate his capital
on foot and alone, with the useless and unused whip and spurs
of his high office, but a few thousands of subjects would have
been extremely handy and desirable as a source of supply for his
empty exchequer, for even upon small islands a man cannot, get
fat or exist long upon his titles, although, as in this instance,
they ihay enable him to live in history. So this Governor with
out subjects, pocketed his formidable credentials, packed his
trunks with the gilded insignia and baubles of his high office,
and soon exchanged the new world for the-old— a wiser if not a
better man. He appears to have had no desire to play the part
of Robinson Crusoe, and possessed so little of the ambition that
inspired poor Sancho Panza, that he was not satisfied to be the
Governor even of a whole archipelago of unoccupied islands.
The lord proprietors became fully satisfied at last, that they
had upon their hands a good sized Bahama elephant. Had their
royal master been pleased to have given them, in lieu of the Isles
of Summer, an equal number of square miles of volcanic moun
tains in the moon, which some English astronomer had falsely

320

ISLES OF SUMMER.

claimed to have first\ discovered, they would have occupied a
more enviable position, for while the grant would have added
nothing to their income, it could not possibly have impoverished
or annoyed them. This pestiferous nest of pirates had only
served as a burial place for their money and their hopes.
The British government finally, in the interest and for the
security of commerce, bought thc title of the legal representatives
of the six proprietary interests, giving for each £2,000.
Upon the petition of the merchants of London and Bristol,
interested in the security of commerce, King George I appointed
Mr. Ward Rogers Governor, and sent him with a force of one
hundred men and an ample supply of all necessary stores to fortify
New Providence. He arrived out in 1717, and an act of indem
nity having been passed, the pirates accepted of its terms, sur
rendered without a struggle, and became, thereafter, down to
1742, when Bruce wrote, " the principal inhabitants ofthe island."
According to Mr. Mosely, the gubernatorial office was filled by
Mr. Rogers from 1717 to 1721, and from 1728 to 1733; George
Phenny or Finney was Governor during the intervening years.
The population did not exceed 1,000 persons.
During this period of sixteen years the executive office seems
to have been well filled, and peace, security and confidence pre
vailed, so that many families, besides many Palatines, settled and
made improvements upon the islands.
In 1733 Richard Fitz Williams was appointed Governor, and
with ample stores, a force of fifty men, and an engineer named
Thomas Moore, arrived at New Providence, with special directions
to fortify the place. This new colonial Governor was arbitrary
and tyrannical, and so abused his power that "the best of the
inhabitants and all the Palatines abandoned their improvements
and left the idand." Tlie engineer died suddenly bofore he had
made much progress in his work. In the bad business of oppress-

THE EARLY GOVERNORS. 821
ing the people, the Governor had the assistance and active co
operation of a member of the council, the judge of the court of
admiralty, and one Archibald, ("his excellency's" servant,) who
silenced opposition by knocking its authors down. The British
sovereigns appear to have generally made their Bahama Governors
out of very bad material. It was difficult as well as expensive
for the oppressed islanders to make their complaints heard across
the wide and stormy Atlantic, but three prominent inhabitants
succeeded in reaching London, and preferred "charges of a very
extraordinary nature against the Governor," who, after much
delay, was ordered to meet his accusers, and defend himself
against their formidable indictment. After a long and expensive
trial, the charges were sustained and the Governor removed.
In 1738 John Tinker was appointed Governor, and made the
people happy in the commencement of his administration by his
removals and administrative reforms, but he appears, from Bruce's
account founded upon personal knowledge, to have developed
some of the worst qualities of his predecessors. In the most
arbitrary, unjust and illegal manner, he made a variety of orders
for the disposal of very valuable prize property captured by a
privateer, for the purpose of enriching himself, and benefitting
certain people of Nassau.
Peter Henry Bruce, in April, 1741, arrived in Nassau, and
and commenced work upon its fortifications under a commission
from the British government. An old fort, very much out of
repair, called Fort Nassau, within which were wooden barracks
in a tumble-down condition, then stood on the north side of
what is now known as Flemish Square, where the present stone
barracks are situated. It had sixteen badly-mounted guns; the
remainder of its armament consisted of guns in part spiked, in
part charged with stones and sand, in part buried below high-c
water mark, and in part scattered about the place; and of gun'

322 ISLES OF SUMMER.
carriages, trucks and shells, each of which appeared to have
started out upon its own account to explore the island. Many
of the guns had been used as ballast for vessels. Mr. Bruce,
after collecting and testing the guns, found he had sixty-four six,
nine, twelve and eighteen pounders fit for service.
In repairing and building fortifications at Nassau, Mr. Bruce
labored under great and peculiar difficulties, which we mention
because they indicate the destitution and condition of Nassau at
that time. There was but one mason, and not a wheeled vehicle
of any kind in the place. He imported two brick-layers from
Philadelphia, and taught them how to cut and lay stone. No
laborers could be hired unless they were furnished with provi
sions, supplies of which he procured from New York, for "the
natives lived principally upon tortoise and fish, any kind of flesh
meat being a great rarity."
Rumors of another Spanish invasion secured for Mr.Bruce the
co-operation of the Bahama legislature in his efforts to suitably
fortify the place. The east entrance, or " back door " of Nassau,
required to be guarded, and the present Fort Montague was at
that time erected. The Governor laid its foundation stone on
the 10th day of June, A. D. 1741, in the presence of the prin
cipal inhabitants of the island. A sea-battery was erected near
it at the same time. Necessary building stone would have been
brought from the woods upon the heads of the negroes, had not
the alarmed local authorities furnished the necessary boats for
its transportation. Pallisades were made of mastic wood, which
Mr. Bruce states, "is as hard and heavy as iron, and musket
balls make no impression upon it." The inhabitants informed
him that it would last a century, and was proof against swivel
shot. The pallisades could bo cut aud worked only when green.
Then, as now, the rocks were soft below the surface, and easily
cut, but hardened when exposed to the air. Cannon balls, when
fired into the soft stone, were buried as in sand banks.

BttucE. American loyalists. £23
Mr. Bruce found sufficient leisure time while at Nassau to
collect much historical information which he published in his
"Memoirs." Most of the facts contained in the foregoing his
torical summary are collated from his book. So far as we have
been able to learn, no other writer either preceded or followed
him in sketching the history of the Bahamas. The historic pen
which Bruce laid down in 1742, when he left Nassau to make
good the defenses of Charleston, S. C, no one has taken up.
The soothing air of the Isles of Summer is not favorable to the
making or writing of history. We have gleaned but a few items
with which to fill the intervening historical chasm measured by
the past one hundred and thirty-seven years.
When the independence of the United States was confirmed,
and established by the treaty of peace in 1782, there were many
inhabitants of the Carolinas and Georgia, who, during the revo
lutionary war, retained their affection for the mother country,
and their loyalty to its government. These people lacked faith
in the republic, and the same spirit which induced them or their
ancestors to emigrate to the American colonies, caused them to
abandon their new homes and seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Many of them removed with their slaves to the Bahamas, and
commenced new plantations upon a number of the islands. The
virgin soil for a few seasons yielded large harvests; but its fertil
ity was soon exhausted. Deprived of trees and bushes, the fields
were scorched by the hot sun, while swarms of destructive in
sects consumed and otherwise destroyed the scanty harvests. It
required but a few years to complete the financial ruin of the
new settlers. Their improvements and negroes were of little
value in the absence of paying crops. What had been saved of
their fortunes in the States speedily disappeared, and they were
leftdestitute even of the means of removal from the little islands
ia which their courage and hopes were entombed.

S$4 ISLES OF SUMMER.
During the war of the American revolution the island of New
Providence was for a brief time a part of the young American
republic, and the starry flag floated in triumph from all the forts
and flag staffs of Nassau, and decorated the governor's house
on the crest of its hill. The bold and intrepid Commodore Hop
kins, with a small body of men, accomplished this result. The
American commander very soon made up his mind, as did Col
umbus before him, that he could do much better elsewhere. In
fact, there were no lofty mountain crags upon the Bahamas,
where the great American eagle could build its nest, and no suffi
cient room upon tho island of Now Providence for the national
bird to fully and comfortably spread its wings. The island
seemed designed by Divine Providence for parrots and birds that
were satisfied to spend their lives in the hot sun, admiring the
beautiful plumage which the brackish waters of -the still and
shallow lagoons reflected. So the Commodore furled the stars
and stripes, and abandoned as worthless the island he had so gal
lantly captured.
In the year 1781, a Spanish force made up in part of some
American volunteers, took military possession of Nassau, and
garrisoned it with six hundred troops. A short time previous
to the notification of the treaty of peace, Lieut. Col. Deveaux,
of the loyal militia of South Carolina, planned, organized and
led an expedition against Nassau, in which great boldness, in
genuity, address and ability were displayed. With two armed
brigantines and only fifty volunteers, he sailed from St. Augus
tine, and, after obtaining some recruits, (principally negroes,)
from Eleuthera and the neighboring islands, he landed with his
little handful of adventurers upon the island of New Providence
a little to the eastward of Fort Montague. The officers of that
fort were completely taken unawares, and when the column of
attack reached the ramparts, only one solitary sentinel was in

NASSAU CAPTURED BY AMERICAN LOYALISTS. 325
pight to receive them. He had a lighted match in his hand,
ready to blow up the fortress if the exigencies of the case should
require it, but the intrepidity of Col. Deveaux who headed the
assailants, thwarted his design; springing upon the bewildered
and astonished sentinel, Col. .Deveaux made him his prisoner,
and immediately afterwards, without a struggle or even a parley,
the fort, with its garrison, armament and military stores was
surrendered. The Colonel, quickly, and without opposition,
proceeded with an attacking column to the crest of the hill and
to the grounds upon which the Governor's house was situated,
overlooking the town. McKinnen says:
" Every artifice was used to deceive the Spaniards, both as to
the number and description of the enemy they had to contend
with. A show of boats was made, continually rowing from the
vessels, filled with men, who apparently landed, but in fact con
cealed themselves by lying down as they returned to the vessels,
and afterwards made their appearance, as a fresh supply of troops
proceeding to disembark. Men of straw, it is said, were dressed
out to increase the apparent number on the heights; and some
of the troops, to intimidate the Spaniards, were painted and dis
guised as their inveterate foes, the Indians. One or two galleys
in the harbor had been captured, and, trusting to the circum
stances in his favor, Colonel Deveaux summoned the Governor
to surrender, with a pompous description of his formidable force.
Some hesitation being at first discovered, the Colonel seconded
his overtures with a well-directed shot at the Governor's house
from a field-piece, during his deliberation, which produced an
immediate capitulation. The Spanish troops, in laying down
their arms, it is said, could not refrain from expressing the ut
most mortification and confusion as they surveyed their con
querors, not only so inferior in point of numbers, but ludicrous
in their dress and military appearance." 28

326 tSLES OE SUMMER.
By the terms of the treaty of peace, the title of the king of
Great Britain to the Bahamas was established. Since that time,
for nearly a hundred years, the islands have remained one of
the out-lying portions of the British Empire. Situated at one
of the gates of entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, near to our shores,
and in the path of our commerce, nothing prevents Britain's
possession from being a menace but their insignificance and
weakness in a military point of view.
The late war of the rebellion demonstrated the capabilities of
Nassau and its harbor for mischief when occupied in time of
war by a professedly neutral, but covertly hostile power. Except
during the period covered by our late war — 1861 to 1865 — the
history of Nassau from 1783 to the present time, has been as
dull and devoid of interest (outside of that which accompanies
wrecks and hurricanes,) as the still and shallow waters of a
mangrove lake. But, as has been well said, a nation is most pros
perous when it furnishes the least for the historian to record;
"And noiseless falls the foot of time
Which only treads on flowers."
One event, of an extremely radical and revolutionary character,
should not, however, be passed by unnoticed — the abolition of
slavery. This result was accomplished without the loss of a life,
the firing of a gun, or disturbance of any kind. By the silent
operation of a law enacted upon an island some four thousand
mibs away, upon the other side of the wide and stormy Atlantic,
all of the enslaved Bahama negroes were changed from chattels
into men, and became at once free citizens of that great empire
which circles the world, and upon which the sun never sets.

CHAPTER XXI.
Nassau Revisited. Lack of Confidence in the Northern March. Missing
Trunks — Man and His Clothes. Tlie New York and Nassau Steamboat Line.
The Western Texas. Notable Passengers. The Fountain of Youth on Litch
field Hill. Fernandina. Picturesque Shores. Sea-birds. The Mouth of the
St. John's — its Bar and Breakers. A Visit to St. Nicholas. Incidents and
Scenes in the Gulf of Florida. - "Bank Sharks." Porpoises. Crossing the
Gulf Stream. Dolphins. Sun-set Views. Arrival at Nassau.
" Once more upon the water! yet once more !
And the waves roll beneath me like a steed
That knows its rider — welcome to their roar!" — Bteon.
When we awoke Thursday morning, March 4th, 1880, the air
was filled with the melody of the birds of early spring, and the
soft sweet notes of the blue birds were especially noticeable. The
air was as warm and genial as that of a pleasant morning in May.
Gentle zephyrs sported with the leafless branches of the orchard
and forest trees, and lovingly kissed and quickened with a new
energy the arbutus, the crocus, the daffodil and other flowers,
that were courageously pushing their long buried heads out of
the ground to see if winter, their natural enemy, had retreated
to its arctic home. What folly, we exclaimed, to leave the
shores of Connecticut and encounter the perils of an ocean voy
age in search of a summer that is already here ! But we had
good reason to mistrust appearances. The northern March has
an established reputation. Its record is as old as the centuries
that have passed away. Though it approached concealed in the,
327

328 ISLES OF SUMMER.
gay mantle of spring, and greeted us with sunny smiles, we
knew that more disease and discomfort lay ambushed within its
thirty-one days than can be found in any three of the remaining
months of the year. It might deceive the flowers — they have
perished in its frosts before; and the birds that have more mel
ody and beauty than mind and brains; and tempt the fish back
to their old spawning grounds — a shad cannot be expected to
know any better — but as for us, we said, we would seek for sum
mer where summer lives and reigns throughout the entire circle
of the revolving year, where the northern March is unknown.
Our arrangements were soon made, and the steamer Elm City
landed us safely in New York, after a refreshing night's sleep.
Before the break of day, while we»skirted the eastern shore of
Manhattan Island, we looked out of our stateroom window,
through the murky and humid air, upon the sleeping city, and
mused and marveled at the wondrous changes which an hour or
two of daylight would produce. Its shipping and great business
arteries were but dimly revealed in the gas-light and lamp-light,
while gloomy vapors concealed from view its dome of stars. The
fevered and mad pulses that so wildly beat and throb by day,
were soothed and quieted by kind nature's grand opiate and re
storative, sleep. Day and night work wondrous changes in our
country's great commercial capital. Ocean in calm and storm
is not more unlike than a great city at mid-day and mid-night.
0, how we abominate the horrid noises of its crowded streets —
the awful solitude of its thoroughfares!
It was between eight and nine o'clock in the morning when
the astonishing fact was discovered that our trunks had not ac
companied us to New York, they haying been left unchecked at
the steamboat dock at New Haven! Our stateroom in the Wes
tern Texas was engaged, and the steamer was advertised to sail
at 3 P. m. of the same day. Had we lost our money we could have

MISSING TRUNKS. 329
drawn for more, or borrowed or got trusted, perhaps. If we
had even lost our reputation or character we might get along
among strangers by leading a virtuous life in the future, and wo
knew that God forgives us if man does not. Even the loss of
reason may prove to be a temporary affair which the quiet and
medicated air of the ocean has power to sometimes restore. But
to lose one's clothes — to leave behind one's wardrobe, just as the
ship that is to carry you to distant countries is getting up steam
to take you away, is a calamity so crushing and overwhelming
that one would hardly desire such a misfortune to befall his bit
terest enemy. Why, character and respectability, social position,
civilization, everything that makes a man among men and a lady
among women, is involved in one's personal dry goods. When
one begins to wear clothes he peases to be a savage, and is indeed
almost a Christian. It is true we were bound for the isles of
perpetual summer, where clothes are not required to meet any
physical want, and are only worn to indicate that man is not a
brute beast; but still we, and especially the female half of us,
were really horrified at the idea of leaving New York upon a long
journey, almost as naked as we were born.
A young and efficient officer of the New Haven Steamboat
Company came to our relief, utilized the telegraph, and thus
endeavored to secure for our trunks a place on board the Conti
nental, which was to leave New Haven for New York at 10 a. m.
A delay in the sailing time of the Western Texas was promised
us, and we waited in a state of mingled hope and fear the slow
creeping of the languid hours. 0, how much depended on the
result! Whether we should leave our native land decent, re
spectable people, or otherwise, all depended upon the arrival or
non-arrival on time of those ill.-starred and sad-fated trunks.
We sat upon the deck of the Western Texas and closely scruti
nized every approaching steamer. How beautifully, like gigan-

33d ISLES OF SUMMER.
tic white-feathered water fowls, they unceasingly cut and skim
med the dimpled waters which constitute that grand navigable
highway that separates and yet makes one two great cities! At
half -past three o'clock, a steamer more beautiful than the rest,
with a proud air of conscious superiority, made her appearance,
and as she changed her course to enter Peck's slip, the name
" Continental" was plainly discernable. The next twenty min
utes were the longest and most anxious ones we ever experienced.
Stars may wander from their spheres and be lost forever, and
not affect us in the least — but to lose all one's wardrobe, includ
ing one's newest and best "store-clothes"— ah! that was alto
gether more than our equanimity could endure; there was no
relief or palliation for it in the philosophical reflections and teach
ings of a life time. There is an end to all things, and we de
voutly thank God that suspense and fear have their limits. The
last one of at least fifty baggage wagons that we examined con
tained the missing objects of our heart's then fondest affections.
The countenance of that old Jew who welcomed back the return
ing prodigal son, wras certainly less wreathed with smiles, and less
illumined with the light of a new joy , than was ours at beholding
at that auspicious but late hour, those missing trunks; and, after
seeing that they were properly checked and shipped, we went
again on board and were soon employed in reading Milton's great
work — so evidently composed for such an occasion as this — " Par
adise Regained. "
The sea treated us tenderly. For a time it foamed, hissed,
howled and shook us up, but only, by giving us a slight taste and
token of its powers, to make us more appreciate the greatness
and goodness of its forbearance. For perhaps a hundred miles
each side of Hatteras, we crossed the great ocean storm belt, and
the sky lowered upon us as if in anger, but we soon sped away
from the impending danger and basked on deck in the warm rays

THE WESTERN TEXAS. §31
6f a more southerly sun. Although out of sight of land, we
skirted sufficiently near the Atlantic's western shore to have the
constant company of large white gulls, who, to some extent, de
pended upon our ship for their supplies. The occasional appear
ance of steamers and vessels with sails spread to the wind, clearly
indicated that we were traversing one of tho great frequented
but trackless paths of the sea. We passed the entrance to
Charleston harbor, and if we could only have prolonged the day
light for a few hours, we would have reached Port Royal, our
first stopping place, tbe third night after leaving New York. A
gentleman with a sea-glass reported that he saw trees upon the
Carolina shore, but we suspected he was somewhat aided by his
imagination. The Western Texas is one of a line of steamers which runs
between New York and Nassau, touching at one or more of our
southern ports going and returning. They are owned by C. H.
Mallory & Co. , and carry the mail under a long contract with
the Bahama government, which pays the company a handsome
subsidy for the service. From the position and nearness of the
Bahamas to our coast, intimate and close commercial intercourse
between them and the United States is inevitable.
The Texas is a new boat, about three years old, and has supe
rior passenger accommodations. Its main saloon, "social hall"
and staterooms, are roomy, very handsomely finished and fur
nished, and uncommonly pleasant. Neatness, cleanliness, order
and efficiency are marked characteristics, and comfort and con
fidence are the result. The table, during our voyage, was sup
plied with an abundance of well-cooked food, including all the
substantial and many of the delicacies that are to be met with
in a good hotel. She 'registers 1250 tons, and is one of the
largest of the line; the freight and passenger business is not suffi
cient to warrant the use of larger vessels.

388

ISLES OF SUMMER.

While our passenger list was small, we were remarkably favored
in respect to the general good character of all, and the excep
tionally high character of some of our passengers. Among them
were included the venerable ex-Chief Justice of Connecticut, the
Honorable Origen S. Seymour, of Litchfield, and his wife; tbe
Honorable George C. Woodruff, a veteran of the bar of Litch
field county, for legal ability probably second to no lawyer in
our State, and formerly a member of Congress, and his wife;
Mrs. Sanford, the widow of the late Judge Sanford, formerly of
the Connecticut Supreme Court, and several members of her
family, and an old sea captain who had spent the greater part of
some forty years upon the ocean. We never looked upon the
Litchfield delegation without feeling a strong sentiment of state
pride, and personal veneration and admiration. What a grand
stock! What a place is old Litchfield for mental, moral and phy
sical development! At the ripe age of seventy-six, with what an
elastic step our old judicial chieftain trod the steamer's deck!
How keen his intellect! How bright and sparkling his soul-lit
eye ! How youthful, ever green and sunny bis spirits! The great
leader of judicial reform, there was not a fossil or a barnacle
about him. But, towering high and strong above all, was his
tender devotion, his unremitting care and watchfulness, his de
voted and unflagging affection aud love for his aged and sea sick
wife, the mother of his stalwart and able sons! Turning from
him to the hale, hearty, rugged Woodruff, full of the learned
lore of the law, we inwardly exclaimed tbat the dream of the past
is a veritable fact— there is a " fountain of perpetual youth," and
it bubbles up on the top of Litchfield hill, and these are they
who have drank of its wonderful waters. May their shadows
never grow less, nor their blood cease to circulate in the veins
and arteries of the men of the future!
Having freight on board for Fernandina, it was necessary for

FERNA/STOrKTA. 833
u§ to go up for a short distance the St. Mary's — a river that con
stitutes in part the line of division between Georgia and Florida.
We remained outside all one night, and in the early morning
cautiously proceeded towards the city, here and there feeling our
way with the sounding line. Nearly all the day was consumed
in discharging freight. The weather was so threatening that
we were content to simply view the city from the upper deck.
One colored policeman, black and dirty,, was on duty at the
wharf. He much needed a new uniform, but his " billy," and
thc revolver that protruded conspicuously out of one of his pock
ets, looked as if capable of doing good service. We must con
fess that we were not very favorably impressed with this specimen
of the right arm of Florida's civil power. A big negro boy, who,
in our presence horsewhipped a little one, and boldly returned
the blows of a colored man who undertook to avenge the small
boy's wrongs, was allowed to escape.
A smart, pretty white boy, only four years of age, smoked
three cigars in the eourse of a few hours, and was reported to
have received in the morning at the hands of his father— who
had charge of the men who unloaded the freight — his morning
glass of brandy and water! Fernandina, apparently, is a place
of some three thousand inhabitants, white and colored. It has
a pleasant look, resting upon a gentle elevation above its harbor.
In leaving it, we steamed along nearly the whole line of its water
front, and noticed that its streets seemed grass grown, being
green with a low vegetable growth of some kind. As it is con
nected with the Gulf of Mexico by railroad, it is the center of
considerable freighting business. St. Mary's river, like the St.
John's, seeks the ocean through several channels, by which means
a number of islands are formed — low, green savannahs, here and
there diversified with forest growths, the trees and bushes giving
no indications of having ever felt the noiseless, killing touch of

334. ISLES OF SUMMER.
the great northern frost king, who so quietly and thoroughly
paves our roads and bridges, our lakes and rivers in a single night.
Our passengers thronged the bow of our boat and feasted eye
and mind upon scenery of unusual loveliness. The shore lines,
with their white beaches and dark backgrounds, were constantly
changing in their forms and outlines. Amelia beach reminded
us as we passed of the pleasure we experienced when driving over
it a little more than a year before. Our water-way was marked
by buoys, while several lighthouses proclaimed the fostering caro"
of a wise, paternal government, in lighting at night the watery
highways. We passed within a few feet of a warning bell, so
hung that the play of tlie ceaseless tides causes it to constantly
rise and fall, and, unattended, to ring out upon the waters in calm
and storm, during the long hours of the day and the darker and.
longer hours of the night, in musical tones, "Ho! mariners, this
is the only true way! As ye value your lives, heed me and obey
my voice!"
In vain the sun struggled to look down upon this charming
picture of sea and land. Cold looking clouds veiled the sky.
Beautiful pelicans sported in the air, amused, perhaps, at the.
frolicsome play of the porpoises in the waters below. Wild
ducks, obeying some great social law, were seen associating to
gether in large flocks, observing the most perfect order, and.
giving to man examples worthy of imitation of mutual forbear
ance, domestic peace, and freedom from family jars and internal
dissensions. Onr old friends, the sea-gulls, held not each with
the rest so close a communion, and seemed to have more individ-"
ual liberty with their unity; but they kept sufficiently near to each:
other to avoid the crushing loneliness of a solitary life.
Danger ever hovers above and around us, and unseen peril often
most suddenly and unexpectedly darts out upon us from its am- :
bush. But thus far only two. petty annoyances had interfered.
with the deep, strong, and steady current of our joys.

ANNOYANCES. THE ST. JOHN'S. 335
One occurred at Port Royal, where our steamer was tied up
all night to the wharf close to a freight house in which a thou
sand bags of Peruvian guano were stored, the intolerable stench
of which invaded our ship, entered the saloons, took possession
of every stateroom and remained with us all night. For pun
gency and power it certainly surpassed the fifty-nine distinct and
independent bad smells that formerly regaled the traveler at one
and the same instant of time in the streets of Cologne. We
carried away from the Palmetto State only a vivid memory of
a horrible odor that will last us a life time.
The other was a plague of insects at Fernandina, where our
ship was taken captive by great swarms of little gnats, who were*
so glad to sec us that it really seemed as if they were determined
to literally eat us up. Some hid away in sheltered nooks out of
the wind when we left, and seized every opportunity to renew
their acquaintance with the northern strangers.
Our steamer took the outside route from Fernandina, and for
some time before we reached the mouth of the St. John's our at
tention was called to the fact that the water of the river is carried
to the north in a well defined stream, strongly distinguished by
its color from that of the sea with which it refuses to assimilate.
Fed by vast wooded swamps, great lakes and unnumbered"
tributary streams, the noble St. John's, after rolling in solemn
majesty through low but picturesque banks for hundreds of*
miles, becomes at last a river of the ocean, scooping out for itself,
like the Gulf Stream, a channel in the heavier waters of the sea.
The great rivers of the south are constantly and persistently-
endeavoring to barricade their mouths, as if principled against
intercourse with the outside world. Channels for commerce are
no sooner made and buoyed tbrough the great bars and banks"
than they are closed again. The bold navigator is perplexed and
confounded by changes which are constantly taking place, and
the soundings of one day are no sure guide for the next.

336 ISLES OF SUMMER.
At the mouth of the St. John's the breakers, foaming over
vast Submerged sand fields, please the eye, but are strongly sug*-
gestive of danger. The tortuous channel was said to be only six
weeks old. It certainly differed greatly from the one through
which we were piloted the previous year. Without the aid of
steam-tugs, sailing vessels must find it very difficult and decidedly
dangerous to make their way along tbe submerged banks and
over the bar. The rem tins of two wrecks — one that of a steamor
— which we passed, bore silent testimony to the perils which
navigators are here called upon to encounter. A large number
of pilots live at the mouth of the St. John's and study its con
stant mutations. They have built up a village on its left bank,
which bears the appropiate name of "Pilot Town." Opposite
this is the village of Mayport, which is inhabited mostly by fisher
men, whose fishing nets, boats and reels gave variety and interest
to the view.
Soon after we entered the river, a cloudy night deprived us of
the pleasure we had hopsd to experience in viewing for twenty-
five miles the St. John's below Jacksonville. We tied up to
the wharf at about 8 p. m.
The next day we took passage in the little steamboat that daily
makes frequent trips to " The Home " (stopping at intermediate
landings) upon a beautiful bank at the junction of Arlington
creek and thc river St. John's. We landed at St. Nicholas, and
fer a few brief but happy hours observed and tasted the sweets
of plantation life. A re-union with some old and highly esteemed
friends "refined the pure gold" of smiling, verdant, blooming
nature's welcome.
The river bank where we landed is about twenty-five feet high,
the top of which we reached by a winding path through a wild
tangle of bushes and vines, covered with verdure and adorned
with buds and blossoms. Once more upon the land— not in the

A VISIT TO ST. NICHOLAS. 337
man-made city, but, to our great joy, in the God-made country —
how fresh and beautiful everything appeared! We bade the rest
speed on and leave us to enjoy in silence and solitude the delights
of the place and hour. Here a little nameless shrub, with its
curious leaves and fragrant blossoms, called to us from the thicketj
and climbing vines reached out their tendrils as if to lovingly
clasp and detain us as we passed. The mocking birds sang their
varied songs from unseen coverts; high-vine blackberry bushes^.
loaded with green fruit, recalled many a familiar spot a thou
sand miles away, and faces we desired so much to see again. The
beautiful and spacious river, with its winding shores and low-
green banks, its little skiffs and occasional steamers, Compelled
us often to stop and look back. In full view, some four or five
miles away, was the city that we had just left; over our heads*
was a smiling sky, and a sun glowing with a heat that was, at 80°
in the shade, made agreeable by a steady breeze from over the
water. Upon the top of the bank large, tall pines, with tops
crowned with green tasseled leaves, huge live oaks and water
oaks, some with great clustered stems, one with a spread of over
ninety feet, and all drooped and festooned with gray mosS,
adorned and shaded the private carriage way that runs between
beautiful villas and the top of the river's bank. Occasionally we
rested on the seats which thoughtful hands had placed between
the trunks of the noble trees, and more deliberately studied Our
novel and fascinating surroundings. Near the dwellings which
we passed were groves of orange trees, with their waxen,, polished
leaves and opening and exquisitely sweet flowers, from oiie. of
which alone 2,500 oranges had been recently taken. . We say
no alligators, but we learned that they were only just awakening
from their usual three months winter's sleep. Like other rep
tiles during this long season of torpor they take no food — thus,
with them, does sleep anticipate and closely resemble death.
29

338 ISLES OF SUMMER.
Beneath a friendly and hospitable roof we slaked our thirst with
cool and delicious orangeade — a drink differing from lemonade
in that it is made of the juice of the sour orange instead of the
lemon. We were regaled at lunch with oranges such as only
Florida can produce, and with strawberries of large size and de
licious flavor, taken from vines which were said to yield fruit
continuously from January to June. From an orange orchard
near by we were informed that 70,000 oranges had been taken
within a few weeks. Before the crop was gathered, the trees-
loaded with golden fruit, were said to have been marvelously
beautiful. After a few hours of very great enjoyment, we
steamed back to the city, where during the evening, in the saloon
of the Texas, we were honored by a call from Gov. Brown, of
.Georgia, an old friend and Yale Law School classmate, some
members of his family, and his brother, Col. Brown. The Gov
ernor, not only by his eminent success in political life, but more
especially by the judicial laurels he has won and worn (having
filled with distinguished ability the office of Chief Justice of the
State of Georgia), has reflected honor upon the institution id
which in part he received his education for the bar.* Col. Brown
also studied law at Yale, and both gentlemen will be pleasantly
remembered by all those who then enjoyed their acquaintance
and friendship. Having introduced the Governor to our honor
ed and venerable ex-Chief Justice Seymour, to whom by reputa
tion he was well known, it was pleasant to witness the play and
.mingling ef the intellectual light of. these two justly distin
guish^ "men. As a young man, the author saw in Gov. Brown
lie promise which has been fulfilled in the golden maturity Of
later years.
After another night spent at the wharf on ship board, we con-

* Tho author has learned with pleasure since this was written, that Gov. Brown has been
appointed by the present Governor of Qeorsia, to fill a vacancy, a United States Senator.

THE FLORIDA GULF. 339
tinned our voyage in the early morning following, down and Out
of the river into the broad Atlantic.
The deep solitude of the sky-bound sea was relieved by occa
sional white-winged but lonely wanderers, bearing the varied
products of distant and invisible lands. Dark, graceful smoke
plumes, at first but dimly seen, revealed the presence of approach
ing steamers, and furnished welcome food for speculation. A
German barque, looking as if it had wrestled with the elements,
raised its flag to indicate that it desired to communicate with us.
Having sighted the land after a voyage across the Atlantic of
more than three thousand miles, its captain wished to ascertain
as accurately as possible, his whereabouts, and to test the cor
rectness of his reckoning. Upon a large blackboard, each ves
sel marked and exhibited to the other, first the latitude and then
the longitude of the place where they met, as indicated by theft
respective logs or records, from which it appeared that the barque
was fifty miles removed from the position its officers supposed it
occupied. In the neighborhood of Jupiter lighthouse, well down on the
Florida coast, we met a schooner, one of whose officers inquired
of us if we were going to Key West. It had no name in sight
and was in ballast. As it sailed, after parting company with
us, first towards the east, and soon, without any apparent good
reason, changed its course to the south, our experienced passen
ger captain, having watched her closely, quickly made up his
mind as to her character and business. He explained how easily
but fraudulently a few thousand dollars could be made. "De
pend upon it," said the captain, " she's a bank shark. She hails
from Key West, no doubt, and very likely has a Key West license.
She may have English papers, or both English and American
papers. Nassau wreckers can't come here — our wreckers would :
drive them off. So at the Bahamas they will not allow our wreck-

340

ISLES OF SUMMER.

ers to interfere with their trade. They pay sometimes to pilot a
vessel, and pilot her ashore — then they come in for salvage.
." See," said he " she has no cargo aboard, and her boat is on her
davits ready to be launched. You can't keep any account of
goods taken from a wreck, and, running into Jupiter inlet, it is
an easy matter to secure the plunder. Depend on't, them fellows
are wide awake and watching for business. Their vessel shows
no name and can't be reported."
An old resident of Nassau informed us that formerly there
were persons doing business in that city, who were well known
to be in collusion with certain ship owners who desired to sell
their vessel property and cargoes to the insurance companies.
When one of these men visited New York, very soon afterwards
New York vessels would be wrecked in the Bahama waters. The
masters of vessels purposely wrecked their vessels, an arrange
ment having been previously made with the wreckers, and a cer
tain division of the salvage money agreed upon. It is believed
and hoped that such cases do not often now occur.
Having no communication with the silent man at the wheel
who held in his hands our lives upon the sea, we seldom knew
precisely where we were, while we "floated like bubbles onward."
Our steamer's prow still persistently pointed to the south, and:
we skirted the eastern shore of the Peninsula of Florida, in what
is called "the Florida Gulf." A long sand beach gave to the.
blue sea a fringe of snowy whiteness. Beyond this, and between,
it and the sky, Southern Florida was sand witched. A low, nar-.
row, monotonous belt of green was all that we could see of the
wet, wooded and flowery land, with its luscious fruits, beautiful
birds and loathsome reptiles. As we approached the latitude .
of St. Augustine, our course was so far to the east that "the
shining shore " was with more difficulty discerned. We almost
envied the few long-sighted passengers who seemed to see and '

THE FLORIDA GULF. 341
professed to describe the landmarks which our less gifted eyes
failed to discern; and we thought of the holy seers who peer
into the invisible world, and challenge our doubting faith with
stories of spirit realms. A delicate blush, like that which lin
gers where the sun has set, curtained with rosy light the vanished
land. Floating in and above this radiant air, as far as we could
see along the western hem of the bending sky, were soft pearly
clouds, most beautifully configured and colored, in which seemed
to flit the happy and viewless spirits of the air. Around us the
sea rolled in gentle ripples. Low, soothing sounds came to us
as our beautiful ship cleaved the slumbering waters. The wind
god breathed softly upon us from the south. . So profound was
the calm repose, all the mighty forces of nature, that at times in
these latitudes make themselves felt and feared in the hurricane,
seemed to have been chloroformed to insure for us a safe and
pleasant voyage. None of our passengers were sick. A musing,
dreamy spirit rested upon all. Most of the passengers were dur
ing the day upon the main deck, sitting upon folding-chairs un
der the awnings. Many mused in silence. Those who conversed
spoke in low tones. Not the slightest excitement was manifested.
The repose was profound; the rest was perfect. The pulses
throbbed gently, and the gentlest ripples masked the tides of
varied thought. In indolent repose, lulled by the softest sounds,
slightly rocked by the gentle undulations of the slumbering sea,
we passed the happy hours. The thermometer registered 80° in
the shade, but the heat was far from being oppressive. The au
thor took out his stylographic pen, placed it upon the white
paper, and watched it while it ran.
The porpoises, whose gambols had given a pleasing variety to
onr quiet enjoyments, no longer raced with our steamer or leaped
out of the water to challenge our admiration, and extort invol
untary and loud applause. But near the close of day they came

342 ISLES OE SUMMER.
to the surface, leaving the deeper and cooler waters as the sun
approached his setting, and like a dog before a flying horse, they
raced with our ship. Directly ahead of and close to its sharp
iron prow, with unmistakable evidences of pride and joy, they
led the way, and seemed to challenge us to overtake them if we
could. It was exceedingly interesting and somewhat exciting
to observe them at such times. They frequently leaped bodily
ont of the water, and seemed to indulge in a competitive race
with each other while testing their locomotive powers with those
of the strange, man-made monster that had invaded their watery
realm. The sport was continued for many a mile, but like the
great golden god of day, they retired to depths we could not see,
and. to realms we had no capacity fully to explore.
,: We were told by an eye witness in Florida, of sanguinary fights
between the porpoises and the sharks. Our lady informant on
one occasion saw three or four of the former mercilessly attack
one of the latter at the mouth of the St. John's, and the contest
was continued until the surrounding water was colored with their
blood. In the Florida Gulf we soon parted company with the sea-birds.
Not a single gull looked to us for supplies. The river St. John's
probably teems with a larger quantity of food suited to their
taste and adapted to their wants.
We missed them much. The ocean was more lonely. It had
been exceedingly pleasant to watch them while they followed our
ship, and as some of the more venturesome hovered over us, the
undulations of their white wide-spread wings seemed like silent
benedictions. The persistent waving of the unspotted feathery
arms we gladly welcomed as favorable omens. We were not dis
posed to disregard the favorable augury of the beautiful birds
who so persistently followed us over such wide spaces of ocean
solitudes. Certain it ia that clear skies, smooth seas and fair

THE GULF. STREAM. 343
winds came with the gentle white-robed birds. As a natural
consequence, mind and heart were pervaded with the dead faith
of old and buried nations. Messages of love and peace seemed
winged from heaven to earth. . Give us, we inwardly exclaimed,
the old dream of the past, in exchange for some of the fresher
and more orthodox superstitions of modern times. It certainly
affords a temporary pleasure to diversify hackneyed beliefs with
a little of the antique.
We passed within ten or twelve miles of Jupiter Inlet and
Jupiter Lighthouse, both being plainly in view. Soon after, the
course of our ship was altered, and, steaming a little south of east,
all traces of the Western Continent were lost to view, but low,
light-colored clouds still curtained the vanished land.
.- Nearly all our passengers were upon the upper deck, musing
in grateful shadows, and, with the thermometer at 80°, feeling
only an agreeable warmth in the cooling wind. A marked change
was soon observed in the color of the water. Its deep, rich,
beautiful blue was unlike anything we had observed before or
since we left New York. It attracted and riveted all eyes, and
loosened every tongue. Gentlemen vied with the ladies in ex
pressing the pleasure caused by this new sensation. One passen
ger, of a domestic turn of mind, inferred that it was Neptune's
washing day, and that he had made a liberal use of his indigo
bag. The mystery was soon explained. We were crossing the
Gulf Stream; unconsciously we had entered the great ocean river.
It had gathered up the equatorial heats, and, impelled by great
natural laws which man has not been able as yet to fully discover
and satisfactorily explain, it was executing its great beneficent
mission, and materially aiding in equalizing the temperature of
regions widely separated. How unlike it" seemed to the Gulf
Stream we crossed a year before! Then we brought with us from
the frozen north opposing winds — and a just resentment was felt

344

ISLES OF SUMMER.

and seen in billows that hissed and howled, foaming in anger.
Now, gentle winds, born in the warm tropics, traveled with the
rolling tide, and hand in hand, air and water were bearing their
thermal blessings onward. It is their3 to loosen the icy bands,
and quicken into life the slumbering energies of northern climes.
At times dolphins played about our ship, and flying fish, like
flocks of small birds, traversed considerable spaces of air, just
clearing the waves. " The dolphin," said our passenger captain,
"is the swiftest fish that swims the sea; where there are flying
fish there are usually dolphins; the dolphins feed upon them,
and the flying fish j ump into the air and try to get away. " Vague
memories of ancient fables came dimly back to us as we watched
the quick and playful movements of this interesting mammal of
the sea. The dolphin was a sacred fish in Grecian mythology,
and gave name if not inspiration to the famous Delphic Oracle
that made known to mortals the decrees of the invisible and im
mortal god3. Modern scientists, upon observing the relative size
and character of its brain, are disposed to entertain with more
favor the belief of the ancients in its superior intelligence. As
with the sea-birds, so with the fish, they stirred our souls with
the quickening spirit of creeds that flourished in earth's fresh
green spring time, and our voiceless thoughts declared — surely,
these dolphins, which appear to be doing pilot and escort duty
for our ship, are the lineal descendents of those which, in tho
old days of the old world, were the friends and benefactors of our
race, almoners of divine favors and the bearers of messages from
a world real but invisible; for with them came most delicious
air, charming skies, and a quiet sea most beautifully colored.
Some of our sun- sets were exceptionally brilliant and beautiful:
On one occasion, when a vast shoreless sea had received the day-
god in its engulfing waters, great golden columns of brilliant
light, radiating from the place of its burial, lighted up the west-

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DOLPHINS.

NIGHT ON THE OCEAN. 345
ern sky, and illumined the ocean's surface with their reflected
light. At other times the zodiacal light, for several hours after
the sun had set, rose like a monument, a huge pyramid of beauty,
delicate, spirituelle, but well defined, upon the lofty apex of
which rested the Pleiades. It was first observed by our venerable
ex-Chief Justice, who seemed delighted to watch it during the
early evening hours; he appeared to be very much at home among
the beautiful stars of the southern sky, and to derive great pleas
ure in viewing the heavenly hosts, as, arranged in familiar con
stellations, they in solemn, silent majesty passed slowly by. The
beauty of such skies is closely allied to the spiritual; their grand
eur and solemnity is indeed divine; the undevout gazer upon
such heavens is mad. But how dwarfed everything appeared
when we looked down!
While still at sea, a beautiful silver crescent, like the visible eye
of- some invisible god, gazed from the western sky upon the
setting sun. It added a new element of beauty to the night, but,
as it increased in size, many a star retired, and the mysterious
zodiacal light was unrevealed. It, like the ghosts, exists only
in shadows.
On Saturday evening, the 13th day of March, we made" Isaac's.
Light" upon Isaac's Island, one of the Bahama Archipelago,
and knew that the crossing of the- gulf of Florida was, with
us, an accomplished fact, and that a run during the night of.
about one hundred and twenty miles in the somewhat sheltered
"New Providence Channel," among the islands, and towards the
center of the group, would complete our voyage. We left the
upper deck, with its brilliant canopy of gleaming stars, and re
tired early to our stateroom, that we might secure a good night's
sleep and be able, at the break of day, to greet the rising sun
and watch for the first indications of the lovely isle upon which
Nassau, in the shade of its palms and other tropical trees, re-

346

ISLES OF SUMMER.

The early Sabbath morn found a large number of our fellow
voyagers intently scanning the eastern horizon from the good
ship's upper deck. The usual speculations, inseparable from
such an occasion, as to the time when we would reach our haven
of rest, afforded fit material for the interchange of thought and
a comparison of views. It was a subject in which all were deeply
interested, but the weather had been so fine, and the voyage so
pleasant, that we felt that in landing we should only exchange
one form of happiness for another. Our ship was new, scrupu
lously neat and clean, staunch and steady, admirably officered
and manned, and all its appointments were decidedly first-class,
so that a sentiment akin to that which one entertains for a beau
tiful, spirited and intelligent horse, that has carried him safely
and ministered to his happiness, sprang up and took firm root
in the minds of the fortunate passengers in reference to the
Steam Screw Ship Western Texas. The Texas we felt was our
ship, and to it we Seemed to owe a kind of fealty and true alle
giance. As the morning wore away, our passenger captain, with hia
trained, long-sighted sea-eyes, detected a faint trace of curling
smoke upon the background of delicate low clouds rising from
the eastern horizon. This, he assured us, was smoke from a fire
on the island of New Providence. Soon after, his telescopic eyes
discerned in a white, perpendicular lino, about as big around as
a spider's thread, the coralline lighthouse at the eastern end of
Hog Island, at the entrance of Nassau harbor. Very soon the
less visually gifted were able to verify assertions which, to their
more narrow vision, seemed to bo prophetic — and their faith was
soon supplemented by actual knowledge. Thus is it often with
hidden truths and mysteries profound!
Between 9 and 10 o'clock in the forenoon we crossed the bar,
and once more revelled in the picturesque beauty of the winding

¦Arrival At Nassau. 34-?
shores, the honey-combed rocks, the stretches of white sand
beaches, the low green islets, the tropical verdure, and the spark
ling and gleaming waters, dotted and striped with colors which
no pen can adequately describe. We seemed to feel their welcome
in the soft and soothing wind. For men and their works we
cared little — they were so dwarfed by those which we had left
behind us. But for the coral isles and keys, and for the elements
above and around them — the handiwork of the world's great
Architect — we entertained a genuine affection, and our hearts ex
perienced a thrill of pleasure as we gazed upon the beautiful
panorama which was gradually disclosed as we neared the place"
of our landing.
It being Sunday, a much smaller crowd than usual awaited our
arrival upon the neighboring streets and adjacent wharfs. A few
young negroes, black and glossy, nearly nude, were perched like
great frogs upon the dock, and soon amused the new-comers by
diving for pennies and other coin. The first on shore to recog
nize us, as we scanned the dusky upturned faces, were those little
black dots of children — Moody and Sankey. They bowed and
smiled and waved their hands, while eyes and teeth gleamed with
unmistakable pleasure at seeing once more those who had listened
to and taken an interest in their songs. The tall, manly form
of our old yachtsman, Capt. Sampson, with his neat nautical blue
uniform and "Triton" hat, was a very noticeable landmark, and,
when he discovered us, he triumphantly exclaimed, as one of his
hearers informed us — " Dere's a gentleman who's consigned to
me; he knows de Trident; he ken tell you about her; he sailed
with Sampson when der Trident was first built; he's consigned to
Sampson — sure!" He was not long in finding us, and, with a
hearty shake of the hands, interlarded his speech of welcome with
those graceful, courtly airs and diplomatic phrases which, un
studied, he knows so well how to employ. Seizing our bundles

348 isles of summer.
he escorted us to the best and largest carriage at the landing,
and loaded us up. Soon a man appeared who claimed ours was
his carriage, and that from the bows of the steamer he had en
gaged it before any one had a chance to put a foot on the dock,
and had put his bundles in it while he went for the other mem
bers of his party. "Can't help dat," said Sampson; "dis car
riage belongs to dis gentleman — why, he spoke for dis carriage
las' year! Driver, you take dis gentleman and dese yere ladies
to der hotel," — and he did so before we had fully time to con
sider and decide the doubtful question of our right to keep pas?
-session of the vehicle.

CHAPTER XXII.
Pleasant Return Voyages. Waiting in Florida the Arrival of Summer at
the North. Making Apologies to a Tropical Sun. The Steamer City of Aus
tin — Capt. Stevens. A Leaf from' the Chapter of the Captain's Nautical
Experiences. Little Sankey Transported and Transplanted. Reciprocal

"Where'er I roam, whatever lands I see,
My heart, untraveled, fondly turns to thee." — Goldsmith.
Having embodied in the preceding chapters all the informa
tion we obtained concerning Nassau and the Bahamas during our
visits in 1879 and 1880, which we deemed would be useful or in
teresting to our readers, but little remains to be added before
we lay down a pen which we have found it a difficult matter to
stop. After returning to Jacksonville in April, 1879, we spent sev
eral weeks in Florida enjoying its climate, and waiting for the*
time to come when summer at the north should be firmly estab
lished. We soon learned to love the dreamy lakes and languid
rivers; the deep solitude of the pine forests; the wild, weird-
beauty of the cypress swamps; the gracefulness of the palms and
palmettos; the grand old water-oaks and live-oaks, all profusely
draped, festooned and decorated, from largest branch to smallest
twig, with Spanish moss, so gray and sombre; the stately magr
nolias, royally adorned with dark waxen leaves, and large, white,
floral incense cups; the orange orchards, whose leaves, and flowers,,
and fruit seemed intended to minister to the happiness rather of
am 30

350 ISLES oy SUMMER.
gods than men; the floral treasures everywhere scattered with
lavish hand; and the birds, unsurpassed in plumage and un-
equaled in song. We lingered for a while, reluctant to leave,
after many of the larger hotels were closed. At last our time to
depart came, and we made a part of the extreme rear of a great,
but generally intelligent and cultivated army, which, having in
the previous fall and winter fled from frost, was now being driven
and scattered by a nearly tropical sun.
Dimpled all over with smiles, and reposing in calm and quiet
majesty under an atmosphere that glowed with the genial warmth
of May, the ocean, like a good foster mother, rocked us gently
upon its bosom, tenderly floated us hundreds of miles homeward,
and at last landed us safely upon old familiar shores, that had,
in our absence, exchanged their robes and wrappings of ice and
snow for beautiful carpets of verdure of the purest and brightest -
emerald. Our second visit to the Isles of Summer was less pleasant than
the first by reason of the heat, for the same causes which pro
duced the remarkably mild winter of 1879-80 at the north, gave
to Florida and the Bahamas weather exceptionally warm. As
we had anticipated when we turned our backs upon the northern
March in the manner which we in our last chapter described, we
escaped a great deal of exceedingly disagreeable weather, for
winter and summer, as in other years, struggled for the mastery
upon the neutral domain of spring, while fortune favored both
sides with characteristic fickleness. But when in Florida and
Nassau, both upon land and water, the thermometer during the
greater part of every day stood at eighty and upwards in the
shade, and hot, sultry, southerly winds were more than usually
prevalent, we were at times led to exclaim, 0, for a cool puff of
northern wind, and carpets of beautiful snow; and mountains
lofty and snow-capped I 0, for an exchange of lazy and indolent

FROM NASSAU TO FERNANDINA. $61
air for an atmosphere that vitalizes the blood, stimulates the
nerves, gives birth to noble purposes, and inspires with a laudable
ambition I
Afterwards, when the weekly mail arrived, with letters and news
papers from home, and we learned how badly both March and
April had conducted themselves at the north in our absence, we
immediately rushed out from beneath the grateful shade of tropi
cal trees, and, with heads bowed but well protected, we made
to the hot sun, and to the beautiful, lands that panted in its fierce
and scorching rays, our most humble and sincere apologies.
At the conclusion of our second visit to the Bahamas, we
had a most delightful voyage in the Western Texas, of the C. H.
Mallory & Co.'s line, from Nassau to Fernandina. We were
favored with clear skies, while beneath and around us the At
lantic was at rest. All the storm gods of the sea were indulg
ing in deep, profound, voluptuous sleep. Our ship rivaled the
ducks upon sheltered lakes in the quiet grace with which it
passed over the smooth waters. We spent much of the time
during the day dreamily watching the sky, the birds, the mur^
muring waves, the fish, the sea weed, and passing vessels. The
glory of the stars and of the Southern Cross added brilliancy
and gladness to the night.
"New stars all night above the brim
Of waters lightened into view;
They climb'd as quickly, for the rim
Changed every moment as we flew."
-There are often among the passengers on shipboard "late
birds," sometimes, upon thc land, called "larks," who linger
behind after the staid, prudent, and conservative have retired,
and, with songs and stories, and fragrant Havanas, endeavor to
get more than the average amount of enjoyment out of hours'
generally devoted to sleep. But the passengers who sailed with

35S ISLES OF SUMMER.
us to and from the Isles of Summer were so far homogeneous,
that none had occasion to complain that the hilarity and good
fellowship of a few were carried so far into the night as to en
croach upon hours generally devoted to sleep.
Sailing in the path of an ocean current which furnished our
ship with a part of its motive power, and aided by a wind that,
while it warmed, wafted us on our way, we were not long in
reaching the Florida coast. The trip was also materially short
ened because health and happiness winged the flying hours.
About four weeks after our last arrival in Florida, we proceeded
by rail from Jacksonville to Fernandina, and intercepted the
steamship City of Austin, Capt. Stevens, of the C. H. Mallory
& Co.'s New York and Nassau line, which, on its way to New
York, had stopped there for passengers and freight. We found
it a good ship, well officered, manned and equipped, though the
closing of the Royal Victoria Hotel caused it to be crowded with
passengers, but as during the voyage the weather was pleasant)
little inconvenience was experienced from that cause, the cases of
sea sickness being very few in number and mild in type. The pas
sengers spent the days upon deck, and many of the evenings also,
notwithstanding the heavy dews. The profound mystery" which
seems ever to brood over the ocean and penetrate its profound
depths, is greatly intensified at night. We were much impressed
with it as our gallant ship tore and leaped into the dark, leaving
behind a brilliant but troubled path of foain-and fire. Around
it the phosphorescent light gleamed in the waves and sparkled
in the spray. A halo of white and luminous foam girdled the
ship, which, with its long and brilliant train, made it seem,
prehaps, to the marine monsters miles below under its keel, like
a strange comet of the sea.
While sitting in the evening upon one of the camp stools with
which the deck of the Austin was supplied, Captain Stevens oe-

THE CAPTAIN^ STORY. 353
casionally favored us with his presence, and we succeeded in ob
taining from him some interesting stories of the sea, founded upon
his personal experience. He is a medium sized, strongly built,
calm, cool-headed, self-possessed man, on whose judgment and
discretion we think one may safely rely in time of danger. His
hair is perfectly white, but not with age, as he is only some forty-
two or forty-three years old. Having spent most of his life
upon the water, and been a number of times shipwrecked, the
hardships he has endured have left their record upon his hair.
One evening while the captain was making a tour of inspection
of the ship, ho stopped for awhile and occupied a seat on deck
beside us. We were between Capes Lookout and Hatteras, and
sailing over what the sailors call, on account of the foul weather
often experienced there, "the ragged edge of the ocean." The
perils incident to and inseparable from the navigation of the
ocean by steam having been referred to, Captain Stevens, in
illustration ofthe subject, said: "Disasters occur upon the water
sometimes from unexpected and inexplicable causes. A few
years ago I commanded a steamer which foundered and went
to the bottom when the weather was fair and the sea smooth.
It occurred at a place very near where we are now. She had
not been, so far as I knew or was informed, weakened by
storms, or damaged by any of those accidents to which steamers
and other vessels are sometimes exposed. In the night, some
two hours or more before daybreak, the engineer sent me word
that the ship was leaking, and the water steadily gaining upon
the pumps. I found that the entire loss of the ship was only a
matter of a few hours time. I gave directions to have a report
sent to me every fifteen minutes of the progress of the water,
and commenced at once making arrangements for abandoning
the vessel. The second officer asked if he should not awaken the
passengers. I replied, no; let them sleep on — and they did.

354 ISLES OF SUMMER.
They no doubt would have had less pleasant dreams if they had
known or suspected that the ship all the time was gradually set
tling down deeper and deeper in the water. I sent up signal
rockets of distress, and kept the crew busy. All the life boats
were made ready for immediate use, and when every practicable
measure to ensure the preservation of life had been taken, the
passengers were awakened and informed of the condition of the
ship, and of the steps I had taken to prevent any loss of life.-
Although greatly surprised, and somewhat excited, there was no
panic, and all behaved well. In the dim morning light, a steamer,
that had noticed our signals, was seen in the distance approaching.-
Her captain, upon learning our condition, agreed to receive us
on board, and did so. The transfer was quietly and safely effect
ed. No boat was swamped, and everything passed off as quietly
as a military dress parade. After the personal safety of all the
passengers and crew was assured, I proposed, as my ship was still
afloat, to make an effort to save the baggage. This I succeeded
in doing; but I had no sooner returned with the last boat-load
of trunks, when the abandoned steamer sank out of sight."
The quiet, modest way in which Captain Stevens described this
thrilling episode in his life upon the ocean, in connection with*
the facts of the case as he had described them, very favorably
impressed us. Coolness and courage in time of peril must accom
pany and supplement sagacity, prudence and a thorough knowl
edge of one's business, in order to qualify a man to properly fill
the responsible position which he occupied.
Little Sankey was included among our passengers. He was
the protege of- the captain, who, having been attracted by his
shining qualities, concluded to transplant the little tropical
negro, and see what effect cultivation upon American soil would
produce. Good citizens are sometimes made out of less promising
materials. Having become acquainted with many of the passen-

WELCOMES FROM SHIP TO SHORE. 355
gers in the court of tho Royal Victoria Hotel, he received, parr
ticularly from the ladies, attentions which helped to palliate the
heart-aches incident to a sudden sundering of all the tendrils of
affection that had bound him to the small coral island upon which
he was born and reared. Words of kindness were mingled with
the small coin given him from time to time, partly as a reward
for such services as he was able to render. Sometimes he was
seen reclining upon packages of freight, taciturn and sober,
apparently the victim of two maladies — sea-sickness and sickness
of the heart. He, however, manifested as much fortitude and
cheerfulness as could be expected under the peculiar circum
stances in which he was placed.
Although during our absence new scenes had afforded us much
enjoyment, while relaxation from business and a change of air
had been of substantial benefit in a sanitary point of view, our
hearts throbbed with no small degree of pleasurable excitement
as we approached the city of New York, through shores which
art and nature have done so much to adorn. Long Island and
the Island of Manhattan, as seen from the deck of the Austin,
belted with forests of masts, enlivened by numberless steamers,
each with passengers enough to make a good sized town, and
covered with the immense warehouses and palaces of merchant
princes, together with the constantly increasing evidences that
we were in close proximity to vast, swift, and ever changing
eddies and currents of human life, strangely and sharply con
trasted with all that we had seen and experienced among the Isles
of Summer, upon the peninsular of Florida, and in ocean soli
tudes. Our .return to the north was well-timed. The morning was
lovely; the air of a most agreeable temperature; the sky cloud
less. Nature, with smiling face, welcomed us home. The little
dimpled waves glistened and gleefully danced in the sun-light.

35*3 ISLES OF SUMMliS.
Brooklyn' from her heights, Jersey City from her lowly position
upon the shore, and New York from behind her shipping, seemed
to waft us pleasant greetings. Our fellow passengers thronged
the deck of the Austin, and exchanged cards and congratulations.
We again found that the love of native land is intensified by ab
sence. Exile hallows and makes home more sacred. The earth
ly home suggested the heavenly, and we repeated the poet's ap
propriate and tuneful numbers —
"Lone voyager on time's-seal
When my dull night of being shall be past,
O may I waken in a land at last,
"Welcome as this to me!"

YALE UNIVERSITY

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