LIFE ON A CORAL ISLAND. 809 



umbrella to meet several feet above the water at the point from which 

 the main stem arises. Behind us, several miles away, is the "main- 

 land " of Abaco, separated from us by the green water of the sound, 

 which stretches in both directions as far as the horizon. In front of 

 us, on the shore of the bay, lies the town of Green Turtle, a much 

 more prosperous and civilized place than we had been led to expect, 

 with freshly painted two-story stone and frame houses, set side by 

 side close to the straight, narrow main street, which is used only as a 

 foot-path, as there are no horses or cattle nearer than Nassau. The 

 main street, which is called Broadway, is hardly more than ten feet 

 wide, while the cross-streets are just wide enough for two persons to 

 pass. They are bordered by stone walls or high fences, and are per- 

 fectly level, as clean as the deck of a vessel, pure white, with a bed 

 of solid coral limestone, the inequalities of which are filled with 

 cement. 



This description applies to only the better portions of the town, 

 where the white natives and a very few of the negroes live. On one 

 side of the harbor a long, low sand-spit separates this portion from 

 the much more picturesque portion inhabited by the poorer people, 

 most of whom are negroes. Here the little palm-thatched huts, without 

 doors or windows or chimneys, most of them in the most attractive 

 stages of picturesque decay and dilapidation, without any regular 

 arrangement nestle in a thicket of aloe and cactus and bananas and 

 castor-oil plant, which runs parallel to the white sand-beach, and is 

 penetrated here and there by the narrow white foot-paths which lead 

 to the huts. 



This is by far the most distinctive and interesting portion of the 

 town, and every feature of the landscape, the clear water, the white 

 beach, the tropical thicket, the thatched huts, the towering cocoanut- 

 trees, and the dark-green leaves of the bananas, are all so thoroughly 

 tropical that, as we lie on the deck of the little schooner floating on 

 the glassy surface of the calm water under the deep blue sky, with 

 great banks of white clouds piled up on the horizon, we have before 

 us every feature which our reading has led us to associate with coral 

 islands, and it is easy to imagine ourselves in the South Pacific. 



Our subsequent exploration of the Bahamas showed us that no- 

 where else in the whole group are so many of the characteristic pecul- 

 iarities of the tropics crowded into such a small space. We had very 

 scanty information when we made our selection, but the choice of 

 Green Turtle was a fortunate accident, for our first view of the islands 

 gave us a more intimate acquaintance with coral islands than we 

 should have gained in a month spent at Nassau. 



Beyond the town the island ends in a bold, overhanging cliff, sepa- 

 rated by a narrow inlet from a small, low island, Pelican Key, which 

 is covered by a growth of cocoanut-trees. From our anchorage we 

 can look out through this inlet, framed between the two islands, and 



