286 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



the rarest and most splendid sight is to be had. The 

 boat swims on a substance of crystalline fluidity in 

 which, as in the air, it seems to hang. Those un- 

 accustomed are like to grow giddy at the sight. Be- 

 low, on the pure white sand covering the bottom, one 

 can make out every detail, reptilia of a thousand forms, 

 sea-urchins and sea-stars, slugs, shell-fish and parti- 

 colored fishes ; one floats above whole forests of stately 

 sea-plants, gorgoniae, corals, alcyoniae, flabellae, and 

 many sorts of shrubby spongious growths, their colors 

 not less delighting the eye, and as softly moved by the 

 waves back and forth as a flower-strewn field of the 

 earth. The eye is deceived in judging the depth at 

 which these objects are visible. Thinking to grasp 

 plants with the hand, it appears that they are hardly 

 to be reached by a rudder 6-8 and 10 ft. long. 



Only among the islands lying more closely together, 

 and near about the larger islands, are these subma- 

 rine gardens to be found, at least they are only per- 

 ceptible to the eye where the bottom is no deeper than 

 can be reached by the rays of light ; which is the case 

 up to 60 ft. and more. If these island groups are 

 imagined as individual mountains set in the bosom of 

 the ocean, then the shallow passages between the emer- 

 gent peaks are to be regarded as so many valleys over- 

 flowd by the sea. For the conditions in general are 

 quite otherwise. Near in to Providence Island, out- 

 side the harbor (and it is the same between the other 

 larger islands) no bottom is commonly to be had, a 

 very slight distance from the shore, at 100 fathoms 

 and over, and the sea above these depths has, a good 

 way off, a sinister and black appearance. The Bahama 

 islands are therefore rightly to be regarded as high 



