ST. AUGUSTIN TO BAHAMA ISLANDS 299 



brown substance, earthy or resinous-earthy. The 

 ants are white. 



Because of unfavorable winds I made a vain at- 

 tempt, in a boat specially hired, to visit the eastern 

 islands, particularly Exuma. 



Another time I visited Rose Island, whither we 

 were four hours on the way from Providence, passing 

 many Keys as they are called, single rocks upstanding 

 bare and barren. These make a splendid and rare 

 spectacle, what with their picturesque look and the 

 mad tumult of the waves ceaselessly playing upon 

 them, foaming and springing high. These Keys are 

 almost all of them edged around with steep, sharp 

 rocks, so that a landing can seldom be made, and then 

 not without difficulty and danger. Shortly before sun- 

 set we approached Rose Island, through a narrow, 

 rocky bight where a steep wall must be climbed on 

 landing. The island is very small. A fisherman was 

 living among the rocks in a hut made of palmetto- 

 leaves, and he with his family compose the garrison of 

 the island. Truly an ocean hermitage ; its only neigh- 

 bors black points of rock here and there dismally 

 emergent from the sea. The island is quite grown 

 over with bush, in the middle a spring of sweet water, 

 without which living here would be impossible. Night 

 coming on splinters of Torch-wood (Amyris sylvo 

 tica L.) served for lights. This torch- wood (light- 

 wood) is a slender tree, its wood very resinous, fat, 

 and black ; its leaves are egg-shaped, pointed, always 

 3 and 3 together, and of a sharp taste, like pepper. 



The wife and children of the fisherman were en- 

 gaged in boiling in a great iron kettle the fruit of a tree 

 which they call the Mastick-tree {Ximenia inermis 



