CHAPTER V 



An Island Existence 



In time we were to discover that Inagua was not only a 

 *'damned queer little island" but also one of those strange, 

 exotic and truly fascinating spots where fact borders close to 

 the marvelous. We were to find it a scene of almost unbeliev- 

 able beauty where color and movement, the wealth of natural 

 existence, was woven into a fretwork of intricate and absorb- 

 ing pattern. Yet we were, withal, to know it as a place inde- 

 finably sad, a peculiar, pathetic, wistful place where human 

 endeavor seemed to come to naught but emptiness and desola- 

 tion. There are times when I think of it as a place of unsof tened 

 newness, an island with the touch of the hard sea still upon it, 

 raw, a geologic experiment thrust up from the ocean by the 

 designing hand of nature. But paradoxically, and more often, 

 I think of it as a place of intense quiet, even of contentment, 

 a sea-born island of strange happenings where the beautiful, 

 the mystifying and the purely spectacular change one with the 

 other in kaleidoscopic variety. 



But for the moment we knew none of these things and only 

 thought of it in the light of Richardson's words. Inagua was a 

 "damned queer little island." We felt there could be no doubt 

 of it as we thankfully emerged from his doorway, happy to 

 escape. It was good to be out in the open again and we wished 

 that we were back at the Lagoon Christophe, that we had never 

 come to this forsaken town. But there was no help for it so 

 we stepped across the street to the red-shuttered government 

 building. A small crowd of idlers lounging in the shade of some 

 cashurinas stared as we approached; I was startled by the 



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