120 FLORA OF NEW PROVIDENCE AND ANDROS 



or Quarantine, and, farther seaward, Salt Cay. In the opposite direc- 

 tion a low level country, covered with trees and dotted here and there 

 with cocoanut groves, stretches away to the Blue Hills. 



Roughly speaking, the physical features of New Providence may be 

 described as a rocky ridge, about one hundred feet above sea-level at 

 its highest part, extending along the north side and covered with a 

 growth of angiospermous trees and shrubs ; a low central plain out of 

 which rises a second ridge, the Blue Hills, like the first, but narrower 

 and lower; then a slightly undulating region covered with the Bahama 

 pine, extending to the low and swampy south shore. The depressions 

 of the central plain are occupied by two quite large bodies of brackish 

 water, Lake Cunningham and Lake Killarney. The latter is the larger 

 and contains numerous mangrove islets. 



The rock of both islands is of /Eolian formation; it is very hard at 

 the surface, but becomes so much softer below that it is sawn into 

 blocks for a building stone. The surface erosion is most striking and 

 characteristic. In many places the rocks are fairly honeycombed with 

 holes, pits, and cavities of all sizes ; often sharp jagged points project, 

 making walking extremely difficult. The largest of the pits are locally 

 known as "banana holes" because they usually contain considerable 

 earth in which the people plant their bananas. They vary greatly in 

 size and shape, the majority being probably from eight to ten feet in 

 diameter; they are occasionally twenty feet in depth, but are usually 

 much shallower. Their sides are often lined with delicate ferns, many 

 of which grow nowhere else. 



There is little or no soil. Mark Catesby, the first naturalist to 

 visit the islands, wrote in 1754: "The Bahama Islands may not only 

 be said to be rocky, but are in reality entire Rocks, having the surface 

 in some Places thinly covered with a light Mould which in a series of 

 Time has been reduced to that Consistence from rotten Trees and 

 other Vegetables. Thus much of the Character of these Islands being 

 considered, one would expect that they afforded the disagreeable Pros- 

 pect of bear Rocks : But on the Contrary they are always covered with 

 perpetual Verdure and the Trees and Shrubs grow as close and are as 

 thick cloathed with Leaves as in the most luxuriant Soil." In some 

 places the soil is reddish, and this is considered the most fertile. 



Six weeks of our stay were spent at Ryswick, a country place that 

 we rented on the shore about three miles east of Nassau. Although 



