CHAPTER III. 



EGG ISLAND AND THE BAHAMA BANKS. 



Egg Island is the last outlier of Eleuthera to the northwest, 

 and is situated, latitude 25" 30' , longitude 76055' . Although 

 it was not measured, its area is probably not far from a square 

 mile. In its center is a large pond, or lagoon, which was 

 nearly dry at the time of our visit, but in 1888 I found it filled 

 with water, rendering a boat necessary to cross it. This 

 island is of importance to the world at large from the fact that 

 between it and Abaco is the passage from our eastern coast 

 and Europe to Havana and the Florida Keys, the rapid cur- 

 rent of the Florida Straits between Great Bahama Island and 

 Little Bahama Bank on the one hand, and the Peninsula of 

 Florida on the other, rendering that passage impracticable for 

 sailing vessels. 



For many years a single white house on the highest point 

 of the island was a noted "hind fall" b}- day, and a light in 

 the window of the same house was all that warned the mar- 

 iner by night. Recently, however, the British government 

 has placed a small light-house by the side of the old house, 

 and now a light-keeper is regularly employed, and this im- 

 portant point is shorn of most of its dangers. 



After dropping anchor off Egg Island on the evening of 

 the 1 2th. one of the boats was lowered and a number of the 

 men went ashore for their first swim in tropical waters. 

 Landing in a little cove hemmed in by a coral sand beach, 

 they were soon luxuriating in a delicious bath, with rustling 

 palms almost over their heads, and the soft swell of the rollers 

 around them. The seasickness and other discomforts of the 

 past week were forgotten as soon as land was sighted. One 

 of the few redeeming features, by the way, of this dreadful 



