184 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[October, 



thousands of small islets or ' keys,' 

 separated from each other by narrow, 

 winding channels. Some of the keys 

 are ten or twelve miles around, while 

 others are no larger than a small 

 house. They are high and well 

 wooded, with bold headlands and 

 cliffs, and long, winding bays and 

 inlets. 



We had read many glowing de- 

 scriptions of the gorgeous beauty of 

 the tropics, but these were all forgot- 

 ten, and we felt that we were entering 

 a land where everything was new. 

 Our reason refused to put any limit to 

 the wonderful discoveries which filled 

 our imagination, and as we sailed 

 slowly past cliffs bathed in spray from 

 the breakers which rolled in from the 

 ocean, past the mouths of caves which 

 the sea had hollowed out in the lime- 

 stone rock, past deep bays and long, 

 winding sounds which penetrated 

 deep into the islands, our fancy peo- 

 pled every cave and tide-pool with 

 strange animals new to science, and 

 we felt all the glow of enthusiasm 

 which we experienced when we first 

 entered a scientific laboratorv and 

 prepared to solve all the problems of 

 the unknown universe. 



Navigation among the sunken reefs 

 and submerged islands, which are 

 much more numerous than those 

 above water, is very dangerous. A 

 few miles away the ocean is more 

 than three miles deep, with no land 

 nearer than Africa, and the heavy sea 

 which is always pounding upon the 

 outer reefs soon puts an end to any 

 vessel which deviates from the narrow 

 winding channels between the ledges 

 of growing coral : but our pilot 

 steered us safely through the crooked 

 inlet between Whale Key and No- 

 Name Key into the inner sound. 



Here we saw for the first time that 

 intensely green sea which has been so 

 frequently mentioned by voyagers 

 among coral islands. This vivid 

 color soon became more familiar, but 

 never lost its novelty, and it still 

 holds its place as the most brilliant 



and characteristic feature of this 

 highly-colored landscape, and it is 

 totally unlike anything which is to be 

 seen anywhere except in a coral sea. 



The water is so perfectly pure and 

 clear that small objects like shells and 

 star-fish are visible on the pui'e white 

 coral sand at a depth of 50 or 60 feet, 

 and the sunlight, which is reflected 

 from the white bottom, gives to the 

 water a vivid green lustre, which is 

 totally unlike anything in our familiar 

 conception of water. The whole sur- 

 face of the sound seemed to be illum- 

 inated by an intense-green phosphor- 

 escent light, and it looked more like the 

 sui^face of a gigantic polished crystal 

 of beryl than water. The sky was 

 perfectly clear and cloudless, and 

 overhead it was of a deep-blue color, 

 but near the horizon the blue was so 

 completely eclipsed by the vivid green 

 of the water that the complementary 

 color was brought out, and the blue ' 

 was changed to a lurid pink as in- 

 tense as that of a November sunset. 

 The white foam which drifted by the 

 vessel on the green water appeared 

 as red as carmine, and I afterwards 

 found in a vovage through the sounds 

 in a white schooner that the sides of 

 the vessel seemed to have a thin coat 

 of rose-colored paint when seen over 

 the rail against the brilliant green. 



We came to anchor in the mouth of 

 a beautiful winding bay, in water 

 about thirty feet deep, but so clear 

 that the vessel seemed to float in air, 

 and the motions of the gigantic star- 

 fishes and sea urchins could be studied 

 on the white bottom as well as if they 

 were in an aquarium. The shores of 

 the bay are high and rocky and well 

 wooded down to the water's edge, 

 where the vegetation ends in a fringe 

 of mangrove bushes perched above 

 the pure salt water on their long, 

 stilt-like roots, which arch up from 

 the bottom like the ribs of a great 

 umbrella, to meet several feet above 

 the water at the point from which the 

 main stem arises. Behind us, several 

 miles away, is the ' main-land ' of 

 Abaco, separated from us by the green 



