1886.] 



MICROSCOPICAL JOUENAL. 



185 



water of the sound, which stretches 

 in both directions as far as the horizon. 

 In front of us, on the shore of the 

 bay, lies the town of Green Turtle, a 

 much more prosperous and civilized 

 place than we had been led to expect, 

 with freshly-painted two-story stone 

 and frame houses, set side by side 

 close to the straight, narrow main 

 street, which is used only as a foot- 

 path, as there are no horses or cattle 

 nearer than Nassau. The main street, 

 which is called Broadway, is hardly 

 more than ten feet wide, while the 

 cross streets are iust wide enough for 

 two persons to pass. They are bor- 

 dered by stone walls or high fences, 

 and are perfectly level, as clean as 

 the deck of a vessel, pure white, with 

 a bed of solid coral limestone, the 

 inequalities of which are filled with 

 cement. 



This description applies to only the 

 better portions of the town where the 

 white natives and a very few of the 

 negroes live. On one side of the hai-- 

 bor a long, low sand spit separates 

 this portion from the much more pic- 

 turesque portion inhabited by the 

 poorer people, most of whom are 

 negroes. Here the little palm- 

 thatched huts, without doors or win- 

 dows or chimneys, most of them in 

 the most attractive stages of pictur- 

 esque decay and dilapidation, with- 

 out any regular arrangement nestle in 

 a thicket of aloe and cactus and ba- 

 nanas and castor-oil plant, which 

 runs parallel to the white sand beach, 

 and is penetrated here and there by 

 the narrow white foot-paths which 

 lead to the huts. 



Beyond the town the island ends 

 in a bold, overhanging cliff, separ- 

 ated by a narrow inlet from a small, 

 low island, Pelican Key, which is 

 covered by a growth of cocoanut 

 trees. From ovu" anchorage we can 

 look out through this inlet, framed 

 between the two islands, and can see 

 the vivid green gradually fading as 

 the water deepens towards the edge 

 of the reef, which is marked by a 

 line of white breakers, heaving and I 



tossing as the swell rolls in from the 

 deep blue water which stretches be- 

 yond until it merges with the lighter 

 blue of the cloudless sk}^ 



Every outline is so sharply defined 

 in the pure atmosphere, and so many 

 elements are crowded into the bril- 

 liantly-colored picture, that it is more 

 like a landscape traced by fancy in 

 the clouds at sunset than a substan- 

 tial reality, and the whole is so much 

 like fairy-land that we feel that if we 

 should shut our eyes for a few min- 

 utes we should expect on opening 

 them to find the picture dissolving 

 into clouds. 



Curbing our fancy, however, and 

 returning to the solid facts about us. 

 science tells us that the history of 

 the country is far stranger than anv 

 fairy story, and that, as the geologist 

 measures time, this whole group of 

 islands, stretching for six hundred 

 miles across the map, and furnishing 

 a home where thousands of people 

 are born and pass their lives, and 

 grow old and die, is actually as tran- 

 sient and unstable as a summer 

 cloud. Only a few years ago, as 

 years go with the geologist, every 

 particle of the land before us was 

 diffused through the ocean in invisi- 

 ble calcareous molecules, which have 

 been gathered from the waves and 

 deposited bv microscopic animals, 

 and everywhere about us we find 

 abundant proofs that if these animals 

 should cease their constructive la- 

 bors the whole would soon be dif- 

 fused through the ocean like the 

 lump of sugar which is dissolved by 

 our coffee. 



After we had familiarized our- 

 selves with this distant view, the 

 custom - house officer came aboard 

 and welcomed us to the islands in 

 the name of the British government, 

 and told us that, although we could 

 not be permitted to settle on shore 

 until the next day, we were at liberty 

 to land and explore. 



All the members of our party will 

 long remember the kind face of this 

 gentleman, Mr. Bethel, with whom 



