150 On the trail of vanishing birds 



colony said to be nesting somewhere on the west side of Great 

 Abaco Island, in an extensive and little-known region called "The 

 Marls." With Forsyth I made two trips into this area and thus 

 got to know it at first hand, as well as other things with the Abaco 

 label stamped indelibly upon them. One of these was the mail 

 boat. Although for some inexplicable reason she is named after a 

 pirate who was hanged in the autumn of 1718 high on Charleston's 

 Execution Dock, there is nothing swashbuckling about her. On the 

 contrary. Like most of the boats that make scheduled runs among 

 the Out Islands of the Bahamas, she has the appearance of having 

 been rebuilt out of something that must have been a great deal 

 trimmer to begin with, but not sufficiently capacious as to pas- 

 senger accommodations, a shortcoming that had been corrected 

 with a vengeance. And, from the crowd that was gathered in the 

 pier shed a half hour before sailing time, every cubic foot of space 

 was going to be needed. 



At Government House in Nassau, Sir Robert Neville, then 

 governor of the colony, and as such patron of the newly formed 

 Society for the Protection of the Flamingo, had expressed keen 

 interest in our plans. I reminded him of an earlier governor, Sir 

 Henry Blake, who had been the first to describe this Abaco colony, 

 following his visit of June, 1887, when there were a good many 

 more flamingos in the area than we would be likely to see. 



With our arms full of duffle and a box of groceries (for we had 

 been warned that the shops of Abaco, though surprisingly nu- 

 merous, are not overstocked), we clambered aboard and a few 

 minutes later, at 5 P.M., the whistle blew, the lines were let go, 

 and with much shouting and waving we were on our way. It is 

 astonishing the number of people that travel on these out-island 

 boats. The decks fairly swarmed. To cut expenses, Forsyth and I 

 booked the least promising accommodations, as it was only an 

 overnight run. These turned out to be a sort of after forecastle next 

 to the steering engine, where double tiers of bunks had been built 

 in against the hull on one side and the steering-engine housing on 

 the other. Excess baggage, including her own, had been piled 

 helter-skelter in the passage, so that one could scarcely climb 

 through. It was a regular obstacle course. From overhead, strings 



