164 BAHAMA BIRD-LIFE 



panied by Prof. W. M. Wheeler, I had sailed from the latter 

 place in the schooner * ' Gloria. ' ' Three or four days should 

 have brought us to Mangrove Cay, Mr. Matthews ' home, 

 but it was May 8, when we left Florida, and not until May 

 17, that we anchored off our Bahaman haven. Surely no im- 

 patient naturalist was ever confronted with nine days filled 

 with more adverse conditions. Calms, squalls, head winds, 

 deceptive currents, shoals, reefs and coral heads, all fell to 

 our lot, while at one time, at nightfall, when a negro "pilot" 

 ran us hard and fast aground on a lee shore at high tide, the 

 whole expedition seemed threatened with an untimely end. 

 Indeed, subsequent experience in these waters indicated 

 that on this occasion we must have been under the protec- 

 tion of a special Providence. We were without barometer 

 or adequate charts, had no pilot, and not a man aboard the 

 ship had ever been over the route before. Sighting Great 

 Isaac 's light at sunset, we continued running all night to the 

 southeast with a fresh northeast wind, in the hope of 

 passing to the northward of the " Josie" (Joulter) Keys. 

 At daybreak land was in sight to the southward but, com- 

 paratively speaking, we hadn 't much more idea what it was 

 than Columbus had under not dissimilar conditions in these 

 waters, some years before. We, however, could understand 

 the language of the natives and overhauling a sponging 

 sloop whose captain expressed his wonder at "de fly-away 

 ting ' ' bearing down on him, we learned that the land ahead 

 was Bed Bay Settlement ! In other words, carried to the 

 westward by drift and possibly tide or current, we had gone 

 to the leeward instead of the windward of the Joulter Keys, 

 and were at the northwest, not the northeast end of Andros 

 and apparently would have to put back virtually to the 

 place we had left the preceding evening an all day's per- 

 formance. This, in effect, was equivalent to starting again 

 from Miami. 



However, when the captain of the sponger learned that 

 we drew only three-and-a-half feet of water with our center 



