44 ISLES OF SFMIIES. 



it to become for these islands the scat and focus of civil, political, 

 ecclesiastical, and military power. Without its geographical and 

 topographical advantages, it is not probable that within its nar- 

 row borders a Colonial Governor Avould ever have had his resi- 

 dence, an Episcopal Bishop his seat, or two companies of her 

 majesty's colored troops their barracks. ISo old and rusty guns 

 Avonld have given to the crests o± its hills a military and warlike 

 aspect; jurisprudence would have soug.it elsewhere room for ner 

 highest courts, and no colonial representatives or lords would 

 have occujDied imported hi£:h-baeked chairs in its legislative 

 halls. 



New ProYidencc has an extreme length of about nineteen and 

 three-eights miles from east to west; an extreme width of about 

 seven miles from north to south; an average width of about five 

 miles; and embraces a total area of about eighty-five square 

 miles. From the north shore in front of Nassau, the distance 

 across the island is between five and six miles. With the excep- 

 tion of a very few square miles occui^ied by Nassau and its sub- 

 urbs, there is little upon the island except water and wilderness; 

 the former brackish, and throbbing and in some ^^laces appear- 

 ing and disappearing with the long pulsations of the sea's diurnal 

 tides, and the latter, to a large extent, a dense low jungle, with 

 stretches of pitch pine forests rising from a thick undergrowth 

 of scrub palmettoes, all being root-fastened to the rocks and ap- 

 parently living like Dr. Tanner during his recent forty days' fast, 

 exclusively upon air and water. 



The western extremity of New Providence is called Clifton 

 Point, and its eastern extremity. East Point. In a south-west- 

 erly direction from Nassau, at a distance of probably seven or 

 eight miles. Lake Killarney is situated — a body of shallow, brack- 

 ish water nearly three miles in length from east to west, and 

 about two and three-fifth miles in width from north to south. 



