222 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It is not proposed to follow the haps and mishaps of this unique 

 cruise, but simply to introduce a few of the observations which it 

 afforded to illustrate our present topic. The first landing was 

 made at Current, a small settlement on the northerly end of the 

 island of Eleuthera. Here was found a people truly Arcadian in 

 simplicity. In a population of four or five hundred not more than 

 one-tenth were pure white and there Avere all shades of color, from 

 the Caucasian to the darkest African, of a race so pure that they 

 still cling to the native African hut with its wattled, mud-plastered 

 walls and are as shy and coy as partridges. None but women, 

 children and aged men were found at home, the able-bodied men 

 being away sponge lishing, either among the Cays or at Key West, 

 where there is more profit to be obtained. The best house in the 

 settlement was a modern looking dwelling built of wood, new, com- 

 fortable, and with glazed windows, which were the only ones in the 

 settlement. It belonged to a young white man who had built it at 

 the cost of about 8750, married a proper wife, and then returned 

 to his sponge fishing. This matter of glazed windows is more 

 important than would appear until it is understood that all houses, 

 great or small, furnished with glazed windows are taxed five dollars 

 per year. Owing to the extreme salubrity of the climate the win- 

 dows of most houses in the settlement and those of the negroes in 

 Nassau, are only closed at night or during violent tempests, which 

 sometimes rage, and then with wooden shutters or blinds. 



There was neither almshouse nor pauper, lock-up nor tramp, 

 court nor criminal, but there was a clean white stone chapel and a 

 school-house filled with bright looking children. Highways there 

 were, ample and grass-grown, but no horses or carriages ; cocoa-nut 

 and orange trees in abundance but no connnerce, manufactures, or 

 trade. This was the counterpart of some of the old towns on our 

 own cape where fisherman and sailor simply dwell. 



Harbor Island, which has a mixed population of about two 

 thousand, is a picturesque spot, to the east of Eleuthera, enclosing 

 an excellent harbor between its shores, and there was more activity 

 in the way of ship and boat building. Upon the substantial stone 

 pier was a shipment of tomatoes ready to load for Nassau and New 

 York. This industry of supplying tomatoes for the winter market 

 in the north has languished of late years, partly from the uncertainty 

 of connecting with the steamer at Nassau, but more particularly 

 from the failure of the growers to maintain the relative excellence 



