WONDERS OF THE DEEP 31 



were claimed by the discoverer, made no attempt 

 to occupy them permanently, but carried away 

 almost the whole of the native population to San 

 Domingo to work in the mines or dive for pearls, 

 and for more than a hundred years these islands 

 became verdant deserts. As many as forty thou- 

 sand natives are said to have been deported. It 

 was not until the seventeenth century that the 

 Bahamas were frequented by vessels from the 

 Bermudas, situated about six hundred miles from 

 the eastern coast of the United States, which came 

 to obtain large quantities of salt. During the 

 seventeenth century a Captain Sayle was wrecked 

 on one of the islands, and the favourable account 

 that he gave of them caused the proprietors of 

 Carolina to petition King Charles II. of England 

 to grant them possession of the islands. Captain 

 Sayle had named the island on which he was 

 shipwrecked " New Providence," and it is on this 

 island that the capital, Nassau, is situated. 



The Bahamas have passed through many vicis- 

 situdes, having been plundered at various times, 

 first by the French and then by the Spaniards, 

 who, at each plundering expedition, carried off a 

 number of the negroes. Early in the eighteenth 

 century the island of New Providence became a 

 favourite and notorious rendezvous for pirates. 

 Some ten years later, as an outcome of an appeal 

 of the merchants of London and Bristol to the 

 Crown, to take stringent and effective measures to 

 restore order in the island and root out the 



