326 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



would rather die by their flag than alack an inch to progress 

 and reform ! 



In the meantime Fobebt and Stream scores one for the 

 yawl rig. 



THE LESSER ANTILLES AS A TOUR- 

 IST'S RESORT. 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, practical natural History, 

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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1878. 



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COMING ROUND. 



BTJT a very short time ago it would have been considered 

 high treason to even mention the yawl rig as likely to 

 obtain standing in America. From a letter by " Podgers" in 

 this issue it will be seen that even one of the country's best 

 patriots has so far disfranchised himself as to advocate a 

 foreign rig. Modified somewhat, of course, the jump from 

 the old time rig of the brick lighter to that of a sea-going 

 yawl is too abrupt to expect the leap to be made at once, 

 But it will all come in due time, and with the yawl, the cut- 

 ter as well. To a sea-faring person the advantages of either 

 rig are so patent that we venture to base a prediction upon 

 this fact, that the day is not far off when yawl and cutter 

 will cease to excite astonishment, for they will be common in 

 our waters. When a stout defender of everything and any- 

 thing American can so far cut adrift from the Bourbonism 

 characteristic of yachting in America as to rig out a boomkin 

 aft and deliberately sail with a "stub-tail" boom, there is 

 hope Indeed for better things to come. First, one step, then 

 another, finally the last. Oe n'est que le premier pas que coute. 

 Cutters in a modified form are multiplying in these waters 

 faster than the most sanguine advocate of a handy rig could 

 hope. Old prejudices once pierced soon give way to nobler 

 aims. Even such racing machines as Vision and other sloops, 

 in which everything was sacrificed to speed in a mill pond, 

 will never come back to the single jib. 



The yawl in San Francisco, the cutter rig in New York 

 and Boston: how long can the shallow Bloop hold out against 

 a model worthier the name of yacht? Such radical opinions 

 as these wdl call down upon our head anathemas by the ton 

 from the faithful. In time, though, even the most loyal will 

 sing another tune. Our word for it, we know whereof we 

 speak. 



But the case shall not by any means be conducted ex parte. 

 Our columns are alike open to all— to the sloop sailers, the 

 smooth-water racers, to the cruisers and the patriots, who 



LET us direct the attention of pleasure seekers, and es- 

 pecially of our gentlemen who own yachts, to these 

 Windward Islands. Our adventurous friend and correspond- 

 ent, Fred A. Ober, has just returned from a two years' cruise 

 among them. He is a naturalist and a photographer. He 

 has brought home trophies, charming souvenu-s, and number- 

 less mementoes of the natural attractions of these enchanted 

 isles, which have revived the remembrance of a hundred ro- 

 mances whose scenes were laid among the waving palms, the 

 coral reefs, and mountain forests which overlook and gem the 

 sub-tropical seas. To the ignorant and uninitiated the unfold- 

 ing of his album and portfolio are like the revelations of won- 

 derland. They recall to mind the earliest recorded American 

 discoveries ; the weird history of the Spanish Main ; the 

 savagery of barbarous races of men ; the mysteries of the en- 

 chanted isles of Shakspoare's time ; the outfitting of armadoes , 

 the search and scramble for precious stones and gold ; and 

 the bloody story of conquest or failure. Here is where Co- 

 lumbus first sighted shore ; yonder is the island of Robinson 

 Crusoe, so literally described by Defoe in all its details j 

 there-is where the Empress Josephine was born, who shaped 

 the fortunes of Napoleon. On every little separate sea-girt 

 realm are imperishable mementoes of ancient deeds and great 

 achievements which seem to be forgotten in these latter days, 

 but which are most intimately related to and interwoven with 

 the world's past history and the fate and status of great 

 nations. 



But what other conception has the modern school boy of 

 the West India Islands except as wilderness territory pos- 

 sessed by its primitive inhabitants, or long since abandoned to 

 negroes who have become worse than savage because they have 

 relapsed from semi-civilization to primitive savagery ? The 

 pictures he draws are of ruined estates choked up by weeds; 

 and overrun by reptiles, who form such a horrid cordon 

 around each sea-girt shore that all the luxuriance and wealth 

 of tropical products and beautiful plumage of rarest birds offer 

 no compensation for the dangers of approach ; no life on 

 shore save the screams of harsh-voiced birds, and nothing to 

 break the monotony of the unruffled sea save the dip of the 

 paddle and the chant of half-nude men in log canoes. 



Twenty years ago Anthony Trollope wrote a book entitled 

 " West Indies and the Spanish Main," of which two dozen 

 pages only were devoted to the Lesser Antilles, and some 

 four hundred to Jamaica, Cuba, Central America, etc. This 

 is fihrmt the proportion of knowledge which most people have 

 of the islands of the Caribbean Sea. Certainly there is no 

 intercourse kept up between them and the continental hemi- 

 spheres. Postage on letters is twelve cents, and on 

 newspapers absolutely prohibitory. The few dingy colonial 

 weeklies give only meagre abstracts of those events which 

 especially interest their respective diminutive domains. 

 There are no lines of steamers, no sailing packets, and no 

 means of communication except by vessels which call for 

 sugar, fruit and native woods. The aristocratic proprietors 

 of the islands keep up their little courts and social distinc- 

 tions, and drink imported clarets, Sauterne and Bass' ale to 

 their absent friends in France and Great Britain. The French 

 people never have seen France ; generations before them 

 were born on the islands ; they have never seen other little 

 worlds than their own ; and our correspondent assures ua 

 that they thought it impossible that he could be an Am erican. 

 " He must be of some other nation, for he did not look rough 

 or speak through his nose." The only American representa- 

 tives the innocent Creoles had ever seen were the skippers 

 who come to their wharves and quays from the seaports of 

 New England. 



One of these days Mr. Ober will write a book in which 

 will appear sketches of natural scenery and photographs of 

 art which will astonish those residents of Europe and North 

 America who know nothing of the dwellers in the intermedi- 

 ate seas— nothing more than those dwellers know of us! 

 Instead of savages and barbarians they will see noble 

 cities like those of Basseterre in Guadaloupe and St. Pierre 

 in Martinique, whose delightful, well-lighted stone piers with 

 well kept steps ; quays shaded by trees; pure water conduits 

 through the streets ; handsome shops and houses ; and all the 

 evidences of polite and good society ; make one envious and 

 ambitious to emulate. There are memorial temples and 

 statues, lagoons like those of Venice on which barges float 

 under overhanging trees, shaded avenues and iron-fenced 

 parks. An hour's ride by carriage will convey one at any 

 time from oppressive heat to the cool upper altitudes of the 

 forest-covered mountains, where refreshing springs gush out 

 of the cliffs and tumble over rocks in successive cascades on 

 their way to the sea. On some of the very mountain tops 

 are lakes, nay, one of them (in Dominica) boiling hot. Some 

 of the little harbors are circular, and absolutely so land-locked 

 and sea- washed by breakers that a vessel often has to wait for 

 weeks for a fair wind to waft her out. All varieties of tropi- 

 cal fruit abound. At Barbuda is most excellent deer hunting, 

 from English imported stock. Feathered game abounds. 

 The natives, too, are not full negroes, but mixed people of all 

 tints, from pale white to bronze. Even the Caribs who once 

 ate human flesh, a hundred years ago, are comely to gaze 



upon. Many of the women have beantiful long hair. They 

 dress in modern style, and make comfortable company for 

 lone naturalists and wanderers from home. Were it not for 

 very venomous snakes on a few of the islands nothing would 

 mar the beatitude of these Edcnal retreats. 



What place, then, more charming for a winter cruise ? Last 

 year two of our most adventurous and sensible yachtsmen 

 visited portions of the West Indies ; but they told us little, if 

 anything, of what they saw, or how they enjoyed their voy- 

 . When Lord Dufferin, prince of sportsmen, took his 

 yacht Foam to high latitudes, he wrote a book, and that which 

 the world knows best of the icy regions he visited is to be 

 found between its leaves. Let our own Americans spend their 

 leisure time in exploring this enchanting realm of peace and 

 novelty. We have advocated the construction and use of sea- 

 going crart, so that some equivalent besides precarious prize 

 cups and pennants could be obtained for lavish expenditure of 

 money and spread of canvas. Hero are golden opportunities 

 to try the merits of centre-boards and kee!s. We have in one^ 

 of our clubs a representative of America's best nobility, and 

 the owner of a yacht long celebrated who annually takes his 

 family on a summer cruise to the northward. There are others 

 who habitually winter in Florida. Let the example of our 

 more adventurous and practical yachtsmen be followed more- 

 generally; and now that we have indicateirthe route for them,, 

 we guarantee that they will be more than satisfied when they 

 have once put our advice to a practical test. 



Our readers will be interested in looking at the portrait of 

 Mr. Ober in this week's paper. We understand he will soort 

 take another voyage in behalf of the Saiiihsoaian Institution. 

 Meanwhile we are encouraged to expect a aeries of lctteis 

 from his pen, prepared from bis diary and giving a general 

 account of his two years' travels. 



ORIGIN OF THE SLIDING SEAT. 



THE first records wc have of the practicable application of 

 the principles of the sliding seat date back to 1857. 

 The idea seemed to have been taken from the local customs in 

 vogue among New Castle, Eng. , boatmen. Their boats were pro- 

 vided with very wide thwarts, carefully greased, ("slushed") 

 and the men working the long heavy oars had their trousers 

 shod with leather in the scat, and slid across the thwarts at 

 every stroke. This practice was induced by the nature of tho 

 work, the boats with heavy loads requiring long, slow etrokts 

 with sweeps of considerable weight. Before the mechanical 

 contrivances for accomplishing the same object came into use, 

 the long stroke was accomplished in shell rowing through 

 means identical with those of tho leas scientific oarsmen of the 

 lumbering New Castle conveyances, and one of the peculiari- 

 ties of the oarsman's uniform consisted in a well greased stern 

 to facilitate his slippery operations in a pull. When once the 

 value of the new style had been generally accepted in rowing 

 circles, it was not long before inventive genius was brought 

 to bear upon the subject and a more perfect movement se- 

 cured through mechanism than could be depended upon from 

 the sources of grease, always liable at a critical moment to dry 

 up, leaving the crew to fall back upon the old short chop or 

 take the chances of setting something a-fire by friction. We 

 believe the credit of first accurately getting afloat with a 

 sliding seat is due to Mr. J. C. Babcock, formerly captain of 

 the Nassau B. 0. of this city, but he abandoned the arrange- 

 ment after a short test, for what reason we cannot state, 

 though he was in favor of its introduction. The rig was not 

 allowed to fall into disuse, for in 1870 Walter Brown took 

 out a patent and fitted up a six-oared gig for the New York 

 Rowing Club with the sliding seat. This boat was probably 

 the first one so supplied in which a regular race was rowed. 

 But for want of experience the slide was given too great a 

 range, and the crew did not work well together. Brown him- 

 self gave up the rig after having experimented with it for a 

 season. His seat differed from those in use at the present day 

 only in some of the practical details. It consisted of a stout 

 leather bottom stretched across a frame sliding in grooves in 

 horizontal pieces. The range was ten inches, but six inches 

 only were found to be of actual service. In England, Mr. J. 

 Searle, one of the best known builders of light craft about 

 London, took out a patent for an improved slide. The seat 

 was of wood, and supplied with metal studs at each end, 

 cupped out at their base and grasping rods of glass, along 

 which they traveled. At the ends of the rod wero rubber 

 buffers, intended to ease up the last of the movement and help 

 in sending the seat off in the opposite direction. On account 

 of the repeated breaking of the roJs, copper and steel were 

 finally substituted, and arrangements of this kind are now 

 most common in England. A variety of patterns have come 

 into use with us, but from the large number of accidents hap. 

 pemng, in the way of unshipping the slide, it is certain that 

 there is plenty of room for further improvement. It would 

 seem simple enough to devise some plan whereby the recur- 

 rence of such mishaps could be entirely obviated. The only 

 wonder is that the necessary precautions have not been 

 generally adopted long ago. 



The Lubay Cavekn.— Subterranean caverns are wonder, 

 ful chiefly because they are buried and hidden from sight. 

 Hidden things are mysterious and therefore interesting. 

 Viewed in the light of open day, the curious rock formations, 

 diversified contours, and broken surfaces would appear sim- 

 ply as counterparts of hundreds of localities above ground 

 which attract no special attention or mention. Remove the 

 tellurian crust which covers the Mammoth Cave, Weyert 



