Chapter XII: An Isle of June--A Contrast

It was early on a bright winter morning that our good ship "San Jacinto" steamed into the harbour of Nassau, the capital of New Providence. As I leaned over the side and looked down into the waters over which our vessel moved, I could scarcely believe my eyes. It seemed impossible that water deep enough to float the ship should be so marvellously clear. We appeared to be gliding over a sheet of sea-green crystal. Not a pebble, bit of sponge, shell, fish, crab, or coral, but was distinctly visible, as if but a few inches below the surface. It was like floating in ether, for the glint of shimmering sunlight alone proved it was fluid. But water it was, and nothing else, for, as we neared the wharf, a score or so of dusky forms splashed into the briny mirror, breaking up its glassy surface, sent a spray of diamonds into the air, and then dived into its pellucid depths in quest of coppers liberally scattered by the amused passengers. "Please, Boss, deeve (give) us a small dive," was the entreaty shouted by a good dozen or so of dusky urchins, who, on the least encouragement, jerked off their coats and shirts and plunged into the sea. Sometimes they caught the coin before it touched the bottom, at others the diver remained quite a time searching for his prize, looking, as seen from above, with his wriggling arms and legs, like a huge black spider.

When Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of "GuanahanA"," on October 17th, 1492, and named the present island of New Providence San Salvador, he wrote a letter to the Spanish Sovereigns, full of his usual expressions of delighted enthusiasm. "The loveliness," says he, "of this island is like unto that of the CampaA+-a de Cordoba. The trees are all covered with ever-verdant foliage, and perpetually laden with flowers or fruit. The plants in the ground are full of blossom. The breezes are like those of April in Castille." Due allowance made for the exaggeration of an explorer, in love with the treasure he has found, it must still be confessed that his words, all glowing as they are, scarcely overpraise the charm of the peaceful scenery which so stirred his poetic ardour. For truly the Bahamas are islands like unto that chosen by Shakespeare for the scene of the "Tempest,"--

"Full of infinite delight."

New Providence is about twenty miles long by seven in breadth, and is the most important, though by no means the biggest, of the Bahama group, which numbers over 600 islands and cays, and contains some 45,000 inhabitants, of whom 20,000 reside in Nassau and its neighbourhood.

The history of the island since its discovery by Columbus, down through the Buccaneer period, is only interesting to its government and inhabitants. However dark may be the memories of its old pirate days, it is now a remarkably respectable place, not even a murder having thrown a shadow during the past twenty-five years on its nearly untarnished reputation. It would be difficult to imagine a quieter spot. On Sundays, especially, is it peaceful, when not only all the shops, but the majority of the house-shutters also, are closed, and the tranquil air is laden with church music of the most sober and orthodox description.

The impression produced upon the tourist arriving from Cuba is very striking, for it brings the different influences of the Spanish and the Anglo-Saxon races, upon the negroes, into vivid contrast. Personal observation only can, as I have already said, give any idea of the filth of the dwellings of the lower classes of Cubans, and especially of the blacks. The coloured folk of Nassau are, generally speaking, clean and tidy. Most of the Cuban towns are more or less squalid. The city of Nassau is, if anything, too prim, and its inhabitants are models of order both in their dress and habits. A glance reveals the fact that the coloured people here have been disciplined and trained by a race which is as certainly superior to the Spanish, in all that concerns practicality and common sense, as it is inferior to it in natural artistic instinct. I never saw anything--no, not even in the Whitechapel and Drury Lane districts of London--to surpass the unutterable disorder and general abomination of the interiors of the Cuban cottages. But as you pass along the roads at Nassau, and glance into the windows of the negroes' cottages, you will almost invariably see tidy interiors worthy of the brush of a Teniers or a David Wilkie; a floor on which you could eat your dinner; walls neatly papered with framed chromos symmetrically arranged upon them; spotless curtains; shining brass lamps and cooking utensils, and a bed covered with a counterpane as white as driven snow. If you peep in at meal times you will note a clean cloth covered with orderly-arranged plates and dishes. I am speaking of the dwellings of the negroes, of those self-same coloured people who, in the same climate, only a day and a half's journey away, in Cuba, dwell, under another race and civilization, in a condition too nasty to be described here.

Straws show how the wind blows. I saw a poor coloured woman, the day after I arrived in Nassau, soundly box her little girl's ears because she appeared in public with a few fluffs of cotton sticking in her wool. The ordinary afternoon occupation of the coloured ladies in Havana is to sit in the shade of the big plantain leaves, picking something rather more animated than cotton fluffs off each other's heads. The Cuban negresses dress flaringly. They trail a yard of skirt behind them in the dust, cover their shoulders with a vivid embroidered China crape scarf, and deck their heads with a mantilla. The effect is picturesque enough, but look down at their ankles, and you will soon perceive untidy petticoats and shoeless feet. The coloured girls at Nassau are remarkably neat and clean, especially on Sundays. The influence of the Sunday school teacher, preaching, and not in the desert, the gospel of those four great evangelists, soap and water, comb and brush, is everywhere manifest, even to the detriment of the picturesque.

As you drive through Grant's Town, the negro quarter of Nassau, you see so much to gladden you that it does more real good to an invalid than many a cunningly-prepared draught. Charmingly picturesque wooden huts, thatched with palmetto, and as neat as you please, overshadowed by cocoa-nut-trees and exquisite flowering creepers, border either side of the road. On the thresholds are laughing groups of women and children of every shade of black, mahogany, and "yullar." Then, when the shades of evening grow long and deep in the thickets of the banyan-trees, coloured Pyramus courts coloured Thisbe over the garden wall, and the roads swarm with little darkies, romping, laughing, and chasing each other round and about, whilst neatly-dressed women, standing at their doors, or leaning out of their open windows, watch the return of their "men," as they boldly call their husbands. The air is still and laden with the penetrating perfume of the stephanotis, the white blossoms of which gleam like stars amidst the dark foliage, and of the crimson and pink oleander, which flowers here to great perfection. It is difficult to imagine a more peaceful scene--the cheerful sounds of greeting, the merry chatter of the negroes, the tuning of the banjoes, whilst overhead the beautiful sunset-lit clouds shed rosy tints abroad, and set forth in bold relief the tall stems of the waving palms and of the strange-named trees, whose bizarre foliage arouses wonderment, and between whose gnarled boughs we catch glimpses of the high-roofed houses of the city, of the cathedral spire, and of a sea blue as a turquoise, now shivering beneath the gentlest of breezes.

The town of Nassau itself is not particularly interesting, inasmuch that, with the sole exception of the cathedral, it cannot boast of a single monument of artistic importance. The houses, mostly built of stone, faced with wood, have high slated roofs and wide verandahs, which surround each storey, and afford some shade during the sunny hours of the day. The public buildings are clean, but unpretentious, and evidently modelled after those of some English county town, in which the sturdy Georgian architecture predominates. There are few traces, anywhere, of the influence of the higher art, although the cathedral itself is a fairly handsome Gothic building, wherein the services of the Church of England are admirably conducted.

The gardens are trim and pretty, but, notwithstanding their profusion of tropical plants, they lack the luxuriant charm which renders the ill-kept gardens of Havana so romantic and picturesque. Very few of the gardens belonging to private houses are of great size, and even Government House is a modest-looking dwelling, erected on the highest of the surrounding hills, and commanding a fine view of the town and harbour.

The chief monument of Nassau is not one built by hand, but a silk-cotton-tree, planted, some two hundred years ago, by one John Miller, Esq., opposite the present "public buildings." It is a stupendous tree of Titanic proportions. The roots, unable to find their way down through the rocky soil, swell up like buttresses, radiating round the trunk some fifteen yards, and, rising six and eight feet from the ground, form part of the actual bulk of the tree, and give the huge veteran the appearance of a web-footed monster, standing in solemn reverie. Amongst the gnarled and weird-looking roots are ravines, in whose dark hollows a legion of elves might dwell and hold their revels. High above this root-work spreads a canopy of leaves of the most exquisite, tender green. Singular to say, the gigantic growth flattens at the top, and is nearly squared off in correspondence with the aspect the paucity of earth has forced the roots to assume. Had Shakespeare seen this mighty monster,--which travellers from California declare to be even more imposing than any of the Mammoth trees,--he would have immortalised it in a few grand lines, or made it the background of some quaint fairy scene, the home of another Herne the Hunter, Oberon and Titania, Ariel, or Puck. There are several other fine silk-cotton-trees on the island, and in Cuba this tree grows to perfection, but the specimen I have attempted to describe is universally acknowledged to be the finest known. I was much surprised to notice the rapidity with which the silk-cotton tree burst into leaf. On my arrival I noticed one in the grounds of the hotel which seemed to be dead. The rest were green, but this one was quite barren. In three days it was lost to sight, hidden in its own foliage, developed within the space of two nights. The silk-cotton-tree is so called because it bears a pod full of flossy silk, which is used instead of down for pillow cases, but the fibres are too short to be woven.

Nassau and its neighbourhood are really not unlike an open-air museum of botanical and marine curiosities. As you drive, or walk, through the woods and lanes, your attention is constantly attracted to some tree or shrub remarkable for its curious shape, leaves, and flowers. If you ask its name you will be told it is either the gum-arabic-tree, the guava, the banyan, the ipicac, the pimento, the spice, the cinnamon, the pepper, the caper, the castor-oil, or, in short, any one of half the plants which stock our drug or grocery shops. One day I noticed an onion-like-looking plant, with somewhat curious leaves, and asked its name. It turned out to be my old acquaintance "squills," of syrup-fame. Lady Blake, who is not only a distinguished artist, but an exceptionally learned botanist, has executed a complete series of exquisite drawings of the flora of the Bahamas. It would be difficult to overpraise the artistic, as well as the scientific value of this collection, exhibited in the Bahama Court of the Colonial Exhibition of 1886. During the Governorship of her husband, Sir Henry Blake, Lady Blake rendered a like service to the flora of Jamaica.

The cocoa-nut tree is a recent introduction into the Bahamas. Forty years back there were few in the whole island of New Providence. The orange-tree is indigenous to the island, and there is other fruit of exceedingly fine quality. A very extraordinary fact about the local vegetation is, that the roots are entirely exposed. The island is of coral formation, and only very lightly covered with earth; but such is the abundance of the dews, and so great the fertilising quality of the atmosphere, that a plant with one or two feelers caught in the pores of the coraline rock will grow and flourish. There are big trees with all their roots, save one, above ground. Some trees may be noticed growing astride the public walks, with one half of their roots on one side and the rest on the other. The immense amount of decayed animal matter in the coraline makes it one of the richest of soils, and the heavy dews which fall immediately after sunset, and of which I shall speak presently, increase its fertility. A number of "air-plants" grow in the woods, and of course derive their nourishment entirely from the abundant dews. These curious plants are, for the most part, a species of wild pine. One of the most remarkable of them is the "green snake," which looks exactly like a long serpent. The common life-plant of the tropics grows everywhere, and, together with the air-plants, rouses much curiosity among visitors from Europe and North America. If you take one of its thick, waxy leaves, and hang it on a nail, it will live for months, and shoot forth others without needing either water or earth.

The useful sizel plant--a fibrous hemp yielding aloe--of great commercial value, is now extensively cultivated, and with excellent results. Great impetus was given to its culture by Sir Ambrose Shea during his prolonged and popular Governorship.

The scenery round Nassau is of pancake flatness, and uninteresting, except close to the town, where there are some little hills of inconsiderable height, which might vie in altitude with a certain Mount Cornelia near St Augustine, Florida, advertised as one of the attractions of a watering-place called Mount George, because it is ninety feet high. Verily a dwarf is a giant amongst pigmies, and Mount Cornelia is a Mount Blanc in flat Florida. If it is ever planted with the eucalyptus-tree, now extensively cultivated in the south, and which often attain the extraordinary height of 300 and 400 feet, the trees will in due time be taller than the mountain.

There are some pretty little lakes in the interior of the island. One of these, Lake Killarney, is a very charming spot, with a fine view of the western coast. The lake is about three miles long by one in breadth. All along the shores are pineapple plantations, which are uncommonly effective when the pines are in bloom. The plants are set in rows all over the field, about one or two feet apart, and what with their variegated foliage--bright green and deep purple--and their vivid scarlet flowers, they make a striking foreground to any picture. The Bahama pines are considered the best in these latitudes, and are shipped in large quantities to Europe and North America.

The crowning glory of Nassau is the unrivalled bay, with its enchantingly clear, crystal water. Many a happy day have I spent, sailing round the pretty shores of this pleasant island. We usually had for "captain" a certain remarkable darkie, by name "Cap'en" Tannyson Stump, one of those sable worthies you read about, full of drollery, shrewd and witty withal, and a capital sailor into the bargain. The Cap'en is reputed wealthy, for he is a great favourite with the visitors, and, moreover, is considered, by the inhabitants of Grant Town, the greatest "dissentin' minister" on the island. Amongst other natural wonders the "Cap'en" took us to see was the "sea garden." I wish Victor Hugo could have studied it, for possibly he might have been tempted to describe it, in his vivid language, as a pendant to his sea-monster, the devil-fish of the "Toilers of the Sea." Thus should we have had a glowing word picture of the beautiful instead of the hideous--the paradise of the sea, and not its hell. They give you a box with a glass bottom to look through. You put it over the side of the boat, and dip it beneath the waves. Lo! you behold the garden of the sea-nymphs, the home of Aphrodite. Beneath you, seen through the pellucid waters of this vast aquarium, is a lovely sea-garden, full of every imaginable delicate-tinted sea-flower. Some are pale pink, others light yellow, and some brown as leaves in autumn, massed round the vivid purple and scarlet sea-anemones, which cling to the summits of beds of pearly coral. Here purple sea-fans wave gently to and fro. There are groves of trumpet sponges, and beds of marine blossoms of all kinds and shapes. Fish as brilliant as hummingbirds--red, blue, metallic-green, and orange--peep knowingly in and out of the branches of this strange submarine vegetation, which is crossed and recrossed in all directions by pathways of sparkling, silver gravel. Nothing more fascinating, more fairy-like, can be imagined. You expect at any moment to see Venus or one of her nymphs--or, perchance, old Edward's Sable Aphrodite--rise suddenly to the surface from this abode of cool delights.

Involuntarily the world-renowned description of the bottom of the sea was brought to my mind,--

"Methought I saw ...
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalu'd jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men's skulls, and, in those holes,
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by."

A scene very similar to the one described by Shakespeare has been seen in these clear waters after a wreck. Many years ago, when a hurricane of unusual violence swept over the islands, and there were several ships lost in the usually glassy harbour, people, when calm set in again, had the horror of studying, from their boats, the tragic condition of the wrecked vessels at the bottom of the bay. They could see the drowned dead below, whom some weight oppressed and forbade to rise. I well remember, though 'tis long years since, the dread impression produced upon me by the sight of the "phantom ship." In the days of the Spaniards, a vessel of importance, a man-of-war, was wrecked and sunk opposite a place called Hog Island--Horace Greely's lovely daughter, Gabriele, re-christened it Isle of Porcina. This vessel fell a victim in due time to the greed of those wondrous ants of the sea, the coral insects, who, with infinite industry, soon contrived to coat it with their microscopic huts, and now you see it lying full five fathoms deep beneath you, all white and hoary in its coraline encasement. The deck, the hull, the tattered rigging, ropes and chains, are all white with corals, and around the ghastly ship rise the pale blue walls of its sea prison.

The moonlight nights at Nassau, although marvellously beautiful, are not a little dangerous to fresh arrivals, on account of the heavy dews. I remember one evening we all went out to see the ruins of the fort built in 1788 by the Earl of Dunmore, memorably connected with the American Revolution. It certainly was a lovely sight, and the old grey walls and tower looked as well as any ruin on Rhine or Nile by that argentine radiance, approaching sunlight in its tropical brilliance, which renders things more or less romantic, be they ever so commonplace. The tall palms rustled in the breeze, and the bay was like a sheet of shivering quicksilver, just over where the imprisoned phantom ship rests, five fathoms down, "woo'd for ever to the slimy bottom of the deep." The sight was exquisite. The price more than one visitor ultimately paid in aching head and stiff rheumatic bones was anything but light!

And with this glimpse at an Isle of June, as New Providence has been aptly called--introduced into this book merely as a contrast--I take my leave.

Vale--gentle reader!--fare thee well.