The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1881-04-07
THE COLORED MANS ARCADIA.
AN ISLAND OF ROCK, COVERED WITH
FLOWERS AND PEOPLED BY
HAPPY AFRICANS.

HAPPY AFRICANS.
Boston Herald: Right out of the sea,
four hundred and fifty miles from the
Florida coast, rises hugh rock, twenty
two miles long by seven miles wide. 1t
is the smallest of the Bahama Islands and
is called New Providence. 1t is the Sec
ond place where Columbus landed on his
voyage to the Western world and the on
ly town of note in the Bahamas marks
the spot. Nassau even at this season
nestles in wilderness of flowers, plants
and fruits. There is not tree, shrub or
flower that thrives in any warm climate
which does not grow luxuriantly there.
I said it was rock upon which these
beauties grow and blossom, and over
which never-ending summer breeze
blows the seeds of health by tempering
the warmth of a tropical sun until It
strikes happy medium where all season
is summer and mankind basks in an at
mosphere practically invariable twelve
months in the year, and trees, shrubs and
flowers thrive in chaotic profusion all the
year round. How contrary this is to what
is known of nature in the frost land and
yet how crudely true of what is seen here
every hour of the year.
The ocean threw up this mighty rock
''when nature played with hills to show
her curious strength and greatness over
man." 1t is calcareous rock of coral,
soft and pliable to the mechanics hand,
filled with shells and sand and spit upon
by the ocean until cemented with its
brine. The surface in places rots, forms
a thin soil and in this, and wherever a
crack or crevice is found, the gayest
flowers bloom. There is not a bit of
fancy in this. 1t is the truth homely
told. To describe its inhabitants would
be to parade before you mass of colored
men, women and children, cheaply but
neatly dressed, barefooted and bonnet
less, but happy, polite. Out of popu-
lation of $4,000 more than $4,000 are ne
groes and unusually intelligent. Shin
ing out from this darkness is now and
then native white face, intelligent and
healthy, and at this season numbers of
foreign faces, which look as if in search
of hos lth The ho1,cec ora ar moot ac tho
people and all of them are smothered in
flowers and shrubbery. In almost every
yard, as well as growing wild, are cocoa
nuts, oranges, guaves, sofadillos, man
goes and all sorts of fruit hang, in all
stages-bud, blossom, half grown and
the matured fruit. The drives over the
town and through the island are superb,
smooth as floor and of solid rock, lined
on either side with tangled sweeping
vines, stunted trees and Towering plants.
The oleander towers its high head among
the more pretentious tropical plants,
while our own modest morning glory, SO
dear to our childhood, peeps out from
behind the leaves with the dew resting
upon its purple lips to be kissed away
by the morning sun. No tongue can tell
or pen can write of the beauties, either
of land or sea, which are everywhere vis-
ibie. The island makes beautiful pic
ture as you approach it from the ocean,
rising as it does from the waters edge
by gradual incline to the height of 200 or
800 feet, every foot of the way up show
ing the tropical plants, flowers and fruits
at their best.
The climate and surroundings are as
near perfection as one ought to expect to
find upon this earth. The surface of the
island is rolling, and what soil there is is
very rich. The bulk of vegetation seems
to spring from the solid rock and actually
does from the cracks and crevices.
Wherever room is found root creeps in
and the lime in the stone feeds it. This
lack of soil and the necessity of removing
solid stone to aid vegetation, prevents
much cultivation of the soil, and there
are very few vegetables grown in eli
mate especially adapted to their produc-
ton. Fruits are the principal staples,
and upon these the natives live to very
great extent. All tropical varieties grow
in abundance and are remarkably rich
and nutritious. Every variety of fish is
taken in abundance, and enters very
largely into the domestic economy of the
natives. The chief industry of the island
is sponge gathering.