Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1886-06-24
THE BAHAMA ISLANDS.
A REGION WHERE EARTHLY EX-
lSTENCE IS AN ENDLESS LULLABY.


A People Who May BE Likened to La2-
zarOni Unconsciously Possessing Heaven
Natures Hand Forever Wide Open
Luxuriance of Land and Sea.
The Bahamas are said to have been settled
as early as 1872, and their population is es-
timated to be about forty thousand souls.
But they are listless, indolent lot to whom
simple existence is the highest aspiration
For the most part the language is a curious
mixture OF the English, Spanish, and negro
tongues. Sponge gathering, fishing, conch-
gathering, fruit-picking, and wrecklng con-
stitute ABOUT all the LABOR done The isl
ands swarm with these wreckerS, who are
nearly all good-Datured souls, that regard
everything cast upon the shores, every
vessel that grounds upon the dangerous
wrecks and Gays, and every craft that can
be even lured upon the rocks, as their right
full gain and receive all such ocean salvage
as if the blessing of heaven accompanied it;
though for that matter our own government
permits quite as bad a state of things at
Key " est and along the Pine islands, Oft the
south coast oil Florida. In the capital,
Nassau, there is some wealth, some refine
ment, and some regard for the fitness of
things but even here the enervating blight
of a society largely impregnated with
political and novel castaways has fallen.
A REIGN OF PRODIGAL PROVISION.
For the traveller the scientist, the inva-
lid, the dreamer, the outcasJ, or the outlaw,
these islands are the ultima Thule. Life is
sustained with scarcely an effort. 1t is a
region of prodigal provision, of thyme, and
balm, of life in endless lullaby. All this is
the vision of toilers Its realization to any
people begets squalor. The population of
the entire islands, whose capital AMI gov
ernor- general are at Nassau, New Provi-
dence, is nondescript, with English, Span
ish, and negro commingling, and comprise
such people as might be ikened to Lazza-
roni unconsciously possessing heaven; and,
in COMING to know and think of it all, it is
one of those intellectual evidences that al
most compels the rejection of any sort of
future state in which activity and progress
sion are not possible.
There is actually sense of rest in these
latitudes SO intense as to be oppressive.
Something in the very air compels sleep
that can be likened only to rest which
brings no renewal of that elation and vigOr
we in the colder climates know, and l doubt
not that this carries on from physical to
mental effects, and dims intellectual and
spiritual alertness sadly. But to know it
and experience it-and to leave it-are de-
licious; though it all leaves with it an un-
dertone of sadness, because one SO much
longs to change the Interchangeable law of
compensation and give the sweet cline to
the driven jaded men and women of our
harder, more verile peoples, and compel
these half-awake existences to live and labor
where the awful friction of things would
straighten the form, Iut light behind the
eyes, and polish the perception until recog
nizable.
But all about you it is weird charming,
sensuous, narcotic, dreamful 1t is to you
like old wine that lulls and soothes bu: does
not fire the blood and brain. The sea has
changed from its hard, cold, steely blue, and
is now opaline, almost milky white, but
translucent. The horizon that, abreast of
the dreary, dangerous headlands OF the
north seemed shut down upon near and
quick and hard by as dreary sky, is now
far and far away, anu the waters and sky
meet lovingly. The SKY, too, that was so
close and forbidding 800 leagues behind now
seems infinitely far Above you, and has
feeciness and softness which opens to the
imagination undreame, of flights toward
heaven.
NATURES HAND Is FOREVER OPEN.
In these islands natures hard is forever
wide open. Here the pineapple, citron,
melon guava, custard apple, yam, bread
fruit, sweet potato, pOmegranate, banana,
orange, lemon, cocoanut, and hundred
<l,a,. nd re kaI
from surpassing and prodigal product
iveness The forests TEEN with the coca
nut tree, a hundred feet to it's strange
pinnate leaves, the ceiba or silk-cotton tree,
the black mangrove, almond, mahogany,
ebony, lignum vitae, lance, and the royal
palm, while the swinging cactus, oleanders
as tall as our trees and Towering every
month in the year, the glowing coral vine,
the tuberose, the Cherokee rose, and roses of
every hue and size, the alligator pear, the
night blooming cereus, and a myriad of
shrubs, ferns, and flowers delight the eye
and gladden. with perennial color and odor,
and that forever without the bidding of
wish or touch of labor. -
The luxurance of land is also equaled by
the prodigality of sea life and form, 50
varied, beautiful, and wonderful No shores
are so enchanting, no waters SO wi1some,
and no depths OF ocean hold such mazes of
mystery and delight. The fish alone are re-
markable in variety. Among them are the
blackfish, the porpoise, which seems to
tumble about in all waters; the shark, that
deadly foe of the sailor; the dolphin, which
is in endless pursuit of the delicate flying
fish which scuds through the air because it
is chased and not because it enjoys it, which
same dolphin is never cooked aboard a vessel
unless a silver half-dollar is put in
the same pot, for if the half-dol-
lar blackens then the dolphin is full OF
poison from having sucked copper from
ship bottoms; the whipray, like the founder
and with a tail like, coachman's whip,
sometimes ten feet long; the jew fish, which
is to these waters as the halibut of our north
east coast; the yellow-tailed snapper,
gigantic turtles, the catfish, the groupa,
striped snapper, bonito, Spanish mackerel,
angeI-fsh, pork fish, hound-tish, and sucking
fish. Then there is that dread mystery to
seamen, the Portuguese manof-war, that
strange formation of marine life like mass
of jelly with its ventral fms xtended in
every direction, riding the heaviest seas like
a bird, and which sea- folk say is a deadly
poision to the touch-Edgar Wakeman in
Chicago News
c tn r. -s~.A1 s ~