Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1886-12-03
ALLlGATORS IN THE BAHAMAS. y
Drifting Hundreds of Miles in the Ocean
Currents-Curious Superstitions.

Drifting Hundreds of Miles in the Ocean
Currents-Curious superstitions.
Catesby, in his Natural History of
Carolina, Florida and the Bahama ISL
ands," published about century ago,
speaks of having seen alligators Oh the
island of Andres in this group. At
present there are none, and, with the OBJ
ject of finding out if there was any ira
dition current bearing upon the subject,
| made inquiries through the medium of
The Nassau Guardian. In answer to my
questions, | lately received from the rec
tor of Inagua, at the extreme southeast of
the group, letter, in which he men,
tions that stories of allegators having
been drifted on logs Of mahogany. and
thrown up on the shores of the island,
are common, but that he had MT been
able to verify them. However. few
days previous to the date of the irtter,
while on a visit to one of the set inmpnts,
Mr.. de Glauvile the rector. wa. suown
the skin of an alligator eight teet long
from tip to tip, which had been 5irt on
shore day or two before by Il nan
whose name is given. NAM Ia Of ma
hogany had been cast up on the shores
of lnagua about that time: but the alli-
gator had not been observed 10 iaud,
and had been seen on shore several times
before it was shot.
There seems, however, to be no rea-
sonable doubt that the alligator was
drifted by the current from the south
east to Inagua on log of mahogany
from San Domingo the nearest place in
which allgators are found. This means
that it travelled distance of from 100
to $50 miles. With regard to the occur
renee of alligators on Andres. Catesby
was a very accurate observer, and there
seems to be no reason for doubling his
statement. These aligators would ap-
pear to have been carried on driftwood
from the northwest coast of Cuba, a
distance of 300 miles by the gulf stream,
and cast on the edge of the Great Ba-
hama bank, whence local currents,
aided by the wind, might have carried
them to the west coast of Andres. The
absence of traditions on the subject may
be owing to the fact that the present
inhabitants of Andres are principally
descendants of persons who settled
there at aperiod subsequent to Catesby's
| visit.
While on the subject of Andres, may
| be allowed to mention two rather curl
GUS superstitions current among the in
habitants of that interesting island? The
interior of the northern part of the ISL
land consists of swamps and lakes, inter-
spersed with patches of rocky ground on
which the Bahama pine (P. Bahamensis)
grows thickly. The negroes have a
great dislike to entering these pine
woods alone, or even in small compa-
MES, for they say that a peculiar race of
malevolent being, called little people,"
inhabit the trees. These creatures are
said to be like tiny men covered with
hair. They sit on the pine boughs, and
if a man notices them and points them
out to his companions, the whole
party is rendered immovable for day
and night; but. if fire is thrown at the
little people" they disappear without
doing any harm.
The other superstition also relates to
the pine woods. Creatures like enOr-
nous hairy men. called by the negroes
"Yayhoos, are SAID to march about the
woods in Schools" the largest coming
first; and when dey cotch you dey tear
you" These beings are much more
dreaded than the little people 1t looks
as if their name had been given by some
travellers familiar with "Gullver's Trav-
els, and struck with the mblance
between them and the terrible creatures
of Swift's Imagination.
Both of these superstitions would APP
pear to be traditionsof the land from
which the negroes originally came. The
little people are probably a recollection
of the small aboreal monkeys, while the
"Gayhoos" represent the gOrilas of west
Africa. john Gardiner in Science,