The Press., 1888-06-07
AFTER THE REVOLUTION.

ELBOW GAY, Bahamas, April 26.-Let tho great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. This line sings in my ears as I look down the one street of the little town known to the natives as Grt al 'Arbor. Here is a secluded nook, little settlement which preserves the Virginian life of century ago in setting which has changed but little since 1t first charmed the eyes of white men in the early decades of American exploration. At the close of the war of the revolution band of adventur- ous tories shook off the sacred dust of old dominion, and in voluntary exile sought lands more congenial to King George. Af- ter many thrilling experiences, which sur vive only in the form of musty and ill re- membered traditions, some of the wilder spirits sailt d into the unknown harbor en- bosomed in this coral key, ,and on the lonely shores they and their families located Here they and their descendants have lived since that forgotten day, shut off from the world, from progress and the fever and turbulence of modern life. Currents ot new life and the mighty forces of civiliza- tion have, at the touch of the nineteenth century, sent the rest ofthe continent down Harbor, with it's quaint people and their
 
 of colonial days in Virginia. The passions of the chivalrous loyalist rovers have been stilled for hundred years, and the little town has slqmbered in an atmosphere of indolence and langourous content. Life has been as quiet and refreshing as the key, and as lonely. There have been no wars and no rumors of wars. No foreign flag has entered the harbor The greatest excitement has been the return of sponger from Key West. The cocoanut trees have grown somewhat in size, as has the keys "burying pit
 Great 'Arbor, which Is so named because 1t fronts little harbor, which, in the eyes of harborless Bahamians, is of prodigious proportions, was resplendant with numer- ous little scarlet pennants on the early Sunday morning when the schooner Vic toria's passengers were taken ashore. In the center of each pennant was a white cross. This display of bunting had been made at sunrise of each Sunday since Christmas, and is one of the old customs of the place. The sentiment is 8 graceful one, and the decorations. in their gayety of color and the devotional ST they evidence, remind one of the peasants of Southern Italy.
 In spite of the unfashionable- earliness of the hour, two bells in the morning watch, all Great Harbor was on the qui wye when the aforesaid passengers were landed. Such an occasion was by no means to be misst d, for the joys of similar dissipation might not be tasted again for five years. Here were two "furriners" from parts unknown who might be the advance guard of a sponge pressing establishment or might buy wreckage or dig for Kidd's doubloons. It was under battery of curious stares that Elmayd Hale of Wall street and Mad ison avenue and I, both brave in cloth hats, 'sboiled" shirts, shoes and 0 her imptdi- menta, were rowed to the rude landing in front of the office of the dignitary who rep 'esents the royalty of Queen Victoria in ,hese waters. It so happened that the laughters of that gentleman were at the