Arizona weekly enterprise., 1888-06-09
IMPRESSIONS OF NASSAU.
An Island of Unending Summer Not Fs
 Away-The Lazy Inhabitants.

Nassau is ore of the smallest of the Bahama islands, covering length of twenty miles by an average of five miles in width. The city is built, facing the north, upon the slope of ridge, running west to east, and nearly 100 feet at its highest. The soil is thin, the island con
 ing of an old coral reef, elevated grad llIy from the ocean, and during that period subjected to the action of the waves, leaving it honeycombed and pockete6. This rock is compact, of sand made from disintegrated corals, yellow ish creamy in color and soft in texture, so that it is quarFied by saving and chis- cling, becoming considerably harder by exposure. The surface of the rock is covered with loose pieces, exceedingly irregular in form Over this is very little soil.
 The streets are graded through this natural rock, with natural gutters and walks. The streets at right angles to the water front cross the ridge generally through deep cuts in the natural rock in order to lessen the grade. The dwellings of the better sort are square or oblong square, seldom more than two stories high, with low ceilings and low pyra- midical roofs. These houses are always surrounded on at least two sides with broad verandas, closed in with slats to keep out the light. For this reason the houses appear larger than they are. Dormer windows abound. The house eolors are stone, light yellow, cream; the blinds are brown or green. High stone walls, with broken glass bottles cemented into the ridges, inclose the houses and gardens; ornamented openwork gate ways afford a glimpse within.
 The cocoanut, the royal the palmetto and the silver leaf palms abound. The giant Cuba, or silk cotton tree, oleanders of large size, enormous amaryiids, with the many species of the citrus family, hang up their yellow fluit against the sun. The russet japodilla just coming into fullness adds special charm to its back ground of dark green waxy leaves. The vegetation seems rather sub-tropical than thoroughly tropical This results not from want of heat, may be, but need of soil.
 The city of Nassau is extremely pict- uresque with the quaint narrow streets, white, deep gutters cut from living rock, large dwellings, with the lower or street story, for warehouse or shop, the outside stairways and balconies? Every building has some special individuality about it which adds much to the sum total of the charm one finds in quietly roaming round the streets.
 Here it is literally always afternoon. No one works. Ask a question and it will be answered the day after to-mor- row. The few shops open about break fast time, and are then shut up during a,,1 ti,,,a io early. I went into wholesale store at noon time The one clerk was fast asleep in his chair, and left him undis- turbed The blacks, seemingly twenty to one of the whites, sit lounging, gab- bling, chafng, talking loud and laugh ing, but have not seen one at work.
 The English majesty of law is thor oughly respected here. The principal crimes-profanity, jawing and slander- are among the colored races, and they enjoy defending themselves at law. Shops close at 5 p. m. Saturday is a half holiday and Sunday Puritanical one.
 Back of Nassau proper, over the ridge and down on to lower levels swarm the colored people. Their small garden pieces are walled in with the loose pieces of coral rock. Their cabins are small, with one or may be two rooms, of rock or coral, palmetto matched. The gar dens are bare, honeycombed coral rock, where with a erowbar the banana, the cocoarut or maize is planted. They arc urkenSpt, uHrnr1rty, dirty; but every where kind mother nature covers the garden walls with ichens and the con- volvulus, and the great lobed leaves of the bread fruit, the alumna and the palms give to the eye an ever varying, an ever entirely satisfying picture.
 These cabins of the colored people (our inheritance from Spanish cruelty) liter ally swarm with children. The tTa- ditional stair of from five to twelve little pickaninnies is found in every cabin. ''Massa, gib me copper for breadl'' They are inveterate beggars. They say they can't get work, or if they do get any but little is paid-twenty-6ve to fifty cents a day. The truth is, there is no desire, perhaps no incentive, to work, no ambi- tion to satisfy. Hunger is easily satisfied by fruit, sweet potato, yams and fish. But little fruit is exported, and that iron, the outlying islands, not from here. Sponge fishing is the one industry which here is active.
 For the climate, I would judge we had in the United States no spot equal to this for amending summer. For people ad- vanced in life who desire to avoid oul winters, for tired brain workers, fol cases of low vitality, for the beginning ot . throat and lung troubles, I should say Nassau is the place.--Fred Stearns il Detroit Free Press.