Arizona weekly citizen., 1892-11-26

surf broke laZily marked its shores. A boat at once put off to us. It contained all the officials of the island-the local magistrate. the pNrt officer. the post. master, the sheriff, the colonel of the militia and many mOre-all in the per. son of Captain Maxwell Nairn. the only white resident of the island, veritable Pooh Bah, monarch of coral isle. His salary is S2O0 a year. and he has been there thirty years.
 Captain Nairn became our guide counselor, friend and foeman. With him we explored the island \ coral rock it is, dozen miles long and halt as broad, containing large lagoOns of bracEish water, covered with tropical vegetation, nearly surrounded by reefs. Eight hundred negroes live here, tillire altogether probably a score of acres of land. subSisting principally On fish and other sea food. They are an honest pious. temperate people. Their chief failing is predisposition toward piracy and woe to the cargo of the ship that i- wrecked upon their shores. This pirat- ical tendency they came naturally by for this coral island was once the rendez vOus of infamous Blue Beard, and some of these poor people are no doubt his direct descendants.
 But 1 could see little in this island save Christopher Columbus. At every turn the great discOverer was suggested The salt lagoon appeared to echo back his name; the sands of the shore seemed to bear the impress of his feet; the surt breaking over the reefs chanted the "Te Deum" in imitation of Columbus himself. The spirit of Columbus dominates every thing in Watlings, Overshadows every thing, leaves nothing else to be thought of or written about.
 And no wonder. Here was everything that Columbus described in his journal the large lagoon in the middle of the island," the luxuriant verdure, the ''reefs running all round that island, the hills near the shore, the ''piece of land like an island, yet which is not an island, but could easily be made one" as an admirable sight for a fort; the harbOr lying hard by. in which ''all the ships of Christendom could lie" All these and many more of the things which Colum- bus had described we found, and at first knew instinctively, and later proved to a mathematical certainty, that this was the birthplace of the New World.
 A little bay, two miles from the ''piece of land like an island" chose after much exploration as the very spot at which the landing was made. That this island was the San Salvador of Column bus know; that this pretty bay, with its Overhanging headland and shining beach, was the more particular scene of the discovery believe. In the nature of things it cannot be proved, though there is much in it's favor. Near 1t is a high hill which Columbus probably first saw in the moonlight of that fateful morning. It iS the first bit of coast to the south, free enough from reefs to permit safe landing. It Is at point whence Co lumbus would have rowed north north easterly to see the other side of the island" as he says he did the second morning after his arrival, on this occa- sion discovering the piece of land like an island" and the wonderful harbor ''in which the water is still as i'll we'll"
 On the promOntory which lifted its head above the little bay we erected a memorial. It was constructed of coral limestone found hard by. Thirty na- tive workmen were employed cutting roads with their machetes, bringing for ward materials, mixing mortar and car rying cement up the hillside. Skillful boatmen brought supplies from the steamer through the dangerous coral reef. The American flag fioated from a staff as we worked, and the monument grew day by day. The sun beat with tropical tierceness; our drinking water was dipped out of the hollows of the rocks, warm and brackish. But no one fell i'll, and finally the work was finished. It had been we'll done. Plenty of cement