Evening star., 1937-03-07
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.

From the days when Nassau, chief
base of the far-flung Bahaman archi-
pelago, was one of the sharpest British
thorns in the side of the Spanish in
America and avenging raids were made
by buccaneering pirates who sailed
forth in their swift sailing craft from
her sheltered coral-bound coves it has
been a sun-drenched island of retreat
and escape.
Today it is no less so for those who,
beaten by life's buffeting or fleeing
from Winters rigors, find temporary
respite in this historic tropic British
West Indies stronghold. originally
granted by His Majesty King Charles
I, to Sir Robert Heath, attorney gen.
.eral of England, on the 30th day of
October, 1929. Here then, as now. "the
prevailing breeze" in native parlance,
sets the tempo of the days climate.
Market Is CoIorfui.
The native market is colorful, with
its baskets of strange fruits and vege-
tables. Tomatoes, sweet potatoes,
"thumb-sized" bananas, lines, i'm
mense grapefruit and medium-sized
oranges appear to be the only familiar
marketing friends among the array OF
strange names and wares. You pass
a sponge shed The wishing, sorting
and classifying of the island spongeS
is one Of its chief native industries,
with many Greeks, driven out from
their native Ionian habitat by the
Italian invasion, yearly coming to
Nassau in greater numbers for the
profits which it offers. Narrow streets
wind uphill toward higher levels. And
colored men, women and children, with
free, rhythmic step. balance trays OF
native fruits and vegetables. bundles
Of laundry bags of this or that, upon
their heads. It's the favored way Of
''toting" and as a result posture"
classes are unknown in the islands
schools, so Miss Flora May, r. N. as
sistant at the islands health center
clinic, told me. You have to hold
your head high, else you'd stumble
an have your burden come tumbling
about your ears" sh, said.
No Traffic Policemen.
All the while Nassau's Kaleidoscope
traffic, with its musical but insistently
sounding bells, is going by on the left
side of the street instead O. the right.
It never exceeds rs stipulated, regu-
lated speed linit-which is moder-
ate one-despite the fact that there
are no traffic lights and no traffic
policemen, as such. One somehow
senses the fact that justice would be
quickly and summarily dispensed with
out respect to rank or position should
there be failure to comply with any
regulation.
In the moving panorama are in
Vulnerable bicycles with baskets sus-
pended between many Of their handle
bars; low, two-wheeled drays, mule
drawn for the most part, but jaunting
along as if they were bit of some
English countryside, such as Devon,
and automobiles of all types and
designs, some British, but chiefly
American 1t is, however, Nassau S
horse-drawn surreys with their colored
drivers that focus your attention. They
are the answer to your query, What
ever became of the surreys of my
childhood" Here they are in in
credible numbers with their fringed
tops. their linen-covered seat covers,
scalloped on their edges, their little
parted curtains at the back, their
whip sockets with incredibly whip
for every socket, and their sweep of
curving mud guard over their wheels
ending in the low step-down.
The clop, clop of the island ponies
feet. as they draw these surreys about
is one of Nassau's familiar sounds
by day or by night. Comparable only
with it is her Growing of her legion
of cocks. A lone heralder of the
dawn gives his cock-a- doodle -doo-to
have it echoed the islands length and
breadth in varying crescendos. The
cock, it appears, is lord over all
the islands fowl kingdom and an
nounces his supremacy, not only in
the early morning hours. but at inter-
walls all day long.
Giant COc0nut Palms.
To one to whom Coconut palm
tree had either been part of a
frontispiece cover on a cruise folder
or temperamental exotic in green,
wooden tub carefully wired to keep
its slaves from too freely expanding,
the sensation of looking out from wide
galleries upon grove of gentle,
waving, giant palms, the encircling
rings of whose tall trunks tell their
approximate age, is an amazing one.
Equally amazing are the other evi-
dences of tropical vegetation upon
which you find yourself gazing. There
are, for instance, the "women's
tongues" or "whistling trees" evi-
IDENTITY kin to our locust trees, with
their yelloWish dried pods, in contrast
to the green of their leaves, forever
"chattering" or "whistling" with the
myriad breezeS that blow. Then there
is the silk cotton tree, with its amaz-
ing trunk swirls, or the banyan tree,
with offshoot upon offshoot, along
with magnolia and oleander in full
bloom. Tropic bougainvillea with its
passionate, trumpet-hued blossoms
blooms luxuriantly side by side in Mas
sau's garden with cactus troublesome
as our dandelion of the States. Many
resident with nostalgia for ali Eng
lish garden cultivates one witt sweet
ness and prinness. in refreshing con-
trast to the lushness all about.
Many of Nassau's old homes, with
their pink or yellow walls of native
limestone, their jutting dormer win
dows and white e-columned galleries,
make you think of Southern planters
homes in the States. Many of them
were built by loyalists from the Caro-
linas who fled here after the Revolu-
tionary War to escape paying ale
glance to Grea Britain.