Obsertions in the West Indies1

Abstract

HERE we are back at Nassau for the third time, and thinking you might be interested to hear of my cruises, I send you a short sketch of our trip. The first time we left Nassau we entered the Bahama Bank at Douglass Channel and crossed the bank to North Eleuthera, where we examined the “Glass Window” and the northern extremity of Eleuthera, we then sailed along the west shore of the island close enough to get a good view of its characteristics as far as Rock Harbour at the southern end. We steamed out into Exuma Sound through the Powell Channel and round the southern end of Eleuthera to little San Salvador, and the north-west end of Cat Island, where are the highest hills of the Bahamas. We then skirted Cat Island along its western face, rounded the southern extremity and made for Riding Rocks on the Western side of Watling's Island. We circumnavigated Watling, passed over to Rum Cay, then to northern part of Long Island, visiting Clarence Harbour; next we crossed to Fortune Island, and passed to the east side near the northern end of the island on the Crooked Island Bank. From there we crossed to Caicos Bank, crossing that bank from French Cay to Long Island, passed by Cockburn Harbour and ended our eastern route at Turks Island; from there we shaped our course to Santiago de Cuba to coal and provision the yacht. We were fortunate enough to strike Cape Maysi a short time after daylight, and I thus had a capital chance to observe the magnificent elevated terraces (coral reefs) which skirt the whole of the southern shore of Cuba from Cape Maysi to Cape Cruz and make so prominent a part of the landscape as seen from the sea. We were never more than three miles from shore and had ample opportunity to trace the course of some of the terraces as far as Santiago, and to note the great changes in the aspect of the shores as we passed westward due to the greater denudation and erosion of the limestone hills and terraces to the west of Cape Maysi, which seems to be the only point where five terraces are distinctly to he seen. The height of the hills east of Pt. Caleta, where the terraces are most clearly defined, I should estimate at 900 to 1000 feet; though the hills behind the terraces, which judging from their faces are also limestone, reach a somewhat greater height, perhaps 1100 to 1200 feet.