Show 4 I r I Sail SaU Pumps ramps Fill Salt Pans Pan on Great rr pa t by t b r N National l Ge Ce ra Society Washington U. U C. C U c. Service SenKe C T OOK down now shouts I Were fly fly- L GOOK a passenger y Jl tag Ing over a Sahara desert with blue puddles puddle on It IL bat all water explains the steward But It Its It's so 0 clear you seeright see ee seeright right through It to the white sandy bottom The blue puddles are just lust deep ocean holes hole What with racing cloud shadows play of light on green Islands blands painted paint paint- ed coral and tinted sands the human buman hu bu- man eye is easily eully fooled by some of physical geography's tricks trIck on an anair anair anair air trip through the Bahamas Two hours hour from Miami ilami Florida out over the Gulf Gull Stream In a fast plane lane you reach this mile chain of some somo owned British Islands Island says cay and rocks that stretches almost almost al al- most to Just now we are flying past the north tip of flat fiat strewn brush-strewn Andros Andros An An- dros Island largest of the Bahamas Its ts west shore lapped by milky lows Iowa known as The Mud where rheumatic sponge fishers ply their back breaking trade In the blue blue- green depths Everyone keeps his nose pressed against the windows wIndow watching the fascinating panorama of ot reefs i. i is is- lets lets ets sand and bars bare and multi hued Waters wa wa- ten ers below So flat and low so symmetrical are some of ot these tiny jungle-green jungle isles Isle that from above In Jack and the Beanstalk he-Beanstalk fancy they suggest huge pumpkin leaves afloat on seas of ot opaline paint Look at that long lone strip of ot land with a pirates pirate's tower on it ill IU someone someone some someone one urges Treasure Island Salt Cay It belongs to John T. T Mc Mc- the Chicago cartoonist explains explaIn the patient steward Now were we're over Hog flog Island where human human hu hu- man swallows wallows from tram Canada and the States sun un themselves In winter Theres There's their Porcupine club and d Paradise beach That wreck is an anold anold an anold old Confederate blockade runner runner sunk more than 70 10 years ago The big ble island Is New Providence and this town toom Is Nassau capital of the Bahamas Landing at Nassau Flashes now of galloping ponies training on a dusty track and a golf goll course dotted with palms bent by tropic winds a 11 ruined tower which tho the steward says was Blackboards Blackboard's lookout then ancient abandoned forts their rusty muzzle loading cannon no more harmful now than blind and toothless watchdogs ye yet still frowning grimly at that sea long explored by Spaniards a and n d i haunted by pirates Swift glimpses too of stately Government house the British flag and stiff slit sentries on pa patrol Irol spacious homes set in gardens aflame with red yellow and purple Then lower we glide back over the long narrow harbor barbor with Us its trading schooners lazy white yachts and glass bottom sight seeing boats drifting over coral coral cor cor- al beds beis and canary colored canary colored fish and so down to a smooth landIng land land- ing One hears heau the greeting Welcome Welcom to the Isles of June Junel as he scrambles scrambles scram scram- bles ble ashore From the dock the arriving visitor drives through long straight Bay Duy street treet which is the shopping center of Nassau High roofed horse-drawn horse hacks bells jingling and red curtains flapping move In Inand inand and out among motor cars bicycles and huge sponge pone carts their cargo bulky but light To your right right says say your host In mock Imitation tt tf a guides guide's lecture lec lee ture Is Old Fort Montague Montacue cap by the tha baby American navy during the Revolution That whar wharf f is where the they hanged pirates That bat bl big shed is the sponge market The hymns you fOU hear ar are sun sung by the old women who dhere si It t here In the tha shade and clip cUp sponges sponge with their shears shear and get let them read ready to ship But who are all an these excited d people you ask crowding th the curio shops for trick straw hats s I turtle shells shelli and dolls Surel Surely they cant can't all aU live In this smear small town They bey dont don't They're There travelers Each season 60 IO or 80 big liners ca call caU here hero on Caribbean cruises Flue Flu Plus those who come b by planes and end pt vale vata yachts Nassau winter visitor vIsitors s almost almot equal the whole population of the Bahamas Where Columbus Landed nine Fifty thousand people ar are are scattered through these Islands Eighty per cent are blacks and mu many never Dever even let get getti t to o Nassau much less leu the Florida Florid I mainland This Is 11 a town now yo you u might say kay a of bote hotels hotels and and Is-and and history First and greatest event in el all I annals of our Western Hemisphere in fact tact occurred right here bere in these then e islands That was on October 12 1492 when Columbus discovered America in n th th- form torm of San Sal vador On this Island facing the open Atlantic Is la a monument set up by bythe bythe bythe the Chicago Herald in 1891 1991 to commemorate commemorate com the landing of the great navigator Here also a lighthouse rises but not to show modern ships how to anchor where the Santa SantaMaria M Maria Marla aria did rather to help them keep safely away for tor few visitors venture now where Columbus set setup up the Cross CroS and traded trinkets with the shy All AU these about about were were enslaved by Spaniards sent to work In mines and the Bahamas left quite uninhabited Yet in time these islands were to become not only a historic stepping steppingstone steppingstone stone by which Europeans and Africans c cans can reached our shores but the stage for far almost incredible tuna tures Enmity toward England after the loss of the Great Armada brought sanguinary conflicts which in time became notorious for the nautical brigandage of ot th the buccaneers buccaneer For g generations these outlaws were the cause of constant diplomatic fricon friction fric fric- ti tion on between London and Madrid as when English sailors seized salted from the Boston Doston ship Blessing were stripped by Spaniards tied naked to mangrove bushes on a Bahama cay coy and left to die of th thirst In plain sight of each other Famous is the story of Jenkyns Ear When Spaniards took an English Eng Eng- li lish sh ship commanded by a Captain Jenkyns It Is written that they cut oil oft one of ot his ears care and handed It to him telling him to take It home and show It to his king This ear ear i In n a bottle he exhibited later inthe inthe In Inthe the house of commons Even Virginia and the Carolinas dreaded these Bahama pirates especially especially es es- one Edward Teach o 0 r Blackb Blackboard Blackbeard ard With his last command com mand the Queen Annes Anne's Revenge mounting 40 guns Blackbeard and another pirate leader spread terror all along our South Atlantic coast When In desperation the British government finally sent that ironfisted ironfisted Ironfisted Iron- Iron fisted governor Woodes Rogers to hang pirates and make Nassau safe for honest traders It began the first normal life it had ever known That was in n 1718 and the motto put on its coat of ot arms was Pira- Pira tic Restituta Pirate Treasure Still Hunted Today Blackbeard his 1 Ion long o n g whiskers worn in three beribboned braids tucked into his waistband among his many pistols is but a memory memory or or a favorite model for Nassau masquerade parties Y Yet e t hunting parate treasure is still a constant adventure Always Just around the corner is 11 a mysterious man with an old map for tor sale Feast then famine that's been our history an an Englishman born in Nassau will tell you Over and andover andover andover over again In the last years hordes of people have swarmed Into Nassau on every errand from selling sell sell- selling ing slaves to running rum these boon boom periods meant lots of easy money but theres there's been many alean a alean alean lean time In between When Liverpool used to send or more to Africa each year and when our own built American-built craft were In n this traffic as many as blacks black annually used to be sold Into the West Vest Indies of which the Bahamas Bahama got rot their share After Cornwall Cornwallis yielded at Yorktown Yorktown York York- town loyalists flocked to the Bahamas Da Ba hamas bringing their slaves silverware silver ware and other personal effects On plantations of ot cane and cotton cotto n developed by these royal refugees refugee s rose another tide of ot profits This ebbed when slaves were treed freed a and aDd when competing agriculture gre greup grew rew w up in the States Agriculture hiss Has Failed Loyalists departing for England after this land boom faded turned turne d their farms over to slaves ex-slaves o 01 or r other retainers lacking skill caps capi tal tal or sufficient energy these latter tatter lat tat ter tailed fatted Farming declined An M easier caster living living U If on a lower standard was Will was offered altered by the sea ea ileac e today the once productive fields elds ar fir are e Idle and brush brush grown Andros Island for tor example named for tor an early governor go e ethe of the Massachusetts colony was one one once e the scene of ot much sisal growing well known families In England beIna be be- ing Ina the owners Now all aU that I l Ia s abandoned Yet today a new kind of ot prosperity prosper prosper- ity wholesome and satisfying Is coming to Nassau This is Its rise e as a popular winter resort which compensates for tor the vanished rev revenue reve e nue rue ot of more exiling exciting days day |