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"Wal', yes," said Captain Kittridge; "once when I was to the Bahamas, it was one Sunday morning in June, the first Sunday in the month, we cast anchor pretty nigh a reef of coral, and I was jist a-sittin' down to read my Bible, when up comes a merman over the side of the ship, all dressed as fine as any old beau that ever ye see, with cocked hat and silk stockings, and shoe-buckles, and his clothes were sea-green, and his shoe-buckles shone like diamonds."
The belief that large deposits of gold were made at Gardiner's Island, Dunderberg, Cro' Nest, New York City, Coney Island, Ipswich, the marshes back of Boston, Cape Cod, Nantucket, Isles of Shoals, Money Island, Ocean Beach, the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, and elsewhere has caused reckless expenditure of actual wealth in recovering doubloons and guineas that disappointed backers of these enterprises are beginning to look upon no, not to look upon, but to think about as visionary.
I have the satisfaction to inform you that a negotiation which, by desire of the House of Representatives, was opened some years ago with the British Government, for the erection of light houses on the Bahamas, has been successful.
My lad was then working with a Mike Leveston in the city a land-agent for the up-country work, and the owner of a line of small brigs running between Boston and the Bahamas; but times had gone bad with him, and the boy, who had been getting good money, found himself with no more than enough to keep him, let alone his mother.
And so the matter providentially comes to pass, and "enterprises of great pith and moment" oftenest get no farther than the Bahamas. Nassau produces neither hay nor corn, these, together with butter, flour, and tea, being brought chiefly from the United States. Politics, of course, it has none.
He had not expected to encounter a United States man-of-war in the Bahamas. His prisoner was a naval officer, and would be a strong witness against him. Upon his testimony, and such other evidence as the cargo and other circumstances might supply, the captain of the steamer in the channel might feel justified in making a prize of the Snapper.
"Dick," said Ned, "Dad thinks we need a little vacation before going to work, and he offers to take us on a cruise in the Gypsey to the Bahamas and to Cuba, or to charter a light-draft boat that could go through the Bay of Florida and let us finish our cruise in the crocodile country, beginning where we turned back when the fresh water gave out. Maybe he will let Molly go."
Sitting in the same place hour after hour, he seemed overcome with a complete exhaustion, which made speech too great an effort and kept his thoughts straying idly. Fanny's name did not pass his lips; when Nancy ventured an inquiry concerning her, he made an impatient gesture, and spoke of something else. His only purpose in coming, it appeared, was to ask for information about the Bahamas.
But as soon as the darkness of a moonless night had thoroughly set in, I changed the course to due south; and ran below Barbadoes and thence far to the eastward before I took the Oregon to the northward. We thus passed far to sea east of Martinique, and eventually turned into the north Atlantic beyond St. Thomas. I carefully avoided the Windward Channel and the shallow waters of the Bahamas.
In common with the other islands of the group it was originally settled by the Spaniards, and afterwards by the British, who were driven from the Bahamas again by the Spanish in the year 1641. After a great deal of changing hands they were ceded to Great Britain in 1783, and have remained in her possession ever since.
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