"Where is it?"—"which way?" "I see it"—"Is that it captain—the little hump?" were the eager exclamations and inquiries of the enraptured passengers, who, half beside themselves, were peering, straining, and querying, to little purpose.
It was Abaco—the land first made by vessels bound to New Orleans or Cuba, from the north. With the naked eye, we could scarcely distinguish it from the small blue clouds, which, resting, apparently, on the sea, floated near the verge of the southern horizon. But with the spy glass, we could discern it more distinctly, and less obscured by that vail of blue haze, which always envelopes distant objects when seen from a great distance at sea, or on land.
As we approached, its azure vail gradually faded away, and it appeared to our eyes in its autumnal gray coat, with all its irregularities of surface and outline clearly visible.
Slightly altering our course, in order to weather its southern extremity, we ran down nearly parallel with the shores of the island that rose apparently from the sea, as we neared it, stretching out upon the water like a huge alligator, which it resembled in shape. Sail after sail hove in sight as we coasted pleasantly along with a fine breeze, till, an hour before the sun went down, a large wide-spreading fleet could be discerned from the deck, lying becalmed, near the extreme southern point of Abaco, which, stretching out far into the sea, like a wall perforated with an arched gateway near the centre, is better known by the familiar appellation of "The Hole in the Wall."
"There is a habitation of some sort," exclaimed one of the passengers, whose glass had long been hovering over the island.
"Where—where?" was the general cry, and closer inspection from a dozen eyes, detected a miserable hut, half hidden among the bushes, and so wild and wretched in appearance, that we unanimously refused it the honor of
"——A local habitation and a name!"
It was nevertheless the first dwelling of man we had seen for many a day; and notwithstanding our vote of non-acceptance, it was not devoid of interest in our eyes. It was evidently the abode of some one of those demi sea-monsters, called "Wreckers," who, more destructive than the waves, prey upon the ship-wrecked mariner. The Bahamas swarm with these wreckers who, in small lugger-sloops, continually prowl about among the islands,
"When the demons of the tempest rave,"
like birds of ill omen, ready to seize upon the storm-tossed vessel, should it be driven among the rocks or shoals with which this region abounds. At midnight, when the lightning for a moment illumines the sky and ocean, the white sail of the wrecker's little bark, tossing amid the storm upon the foaming billows, will flash upon the eyes of the toiling seamen as they labour to preserve their vessel, striking their souls with dread and awakening their easily excited feelings of superstition. Like evil spirits awaiting at the bed-side the release of an unannealed soul, they hover around the struggling ship through the night, and, flitting away at the break of morning, may be discovered in the subsiding of the tempest, just disappearing under the horizon with a sailor's hearty blessing sent after them.