FROM CORDOVA TO CATHAY.

ment on the beach about a mile away, where a boat was being launched. Ina
little while it came alongside, our engines having stopped, and after an inter-
change of salutations my luggage was quickly transferred to the boat below, and
I left the comfortable Ozama and launched out into another unknown adven-
ture. The steamer steered off,
my friends waved me a last
farewell, and by the time we
reached the beach objects on
board were indistinguishable.

I found myself a stranger
in a strange land; but, fortu-
nately, had my usual good luck,
‘ and obtained board and lodg-
Ea an ing at a house near the beach.

WINDMILL FOR PUMPING SALT WATER. Fortune Island, or Long Cay,

ee se is about eight miles in length

and a mile or so in breadth, some eight hundred acres in area, with a population
of seven hundred people, mostly black and colored. The chief production of
the island is salt, which is raked out of the vast shallow salt ponds formed just
over the sand-banks behind the reefs. The process of salt gathering is a primi-
tive one; the ponds are divided into sections containing salt in various stages
of crystalization, and the water is sometimes pumped from one to the other
by means of curious windmills. The great heaps of salt, containing many
thousand bushels, are pyramidal in shape, white as snow, and glisten in the sun
like silver. Formerly, this island was a great rendezvous for the wreckers, and
in yet earlier times, perhaps, for the buccaneers; but latterly their occupation
has departed, owing to the erection of lighthouses and the substitution of
steamers for sailing vessels in the principal traffic to and through the islands.

Now and then a steamer touches here
going from New York to Jamaica and
Central America, picks up a crew of
laborers for the voyage, and drops them
again at their homes on its return. It is
a barren island, as compared with the
islands of the West Indies proper; and

yet it is not unattractive, with its white
_ sand beaches, its glistening salt heaps
and its half-tropical vegetation.

It was thought that I could readily
get a vessel here to take me to Watling’s
Island ; but it will show you how infrequently these islands are visited, even by
coasting craft, when I tell you that it was nine days before I could secure a boat

   

 

A SALT HEAP ON FORTUNE ISLAND.