THE ISLAND OF EASE.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 January 1926, Page 1

THE ISLAND OF EASE.

There is a spot within the British Umpire where you can buy a good plump fowl for eighteen-pence. Von may have a. choice grape-fruit for your breakfast- for the sum of one-halfpenny. For a shilling you can buy a bucketful of oranges. From the glorious sun which shines all day yon may shelter beneath a palm as shady as any used by the poets, and the cost will bo no more than the geuile energy ol a few steps. Moreover, the place is historical, for inscribed upon a stone column you may read, if you are not too l,w. that you stand where Columbus made his first landing when he discovered as lie thought, America (writes “Shellback” in the “Weekly Telegraph.”) The £ stand which Its about ten miles long and three miles broad, is that of San Salvador, one of the lesser known of the Bahama Group. There are no towns, unless Cock-burn Town, a collection of small houses grouped near a sandy head), can ho so called. There is practically no trade. Life seems too easy without it. Willi the exception of a few officials and two white families, the natives are negroes. and are the descendants of freed slaves They must have been happy slaves, for the natural politeness of their descendants does not savour of expectancy, and is obviously the product of several generations. One gets the impression that, here is the Early Victorian era. The pictures in the houses suggest it, the conversation and mental attitude of the people affirm it. Possibly lack of settlement since those days accounts for this. There are two farms, neither being worked with feverish activity, which were acquired, it is said, in lien of their pensions by two retired naval officers, the ancestors of the present landowners, and who were the owners of ihe slave forbears of the present coloured population. There is no incentive to work where such abundance of fish is to he had for the fishing in blue waters around the island; so clear that you can watch your next meal bite at the bait. Wild duck, and if you prefer them, flamingoes, are to he shot upon the large inland lake. Fruit grows easily on its banks, and the climate ealls for scanty clothing.