Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/795

Rh unusual sight met our gaze. A dozen or more boys in small boats, scantily clad, were clamoring, "Boss, please now a penny!" and as the passengers threw small coins, the nearly naked boys dived for them into the exquisitely clear green water, often catching them before they reached the bottom. They are expert swimmers, as the following story will show: A few years ago a wrecking crew was ordered from New York to take the cargo from a sunken vessel; but, before they arrived upon the scene, the natives had descended to the hold of the vessel with grappling irons, attached them to the cargo, and raised it. As soon as we landed, our baggage was examined by the customhouse officers—important-looking colored men dressed uniformly in dark-blue trousers, with a red stripe down the side, white linen jackets, and white pith hats. Boys of every age and various cast of features, showing their gleaming white teeth, begged to take our parcels to the hotel. As we sat in the cage-like shed which serves as a customhouse we were at once impressed with the sense that the island of New Providence was indeed a foreign land, most picturesque, fascinating, and distinctly tropical, with its tall cocoa palms here and there waving above the other trees and the house-tops. Our attention was particularly attracted to the trees about the wharf and along the main street. At first we thought they were magnolias, and it was hard to believe they were not members of that family, so striking a resemblance do they bear with their large, shining leaves. They are known as almond trees, the Demerara almond (Terminalia catappa), but are not the almond of commerce.

A conspicuous tree, resembling the pine, is the cassowary