Of all the larger inhabited islands of the Bahamas group, Eleuthera is the one that is most easily reached from Nassau, the capital of the Colony, and it is also the one that is developing most rapidly. But it is not so very long ago that very few people from the outside world had more than a vague idea as to the exact situation of the Bahamas and no conception of their number or appearance. Visitors arriving in Nassau and expressing a wish to see some of the out-islands were stared at. "Why ever do you want to go to the out-islands, there's nothing to see there!" was the cry. But just as London is not England, so Nassau is, most emphatically, not the Bahamas.

True, Eleuthera is on the map; indeed of all the islands strung out between the northernmost lump that is Grand Bahama and the Turks and Caicos, in an uneven chain, it possesses the most original shape. But until recently it is doubtful whether anyone, on being asked to place an island bearing that name on the globe, would have come within a thousand miles of its position, or would make an attempt to do so. So let us begin the history of Eleuthera by taking a good look at its geographical position and surroundings.

We are on an island that began life as a coral reef, part of a high ocean plateau whose shallow covering of water sprouts islands like mushrooms. This island is not a circular one, a palm-tufted atoll, as in the Pacific Ocean, but a long, hump-backed ridge, stretching for a hundred miles, and varying in width from six miles to a bare three-quarters of a mile, or even less. It is rather like a petrified antediluvian monster with peculiar appendages, wallowing in a display of beautiful sea that is unrivaled anywhere in the world. The monster's back is mainly dark green, with lighter patches here and there, and edged with black, gray and pale pink scallops with one long, pale strip along the edge of one flank. Nowadays a variety of parasites may be seen crawling rapidly along this stripe - on four wheels - and at intervals there are clusters of many-coloured excrescences where the parasites pause on their journeys. A curious beast locked in bush-covered, stony sleep, lulled by the everlasting conversation of the sea.       

The scattered island family to which our monster belongs is somewhat similar collectively, but, like any human family, each member has its own characteristics. The edgings of black and gray coral alternating with bright sand beaches are the common property of the Bahamas, also the bushy growth on anything larger than a piece of rock, with ponds of brackish water that wink at the sky, and small settlements wherever there happens to be a good anchorage. But the islands vary enormously in size, and this is one of the larger ones, besides being the most distinctive in shape.

To place it more precisely, the island of Eleuthera is at latitude 25 N., longitude 76 W. of our restless planet, and near the edge of the Caribbean Sea, which is the cradle of all the romance and adventure of the West Indies proper.

The Bahamas fringe this area, and although they belong to it geographically, geologically they are quite distinct from the volcanic influences that begin to appear in Cuba and Jamaica in the shape of crumpled mountain ranges. The highest elevation on Eleuthera is one hundred feet, higher than that of most of the other islands of the Bahamas group, some of which are conspicuously flat. This gives it a scenic advantage unshared by the majority of the family; the geologists tell us that the Bahama Islands rest on a submerged platform that rises on all sides abruptly from the surrounding depths of the ocean. The largest area of this platform at the topmost level is shaped almost in the outline of a painter's palette, and includes Andros, the largest island of the group, tiny, self-important New Providence, and Eleuthera. A deep cleft, over one thousand fathoms deep in places, lies between Andros and our island, and is called the Tongue of the Ocean. At its shallowest, the platform is covered by six fathoms of water or even less. All over the shallow part, here and there, are sand bars, very low ridges of white coral sand which collect on the banks and often rise a few feet above the surface of the water at low tide. They are not fixed in one position, but shift about with the changing currents, and it is these bars that make flying over these island-dotted waters so intensely fascinating.

Like Aphrodite rising from the sea, Eleuthera and her sisters were formed by the winds and the waves. She is an island of coral and wind-impacted sand. The dunes of sand blown into heaps on the eastern shore of the island eventually consolidated into hard rock with a mixture of both land and sea shells ground into powder, and forming a natural cement. The geologists tell us that it is evident that there was a period of elevation when the islands stood almost one hundred feet higher than they do at the present time, and during that epoch the dry land area of the Bahamas was very much greater than it is today. Now, the islands are mere remnants of what they were formerly, and the greater reduction of land surface is due to subsidence and erosion. During another period the land sank to at least fifteen feet lower than it is now, and came up again fifteen to twenty feet to its present position.

To begin with, Eleuthera seems flat, but once one compares it with the coast of Florida, its nearest foreign neighbor, it appears almost mountainous. The climate in the summer is three or four degrees cooler than on the American continent, owing to the constant sea breezes. In winter, frost is unheard of on the island, and visiting gray skies never linger for long. It is a place of all-embracing sunshine for the greater part of the year, where bird-song abounds. It offers the wish fulfillment of a dream island; remote from cities, politics and bustle, with promise of halcyon days spent beach combing, skin-diving and escaping from routine. There are no ruins or historical sites to be visited, life is a leisurely affair, and time means nothing.  But once the feel of the island has taken hold of visitors they become captivated sooner or later, and leave with the intention of returning to feast their eyes once more on the colours that remain in the memory long after the island has been forsaken for the business of ordinary life.

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