Another two days’ sailing south and I was on another island called Nassau, the capital of a group of islands called the Bahamas. In Nassau sponges are gathered from the bottom of the sea and sent back to U. S. for US to USe. Would you believe that the sponges you use were once alive? They were once like jelly with the sponge inside. Men dive down into the sea and tear the live sponges off the rocks where they grow. Then they wash off the jelly-like part and what is left is the sponge.

Another one of the Bahama Islands is the little island on which Columbus first landed—the most famous little island A monument marks the spot where he stepped out of his little boat after his long voyage across the ocean, kneeled down in the sand, and thanked God for directing him safely to the New World. He called the island after his Saviour, “Holy Saviour,” which in Spanish is San Salvador.

There are three large islands of the West Indies—tit-tat-to, three in a row. There is also another island a little smaller, and many, many very small islands besides in the Caribbean Sea.

The largest island of all the West Indies—the first one of the tit-tat-to, three in a row islands—is Cuba. Columbus found the Indians in Cuba carrying burning torches in their mouths. They breathed in the smoke and blew it out again in a most strange and amazing fashion, as if they were dragons. It seemed an extraordinary thing for people to do—to breathe in smoke of a burning weed, for that was what it was; yet they seemed to enjoy it. No one across the water had ever seen such a sight before—people breathing fire. But now people all over the World copy the red Indians of Cuba. The weed was called tobacco. Tobacco is now grown in many parts of the World, but the finest tobacco for cigars still grows in Cuba, and Havana, the capital of Cuba, ships “Havana” cigars everywhere.

People from Spain went to live in Cuba and Cuba belonged to Spain until not so many years ago, but now Cuba belongs to itself.