The excitement of disembarking over, the girls had time to look around them, and there were "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of surprise and pleasure from everybody. The launch slipped through the narrow entrance to the harbor, and skirted the long, low island that sheltered it and shut it in from the open sea. The shores of this island were covered with a luxuriant growth of bushes, not distinctively tropical in appearance; but the island across the way--Mr. Wales explained that it was called New Providence, and that Nassau was the name of its town, which was also the capital of the Bahama group of islands--New Providence was dotted with groups of tall palms, a queer old fort crowned the hill, and the houses that lined the water-front and straggled up the steep streets toward the fort, had an unmistakably foreign air.