That Gilbert & Lofthouse were ghost-writing for the Bahamas Development Board was an open secret that seems to have gotten lost in the post-colonial shuffle. The Board solicitor at the time was a very young Stafford Lofthouse Sands who would go on to great notoriety for his dealings with Meyer Lansky in the 1960s.

Pashley supposedly "collected" it from H. de Winton Wigley (British journalist) who, again supposedly, ghost-wrote a series of cornball articles on Bahamian bootlegging that appeared the N.Y. Herald c.1921.

Wigley is also the earliest reference for "I Want To Go To Abaco" which also appears in the 1935 Lomax Collection (Abaco is a Pretty Place, Bahamas Vol.#2, 2002, Rounder Records, 82161-1832-2) and Delia Gone is on there too! Small world eh?

Wigley's series got turned into a book (With the Whiskey Smugglers, London: Daily News Ltd, 1923) but I can't remember now if the snippets of lyrics appear there as well. I have the 1921 newsclippings in storage. I'll swing by in the next couple of days and see if I can find those too.