"The next boat to sail for the Islands was the decrepit Ballymena, the inspiration for the old native song:

Ballymena, Ballymena in de ha'ba'
Ballymena, Ballymena, Ballymena
        in de harbour,
Dey put Ballymena on de dock
An' paint Ballymena black, black, black.

Besides me there were five white men and a white woman with a baby aboard; the rest were all native blacks. The little craft was so chockablock with cargo that the erstwhile bunks and bathroom were loaded with everything imaginable. The rain came down in torrents and for three hours I stood – there was not even a place to sit. I could only hope the rain would cease for a while at least, so I could get about and hunt for a chair of some sort.

One six-foot-tall white man was an extremely poor sailor. He seemed to have chartered one of the two cots in the main cabin or lounge. The woman with the baby had the other. Another man lay on the floor and the rest of us huddled wherever we could. Finally the Captain found a chair for me and a piece of tarpaulin to cover me as the top canvas leaked and I was drenched. When we reached the middle of the Gulf Stream the sea became more treacherous. It was marvlous how that little old Ballymena kept afloat at all.

After two days and two nights of this miserable sailing – on a trip that usually took about twenty hours at most – we finally limped into Nassau. The rain showed no sign of ceasing. We had come through the tail end of a hurricane."
(1923)


[Lythgoe, Gertrude C., The Bahama Queen (New York: Exposition Press, 1964, p.98)]