LONELY ISLES
From Anegada to St. Martin is, in the vernacular of the buccaneers, a “passinge longe sayle,” a run of nearly one hundred miles across the heaving Atlantic rollers surging in through the Anegada Passage. But to one who loves the sea, the tang of salt spray high-flung by a plunging bow, and the heave of a tossing deck, it is a glorious sail. The Vigilant made fine weather of it, and sixteen hours after low-lying Anegada dropped below the horizon astern Anguilla rose like a cloud above the sea before us.
Anguilla, or the “Eel,” was no doubt frequented by the buccaneers, but, as far as I know, there is nothing authentic to connect them with the island, and it holds but little interest. Its thirty-six square miles of brush and salt-grass have been abandoned to the negroes, who find it difficult to gain a livelihood. They do, to be sure, raise a few cattle and ponies, as well as donkeys; and, being forced to subsist on the meager rations nature has provided, [[115]]these four-footed Anguillans are living examples of the survival of the fittest. They are noted throughout the neighboring islands for their hardiness, though they are diminutive beasts.
Passing Eel Island by, we headed for St. Martin, the one island of all the Caribbees which has the distinction of being under two flags at the same time. In days long past, when Briton, Don, Frenchman, and Hollander, as well as Dane and Swede, slit one another’s throats over these bits of land, it was not uncommon for the islands to be in the possession of several nations in rapid succession. In fact, in those days it must have been difficult for the struggling inhabitants to know to what king or emperor they owed allegiance, for they were never quite sure, when they retired at night, what flag they would see flying above the fort and government house the next morning. It was a question of “O say, can you see” what banner is there? Often, within the space of as many days, they would be under British, French, and Dutch colors in turn. Often, too, one fort would be under one flag and another fort under another, or a portion of the island would be occupied by the troops of one nation and another part by the soldiers of a different power, while at times two nations agreed temporarily to hold an island in [[116]]partnership, each keeping to its own side of the fence, so to speak; or by common consent an island was rejected by all and regarded as “neutral territory,” the powers deciding that it was not worth the bloodshed necessary to hold it.
But gradually the islands became the acknowledged possessions of the various European nations, and only St. Martin remained through the centuries a land divided within itself, with the French flag flying from one port and the Dutch banner from another.
In the northern part the French rule, their half of the isle being a dependency of Guadeloupe, while the southern half acknowledges allegiance to the Netherlands. It would be hard to say whether France or Holland owns the better portion of the island, but unquestionably there are more people under the Dutch flag than under the French.
Marigot, the port and capital of French St. Martin, is a charmingly pretty town, and the greater number of the three-thousand-odd subjects of France dwell within its confines. Philippsburg, the Dutch capital and port, is less populous, but the Dutch subjects altogether number fully five thousand. Of course there is no hard-and-fast boundary between the two, no trocha or barbed-wire fence stretching across the island. No doubt the [[117]]easy-going natives bother very little as to whether they dwell under one flag or another, and drift back and forth at will, or as their occupations demand, from West Indian France to Antillean Holland. There are few of the islanders who do not speak the Creole patois, and as the common language of the Dutch West Indies is English, and virtually all St. Martians speak what passes for that tongue, their dual linguistic troubles are almost nil.
Scenically, St. Martin is lovely. It is mountainous, its loftiest summit, Paradise Peak, rising nearly two thousand feet above the sea. The surface of the island is delightfully varied, with rolling conical hills, broad valleys, deep gorges, and, near the shores, immense salt-water lagoons. It is for the most part fertile, and its inhabitants—at least those in Dutch territory—industriously cultivate the land. Many of its hills and mountains are luxuriantly forested. The big lagoons serve the natives as salt farms or pans, and the production of salt, the crops grown, the raising of cattle, donkeys, and poultry, and the yield of the fisheries provide a steady if not munificent income, so that the St. Martians are comparatively prosperous.
Quite the reverse is the condition of the neighboring island of St. Bartholomew,—or, as it is always [[118]]called, St. Barts,—within whose lovely harbor of Gustavia the Vigilant dropped anchor after her splendid run from Anegada.
St. Barts is diminutive, barely eight square miles in area, hilly, with one of its so-called “mountains” rising to one thousand feet. It is wholly destitute of springs or streams, far from fertile, and deplorably poverty-stricken—literally out at elbows. Its people (virtually all negroes and mulattoes) number about three thousand, and so wretchedly poor is their island, with so little in the way of opportunity or employment, that the bulk of them are scattered up and down the Antilles laboring for a livelihood, or, in their sloops, carrying cargoes from port to port or plying a fisherman’s trade. Although St. Barts is a French dependency, nearly all its inhabitants speak English, and they are noted throughout the northern islands as industrious workers. Among them at times one sees fair-haired, blue-eyed individuals—weird-looking creatures at first sight, seemingly albino negroes with their pale eyes and flaxen wool, but merely the odd result of the commingling of Swedish and African blood, for St. Barts for many years belonged to Sweden. Not until 1878 did the Swedes relinquish this one possession of theirs in the Caribbees and turn the almost worthless bit of land over [[119]]to France. Swedish blood still crops out, not only among the negroes but in the few “poor whites” who claim St. Barts as their native land, and Sweden’s lost sovereignty is perpetuated in the name of the island’s one port, Gustavia.