CHAPTER X
THE ISLE OF THE HOLY CROSS
St. Croix, or—to use its more euphonious Spanish name—Santa Cruz, seems an island fashioned from green plush. If ever there was a true Emerald Isle, it is this island of the Holy Cross; and while it lacks the majestic mountains of the larger islands, their dense forests and their impressive scenery, it possesses a wonderful beauty all its own. It is like a perfect gem, a jewel of radiant green, in a band of silver set in purest turquoise. Here Nature with a lavish hand has spread green of every imaginable hue; green such as no artist ever conceived or could reproduce. Then, to complete her chef-d’œuvre, she has added touches of brilliant scarlet in flaming poinciana trees, soft browns in unplanted fields, dull yellows in the groves of tibet-trees, and high lights in the shape of snow-white plantation houses and sugar-mills, the whole framed in dazzling coral sand, creamy surf, and water of wondrous hues, from deepest sapphire to palest aquamarine.
No towering mountain peaks distract the eye or [[172]]lead one’s gaze upward to the clouds; no great cataracts hurtle over ragged precipices; no rugged cliffs rear themselves above the sea, and no mysterious, shadowy jungles clothe the hills. As in a true masterpiece, its composition is simple, its harmony of tones is perfection, and as though scorning comparison it hangs alone against a background of blue sky and bluer sea in the midst of the Caribbean.
From East Point to Fredericksted, near its western end, Santa Cruz is one unending succession of rounded green hills, smiling valleys, golden-green cane-fields, and white beaches. Sugar is, or was, king in this isle of the Holy Cross, and upward from the very edge of the sea to the summits of its highest hills the fields spread like a patchwork quilt over the land, outlined by smooth white roads or long lines of royal palms, and dotted with the towers of ancient windmills, the tall chimneys of the sugar-mills, white limestone estate houses, and groves and clumps of trees. Along the coast low limestone bluffs alternate with palm-fringed, white-beached coves, each lovelier than the preceding, until, as a culmination of all, Fredericksted is disclosed to view. Close to the sea, half hidden behind its screen of coco-palms, the little town nestles against its background of vivid green beyond a bay of marvelous, shimmering, multicolored [[173]]water. Intensely tropical and foreign-looking is this town—known locally as “West End” to distinguish it from its only competitor, Christiansted or “Basse End”—with its softly tinted buff, pink, and pale-blue residences; its low, massive warehouses and stores with wide-arched doorways; its flower-filled balconies and patios, and its quaint red Danish fort.
Here in the transparent water the Vigilant came to rest in her own home port, where the Stars and Stripes flew in place of the scarlet flag of Denmark. Somehow, to me, Old Glory appeared out of place here, for always the Danish banner with its snowy cross had seemed most appropriate for this little isle of Santa Cruz. But aside from the different flag, a few khaki-clad “soldiers of the sea” in place of the blue-uniformed, “woodeny” Danish troops, and the fact that the official notices pasted on stuccoed walls were in English instead of Dansk, I could see few changes in the place.
Except in its beauty from the sea, Fredericksted has little to offer in the way of sights or attractions. Its streets of white lime are blindingly glaring, and reflect the heat and light of the intense tropical sunlight in a way that makes walking about at midday a torture. It has no noteworthy or impressive buildings, and under its new owners it [[174]]appears no more prosperous than before. But as a resort wherein to pass a few weeks or months to avoid the rigors of a Northern winter St. Croix has many attractions. Its climate is noted for its salubrity; there are splendid motor roads about the shores and across the island from West End to Basse End; there is pigeon- and deer-hunting to be had; the tepid water on its perfect beaches makes sea-bathing an unending delight, and the hospitality and good-fellowship of its people are charming. Of tropical pests there are few. There are no poisonous reptiles, only one species of small, harmless snake being found on the island; there are no venomous insects; mosquitos are few, and though at certain seasons and in some places sand-flies are troublesome, house-flies are scarcely known. But do not assume from this that the island has no drawbacks, or is a perfect Eden. Its blacks—and about ninety per cent. of its population of fifteen thousand souls are of African blood—are discontented and surly and lack the happy-go-lucky good nature of the other West Indian natives. Since the United States came into possession they have caught the Land-of-Liberty idea, and have organized labor-unions, declared strikes, and made things generally unpleasant for the planters and whites. [[175]]
Moreover, the otherwise delightful isle is subject to severe hurricanes and more or less disastrous earthquakes. In 1867, St. Croix was virtually devastated by a quake followed by a tidal wave which lifted the U. S. S. Monongahela from her moorings in the harbor, and, carrying her completely over the tops of the coco-palms along the shore, deposited her unharmed and right side up on dry land. From this unique position, this unexpected and unwelcome dry-docking, the cruiser was salvaged by digging a canal to the sea through which she was launched, whereupon she proceeded on her way none the worse for the experience.
In 1772, over five hundred houses were destroyed by a hurricane which whipped up such a sea that the water rose seventy feet above its normal level and destroyed a vast amount of shipping. Oddly enough, this hurricane was the direct means of bringing to our shores one of our greatest celebrities, Alexander Hamilton. At the time, Hamilton, who was then a lad of fifteen years, was an underpaid clerk in the counting-house of one Nikolas Cruger of Christiansted, and his letter to friends in the States, wherein he vividly described the devastation of the storm, attracted so much attention that it resulted in his being given a chance to come to this country and secure a college education. Had [[176]]it not been for that hurricane on Santa Cruz, the great statesman no doubt would have lived and died an unknown accountant in the Antilles.
Again and again the island has been swept by these “overgrowne and monstrous stormes,” as Captain Smith called them, and though they occur only during the summer, and therefore need not be taken into consideration by winter tourists or visitors, yet they have done a great deal to keep the island from gaining the prosperity it should enjoy, and have wrought incalculable damage to crops and property.