My best wish for the island is that it may speedily be reckoned among the annexations of the United States.
CHAPTER XI.
THE PASSAGE OF THE WINDWARD ISLANDS.
In the good old days, when men called things by their proper names, those islands which run down in a string from north to south, from the Virgin Islands to the mouth of the Orinoco River, were called the Windward Islands—the Windward or Caribbean Islands. They were also called the Lesser Antilles. The Leeward Islands were, and properly speaking are, another cluster lying across the coast of Venezuela, of which Curaçoa is the chief. Oruba and Margarita also belong to this lot, among which, England, I believe, never owned any.[*]
[*The greater Antilles are Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, and Porto Rico, though I am not quite sure whether Porto Rico does not more properly belong to the Virgin Islands. The scattered assemblage to the north of the greater Antilles are the Bahamas, at one of the least considerable of which, San Salvador, Columbus first landed. Those now named, I believe, comprise all the West India Islands.]
But now-a-days we Britishers are not content to let the Dutch and others keep a separate name for themselves; we have, therefore, divided the Lesser Antilles, of which the greater number belong to ourselves, and call the northern portion of these the Leeward Islands. Among them Antigua is the chief, and is the residence of a governor supreme in this division.
After leaving St. Thomas the first island seen of any note is St. Christopher, commonly known as St. Kitts, and Nevis is close to it. Both these colonies are prospering fairly. Sugar is exported, now I am told in increasing, though still not in great quantities, and the appearance of the cultivation is good. Looking up the side of the hills one sees the sugar-canes apparently in cleanly order, and they have an air of substantial comfort. Of course the times are not so bright as in the fine old days previous to emancipation; but nevertheless matters have been on the mend, and people are again beginning to get along. On the journey from Nevis to Antigua, Montserrat is sighted, and a singular island-rock called the Redonda is seen very plainly. Montserrat, I am told, is not prospering so well as St. Kitts or Nevis.
These islands are not so beautiful, not so greenly beautiful, as are those further south to which we shall soon come. The mountains of Nevis are certainly fine as they are seen from the sea, but they are not, or do not seem to be covered with that delicious tropical growth which is so lovely in Jamaica and Trinidad, and, indeed, in many of the smaller islands.
Antigua is the next, going southward. This was, and perhaps is, an island of some importance. It is said to have been the first of the West Indian colonies which itself advocated the abolition of slavery, and to have been the only one which adopted complete emancipation at once, without any intermediate system of apprenticeship. Antigua has its own bishop, whose diocese includes also such of the Virgin Islands as belong to us, and the adjacent islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat.