316 CUBA AND l'OKTO MOO 



ered with beautiful vegetation. Ilearn lias told of the 

 u wonderful variation of foliage color that meets the eye." 

 "Gold-greens, sap-greens, bluish and metallic greens of 

 many tints, reddish greens, yellowish greens. The cane- 

 fields are broad sheets of beautiful gold-green, and nearly 

 as bright are the masses of pomme-eannelle frondescence, 

 the groves of lemon and orange ; while tamarinds and ma- 

 hoganies are heavily somber. Everywhere palm-crests 

 soar above the wood-lines and tremble with a metallic 

 shimmering in the blue light." 



The island is Denmark's largest American possession, 

 but the nineteen thousand inhabitants, mostly blacks, 

 speak English, and give no signs of their nationality beyond 

 a little garrison and its flag. 



There are many magnificent drives through avenues 

 of cocoa-palms, tamarind- trees, and ceibas. Frangipani, 

 bananas, cacti, and jasmine are cultivated everywhere. 

 The sugar-planters have endeavored to live by adopting 

 new methods and machinery, and are better off than those 

 of the English islands; but there are many abandoned 

 plantations and buildings going to decay. Several New 

 England ship-captains have become planters on the island. 



The temperature ranges from 66 to 82. The lower 

 temperature is considered exceedingly cold by the inhabi- 

 tants, and is usually the southern fringe of the extreme cold 

 waves which occasionally sweep the eastern United States. 



There are two towns, Frederiksted and Christiansted, 

 which are generally called West End and Basse End re- 

 spectively. Frederiksted, when viewed from the sea, 

 looks like a beautiful Spanish town, with Romanesque 

 piazzas, churches, and many-arched buildings peeping 

 through breaks in the breadfruit-, mango-, tamarind-, and 

 palm-trees ; but on entering the streets you find yourself 

 in a crumbling town with dilapidated, two- story buildings, 

 from which the stucco or paint is falling. The fissures in 

 the walls and the tumbling roofs may be largely due to the 

 fact that the city was sacked by the negroes, who revolted 



