THE VOLCANIC CABTBBEE8 333 



Columbus, ill honor of "Our Lady of the Snow," but the 

 English have corrupted it into "Nevis. " It is famous as the 

 birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, and in the old Fig-tree 

 Church, a few miles from town, the register shows that 

 Horatio Nelson, then a captain in the British navy, was 

 married to Mrs. Fanny Nesbitt. 



The estimated present population is 13,700 The acre- 

 age is 32,000, of which 6868 acres are cultivated. The 

 precipitous nature of the surface prevents cultivation with 

 the plow, so that all tillage is that of the spade. Here, 

 as elsewhere in the British Caribbees, the black man has 

 emigrated in search of employment, and the women greatly 

 outnumber the men. 



Charlestown, the capital, has only a few hundred inhabi- 

 tants, and hardly more than a single street stretching along 

 the beach. The architecture is of the ancient period of 

 English West Indian settlements, and embraces quaint old 

 houses of stone with tiled roofs. General decay is notice- 

 able. Whites are few, negroes many. In olden days this 

 island was famous for its fertility and wealth, and Charles- 

 town was the principal pleasure-resort of the West Indies, 

 where wealth and fashion gathered to spend the mmmhi at 

 the famous sulphur baths. These are a short distance from 

 the town, where the ruins of an immense hotel, which might 

 have accommodated several hundred guests, can be seen. 



Politically Nevis is really a part of St. Kitts, from which 

 it is separated by fourteen miles of water, the channel 

 being only twenty-six feet deep and scarcely two miles 

 wide at its narrowest part. The two islands have daily 

 communication by a strain ferry. Nevis, however, seems 

 to 1m- much better off than its neighbor, the difference 

 being attributed to the fact that in the former island the 

 negroes have no difficulty in obtaining land, which has 

 hem broken up and sold in small lots. Like the other 

 British islands, Nevis is heavily charged with debts and 

 ever-increasing expenditures, accompanied by a declining 

 revenue. 



