CHAPTER XXXIII 



ST. LUCIA, ST. VINCENT, THE GKENADINES, AND GEENADA 



England's stronghold in the West Indies. The Pitons. Agricultural de- 

 pression. Recollections of Rodney. 



ST. LUCIA was the Ste. Alouise of the French. This 

 " wildly beautiful island," as it is called by Montgom- 

 ery Martin, lies twenty-four miles south of Martinique and 

 twenty-one miles northeast of St. Vincent. It has the same 

 rugged aspect as the other large Caribbees, but is noted as 

 one of the loveliest, if not the loveliest, in the chain of 

 islands to which it belongs. It is forty-two miles long, 

 twenty miles broad, has a coast-line of one hundred and 

 fifty miles, and embraces two hundred and thirty-three 

 square miles. Like Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Dominica, 

 and Martinique, it is a mass of high monies, with steep 

 bluffs along the sea and steep acclivities leading up to the 

 cloud-wrapped summits, the highest of which, La Sou- 

 friere, at the south end of the island, is four thousand feet 

 in altitude. Near by there is another mountain, the Piton 

 dea Canaris, three thousand feet high. Other high sum- 

 mits occur along the entire length of the island, bu1 are 

 always wrapped in a silky veil of mist. The so-called 

 "crater" of the Soufriere is about one thousand feel up 

 the mountain'. It Is composed of old volcanic tuff and 

 cinder, coated with sulphur, and contains a few boiling 

 springs. 



Of all the examples of the wonderful acute configuration 



3. r .7 



