ST. LUCIA, ST. YIN< TAT, THE GREXADIXKS, AND GRENADA 359 



deadly fer-de-lance. Agriculturally St. Lucia shows the 

 same depression everywhere visible in the English islands. 

 The sugar industry has almost been eliminated within the 

 last ten years. Only a small portioD of the total cultivable 

 acreage is under cultivation. The forty-six thousand 

 black inhabitants, who arc French in speech and habit, live 

 largely on such pickings as they can gather from the coal- 

 ing of ships, public works, and their little yam-patches. 

 Many of them Leave the island to seek employment in 

 ( layenne and other places. The revenues are not sufficient 

 to meet the expenditures, and the high taxes are already 

 more than the people can meet. Sugar-planting is dying 

 out, and this beautiful island, once as fair as Martinique, 

 will soon sink into the economic condition of Dominica. 



St. Lucia is chiefly noted for possessing the only deep 

 harbor, except St. Thomas and Trinidad, in the Lesser 

 Antilles, and for being the only one of the Caribbee Islands 

 which has a completely protected landlocked basin, where 

 ships can go alongside a dock. This is an oblong bay 

 surrounded on all sides by high hills, upon which England 

 is mounting some of the strongest batteries in the world. 

 The town of Castries is a small place built on made ground 

 on the interior side of the harbor, at the foot of its steep 

 surrounding hills. It looks quite diminutive in compari- 

 son with the overtowering natural surroundings. Its 

 population seems to consist mostly of negro women, who 

 coal the passing ships. There is a handsome market-house, 

 a pretty botanical garden, and a comfortable reading-room 

 and library. The whites all live upon the highlands 

 around the harbor, the low grounds being considered un- 

 heal! lii'ul. 



For the past few years England has been making a most 



formidable naval station here, and the American dingo 



press has often called attention to it. Castries is also the 

 chief coaling-station of the British navy in the West Indies, 



and the imperial troopsareto be concentrated here and in 

 Jamaica, 



