364 CUBA AND PORTO EICO 



by Lofty volcanic craters, among which is a picturesque 

 lake more than two miles in circumference and thirty-two 

 hundred feet above the sea. The capital, St. George, has 

 a fine harbor with a walled fort, and pretty houses and 

 churches situated on the hillsides. In the northwest are 

 successive piles of conical hills or continuous ridges cov- 

 ered with vast forest-trees and brushwood. There are 

 many fertile valleys interspersed with numerous rivulets. 



Grenada is the most British of all the British islands, 

 for, although owned by France until 1762, it has flown the 

 English flag since then. The island is the capital or head- 

 quarters of the Windward government, which comprises 

 the colonies of St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, and 

 Grenada, and has all the charms of British official colo- 

 nial society. Here also we hear the cry of the good old 

 days that are no more, and the lamentations of the decay 

 that is. Sugar, for which the island was once famous, is 

 now grown only in sufficient quantities to supply the 

 natives with cane to chew or rum to drink, less than one 

 hundred thousand dollars' worth being exported annually. 

 Cocoa is the chief product, but this is falling off in price. 

 The expenditures are increasing on account of enlarged 

 educational institutions and public works roads, bridges, 

 and water- works, which the English must always have. 



The population in 1891 numbered fifty-four thousand, 

 or four hundred and fifteen to the square mile, of whom at 

 least four fifths are a contented lot of negro peasantry, 

 owning their own homes and growing their little crops of 

 yams and sweet potatoes. Like St. Vincent, it presents' 

 more open country interspersed between the rugged moun- 

 tains than is found in the northern Caribbees, and is of a 

 more recent volcanic character. The English will tell you 

 that it is the loveliest of all the islands ; but this is told of 

 them all. 



The island is a delightful spot, and the English proprie- 

 tors a hospitable people. If the reader should visit the 

 tropics, a brief stay here would be well rewarded. 



