Nov. igo2. Flora of the Island of St. Croix — Millspaugh. 461 



eloquent story of former prosperity and wealth. Hundreds of acres 

 in Cotton Valley, east of Bassin, which in the '6o's were covered 

 with cotton and cane, are now desolate under a growth of prickly 

 pear, crotons, lantanas, and other weeds. The reclaiming of the 

 lands is a difficult process, but the long period of rest has doubtless 

 made them once more capable of yielding large returns. The forests 

 that once covered the hills of the east end have disappeared and the 

 young trees which would naturally spring up are injured by the goats, 

 so that no forests are likely to exist there. The effect of this forest 

 disappearance on the rainfall has been marked. Some of the guts 

 (small streams) near Bassin that were perennial fifty years ago are 

 now dry during the greater part of the year. 



Nearly every day of my stay I made excursions, mostly by car- 

 riage, penetrating to all parts of the island. Some of the more 

 notable of those trips were as follows: On January 31 I visited the 

 estate of Canaan, where the hospitable owner spent the day with me 

 in the exploration of Mt. Eagle, the highest point on the island. In 

 places the soil was shallow and great broken rocks and dense growths 

 made progress difficult. Large patches of Guinea grass were noted 

 extending almost to the summit. The view from the top is one of 

 unsurpassed beauty and commands the whole island. The forest of 

 the mountain was quite dense in places, while its north side was so 

 precipitous that it seemed to be almost sheer to the ocean. Several 

 productive trips were made to Crequis, a lovely narrow valley with a 

 perennial gut that keeps the spot a mass of verdure. Here ferns 

 were abundant and here I saw, for the only time, a specimen of the 

 Silk Cotton Tree, or Jumbee Tree {Eriodrendron), in bloom, but it 

 was impossible to obtain any of the flowers as they were entirely out 

 of reach. These trees grow to immense size with very thick limbs, 

 the one at Crequis having been a rendezvous for years of the Obeah 

 worshipers and of picknickers. The drive from the mouth of the 

 valley, which begins about one-half mile east of Williams' estate and 

 extends for a mile or more toward Mt. Washington, is one of the 

 attractions of the island. 



Judith's Fancy, along the east coast where I visited frequently, 

 is a favorite picnic-ground for Bassin people.' Here the black 

 basaltic cliffs perhaps thirty feet high, which form the coast, abruptly 

 terminate, and stretching to the northward is a long strip of sandy 

 beach with shoal water. Just back of the beach is low swamp land 

 drained by a little sluggish gut. 



The drive around the Salt River headlands, far along the north 

 side, is grand. The road runs for a distance along the edge of a cliff 

 that drops almost perpendicularly one hundred feet or more to the sea. 

 It was on this road that my mother and I struck into an abandoned 

 road that was so narrow that the carriage could barely press through 

 the dense growth, but after a hard climb we found ourselves on the 

 top of a range of hills with Canaan at our feet. Our adventure was 

 witnessed in amazement by the laborers in the fields. 



At another time, penetrating still farther westward on the north 

 side, we ascended six hundred feet by a steep roadway that taxed our 



