I90I-2.] The Windward Islands of the West Indies. 359 



Montserrat (see map, Plate B, appended), shows the old igneous 

 foundation, small remnants of the earlier Tertiary (Oligocene) limestone, 

 and the surface accumulations from two volcanic cones of apparently 

 the same age as those of the other inner islands of the Windward chain. 



Most of the roads in these islands are well made. Very fine sugar 

 estates cover the slopes of St. Kitts and Nevis, but the industry is 

 paralyzed, and prevailing poverty has succeeded the luxuriant wealth of 

 a generation or less ago. In Montserrat, great quantities of lime juice 

 and citric acid are produced. The people are mostly negroes, with a 

 considerable number of Portuguese, descendants of labourers imported 

 some time ago into St. Kitts. The old English white families are dis- 

 appearing from different causes, the final being the intermarriage of 

 those in reduced circumstances with people of colour, that is to say, with 

 those whose blood is very slightly coloured. These in their turn become 

 commingled with others of darker shades, so that eventually you find 

 descendants of the most distinguished white families appearing like full- 

 blooded negroes, in spite of the very strong prejudice against the 

 mixing of the races, which socially ostracises the slightest trace of 

 African blood. 



Antigua and Barbuda. 



These two islands (see map, Plate B, appended) form another 

 distinct tableland, rising 2,000 feet or more above the floor of the 

 submerged Antillean plateau (see map, Plate B, appended). The island 

 of Antigua impressed itself upon me as a little continent, with all the 

 features necessary to complete one, and indeed this impression is not far 

 wrong, for here may be studied all the geological and physical history of 

 the dismembered and drowned tableland between North and South 

 America, except the phenomena of the later volcanic activity. It is the 

 starting point of investigation. Moreover, it is a fertile island and 

 suggests prosperity, until one looks beneath the surface and finds that 

 the prices paid for the sugar now are no more than the smallest pittance 

 required for sustaining slave labour. The south-west quarter of the 

 island is mountainous, the highest peak rising to 1,330 feet. This 

 district is broken up into narrow ridges, with the valleys rapidly 

 increasing in size, so that their lower reaches are broad flats extending 

 into the shallow bays, where corals grow in profusion. In these valleys 

 are small rivers, but over most of the other sections of the island the 

 drainage is underground without water courses. The central belt of the 

 island is a low depression, out of which rise several hills. The north- 

 eastern part is sorfiewhat higher and undulating. The mountain district 



