iqoi-2.] The Windward Islands of the West Indies. 363 



destroyed alike by the Spanish, French and EngHsh during the early 

 bloody history of the West Indian region. As if by an irony of fate, the 

 islands have ceased to be of commercial value to the conquerors, and 

 their descendants have mostly disappeared, or sometimes have become lost 

 in the admixture with the, negroes, whom they imported to supplant the 

 natives on their own soil. The negroes here are mostly from French 

 settlements, and speak a jargon, almost unintelligible to the English 

 or French visitor. Hardly any industries flourish. A little sugar 

 is still cultivated, cocoa and limes are grown quite extensively. Mr. 

 Frampton has started the cultivation of the kola bean. 



Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. 



These islands (see maps. Plates C and D, appended) form a 

 continuation of the mountain chain of Guadeloupe and Dominica 

 and are composed of the same old igneous foundation and 

 overlying tuffs, and later gravel deposits, and probably of some 

 remnants of the old Pleistocene limestone (as in Guadeloupe 

 and Dominica), though I did not see them. The older basement 

 is more exposed than in the more northern islands, and the 

 old traps are decayed to considerable depths. In fact, as we go farther 

 south, the physical features assume more mature forms. Thus Mar- 

 tinique is deeply indented by the Bay of Fort Royal, and the hills to the 

 south of it are erosion features. But the northern part of the island is 

 surmounted by the more recent volcanic ridges and cones, the highest of 

 which rises to a height of 4,438 feet. Martinique is more or less flanked 

 with sloping surfaces (due in part to the sloping beds of tuffs underlying 

 them) as in St. Kitts (illustrated in figure i, Plate VI.). Remains of 

 base level erosion benches may be seen as in figure 2, near St. Pierre. 



Martinique is the most important of the French islands, but, unfor- 

 tunately, it is so often placed in quarantine, on account of yellow fever, 

 from which the other islands are generally free, that one is uncertain of 

 being able to visit it, for if even a single case of fever breaks out, the 

 traveller cannot leave, except by going on a French steamer bound for 

 France, or by chartering a sloop and lying at sea for sixteen days, 

 an experience which, for even a few days, one does not desire to have 

 repeated. On this account, although lying in front of the island we 

 did not land. This was the home of Josephine Beauharnais, afterward 

 the wife of Napoleon I. 



St. Lucia (see map, Plate C, appended) is surmounted by a cone 

 rising to 4,000 feet. The igneous rocks, belonging to the ancient 



