xvi INTRODUCTION: 
from geologically recent islands like Sombrero, Barbuda, An- 
tigua, and Barbados. St. Kitts may be said to form a twin 
island with the adjoining Nevis, which has a soufriére of its 
own rising to 2,000 feet. 
Montserrat comes next, another small volcanic island, well 
known now for the large amount of lime-juice it exports. We 
then pass by the lonely island of Redonda, with its cloud- 
capped summit. Nearly all the higher peaks of the Windward 
Islands are usually hidden from view by a cap of clouds, massed 
against the windward sides, where the trade winds, saturated 
with moisture, strike the cold flanks of the summit. 
The huge central mass of Guadeloupe, perhaps the most im- 
posing of the West Indian volcanoes, rises to a height of at 
least 5,000 feet. The larger island is separated by a swamp 
from the Grande Terre, a low bank of recent limestone at the 
base of the central voleano of Guadeloupe. The steep slopes 
near the summit are covered with forests, but pass gradually 
into the long, gentle cultivated slopes, which in their turn fade 
imperceptibly into the arid tracts of Grande Terre itself. 
On the south, Guadeloüpe is flanked by outlying islands, the 
Saintes and Marie-Galante, where we dredge in vain for some of 
the treasures of the deep, supposed to have been fished up in 
the intervening channels by French naturalists at the beginning 
of this century. 
As we approach Martinique, it seems to consist of three sep- 
arate mountain masses, not smoothly rounded, as in the more 
northern islands, but with deeply furrowed flanks, cut out by 
rains and torrents, and innumerable winding valleys, cultivated 
from the water’s edge almost to the highest summits. The 
island is crossed in all directions by excellent roads, and dotted 
over with villages and plantations. The slopes of the deeper 
valleys and the more inaccessible bottom lands are covered with 
forests and with groves of tree ferns. Near the plantations, 
avenues of royal palms rear their heads high above the dark 
mango, orange, and lime trees. On the lee side of the island 
is St. Pierre, the commercial centre of the French West Indies, 
where at every step one is reminded of a French provincial 
town. То the south is the naval station of Port de France, 
