INTRODUCTION. Xvii 



separated by an inlet from the hamlet where the Empress Jose- 

 phine was born. 



Nowhere else among the West India Islands are the slopes 

 so deeply furrowed as on the flanks of Dominica, a long- com- 

 paratively low ridge, without prominent peaks, but with many 

 signs of active volcanic action. The island is as yet but little 

 cultivated, and on all sides one meets indications of its former 

 French dependency. But here, as in many of the islands 

 which have passed into English hands, and have been left 

 to shift for themselves, the results have not been satisfactory. 

 While at anchor in Petite Baie d'Arlet, we could not but be 

 pained at the wholesale destruction of humming-birds going 

 on. Ten thousand skins are annually exported from that single 

 settlement. 



In St. Lucia, the most fertile of the West India Islands, there 

 is a handful of English settled at Castries, a deserted town, 



Fig. D. — Pitons. St. Lucia. 



nedected, like the island itself, and nearly abandoned. The 

 island is thickly wooded in parts ; at the south end on the 

 lee side are two remarkable peaks, the Pitons, rising 2,700 

 feet perpendicularly out of the sea. (Fig. D.) Between them 



