INTRODUCTION. 



XV 



From Santa Cruz we steam across the Saba Bank, dredg- 

 ing occasionally as the sea permits, and pass under the lee of 

 Saba, an old volcanic cone, which rises 1,500 feet sheer out of 

 the water. Steps lead up from the water's edge, for a height 

 of 800 feet, to the bottom of an ancient crater, where a large 

 settlement exists. At Saba the greater part of the former rim 

 of the crater has disappeared, while at St. Eustatius the cone 

 is broken only at one point. 



We next come to St. Kitts, perhaps one of the most striking 

 of the West India Islands, in its exhibition of their typical struc- 

 ture, — a single peak, rising to about 3,700 feet, but with gentle 

 slopes (Fig. C.j, formed by old lava streams washed down by 



Fig. C. — Western Slope of St. Kitts. 



torrential tropical floods during the rainy season, and deeply 

 furrowed by diminutive canons. The whole outline of the 

 island is composed of graceful slopes, which become less steep 

 as they approach the sea, and covered nearly to the highest 

 point with flourishing sugar plantations, the steeper grades to- 

 wards the top of the crater becoming more and more barren as 

 they near the summit. 



Such are in general the features of nearly all the Windward 

 Islands ; the scenery varies as we pass from islands with one 

 summit to others with two or more peaks, and with slopes more 

 or less chiselled by the rains. Such islands as Saba, Montserrat, 

 St. Kitts, or St. Vincent, with a single central peak, present a 

 marked contrast to larger islands, like Guadeloupe, Martinique, 

 and Dominica, or to islands like the Grenadines, forming dis- 

 connected ridges rising from deep water, and diifer still more 



