CHAPTER XI. 

 Virgin Islands and Santa Cruz. 



HE Yirgin Islands were so named by Columbus because they covered 

 the sea in a long procession like that of the " eleven thousand 

 virgins " of the Christian legend. This chain of islands forms a 

 prolongation of Puerto Rico, but bends round somewhat to the north- 

 east before joining the Lesser Antilles. They form, so to say, the 

 keystone of the vast semicircle described by the whole of the Antilles. But both 

 as regards the submarine bed on which they rest and their general trend, they 

 belong far more to the group of the Great than to that of the Lesser Antilles. On 

 the east side the separating channel is over 1,000 fathoms deep, while the distance 

 to the nearest members of the smaller group exceeds 250 miles. 



Santa Cruz, which is associated politically with the Virgin archipelago, is 

 geographically distinct, for it is separated from the northern chain by a " tongue 

 of the ocean," and on the other hand its marine bank forms an advanced prom- 

 ontory of the Lesser Antilles. Thus the two insular systems overlap at their 

 converging extremities. 



Culebra and Crab, depending politically on the neighbouring Puerto Rico, 

 reall}'^ form part of the Virgin group. St. Thomas and St. John, the next two 

 going eastwards, together with the outlying Santa Cruz, are Danish possessions, 

 while all the rest as fur as Anegada form part of the British Colonial Empire. 



St. Thomas. 



Notwithstanding its small size, St. Thomas was formerly the most important 

 of the Antilles as the general depot of European trade with the West Indies. It 

 had originally been a rendezvous of the buccaneers, and then in the hands of a 

 financial company became the chief centre of the contraband trade with the 

 Spanish colonies, and one of the great markets for negroes imported from Africa. 

 The Elector of Brandenburg was director of the company, and he having been 

 succeeded by the King of Denmark, the island ultimately lapsed to that power. 



Being a neutral island St. Thomas naturally attracted much trade during the 

 Napoleonic wars. Then it continued to thrive as a free port after the abolition of 

 the slave trade and the separation of Spanish America from the mother country. 

 In its warehouses, nearly all held by Jews, the West Indian planters found every- 



