436 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



TORTOLA. 



Tortola, largest of the English possessions in the Virgin gronp, is disposed m 

 form of a crescent north-east of St. John. It is an elevated land, traversed in its 

 entire length by a ridge which culminates in a peak 1,800 feet high. A chain 

 of islets and reefs, beginning in the island of José Van Dyck, north of Tortola, 

 sweeps round to St. Thomas, while another barrier reef diverges from St. John 

 towards Virgin Gorda, enclosing with Tortola a vast basin of smooth water. 

 Sailino- over this almost landlocked inland se i, far removed from the heaving 

 ocean, the traveller descries at intervals between the cliffs of the encircling 

 islands the distant prospect of the open sea with its restless line of breakers. 



After being a stronghold of the buccaneers, Tortola was for a time occupied 

 bv a number of Quakers, who emancipated their slaves and made them grants 

 of land. But they had no imitators, and after the abolition of slavery the plan- 

 tation negroes emigrated in swarms to St. Thomas and other islands. The 

 impoverished whites also left, and the population rapidly fell from 11,000 to 4,000. 

 Road Town, the capital, lies on a creek in the " Road of the Virgins," as the 

 inland sea is generally called ; pineapples are the chief produce of the district. 



Virgin Gorda — Anegada. 



Eastwards stretches Virgin Gorda, called by the sailors Spanish Town, a word 

 which the negroes have corrupted to Penniston. Its arid heights are almost 

 uninhabited, though one of the isthmuses guarding the approach to the inland sea 

 was till recently defended by a fort. 



The north-east point of Virgin Gorda is continued by a line of reefs developing 

 a semicircular rampart along the margin of the submarine plateau, and terminat- 

 ing in the long island of Anegada, or the " Drowned." This fiat low-lying land 

 is so named because it is often half submerged during high tides in stormy 

 weather. But the central part does not appear to have ever been under water. 



The dangerous reefs of Anegada have often been strewn with wreckage, and 

 the crews of vessels cast on these rocks have seldom escaped with their lives. 

 According to a local legend, a Spanish galleon laden with gold and silver was 

 lost on this island, and the treasure deposited by some of the survivors in a cave 

 in the interior. But though often searched for by the buccaneers and inhabitants 

 of the neighbouring islands, the stores of gold and silver have never been 

 discovered. 



The Virgin Islands are a Crown Colony. 



