CHAPTER XIV. 



THE LESSER ANTILLES. 



NDER the general name of the Lesser Antilles are usually comprised 

 all the islands of the Caribbean Sea except Cuba, Jamaica, San 

 Domingo (Haiti), and Puerto Pico. But those fringing the Vene- 

 zuelan coast, including Trinidad and the neighbouring Tobago, are 

 too closely connected with the South American mainland, both in 

 their position, relief, and geological constitution, to be separated from that conti- 

 nent in a general geographical treatise. 



In fiict, the term Antilles should be restricted to the chain of islands which 

 develops a graceful curve from north to south, beginning at Sombrero and 

 terminating at Grenada and Barbados. It should also, strictlj^ speaking, include 

 the Bird Islets (Aves), situated in the Caribbean Sea within the space enclosed by 

 the rampart of islands washed on the east by the Atlantic, but on a chain of 

 parallel banks which an upheaval of the marine bed would transform to a second 

 group of Lesser Antilles. 



The English administration, misunderstanding the reports of navigators, 

 usually apply the expression " Leeward Islands " to the northern section of the 

 Lesser Antilles as far south as Dominica, and inclusive of the Virgin group. The 

 southern section from Martinique to Trinidad is in the same way grouped under 

 the designation of the "Windward Islands." But these expressions are inaccurate 

 and misleading, for all the islands standing on the outer margin of the Caribbean 

 Sea are alike exposed to the action of the trade winds. Hence the terras, windward 

 and leeward, have no geographical meaning or any value except from the stand- 

 point of the British colonial administration. Even in this sense it is confusing, 

 for despite the official nomenclature, the French islands of Guadeloupe and 

 Martinique are members of the so-called "Leeward" group. 



Altogether the Lesser Antilles, from Sombrero to Grenada with Barbados 

 but without the Aves, have a collective area of over 2,550 square miles, with a 

 population of about 800,000, which for the New World is exceptionally dense. 

 Since 1856 the Aves group, important for its rich guano deposits, has formed 

 part of the Venezuelan Republic. 



Politically the Lesser Antilles are very unequally distributed. The two 

 largest, Guadeloupe and Martinique, with their dependencies, are French colonies, 

 but they do not form a distinct group, being separated by the intervening British 



