470 MEXICO, CEKTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



liigli, is crowned by a citadel formerly called the " Gibraltar of the West Indies," 

 but now abandoned as useless. 



Tbe capital of St. Kitts, which still bears the French name of Basseterre, but 

 which the English settlers j)ronounce Barr- Starr, lies at the foot of Monkey Hill, 

 on a bay of the western or sheltered side. The town is surrounded by gardens 

 and palm-groves, and here has recently been successfully introduced the famous 

 lodoicea Seychellaram, or sea-cocoanut of the Seychelles, which was till lately 

 threatened with extinction. Scarcely anything is raised in the island except 

 sugar, said to be the best in the Antilles, and still produced in sufficient quantities 

 to remunerate the planters despite the low prices. But they have often had to 

 suffer from long droughts, and occasionally from floods, as in 1880, when an 

 avalanche of water and slush from Mount Misery reached the capital, levelling 

 hundreds of houses, and laying all the lower quarters under mud ; whole planta- 

 tions, houses and all, were swept down the flanks of the mountain. The estates 

 still remain undivided, and in the hands of the white planters ; the blacks have 

 received no land, and cannot even build a hut without the permission of the 

 ground landlords. There are no Indian coolies in the island, but most of the 

 retail trade is monopolised by Portuguese and natives of the Azores. 



The Spanish name of Nievcs, given to the neighbouring islet by Columbus, in 

 honour of " Our Lady of the Snow," has been changed by the English to Nevis, as 

 if it had been named from Ben Nevis. It is a superb cone rising sheer above 

 the sea to a height of 3,460 feet, and flanked right and left by two secondary 

 crests. Nevis should be regarded as forming part of the same insular mass as 

 St. Kitts, from which it is separated only by a reef-studded channel 26 feet 

 deep and scarcely 2 miles wide at its narrowest part. 



The precipitous nature of the surface prevents the use of the plough, so that 

 the whole island, even the land under sugar, has to be tilled with the spade. 

 In the seventeenth century Nevis had a population of several thousand whites, 

 who were compelled to emigrate when the land was bought up by a few great 

 capitalists. The blacks also readily seek employment elsewhere, so that the 

 women greatly outnumber the men. Charlestoicn, the capital, lies on the leeward 

 side ; in the neighbourhood are some noted thermal springs. 



St. Kitts and Nevis f(jrm with Anguilla a " presidency," administered like 

 the other divisions of the Leeward Islands. The yearly budget exceeds £40,000. 



MONTSERRAT. 



The igneous chain is continued southwards by the inhabited islet of Redonda 

 (600 feet), beyond which follows the rugged island of Montserrat, so named by 

 Columbus in honour of the famous Catalonian sanctuary. The jagged sierra 

 culminates in a peak 3,000 feet high, and from another cone, named La Soufrière, 

 hot vapours still escape. 



Like the other islands Montserrat was long a bone of contention between 

 the French and English. At present it is relatively one of the most densely 

 peopled and flourishing of all the British Antilles. Its enterprising planters, 



