Islands passage, which separates them, being about 22 miles CHAPTER

across.

III.

tion, &c.

The climate of the islands is said to be healthy, but the Climate. rainfall is small, the annual average in Grand Turk being only about 271⁄2 inches, and the water supply in that island is mainly derived from rainwater collected in tanks. Hurricanes occasionally visit the groups, a disastrous one having occurred in 1888. The industry, which engrosses the Industries, attention of the islanders, is salt-raking, a million to a million Populaand a-half bushels of salt being exported every year from the three ports of Grand Turk, Salt Cay, and Cockburn Harbour, mainly to the United States1. Cave earth is also an article of export. Some sponges are collected in and exported from the Caicos, and the pink pearl is found in these islands2. The revenue, as a rule, covers the expenditure, and the islands are free from debt; the main sources of revenue are customs duties and a royalty on the salt which is exported. The census of 1881 showed a total population of 4732, of whom only about 500 were whites; and about 2000 of the inhabitants were returned as being resident in Grand Turk. The chief religious sects are Baptists, Wesleyans, and members of the Church of England, the first-named being specially numerous in the Caicos. There is an education ordinance, and free unsectarian elementary schools are supported by the government. The disadvantages of the islands are the scarcity of fresh provisions, the want of an ample water supply especially in Grand Turk, and most of all their distance from the large centres of civilization. Grand Turk is said to be about 420 miles from Jamaica, 450 from Nassau, and 700 from the Bermudas. At

The total amount of salt exported from the islands in 1888 was 1,287,980 bushels, with a value of £19,865 11s. 8d.

2 McKinnen's book (published in 1804, see above, p. 89) specifies cotton as then being a staple commodity of the Caicos, and, among other products of those islands, fruit, some live-stock, and two sugar plantations.

II.

SECTION present it is visited monthly by a line of steamers from Halifax to Jamaica, which call also at the Bermudas, and there is more irregular communication with the outer world by steamers plying between the United States and Hayti. On the whole, in spite of their loneliness, the islands appear to be fairly prosperous, and they have in their salt-ponds a possession of permanent value 1.

An account with maps, of the Turks and Caicos Islands, with some of the south-eastern Bahamas and the Bermudas, is given in an old semi-official French book by Bellin, published in 1768, and entitled, Description Géographique des Débouquements au Nord de St. Dominique.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LEEWARD ISLANDS.

IV.

THE Colony of the Leeward Islands includes Antigua, St. CHAPTER Christopher, or, as it is more commonly called, St. Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, the Virgin Islands, and Dominica. The Discovery islands of Barbuda and Redonda are dependencies of and Antigua, and Anguilla is included in the Presidency of St. Names.

Kitts and Nevis.

All or most of these islands1 were discovered by Columbus on his second voyage in 1493. On the 3rd of November in that year he sighted Dominica, and, shaping his course north-west from thence, he passed from island to island, giving them their names.

Dominica was so called because it was discovered on a Sunday; the church of Santa Maria la Antigua2, at Seville, gave Antigua its name; Montserrat was christened after the mountain of that name near Barcelona; St. Christopher took its name either from Columbus himself or from the supposed likeness between its mountains and the statue of St. Christopher with the Saviour in his arms. The cloudcapped summit of Nevis is sufficiently like a snow-peak to

3

1 At any rate he actually sighted and named Dominica, Montserrat, Redonda, Antigua, and the Virgin Islands.

2 The Indian name is stated, on the authority of Ferdinand Columbus, to have been Jamaica. See above, p. 90, note. 1.

3

Bryan Edwards [Bk. III. chap. iv. sec. 2] suggests that Nevis was, when discovered, an active volcano, and that the white smoke gave it its name. In some of the old books, e. g. in John Smith's account, the name appears as Mevis, and The History of the Caribby Islands speaks of the island called Nieves, otherwise Mevis.'