te zone, the air being, at that height pleasantly
cool. They sell their produce about the islands. They build boats
up in the crater--the best boats in all the West Indies--and lower
them down the cliff to the sea. They hire themselves out too, not
having lost their forefathers' sea-going instincts, as sailors about
all those seas, and are, like their boats, the best in those parts.
They all speak English; and though they are nominally Lutherans, are
glad of the services of the excellent Bishop of Antigua, who pays
them periodical visits. He described them as virtuous, shrewd,
simple, healthy folk, retaining, in spite of the tropic sun, the
same clear white and red complexions which their ancestors brought
from Holland two hundred years ago--a proof, among many, that the
white man need not degenerate in these isles.

Saba has, like most of these islands, its 'Somma' like that of
Vesuvius; an outer ring of lava, the product of older eruptions,
surrounding a central cone, the product of some newer one. But even
this latter, as far as I could judge by the glass, is very ancient.
Little more than the core of the central cone is left. The rest has
been long since destroyed by rains and winds. A white cliff at the
south end of the island should be examined by geologists. It
belongs probably to that formation of tertiary calcareous marl so
often seen in the West Indies, especially at Barbadoes: but if so,
it must, to judge from the scar which it makes seaward, have been
upheaved long ago, and like the whole island--and indeed all the
islands--betokens an immense antiquity.

Much more recent--in appearance at least--is the little isle of St.
Eustatius, or at least the crater-cone, with its lip broken down at
one spot, which makes up five-sixths of the island. St. Eustatius
may have been in eruption, though there is no record of it, during
historic times, and looks more unrepentant and capable of
misbehaving itself again than does any other crater-cone in the
Antilles; far more so than the Souffriere in St. Vincent which
exploded in 1812.

But these two are mere rocks. It is not till the traveller arrives
at St. Kitts that he sees what a West Indian island is.

The 'Mother of the Antilles,' as she is called, is worthy of her
name. Everywhere from the shore the land sweeps up, slowly at
first, then rapidly, toward the central mass, the rugged peak
whereof goes by the name of Mo