larger than the Turks Islands bank. It is a rough oval in shape, and the islands form a more or less continuous chain fringing its edge on the northern and part of the eastern sides. Among the islands, going from west to east, are the West Caicos, the Providenciales, the North Caicos, the Grand Caicos, the East Caicos, the South Caicos, and the Ambergris Cays. Cockburn Harbour, in the South Caicos, on the eastern side of the bank, is the principal settlement in the group; it is immediately opposite Grand Turk, the Turks Islands passage, which separates them, being about 22 miles across.

The climate of the islands is said to be healthy, but the rainfall is small, the annual average in Grand Turk being only about 27 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 attention of the islanders, is salt-raking, about 1,500,000 bushels of salt being exported every year from the three ports of Grand Turk, Salt Cay, and Cockburn Harbour, mainly to the United States 1. Some sponges are collected in and exported from the Caicos, and the pink pearl is found in these islands 2. The cultivation of the sisal fibre or Pita plant has been introduced, and has a fair prospect of success, the export in 1903 reaching a total of 454,193 lb., valued at £6,563. 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 1901 showed a total population of 5,287, of whom only 342 were whites; and about 1,750 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

1 The total amount of salt exported from the islands in 1903 was 1,806,694 bushels, with a value of £23,678.

2 McKinnen's book (published in 1804, see above, p. 93) 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.

numerous in the Caicos. There is an education ordinance, and free unsectarian elementary schools are supported by the government. The currency of the islands is composed of British gold and silver coins, and the gold of the United States of America is also legal tender at a discount of 1 per cent. The amount of gold in circulation is however small, and there is no legal limit to the tender of silver. 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 present it is visited monthly by a line of steamers from Halifax to Jamaica, which call also at the Bermudas, and the steamers of the Imperial Direct West Indian Mail Service between Bristol and Jamaica call off Grand Turk once a fortnight. There is also more irregular communication with the outer world by the line running between the United States and Hayti. There are no local telegraphs or telephones, but cable communication with Bermuda and Jamaica was established by the Direct West India Cable Company in 1898. 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 value1.

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 semiofficial French book by Bellin, published in 1768, and entitled Description Géographique des Débouquements au Nord de St. Dominique.

See also the account in the Jamaica Handbook, published annually in London by E. Stanford, 26 and 27 Cockspur Street, Charing Cross, S.W.

P

CHAPTER IV

THE LEEWARD ISLANDS

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

All or most of these islands were discovered by Columbus1 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 Antigua, 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 cloud-capped summit of Nevis is sufficiently like a snow-peak to account for its name. Redonda, the round island, Anguilla*, the snake island, are so called from their shape,

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. 94, note I.

3 Bryan Edwards [Book 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.'

Another derivation of the name of Anguilla is from the snakes supposed to have infested the island.