The Republican journal., 1896-04-09
The Republican Journal Thursday Morning, April g. 1885,
numbers comes the Wesleyan Methodist,

numbers comes the Wesleyan Methodist,
the membership always entirely black.
With pastors of the same complexion.
Agriculture does not flourish greatly in
st. Thomas, as much from lack of willing
laoorers as from want of water. There is
not single running stream in the whole
island, and only one fresh water spring,
Numerous cisterns and tanks gather the
downpour of tropical storms during the
rainy seasons, and the water is filtered for
drinking by process much the same as
that employed in New Orleans. Aloes
and cacti grow everywhere to great height
and every sub tropical products might be
brought to perfection by judicious sys-
tenn OF irrigation. A little tobacco is
raised, but sugar-cane is the principal
product of the island. There are few
large plantations in the interior.
which might be made valuable property
if infused with a little Anglo saxon
energy. The Creole planters profess them
selves ruined by free trade and the
Va Si''SAy3 anu flC Itdsty W Sell
out for song. OF course the climate is
largely to blame, and excessive industry
is not the rule where the mercury remains
the year around in the neighborhood of 50
degrees. Yet ST. Thomas is seldom visit
ed by any epidemic disease and the ma
jority of its people look exceptionally
healthy; and since 1862 when hurricane,
an earthquake and a tidal wave conspired
together by occurring simultaneously to
defeat Secretary Stewards scheme for the
purchase of the island, its tranquility has
not been marred by single disaster for
which nature was responsible
1t will not take the stranger long to in
spect all the ''sights' of Charlotte ANA
lie, for there are few beyond the public
library and hospital, the tumble down
casa in which Santa Anna, ''the butcher of
the Alamo" as Americans call him, lived
after his Punishment from Mexico, the
ANTICIPATED forts that line the harbor's
entrance, the Notifications above the town
and the palm shaded beach below it where
these people take their morning and even
ing baths, au natural.
More interesting than any of these are
two ruined robber castles set up high on
the hills that slope to the shore, called
respectively Blackboard S and Blue
boards, in which for a hundred years the
pirates held high carnival when at home
from successful raids upon rich merchant
men. The edges Of the island are deeply
indented with coves and inlets, where,
concealed by the rock lodges and the dense
foliage of mangroves, the corsair craft
were securely harbored. Had you visited
Charlotte Amaiie during the first quarter
OF the present century, you might have
been treated to the spectacle of human
skeletons bleaching ON the sands, those of
sea- robbers, who had made many poor
soul ''walk the plank on the Spanish
Main, at length brought to justice by the
stern command of the Danish Governors
and their bones hung up as warning to
their fellows. About seventy years ago an
expecting to find no end of treasure CON
cealed within it. He searched and dug
for many months, and discovered, so the
story goes, doubloons enough, hidden
away in diverse secret places, to make
him rich for a lifetime, But a curse
seemed to follow the blood stained gold
and afterwards everything went wrong
with the invader. AT last his only daugh-
| ter, a charming girl and the light OF his
lonely life, broke the old man S heart by
running away with a worthless fellow.
sadly repeated in other parts OF the world,
of betrayal and desertion. She came back
| years afterward, gray-haired and sad, to
find her father dead and the robber- ghosts
again in possession of the only home she
had ever known. The old time owner of
the other castle Blackboard 81 is believed
to have deposited his plumber in cave in
the rocks of hill which the sailors have
christened ''Mizzen Top 1t is easy
enough to find the cave, but all the divin-
ing rods and ''hoodoo' ceremonies with
which the negroes hereabout search for
hidden treasure have so far failed to re-
veal any. But the same cannot be said
of all the ee-booters hidings, for many
an iron bound vessel filled with Spanish
gold and ''pieces of eight of the 18th
century have been found buried in caverns
as island FANNIE B. WARD.