The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-03
ST. KITS.
THE MOTHER OF THE AN-
 TILES"
Worthy of Her Name-The Greenest Little Gems of the Oeean-MOunt Misery-Basse-Terrc- Black.

Misery-Basse-Terrc- Black.
 (Special Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier)
 Basse-Terre, St. Kitts Island,
 June 1st, 1902.
 Years ago Charles Kingley wrote: "It is not till the traveller arrives at St. Kitts that he sees what a West India island is. "The Mother of the Antilles" !" as she is called, is worthy of her name.
 Of course the appellation was orig inally St. Christopher, bestowed in hon. or of the same saintly parsonage after whom Columbus was named. Only thirteen miles long by six or seven wide, wedged in sideways between its smaller neighbors, Nevis and St. Eustatious-it became the common cen- ter Of both French and English civili- zation as long aso as when those two powerful rivais began their historic careers of maratime evolution in this part of the world. Basse-Terre, St. Kitts, is the first place in the West h. dies, where they finally settled amic- ably side by side.
 It is the greenest little 'gem of the ocean, you ever saw, clothed with nat ural verdure on the hills and with cane fields on the slopes and plains-a soft, rich green that reminds you of crum- pied velvet. Approached from Guadeloupe way, it seems to spring up out of the sea to meet you, waving it's rby light with beckoning invitation. as the wreckers of other days used to lure travellers to destruction. Closer inspec- tion, by the way, shows the beacon light to be only a peaceful lantern swung at nightfall out of second story window of the Custom House. The op- tical effect of the mountain shores, ow- ing to peculiar atmospheric conditions, is remarkable. Dark, beetling masses, with lighter streaks of cultivation, ap- pear to be hurrying down to meet you, and though from ten to fifteen miles of sea intervene, you fancy you could touch land with one flying leap. The long, green promontory on the western edge of St. Kitts which slopes up to the nearest chain of ridges. is appropri- ately called Basse-Terre, (French for '1owland"), and naturally, the same name is applied to the city which occu- pies portion of it. The first hillrange, ] cultivated to the top, trends down to "The Narrows"-a two-rnile stretch of sea which separates this island from Nevis. Close behind rise other hills, all swathed in bands of pale-green velvet, where cane-fields belt their swelling sides. Behind them more hills mount higher and higher, at first peering gent ly over one another's shoulders, then crowding together in crazy masses to- ward the center of the island and cul- minating in the extinct volcano known as Mount Misery. This gloomy crag which forms the apex of the rude pyra- mid, shoots slantingly forward over the mouth of an awful chasnl like a huge peninsula, four thousand feet aloft in the air. Browning and bare it is gener- ally visible in rain or shine, though mists and clouds envelope the rest of the mountain. Its black, unmeasured crater. across which f1eecy vapors fit, 'sis considerably longer than it is wide, sWith a lake of unknown depth in the bottom, walled by tremendous preci- ,pices, from whose Assures steam and sulphur fumes escape. A rather dan- gerous neighbor, one would think to the town over which it leans with sharper slant than characterizes Pisa's famous tower. The soil of the whole 2, island, which seems to be of exhaust less fertility, was formed from the ash and lava belched from the volcano in past centuries. The ruggedness ofEhe central chain renders doubly striking the contrast of cultivated lands below. and the entire prospect is so charming that you do not wonder Columbus named it after his beloved patron Saint. Some authorities assert that the great admiral saw in the contour of this mountain, which the English long after < ward dubbed Mt Misery" something ] which reminded him of St. Christopher carrying the infant Christ on his shoul- ders, and for that reason named the isl and
 The quaint old town of Basse-Terre, on the seaward edge of the promontory, is still one of the most important in the British West Indies. It has no harbor but it's partially hand-rocked roadstead. i The anchorage is commanded by an en- ornous rock, which looks as if it had dropped off from the black crag above. Covered with batteries precipitous on all sides but one. backed by the moun- tains and fronted by the western sea, it is certainly an imposing object. Its Notifications were once formidable menace to incoming mariners, but were long since abandoned and are now of no consequence except as as ignal-station to guide peaceful mechanism. The celebrated Birthstone HilP' is fifteen miles distant, on the Caribbean side, and is also long dismantled. Being re- mote from the settlement, monkeys have swarmed to it from the surround ing forest. and having made their homes in it's cosy hooks and corners among the ancient guns, now garrison 1t in great numbers. What com- Ynentary on the mutability of human af- fairs is Birthstone Hill" For several centuries the Gibraltar of the West In- dies, defended by works so strong as to be practically impregnable, England and France contended hundred years for its possession, at the expense of un- numbered lives. Before their day, it was the alternate stronghold of Spanish !. soldiers and held buccaneers; and here s the little band of aboriginal Carlos, !. when tricked by the conquerors out of their island inheritance, made a last H ns4z