The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-21
IN THE DANISH ISLANDS
ST. THOMAS DE LOS EsTIDOS USI-
 DOS DEL NORTE.
Hasty Visit to Onr Newest Possess
 sions The City ofChariotte Amaiie
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier)

tSpeclal Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier)
 Charlotte Amalia, St. Thomas Island
 February ?, 1902
 What better thing can we do, in this
 history making morning of the twen-
 tieth century, than turn our backs on
 the worn- out monarchies of the old world and take a look at Uncle Samu-
 ele latest acquired possession. The m- mediate transfer of the Danish islands to the United States decided us to cur tail our European tour--or at least to
 defer it's completion-for a brief study of the conditions and business possibili- ties in the new territory. Will you do
 me the favor at the outset to procure good map of the West Indies, so that we may first get our bearings we'll in mind? Before the Spanish American war, comparatively few people in the United States had any idea of the vast number and extent of the islands which, set in the form of a rude arc, stretch from Florida and Yucatan in North America to Venezuela in South Amer lea. To this day many tolerably edu- cated persons, if asked to tell in a hur- ny where Saba, St. Jan BasseTerre, Grenada or other of the lesser islands are situated, would, likely as not, locate them on the other side of the world. The far-reaching results of the late war will be felt in the next decade, and the next, more powerfully than now; and does it not behooye us of the conquer ing race to have 8 thorough knowledge not only of lands we have recently ac- quired, but of the adjacent territories, all of which, on this side of the Atlan- tic, will eventually be ours. Search that cobwebbed corner of your brain where you keep packed away rusty < nuggets of information garnered ''tn childhood's happy hour" bring to light and dust off few pertinent facts. The enormous archipelago, which forms an invincible barrier between the swelling pillows of the Atlantic and the smaller basins of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, comprises, all told some thing over one hundred thousand square miles of land and has present popula- tion of about six millions. Columbus himself had no idea of the magnitude of his find, but named the few islands he saw West Indies because he thought that through them had been discovered a quick and easy passage to India. You hear them variously spoken of as the Greater Antilles the Lesser An titles. the "Leeward Islands" the "Windward Islands," the ''Lucayos Is- lands" the Virgin Islands" until your head whir1s in trying to unsnarl the tangle. Right here the may comes in. With 1t before you, begin at the north ern end of the archipelago and note that the Lucayos or Bahama Islands (clamed by Great Britain), struggle half way up the coast of Florida, sepa- rated from that peninsula only by narrow strait and the Great Bahama Bank. They alone number upwards of five hundred and their roughly estima- ted population is thirty thousand
 The Greater Antilles comprise only Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica and Hayti, | with the smaller islands along their coasts-a land area of at least eighty three thousand square miles.
 The Lesser Antilles, disposed in the form of a crescent, the convex side facing eastward, are divided into two [ CIldllS--OHG hIlONu dS He CdllDUGtSs trending around Porto Rico to Trinidad, | the island that produces our asphalt off | the coast of Venezuela; the other lying along the northern coast of South America to Lake Maracaibo, including tine big Dutch Island Curacoa. Early | navigators called these last named the .Leeward Islands, and the other chain the "Windward;" but nowadays nearly all modern charts simplify matters by chasing all the islands above the fif- teenth degree of north latitude as Lee wards; and those below that line as Windwards. Besides these main groups hundreds of smaller islands and an incalculable number of unnamed is- lets are scattered along the shores and dot the 1,SO3,OOO cubic miles included within the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
 The erstwhile Danish" West Indies -St Thomas, St. Jan and Ste. Croix- belong to the outer, or Windward group, and lie only a few miles, due east, from Porto Rico. There is no need of a pilot to guide vessels into the beautiful har- bor of St. Thomas, nor even of daylight to get safely through the deep and nar- row strait that leads to it's land-locked inner waters. Steamers generally go up to the coalng wharf, opposite the town of Charlotte Amalia, sometime during the silent watches of the night, and passengers are awakened by the guns on top of the old red forts that line the strait, booming forth permis- sion for the sun to rise. Hurrying on deck you are treated to glorious view. Behind you are the tall cliffh that stand as door-post to St. Thomas har bor now yelled in fieecy portieres, with touches of amethyst, rose and gold. Before you three rounded hill-spurs trend down to the sea-long ago dubbed by sailors Fore Mast and Mig gem" and on their many slopes the quaint, old Danish town is silhouetted against a background of high, dark it's vermillion roofs and the : brown castles sf long dead buccaneers peering out from dense foliage. On the night wooded savannah sweeps grad ually upward: on the left, chain of : rocks and islets reach almost close to the entrance of the bay, whose tranquil < surface reflects, as in morror, the hills that environ it and every cloud that :. skurries over on the wings of t he trade wind. The most striking part of the !