Evening star., 1940-06-16

year, 1t means a travel West Indies
mean a travel South America yea
flag Of the United States does not !
of the West Indian islands, there
remain a great many interesting
places to visit where Old Glory
does fly, which are distant by thrill
ing voyages from these 48 mainland
States.
1t is Just as much a travel Amer
lea holiday to go to the Panama
Canal Zone and the West Indies,
as to 60 to the beaches of New
England or the mountains of the
West. II you have booked on one
of the cruises to the West Indies
and the Virgin Islands, you will
see Old Glory flying on the islands
of st. Thomas, st. John and st.
Croix just as bravely as you would
see it flying at Yellowstone Park.
Travel is the cure for provincial
ism. 1t shows us how big the world
Is, and a good way to start the cure
is to see how big America is. Puerto
Rico is just as much part Of Amer
lea as Rhode Island, and whether
you land there for a holiday or just
glimpse it on your way to the Virgin
Islands in your cruise ship, you will
ever after feel that America is a
much finer and bigger country than
you thought it was.
Sixty miles east of Puerto Rico
are Americas Virgin Islands, as
beautiful an archipelago Of Ameri-
cans as any one could wish to see.
You may only see three islands on
your atlas map, just as the same
atlas will show only one island in
Bermuda, but even as Bermuda is a
group of two or three hundred is
lands dotted around one larger is
land, so the Virgins have lots of isles
and islets about St. Croix, st. John
and St. Thomas, which add tre-
merldously to the attractions of your
cruise trip. To most of us, island
romance is not the isolation of a
Robinson Crusoe island, but the
glamor Of the coral isles. The At
lantic has it's romantic South Sea
Isles as we'll as the Pacific, but in
the Atlantic they are called the West
Indies.
When Christopher Columbus first
discovered the Virgin Islands, he
was so amazed at their number he
thought there we're thousands. That
is why he called them the Virgins,
after the 1000 virgins who Travelled
with Saint Ursula. Probably no one
has ever counted all the Virgin Is
lands, American and British, but
going -on-for-a hundred of them are
habitable, and hundreds of others
are just castus- covered Gays and
coral reefs.
You can buy one of the little ones
for a song, or perhaps for two songs,
but it would not be Of much use to
you unless it had small river and
better than arid soil. They have all
got names such as Cricket Island,
Cochroach Island, Savanna Island,
Hans Lollik Island, Brass Island,
Capella Island, St. James Islands
and others you seldom see on map.
In the Virgins generally, you will
find the queerest names for some of
the islands, such as Fat Virgin,
Sunken Island, Fallen Jerusalem.
Mermaids Chair and the famous
Dead Mans Chest, which is half a
mile long. The old story about it
says that Bluebeard, as the black
bearded pirate Edward Teach was
called, marooned Is of his men on
the island, with a gallon OF rum to
fight over, hence the chanty song
about Fifteen men on a dead mans
chest" and "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle
of rum"
Some of the prospective passengers
imagine that the voyages ports of
call and destinations will lack the
romance and charm which attach
themselves to places mellow and
old. This is illusion Havana, for
instance, is old. In comparison with
most of our American cities, Ha-
vana is very old. 1t is even older
than some we'll known European
cities. A great city like st. Peters
burg, now Leningrad, in Russia was
not even dreamed of when Havana
was born
We talk of "old New York." but
the first houses were built on the
lower end of Manhattan Island a
hundred gears after Havana was a
city. Indeed, Havana was hum
dred years old when the Mayf1ower
sailed into Massachusetts, Bay When
the Pilgrims stumbled on Plymouth
Rock there were Havana citizens
lounging in the Plaza de Armas
whose grandfathers as young men
had lounged there before them. In
many places this ancient square