sources, but it is second-hand, as the opportunity of visiting Saint John's never presented itself to me.

Santa Cruz, by some called the Isle of the Holy Cross, by very earthly people the Isle of Rum and Sugar, is the third and last of the Danish islands, and it is also the largest, possessing, as it does, some seventyfour square miles of fertile soil. Here the atmosphere is rather more American than in any other parts of the West Indies, not even including our own possessions. The planters and the farm managers are for the most part men of Irish birth or descent, who have become Americanised, and there are also quite a number of typical Yankees, generally schooner skippers, who, having wearied of the sea, have cast anchor in this snug harbour. To-day the shadow of an unfortunate real estate speculation hangs over the Island of Rum and Sugar. Fifty years ago these plantations were still practically so many gold mines. They never came on the market. Ten years ago, however, when Sugar was down, most of them could be purchased and, indeed, a great number of them were purchased, at prices that did not cover the cost of the improvements. These purchases were, of course, inspired by a belief that sooner or later the island would fall into the hands of the United States, and so Santa Cruz rum and Santa Cruz sugar would enter the American market under more favourable circumstances than the rival products of the other islands. Plantation prices rose while the annexation treaty was before the Senate, and some of the speculators, as well as the ancient owners, sold out. They were laughed at at the time, but the sequel has shown them to be wise men. To-day most, if not all, the plantations are again for sale at ap

proximately the old low level of prices, and there are no purchasers. "I knew it was all up with our real estate spec," said one sugar-logged skipper, who hailed from Cape Cod in happier days, "when I read that King William had gone to Copenhagen and kissed King Christian on both cheeks and asked him not to sell out to Uncle Sam. A pair of Kings ain't much in Poker, but I guess it makes a strong hand in European politics."

In addition to those already enumerated, there are still some thirty or forty islands belonging to the Virgin group, and the area of those under the British flag, and large enough to count without a microscope, is about sixty square miles. They generally bear names eloquent of their glorious days, such as Rum Island, Broken Jerusalem, and Dead Man's Chest. When Captain Kidd sailed the seas, these islands all had their place and position in the buccaneering world, but it cannot be denied that in the prosaic to-day they are side-tracked and, indeed, for the most part, only visited in case of shipwreck.

In the olden days, when the French and the Dutch and the English were fighting for the possession of the sugar islands and the supremacy in these seas, often two nationalities were found in possession of an island when the statesmen at home, for reasons of their own, made peace, and there the colonists remained. The joint ownership, however, did not last long, and in the end the weaker claimant was generally driven away. Of the islands in the Caribbean chain only one remains which is still jointly owned by the French and Dutch. This is the island of Saint Martin, not far distant from Anguilla. It is about forty square miles in area, and

is fertile and well wooded. Like other mariners in these seas, I have steered by the conical hill which is known as Paradise Peak, that rises from Saint Martin to a height of nearly two thousand feet, but I steered so well that I never landed on the shore.

The northern half of this disputed land is still occupied by the French, and is ruled by them from Guadeloupe. The Dutch own the southern half, with its port at Phillipsburg. The seventeenth-century contention and land hunger are long since dead, and both powers would like to let go of Saint Martin if they only knew how. The island is very rarely visited, except every now and then, generally in sailing-vessels, by the French officials from Fort de France, and the Dutch officials from Curaçao, who must come to the island to hold court and for administrative purposes.

The next island we come to in our lazy cruise southward is that of Saint Barts. It is the smallest of the group in area and, perhaps, in population, but it has a history that could not be compressed into a score of volumes. It belongs to France to-day, and is a dependency of Guadeloupe, but the name of the port, Gustavia, betrays the Swedish settlement and occupation of the island, which lasted for nearly a century. Saint Barts, in the glorious days of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was the resort of the big buccaneers, in comparison with whom the low pirates, who rendezvoused at the Tortugas, were small fry, indeed. "Montbars the exterminator " lived and thrived here, and here many honest and industrious souls have thought he buried some, if not all, his illgotten gains. The island is simply honeycombed with shafts that treasure-hunters have sunk, but so far as is