The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe West IndiesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The West IndiesAuthor: John HendersonIllustrator: A. S. ForrestRelease date: October 31, 2017 [eBook #55859]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images available at The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEST INDIES ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The West IndiesAuthor: John HendersonIllustrator: A. S. ForrestRelease date: October 31, 2017 [eBook #55859]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images available at The Internet Archive)
Title: The West Indies
Author: John HendersonIllustrator: A. S. Forrest
Author: John Henderson
Illustrator: A. S. Forrest
Release date: October 31, 2017 [eBook #55859]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images available at The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEST INDIES ***
Contents.Index
List of Illustrations(In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers] clicking on the image will bring up a larger version.)
(etext transcriber's note)
THE WEST INDIES
By the same Artist.MOROCCOCONTAINING 74 FULL-PAGE REPRODUCTIONSIN COLOUR OFMr. A. S. Forrest’spictures.Text by S. L. BENSUSAN.Price 20s. Net.
By the same Artist.MOROCCOCONTAINING 74 FULL-PAGE REPRODUCTIONSIN COLOUR OFMr. A. S. Forrest’spictures.Text by S. L. BENSUSAN.Price 20s. Net.
COMING FROM MASS, ST. LUCIACOMING FROM MASS, ST. LUCIA
THE WEST INDIESPAINTED BY A. S. FORRESTDESCRIBED BY JOHNHENDERSON · PUBLISHEDBY ADAM AND CHARLESBLACK · LONDON · MCMVImage unavailable
THE WEST INDIESPAINTED BY A. S. FORRESTDESCRIBED BY JOHNHENDERSON · PUBLISHEDBY ADAM AND CHARLESBLACK · LONDON · MCMVImage unavailable
PAINTED BY A. S. FORRESTDESCRIBED BY JOHNHENDERSON · PUBLISHEDBY ADAM AND CHARLESBLACK · LONDON · MCMV
Image unavailable
The illustrations in this volume were engraved in England by the Hentschel Colourtype Process.Image unavailable
InBritain we have lost the art of correct perspective. We see distant things through jaundiced eyes; as a nation we are too prone to regard over-sea lands and peoples with compassion tempered with contempt, or with envy and timidity. To ensure our respect and sympathy a country must be successful; we have no room in our Empire for failures. America, because of her commercial genius and industrial enterprise, we respect and revere and imitate. We exaggerate the successes of the States and credit the American with commercial omnipotence. The word American stands in the unprinted national dictionary as meaning efficient, successful, up-to-date. I have heard that English tradesmen have labelled English-made goods “American” in order that a quick sale might be ensured in Britain’s capital. We refuse to believe that America has ceased to be related to us by ties of kinship; to the Englishmen of the homeland Americans are first cousins. And so it is, conversely, with England and the West Indies.
At home we are apt to think of the West Indies as a scattered group of poverty-stricken islands, barren of riches, planted somewhere in some tropical sea, and periodically reduced to absolute desolation by hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanoes. The poverty of the Western Indies is proverbial. Occasionally Imperial Parliament brings forward some measure, which, in the opinion of some individual, might tend to relieve the distress and commercial poverty of our West Indian possessions; at other times a fund is started at the Mansion-House to help the West Indian victims of some fearful tornado or earthquake. That is all that is generally known of the great islands of the Caribbean Sea. In our dreams of Empire we prefer to think of Canada, Africa, and strenuous Australasia. Commercially and politically our West Indies are, according to the general idea, more than half derelict, and wholly without the attractions of wealth and promise. We forget that these Western islands were at one time the richest of England’s possessions; we do not realise how rich they, some day, will again become. If Britain only understood aright she would know that it is only through her own neglect, through her half-hearted, penurious West Indian policy, that our Caribbean Empire is not in the front rank of her richest possessions to-day. The riches of the West Indies played a large part in the formation of Britain’s greatness. We swept the islands clear of all their surface wealth at a period when England was most in need of gold. And because to-day we cannot send ships from Plymouth with empty