Since the age of the discoverers, the harbor of St. Thomas has welcomed
the craft of the sea-going nations of Europe--craft sometimes black of
prow and sinister in design. Father Labat recounts the tale of a French
privateer, Legendre the Blond, who on an autumn day in 1695 ran into
the harbor at Charlotte Amalie, robbed the Brandenburgh warehouse of
24,000 riksdollars (about $13,000), and relieved the employees, from
director-general to humblest clerk, of everything except the shirts
they wore. Accomplices of French privateers, with the connivance of
authorities at St. Thomas, once sent a warning that enabled a robber
fleet to reach France with a sum equivalent to $400,000 stolen on
the British island of New Granada to enrich the war chest of Louis
XIV. In April, 1699, there arrived a notorious “rover of the sea”
at the harbor gate of St. Thomas. “Well outside gun range,” he hove
to, and asked refuge from the pursuit of English ships. It was none
other than Captain Kidd that begged this hospitality, and a governor
of less tolerant ideas than some others that had represented Denmark
refused him admission. Later, when the pirate secretly disposed of
his ill-gained cargo to island traders, part of it--tens of bales of
fine muslin valued at 12,000 pieces of eight--was stored in a St.
Thomas warehouse. Captain Kidd departed for New York, and from there
was sent to England for trial on the charge of piracy. The taller of
the two towers on the hills behind Charlotte Amalie is the traditional
stronghold of Black Beard Edward Teach, “one of the realest, blackest
and bloodiest pirates that ever graced the Spanish Main. He came to
his own at the cutlass of his Majesty’s Lieutenant Maynard in the year
1718.” Forty-five bays on the coast of St. Thomas and thirty inlets
that indent the shore of St. John were in those days a well-considered
aid to the dark dealings of men and ships.
It was at Magen’s Bay, a large inlet on the north side of St. Thomas,
that surveys recently made by the American Indian-Heye Foundation of
New York uncovered the remains of a primitive settlement. Vessels
found in burial mounds were without decoration, and were in other ways
unlike those that have descended to us from the first inhabitants of
Porto Rico and San Domingo. Archeologists accept this as proof that
the aborigines of the newly-acquired American group were not Arawaks,
as previously supposed; nor do the crafts disclosed by research
reflect the Carib culture of the West Indian islands farther south.
As yet, the tribe that hunted the cottonwood groves of St. Thomas,
built canoes and fished the swarming bays has not been classified.
It is hoped that future excavation on the Virgin Islands of Great
Britain may aid identification. On the island of St. John there are no
indications of aboriginal life beyond a few rock carvings, from which
evidence it is judged that this island had no village site, but was
used for ceremonial meetings. On St. Croix, ten village sites have been
discovered by various investigators.
Visitors to St. John find special interest in the bay rum industry.
Here the bay tree is indigenous to the soil, no orchards having been
set out by man. Three times a year the leaves are picked by nimble
youngsters, who throw down twigs bearing perhaps a dozen leaves to
women standing ready with bags that have a capacity of sixty to seventy
pounds. Oil distillers pay two cents a pound for the leaves and the
labor of picking them. When the essential oil is extracted from the
leaf, it is mixed with rum or alcohol and water and further distilled
to make bay rum. The latter process is mainly carried on by St. Thomas
firms. The average price of bay oil in the islands is five dollars a
quart; of bay rum, seventy cents a gallon.
“If you love beautiful scenery,” says the author of “Isles of Spice
and Palm”--“if you are interested in strange people and quaint ways,
visit that chain of island gems which stretches in a broad curve from
Porto Rico to the tip of South America, and which is known as the
Lesser Antilles. By days of travel these islands are close at hand; by
customs, manner and life they are remote as the Antipodes.” Admiral
David Porter called St. Thomas “the keystone to the arch of the West
Indies.” Transportation from New York to this sunny isle of storied
days and fortunate location is by the Quebec Steamship Line, which
maintains comfortable ships on regular nine or ten-day schedule. The
trip each way consumes a little over five days. A call is also made at
Frederiksted, St. Croix, (and in the sugar season at Christiansted),
before the steamer proceeds to South America. Between Charlotte Amalie
and San Juan, Porto Rico, a voyage of about fifty miles, there is a
monthly steamer service. Fast sailing vessels also carry passengers to
and fro among the islands.
Coral Bay, St. John, is twice as deep as the hill-bound harbor of St.
Thomas, and is large enough to shelter at one time four or five hundred
vessels. It is actually a better haven than that of St. Thomas, but
the latter is closer to the trade routes. Before the World War it was
not unusual for two hundred ships to call in one year at the port of
Charlotte Amalie.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 6. No. 13. SERIAL No. 161
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH BY E. M. NEWMAN