town is snugly built is on the south side of the
island. It is nearly circular and almost landlocked,
and is deep and spacious. T he principal street of
the town runs along the curve of the shore and out
into the country on either side. The background is
an amphitheatre of mountains with bold headlands,
and within its circuit rise terraces of streets and gardens
in picturesque fashion, with red-tiled roofs.
Most of the white citizens reside in the outskirts.
Two isolated structures with ancient towers are
known as the castles of “ Blackbeard ” and “ Bluebeard
” ; but, notwithstanding the romantic suggestion
of pirate chiefs, they are known to have been
built by the government about the year 1700. The
port is securely sheltered from the winds of the
north and east, but hurricanes are wont to come
from the south, and in 1819 one got in here and
stranded all the vessels in the harbour and did much
mischief. One almost equally destructive forced an
entrance in 1837, and another in 1867.
T he buccaneers and pirates did not fail to find
this sheltered bay and use it as a refuge and a lurking
place, and Dutch and English settlers followed
in their wake, the former in 1657 and the latter in
1667; but in 1671 the Danish West India and Guinea
Company took possession and set up a trading station.
I t ranked next to Port Royal, Jamaica, in the
slave trade. I t soon passed into the hands of the
“ Company,” of which the Elector of Brandenburg
was the director. I t was maintained as neutral
ground, and French refugees settled upon it after
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Abou t the
middle of the last century the King of Denmark
took direction of the affairs of the trading company
and made a national possession of the island. The
port was kept free to all nations; and at times it
afforded the only place of interchange between the
West Indies and Europe.
In fact, through the wars and contentions of two
centuries St. Thomas profited by its advantage of
neutrality. I t had been a trading-place for buccaneers
and smugglers and slavers; and then when
England and France and Holland were fighting
and destroying each other’s commerce, it picked
up trade with all the belligerents and with the
Spanish colonies which they were harrying. There
was little occasion for tilling the soil. It was
only necessary to take toll on the exchanges that
constantly went on at the wharves. Through the
revolutions by which Spain lost her colonies St.
Thomas also profited, and when these commotions
were over it found itself in the pathway of commerce
not only from Europe to the West Indies and
the old ‘ ‘ Spanish main,” but from the United
States to Brazil, and it became a harbour for refuge,
for repairs, and for coaling, though it became relatively
of less importance than in the old days of sailing
ships. There is a marine railway and a floating
dock two hundred and fifty feet long, completed in
1875, and all the appliances of a convenient port of
call.
T h e prevailing language at St. Thomas is E n g lish,
though it is a place of various nationalities
and many tongues, and the negroes have a mixed