iv PREFACE
point of view, giving prominence to British colonial
interests, and containing details of little moment
now. Some later works, like Eden’s West Indies,
have a similar fault of disproportion with meagreness
of detail in everything not English. The later
Spanish works relate wholly to the Spanish colonies,
“ now no more.”
There are many books relating to one island or
group of islands, or to some special interest or phase
of life in the archipelago, and many that are mere
sketches of the observations, often very interesting,
of travellers seeking novelty and adventure. Books
on Cuba are numerous, but most of those of recent
date treat it with special reference to the struggle
for independence, and furnish little systematic information
about its history, physical aspects, and
permanent conditions. This, however, cannot be
said of the useful little volume, The Island o f Cuba,
by Rowan and Ramsay, though it gives little
attention to any but recent history. T h e earlier
books, like Hazard’ s Cuba with Pen and Pencil, and
Gallenga’ s Pearl o f the Antilles, which aim to furnish
more or less systematic information, though not very
old, seem now rather remote; and the sketches of
Dana, Ballou, Carleton, and others are mainly narratives
of personal observation.
Jamaica is treated in a full and, for their day, an
interesting manner in Martin’s History o f the British
Colonies, Bryan Edwards’s British Colonies in the
West Indies, and Sir S. D. S co tt’s To Jamaica and
Back, to say nothing of Michael S co tt’s fascinating
pictures in Tom Cringle's Log; but there is more of
Jamaica in these special works than is wanted in a
general view of the West Indies, and none of them
presents the real latter-day aspect of the subject.
Santo Domingo and Haiti have received much attention
in the past on account of the interesting phases
of life and political experience there, and Hazard s
Santo Domingo Past and Present and Keim I Life m
Santo Domingo are calculated to gratify the larger
curiosity on that subject, while Sir Spenser St. John
furnishes a graphic, if rather dark, picture in, his
Hayti, or The Black Republic, the fruit of a long residence
amid the scenes described. If a people which
has no history or whose annals are brief is necessarily
happy, our newly acquired subjects in Puerto Rico
i ought to be cheerful and contented. Probably more
has been written in English about that island in the
last eight months than in a century before, and y e t
only meagre information is to be gleaned from the
mass. Puerto Rico is y e t to be “ developed ” in a
literary as well as a material sense. Its history is
really scanty, and its present condition and future
possibilities are y e t to be studied with care.
The Bahamas and the Caribbees have a peculiar
charm for the vacation voyager, and the delight one
has in going from a northern winter into the genial
glow of the tropics at their best, has led many
writers to describe the scenery and the life of this
long and fascinating range of islands. Drysdale s
In Sunny Lands and Iv e s ’s Isles o f Summer give
especially cheerful pictures of the Bahamas, while
McKinnen’ s Description o f the Bahama Islands presents
a more sedate view. No one can thfnk of the