and pine-apples grow wild, and calladiums and orchids cover the bark of the trees, up to where the tree-ferns grow in thousands, clothing the mountain sides and waving their long feathery fronds in the fresh breezes, of the Trades. Arriving at length at some high pass, a wide extent of hill and valley is overlooked, of forest unreclaimed and of fertile lands uncultivated; and as the lovely landscape now smiles in the sunshine, and is now tearful in the driving mist and rain, the silence is only broken by the plaintive chords of the siffleur des bois. Yet this neglected island contains everything which can make tropical make tropical life enjoyable, a fertile soil, a healthy climate, brooks and torrents in every valley, a total absence of snakes, ticks, mosquitoes, and noxious animals, an abounding beauty, and a docile, willing, and intelligent peasantry. In spite of all this, Dominica is neglected by those who are asking whither they should go to make their fortunes, and who seek them in the Arctic circle of Klondyke, or in the malarial swamps of West Africa, and till quite recently the island has been forgotten by the Home Government. Of its 186,000 acres of land, but onesixth is cultivated. The Crown owns 80,000 acres, and is willing to sell to immigrants on the easiest terms, from 10s. to £1 an acre. But before the Crown lands can be cultivated, roads must be made, and Parliament will shortly be asked to pass a vote for this purpose. When roads are made, Dominica will be par excellence the Paradise of the industrious young planter. Here at different altitudes, lines, coffee, cocoa, fruits, and fibre plants can be grown with great success, and be made to give a substantial return for the money and labour invested. The winter climate is also so perfect, and the thermal springs of the island are of such great medicinal value, that ere long Dominica must become a favourite winter resort for invalids. Those who are seeking investment for capital I cannot recommend too strongly to investigate the resources and capabilities of Dominica. JAMAICA. There has been so much to tell about the less known islands of the West Indies that I have not left myself time to speak at any length of Jamaica, the largest and the most important of the British West Indies. Jamaica is a country in itself: and its separation by many hundreds of miles from the rest of the West Indies group has given it a character and history particularly distinctive. The industries, the resources, and the future of Jamaica are so important that I should be glad to have the opportunity of addressing you on some future occasion on the subject of this colony rather than do it scant justice at the end of this lecture. The question which is at the present moment of public importance is the future of the sugar industry. In Jamaica, as elsewhere, the production of sugar has greatly diminished, so that whereas in 1881 it was 77 per cent. of the total exports, it is now but 20 per cent. It still remains, however, a most valuable industry, and distributes in the island in wages no. less than £373,000 a year. It is contended that, by improved methods of cultivation and manufacturing, Jamaica sugar and rum may continue to prove a remunerative industry; but should foreign competition prove in the end too strong, the loss of the sugar industry would not be so serious a blow to Jamaica as it would be to Barbados; for owing to the great and exceptional natural advantages of Jamaica, the variety of climate obtained at different elevations, the fertility of the soil, the abundance of the labour available, and the proximity of the island to its best market, i.c. the United States, other industries would arise to take its place. Thus within the last few years the banana and the orange industry have, mainly through the operations of the Boston Fruit Company, grown to very large proportions. In 1896 the value of the banana exports reached £316,000, and of oranges £170,000; the two being largely in excess of the exports of sugar for the same year. Jamaica has only to recognise the greatness of her potentialities, and to determine by the cultivation of all her valuable resources, by the liberal education of her varied peoples, by the efforts of her government to work in the interests of the whole people untrammelled by the costly burdens of officialism, to become a powerful, wealthy, and prosperous colony. The agricultural resources of the country are immense; the waste and neglect of many of these are surprising. What Jamaica needs more than anything else is patriotism, and unless the white man develops a more patriotic love of the beautiful island which is his home, he runs the danger of being ousted by the "brown man" who, educated, restless, and ambitious, meets him in all the walks of life. But at this late hour the racial, economic, and political questions of Jamaica cannot be discussed. The West Indies Commission has brought prominently before the public the difficulties and the possible disasters which at present haunt the islands of the West Indies; but, while attempting to show how to overcome or avert these, it will do a still more valuable work if it awakens the Home and Colonial Governments to the realisation of their duties to the smaller, undeveloped, and neglected islands, and demonstrates to the English people that in their beautiful and once highly-prized colonies fortunes are still to be made in the peaceful occupation of cultivating fruit, coffee, and cocoa, and in breaking virgin soil in the tropics of the Far West. BAHAMAS BY SIR WM. ROBINSON, G.C.M.G. (Late Governor of the Bahama Islands, also of Windward Islands, "THE land of the Pink Pearl" is the very picturesque and yet not inappropriate name by which the colony of the Bahamas is known. In those charming islands, of which Nassau is the capital, I spent six happy years of my middle life, and I propose to tell you something about them-something respecting their products, their capabilities, and their people. A paper of this sort may often be instructive, but it is difficult to make it interesting, and, above all, amusing as well. It will be necessary for me to use the personal pronoun very often, as I shall adopt the narrative instead of the essay style, and you must make every allowance for this apparent, though not actual, weakness. I little thought when I was Commissioner for the Colonies at Vienna in 1873 that in the following year I should be appointed Governor of the Bahamas, but such was the case, and I landed there as her Majesty's representative on the 2nd December 1874, nearly a quarter of a century ago. The Bahamas lie off the coast of Florida, and their shores are washed by the Gulf Stream. They are remarkable in the history of the New World from St. Salvador having been discovered by Christopher Columbus on his expedition of 1492, which was one of the greatest and most important ever undertaken. At that time the Bahamas were filled with inhabitants, who welcomed the arrival of Columbus with pleasure and hospitality. There are about nineteen inhabited islands, and numberless uninhabited cays and islets in the Bahama group. The principal island is New Providence, the capital of which is Nassau, with about 12,000 inhabitants. The total population of the Bahamas is, roughly speaking, 52,000. New Providence was settled by the English in 1629, and held till 1641, when the Spaniards expelled them, but made no attempt to settle there themselves. In 1662 the Bahama Islands were granted by letters patent to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolines, who made special application for them to Charles II., and they (the proprietors) at once appointed a governor. In 1667 New Providence was again colonised by the English, but it afterwards, in 1703, fell into the hands of the French and Spaniards, and it and several of the adjacent islands became a rendezvous for pirates until they were extirpated in 1717. In 1727 an Order in Council was issued by the Imperial Government granting legislative privileges to the colony. In 1781 the Bahamas were surrendered to the Spaniards, but at the end of the war they were once more annexed, and finally confirmed to Great Britain by the peace of Versailles in 1783. It will thus be seen that the Bahamas have passed through various vicissitudes. was about this time, 1783, that the civil war in the United States, which resulted in their independence, was concluded. The royalist families in Georgia and South Carolina, not liking the new régime, left the States to which I have referred in large numbers and settled in the Bahamas, taking with them their slaves and "household gods." and establishing cotton plantations on some of the islands. Lands were granted to them, It |