Caribbean Sea

“ On the coral reefs of the Leeward Islands and the sandy cays of the Caribbean Sea, I have often amused myself by catching the young fry thrown up with piles of Gulf-weed on the beach, and seen masses of the spawn, like huge bunches of white currants, entangled among its close-knit fronds.
Barbados, situated in the heart of the north-east Trades, is one of the favourite haunts of the flying-fish. Its steep shore-lines afford the blue depths which the flying-fish loves, and permit it to range very near to land. Thus the fishermen rarely go more than ten or twelve miles from home. ”

“ Readers of Robinson Crusoe associate the Caribbean Sea with piracy and rum, but usually have few other ideas on the subject. Most people of the United States have scarcely so much as heard that there be any Caribbean world except that it is somewhere in the tropics. ”

“ They were all gathered on the deck one bright, breezy morning, chatting cheerily, the children amusing themselves with their tee-tee pets.
"Father," said Lucilla, "are we not nearing the Caribbean Sea?"
"Yes; if all goes well we will be in it by this time to-morrow," was Captain Raymond's reply. "It is a body of water worth seeing; separated from the Gulf of Mexico by Yucatan, and from the Atlantic Ocean by the great arch of the Antilles, between Cuba and Trinidad. ”

“ Supposing the pressure of the waters that are forced into the Caribbean Sea by the trade-winds to be the sole cause of the Gulf Stream, that sea and the Mexican Gulf should have a much higher level than the Atlantic. ”

“ The harbour of St Domingo being in 69° 50' W. long they ought to have proceeded about nine degrees, or 180 marine leagues farther east, to have insured their run across the trade winds and currents of the Caribbean sea.--E.
Sailing from hence with great toil, we came to an Indian town on the coast of Cuba named Mataia, where we procured some refreshments; and as the winds and currents set so strong towards the west that we could not possibly stand for Hispaniola, we now sailed for Jamaica as our only hope of preserving our lives. ”

“ That is the sum total of American communication with South America beyond the Caribbean Sea. Not one American steamship runs to any South American port beyond the Caribbean. During the past summer, I entered the ports of Pará, Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo, Buenos Ayres, Bahia Blanca, Punta Arenas, Lota, Valparaiso, Coquimbo, Tocopilla, Callao, and Cartagena—all of the great ports and a large proportion of the secondary ports of the southern continent. I saw only one ship, besides the cruiser that carried me, flying the American flag. ”

“ Thus “the main,” the high open sea, is for “main sea,” cf. “mainland,” the principal part of a territory excluding islands and sometimes far-projecting peninsulas. The expression “the Spanish main” properly meant that part of the main land of the N.E. coast of South America stretching from the Orinoco to the Isthmus of Panama, and the former Spanish possessions in Central America bordering on the Caribbean Sea, but it is often loosely used, especially in connexion with the buccaneers, of the Caribbean Sea itself. ”

“ The water-way may become a veritable strait, providing easy, unbroken and capacious connexions between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific ocean—the islands of the West Indies may slowly converge into one land surface, and a new continent invite populations and industries, which the wild, slothful or decadent peoples of Central America, with their hot, fever laden and deleterious climates, could not encourage or support. ”

“ The rapid advance of the United States in the Caribbean Sea since 1898 has naturally aroused the apprehensions of the feebler Latin-American states in that region, while the building of the Panama Canal has rendered inevitable the adoption of a policy of naval supremacy in the Caribbean and has led to the formulation of new political policies in the zone of the Caribbean—what Admiral Chester calls the larger Panama Canal Zone—that is, the West Indies, Mexico and Central America, Colombia and Venezuela. ”

“ Vessels bound to India invariably meet with a strong westerly current within the tropics, and particularly in the vicinity of the equator. This volume of water is thus forced along the shores of Brazil and Guiana, until it enters the Caribbean Sea, from which it has no outlet excepting through the strait bounded by Cape Catouche in Yucatan, on one side, and Cape St. Antonio, in Cuba, on the other. ”

“ The strong southeast trades blow up from Southern Africa, cross the equator, and drive the waters of the South Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea. The lighter northeast trades, blowing between North Africa and the West Indies, assist and give direction to this movement, which finally impels through the Straits of Florida a tide of tropical waters a hundred times greater than the outflow of all the rivers in the world. ”

“ On remarking, the first evening, that I did not smell the harbour after all, I was comforted by the answer that—‘When a man did, he had better go below and make his will.’ It is a pity that the most important harbour in the Caribbean Sea should be so unhealthy. ”

“ There is no more entrancing body of water in either the Western or the Eastern Hemisphere—than the Caribbean Sea, with a fringe of lovely tropical islands on the one side and on the other the Spanish Main and its picturesque centuries-old towns and fascinating sights. ”

“ Usually, in going to the Guianas, the route is through the Bahama group, by way of the Crooked Island Channel, thence through the Windward Passage, between Cuba and Haiti and across the Caribbean sea by the east end of Jamaica. But Mr. Sargent wished to go further to the eastward so as to pass among the Leeward Islands, perhaps landing there to await the return of the bark from the coast. This plan could be followed without detriment, as a little delay in reaching Guiana was more than likely to result in an improved market for the cargo. ”

“ They have their cabins opening seaward, and the decks reach down almost to the water’s edge. Some swing hammocks and sleep on deck, and it is very comfortable. Such vessels would not be adapted for the stormy Atlantic, and would not live long in a storm upon the Caribbean Sea. Sailors say that the wind is never strong enough to “ruffle the fur on a cat’s back,” and this immense stretch of sea might be likened unto a great mill pond. It is this part of the [20] ocean, between the Isthmus and Peru, that suggested to the Spaniards the name of Pacific. ”

“ The character of the deep-sea fauna is very important. The elevation of the West Indies to less than three thousand feet would exclude the Atlantic waters from the Antillean seas, except through two or three shallow straits, and one channel of enormous depth, between the Virgin Islands and St. Croix. According to the late Dr. Brown Goode, the deep-sea fishes belong to modern forms, apparently overflowing through the Caribbean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico. There is no relationship whatever between the deep-sea fishes of these basins and those of the adjacent waters of the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ CARIBS, the name, used first by Columbus (from Cariba, said to mean “a valiant man”) , of a South American people, who, at the arrival of the Spanish, occupied parts of Guiana and the lower Orinoco and the Windward and other islands in what is still known as the Caribbean Sea. They were believed to have had their original home in North America, spreading thence through the Antilles southward to Venezuela, the Guianas, and north-east Brazil. ”

“ He sailed by Hispaniola and Jamaica to the river Azua, Cape Higueras, the Gamares islands, and to Cape Honduras, which signifies the Cape of the Depths. From thence he sailed eastwards to Cape Garcias a Dios, and discovered the province and river of Veragua, the Rio Grande, and others, which the Indians call Hienra. Thence to the river of Crocodiles, now called Rio de Chagres, which rises near the South Sea, within four leagues of Panama, and runs into the Caribbean Sea. He went next to the Isle of Bastimentos, or of Provisions, and after that to Porto Bello ”

“ The French and English Antilles, condemned by the Navigation Laws to confine themselves to agriculture and a passive trade with the home country, had no recourse but to traffic with their Spanish neighbours. {103} Factors of the Assiento established at Cartagena, Porto Bello and Vera Cruz every year supplied European merchants with detailed news of the nature and quantity of the goods which might be imported with advantage; while the buccaneers, by dominating the whole Caribbean Sea, hindered frequent communication between Spain and her colonies. ”

“ The race generally known as Caribs, and who dwell along the shore of the Caribbean Sea, 128predominate at Livingston and along this coast. They have an olive complexion, round heads, abundant black hair, which is usually straight but sometimes kinky. They are also short and erect, but muscular. It has only been in recent years that they wore any clothing at all, and they are not burdened with it yet. Every place where there is water is a bathing resort, and the only bathhouses are big mahogany logs, hewn square. Sharks and alligators sometimes make it exciting for them. ”

“ We, by the expenditure of a part of our recently acquired capital, are about to open a new trade route that will bring our Atlantic and Gulf ports into immediate, close intercourse with all the Pacific coasts of South and Central America, and which will bring our Pacific ports into immediate and close relation with all the countries about the Caribbean Sea and the eastern coast of South America. ”

“ Caribs, a race of American Indians, originally inhabiting the West Indies, now confined to the southern shores of the Caribbean Sea, as far as the mouth of the Amazon; they are a fine race, tall, and of ruddy-brown complexion, but have lost their distinctive physique by amalgamation with other tribes; they give name to the Caribbean Sea.
Carinthia (361) , since 1849 crownland of Austria, near Italy; is a mountainous and a mineral country; rears cattle and horses; manufactures hardware and textile fabrics; the principal river is the Drave ”

“ Taking into consideration that of the 1200-mile barrier to the Caribbean 600 miles is solid in Cuba, that after the 50-mile gap of the Windward Passage there succeeds 300 miles more of Haiti before the Mona Passage is reached, it is indisputable that a superior navy, resting on Santiago de Cuba or Jamaica, could very seriously incommode all access of the United States to the Caribbean mainland, and especially to the Isthmus. ”

“ The relations of the island of Jamaica to the great barrier formed by Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico are such as to constitute it the natural stepping-stone by which to pass from the consideration of entrance into the Caribbean, which has been engaging our attention, to that of the transit across, from entrance to the Isthmus, which we must next undertake. ”

“ If one be made, and fulfil the hopes of its builders, the Caribbean will be changed from a terminus, and place of local traffic, or at best a broken and imperfect line of travel, as it now is, into one of the great highways of the world. Along this path a great commerce will travel, bringing the interests of the other great nations, the European nations, close along our shores, as they have never been before. ”

“ In the Caribbean, likewise, the existence of numerous important ports, and a busy traffic in tropical produce grown within the region itself, do but make more striking the predominance in interest of that one position known comprehensively, but up to the present somewhat indeterminately, as the Isthmus. ”

“ The Caribbean, on the contrary, is enclosed on its eastern side by a chain of small islands, the passages between which, although practically not wider than the Strait of Gibraltar, are so numerous that entrance to the sea on that side may be said correctly to extend over a stretch of near 400 miles. The islands, it is true, are so many positions, some better, some worse, from which military effort to control entrance can be exerted; but their number prevents that concentration and that certainty of effect which are possible to adequate force resting upon Gibraltar or Havana. ”

“ Caribbean, in the eastern Caribbean Sea, about halfway between Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago Map references: Central America and the Caribbean, South America, Standard Time Zones of the World Area: total area: 750 sq km land area: 750 sq km comparative area: slightly more than four times the size of Washington, DC Land boundaries: 0 km Coastline: 148 km Maritime claims: contiguous zone: 24 nm exclusive economic zone: 200 nm territorial sea: 12 nm International disputes: none Climate: tropical; moderated by northeast trade winds ”

“ So far as national inclinations, as distinct from the cautious actions of statesmen, can be discerned, in the Mediterranean at present the Sea Powers, Great Britain, France, and Italy, are opposed to the Land Powers, Germany, Austria, and Russia; and the latter dominate action. It cannot be so, in any near future, in the Caribbean. As affirmed in a previous paper, the Caribbean is pre-eminently the domain of sea power. It is in this point of view—the military or naval—that it is now to be considered. ”

“ The same hand was striking the Bahamas, and in a hundred blue harbours from Cape Sable to Port of Spain ships’ topmasts were catching the light. Martinique, Guadeloupe, Grenada, peak, morne, and valley, were already flaming to it like green torches in the dawn wind. Key West would be stricken in a moment and the gulf to Galveston and Tampico be turned from a lake of stars to a living sapphire, the Caribbean would leap alive from Grand Cayman to Darien, from San Juan to La Guaira, alive and burning and blue. ”