Cayman Islands

“ A practical illustration of the fact is afforded in the soundings taken by the officers of our Coast Survey in the Caribbean Sea, where a valley was found giving a water depth of three thousand fathoms, twenty-five miles south of Cuba. The Cayman islands, in that neighborhood, are the summit of mountains bordering this deep valley at the bottom of the sea. It is known to extend over seven hundred miles, from between Cuba and Jamaica nearly to the head of the bay of Honduras, with an average breadth of eighty miles. How suggestive the subject of these submarine Alps! ”

“ Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.
Hong Kong.
Jamaica (including Turks and Caicos Islands and the Cayman Islands) .
Kenya.
Leeward Islands (Antigua, Montserrat, St. Christopher Nevis and Anguilla, British Virgin Islands) . ”

“ Phosphate deposits of considerable value are worked, but the principal occupation of the inhabitants is catching turtles for export to Jamaica. The people are excellent shipwrights and do a considerable trade in schooners built of native wood. The islands are governed by a commissioner, and the laws passed by the local legislative assembly are subject to the assent of the governor of Jamaica. The population of the group is about 5000. ”

“ It is only recently that the blacks, who are in the majority, began to tread on their political heels. Some of the whites do not like to see this, but the easiest way for them is to allow themselves to be peacefully absorbed by the colored race in these regions, for their destiny is sealed.
The Caicos Islands, like most of the Bahamas, are but a series of coral reefs, more extensive in territory{133} and less sterile than this portion of the colony; but their principal products are about the same—salt and shipwrecks. ”

“ The north and north-west part is low, sandy, and scantily covered with vegetation. The rock is broken into narrow horizontal ledges. From its whiteness and its proximity to the island of Cuba, I supposed it to be of Jura limestone. We approached the eastern extremity of Cayman-brack within the distance of 400 toises. The neighbouring coast is not entirely free from danger and breakers; yet the temperature of the sea had not sensibly diminished at its surface. The chronometer of Louis Berthoud gave me 82 degrees 7 minutes 37 seconds for the longitude of the eastern cape of Cayman-brack. ”

“ Darker and solider grew the point on which our eyes were set, till at length we were up with a thick-set, little scrub-covered island which, compared with the low level of the line of coast stretching dimly behind it, rose high and rocky out of the water. Hence its name, "High Cay," and its importance along a coast where such definite landmarks are few. ”

“ Modern maps give no such places as "Dead Men's Shoes" and "Short Shrift Island," but John—who is said to be writing a learned history of the Bahamas—has been for a long time collecting old maps, prints, and documents relating to them; and at last, in a map dating back to 1763, we came upon one of the two names. So far the veracity of Tobias was supported. "Dead Men's Shoes" proved to be the old name for a certain cay some twenty miles long, about a day and a half's sail from Nassau, one of the long string of coral islands now known as the "Exuma Cays." ”

“ Turks and Caicos Islands
Introduction Turks and Caicos Islands Background: The islands were part of the UK's Jamaican colony until 1962, when they assumed the status of a separate crown colony upon Jamaica's independence. The governor of The Bahamas oversaw affairs from 1965 to 1973. With Bahamian independence, the islands received a separate governor in 1973. Although independence was agreed upon for 1982, the policy was reversed and the islands remain a British overseas territory. ”

“ Jamo in the Indian language is a country, and Jaco is water.”
John Atkins, in his “Voyage to the Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies” (1737) , says that “Jamaica was altered by King James, it being a compound of his name and ‘ca’ an island.” He was possibly not far wrong in regard to the “island.” The West 5Indian word for an island, cai (or the Biscayan word cay) is supposed to appear in Lucayos (Bahamas) , “Men of the Island”; in the Caicos islands, and also in various cays or keys in the West Indies; albeit modern etymology makes cay or key the same word as the Welsh cae. ”

“ Nothing of importance occurred until we arrived off the Cristo Cays, when—the time being about three bells in the forenoon watch, and the larger island bearing about two miles on the larboard bow, a couple of miles distant—O’Flaherty brought a chart on deck and, spreading it out on the companion slide, beckoned me to him.
“Look here, Lascelles,” said he, making a mark on the chart with his pencil-point, “there is where we are, and that,” pointing away over the larboard bow, “is Cristo Cay. Now, whereabouts is the channel that you saw that big felucca going into?” ”

“ The folks of Grand Cayman are their own boat-builders, and their custom is to sail in small fleets to the banks off the coast of Nicaragua, and cast their heavily-weighted nets in the direction the turtle is sure to take when intent upon an egg-laying expedition. ”

“ Nearly all the families have relations who have had to cross the Atlantic, and all eat of the flour and bacon that is brought from the United States, so they have a vague fear that 'if anything happened to America,' their own island would cease to be habitable. ”

“ Such repeated calamities seemed to mark out this spot as a devoted place; the inhabitants therefore resolved to forsake it forever, and to reside at the opposite bay where they built Kingston, which is now the capital of the Island. In going up to Kingston, we pass over the part of and between Port Royal, leaving the mountains on the left, and a small town on the right. There are many handsome houses built there, one story high, with porticoes, and every convenience for those who are rich enough to live in them. ”

“ Kwajalein is the largest atoll in the world, 60 miles long and 20 miles wide, a semi-enclosed series of 80 reefs and islets around a huge lagoon of some 800 square miles. Located 620 miles northwest of Tarawa and 2,415 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, its capture would have far-reaching strategic significance in that it would break the outer ring of Japanese Pacific defense lines. Within the atoll itself there were two objectives: Roi and Namur, a pair of connected islands shaped like weights on a four-mile barbell in the north end, and crescent-shaped Kwajalein Island at the south end. ”

“ Aux Cayes is a place of some trade and a port from which is shipped a large portion of the produce of this part of the country. In the neighbourhood of Aux Cayes the soil is exceedingly productive, and to the cultivator used to return as much as any other part of the island, requiring at the same time less labour and less means; but now, however, like its adjoining districts, it has gone into great neglect, and exhibits on the face of it that relaxation in the culture which is so general throughout the republic. ”

“ It is hardly ever tenable at less expence than it is worth. But the isle of Cayenne, and its appendix, Equinoctial-France, having but very few inhabitants, and these therefore easily removed, would indeed be an acquisition every way suitable to our situation and desires. This would hold all that migrate from Barbadoes, the Leeward Islands, or Jamaica. It would certainly recal into an English government (in which there would be room for millions) all who have before settled or purchased in Martinico, Guadaloupe, Santa-Cruz, or St. ”

“ We all dismounted and took a lunch, then, with some leather, Mr. Paris bound up the broken place firmly, and we went on our way rejoicing that no worse thing had befallen us; for we were far away from any house, and had still half of our journey to perform, and this being the only carriage on that part of the island, no native knew how to repair it. On reaching the sea-shore, we passed through a grove of cocoa-nut trees. Here we drank some delicious cocoa-nut milk, and quite a group of natives gathered about us, and shook hands. The Hawaiians as a race are very fond of shaking hands. ”

“ Presently, in the midst of the rich orange light that was now flashing up on the eastern and north-eastern horizon, there emerged a shape of indigo, practically flat-topped, but with two small protuberances, one at each end, which, by a stretch of the imagination, might be termed hills, rising to a height of perhaps sixty or seventy feet. This was the island of West Caycos, the most westerly of the cays on the bank, and ten minutes later we were under its lee and within less than a cable’s length from the beach. ”

“ The pier on this island is also a novelty, and is much thought of, as it enables the hookers that still carry turf and cattle to discharge and take their cargoes directly from the shore. The water round it, however, is only deep enough for a hooker when the tide is nearly full, and will never float the steamer, so passengers must still come to land in curaghs. The boat-slip at the corner next the south island is extremely useful in calm weather, but it is exposed to a heavy roll from the south, and is so narrow that the curaghs run some danger of missing it in the tumult of the surf. ”

“ In 1716, William Wood, in his preface to “The Laws of Jamaica” says, “The Town of Port Royal, formerly much larger and very populous, is built on a key, which before the great earthquake, joyned to an Isthmus of Land that divides the sea and the Harbour of Kingston,” and there is additional evidence that, at various stages in the history of the Palisadoes, channels were formed by the sea across what is, after all, nothing but a string of islands more or less closely connected by drifted sand and stone. And an engraving, in Long’s History, as late as 1774, shows it as an island. ”

“ An island was discovered by one of the Spanish galleon pilots in 1686, and called Carolina, in honour of Charles II. of Spain, but its bearings could not be found again for years.
In 1696 two canoes, with 29 Pelew Islanders, drifted to the coast of Sámar Island, and landed at the Town of Guivan. They were 60 days on the drift, and five of them died of privations. They were terror-stricken when they saw a man on shore making signs to them. ”

“ At one end of the semicircle is Cocoanut Island, crowded with glorious palms that seem eager for the salt water, stretching their heads far out over it, as if they would drink it up. As it is on the windward side of the island, the trade winds bring Hilo a yearly rainfall of 150 inches, and the result is seen in the luxuriance of the vegetation, which nearly hides the buildings of the little city in its depths. With the bay in front, the dense forest belt in the rear, and the towering masses of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in the background, the situation of Hilo is glorious in its beauty. ”

“ Efforts to supply the need by immigration have not done so completely. The land routes are not numerous. The most important are that from Cayenne to Mana by way of Kourou, Sinnamarie and Iracoubo, and that from Cayenne along the coast to Kaw and the mouth of the Approuague. Towards the interior there are only foot-paths, badly made. By water, Cayenne is in regular communication with the Safety Islands (35 m.) , and the mouth of the Maroni (80 m.) , with Fort de France in the island of Martinique, where travellers meet the mail packet for France, and with Boston (U.S.A.) . ”

“ The Enterprise and Comus had been examining Turk’s Island, to the eastward of the Caicos, and had passed to the northward of it on the larboard tack, standing in for the northern point of the reef, which joined on to the great Caicos Island. They were, therefore, in a situation to intercept the Avenger before she arrived at her anchorage, had it not been for the reefs that barred their passage. ”

“ The largest of the Caicos islands forms a curve, like an opened horseshoe, to the southward, with safe and protected anchorage when once in the bay on the southern side; but, previous to arriving at the anchorage, there are coral reefs, extending upwards of forty miles, through which it is necessary to conduct a vessel. This passage is extremely intricate, but was well known to Hawkhurst, who had hitherto been pilot. ”

“ In view of the strategic value of the Islands, which, for more than fifty years, American naval officers have endeavoured to impress upon our Government, it is pleasant to learn of the loyalty and whole-hearted Americanism of the people of Hawaii. If Oahu, Guam and the Panama Canal are well fortified and sufficient numbers of troops and warships are stationed [Pg 120] at these posts they will protect our Pacific coast better than any number of harbour defenses. ”

“ Mr. Pauling laughed. “That’s accurate if not poetical,” he replied, “and you’ll find, when you go ashore, that the imaginary man with the paint pot did not stop at the water. The land is just as gaudy and incredibly bright as the sea.”
“Is that Nassau ahead?” asked Tom.
“No, that’s a small cay,” replied one of the officers who had drawn near the little group, “Egg Cay they call it. We’ll raise Rose Cay next and should sight New Providence and Nassau about two o’clock. Pretty, isn’t it?” ”

“ The mode of living at Ceylon is more English, in all respects, than at Calcutta; the table more simple—the servants fewer—and the whole character of domestic economy less Oriental than we are accustomed to on the Indian Continent; but the scenery of the island itself is far from partaking of this un-Oriental appearance; it realises, in everything, all we fancy and read of in descriptions of tropical islands. ”