THE MENTOR 1918.08.15, No. 161, The Virgin Islands LEARN ONE THING EVERY DAY AUGUST 15 1918 SERIAL NO. 161 THE MENTOR THE VIRGIN ISLANDS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA By E. M. NEWMAN Lecturer and Traveler DEPARTMENT OF VOLUME 6 TRAVEL NUMBER 13 TWENTY CENTS A COPY Island Life and Color We landed at St. Thomas in front of a little square overhung by palm and mango trees and shaded by lofty ferns, and were at once among a strange population. The children were all dressed in black, as nature made them, with eyes that shone like glass beads. Some of the native women were carrying trays of vegetables, fruit, bread, or small wares upon their heads; others were squatting upon their heels, while in front of them were little piles of sweet potatoes, peppers, limes, or a few sticks of sugar-cane; others were hawking strings of shells and shining beans called “Job’s tears.” If one climbs to the hill above the town of Charlotte Amalie, he obtains a charming picture: high-colored villas form the foreground, the beautiful bay, with its ships and little islands, occupies the middle distance, while beyond, across the blue sea, are the shadowy forms of St. Croix and Porto Rico. St. Croix is not so abrupt and severe as some of its associates, though it bears abundant evidences of volcanic origin. It consists of a multitude of little peaks and rounded hills, with ravines and valleys between them. The mountains, where uncultivated, are a bluish green, but where the sugar-cane is largely grown, the color of the country-side is so light and rich a green that it seems as if Spring had just spread her mantle over the land. The plantations climb the hills and crown many of them, and skirt precipices, and sweep their waves of golden-green down to kiss the white sea-waves. There are long avenues of cocoa palms, with trunks rising fifty feet like polished marble shafts, and then bursting out into a miracle of waving foliage and nests of green cocoanuts.