Antilles

the horse's ears stretch up in the direction of cuba while the nose is almost on a line with a still smaller island resembling in shape an ordinary building brick this little island the smallest of these bodies of land is porto rico let us study the location of porto rico a little more closely if a line should be drawn between cape sable and the most eastern point of honduras and these two points should then be connected by straight lines with porto rico the island would be the apex of the triangle thus formed porto rico is washed on its north shore by the atlantic ocean and on the south by the caribbean sea while to the east are the leeward islands as we glance at the map once more we can see that the group of islands of which porto rico is one is generally known as the greater antilles before columbus discovered america many people in europe were of the opinion that if some one would take the trouble to investigate the matter a large island would be found in the atlantic ocean far west of the azores No one had ever reached this island, so far as any European knew, but it was spoken of as Antilla.

The word comes from the Latin ante, meaning in front of, and insula, an island.

The name Antilles was afterwards given to some of the islands on which Columbus first landed.

In later times, the islands between North and South America were generally called the Antilles, with the exception of the group known as the Bahamas.

The four largest of the islands, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, are distinguished as the Greater Antilles, the groups farther to the southeast, which embrace 26 islands in all, being known as the Lesser Antilles.

The Antilles form a sort of curved line from the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, almost around to the mouth of the Orinoco River.

porto rico is at the large bend of the curve and is the most easterly and the smallest of the greater antilles haiti its next-door neighbor on the west is eight times as large and cuba occupies about space enough to hold an even dozen bodies of land of the size of porto rico we might think from this that porto rico is a small and insignificant island it is really however about three times as large as rhode island and is one of the most interesting regions that we hear anything about we shall find it quite worth our while to visit porto rico and we shall enjoy making acquaintance with the plants and animals and the people of this ambitious little island just north of the caribbean sea to reach it we must take a sail of fourteen hundred miles if we start from new york a five days voyage the island has been compared to various objects one writer has seen in its shape some likeness to an ox dressed and ready for market by a little play of imagination we can easily trace the outlines of a human profile in the western coast-line the southwestern portion point aguila is the long square and prominent chin The deep depression forming the harbor of Mayaguez is the bold mouth, open as if about to speak.

Cape San Francisco is the upturned nose.

Remember the Lusitania.

Remember the Antilles.

Remember the U.S.

Remember dear President Wilson and the Stars and Stripes.

they say, I don't know if they call it Dominica or Dominica, but if I say Dominica, people think Dominican Republic, which it's not that island.

This is Dominica, which is in the Antilles chain of the Eastern Caribbean side.

So it's more like the French Caribbean in between Martinique and Guadeloupe.

So just to give people a reference, I spend a lot of time in British Virgin Islands and where they go to vacation is Dominica.

They still gild our eyes.

The day rises yellow and silver on the palm trees which skirt the sea of the Antilles, clouds of fog in the olive trees of the Delphi Valley, fishermen rowing in the clear blue nights of the Cyclades, the palm grove streaked with sun near the red walls of the Marrakech.

But the memory of wandering journeys in the prisons of our soulless lodging weighs us down and suffocates us.

What remains in our life of these impersonal relays? The walls where we heartlessly hung and removed the paintings, the apartment next door where you were surveilled, the mingled chatter of telephones, the staircase where we met without knowing each other, the cell car of the elevator with his double bars.

[laughs] Well, Twai said it, so I think I'm right, but yes.

yes.Uh, I said Antilles

Mm-hmm

... with a par- parenthetical of Micronesia.

But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slyly hovering nearby all this while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings took him by the hand, in the other holding his tambourine.

"'Poor rover! Will you never have done with all this weary roving? Where go you now?' But if the currents carry you to those sweet Antilles, Where the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, Will you do one little errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who's now been missing long.

I think he's in those far Antilles.

If you find him, then comfort him, For he must be very sad.

For look, he's left his tambourine behind.

Died all a shiver.

Out upon Pip.

Hark ye, if you find Pip, tell all the Antilles he's a runaway.