West Indies


The Modern and Authentic System of Universal Geography containing and accurate and Entertaining Description of Europe, Asia, Africa and America etc ( 1807) by George Alexander Cooke

We have already observed that between the two continents of America, northern and southern, lie a multitude of Islands, many of them large and most of them fertile, and denominated the West Indies in contradistinction to the islands of Asia, beyond the Cape of Good Hope, which are called the East Indies.

Those which are worthy of cultivation now belong to five European powers, Great Britain, Spain, France, Holland and Denmark.

The climate in all the West Indies is nearly the same allowing for those accidental differences which the several situations and qualities of the lands themselves produce. As they lie within the tropics and the sun goes quite over their heads passing beyond them to the north and never returning farther from any of them than about thirty-six degrees to the south, they are continually subjected to the extreme of a heat which would be intolerable if the trade –wind rising gradually as the sun gathers strength, did not blow in upon them from the sea, and refresh the air in such a manner as to enable them to attend to their concerns, even under the meridien sun. On the other hand, as the night advances, a breeze begins to be perceived, which blows smartly from the land, as it were from the centre, towards the sea, to all points of the compass at once.

The islands of the West Indies lie in the form of a bow, or semi-circle, stretching almost from the coast of Florida north to the river Oroonoko in the main continent of South America. Some call them the Caribbees, from the first inhabitants; though this is a term that most geographers confine to the Leeward Islands. Sailors distinguish them into Windward and Leeward Islands, with regard to the usual courses of ships from Old Spain or the Canaries to Cathagena or New Spain and Portobello.

Use the "Show me" link to locate West Indies on the map. You may need to scroll down to see West Indies highlighted.

Quotations
 Chapter 8 
"Your first was the Asp, I remember; we will look for the Asp."

"You will not find her there. Quite worn out and broken up. I was the last man who commanded her. Hardly fit for service then. Reported fit for the home service for a year or two, and so I was sent off to the West Indies."

 Chapter 8 
"What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am!" said Mrs. Musgrove to Mrs. Croft.

"Pretty well, ma'am, in the fifteen years of my marriage; though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic four times, and have been once to the East Indies and back again, and only once; besides being in different places about home: Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But I never went beyond the Streights, and never was in the West Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies."

 Chapter 21 
There was one circumstance in the history of her grievances of particular irritation. She had good reason to believe that some property of her husband in the West Indies, which had been for many years under a sort of sequestration for the payment of its own incumbrances, might be recoverable by proper measures; and this property, though not large, would be enough to make her comparatively rich. But there was nobody to stir in it. Mr. Elliot would do nothing, and she could do nothing herself, equally disabled from personal exertion by her state of bodily weakness, and from employing others by her want of money. She had no natural connexions to assist her even with their counsel, and she could not afford to purchase the assistance of the law. This was a cruel aggravation of actually streightened means. To feel that she ought to be in better circumstances, that a little trouble in the right place might do it, and to fear that delay might be even weakening her claims, was hard to bear.
 Chapter 24 
Her recent good offices by Anne had been enough in themselves, and their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her two. She was their earliest visitor in their settled life, and Captain Wentworth, by putting her in the way of recovering her husband's property in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, and seeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with the activity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fully requited the services which she had rendered, or ever meant to render, to his wife.
 

- Republic of Pemberley -

Quick Index Home Site Map JAInfo

© 2008 The Republic of Pemberley