The Virgin islands of the United States of America; historical and descriptive, commercial and industrial facts, figures, and resources . sides, save towardthe southern sea, where the entrance lies between twohigh promontories that are guarded by ancient to beauty of location, it is, perhaps, unsurpassed byany other town in the West Indies. The town is essentially a place of business, and thereis but one main thoroughfare, parallel with the harbour,the other streets branching off here and there up thehillside to commanding elevations from which may beobtained magnificent tropical view
The Virgin islands of the United States of America; historical and descriptive, commercial and industrial facts, figures, and resources . sides, save towardthe southern sea, where the entrance lies between twohigh promontories that are guarded by ancient to beauty of location, it is, perhaps, unsurpassed byany other town in the West Indies. The town is essentially a place of business, and thereis but one main thoroughfare, parallel with the harbour,the other streets branching off here and there up thehillside to commanding elevations from which may beobtained magnificent tropical views. A more cleanlytown to-day than Charlotte Amalie scarcely the trimly-kept, red brick fort, used as a prisonand a police-station, and the handsomely-built bar-racks, down to the smallest building, one is impressedwith the air of neatness and cleanliness that the streets are macadamized, with stone-pavedgutters. The three principal water-courses, or gutsas they are called, are paved in the same manner, andcarry down the water from the mountains to the sea. Substantial brick stores extend to the waters edge. 5 ^ a t Charlotte Amalie 43 some four hundred feet away. There are probably ahundred such buildings, many of them having beenput up at a cost of from fifty thousand to sixty thousanddollars apiece. Each has its own private wharf forthe landing of merchandise, and railroad tracks for itscarriage to the storehouse, and some possess powerfulhoisting cranes. The great commercial firms thatonce operated at Charlotte Amalie, whose importationsused to amount to millions of dollars annually, are nowno more; many of the warehouses are empty and de-serted; many merchants and clerks have gone to morefavoured communities to ply their trades until theprosperity of St. Thomas shall return and she shall, asof old, become the Emporium of the Antilles. Thepavements no longer re-echo the footsteps of barterersof a hundred nationalities. Porters lounge at thestreet com
Size: 1264px × 1977px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., book, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublishernewyorkputnam
