- ‘Spite of the dog-star,1 shoots long yellow joints;2 [55]
- Concocts rich juice, tho’ deluges descend.
- What if an after-offspring3 it reject?
- This land, for many a crop, will feed his mills;
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Disdain supplies, nor ask from compost aid.
- SUCH, green St. Christopher, thy happy soil!—— [60]
- Not Grecian Tempé, where Arcadian Pan,4
VER. 60. green St. Christopher,] This beautiful and fertile island, and which, in Shakespear’s words, may justly be stiled
“A precious stone set in the silver sea,”5
lies in seventeenth degree N. L.6 It was discovered by the great Christopher Columbus,7 in his second voyage, 1493, who was so pleased with its appearance, that he honoured it with his Christian name. Though others pretend, that appellation was given it from an imaginary resemblance between a high mountain in its centre, now called Mount Misery, to the fabulous legend of the Devil’s carrying St. Christopher on his shoulders.8 But, be this as it will, the Spaniards soon after settled it, and lived in tolerable harmony with the natives for many years; and, as their fleets commonly called in there to and from America for provision and water, the settlers, no doubt, reaped some advantage from their situation. By Templeman’s Survey,9 it contains eighty square miles, and is about seventy miles in circumference. It is of an irregular oblong figure, and has a chain of mountains, that run South and North almost from the one end of it to the other, formerly covered with wood, but now the Cane-plantations reach almost to their summits, and extend all the way, down their easy declining sides, to the sea. From these mountains some rivers take their rise, which never dry up; and there are many others which, after rain, run into the sea, but which, at other times, are lost before they reach it. Hence, as this island consists of mountain-land and valley, it must always make a midling crop; for when the low grounds fail, the uplands supply that deficiency; and, when the mountain canes are lodged (or become watery from too much rain) those in the plains yield surprisingly. Nor are the plantations here only seasonable, their Sugar sells for more than the Sugar of any other of his Majesty’s islands; as
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The dog star is another name for Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius rises in conjunction with the sun from July 3 to August 11, which are known as the “dog days” of summer. ↩︎
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Sugarcane turns yellow when it is ripe. ↩︎
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Gilmore defines after-offspring as second-growth cane that sprouts from the stumps once first-growth stalks have been cut and harvested (also known as “ratoon cane”). ↩︎
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Tempé is the name of a valley in Thessaly located between Mounts Olympus and Ossa; it also can be used as a general name for a beautiful valley or rural spot. In Greek mythology, Pan is god of flocks and herds and is usually represented with the horns, ears, and legs of a goat on the body of a man. Pan lived in Arcadia, an idealized, utopian place in mythology and literature. ↩︎
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John of Gaunt describes England as “A precious stone, set in the silver sea” in Shakespeare’s Richard II (2.1.46). ↩︎
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Seventeenth north latitude, one of the coordinates for St. Kitts. ↩︎
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Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), a Genoese-born explorer. The purpose of his famed 1492 voyage was to discover a western route to Asia. He set sight on the island of Guanahani (in the Bahamas) on October 12. Columbus completed four voyages to the Americas during his lifetime. ↩︎
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Grainger may be referring to the legend that St. Christopher, whose name means “Christ carrier,” once carried Jesus in the form of a child across a river. Mount Misery was the name used by Europeans for the main volcanic mountain on St. Kitts. It was renamed Mt. Liamuiga when St. Kitts and Nevis became independent. ↩︎
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Grainger is referring to Thomas Templeman’s A New Survey of the Globe: Or, an Accurate Mensuration of all the…Countries…in the World (1729). ↩︎