Behold the West Indies

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Those magic islands that raise their bubbles of enchantment in the blue waters of the Caribbean are an admirable subject for that ideal author and illustrator combination - Amy and Thornton Oakley. Amy Oakley with her vivid pen and Thornton Oakley with his wizardry of drawing bring to us the glamorous present and the picturesque past of these islands which have become such popular vacation lands.

BEHOLD THE WEST INDIES takes us to - Cuba, mixture of peaceful sugarlands and tumult, Jamaica with its magnificent scenery, its Great Houses, its struggle to adjust itself to the vast problems of the day, Haiti with its African beauty, its sumptuous and primitive life, its throb of Voodoo drums. The Dominican Republic, surrounding the hoary remnants of the Columbus era, where Trujillo has raised his gleaming city. In Puerto Rico is revealed the conflict between the ancient and the new - the mountains hardly touched by man - San Juan, a hive of Uncle Sam's marines and sailors where airports, landing fields, super highways are developing as by the touch of a wand. The Virgin Islands with their quaint ways, quick divorce laws and modern hotels. The Leeward and Windward Islands. Grenada - also Barbados, Guadeloupe and Martinique. The tropical grandeur of Tobago and Trinidad with their wild beauty, the Hindu life. Curacao, the picturesque Dutch settlement, Venezuela with its towering Andes and legends of the tyrant Gomez, Colombia gasping in the heat, and Panama and the mighty American Canal.