Monday, April 14, 2014 This morning we motored an hour from St. Kitts over to the neighboring island of Nevis and picked up a mooring just off the Four Seasons resort. We picked up Edgar and Hella in our dink and went to the town dock for check-in. As we were walking up the dock, an older gentleman named Sydney asked if we'd like to hire him for a taxi tour, and we agreed. The price was as follows: $75 for me: everyone else free. So he drove us all around this beautiful small island, recounting some of its history and showing some of the many old sugar and cotton plantations. Like other islands in this part of the Leewards, this island is an extinct volcano with enough sloping benches to afford agriculture. He told us that before slavery was abolished in by the British 1834 there were 165 plantations. We stopped at a couple of old sugar cane mills and were impressed by the huge, heavy gears that drove the crushers and all the associated machinery for making steam to drive the steam engine powering the crushers. Some of the old cane mills have been converted to hotels or other tourist attractions. This island is also the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton. I just finished a biography of this man who was a right hand of George Washington during the American Revolutionary War and during Washington's presidency.