Charlestown

The town was first known as Bath Bay, after Bath Stream and its curative waters, and became the island's chief town after Jamestown, the first settlement, was swamped by a tidal wave in 1680. Fort Charles, begun as early as the 1630s and later mounting 26 cannon, guarded it and its harbour, yet in the early 18th century a French force under Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville overran the island, and in 1782 Nevis surrendered to Admiral de Grasse without a shot.

In the late 18th century Charlestown was both a naval base and a spa. The Bath Hotel, built in 1778 by John Huggins over a hot spring just south of town, was the first tourist hotel in the Caribbean, and its guests included Horatio Nelson, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Prince William Henry. Alexander Hamilton, later a founder of the United States, was born here; his birthplace was destroyed in an earthquake in 1840. Earthquakes repeatedly brought down the upper storeys of the town's stone buildings, which is why so many now have wooden upper floors over stone.

The town was almost destroyed by fire in 1873, and its hospital was wrecked by a hurricane in 1899. Electricity arrived in 1954, when two generators were shipped in to supply the area around Charlestown. Hamilton's birthplace was rebuilt in 1983 as the island's museum and assembly house, and a development programme in the early 2000s transformed the port.

As the seat of the Nevis Island Administration, Charlestown carries the island's strong sense of its own identity. The Nevis Island Assembly meets upstairs in the Hamilton house, and the island keeps a constitutional right to leave the federation if two-thirds of voters choose to.

Culturama, held over the Emancipation Day weekend at the start of August, is the island's great festival, driven by jamband music, the sound of J'ouvert dancing in the streets. The Christmas Sports, a holiday-season tradition, are thought to be rooted in the days off the enslaved population was given at Christmas and New Year before emancipation.

Manners matter. People greet everyone they pass, church attendance is high, swearing in public is illegal, and modest dress is expected away from the beach. Nevisians who do not work with visitors are often shy at first. The island is also proud of its literacy rate, one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere, and of its historic links to Hamilton and to Nelson, who married the young widow Frances Nisbet at Montpelier Estate in 1787.

About 1,500 people live in Charlestown, the island's administrative and commercial centre and its most built-up residential area. The courthouse and public library, the post office, the police station, the Alexandra Hospital and the tourism authority, in the old Treasury Building, are all in town, and the Cotton Ginnery Mall serves shoppers.

The ferry pier sets the rhythm of the day. Boats to and from Basseterre carry workers, shoppers and visitors, and departures often run late; minibuses run most often in the early morning and late afternoon, thin out in the middle of the day and stop at about nine at night. Banks, shops and government offices often have queues.

Children attend the island's five pre-schools, seven government primary schools and three secondary schools, and the education system follows the British model. The working week ends in quiet evenings: restaurants close early, and much social life happens in the snackettes, informal eating places that sell home-cooked meals and drinks in every village.

Nevis cooking blends European and American styles with hints of African and Asian. Roti, a flatbread wrapped around a savoury filling, is widely available, and a yellow bus parked by the port is a well-known place to buy one. Breadfruit, coconut jelly, fresh mangoes and tamarind are local favourites, and goat water, perhaps the federation's best-known dish, stews goat with breadfruit, green pawpaw and dumplings. There are also several Chinese restaurants in and around town.

The open-air market near the port sells fruit and vegetables, much of it grown on the island. A bakery facing the water is known for its raisin rolls, and Charlestown has two ice-cream shops that make their own.

Drinks run from good tap water and home-made ginger beer brewed from local ginger to mildly alcoholic home-made sarsaparilla. Ting with a Sting mixes the grapefruit soda Ting with CSR, a spirit distilled from fresh sugar cane; Carib and Stag are the local beers; and every beach bar on Pinney's Beach has its own rum punch.