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healthy by reason of the marshes in its neighbourhood; BOOK its spacious port is considered one of the best in the An- XCIII. tilles. Desirade is famed for its cotton; coffee and sugar are cultivated on the hills of Marie-Galante. Dominica Dominica. situated between Guadaloupe and Martinico, was so called by Columbus, from its being discovered on a Sunday. The value of this island must not be judged of merely from its productions; its situation enabled the English to intercept in time of war the communications between France and her colonies. The soil is very light, and well adapted for the growth of coffee; the hills, from which several rivers descend, are covered with the finest wood in the West Indics, and several valuable sulphur mines have been discovered by the colonists. According to the statements of some authors, scorpions and serpents of a great size are often seen on the island; but Mr. Edwards, and several writers tell us, on the other hand, that these animals, if they really exist, are very rare, and that many of the colonists have never observed them. Dominica has been raised to the rank of a distinct government on account of its importance. The staple commodities are maize, cotton, cocoa, and tobacco. Before the war of 1756, Martinico was considered the Martinico. principal island possessed by the French in the Antilles; its store-houses were filled with the merchandise of Europe, a hundred and fifty ships traded to its ports, its commerce extended to Canada and Louisiana. Although Martinico is still an important island, it has not recovered its former grandeur. The extent of surface in this settlement is supposed to be about 212,142 acres, it is full of steep mountains and rugged rocks. Pitou de Corbet, Mountains. one of the highest, is about 812 feet above the level of the sea.*

*

The shape of this calcareous mountain re- . sembles a cone, and it is on that account, as may be readily believed, very difficult of access. The palm trees with which it is covered became more lofty and abundant

[blocks in formation]

Popula

tion.

Towns.

BOOK near the summit. Martinico is better supplied with wa XCIII. ter, and less exposed to hurricanes than Guadaloupe; the productions of both islands are nearly the same. Its population was estimated at 110,000 souls, but it appears from the census of 1815, that it amounted only to 95,415 inhabitants, viz. 9206 colonists of European origin, 8630 mulattoes, and 77,577 slaves. There are several bays and harbours in Martinico, and Port Royal is built on one of them. This harbour, although not so large as that of Pointe à Pitre in Guadaloupe, is spacious, and possesses many advantages. St. Peter's town is the most commercial city in the Less Antilles, and M. Isert informs us that St. Lucia. it contains 2080 houses and 30,000 inhabitants. The island of St. Lucia, now belonging to England, was long a subject of contention between that country and France. The soil is fertile, many of the eastern mountains still retain the marks of former volcanoes. The climate is very warm and unhealthy; it has been said that negroes have been destroyed by the venomous serpents in the woods and marshes; Mr. Edwards, however, denies the truth of this assertion. The island has been devastated by war; its cultivation, though in a very flourishing state, might be still much improved. The official value of the exports in 1810, was less than £44,000, its imports in the same year amounted to £193,000, and the population was equal to 20,000 souls. Carenage, so called from three careening places on the west coast, one for large ships, and two for small vessels, is the best sea-port in St. Lucia. Thirty sail of the line, though not moored, may be there sheltered from hurricanes. Two vessels abreast cannot sail into it from the narrowness of the entrance, but the harbour may be cleared out in less than an hour. This place is unhealthy and thinly inhabited notwithstanding the great advantages of its situation.

St. Vincent's.

St. Vincent's an island to the south of St. Lucia, is rcmarkable for its fertility, and produces a great quantity of sugar and indigo. The bread tree brought originally from

Black Ca

ribees.

Otaheite, has succeeded beyond the expectation of the co- BOOK lonists. A lofty range of hills runs through the centre of XCIII. this island; during the earthquake, which took place on the 30th of April, 1812, there was an eruption from La Soufriere the most northerly mountain in this chain. The eastern coast is peopled by the Black Caribees, a mixed race of Zambos descended from the Charibeans and the fugitive negroes of Barbadoes and other islands.* The population of the English settlement may amount to 23,000 inhabitants, the greater number of whom are in a state of slavery. Kingston, the chief town in St. Vincent's, is the residence of the governor, whose jurisdiction extends over several small islands. The Grenadines are contiguous, and Grenaunited to each other by a ridge of calcareous rocks, which appear to be formed by marine insects; "they resemble in every respect," says a learned naturalist," the coral rocks in the South Sea." Cariacou and Isle Ronde are the principal islands in this group.

The former is fruitful, well cultivated, and equal in extent to 6913 acres. It has produced in some years a million of pounds of cotton, besides corn, yams, potatoes, and plantations sufficient for the consumption of its negroes. There are about five hundred acres of excellent land in Isle Ronde, which are well adapted for pasturage and the cultivation of cotton. The English island of Grenada is situated near the Grenadines; its population amounts to 31,272 souls; there were, in the year 1815, 29,381 slaves, but at present they are less numerous. A lake, on the summit of a central mountain is the source of many rivers that adorn and fertilize the land. Hurricanes are little known in Grenada; some of its numerous bays and harbours might be easily, fortified and rendered a secure station for ships. The chain of the Antilles terminates at this island; Barbadoes, Tobago, and Trinidad, form a

Goldsmith's Geographical Grammar.
Leblond, Voyage aux Antilles.
Parliamentary Reports, 1815,

dines.

Barbadoes.

BOOK distinct group. Barbadoes is the eastmost island in the XCIII. West Indies; when the English landed there for the first time, in 1605, it was uninhabited and covered with forests. They observed no herb or root that could be used for the food of man; and the woods were so thick that the colonists had great difficulty in clearing a quantity of land, the produce of which might be sufficient for their subsistence. Every obstacle was at last surmounted; and the first inhabitants discovered that the soil was favourable for the growth of cotton and indigo, and that tobacco, which began then to be used in England, might be advantageously cultivated. Colonists flocked thither in so great numbers, that about forty years after the first settlement, the population amounted to fifty thousand whites and a hundred thousand negro and Indian slaves; but this flourishing condition lasted only for half a century. The present population, though much reduced, is still sufficiently numerous for an island about twenty-one miles in length, and fourteen in breadth. The inhabitants have been lately calculated at ninety thousand; three-fourths of them are made up of slaves. The governor resides at Bridgetown, the chief city in Barbadoes; the harbour of this place is nearer the ancient continent than any other in the Antilles.

Tobago.

Tobago is about eight leagues north north-east from Trinidad. The formation of both these islands differs widely from that of the Antilles, and mineralogists suppose that they are a continuation of the mountainous chain of Cumana, on the South American continent.* The hills on these two islands are chiefly composed of schistus; no granite rocks have ever been observed on them. The position of Tobago, on the strait which separates the Antilles from America, renders it important in time of war. Sugar and cotton might be raised in great quantities on its rich and still virgin soil, and the finest fruits of the tropics grow on the isl and; its figs and goyaves are considered the best in the West Indies. Cinnamon, nutmegs, gum-copal, and five differ

* Dauxion Lavaysse, Voyage à la Trinidad,"

There is BOOK

XCIII.

ent sorts of pepper are some of its productions. There is one of its commodious bays or inlets on the east, and another on the west coast, in which ships may be sheltered from every wind. The population, according to the last census amounted to 18,000 individuals, of whom 15,426 were negroes. Trinidad is situated between Tobago and Trinidad the continent of South America, from which it is separated or Trinity. by the Gulf of Paria and two straits; the one between the Oronoco and Trinidad is called the Serpent's Mouth; the ther between Trinidad and Cape Paria in Cumana still retains the name of Dragon's Mouth given it by Columbus. This island is about sixty or seventy miles from east to west, and nearly fifty from north to south. It was at one period thought very unhealthy; Raynal was the first who refuted that error. The mountains of Trinidad are not so lofty as some of the cloud-capt heights on the Antilles; it has been already observed that their geological construction is different; it may be added that their direction, and various other circumstances, indicate that they were separated from those which extend along the shore of Cumana at that unknown period, when the waters of the Guarapiche, and the western branches of the Oronoco opened for themselves a passage into the ocean through the channel of Dragon's Mouth. Different species of palms, and particularly the cocoa, grow on the southern and central parts of Trinidad. The island produces sugar, coffee, good tobacco, indigo, ginger, a variety of fine fruits, maize, cotton and cedar wood. The most remarkable phenome- Bituminon in Trinidad is a bituminous lake, situated on the western coast, near the village of La Brea. It is nearly three miles in extent, of a circular form, and about eighty feet above the level of the sea. Small islands covered with plants and shrubs are occasionally observed on the lake; but it is subject to frequent changes, and its verdant isles often disappear. The bituminous matter is hard near the surface, and less consistent at the depth of a foot; petroleum is found in some of the cavities. The pitchy sub

nous Lake.

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