THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE. VOL. VIII. JUNE, 1888. No. 2. ALONG THE CARIBBEAN. III.-BARBADOS: THE ELBOW ISLAND. BY DR. WILLIAM F.. HUTCHINSON. HERE the great curve of peaks that projects from the blue Carib sea to represent all that is left of lost Atlantis, in islands of picturesque scenery and matchless climate, makes its most acute angle, a traveler leaves his southwesterly course and makes a direct run of a hundred or more miles eastward, to reach Barbados. steamer, but where all natural environment remains as our ancestors left it when they were so relentlessly submerged by destroying waves. No relics of their existence remain, it is true; but the eons that have passed since their disappearance is reason for that, especially when one considers how rapidly tropical heat and decay attack all things inorganic as well as more complex forms. An explorer in the deep, close forests of these islands, while he fails to discover footprints of bygone ages, finds a life that differs in material points from nearest continental forms, and leaves him to wonder whence it came. A dozen years or so have passed since the pioneer naturalist searched these wilds, but Mr. Ober's example has not been followed, and the deep forests of Dominica, Saint Lucia and Martinique, in spite of strong temptation, remain as he left them, unexplored. For a week he has feasted every sense upon pictures of scenery as strange as lovely, and has recognized in smoking mountains and riven rocks some evidences of the awful forces that buried a continent miles below the waves and left these verdure-clad peaks the only monuments to a race destroyed. Exquisite floral forms act as setting to a fauna exuberant and wonderful, all of a type peculiar to volcanic lands beneath a torrid sky, and sharp-pointed rocks dip straight into the blue sea thousands of fathoms from an upper ascent of equal height. The ocean bed spreads out in level plains diversified by rolling elevations, where pre-historic man may have pastured herds, built cities or made long journeys to these pitons where we now arrive only by Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1888, by The American Magazine Publishing Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. All rights reserved. Far in these dim recesses, where only blacks penetrate, and they but rarely, there is concealed a beauty altogether primitive and unique, beneath a sky that is steadily serene in winter months, while the temperature is that of Northern June. To all this, Barbados is an exception dressed in green and white. Approach ing its soft slopes from the westward, one is strongly reminded of carefully cultivated English hills, an illusion which disappears only when the harbor is entered. But while running down the coast from the north, there are few things to mark the difference, at least from twenty miles away. No mountain ranges accentuate outlines that grow blue as they recede until lost in the bluer sky; no patches of dark color mark where thick forests lie, and no signal gleam from falling water shows where a white cascade catches sun-rays and sends them back to the watcher to tell where it lies hidden. Every rood of land is light-green or snow-white at that distance, with dividing lines marking fields; and under a strong glass these are resolved into trim farms, with windmills or tall chimneys to give the needed working power. Drawing closer, the land becomes characteristic, and it is plain that a new formation is before us. There is nothing ancient in these low hills of coral stone, or shelving shores; nothing that appeals to geologist nor naturalist; only a new world for the student of human nature, who finds in this library whose volumes are mostly bound in black, many a pleasant problem to be worked out beneath a lovely sky and with congenial surroundings. As this island is beyond the curving arm of land that stretches out from the Antilles to South America it may be fitly called the Elbow Island, occupying, as it does, in this grand chain exactly the position of that prominence upon a human being. As we sailed into Carlisle Bay, the harbor of the island, early in last February, an air of prosperity and business was seen at once. More than a hundred sail of many flags were anchored, among them a noble British squadron of nine men-of-war. Boats were pulling about in every direction, and speedily surrounded us, to tout for passengers ashore, as we carefully sidled to our position and let go anchor. They carried any and everything, these boats, invariably demanding double fare at first, the custom hereabouts. But we were used to that, and a shilling apiece was all they got. Before us lay the city of Bridgetown, low in buildings, red as to roofs, spread out three miles in length by two inland, dominated by a cathedral tower, and half hidden in greenery. Rounding the breakwater, called the careenage, for they tip vessels half-over here to scrape them clean, we ran alongside a stone quay and were ashore, to be surrounded by a crowd of darkeys intent upon earning a penny from the newcomers. "Here am I, master!" "Your boy John, master!" "I's Uncle Sam boy William, master!" "Dis de way to de ice-house, master!" et usque ad nauseam. Most travelers who come here report the negroes insolent, devoid of education and bristling with petty annoyance. It is odd, perhaps, but I have never seen all this. They are persistent, it is true, but where human life is crowded as here, and pennies are hard to get, why should they not be? During a stay of weeks in Barbados, I have always found the blacks polite and accommodating, even to each other. My coachman dropped his whip one day; an old man came some distance after him with it, and the acknowledgments of service and reception thereof would have done credit to more assuming people of lighter skin. It I think that the density of population is what impresses a stranger most. is like living aboard a man-of-war, where men are as thick as bees, and space for another one seems difficult to find. There is absolutely no privacy. Out from the town of Bridgeport, as far as you choose to go, the roads are like streets, with little boxes of houses along the wayside, each holding a numerous family, while troops of negroes stroll along the white way. Sit for a moment beneath a lignumvitæ or bread-fruit shade, and negroes spring up from the ground to gaze and wonder who you are. This teeming concentrated human life is the first novelty that a tourist sees. In an area of one hundred and sixtysix square miles, one hundred and eighty thousand human beings live, and apparently live comfortably well. It is, perhaps, the most densely-crowded territory known, and this state of affairs makes itself evident at once in every part of the island. Streets are crowded from building to building all day long, as a New York |