CHAPTER VIII.

ST. LUCIA.

LOCALITY-HISTORY-ASPECT-CLIMATE-POPULATION-COMMERCE

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES-REVENUE-MONIES-GOVERNMENT, &c.

LOCALITY. This wildly beautiful island is in lat. 13.50 N., long. 60.58 W., about thirty-two miles in length, from N. to S., and twelve broad, contains 37,500 acres of land, was

HISTORY-discovered on St. Lucia's Day, and first settled on by the English about 1635, since which period it has undergone various changes, being sometimes declared neutral, (as by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,) next in the possession of the French, then captured or transferred to the British, and vice versa. By the treaty of Paris in 1763, St. Lucia was allotted to France; and Dominica, St. Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago to England; during the American war, in 1779, it was taken by the British, but restored to the French by the peace of 1783; it was conquered at the commencement of the French revolutionary war in 1794, evacuated in 1795, and retaken in 1796; by the treaty of Amiens it was restored to France in 1801, and recaptured by us in 1803. The detail of the hard fought battles for the acquisition of this isle would be out of place, it may suffice to state that the fortune of war, in 1803, has finally left it an English colony, with a French population, manners, language, and, I may add, feelings.

PHYSICAL ASPECT. The first approach to this island, (which is divided longitudinally by a ridge of lofty hills,) from the S. is very remarkable. An accurate observer and delightful writer thinks it offers one of the most striking combinations of various kinds of scenery ever witnessed.

'Two rocks, which the gods call Pitons, and men Sugarloaves, rise perpendicularly out of the sea, and shoot to a great height in parallel cones, which taper away towards the

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BEAUTIFUL ASPECT OF ST. LUCIA.

summit like the famous spires of Coventry. These mountains, which are feathered from the clouds to the waves with evergreen foliage, stand like pillars of Hercules on either side of the entrance into a small but deep and beautiful bay. A pretty little village or plantation appears at the bottom of the cove; the sandy beach stretches like a line of silver round the blue water, and the cane fields form a broad belt of vivid green in the back-ground. Behind this, the mountains, which run N. and S. throughout the island, rise in the most fantastic shapes, here cloven into steep-down chasms, there darting into arrowy points, and every where shrouded or swathed, as it were, in wood, which the hand of man will probably never lay low. The clouds, which within the tropics are infallibly attracted by any woody eminences, contribute greatly to the wildness of the scene; sometimes they are so dense as to bury the mountains in darkness; at other times they float transparently like a silken veil; frequently the flaws from the gulleys perforate the vapors and make windows in the smoky mass, and then again the wind and the sun will cause the whole to be drawn upwards majestically like the curtain of a gorgeous theatre.'

While sailing along the shore the variety of scenery is exquisitely beautiful; the back ground continues mountainous, but every three or four miles appear the most lovely little coves and bays, fringed with the luxuriant cane-fields, and enlivened by the neatly laid-out mansions of the planters; while the flotillas of fishing and passage, or drogher boats, with their long light masts and latteen sails, add life and animation to the scene. On the west coast there is an excellent harbour, called the Little Careenage, with three careening places, one for large ships, and the others for frigates. It is accessible only to one vessel at a time, (the entrance defended

* The Author of Six Months in the West Indies (Henry Nelson Coleridge, Esq.), calls them 'rocks;' they are rather mountains, round and high, and appear to have been volcanoes. In one deep valley there are several ponds, where the water bursts up with great violence, and retains some of its heat even at the distance of 6,000 toises from its source,

CASTRIES-SPLENDID PROSPECT.

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by several batteries) but capable of holding thirty ships of the line.

The plains throughout the island are well watered, and the mountains clothed with the finest timber.

Castries, the only town in the isle, is situate at the bottom of a long and winding bay of the same name. The fort is situate on the summit of Mornefortune, which is about two miles of exceeding steep road, or path, from Castries. Mr. Coleridge thinks the road perilous; it is in a zig-zag of acute angles, and is thus described by that delightful traveller ;

'As it rains nine months out of the twelve in St. Lucia, there are deep bricked trenches or channels traversing the path at each turn for the double purpose of carrying off the water and of checking a redundant population. But when I got to the top-oh never will that moment be forgotten by me!-I remember staring without breath or motion as if I had been really enchanted. I never saw heaven so close before. The sky did not seem that solid ceiling with gold nails stuck in it which it does in England, but a soft transparency of showery azure, far within which, but unobscured by its intervention, the great stars were swimming and breathing and looking down like gods of Assyria. Not only Venus and Sirius and the glorious Cross of our Faith in the south, and Charlemagne amongst the starris seaven

low in the north, shone like segments of the moon; but hosts of other luminaries of lesser magnitude flung each its particular shaft of splendor on the tranquil and shadowy sea. As I gazed, the air burst into atoms of green fire before my face, and in an instant they were gone; I turned round, and saw all the woods upon the mountains illuminated with ten thousands of flaming torches moving in every direction, now rising, now falling, vanishing here, re-appearing there, converging to a globe, and dispersing in spangles. No man can conceive from dry description alone the magical beauty of these glorious creatures."

* There are two sorts, the small fly, which flits in and out in the air,

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PIGEON ISLAND-FIRE FLIES.

Pigeon Island is six miles distant from the harbour of St. Lucia, and, in a military point of view, is of great importance to the colonies, being within a short distance of Martinique, and commanding a view of every ship that may enter or depart from that island;-it is moreover valuable for a very fine and extensive anchorage between it and the N. part of St. Lucia. The isle is about half a mile in length N. and S. and a quarter broad, the side towards the sea (W.) is a perpendicular cliff, from the ridge or crest of which there is a gradual descent to the opposite shore, and level ground enough to erect a barrack for 500 men. A barrack and hospital has been constructed on this healthy spot, and it is one of the most salubrious that can be expected in a tropical clime. St. Lucia is divided into Basseterre, the low or leeward territory, and Capisterre, the high or windward territory. The former is well cultivated and most populous; but the climate is unwholesome from the abundance of stagnant waters and morasses. The latter division is also unwholesome, but it becomes of course less so as the woods are cleared away. Indeed the health of all tropical countries will be found to be in proportion to their cultivation.

POPULATION. In 1777 the island contained whites, 2,397; free coloured, 1,050; slaves, 10,752; total, 14,199.

The population of each parish, according to the latest returns before me, was, 1st district, Castries, 4,420; Gros Islet, 1,431; Anse la Raye, 1,036: 2nd district, Soufriere, 4,116; Choiseul, 1,375; Laborie, 1,718; 3rd district, Vieux Fort, 1,399; Miconel, 1,164; Deunerie, 650; Dauphin, 666; total, 17,975.

the body of which I have never examined; and a kind of beetle, which keeps more to the woods, and is somewhat more stationary, like our glow-worm. This last has two broad eyes on the back of its head, which, when the phosphorescent energy is not exerted, are of a dull parchment hue; but, upon the animal's being touched, shoot forth two streams of green light as intense as the purest gas. But the chief source of splendour is a cleft in the belly, through which the whole interior of the beetle appears like a red-hot furnace.'

The Board of Trade returns for 1831 state the inhabitants at-uhites and free coloured, males, 1,690; females, 1,838: slaves, males, 5,242; females, 6,129-total, males, 6,932; females, 7,967. The births for the year, 451; deaths, 430; and marriages, 19. There are 4,190 persons engaged in agriculture; in manufactures, 670; in commerce, 86.

PRODUCE AND AGRICULTURE. The number of stock in the island is, horses 578; horned cattle, 2,239; sheep, 1,741; and goats, 594.

The quantity of agricultural produce in 1831 was, sugar, 5,561,815 hogsheads; coffee, 149,571 hogsheads; cocoa, 33,515 hogsheads; rum, 90,687 gallons; molasses, 224,700 gallonst. The number of acres of land under each crop was in sugar canes, 4752; coffee, 696; cocoa, 316; provisions, 4,049; pasture, 4,685—total, 11,321; leaving uncultivated-acres, 26,134.

Another account estimates the whites at 570 males, and 500 females; free coloured, 1,745 males and 2,238 females.

↑ The difficulty in obtaining correct statistics of any of our possessions is very great, particularly in reference to many of the W. I. islands. The return given in the text for St. Lucia is derived from the Board of Trade statements; but the bond population for 1831 quoted, varies from the slave table given from the House of Commons library. So also the following, from private authority, differs in regard to agriculture. The stock in St. Lucia is estimated at horses, 708; horned cattle, 3,022; sheep, 1,884; goats, 769. The produce of sugar, 7,683,800 lbs.; molasses, 120,000 gallons; rum, 28,000 gallons; coffee, 50,000 lbs.; and cocoa, 30,000 lbs.