provision but what their own art and ingenuity can furnish; and they exhibit a great deal of these in their manner of kindling fire, dressing their food, clothing themselves, and in preserving their eyes from the ill effects of that glaring white which every where surrounds them the greatest part of the year; in other respects they are perfectly pavage, CHAP. CHAP. XIII. West India Islands, how divided. sons. Climate. Sen- Caribbees. Their Character. When disro Treatment of their Children. Of their Wires. Religion. Dancing. Jamaica. vered. Taken by the English. Treatment of the Naives. Mode of peopling Jamaica. Attacked by the Spaniards. Buccaneers, account of. Canstitution given to Jamaica. Attempts made to tax the Inhabitants. The Island described. Proportion of slaves to free People. Exports. Earthquake at Port Royal. THE continent of America is, as we have already seen, divided by geographers into two great parts north and south; the narrow isthmus of Darien serving as a link to connect them, and forming a rampart against the encroachments of the Atlantic on one side, and of the Pacific Ocean on the other. But to that prodigious chain of islands which extend in a curve from the Florida shore on the northern peninsula, to the Gulf of Venezula in the southern, is given the name of the West Indies; from the name of India, originally assigned to them by Columbus*. Thus the whole of the new hemisphere is generally comprised under three great divisions; North America, South America, and the West Indies. That portion of the Atlantic which is separated from the main ocean to the north and east by the * See p. 23 of this volume. islands, islands, is generally called the Mexican Gulf; but it is divided into three distinct basins,-the Gulf of Mexico properly so called, the Bay of Honduras, and the Caribbeean sea. The latter takes its name from that class of islands that bounds this part of the ocean to the east; of which the greater part were formerly possessed by Indians, that 'were the Scourge of the inoffensive natives of Hispaniola, who frequently expressed to Columbus their dread of those fierce and warlike invaders, styling them Caribbees. Of this class, a group nearly adjoining to the eastern side of St. John de Porto Rico, is called the Virgin Isles. The cluster of small islands, which stretch in a north-westerly direction, from the northern coast of Hispaniola to the strait opposite the Florida shore, go by the name of the Bahamas. On one of these, called by the Indians Guanahani; by the Spaniards, St. Salvador; and by our own seamen, the Cat Island; Columbus landed after his first magnificent but perilous voyage. The whole group is called by the Spaniards the Lucayos. Most of the West India islands being situated under the tropic of Cancer, the climate is nearly the same with respect to the whole. Their year comprehends two distinct seasons, the wet and the dry; but as the rains form two great periods, the year may be considered under four divisions. The spring commences with May, when the trees become more vivid, and the burnt savannas begin to change their hue, even before the rains, which generally set in about the middle of the month. These come from the south; and are much less violent than those which pour. down in the autumn. They commonly fall about noon, and break up with a thunderstorm, exhibiting a beautiful verdure, and a luxuri ant ant vegetation. The average height of the thermometer, which varies considerably at this season, is 75o. When these rains, which continue a fortnight, have subsided, the summer reigns in full splendour, Not a cloud is to be seen ; and generally between the hours of seven and ten in the morning, before the setting in of the trade wind, the heat is scarcely supportable; but as soon as the influence of this refreshing wind is felt, nature seems to revive, and the climate becomes exceedingly pleasant; the medium height of the thermometer is now 30o: the nights are transcendantly beautiful: the moon displays a magnificence in her radiance, unknown to Europeans; the smallest print is legible by her light; and during her absence, the brilliancy of the Milky Way supplies to the traveller the necessary light, and makes ample amends for the shortness of twilight. This state lasts till the middle of August, when the atmosphere again becomes suffocating, which is the prelude to the autumnal rains. Large fleecy clouds are now seen in the morning, and when these vast accumulations of vapour have risen to a considerable height in the atmosphere, they move in a horizontal direction towards the mountains, proclaiming their progress by dreadful thunder, which reverberated from peak to peak, and answered by the distant roaring of the sea, heightens the majesty of the scene, and irresistibly lifts up the mind of the spectator to the great Author of the universe. The rains seldom fall with general force till the beginning of October; then the clouds pour down cataracts of which no one can form a just idea who has not witnessed them. In the interval between the beginning of August and the end of Oc tuber, toker, the hurricanes so terrible in their devastations are apprehended. About the end of November or the beginning of December, the temperature again changes, the wind varies from the east towards the north, drivă ing before it heavy storms of rain and hail, till the atmosphere is cleared, when a second succession of serene and pleasant weather sets in, and the winter, if it can be called such, between December and April, is the finest on the globe. Besides the trade-wind which blows from the east nine months in the year, there is a land-wind at night, which is peculiarly refreshing. This advantage the larger islands derive from the inequa lity of their surface, for as soon as the sea-breeze dies away, the hot air of the plain ascends to the tops of the mountains, and is there condensed, which rendering it specifically heavier than it was before, it descends back to the plains on both sides of the ridge. Hence a night wind is felt in moun tainous countries under the torrid zone, blowing on all sides from the land to the shore. To the discoverers the prospect of these islands must have been inconceivably interesting*. They are even now beheld, when the mind is prepared for the scene, with wonder and astonishment by every voyager who sees them for the first time. The beaty of the smaller islands, and the sublime grande of the larger, whose mountains form a stupendos and awful picture, are subjects for exquisite Contemplation. Columbus in many respects found himself in a new creation, for which his own mind, big with hope, must have been wholly unprepared. Tvariation of the compass, the regularity of * See p. 15 of this volume. |