and I admired her fortitude. She was English, and
was on her way to join her father at Codrington College.

We had a wild night, but those long vessels care little for winds and
waves. By morning we had fought our way back to Grenada. In the St.
Vincent roadstead, which we reached the same day, the ship was stormed
by boatloads of people who were to go on with us; boys on their way to
school at Barbadoes, ladies young and old, white, black, and mixed, who
were bound I know not where. The night fell dark as pitch, the storm
continued, and we were no sooner beyond the shelter of the land than
every one save Miss ---- and myself was prostrate. The vessel ploughed
on upon her way indifferent to us and to them. We were at Bridgetown by
breakfast time, and I was now to have an opportunity of studying more at
leisure the earliest of our West Indian colonies.

Barbadoes is as unlike in appearance as it is in social condition to
Trinidad or the Antilles. There are no mountains in it, no forests, no
rivers, and as yet no small freeholders. The blacks, who number nearly
200,000 in an island not larger than the Isle of Wight, are labourers,
working for wages on the estates of large proprietors. Land of their own
they have none, for there is none for them. Work they must, for they
cannot live otherwise. Thus every square yard of soil is cultivated, and
turn your eyes where you will you see houses, sugar canes, and sweet
potatoes. Two hundred and fifty years of occupation have imprinted
strongly an English character; parish churches solid and respectable,
the English language, the English police and parochial system. However
it may be in the other islands, England in Barbadoes is still a solid
fact. The headquarters of the West Indian troops are there. There is a
commander-in-chief residing in a 'Queen's House,' so called. There is a
savannah where there are English barracks under avenues of almond and
mahogany. Red coats are scattered about the grass. Officers canter about
playing polo, and naval and military uniforms glitter at the side of
carriages, and horsemen and horsewomen take their evening rides, as well
mounted and as well dressed as you can see in Rotten Row. Barbadoes is
thus in pleasing contrast with the conquered islands which we have not
taken the trouble to assimilate. In them remain the wrecks of the French
civilisation which we superseded, while we have planted nothing of our
own. Barbadoes, the European aspect of i