, and
handed them round to be gnawed at special festivals. They were a
light-hearted, pleasant race, capital shots with bows and arrows, and
ready to do anything he asked in return for brandy. They killed a hammer
shark for his amusement by diving under the monster and stabbing him
with knives. As to their religion, they had no objection to anything.
But their real belief was in a sort of devil.

Soon after Labat's visit the French came in, drove the Caribs into the
mountains, introduced negro slaves, and an ordered form of society.
Madame Ouvernard and her court went to their own place. Canes were
planted, and indigo and coffee. A cathedral was built at Roseau, and
parish churches were scattered about the island. There were convents of
nuns and houses of friars, and a fort at the port with a garrison in it.
The French might have been there till now had not we turned them out
some ninety years ago; English enterprise then setting in that direction
under the impulse of Rodney's victories. I was myself about to see the
improvements which we had introduced into an acquisition which had cost
us so dear.

I was to be dropped at Roseau by the mail steamer from Barbadoes to St.
Thomas's. On our way we touched at St. Lucia, another once famous
possession of ours. This island was once French also. Rodney took it in
1778. It was the only one of the Antilles which was left to us in the
reverses which followed the capitulation of York Town. It was in the
harbour at Castries, the chief port, that Rodney collected the fleet
which fought and won the great battle with the Count de Grasse. At the
peace of Versailles, St. Lucia was restored to France; but was retaken
in 1796 by Sir Ralph Abercrombie, and, like Dominica, has ever since
belonged to England. This, too, is a beautiful mountainous island, twice
as large as Barbadoes, in which even at this late day we have suddenly
discovered that we have an interest. The threatened Darien canal has
awakened us to a sense that we require a fortified coaling station in
those quarters. St. Lucia has the greatest natural advantages for such a
purpose, and works are already in progress there, and the long-deserted
forts and barracks which had been made over to snakes and lizards, are
again to be occupied by English troops.

We sailed one evening from Barbadoes. In the grey of the next morning we
were in the passage between St. Lucia and St. Vincent just under the
'Pitons,' which were soaring gr