te families, whom he described as the
most degraded, vicious, and abandoned people in the island--"very far
below the negroes." They live promiscuously, are drunken, licentious,
and poverty-stricken,--a body of most squalid and miserable
human beings.

From the height on which we stood, we could see the ocean nearly around
the island, and on our right and left, overlooking the basin below us,
rose the two highest points of land of which Barbadoes can boast. The
white marl about their naked tops gives them a bleak and desolate
appearance, which contrasts gloomily with the verdure of the surrounding
cultivation.

After we had fully gratified ourselves with viewing the miniature
representation of old Scotia, we descended again into the road, and
returned to Lear's. We passed numbers of men and women going towards
town with loads of various kinds of provisions on their heads. Some were
black, and others were white--of the same class whose huts had just been
shown us amid the hills and ravines of Scotland. We observed that the
latter were barefoot, and carried their loads on their heads precisely
like the former. As we passed these busy pedestrians, the blacks almost
uniformly courtesied or spoke; but the whites did not appear to notice
us. Mr. C inquired whether we were not struck with this difference in
the conduct of the two people, remarking that he had always observed it.
It is very seldom, said he, that I meet a negro who does not speak to me
politely; but this class of whites either pass along without looking up,
or cast a half-vacant, rude stare into one's face, without opening their
mouths. Yet this people, he added, veriest raggamuffins that they are,
despise the negroes, and consider it quite degrading to put themselves
on term of equity with them. They will beg of blacks more provident and
industrious than themselves, or they will steal their poultry and rob
their provision grounds at night; but they would disdain to associate
with them. Doubtless these _sans culottes_ swell in their dangling rags
with the haughty consciousness that they possess _white skins_. What
proud reflections they must have, as they pursue their barefoot way,
thinking on their high lineage, and running back through the long list
of their illustrious ancestry whose notable badge was a _white skin_! No
wonder they cannot stop to bow to the passing stranger. These sprouts of
the Caucasian race are known among the Barbadians by the rather
un