Six months in the West-Indies, in 1825

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BARBUDA.

with about thirty negros. These last are, like the Huntsmen, a regular class amongst the slaves, called the Fishermen, and attend almost exclusively to piscatorial pursuits. They supply a certain quantity of the provisions destined for the consumption of the island. Away we went before the wind in fine style, and Taced our companions for two miles, when the wind getting round more ahead, and they not bracing up their yards sharp enough, we shot by them so far that they never fetched us again. We had guns on board to shoot the flamingos which usually harbour on a sandy shoal at the mouth of the flash, but we saw none, and it was said to be too early in the year for them. This flash, which connects the Lagoon with the bay, winds in a clear river stream through a low forest of mangroves. No natural object pleases me more than green trees growing out of or on the margin of the sea or the lake, and in no part of the world is this more beautifully seen than in the West Indies. What European has not been penetrated with wonder and delight on first entering Carlisle Bay, and gazing on the long avenues of cocoa-nut-trees which fringe the borders of the sky-blue waters! How has he looked with a traveller's curiosity at their bare and ring-striped stems, their hanging clusters of blessed fruit, and the strange tufts of branch-like leaves which fall irregularly over them! And then the dark and


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