BARBADOS.
39
for the royalists, as Jamaica afterwards became for the republicans. Many of the present families are lineally descended from the original planters, and the estates bear names which may be found in Ligon and the early memorialists of the island. It is generally level, except in the north-eastern quarter, called Scotland, where the highest land is about 1,100 feet from the sea. The soil for the most part is a thin superficies, upon a mass of coralline rag, which protrudes through it wherever there is an angle or a fissure; and so very precious is the mould, that means are usually taken at the bottom of shelving fields to prevent its being carried away by the torrents in the rainy season. Barbados is without that central accumulation of hills which is almost universal in the other Antilles, and I should therefore doubt its being of volcanic formation. It is considered to be exhausted, and manure is as necessary as in England. Under these circumstances it is astonishing to see the amount of the production. The island is something less than the Isle of Wight; it exports at an average upwards of 314,000 cwts. of sugar annually, besides poultry to the Leeward colonies; it contains about 110,000 souls*, who find their * In;1674 it was calculated that 50,000 white and 70,000 colored persons lived on the island. The history of a large proportion of these whites is very curious in the present day. The island,' says Ligon, ' is divided into three sorts of men; viz. masters, servants,