CHAP, ii.] WEST INDIES. 47 



quently dug up; and Mr. Hughes, the historian of 

 that island, observes, that they far surpass the earthern 

 ware made by the negroes, in thinness, smoothness 

 and beauty.* Besides those, they invented various 

 other utensils for economical purposes, which are 

 enumerated by Labat. The baskets which they com- 

 posed of the fibres of the palmeto leaves, were sin- 

 gularly elegant, and we are told that their bows and 

 arrows, and other weapons, displayed a neatness and 

 polish, which the most skilful European artist would 

 have found it difficult to have excelled, even with 

 European tools. 



Of the nature and extent of their agriculture the 

 accounts are slender and unsatisfactory. We are told, 

 on good authority, that among the Charaibes of the 

 continent, there was no division of land, every one 

 cultivating in proportion to his exigencies. f Where 

 no criminal jurisdiction is established, the idea of pri- 

 vate property must necessarily be unknown or imper- 

 fect; and in these islands where land is scarce, it 

 seems probable that, as among some of the tribes of 

 South America,f cultivation was earned on by the 

 joint labour of each separate community, and their 

 harvests deposited in public granaries, whence each 

 family received its proportion of the public stock. 



: Nat. Hist, of Barbadoes, p. 8. Ligon, who visited this island iu 

 1647, declares that some of these vessels, which he saw, even surpassed 

 any earthen-ware made in England " both" (to use his own words) " ia 

 " finesse of mettle, and curiosity of turninge." 



f Bancroft, p. 254. 



t Gumilla, torn. i. p. 265, 



