338 To the River Plate and Back 



in 1605 a party of Englishmen on their way to the 

 Spanish Main effected a landing and took possession in 

 the name of their king, the ceremony consisting of 

 setting up a rude wooden cross and carving upon the 

 bark of a tree a declaration that the island was the 

 property of King James. They then sailed away. At 

 that time the only foothold which England had in 

 the New World was this little island and the rocky 

 coast of Newfoundland. Spain, Portugal, France, and 

 Holland claimed everything on this side of the Atlantic. 

 Twenty years passed before a few of these Englishmen 

 accompanied by some of their friends returned, and 

 began a formal settlement at Holetown. They were 

 quickly followed by a party sent out by the Earl of 

 Carlisle, who established themselves in 1628 at Bridge- 

 town, which, because of the better anchorage, soon 

 became the principal port of the island, in fact the only 

 one now resorted to by ocean-going vessels. 



Barbados has been continuously in the hands of the 

 English since the days of its first occupation, and is one 

 of the very oldest of the colonial possessions of Great 

 Britain. It has an extreme length of twenty-one miles 

 and an extreme breadth of fourteen miles. It contains 

 an area of one hundred and sixty- three square miles. 

 It has a population of more than two hundred thousand, 

 and therefore, with the exception of Manhattan Island, 

 is the most densely inhabited island on the face of the 

 globe. The population is composed principally of 

 negroes. 



The style of architecture of the older mansions is 

 Colonial, recalling the old manor-houses of Virginia 

 and the Carolinas. In this connection it is worth 

 remembering that the only time George Washington 

 left the soil of North America was on the occasion of a 



