2l8 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



also, who scoured the woods after the Caribs were 

 subdued and scattered, and committed many murders, 

 may have been moved to spare people so much re- 

 sembling themselves. 



How similar has been the fate of the Caribs to 

 that of the Seminoles of the Southern States ! At the 

 beginning of the present century, the latter were peace- 

 ful and happy, cultivating their gardens with an in- 

 telligence that shows them to have been superior 

 people. They, too, were driven to war, stripped of 

 their property, and hunted by white troops. Their 

 resistance lasted for seven years, but in the end, nearly 

 all were captured and transported far from their homes. 

 Of them a remnant lingers in the hunting-grounds of 

 their fathers, engaged, like the present Carib, in agri- 

 cultural pursuits. With them, too, the negro found a 

 home, married with them, and to them communicated 

 the curse of his race. 



The memory of the war of his ancestors stirred 

 Captain George to wild song, and his daughters 

 danced in the moonlight while he made music on a 

 drum hollowed from a log and covered with cow-skin, 

 chanting the while a song, of which I can remember 



but two lines : 



" Neech-i-goo, bah-li, boo ni, 

 Leh-bi chi, wei-i-ga-mah, a/i'-wa/i-si." 



He attended me to my cabin, late in the evening, 

 and as he had imbibed freely of distilled cane-juice 

 (vulgarly known as rum) he was very confidential, 

 and communicated to me the important secret that, in 

 a cave on one of the islands to which the Caribs were 

 transported, there was a treasure. Of the exact nature 

 of this " treasure " he did not inform me, but left me 



