246 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



a range of hills eight hundred feet in height. The 

 character of soil and people of every island of the 

 Grenadines may be summed up in the following para- 

 graph from the "West India Pilot" : 



" Bequia has no running streams, and there is no 

 watering-place. There are some wells at the head 

 of the bay, but the water is not very good. Wood is 

 plentiful, and may be obtained by permission from the 

 owners, but it is doubtful if the natives would cut it. 

 Poultry may be had occasionally in small quantities, 

 and sometimes fish, but vegetables never." 



The people are apathetic. The sea yields them 

 sufficient for the day ; of cotton and sugar their lands 

 produce sufficient to supply them with commodities 

 not obtainable from the sea. The contrast between 

 these silent, sleepy islands, whose people are content 

 to exist and will not work, and an island like Bar- 

 bados, where the negroes all must work or starve, 

 and where they harass a visitor nearly to the verge 

 of insanity, is refreshing. Some of the islets, like 

 Balliceaux and Battowia, are owned by single indi- 

 viduals, or firms, who raise there cattle and sheep; 

 all are well stocked with wild doves, plover and ducks 

 in their season, and their rocky shores are surrounded 

 by myriads of sea-fowl. 



In Bequia, and extending throughout the chain, 

 is a blackbird — a new species named the £>iiiscalus 

 luminosus — which makes the air resound with its 

 joyous cry: "Bequia sweet, sweet, Bequia sweet." 

 The Caribs told me of this bird several months be- 

 fore I obtained it, as its peculiar cry had caused it to 

 be marked by them. They had preserved a touching 

 story of its connection with Carib captivity, when the 



