138 BRITISH HONDURAS. 



clergy being for the most part supported by their respective 

 congregations. The Church of England is included in the 

 diocese of Jamaica. The majority of the people, arising no 

 doubt from the Spanish element, were returned in the census of 

 1871 as Eoman Catholics. The numbers being : Eoman Catholics, 

 15,000, Protestants 9,000. In the latter were included members 

 of the Wesleyan and Baptist congregations, as -well as the 

 Church of England. 



The schools in the colony are generally connected with the 

 religious denominations, and superintended by the clergy. By 

 a late return, two schools are Church of England, ten Eoman 

 Catholic, ten Wesleyan, and one Baptist. The teachers are 

 granted certificates according to merit, and receive a certain 

 amount of Government aid. 



Before closing this chapter, it may be well to mention, that 

 the men most likely to succeed in a new country like British 

 Honduras are those which have already had some experience in 

 a tropical country, and are able to bring some capital with 

 them. As I mentioned lately in a paper read before the Eoyal 

 Colonial Institute 



" For the last thirty or forty years, the tide of emigration, as regards 

 tropical planters, and consequently the flow of capital, has steadily set to 

 the eastward, and thousands of men possessing means and energy have 

 settled on the Nilgiris, on the slopes of the Himalayas, and on the moun- 

 tains of Ceylon, to cultivate tea, coffee, and cinchona. More recently 

 they have gone still further east, to Perak, Johore, Sumatra, and 

 Borneo. 



"Now, however, that the dreadful coffee-leaf disease has induced so 

 depressing an influence in all Eastern countries ; and whilst Englishmen 

 are contemplating investing their capital in countries not under British 

 rule, and in places so remote and so little accessible to the chief markets of 

 the world, it seems not inappropriate to consider what lands, what 

 facilities for culture, and what returns on capital, the West Indies within 

 some eighteen days of England, and in close and easy communication with 



