CHAPTER II. 



Arrival at Antigua. Dominica. Frogs and Humming Birds. Martinico. 

 Diamond rock. Barbadoes. Quashi and Venus. The Alien Bill. 

 Sail for Demerara. More about the Sloth. Scarlet Grosbeak. 

 Crab-eating Owl. Sun-heron. Feet of the Tinamou. Vampires 

 again. The Karabimiti Humming-bird. The Monkey tribe. The 

 Red Howler. Eoast monkey. The Nondescript. Altered physi- 

 ognomy. Gold and silver mines. Changes of government. Politics. 

 India-rubber. An ingenious deception. 



WE were thirty days in making Antigua, and thanked 

 Providence for ordering us so long a passage. A tre- 

 mendous gale of wind, approaching to a hurricane, had 

 done much damage in the West Indies. Had our passage 

 been of ordinary length, we should inevitably have been 

 caught in the gale. 



St. John's is the capital of Antigua. In better times it 

 may have had its gaieties and amusements. At present, it 

 appears sad and woe-begone. The houses, which are 

 chiefly of wood, seem as if they had not had a coat of 

 paint for many years ; the streets are uneven and ill- 

 paved ; and as the stranger wanders through them, he 

 might fancy that they would afford a congenial promenade 

 to the man who is about to take his last leave of surround- 

 ing worldly misery, before he hangs himself. There had 

 been no rain for some time, so that the parched and barren 

 pasture near the town might, with great truth, be called 



