144 ; Timehri. 
in default of any hope of more extensive discoveries it is necessary t0 
make this paucity of evidence a factor in my theory, which is as follows :— 
That the few inhabitants of Barbados consisted of waifs who drifted into the 
Atlantic from elsewhere, and more fortunate than many subsequent Barba- 
dians managed a landfall in a pleasant place, well supplied them as now with 
an abundant supply of fresh water and fish. These people adapting themselves 
to their circumstances made pots of local clay and finding no suitable stone 
made implements of the conch, the hardest and largest material at hand. Of 
course it is to be presumed that they used the hardest native wood also. for 
some purposes and built boats and made paddles, but it is to be doubted if 
they ever ventured to seek the land whence they came. 
Whence did they come ? 
The constant eastern trade wind which has kept the boisterous and beauti- 
ful eastern coast but sparsely inhabited to this diay, the north-western trend of 
the north equatorial current would "seem to exclude all the West Indian 
Islands except perhaps Tobago from our conjectures, but it is quite possible that 
the large dug-out canoes which Raleigh saw on the Orinoco, or some ancient 
and decayed ones still to be seen in British Guiana, were formerly taken far 
out from our coasts to fish in blue water and being caught in a storm and_bear- 
ings lost, would drift North-west until the mighty rush of the Ormoco im 
flood drove them further mto the Atlantic until they were well eastward of 
both Trinidad and Tobago. Then caught once more by wind and current they 
were fortunate enough to strike Barbados. By a careful comparison of their 
pottery with specimens I had with me from the Aruka Hills, I came to the 
conclusion that the Barbadian fragments were the work of a man who was 
familiar with ours but who was a potter from necessity. In other words that 
the Guianese or Tobagan potter was not in any of the drifting canoes, or if he 
was he never reached Barbados, neither did the Barbadian know which clay 
to select nor had he any vers clear notions of mixing, foras any visitor toa 
‘Windward ”’ potter’s shed knows, that excellent clay is to be found in the 
Island and many useful and ornamental objects in red and yellow terra-cotta 
are now produced there. Indeed whilst on sucha visit I tried to illustrate 
in his clay our local finds to the members of the party I was with, and found 
myself making for lack of practical experience similar things to those in the 
Magistrate's and Doctor’s collections, and I am now told that. my crude 
imitations are being used as moaels by the potter and that history is repeating 
itself, 
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Po. sae st 
