nŒTABITANTS OF WEST INDIES. 853 



comings. Between the Dutch, English, French, and Spanish negroes the same 

 contrasts have been observed as between the peoples Avhose speech thej* have 

 adopted, and with whom they have become more and more associated in their 

 traditions and habits of thought. 



As regards their speech, the negro English patois is less harmonious than 

 the French créole, but it is equally lively and terse. . Apart from a few simple 

 expressions, the uninitiated Englishman would never succeed in understanding his 

 mother-tongue as spoken by the Jamaica or Barbadoes islanders. Of all the local 

 jargons, the most corrupt is the papa m ieiifo of the Venezuelan seaboard, in which 

 the chief elements are Dutch and Spanish, and which has preserved a few Carib 

 and Goajir terms. 



The West Indies are about three or four times more densely peopled than Mexico 

 or Central America. They have also developed a much larger foreign trade, esti- 

 mated at present at a total yearly value of about £27,000,000. The various groups 

 are connected by numerous lines of steamers, Avhile the larger islands have been 

 brought into telegraphic communication with the rest of the wor^d by submarine 

 cables to America and Europe. 



In their political distribution the islands do not follow their natural divisions. 

 The two independent republics of Haiti and St. Domingo occupy the large central 

 island far removed from the republics of the mainland, and intervening between 

 the Spanish possessions of Cuba on the west and Puerto Rico on the east. To the 

 share of England have fallen Jamaica and the Caymans on the side of Cuba, the 

 Bahamas and Bermuda in the open Atlantic, and numerous members of the Lesser 

 Antilles. A few islands of the same chain belong to France and Denmark, while 

 those of Holland are partly in this chain, partly in the group contiguous to the 

 Venezuelan coast. 



The various political groups will be found tabulated in the Appendix. 



56 



