484 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



of the hills in the midst of verdant thickets and flower gardens. î^one of the 

 Antilles surpass Grenada in sylvan charms, wealth of colour and fragrant blossom. 



Columbus, its discoverer in 1498, gave it the name of Ascension ; but it 

 remained in the possession of the aborigines till the middle of the seventeenth 

 centur)', when some French settlers arrived with a large number of negroes. 

 They at once began to massacre the natives, and on the north coast is still 

 shown the " Morne des Sauteurs," or " Caribs' Leap," where the natives threw 

 themselves into the sea to escape their enemies. 



A hundred years later the English seized the island, which they have since 

 retained. But the white planters, enriched by the sugar industry, were unable 

 to recover from the blow caused b}^ the emancipation of the slaves. Most of 

 them had first to mortgage and then sell their estates, which have in great 

 measure been bought by the descendants of the old slaves. In 1889 there were 

 about 5,000 small farmers, nearly all blacks or people of colour, with holdings 

 from about 3 to 6 acres in extent. Hence Grenada is one of the West India 

 Islands referred to by political economists, according to their different theories, 

 as examples of disaster and ruin, or as models of prosperity. Doubtless the 

 old planters, having lost their vast domains and gangs of slaves, have left the 

 island where they had been impoverished by their lavish expenditure ; but on 

 the other hand the emancipated blacks have acquired sufficient Ijtnd to maintain 

 their freedom. They swarm in the narrow island, which is relatively twice as 

 thickly peopled as France, and according to the testimony of all travellers the 

 negroes are nowhere more cheerful, light-hearted and really happy. 



The export of cacao, the staple product, increases from year to year ; but 

 sugar, tea, coffee, cotton, tobacco — in a word, almost all colonial produce — thrives 

 well in this favoured island, which, like Malaysia, also yields spices, nutmeg, 

 cloves, and ginger, besides the kola nut of Senegambia. The mean temperature 

 on the sheltered coaitlands, which varies from about 78'^ to 80° Fahr., enables 

 the growers to cultivate all the plants of the torrid zone ; but the plantations 

 suffer much from the depredations of the monkeys. The export of fruits to the 

 United States is steadily increasing, and would even acquire still greater expan- 

 sion were the island traversed by good roads. 



Grenada, however, has an excellent harbour, the so-called Carénage, one of the 

 best in the Antilles, affording anchorage in 30 to 50 feet of water close inshore. 

 On the lava headhmd separating the port from the sea stands the fortress of 

 St. George, whence the town often takes the name of Georgetoivn. 



Barbados. 



This outlying island, which since 1885 constitutes a separate government, 

 does not form a link in the chain of the Lesser Antilles, from which it is 

 separated by a trough over 1,350 fathoms deep. From its northern extremity to 

 the south point of St. Lucia, the nearest land, the distance is about 95 miles. 

 Abysmal waters also separate it from Tobago, and its main axis is disposed 



