BAEBADOS, 485 



nortli-west and south-east, in the reverse direction to that island. Barhados also 

 differs from the other Antilles in its geological formation, being a coralline mass 

 resting on a trachytic cone, which crops out only at one point. It seems to have 

 been upheaved by successive thrusts; for it consists of a series of receding 

 terraces, each with its circuit of scarps and cliffs, except where the old contour 

 lilies have been modified by the erosion of tropical floods. Mount Hallaby, the 

 culminating point, is only 1,150 feet high. In many places the quarries have 

 revealed coral banks still as clearly outlined as if they had but recently been 

 formed in the sea. All round the island the reefs continue to grow, so that 

 here and there the outer fringe is some miles wide. It is the yearly scene of 

 shipwrecks, often even in calm weather, and cyclones are nowhere more frequent 

 than in the Barbados waters. The soil, composed of a coralline limestone mixed 

 with volcanic ashes, is extremely fertile. 



The origin of the term Barbados (Barbadoes), the Barbiche of the early 

 French navigators, has not yet been elucidated. It is generally attributed to 

 the appearance of the large trees covered with a beard-like ("barbue") moss 

 seen by the discoverers, while Froude refers it to the "bearded" natives whom 

 the Spaniards early in the sixteenth century came to kidnaj) for the plantations 

 of Espanola. No contemporary document throws any light on the subject, nor is 

 it even known whether the island was first sighted by the Portuguese or the 

 Spaniards. In 1605 the English vessel, Olive Blossom, making for Surinam, 

 anchored off the coast, and the captain took official possession of the island. 

 Planters arrived in 1G25, and since that time Barbados has formed part of the 

 British possessions. It was held as a fief of the Crown down to the year 1838, 

 when the privileges of the feudatories were finally abolished. 



During the Commonwealth many cavaliers took refuge in the island, which 

 within twenty years of its foundation had already 50,000 inhabitants, including 

 many Irish contract labourers, and thousands of Indians carried off from the 

 mainland. The all-powerful planters could muster thousands of armed men, 

 and their island was called " Little England." In other members of the 

 Windward group French is, or was, the dominant speech ; but in Barbados 

 nothing has ever been current except standard English, spoken by whites and 

 blacks alike, and having little in common with the jargon heard in the other 

 islands. Uninterrupted local traditions have fostered an ardent patriotic feeling 

 towards the mother country amongst the inhabitants, the majority of whom are 

 members of the English Church. In jocular language they call themselves 

 " Bims," and the island " Bimshire." 



As in the slave days, sugar continues to be the staple product. The economic 

 crisis, followed by such serious results in the other islands, passed over Barbados 

 without causing any disasters and without profoundly changing the relations of 

 the blacks with th'e planters. At that time the whole island was already under 

 cultivation ; all the arable land was divided either into great domains or holding's 

 of 12 acres, and not a rood remained for the emancipated negroes, who conse- 

 quently continued in the service of their patrons no longer as slaves but as 



