486 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



tired labourers. Hence the planters have had no occasion to introduce Indian 

 coolies, as was done in the other Antilles. 



Since the period of the emancipation the difficulty of finding small holdings 

 for the blacks has greatly increased, for the population has been doubled and 

 already exceeds 180,000. The plantations are, in fact, as crowded as the manu- 

 facturing districts of West Europe. Every year hundreds, and even thousands, 

 emigrate to the other British colonies, yet the island continues to swarm like 

 Malta, and its surj^lus population has been the prosperity of Surinam and Deme- 

 rara. Compared with the other English islands, the proportion of whites to 

 coloured is high, about a tenth ; but it is yearly diminishing. 



The staple industr}', which keeps five hundred sugar-mills going, leaves no 

 room for the cultivation of alimentary plants. Hence rice, maize, fruits, vege- 

 tables have to be imported into an island which might be transformed to a vast 

 garden. Besides sugar, a few barrels of petroleum and a little colonial produce 

 of minor importance are the only exports. One of the cultivated varieties of the 

 cotton-plant has received its name of gossypium barhadense from this island, which 

 has already its railway, mainly for the service of thg plantations. . Barbados has 

 also the advantage over the other English islands of being a terminus for the 

 transatlantic packets, and the centre whence the secondary lines radiate throughout 

 the West Indies. Trade, which relatively to the size of the island is very large, 

 is concentrated at Bridgetown, on Carlisle Bay, near the south-west extremity. 



The town, which takes its name from a bridge carried across a creek, stretches 

 along the beach at the foot of a hill. During the seventeenth century it was one 

 of the chief slave-markets of the Antilles, and it has remained one of the busiest 

 places in the West Indies. About a third of the whole population resides in 

 Bridgetown and its suburbs, which, however, lack the picturesque charm of 

 Roseau, Saint-Pierre, Plymouth, and so man}^ other West Indian towns. It is 

 simply an ordinary quarter of London or Liverpool where even the palm-tree seems 

 out of place. Fontabelle, however, where the European traders reside, is a charming 

 district, in which the houses are embowered in verdure and flowering creepers. 

 The watering-place of Hastings is also a pleasant little station, and round the coast 

 follow some other little settlements, such as Speighfstoicn, JSoistingtown, and Holo- 

 toicn. Codrington College, an educational establishment noted throughout the 

 Antilles, occupies a charming position on the north-west coast. 



Barbados enjoys a larger measure of self-govei'nment than any of the other 

 English islands. According to its constitution, over two hundred years old, the 

 house of assembly consists of 24 members elected by a limited body of voters. 

 The central authority is represented by a governor and a legislative council of 

 9 members nominated by the Crown. The budget is prepared and the laws 

 proposed by an executive committee, comprising the chief functionaries, one member 

 of the upper and 4 of the lower house. The governor is also commander of the 

 naval forces in the West Indian waters, and Barbados is the headquarters for the 

 European troops. For administrative purposes it is divided into eleven parishes, 

 and has a yearlv revenue of about £16,000. 



