1 882.] Barbados. 217 



held high, ever ready for trade or for friendly gossip with some 

 acquaintance they may chance to meet. 



On Friday Bridgetown puts on its gayest colors. This day is 

 devoted to the planters. From all parts of the island they enter 

 the town, they buy and" sell, exchange views and opinions with 

 neighbors whom they see but once a week, and finish the day 

 with a quiet rubber of whist or brandy and soda at their club- 

 rooms. To them the news or the day is important, the fluctua- 

 tions of the market value of sugar and its side-products become 

 living figures. They have founded a " Commercial Exchange," 

 where the latest dispatches and quotations are open to inspection. 

 On this day, too, the " Ice House " becomes an important estab- 

 lishment. Essentially — in spite of the title — this is a restaurant. 

 It is always supplied with ice, with the freshest and best viands, 

 and with various luxuries as to which it seems to have the exclu- 

 sive control. Every three months a shipload of ice arrives from 

 Boston at Bridgetown. With it come fresh meats, vegetables, 

 beer in casks, oysters in the shell (when in season), and other 

 articles of food destined to tempt an islander whose thermometer 

 usually ranges from 76 to 92 degrees. 



For a long time Barbados has been one of the important sugar- 

 producing islands. Every article of value is mentally compared 

 with sugar ; the weather is of no importance whatever, except so 

 far as it may improve or injure crops, and the telegraphic news 

 most eagerly read relate to the sugar market. To a stranger the 

 singular unanimity of ideas upon this subject cannot but appear 

 first ludicrous, then very much the reverse. Thorough cultiva- 

 tion of every available portion of the island, careful management 

 and judicious treatment of both the growing canes and the cane- 

 juice have resulted in a high average yield per acre and a total 

 sugar production of about 60,000 tons a year. Molasses and rum 

 are both manufactured as additional products and are exported in 

 large quantities. Ginger is extensively cultivated and forms quite 

 an important item in the trade. Driving over the smooth, white 

 roads, fields of sugar cane are entered immediately after leaving 

 the confines of the town. Prominent in the landscape are the 

 gaunt arms of numerous windmills. Strangely as they may seem 

 out of place at first, their appearance soon has a certain charm and 

 awakens reminiscences of countries far removed from the tropics. 

 Regular, constant winds render the mills a valuable and economi- 



