SOUFRIEKE, AND OX A VISIT TO MOXTAGXE PELEE, IX 1902. 
471 
contained deposits of ashes which for some days prev^ented the flow of the streams. 
The estate was thereafter abandoned for a number of years. 
v' 
It is universally believed in St. Vincent that the ejecta of this erujjtion which 
gathered in the valley of the Ilabaka Dry Iliver greatly moditied tlie volume of the 
water in this stream and the regularity of its flow, which has hitherto been more or 
less continuous, like that of the majority of the rivers in the island. Thenceforward 
it was a “ dry river”—that is to say, its capacious channel contained no water except 
immediately after rain. The bed of the stream is probably 200 yards in width, and 
was usually occipjied only by black sand, mud, and boulders, so that it could he 
crossed dry shod, but at times it vars suddenly filled from bank to l^ank with a 
rushing torrent which could not be forded, and, as there was no bridge, the north end 
of the island on the windward side was then cut off from communication with tlie 
rest. So mysterious and unaccountable did those periodical floods seem, that many 
believed they were due to some strange outflow from the crater lake by means of 
subterranean passages. 
The explanation usually accepted ^vas of a more simple character t;— 
“ The Windward slojjes of this portion of the range ai’e drained I)y a channel called the Dry Kiver, 
which runs through the Carih Country, and Avhich from its peculiarity deserves notice. Before the 
eruption of 1812, a stream of average size filled this now dry watercourse, and emptied itself into 
the sea. During the eruption, the channel of the stream was completely filled and choked with scoriae, 
rocks, and gravel, underneath which the wmter now, in ordinary times, disappears some distance before 
it reaches the coast and finds its way to the sea. In floods, however, the water comes down with 
singular force and volume, filling the rocky bed, which is 200 yards across (where the highway passes it), 
from bank to bank. The water is described as advancing in huge waves, like the bore of a tideway. 
On these occasions it is very destructive, and it has already washed away many acres of cane land from 
the estate of Langley Park, situated on its bank.” 
Before we reached St. Vincent the conditions liad agaiir been entirely altered l)y the 
eruption of this year. It is not possible now for us to Ije certain exactly what were 
the causes which so modified the behaviour of this stream about the year 1812. The 
explanation offered—viz., that the valley aljove was choked with sand and scoria— 
is, at any rate, credible, as if tliese materials were dry and porous they might aljsoiT 
much of the water before it could reach the lower levels. It also strongly confirms 
Shephard’s statement, that the Ilabaka River was filled with sand, and strengthens 
the evidence in favour of the eruption of 1812 having been characterised hy the 
emission of an avalanche of dust. 
For the last mile of its course, before reaching the sea, the Ilabaka Dry River flows 
through what is known as the “ lava l)ed.” In this it has cut a wide channel, and on 
each side it is flanked by two or three v^ell-marked teiraces, the ti'aces of foiniei' 
* P. Foster Huggins, ‘ An Account of the Eruptions of the .St. Vincent .Soufriere,’ p. 9. 
t ‘ Historical and Descriptive Sketch of the Colony of St. Vincent, tV.L’ (Compiled under the 
direction of the Commissioner for the ^Vindward Islands, 1891.) By T. B. C. Musgr.vve, p. 3. 
