They were fond of feasting and at the feast the host took his 
seat near the door with his war club in readiness to preserve order 
among his guests in case of need. What a splendid idea for some 
of our social gatherings, to have a man similarly equipped to pre¬ 
side over the supper table and keep the gourmands away while the 
gentlemen help the ladies ! 
Martinique and St. Lucia the next islands in order going south 
are said to be the only ones in this chain where venomous reptiles 
are to be found ; and in these two they abound. In Martinique I 
was told that but few of the old residents had not lost a relative 
from snake bite, the Fer-de-lance, Craspedocephalus lanceolatus , 
(so-called from the shape of its head) being the most common. 
At St. Lucia the death rate from this cause alone used to be over 
thirty per annum ; but by great care and rewards the administrator 
told me he had managed to reduce it to eleven for the last few years. 
In attending a picnic at St. Lucia after the ground had been care¬ 
fully beaten over by the natives all the day before, I went to 
spread a shawl for a lady and in doing so killed a tarantula the 
size of a large saucer. I also found a freshly shed skin of a fer-de- 
lance as also a black scorpion, which is considered almost as bad 
as the snake. 
A peak at the north end of the island of St. Vincent served as a 
safety valve for all this region when so much disturbed by earth¬ 
quakes, about 1812, the whole of the top of the mountain being 
blown away, and in its place we now find a lake nearly two miles 
long and 1700 feet above the sea. The harbor of George’s, in the 
island of Grenada, is but an old crater, and, as late as 1840, it was 
for some time a seething chaldron. 
Leaving these islands we went to Trinidad, which appears to 
have been separated from the northeast corner of South America 
by the wash of the Orinoco. The island is nearly square and 
contains about 1S00 square miles. The northern edge is high. 
The products of the island are sugar, coffee, cocoa and rice. The 
demand for labor in this hot, unhealthful climate is largely sup¬ 
plied by coolies from India. At Port of Spain, the capital, is a 
very large and interesting botanical garden. There are a number 
of mud volcanoes on the island that I was unable to visit; but I did 
visit the Pitch Lake of La Brea on the southwest end of the island. 
