A KAINY FACT. 
325 
Chap. XX.—B.P.] 
wind for a great portion of the year renders it delight¬ 
fully equable. It is a curious fact in connection with 
the rainfall, that during the time when the island was 
one great cotton plantation, the rainy season fell off 
from seven to five months, seven months being dry 
and five wet; hut now that trees and undergrowth 
have once more reduced most of the land to a state of 
nature, the atmospherical conditions are reversed, and 
at present seven months’ wet is the rule. 
Great Corn Island, a walk round which, by the bye, 
is just sufficient to give a healthy man an appetite, had 
about 280 inhabitants, creoles and negroes, at the 
time of our visit; hut the population has since then 
slightly decreased. The islanders were quite con¬ 
tented with their secluded life, and stated that they 
always enjoyed excellent health; indeed, their pa¬ 
triarch, an English subject, as he proudly told me, 
was going on for ninety years of age, and had been 
connected all his life with the island. 
But, as is the case everywhere in this world, there 
is a skeleton in the Corn Island cupboard. Their 
slaves had been set free suddenly and unexpectedly; 
this, however, could have been borne, had only faith 
been kept with the owners in respect to the promised 
payment of <£25 for each slave. Such had not been 
the case, however, much to the disgust of those con¬ 
cerned ; but I will let these good people speak for 
themselves in the following petition (the copy of one 
originally sent to the English Consul), which was 
handed to me by the chief magistrate, in the hope that 
I might be more successful in obtaining redress than 
he had been:— 
