80

31.--The First of August. From Madden's "West Indies" 308

32.--A relic of the slavery days--old slave buying fish 310

33.--Negress, Guiana 315

34.--Negress fish-sellers, Guiana 316

35.--Chinese wood-carrier 317

36.--East Indian coolie 318

37.--East Indian coolie family 319

38.--Coolie barber 320

39.--East Indian coolie girl 321

40.--Coolie women, British Guiana 322

41.--Coolie vegetable sellers, British Guiana 323

42.--East Indian coolies, Trinidad 324

43.--East Indian coolie, Trinidad 325

44.--Trinidad coolies 326

45.--Barbados. From Andrews' "West Indies" 330

46.--St. Lucia. From Andrews' "West Indies" 331

47.--Atlantic entrance to Darien Canal. From Cullen's "Darien
Canal" 348

48.--Europe supported by Africa and America. From Stedman's
"Surinam" 363

[Illustration]

THE WEST INDIES.

I.

THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR VICTIMS.

When the early writers spoke of America as the new world, _mundus
novus_, they could hardly have appreciated the full meaning of the name.
True, it was a new world to them, with new animals, new plants, and a
new race of mankind; but the absolute distinctness of everything,
especially in the tropical regions, was not understood. With our fuller
knowledge the ideas of strangeness and novelty are more and more
impressed, and we are ready to exclaim, Yes! it is indeed a new world.

Unlike those of the eastern hemisphere, the peoples of the West are of
one race. Apart from every other, the development of the American Indian
has gone on different lines, the result being a people self-contained,
as it were, and unmodified until the arrival of the European. The
American is perhaps the nearest to the natural man, and his character is
the result of nature's own moulding. When compared with the European or
Asiatic he s