FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289  
290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   >>   >|  
le dissenting voice to any of the statements made, or any of the sentiments expressed. This fact shows that the prevailing feeling is in favor of freedom, and that too on the score of policy and self-interest. Dinner parties are in one sense a very safe pulse in all matters of general interest. They rarely beat faster than the heart of the community. No subject is likely to be introduced amid the festivities of a fashionable circle, until it is fully endorsed by public sentiment. Through the urgency of Mr. C., we were induced to remain all night. Early the next morning, he proposed a ride before breakfast to Scotland. Scotland is the name given to an abrupt, hilly section, in the north of the island. It is about five miles from Mr. C.'s, and nine from Bridgetown. In approaching, the prospect bursts suddenly upon the eye, extorting an involuntary exclamation of surprise. After riding for miles, through a country which gradually swells into slight elevations, or sweeps away in rolling plains, covered with cane, yams, potatoes, eddoes, corn, and grass, alternately, and laid out with the regularity of a garden; after admiring the cultivation, beauty, and skill exhibited on every hand, until almost wearied with viewing the creations of art; the eye at once falls upon a scene in which is crowded all the wildness and abruptness of nature in one of her most freakish moods--a scene which seems to defy the hand of cultivation and the graces of art. We ascended a hill on the border of this section, which afforded us a complete view. To describe it in one sentence, it is an immense basin, from two to three miles in diameter at the top, the edges of which are composed of ragged hills, and the sides and bottom of which are diversified with myriads of little hillocks and corresponding indentations. Here and there is a small sugar estate in the bottom, and cultivation extends some distance up the sides, though this is at considerable risk, for not infrequently, large tracts of soil, covered with cane or provisions, slide down, over-spreading the crops below, and destroying those which they carry with them. Mr. C. pointed to the opposite side of the basin to a small group of stunted trees, which he said were the last remains of the Barbadoes forests. In the midst of them there is a boiling spring of considerable notoriety. In another direction, amid the rugged precipices, Mr. C. pointed out the residences of a number of poor whi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289  
290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

cultivation

 

considerable

 
bottom
 

covered

 
Scotland
 

section

 

interest

 
pointed
 

border

 

ascended


notoriety

 

graces

 

spring

 
forests
 

sentence

 

immense

 
Barbadoes
 

describe

 

boiling

 

complete


afforded
 

freakish

 
number
 
creations
 

residences

 
viewing
 

wearied

 

precipices

 

nature

 

remains


abruptness

 

wildness

 

crowded

 
rugged
 

direction

 

destroying

 

distance

 

estate

 

extends

 

spreading


provisions

 

infrequently

 
tracts
 

exhibited

 

composed

 

ragged

 

diameter

 

stunted

 

indentations

 
opposite