monument. Even the palms are powerless to lend the place a
really tropical look;--the streets are narrow without being
picturesque, white as lime roads and full of glare;--the manners,
the costumes, the style of living, the system of business are
thoroughly English;--the population lacks visible originality;
and its extraordinary activity, so oddly at variance with the
quiet indolence of other West Indian peoples, seems almost unnatural.
Pressure of numbers has largely contributed to this characteristic;
but Barbadoes would be in any event, by reason of position alone, a
busy colony. As the most windward of the West Indies it has naturally
become not only the chief port, but also the chief emporium of the
Antilles. It has railroads, telephones, street-cars, fire and life
insurance companies, good hotels, libraries and reading-rooms,
and excellent public schools. Its annual export trade figures
for nearly $6,000,000.

[Illustration: INNER BASIN, BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOES.]

The fact which seems most curious to the stranger, on his first
acquaintance with the city, is that most of this business
activity is represented by black men--black merchants,
shopkeepers, clerks. Indeed, the Barbadian population, as a
mass, strikes one as the darkest in the West Indies. Black
regiments march through the street to the sound of English
music,--uniformed as Zouaves; black police, in white helmets and
white duck uniforms, maintain order; black postmen distribute the
mails; black cabmen wait for customers at a shilling an hour. It
is by no means an attractive population, physically,--rather the
reverse, and frankly brutal as well--different as possible from
the colored race of Martinique; but it has immense energy, and