likely to produce the most beneficial effects. There are several other establishments in Barbados for the education of children of all colors; I believe they owe their foundation chiefly to the Bishop, but the expense of maintaining them devolves on government.

The children, who attend these schools, are gratuitously taught all that is necessary for them to know, except the art of writing; this has been prohibited from prejudice: I say prejudice, because I really can find no other motive for withholding a knowledge at once useful and important.

In Barbados there is a peculiar fancy for giving to places the names of European cities and even nations. The rock which has the honour to support the episcopal palace, passes by the denomination of Gibralta Rock; the island itself is frequently called by the nomenclature of Little England; while in one part of it is situated Brighton, without its chain pier, and in another, Scotland, without its towns.

On the borders of this latter place stands, in a very beautiful and convenient situation, Codrington College. The approach to this building is through a long and very pretty avenue of mountain cabbage

trees.

The building itself is large and commodious, and appears perfectly weatherproof. A chapel, a room for the students, resembling the schoolrooms of our large English academies; some spacious sleeping chambers, the number of which I have forgotten to count; and a library, which, for the number of its volumes, may be called a large one, but certainly

not a good one, for their value, compose the main body of the edifice, in the middle of which is an arch of considerable size, facing the above-mentioned avenue of mountain cabbage trees. The college is supplied with water from a streamlet in its vicinity, and with air, of the purest, the coolest, and the healthiest kind from the sea, which it overlooks, and from which it is not far distant.

Close to the college, is a very cool, airy, and comfortable dwelling-house, entitled the Principal's Lodge; which, from its desirable situation, I should pronounce a very enviable residence.

In the sequel of these memoirs, I shall take an opportunity of making some observations upon the present use of this establishment, the intentions of its founder, after whom it is named, and the probable advantages that would accrue, not only to Barbados, but to the West Indies in general, if those intentions were put into execution. For the present, I feel a drowsiness and a languor, which I suppose is the effect of climate; and yet the sun has been long buried in the ocean, and the fire-flies are stirring among the trees, and the gales of evening are cooling the moonbright air; and the moon herself, the pure, chaste, and silver moon, is gilding the Antilles with her bright and lucid beams. The peasant is to his cot, and the lover to the bower of his beloved; the foxes and wolves are to their dens, and the labourer to his bed of repose. This is the hour of pillage and of dreams, when fancy forms her fairest visions, and the robber is thinking of his prey; but my thoughts

are with thee, my own Laura; thy form floats before my fancy, and I think I hear the silver tones of thy sweet voice, breaking upon my listening ear: it may be but the murmuring of the evening zephyrs; yet, yet the scene is still, still as thy own fair bower; and the sound is beautiful, beautiful as thou art :— Laura, thou art ever in my mind, for

"I think of thee in the night,

"When all beside is still,

"And the moon comes out, with her pale sad light,

"To sit on the lonely hill:

"Where the stars are all like dreams,

"And the breezes all like sighs;

"And there comes a voice from the far off streams, "Like thy spirit's low replies!

"I think of thee by day,

"Mid the cold and busy crowd;

"When the laughter of the young and gay,

"So far too glad and loud;

"I hear thy low sad tone,

"And thy sweet young smile I see.

My heart, my heart were all alone,
"But for its thoughts of thee."

T. K. Hervey.

CHAPTER IX.

MISCELLANIES.

"When they have joined their pericranies,
"Out skips a book of miscellanies."

Swift.

*

BARBADOS Contains, besides its capital, three smaller towns, which, from their dimensions and extent, would rather merit the appellation of villages. Spikes Town, which is considerably larger than the other two, is, however, of tolerable size: it contains a church, and its population is considerable; the inhabitants are chiefly coloured or black; and white men are seldom seen in the town, unless it be people arriving from the capital; with which there is daily communication, by means of little vessels, which are called the Speights Town passageboats. The bay is tolerable, and formerly the European vessels carried their sugars direct from thence; but they are now fetched away by small sloops and schooners, employed for that purpose only. These are called Droghers, and are sent to all parts of the Island to collect sugars from the different estates, and carry them to Bridgetown; where they are taken in by the ships destined to

Speights Town is the more proper way of spelling it; but the Barbadians generally pronounce it Spikes.