ocean from east to west, has laid a vast extent of level

country under water.‡

But notwithstanding all that has been written on this subject, very little seems to be known. The advocates of this system do not sufficiently consider, that the sea could not have covered so great a portion of land on one side of the globe, without leaving an immense space as suddenly dry on the other. We have no record in history of so mighty a revolution, nor indeed are many of the premises on which this hypothesis is built, established in truth.

Perhaps, instead of considering these islands as the fragments of a desolated continent, we ought rather to regard them as the rudiments of a new one. It is extremely probable, that many of them, even now, are but beginning to emerge from the bosom of the deep. Mr. Buffon has shewn, by incontrovertible evidence, that the bottom of the sea bears an exact resemblance to the land which we inhabit; consisting, like the earth, of hills and vallies, plains and hollows, rocks, sands and soils of every consistence and species. To the motion of the waves, and the sediments which they have deposited, he imputes too, with great probability, the regular positions of the various strata or layers which compose the upper parts of the earth; and he shews that this arrangement cannot have been the effect of a sudden revolution, but of causes slow, gradual, and successive in their operations. To the

See L'Abbé Raynal, L'Abbé Pluche, and others.

flow of tides and rivers, depositing materials which have been accumulating ever since the creation, and the various fluctuations of the deep operating thereon, he ascribes, therefore, most of those inequalities in the present appearance of the globe which in some parts embellish, and in others (to our limited view at least) deface it.

Pursuing this train of thought, we may be led perhaps to consider many of the most terrifying appearances of nature, as necessary and propitious in the formation and support of the system of the world; and even in volcanoes and earthquakes (of which most of these islands bear evident memorials) we may trace the stupendous agency of divine Providence, employed, as mankind increase in numbers, in raising up from the bottom of the deep new portions of land for their habitations and comfort.

These considerations are founded in piety, and seem consonant to reason; and although in contemplating the tremendous phenomena which the mountains of South America, beyond all other parts of the globe, present to our notice,§ and reflecting on the devasta

* "Of all parts of the earth America is the place where the dreadful irregularities of nature are the most conspicuous. Vesuvius, and Etna itself, are but mere fireworks in comparison to the burning mountains of the Andes, which, as they are the highest mountains in the world, so also are they the most formidable for their eruptions."Goldsmith's History of the Earth, &c. vol. i. p. 99.

It is related, that a volcanic explosion from Cotopaxi, a mountain in the province of Quito, has been heard at the distance of 150 miles.

tionswhich they spread, human reason will sometimes find itself perplexed and dismayed, may we not by analogy conclude, that the Almighty, uniform in his purposes, is equally wise and benevolent in all his dispensations, though the scale on which he acts is sometimes too large for the span of our limited and feeble comprehension? They who seem best qualified to contemplate the works of the Deity, will most readily acknowledge, that it is not for man to unfold the page of Omnipotence! Happy if to conscious ignorance we add humble adoration!

CHAPTER II.

Of the Charaibes, or ancient inhabitants of the Windward islands.-Origin.-Difficulties attending an accurate investigation of their character. Such particulars related as are least disputed, concerning their manners and dispositions, persons and domestic habits, education of their children, arts, manufactures and government, religious rites, funeral ceremonies, &c.—Some reflections drawn from the whole.

AVING thus given an account of the climate

HAV

and seasons, and endeavoured to convey to the reader some faint idea of the beauty and magnificence with which the hand of Nature arrayed the surface of these numerous islands, I shall now proceed to inquire after those inhabitants to whose support and conveniency they were chiefly found subservient, when they first came to the knowledge of Europe.

It hath been observed in the preceding chapter, that Columbus, on his first arrival at Hispaniola, received information of a barbarous and warlike people, a nation of Cannibals, who frequently made depredations on that, and the neighbouring islands. They were called Caribbees, or Charaibes, and were represented as coming from the east. Columbus, in his second voyage, discovered that they were the inhabitants of the Windward islands.

The great difference in language and character between these savages and the inhabitants of Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Porto-Rico, hath given birth to an opinion that their origin also, was different. Of this there seems indeed to be but little doubt; but the question from whence each class of islands was first peopled, is of more difficult solution. Rochefort, who published his account of the Antilles in 1658, pronounces the Charaibes to have been originally a nation of Florida, in North America.-He supposes that a colony of the Apalachian Indians having been driven from that continent, arrived at the Windward islands, and exterminating the ancient male inhabitants, took possession of their lands, and their women. Of the larger islands he presumes, that the natural strength, extent, and population, affording security to the natives, these happily escaped the destruction which overtook their unfortunate neighbours; and thus arose the distinction observable between the inhabitants of the larger and smaller islands.

To this account of the origin of the insular Charaibes, the generality of historians have given their assent; but there are doubts attending it that are not easily solved. If they migrated from Florida, the imperfect state and natural course of their navigation, induce a belief, that traces of them would have been found on those islands which are near to the Florida shore; yet the natives of the Bahamas, when disco

Rochefort Histoire des Isles Antilles, liv. ii. c. vii. See also, P. Labat nouveau Voyage aux Isles de L'Amerique, tom. iv. c. xv.