7o
A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics.
could muster 20,000 infantry and 3000 horse ; there were
80,000 slaves; there were 1500 houses in Bridgetown
and an immense number of shops ; and not less than two
hundred ships were required to export the annual sugar
crop alone.
But Barbadoes differs also from most of the Antilles
geologically ; and there can be no question that the nat-
ure of its soil has considerably influenced the physical
character of its inhabitants. Although Barbadoes is
now known to be also of volcanic origin,—a fact which
its low undulating surface could enable no unscientific
observer to suppose,—it is superficially a calcareous for-
mation; and the remarkable effect of limestone soil upon
the bodily development of a people is not less marked
in this latitude than elsewhere. In most of the Antill
the white race degenerates and dwarfs under the influ-
ence of climate and environment ; but the Barbadian
créole — tall, muscular, large of bone — preserves and
perpetuates in the tropics the strength and sturdiness
of his English forefathers.
XXIII.

. . . Night : steaming for British Guiana ;—we shall
touch at no port before reaching Demerara. ... A strong
warm gale, that compels the taking in of every awning
and wind-sail. Driving tepid rain ; and an intense dark-
ness, broken only by the phosphorescence of the sea,
which to-night displays extraordinary radiance.
The steamer's wake is a great broad, seething river
of fire,—white like strong moonshine : the glow is bright
enough to read by. At its centre the trail is brightest ;—
towards either edge it pales off cloudily,—curling like
smoke of phosphorus. Great sharp lights burst up mo-
mentarily through it like meteors. Weirder than this
strange wake are the long slow fires that keep burning
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