Besides the episcopal church, Parham boasts a very neat little chapel belonging to the Wesleyans, with a good stone mission-house and school-room adjoining. The general number of scholars at this school is seventy, including girls and boys; although upon our visit to it, there were not more than thirty-five. The school-room is a very airy and commodious building, capable of containing 600 or 700 persons. The children which compose the school are of every age, from three to fourteen. The instruction given them is plain, but good— scriptural knowledge, reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic, with needlework for the girls. There are no pictorial embellishments in this school-room, merely a few selections from the Scriptures, cards of multiplication, and some black-painted boards upon which the children practise their little sums with a piece of chalk. The Wesleyan missionary stationed at Parham, the Rev. Mr. Keatley, (who appears to be a very amiable man,) mentioned as a well-known fact, that the schools in the country were always better attended the three first days in the week, and that after that period very few children made their appearance. Probably this is owing to their parents employing them in some domestic business which is more necessary at the close than at the beginning of the week. Parham harbour, although it affords safe anchorage when gained, is dangerous to the inexperienced navigator from the number of shoals and reefs which encumber its approach. It also contains some few islands, of which Bethel’s Island is the largest. This harbour is protected from the inroads of the enemy by Port Byam, erected upon Barnacle Point, and which derives its name from Colonel Edward Byam, some-time governor of Antigua. It is said that within the precincts of this fort, Colonel Byam had a small room erected, where he was in the habit of receiving and entertaining a party of Caribs, who came yearly from some of the neighbouring islands, in order to smoke their calumets of peace with that gentleman. To the southward of Parham rises a curious hill, which is supposed to be the work of art, and to have answered for the burying-place of the ancient inhabitants, the Caribs. An old writer speaking of this tumulus, describes it as “in form a long square, very regular in all its parts, lessening gradually from its base to the top, which is flat, and may be from five to six hundred feet long, and from forty to fifty feet high.” ------ [97] From the summit of Monk’s Hill, the eye can range over the whole island of Antigua, with the exception of one part, where the mountains intervene. The principal work, named Fort George, is mounted with pieces of cannon, said to have been taken in the “Foudroyant” man-of-war, in one of the many conflicts between the French and English. [98] For the genealogy, and a general account of this family, see Appendix. CHAPTER XXVII.