It may perhaps be proper to remark, that although this work has been entitled, “Antigua and Antiguans,” still, as I have commenced its history from the period of its first discovery, it will be necessary to say something about its ancient inhabitants, the Caribs. As it is impossible at this lapse of time, to give the history of the individual tribe who peopled this island, I have been obliged to gather my information from what the early writers have transmitted to posterity, of the habit and customs of the entire nation. Consequently, while I am writing of the Carib of Antigua, or, as the island was called at that period, “Xamayca,” I must at the same time allude to those of the other islands; only remarking, that ferocious as they all were, the Carib of this country seems to have borne the pre-eminence in hardy daring and relentless animosity toward their conquerors. In the same manner, I have thought proper to give a short account of the discovery of America, as antecedent to that of this island; and as, in furtherance of my plan, I have introduced Columbus to my readers, from his boyhood, it is but right I should trace the Caribbean nation from their source. With this apology for trying the patience of my readers, while I write of a people whose existence is no more, I will proceed with my subject, which I hope may neither prove foreign nor unpleasant. To enter into minute inquiries how America and its contiguous islands were _first peopled_, would fill many volumes, the opinions of the learned upon this subject being so various. Some authors suppose the Americans do not derive their existence from the same common parent as the rest of mankind. Others, that they are descended from a remnant of the antediluvian world which survived the deluge; but this must be erroneous, or how are we to understand the sacred historian, when, speaking of that momentous circumstance, he says—“And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the face of the earth, and every man. _All_ in whose nostrils was the breath of life, _of all that was in the dry land, died!_”—Gen. vii. 21, 22. Again, many authors assert that their ancestors came from the north-east of Asia, after the dispersion of the people for their impious attempt to build the Tower of Babel; and to establish this doctrine upon a firmer basis, endeavour to point out the great similitude between the Asiatics and the Southern Americans, in their manners, customs, and general appearance. Another, and perhaps the most probable idea, is, that the _southern_ parts of North America, and the islands which lie in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, were originally peopled by Africans. This idea is maintained by various speculations:—as the trade-winds blow direct from east to west, a canoe of these savages might have been driven by bad weather across the Atlantic; and this