The clouds on those mountain tops often collect with extraordinary quickness, and, while the sun is shining brightly on the cultivated lands, pour down the rain in deluging showers, which, rushing in cataracts through the gorges, swell the rivers unexpectedly, sometimes causing fatal disasters by sweeping away horsemen or teams when fording the streams. The rise of a river from this cause is sometimes alarmingly sudden; the water comes down in solid phalanx, six or eight feet in perpendicular height, and extends from bank to bank; and with irresistible force sweeps down rocks and trees, shaking the earth on the banks, and making a loud and rumbling noise like distant thunder. The vicinity of Grenada to the continent causes this island, as well as Tobago and Trinidad, to be exempt from the hurricanes which have proved a terrible scourge in several of the Windward Islands, and from time to time have been terribly destructive to life and property. In Barbadoes, on the 10th of October, 1780, nearly all the plantations were ruined by a hurricane of inconceivable fury, and between four and five thousand persons lost their lives. Grenada has only once been visited by a hurricane since its first settlement by a French colony from Martinico, in 1650. But this hurricane was the means of removing a far greater evil, the circumstances attending which were of an extraordinary nature, and which I shall relate as I learned them from the lips of many who were witnesses of their occurrence. It was about the commencement of the present century that this island suffered much from a visitation, which threatened to bring famine and desolation, and destroy, not only the present, but the future hopes of the planter. There suddenly appeared, simultaneously in different parts of the island, a great number of BLACK ANTS, of large size, being fully an inch in length, and of a kind until then unknown in Grenada. They probably belonged to the species known as "the large black ant of Africa," remarkable for its boldness and voracity. Although the inhabitants of that fruitful island were wont to treat strangers with hospitality, they were inclined to depart from their usual habit so far as related to these new and strange visitants, who seemed inclined to be more troublesome than was consistent with the welfare of the old residents.