The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
Mr. W., the provost-marshal, stated that he had the supervision of the
public jail, and enjoyed the best opportunity of knowing the state of
crime, and he was confident that there was a less amount of crime since
emancipation than before. He also spoke of the increasing attention
which the negroes paid to neatness of dress and personal appearance.
The company broke up about nine o'clock, but not until we had seen ample
evidence of the friendly feelings of all the gentlemen toward our
object. There was not a single dissenting voice to any of the statements
made, or any of the sentiments expressed. This fact shows that the
prevailing feeling is in favor of freedom, and that too on the score of
policy and self-interest.
Dinner parties are in one sense a very safe pulse in all matters of
general interest. They rarely beat faster than the heart of the
community. No subject is likely to be introduced amid the festivities of
a fashionable circle, until it is fully endorsed by public sentiment.
Through the urgency of Mr. C., we were induced to remain all night.
Early the next morning, he proposed a ride before breakfast to Scotland.
Scotland is the name given to an abrupt, hilly section, in the north of
the island. It is about five miles from Mr. C.'s, and nine from
Bridgetown. In approaching, the prospect bursts suddenly upon the eye,
extorting an involuntary exclamation of surprise. After riding for
miles, through a country which gradually swells into slight elevations,
or sweeps away in rolling plains, covered with cane, yams, potatoes,
eddoes, corn, and grass, alternately, and laid out with the regularity
of a garden; after admiring the cultivation, beauty, and skill exhibited
on every hand, until almost wearied with viewing the creations of art;
the eye at once falls upon a scene in which is crowded all the wildness
and abruptness of nature in one of her most freakish moods--a scene
which seems to defy the hand of cultivation and the graces of art. We
ascended a hill on the border of this section, which afforded us a
complete view. To describe it in one sentence, it is an immense basin,
from two to three miles in diameter at the top, the edges of which are
composed of ragged hills, and the sides and bottom of which are
diversified with myriads of little hillocks and corresponding
indentations. Here and there is a small sugar estate in the bottom, and
cultivation extends some distance up the sides, though this is at
considerable risk, for not infrequently, large tracts of soil, covered
with cane or provisions, slide down, over-spreading the crops below, and
destroying those which they carry with them.
Mr. C. pointed to the opposite side of the basin to a small group of
stunted trees, which he said were the last remains of the Barbadoes
forests. In the midst of them there is a boiling spring of considerable
notoriety.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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