The population of St. Helena, so long the half -wasr,,house
between England and India, are suffering terribly, partly titan disaster& like floods, partly from a divergence of the great ocean route, and partly, we suspect, from some want of enterprise. They plead very earnestly for invalided troops, or a naval station, or something to bring them a little money, and do not, that we see, try any cultivation which would make them independent The vine ought to grow there splendidly, and so ought tobacco, and if by thorough assiduity to those two cultivations they could produce either good cigars or good Madeira, wealth would flow in upon them fast enough. As it is, they are emi- grating rapidly, till the Colonial Office may one day treat St. Helena as it does another possession of the British Crown, Socotra,—that is, quietly forget that it belongs to us, though it may one day, in a great war, prove invaluable.
Previous page
