MR. BREEN'S ST. LUCIA.

EXCEPTING Guadeloupe and Trinidad, St. Lucia is the largest in the group of the lesser Antilles or Caribbean Islands ; its length being forty-two miles, its greatest breadth twenty-one, and its superficies 158,620 acres. Of this quantity only 9,000 acres are un- der cultivation, and only 45,000 are granted, the remaining 113,000 belonging to the Crown. The colony was originally French ; it was often taken, retaken, or restored, during the wars of the last century and the time of NAPOLEON, but was finally ceded to Great Britain at the general peace. It still retains strong traces of its French origin in laws, language, and manners.

Mr. BREEN resided on the island thirteen years : and this fact, coupled with the little notice that has been taken of St. Lucia and the invariable inaccuracy of that little, has induced him to publish this volume ; which contains a forcible and rather graphic de- scription of the natural features, productions, and population of the island, with a sufficient sketch of its past history and present condition, statistical, moral, legal, and industrial. The book indeed is not devoid of the feelings, perhaps prejudices, of the colonist ; but it has the spirit and certainty of touch which an actual knowledge of the thing described seldom fails to impart, and Mr. BREEN has none of the smallness of a colonist.

From some scattered passages in the book, the object of the writer would seem to be to recommend St. Lucia to the public in general, if not to settlers in particular. But his account of it by no means leaves a favourable impression as regards this purpose. The natural features are striking to the lover of the picturesque,— an imposing yet pleasing intermixture of mountain, rocky valley, ravine, forest, stream, torrent, and lowland, more or less clothed with Tropical vegetation, and offering a variety of views at every step. Steps, however, are not easily taken, and sometimes require so much attention as to allow one small leisure to look about. This is Mr. BREEN'S account of the St. Lucian " Trace," the road that connects together the two sides of the island, divided from each other by a chain of mornes or mountains running through its length.

"The road from Castries to the windward part of the island is called the Trace, or mountain-track. Starting in an Eastern direction, you gradually ascend to the summit of a hill, connecting Morne Fortune with the central chain of mountains; and continue your route until you reach the more elevated situation near Mr. Guesneau's estate. This spot, being itself totally devoid of trees, presents an uninterrupted prospect, for many miles round, of hills and vallies, mornes and ravines, covered with umbrageous forest-trees, and inter- spersed with cane-fields, coffee-bushes, and gardens, in endless variety. The oup (Twit is at once picturesque and sublime. At this point the Trace com- mences, and runs along the summit of the mountain-range, abruptly winding up and down through a labyrinth of brushwood and broken trees. The ridge in many places is so narrow as not to admit of two persons riding abreast : and the passage or track is extremely dangerous, being bounded on either side by tremendous and unfathomable precipices. During the hurricane-months, the summit of this mountain is shrouded in mists ; and the huge masses of rock which are seen projecting on every aide, held up by the roots of trees shooting from their interstices, imparts a wild and sombre aspect to the scene. But the most remarkable feature of this extraordinary mountain-pass is the descent from the summit of Morne Barabara to the valley of Mabouya. Here, while.the traveller is panting for breath, he contemplates beneath him a de- clivity 2,000 feet in depth, and all the way down a perpendicular track, shaped into a corkscrew by the inequalities of the ground. As he proceeds on his headlong course, hanging over the horse's neck, both man and horse appear sus- pended from the side of the precipice, as if supported by some invisible agency. In proportion, however, to the danger of the descent is the precaution of the traveller, and serious accidents are of unfrequent occurrence. Some persons never dismount ; others never do otherwise : this may depend upon the state or strength of a man's nerves. After a heavy fall of rain the earth becomes de- tached and slippery, and then the danger is truly appalling. But in general it is much safer and less fatiguing to ride the whole way than to lead your horse. As the Trace is the only communication by land between the windward and leeward districts (except by making the tour of the island) the people have become accustomed to it. The Creole horse, too, from its hardy and tenacious character, is wonderfully adapted to this description of road ; and what to a stranger might appear totally impracticable, is daily accomplished with spirit and agility by nntnerous cavaliers and pedestrians."

But bad roads are not the only bad things in St. Lucia : the

climate is sickly, and indeed deadly. Exceaaive heat, excessive rain, extensive swamps, and dank vegetation, with their usual miasmata, induce fevers in new corners, which either carry them off at once or so lower their constitution as to render them victims to very trivial causes. In one low situation a whole batch of Irish immigrants died ; and of twenty-three Frenchmen, introduced by a M. BEAUC'e, five were carried off by malignant fevers a few months after their arrival, when the rest got frightened and carried off' themselves. Mr. BREEN seems to rejoice in the absence of pestilence. St. Lucia has been visited by yellow fever only twice in • twenty years, and then slightly. But the island seems to resemble those always-ill people who defy contagion. Nor is sickness the only drawback. St. Lucia is renowned for hurricanes and earthquakes, insects and reptiles. Of the latter, "the most dangerous is the yellow serpent—a genus peculiar to this island and Martinique. It measures between six and eight feet in length ; its bite is generally fatal " ; and it must form quite an addition to the amusements of the Trace. "There are numerous other serpents, of a smaller species, and much less noxious." Of insects Mr. BREEN furnishes this goodly list. " The most remark- able insects are the scorpion, wood-slave, annulated lizard, locust, tarantula, centipede, blacksmith, wasp, mosquito, bat, cock-roach, fly, chigre, beetle, fire-fly, spider, woid-ant, and bête rouge." The devastations of hurricanes and earthquakes are frequent and terrible, both here and in the neighbouring islands ; rendering it difficult to decide which elemental warfare is the more terrific. Mr. BREEN seems to incline to earthquakes : and, no doubt, the thing is soonest over, and you learn the worst, or are past learning ; but we rather incline to the hurricane, as less likely to produce a jam squeezing you up to die of pain and hunger, though it seems by no means sure against that catastrophe. Our author thus puts the dilemma, in his description of a late affair.

"It is horrible to contemplate what might have been the fate of the in- habitants, had the violence of the storm assumed a further degree of intensity. As it was, from the fury and frequency of the gusts of wind and the incessant pouring of the rain, there was no means of escape from the building to which you happened to cling for protection. I cannot conceive any situation that presents such a shocking picture of human misery as that of a West Indian town during a violent hurricane. The ravages of fire, however frightful awl destructive, are generally confined to property ; the danger and devastation of an earthquake are all over in a few seconds : but during a hurricane, the me- lancholy looks, the wailing and wild despair, exhibited in the gradual transitions from anxiety to fear and from danger to inevitable destruction, are appalling in the highest degree. * * • By the violence of the wind, as it veers from point to point, each house is transformed into a rocking vessel; shingles and tiles are fast swept away; the air is darkened with branches of trees and frag- ments of houses; the roofs once exposed begin to give way ; the beams crack; the walls crumble down ; crash succeeds crash ; and in the space of a few hours, not merely a ship's crew, but three, six, and sometimes eight thousand human beings, lie buried in mutilated masses among the ruins of a whole city."

These frequent illustrations of the sublime seem to puzzle the inhabitants of some of the Antilles what materials to choose for a mansion—timber, stone, or brick. In an earthquake, timber is the safest—less likely to fall, and perhaps less likely to crush you ; which stone or brick are pretty sure to do : but in fires, which are tolerably frequent in these climes of carelessness, timber is sure to burn. We should have thought stone was firmer in a hurricane ; but Mr. BREEN says no.

"After the calamitous experience of recent years, there can be no question as to the superior advantages of wooden houses. In a hurricane they are ma safe as those built of stone or brick, and incomparably more so in an earth- quake. The chief danger is from fire ; but even that is confined to property. The fact is, between fires, and hurricanes, and earthquakes, the bewildered in- habitant of these islands scarcely knows where to go or what to do : and yet, with all their disadvantages and their dangers, he still fondly clings to the wild Western rocks of his birth."

These natural drawbacks are not counterbalanced by any social advantages. The Whites are to the Coloured or Black population in the proportion of about 1 to 20.

Whiles. Coloured. Blacks. In 1843, 1,039 5,287 14, Total.

206 u

And the aristocratic portion of the community seems of a very mixed kind. "The Whites are divided into Creoles and Euro- peans: the Creoles are subdivided into natives of the island and West Indians (emigrants from other islands) ; and the Europeans into English and French. The English include Irish and Scotch ; and the French, Germans, Italians, and Savoyards." The Co- loured population is equally a Noah's ark affair ; and the result seems to be a very disagreeable mixture of national temperaments and vices, the leaven of French excitement and gallantry leavening the mass. The mixture of French and English law has also intro- duced a strange anomaly ; not applicable, however, to Englishmen, or to residents domiciled on the island previous to 1814, but still a state of things to which an efficient Colonial Office would long since have applied a remedy.

FOREIGN POSITION AT ST. Lycra.

The position of the aliens is nevertheless one of peculiar anomaly and em- barrassment. If they are no longer subject to the limitations of the "droits d'aubaine," their naturalization, so indiscriminately conceded in former days, can now only be acquired by an act of the Imperial Parliament. In short, of the various privileges enjoyed by foreigners in the early days of West Indian colonization, the sole vestige that now remains is the permission to hold landed property ; and of this several Frenchmen have availed themselves by making purchases to a considerable extent. Now, mark the position of these parties, affected as they are by the simultaneous operation of four distinct and et:in- flicting laws—viz. the Code Civil, the local law of St. Lucia, the ancient law of France, and the constitutional law of England. By one of the local ordi- nances, the foreigner is debarred from all offices of trust and emolument. By another, he is compelled, under a penalty of 50/. sterling, to accept the offices of Justice of the Peace, Town Warden, and Road Commissioner. On the ac- ceptance of any such office, he forfeits his rights as a Frenchman, in accordance with the provisions of the Code Civil; and although, by virtue of the old

French laws still in force in St. Lucia, he may acquire property to any extent, yet he is not bound by allegiance to the British Crown.

Art and literature, as may be imagined, are at a low ebb, or non- existent ; and morals not much better. Apparently speaking of acquaintances, Mr. BREEN says, that in July 1831, there were 142 European settlers in the island, of whom 68 had drunk themselves to death before 1842; very few of them having attained the age of thirty-five, and the British having a majority in the deaths. Marriage is progressing, according to the returns ; but little can be 'founded upon them, as the Negro looks to the fashion and gentility of the estate rather than to its holiness. White licentiousness is much as heretofore, only a little less open. The working of Emancipation in St. Lucia does not occupy much of Mr. BREEN'S attention ; and there is nothing very new or remarkable upon the subject in his volume. His account of the present state of the French colony of Martinique, where slavery still obtains, is not very promising.

"Now, what are the present state and prospects of Martinique ? As an agricultural country, its resources are immense, its natural fecundity un- bounded; as a West Indian community, it yields the palm to none other in political advantages and social improvement ; as the France of Outre-mer,' and the cradle of her Colonial aristocracy, it still rules preeminent in this hemisphere; but as a trading, slaveholding colony, it is on the brink of bank- ruptcy and ruin. Rotten at the heart, 'as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut,' it presents all the appearance of the sepuldnum dealba- tum '—all the tranquillity of the dormant volcano. At the surface it is no- thing but gayety and gaudiness—theatres, concerts, assemblies, balls ; within, nothing but darkness and despondency—debts, difficulties, and discontent. Martinique is now what St. Lucia was in 1830—a prey to the overgrown, all-ab- sorbing vulture of commercial credit; and nothing can save it but the appli- cation of the same remedy—the introduction of the saisie reelle. This, however, is not likely to be accomplished for some years. The planters exercise an all- powerful influence in the councils of the mother-country; and they who have all but succeeded in effecting the suppression of the beet-root-manufactories, will have little difficulty in staving olf the day of reckoning with their mise- rable creditors on the spot. In this state of things, Martinique should be pre- pared to encounter one of two equally formidable evil,: either emancipation may be indefinitely postponed, and then the slaves, sick of delay and disap- pointment, will again have recourse to the cutlass and the torch; or it may be conceded without compensation, and then the proprietary body will be reduced to irretrievable ruin. There are not ten planters in the island, fair and flourishing though it seem in its present artificial vitality, that could find the means of providing for the cultivation of their estates under a system of free labour."

The allusions in this extract to the palmy days of the planters, when they could "do" their creditors, somewhat after the com- bined fashion of an Irish squire and an English lord, and to the conspiracies of the slaves in Martinique, are described at some length in the volume, but too fully for us to follow them. The reader who feels interested in these questions, or in the subject of St. Lucia generally, may consult Mr. BREEN'S work ; which he 'will find more various and readable than general accounts of a country usually are, and not altogether devoid of the incident and description of a book of travels.