AN ANGLO-MOSQUITO EXECUTION.
On the following day, the King. accompanied by some of the English and a few of his quartermasters, proceeded to the place of execution, a large tree by the side of the fort. About eleven a. us., the brig's boat took the prisoner ashore, guarded by some armed seamen: he was apparelled in a check shirt and a pair of white trousers, given him by the captain of the brig. On his landing, the cries and wailings of the women and children collected together were heartrending : some would throw themselves franticly on the sand before the prisoner's feet, their bodies streaming with blood; others would vent the most piercing shrieks, while some would moan and cry in a piteous manner: indeed, I scarcely ever felt so completely saddened. The brother of Deverin came up, his eyes suffused with tears, and said," Englis gentlemen, me poor feller, me your slave : let me broiler go, he other trouble any more ;" and as the prisoner approached the tree to whichthe fatal cord was suspended, the more heart-rending was the spectacle, for it Was difficult to keep his relatives from impeding his progress by clinging round his legs. At length arriving at the place of execution, the cord WRS adjusted, and he was launched into eternity. The dreadful scene was at last terminated; the signal gun fired from the brig, and the flag lowered half-mast high; the King causing it to be proclaimed; that any of his people who did wrong should be hung, and warning them to beware of putting faith or following the bad advice of the sookeahs. The following law, by which the plaintiff assesses his own damages, appears to be of old standing.
"According to a curious law, if a man commita adultery, the injured husband instantly demands payment, and shoots a beeve, takes a horse, or some such thing, no matter to whom it belongs ; and the owner has to obtain the amount he value, his property at from the adulterer, or from the chief of the district; the latter taking care to be compensated for his trouble, in the same manner as the king, by taking double or treble the amount from the offender. The men are naturally apathetic and indolent, when not excited by liquor, hunting or fishing; and as they have no motives of morality to hinder them from indulging their desires, we need not wonder that chastity is not considered a virtue. Polygamy is common among them ; the king setting the example by the number of his wives, and appearing to be of the same opinion as Launcelot, 'Alas! fifteen wives is nothing! The young wives are always subservient to the first one.”
The population of the country is divided into three races,—the native Indians ; the Samboo, of pure or intermixed Negro blood ; and the Carib Indians, these last being the most industrious and superior race. This is shown convincingly, if not very rhetorically, by a list of goods in request on the Mosquito Shore, where the Carib demand far outnumbers that of the other races. Their habits however, are of a backward enough character; as may be guessed from this account of
CARIB DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS.
Polygamy is general among theme some having as many as three or four wives: but the husband is compelled to have a separate house and plantation for each, and if be makes one a present he must make the others one of the same value; and he must also divide his time equally among them, a week with one, a week with another, and so on. When a Carib takes a wife, he fells a plantation and builds a house; the wife then takes the management, and he becomes a gentleman at large till the following year, when another plantation has to be cleared. The wife attends these plantations with great care, perseverance, and skill ; and In the course of twelve or fiften months has every description of bread kind in use among them ; and as the products are entirely her own, she only keeps sufficient at home for her husband and family, and disposes of the rest to purchase clothes and other necessaries. Just before Christmas the women engage several creers, freight them with rice, beans, yarns, plantains, &c. for Truxillo and Belize, and hire their husbands and others as sailors. It is the custom, when a woman cannot do all the work required in the plantation, for her to bite her husband, and pay him two dollars per week. The women travel considerable distances to their plantations, and carry their productions in a kind of wicker basket. I have known them walk from far beyond Monkey Apple Town to Fort Wellington, a distance of forty miles, to exchange their baskets of provisions for salt, calico, &c. Men accompany them on their trading exconnone, but never by any chance carry the burdens, thinking it far beneath them.
MISSIONARIES ON THE MOSQUITO SHORE.
A short time hack, a missionary arrived, for the purpose of giving them some idea of a future state : a house was speedily found for him, and he commenced preaching; and for a few Sundays he gave some of the chiefs a glass of grog each, to entice them to hear him. At length, one Sunday a great number of the natives attended to hear the the White stranger talk : on this occasion the worthy and reverend gentleman was more than usually eloquent ; when one of the chiefs arose, and quietly said, "All talk—no grog—no good !" and gravely stalked away, followed by all the natives, leaving the astonished preacher to finish his discourse to two or three Englishmen present. Other attempts have been made to bring them from this state of blind ignorance; but with the same result. I think it of little use teaching the old people: they must begin by establishing schools for the young children, so that in one generation a great change might be effected, as the children are very apt, and report speaks very highly of the King's son, Clarence, who was at school at Belize when I left.
BREAKING A WILD HORSE.
The manner of taming horses is very singular. When a horse is to be tamed, a native fastens a long rope to its head, and takes hold of the other coil; it is then driven into shallow water, about up to a man's loins; when this is effected, another advances cautiously towards the horse, and endeavours to leap on his hack, in which he is assisted by the person at the end of the rope; and who, with such purchase, pulls vigorously, and turns the horse round to facilitate his companion's attempts; but as the snorting and maddened meeting plunges and rears, the native with the stealthiness and activity of a cat jumps on in bare back, and instantly commences beating the horse's head with his open hands, first on one side then on the other : in vain the horse endeavours to Ad himself of his rider; the native with the rope pulls, and the one on his back beats him, till at last his strength and spirit give way, and he becomes completely subdued. So severe is the lesson, however, that sometimes a horse will lie on the beach exhausted, and at the sound of the human voice will tremble violently. Sometimes the rider gets thrown; but as he only falls into the water, it is of no consequence : he again leaps on the horse's back and renews the battle; it is rarely that more than one lesson is required to completely master and break the proud spirit of the before untamed horse.
As a naturalist or natural philosopher, Mr. YOUNG can hardly be depended upon without further corroboration in matters requiring corroboration. Witness the following singular recipe for a coup de soleil.
"The Spaniards and Ladinos cure a stroke of the sun in the following manner—they take a glass phial with a large month and half fill it with water, tying a piece of calico, &c. over the month, so that when it is turned over the water is prevented from escaping. They place the phial in the dew all night, and in such a situation as to be fully exposed to the influence of the sun till twelve o'clock the next day ; it is then applied to the head of the patient mouth downwards, moved about gently till the place is found where the sun has struck, which will be known by the water in the phial bubbling up ; and strange to say, it relieves the patient in a few minutes. This was told me by an English merchant of Truxillo, and corroborated by others, so as to leave little doubt of its truth."
The following facts in relation to the lunar influence are of a more likely nature ; a concurrence of testimony, though not perhaps of the highest kind, and the general opinion of the Tropics, assigning a power to the moon which it does not appear to possess in our colder climes.
"Great precaution ought to be observed in the use of fish, especially when the moon is at or near the full, when they must he eaten perfectly fresh. I know by experience how soon fish becomes unlit for use. Two or three times the natives have come in after hauling the seine at twelve o'clock at night : I have had each fish cut open, cleaned, salted, and separately hung over aline, and well protected from the moon's rays, and yet in the morning they have been perfectly unfit for food, the moon having so much greater power here than in England. The same remark applies to pork when killed at the fulL I have been told that if a mahogany tree is fallen at the full, it will split, as if rent asunder by some external force."
The sea and bay of Honduras near the shore are thickly studded with clusters of islands, called keys. Some of these isles are very small, others are of moderate magnitude ; and one of the largest, Roatan, has lately been taken possession of by the British Govern. ment, to the great wrath of Central America. It is these spots which are the most tempting places for settlers, as they still seem to be the paradises they appeared to the followers of Corraints,
bating insects and insecurity. On them too are scattered settlers, the offshoots of adventure' who get there by accident after buffeting about the world, settling down into unrecognized colonists, and do well in a way.
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