Page:The British Empire in the nineteenth century Volume VI.djvu/20

 8 away. The citizens of Caracas had really heard the sounds of their own deliverance from all further mischief. The long-silent Soufrière of St. Vincent had opened again, and relieved the interior pressure of imprisoned steam. It was on April 27th, 1812, that a negro boy herding cattle on the mountain-side saw stone after stone falling near him. Believing that other boys were pelting him from the cliffs above, he began to return the fire, when a thicker shower, with some stones that no human hand could wield, made the lad run for his life, leaving the cattle to their fate, while a column of black cloud arose from the crater, composed of dust and ash and stone. For three days and nights the mountain roared. The greater part of the island was covered with ashes that buried the crops, broke branches from the trees, and spread destruction from which some estates never recovered. At Barbados, on May 1st, when the clock struck six, no light of the morning sun could be seen, and the darkness grew thicker as the hours sped away, while a slow and silent rain of impalpable dust was falling over the whole island. Terror seized the souls of blacks and whites, and the churches were filled with trembling, sobbing, and praying crowds. A dead silence reigned in nature's realm save for the crashing of the branches snapped by the weight of clammy dust. The trade-wind had utterly ceased; the roar of the surf on the shore was at an end. About an hour after noon the veil of darkness was lifted and a lurid sunlight came in from the horizon while blackness was dominant overhead. By degrees the dust-cloud drifted away, and the Barbadians, beneath the full light of the sun, saw their island inches deep in black and, as it proved, fertilizing matter. The trade-wind blew again out of the east, and the noise of the surf rose again on the beach. The arrival of the dust from St. Vincent in Barbados, against a strong easterly breeze, across 100 miles of sea, shows the force of explosions in the Soufriere which drove the material several miles into the air, above the region of the trade-wind, into a higher stratum where an opposite current could convey it in an easterly direction. The one great industry of St. Vincent is the tillage which, still producing some sugar-cane (with its extracts, rum and molasses), raises cocoa, spices, and excellent arrowroot in the valleys and on the fertile slopes of the hills. About 13,000 acres, or one-sixth of