The Caribs of Antigua were first conquered by the Spaniards in 1521, and after trying to make them work as slaves without effect, they were finally driven from off the island. As in the other islands, fire and sword came among them, and the ancient people of the soil are no more. Their manners and customs, their hopes and fears, their enjoyments and distresses, are almost buried in oblivion, only now and then, here and there, we find a few traces of them in the wide page of history. There are, however, vestiges of their dwellings still to be met with in different parts of the island, one of which I had the curiosity to enter. It appeared to have consisted of two distinct buildings, the materials of which were composed of the stone which is common in all parts of the island, cemented with a rough kind of mortar. The one nearest the north is about fifty feet long and twenty-five broad; in the middle is a circular hollow; small square window-places are on all sides, and the door-place fronts the west. I stood before that open door, and memory carried me back to “by-gone” ages. The sun had set, but his golden beams still lingered in the west, and tinged the clouds with a thousand beautiful colours. Not a single living creature was in sight, but one poor solitary ground-dove, who sat by the ruined walls and uttered her plaintive notes. The negroes are of an opinion that this bird is the harbinger of death; be that as it may, her melancholy cry on such a spot called up many an image. Who might not have stood upon the very place where I was standing and watched that glorious sun while he set? The formidable-looking Carib, his meek, degraded, uncomplaining wife; his miserable, wretched victim, the unhappy Arrowawk! All might have once stood there and gazed upon that very scene. And those crumbling walls! what tales might not they have told! how many scenes of bloodshed might not they have witnessed! how many harsh, discordant notes of revelry, from the wild beings who once inhabited them, might not they have echoed to! how many piercing shrieks for mercy from those poor wretched creatures, immolated upon that family altar for the darkling ceremonies of superstition, or for the daily meal, might not they have heard!
The other adjoining building has the appearance of a square tower, and must, in its day, have been a place of some strength; it is considerably higher than the one before described. I felt inclined to believe it was built by the buccaneers, who, many years ago, made these islands their place of resort. In the island of St. Thomas is still standing a kind of castle, built by that renowned and formidable captain of pirates, “Blackbeard.”[[2]] However, all Antiguans agree in calling the building mentioned the “Carib’s House.”
To a contemplative mind, how many emotions arise upon taking a review of history. We see whole nations swept away from the surface of the globe, and others springing up to form the connecting link in the grand chain of nature. We see the stupendous powers of the Omnipotent, at whose beck myriads start into life—at whose frown they vanish away like chaff before the wind. We are inclined to ask, Where now is mighty Rome, the empress of the world? Lost in the abyss of her own power and greatness. Greece, too, with all her brave sons—her disinterested patriots—her wise and just lawgivers—where are they? All, all are fled, their very existence almost forgotten; and as a favourite traveller remarks, “Greece remembers her sons no more.” He whose reckless ambition sighed for worlds to conquer, is himself conquered by the strong hand of death. The prince and peasant, the rich and poor, the bond and free, alike fall beneath those all-powerful shafts.
“The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave.
Must wait alike the inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”
While surveying these things, the mind is lost in the boundless depths of imagination. We are led to reflect upon the transitory state of existence we pass in this nether world; and the truth flashes upon us, that however great we may be in our own estimation—however great in our own conceit, we are but in reality as the bubble on the water, the ephemera of a summer’s day. Reader! didst thou ever examine the interior of an ant-hill? didst thou ever notice how its busy little inmates are hurrying to and fro, intent upon their different occupations? Some are occupied in excavating the ground to prepare store-houses for the preservation of their grain in the winter—some in removing the dirt from the streets that nothing may obstruct the progress of their various business—some in plastering the earth with a kind of clay, which they carefully prepare, that it may not fall in and destroy their populous city, while others again are preparing cells for the reception of their eggs.
Thus we see all is bustle, all is activity; like mortals, some are laying up wealth they are fated never to enjoy, or planning schemes of grandeur which will never come to pass. The ploughshare passes over, and where are those busy troops? Eurus blows his blast in the fierceness of his anger, and the whole colony is scattered, the swarming multitude is no more. Thus it is with man: placed by his Creator in so beautiful a world, endowed, perhaps, with health, and riches, and honours, surrounded by a circle of friends and flatterers, enjoying all the pomps and luxuries of this life, he drinks deeply of the intoxicating cup of Circe, and forgets that he is but a child of clay, “a stranger and a sojourner as all his fathers were.”
I have been led into these reflections from the fact, that the people whose history I have been narrating are entirely exterminated from Antigua and the adjoining islands; that of all those swarming hosts who were gathered upon the beach to resist the landing of the Spaniards, who first visited this island, not one of their descendants is left. And now, in concluding this chapter, all that remains for me to do is, to crave the pardon and indulgence of my readers for so often leaving “Antigua and the Antiguans,” and wandering in another pathway; but according to an old saying, “Our thoughts are not always under our own control;” or, as it is said in more modern language, “Woman is an Eolian harp, the strings of which are moved by every wind that blows.”
[[1]] This was done, by allowing one of his veins to be opened for the purpose.
[[2]] The real name of this pirate was Edward Toutch, a native of Spanish Town, in Jamaica. Of all pirates, this man was the most ferocious; the deeds he committed being more like those of a demon than a man. He was at length attacked by a lieutenant of an English man-of-war, off the coast of Virginia, and taken prisoner. He was afterwards executed, and his head stuck upon a pole erected upon that coast, as a warning to other lawless rovers.