one corner of the aperture, then the remaining part is stopped: sometimes it is wanted from the centre, then the extremes are stopped; and sometimes only a gentle rill is wanted, then the clay is applied accordingly. Along the lower end of the troughs a small channel is dug to carry off the

water.

On the heap of cascalhao, at equal distances, are placed three high chairs' for the officers or overseers. After they are seated, the negroes + enter the troughs, each provided with a rake of a peculiar form and short handle, with which he rakes into the trough about fifty or eighty pounds weight of cascalhao. The water being then let in upon it, the cascalhao is spread abroad and continually raked up to the head of the trough, so as to be kept in constant motion.This operation is performed for the space of a quarter of an hour; the water then begins to run clearer, having washed the earthy particles away, the gravel-like matter is raked up to the end of the trough; after the current flows away quite clear, the largest stones are thrown out, and afterwards those of inferior size, then the whole is examined with great care for diamonds ‡. When a negro finds one, he immediately stands upright and claps his hands, then extends them, holding the gem between his fore finger and thumb; an overseer

In order to insure the vigilance of the overseers, these chairs are constructed without backs or any other support on which a person can recline.

+ The negroes employed in these works are the property of individuals, who let them to hire at the daily rate of three vengtems of gold, equal to about eight-pence, government supplying them with victuals. Every officer of the establishment is allowed the privilege of having a certain number of negroes employed.

The negroes are constantly attending to the cascalhao from the very commence

receives it from him, and deposits it in a gamella or bowl, suspended from the centre of the structure, half full of water. In this vessel all the diamonds found in the course of the day are placed, and at the close of the work are taken out and delivered to the principal officer, who, after they have been weighed, registers the particulars in a book kept for that

purpose.

When a negro is so fortunate as to find a diamond of the weight of an octavo, (17 carats,) much ceremony takes place; he is crowned with a wreath of flowers, and carried in procession to the administrator, who gives him his freedom, by paying his owner for it. He also receives a present of new clothes, and is permit

ted to work on his own account.When a stone of eight or ten carats is found, the negro receives two new shirts, a complete new suit, with a hat and a handsome knife. For smaller stones of trivial amount proportionate premiums are given. During my stay at Tejuco a stone of 16 carats was found it was pleasing to see the anxious desire manifested by the offi cers that it might prove heavy enough to entitle the poor negro to his freedom, and when, on being delivered and weighed, it proved only a carat short of the requisite weight, all seemed to sympathize in his disappointment.

Many precautions are taken to prevent the negroes from embezzling diamonds. Although they work in a bent position, and consequently never know whether the overseers are watching them or not, yet it is easy for them to omit gathering any which they see, and to place them in a corner of the trough for the purpose of secreting them at leisure hours, to prevent which they are frequently changed while the operation is going on. A word of command being given

diamonds before this last operation.

into each other's troughs, so that no

oppor

opportunity of collusion can take place. If a negro be suspected of having swallowed a diamond, he is confined in a strong room until the fact can be ascertained. Formerly, the punishment inflicted on a negro for smuggling diamonds was confiscation of his person to the state: but it being thought too hard for the owner to suffer for the offence of his servant, the penalty has been commuted for personal imprisonment and chastisement. This is a much lighter punishment than that which their owners or any white man would suffer for a similar offence.

There is no particular regulation respecting the dress of the negroes: they work in the clothes most suitable to the nature of their employment, generally in a waistcoat and a pair of drawers, and not naked, as some travellers have stated. Their hours of labour are from a little before sun-rise until sun-set, half an hour being allowed for breakfast, and two hours at noon. While washing, they change their posture as often as they please, which is very necessary, as the work requires them to place their feet on the edges of the trough, and to stoop considerably. This ture is particularly prejudicial to young growing negroes, as it renders them in-kneed. Four or five times during the day they all rest, when snuff, of which they are very fond, is given to them.

pos

The negroes are formed into working parties, called troops, containing two hundred each, under the direction of an administrator and inferior officers. Each troop has a clergyman and a surgeon to attend it. With respect to the subsistence of the negroes, although the present governor has in some degree improved it by allowing a daily portion of fresh beef, which was not allowed by his predecessors, yet I am sorry to observe that it is still poor and scanty; and in other respects they are more hard August 1812.

ly dealt with than those of any other establishment which I visited: notwithstanding this, the owners are all anxious to get their negroes into the service, doubtless from sinister motives, of which more will be said hereafter.

The officers are liberally paid, and live in a style of considerable elegance, which a stranger would not be led to expect in so remote a place. Our tables were daily covered with a profusion of excellent viands, served up on fine Wedgewood ware, and the state of their household generally corresponded with this essential part of it. They were ever ready to assist me in my examination of the works, and freely gave me all the necessary information respecting them.

Having detailed the process of washing for diamonds, I proceed to a general description of the situations in which they are found. The flat pieces of ground on each side the river are equally rich throughout their extent, and hence the officers are enabled to calculate the value of an unworked place by comparison with the amount found on working in the part adjoining. These known places are left in reserve, and trial is made of more uncertain grounds. The following observation, I often heard from the intendant: "That piece of ground" (speaking of an unworked flat by the side of the river) "will yield me ten thousand carats of diamonds whenever we shall be required to get them in the regular course of working, or when, on any particular occasion, an order from Government arrives, demanding an extraordinary and immediate supply."

The substances accompanying diamonds, and considered good indications of them, are bright bean-like iron ore, a slaty flint-like substance, approaching Lydian stone, of fine texture, black oxide of iron in great quantities, rounded bits of blue quartz, yellow crystal, and other materials

entirely

entirely different from any thing known to be produced in the adjacent mountains. Diamonds are by no means peculiar to the beds of rivers or deep ravines; they have been found in cavities and water-courses on the summits of the most lofty mountains. I had some conversation with the officers respecting the matrix of the diamond, not a vestige of which could I trace. They informed me that they often found diamonds cemented in pudding-stone, accompanied with grains of gold, but that they always broke them out, as they could not enter them in the treasury, or weigh them with matter adhering to them. I obtained a mass of pudding-stone, apparently of very recent formation, cemented by ferruginous matter, enveloping many grains of gold; and likewise a few pounds weight of the cascalhao in its unwashed state.

This river, and other streams in its vicinity, have been in washing many years, and have produced great quan tities of diamonds, which have ever been reputed of the finest quality. They vary in size; some are so small that four or five are required to weigh one grain, consequently sixteen or twenty to the carat : there are seldom found more than two or three stones of from seventeen to twenty carats in the course of a year, and not once in two years is there found throughout the whole washings a stone of thirty carats. During the five days I was here they were not very successful; the whole quantity found amounted only to forty, the largest of which was only four carats, and of a light green colour.

From the great quantity of debris, or worked cascalhao, in every part near the river, it is reasonable to calculate that the works have been in operation above forty years; of course there must arrive a period at which they will be exhausted, but there are grounds in the neighbourhood, particularly in the Cerro de St Antonio,

and in the country now inhabited by the Indians, which will probably af ford these gems in equal abundance.

After residing here five days, we visited a diamond work called Montero, about two miles up the river, and went a league further to a goldwork called Carapata. The cascalhao at this work was taken from a part of the river eight feet deep, which forms an eddy under a projec ting point; I was shewn a heap of it, that was estimated to be worth 10,000/ In removing this heap from its bed, four hundred negroes had been employed three months; and to wash it, would occupy one hundred men for three months more, the expence of both operations amounting to perhaps 1,500. We arrived at this place at eight o'clock in the morning; six negroes were employed four hours in washing two troughs, containing together about a ton of cascalhao, when, to my great surprise, after the water ran clear, and the large stones were thrown out, the black oxide of iron, of which there was great abundance, was fringed with grains of gold, a novel and very agreeable sight to a stranger. The gold was taken out at three or four different times, and, when the washing was completed, was dried over a fire and weighed it amounted to nearly twenty ounces Troy. This is esteemed a very rich place, and such circumstances are of rare occurrence. The whole neighbourhood is sterile, presenting the same characteristics as those before described. By proper cultivation it might be rendered very productive; but, as the troops of negroes and their officers are continually changing, no regular establishments are formed.

:

of diamonds, as none had ever before been known to come from any other part of the globe, except India, whither the Brazilian diamonds were afterwards sent, and found a better market there than in Europe.

By stratagems and intrigues, Government was prevailed on to let these invaluable territories to a company, who were under stipulations to work with a limited number of negroes, or to pay a certain sum per day for every negroe employed. This opened a door to every species of fraud; double the stipulated number of negroes were admitted; and this imposition was connived at by the agents of Government, who received pay in one hand and bribes in the other. Presents were made to men possessing influence at court, by the contractors, who soon became rich, and they continued (subject to a few regulations) in possession of the diamond mines until about the year 1772, when, Government determining to take them into their own hands, these contracts were ended.

This was the time for reforming abuses, and for placing this rich district under the best regulations, but it was neglected; prejudice prevailed over prudence; and the management was entrusted to men who did

not understand the real interests of the concern, or, what is more probable, who were so shackled in their authority, that they could not pursue them. From this time affairs became worse, and the establishment was in debt to foreigners, who had advanced a considerable sum of money on the security of having all the diamonds which the mines produced. This debt still remains unpaid, and their are other incumbrances, which can be removed only by a total change of system. In its present state the establishment appears to produce much greater wealth than it actually does. During a period of five years, from 1801 to 1806 inclu

sive, the expences were 204,000/. ; and the diamonds sent to the treasury at Rio de Janeiro weighed 115,675 carats. The value of gold found in the same period amounted to 17,3007. sterling, from which it appears that the diamonds actually cost Government thirty-three shillings and ninepence per carat. These years were esteemed singularly productive; the mines do not in general yield to Government more than 20,000 carats annually *.

ΓΗ

Description of the Eruption of the SourFRIER Mountain, on the 30th of April 1812, in the island of ST VINCENT t. HE Souffrier mountain, the most northerly of the lofty chain running through the centre of this island, and the highest of the whole, as computed by the most accurate survey that has yet been taken, had for some time past indicated much disquietude; and from the extraordinary frequency and violence of earthquakes, which are calculated to have exceeded two hundred within the last year, portended some great movement or eruption. The apprehension, however, was not so immediate as to restrain

curiosity, or to prevent repeated visits to the crater, which of late had been more numerous than at any former period, even up to Sunday last, the 26th of April; when some gentlemen ascended it, and remained there for some time. Nothing unusual was then remarked, nor any external difference observed, except rather a stronger emission of smoke from the interstices of the conical hill at the bottom of the crater. To those who have not visited this romantic and wonderful spot, a slight description of

it,

Exclusive of this amount, there is a vast quantity smuggled.

+ We have here collected the best accounts that could be procured of the various convulsions which have recently agitated the

islands and coasts of the Atlantic.

it, as it lately stood, is previously necessary and indispensable to form any conception of it, and to the better understanding the account which follows; for no one living can expect to see it again in the perfection and beauty in which it was on Sunday, the 26th instant.

About 2000 feet from the level of the sea (calculating from conjecture,) on the south side of the mountain, and rather more than two-thirds of its height, opens a circular chasm, somewhat exceeding half a mile in diameter, and between 400 or 500 feet in depth exactly in the centre of this capacious bowl, rose a conical hill about 260 or 300 feet in height, and about 200 in diameter, richly covered and variegated with shrubs, brushwood, and vines, above half-way up, and for the remainder powdered over with virgin sulphur to the top. From the fissures in the cone, and interstices of the rocks, a thin white smoke was constantly emitted, occasionally tinged with a slight bluish flame. The precipitous sides of this magnificent amphitheatre were fringed with various evergreens and aromatic shrubs, flowers, and many Alpine plants. On the north and south sides of the base of the cone were two pieces of water, one perfectly pure and tastless, the other strongly impregnated with sulphur and alum.— This lonely and beautiful spot was rendered more enchanting by the singularly melodious notes of a bird, an inhabitant of these upper solitudes, and altogether unknown to the other parts of the island: hence principally called, or supposed to be, invisible; though it certainly has been seen, and is a species of the merle.

A century had now elapsed since the first convulsion of the mountain, or since any other elements had disturbed the serenity of this wilderness than those which are common to the tropical tempest. It apparently slumbered in primeval solitude and tran

quillity, and from the luxuriant vegetation and growth of the forest, which covered its sides from the base nearly to the summit, seemed to dis countenance the fact, and falsify the records of the ancient volcano. Such was the majestic, peaceful Souffrier, on April 27th; but we trod on "ignem suppositum cineri doloso," and our imaginary safety was soon to be confounded by the sudden danger of devastation. Just as the plantation bells rang twelve at noon, on Monday the 27th, an abrupt and dreadful crash from the mountain, with a severe concussion of the earth, and tremulous noise in the air, alarmed all around it. The resurrection of this fiery furnace was proclaimed in a moment by a vast column of thick, black, ropey smoke, like that of an immense glass-house, bursting forth at once, and mounting to the sky; showering down sand, with gritty calcined particles of earth and favilla mixed, on all below. This, driven before the wind towards Wallibon and Morne Ronde, darkened the air like a cataract of rain, and covered the ridges, woods, and cane-pieces, with light gray-coloured ashes, resembling snow when slightly covered by dust. As the eruption increased, this continual shower expanded, destroying every appearance of vegetation. At night a very considerable degree of ignition was observed in the lips of the crater; but it is not asserted, that there was as yet any visible ascension of flame. The same awful scene presented itself on Tuesday; the fall of favilia and calcined pebbles still increasing, and the compact, pitchy column, from the crater, rising perpendicularly to an immense height, with a noise at intervals like the muttering of distant thunder. On Wednesday, the 29th, all these menacing symptoms of horror and combustion still gat bered more thick and terrific for miles around the dismal and half-obscured mountain. The prodigious column

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