Fish are abundant and excellentt. Madden enumerates 21 species In Jamaica, all of which are excellent food. In the sea surrounding Cuba and Jamaica the manatee and the remora, or sucking-fish, are met with, but very rarely. Turtles ere abundant on the Bahamas and other low islands. In Jamaica is the mountain-crab, which is one of the delicacies of the island. The cotton-tree worm, or car!, is eaten by the negroep. There are severel kinds of large lizards, among which is the gnaw.. which is eaten. Alligators are numerous. There are also several kinds of snakes, and some are large, but they are innoxious. The mosquitoes, cockroaches, and ants are troublesome. Fire-files are very abundant.
The original Inhabitants found by the Spaniards en the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas were a gentle and timid race. They were all exterminated in a few years. The Little Antilles on the other hand were inhabited by a courageous end robust race called Caribs, from whom this part of the West Indies is atilt sometimes called the Caribbean Islands. Bat this warlike race is also extinct in the islands, which are now peopled entirely by Europeans, Creoles, and negroea. A few families of earths still exist on the islands of St, Vincent and The present population, amounting to between three and four millions, is composed of whites and riegroee, and the offspring of these two races. In the British islands the negroes constitute about three-fourths of the population ; in Cuba, about one-half; in Puerto Rico, only one-sixth. The proportion between the two races in the islands which belong to other European nations is nearly the same as in the British islands. In Hispaniola both races are so mixed, that the bulk of the people are considered mulattoes.
History.—The greater number of the islands composing the Colum bian Archipelago were discoversd by Columbus. On his first voyage he first fell in (12th Oct., 1492) with the island of San Salvador, one of the Bahamae, which the natives called Guanahani. He afterwards visited the Bahama Islands, which lie between San Salvador and Cuba, and sailed along the north-east coast of the last-mentioned island from Punts Maternello to Cape Maysi, whence he passed to Ilispauiola, of which he discovered a great part of the northern coast. In his second voyage (1493) he discovered all the Lesser Antilles north of 15° N. lat.,
and also Puerto Rieo, sod in the following year the southern coast of Cuba. In his third voyage (149S) he discovered Trinidad and the, adjacent part of Venezuela, with the islands of Margarita and Cuba gua. In his fourth voyage he discovered the Bay of Honduras, the whole of the coast of Central America from Cape ("raciest a Dios to Puerto Bello, and, in returning from this coast to Hispaniola, also the island of Jamaica. The other islands were discovered either at the sense time oc soon afterwards. Columbus formed the first settlement on his second voyage, and iu the beginning of the 16th century the other Greater Antilles were occupied and settled by the Spaniards, who attempted to exclude Europeans from having any commercial intercourse with these islands. But as the Spaniards did not think it worth their while to occupy the smaller islands, they became the resort of the pirates called Buccaneers, who infested the Spanish possessions during the 16th and 17th centuries. With the assistance of the Buccaneers several nations settled permanently in them. Other islands were wrested from the Spaniards by war, as Jamaica by the English; or by treaty, as the western portion of Hispaniola by the French. After the extermination of the Buccaneers the islands began to enjoy peace, and soou rose to great importance, as the demaud for their principal produce, sugar and coffee, increased rapidly in Europe, and most of the other countries iu which those articles might be obtained were shut out from a free commercial intercourse. Thus the English islands, as alto those of other European nations, with the exception of those of Spain, had risen to a high degree of oultivatiou at the end of the 18th century. Several events which have taken place sines 1800 have considerably affected the condition of the Euglish poseetsiuus; anch as the abolition of the slave-trade, the eineucipation of the slaves, and the free iutercourse not only of Euglnud, but also of other European nations, with countries producing similar articles. Slavery has been abolished, and the clears made !roe iu the French West India islands shim 1848. Slaves now exist only on the islands still belonging to Spain.
(Bryan Edwards, Bleary of Me West Indies; Humboldt ; London Geographical Journal; Parliamentary Papers.)