The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1892-10-15


of the people are negroes, descendants
of the old slave stock, who talk a pa tots
of mingled French, Spanish and English
that is described as the most back
handedest lingo any heather ever in
vented. The negroes are like those of
the United States, beginning to feel
their freedom and on the strength of it
getting the big head in the second and
third generation. The resident whites
designate them as sassy" and as
class unbearabe when they have risen
above the stage of picking asphalt
This is true of all but the French me-
groes from Martinique and the adjacent
tricolor provinces, who by long associa-
tion have acquired the suave manner
of their former owners, and are all of
them fit instructors for an ordinary
dancing master. Among them impolite-
ness is unknown.
Some of the original Caribs are still
to be found among the island people,
but they are rapidly disappearing, and
in their places is now seen the imported
coolie The coolie trade, which was
originally instituted to furnish cheap
labor for the plantations, was in former
times a terrible disgrace TO the islands
and partook of more than all the hor-
rors of the African slave trade. Thou
sands of the miserable Asiatics were
sacrificed in the business by the greed
and inhumanity of the masters who
brought them over, and, although inn
ported under the guise of labor con-
| tract, not one in hundreds of them ever
| lived to return home. Stringent laws
| governing the traffic are now enacted,
however, and, what is more to the pur-
pose, as well enforced, and many of the
coolies by the time they have served
their eight years contract out are we'll
to-do citizens, being paid for their work
by the piece and saving nearly all they
! earn.
The great pitch lake, which is the
chief wonder and attraction of the
island, is situated in low, sandy
stretch of the southwest coast near
Cape Corbaray The surrounding coun-
| try is low and malarial, in striking con-
trast to the high hills and rich wood
lands of the coast further back The
lake is owned by the British govern
ment and leased by it to the Barber
Asphalt company, an American firm of
immense capital, which controls the
trade for the United States Their
present lease has forty-two years yet to
run. The laborers are all negroes,
even the coolies shrinking from
| the heat and low fevers of
the place. The lake itself is about a
mile in diameter, hard at the edges,
and softening toward the middle The
surface is continually changing, APP
parently from some subterranean
action, and little oases of dry land and
even trees and shrubs, will disappear
in single night, and fresh islands or
soil will be reared in other places.
The lake is in all probability merely
an unusually large deposit of bitumen
or soft coal that has undergone Il trans
formation from decaying vegetable
matter in contact with water, and too
near the surface for the earth pressure
above to harden it thoroughly. Hun
dreds of negroes the year round toll at
the lakes edge, taking out cargo after
cargo from the supply that seems never
to diminish. They work under over
seers of their own color, and are paid
at the rate of seventy-two cents a day.
The asphalt crust is broken up with
picks and crowbars, and is loaded on
dulnpcarts drawn by a single sun-dried
mule, in whom the constant boiling
temperature seems to have concentrated
| all the native rneanuess of his species.
The carts crunch through long, sandy
road down TO the wharf at the waters
edge, where the load is dumped and
carried by wheelbarrows on board the
lighters, which in turn carry it out to
the ships, lying half-mile out in the
shoal water. The rough Jumps of pick
ings are hoisted on board in baskets
and piled in the hold, where they sink
down into a compact mass, requiring
fresh filling the next day, and so on till
the solid cargo is completed Washing
an Star.
-Mother-"My little girl goes to
sleep SO nicely every nigh when sing
to her. Isn't that so, Mamie?" Mamie
Yes, that's so, ma" The mother
leaves the room for a moment and
Mamie says to the visitor: Don't tell