There are, or rather were, a number of Caribs, the descendants of the
original warlike Indian population of these islands. Many of these live
in St. Vincent, though there are others in Dominico. As their residence
was in the northern section of the island, the volcano seems to have
completed the work for the Caribs of this island which the Spaniard long
ago began. These Caribs were really half-breds, having amalgamated with
the negroes. Many of the blacks own land of their own, raising arrow
root, which, since the decay of the sugar industry, is the chief export.
In an island only eighteen miles long by eleven broad there is not room
for any distinctly marked mountain range. The whole of St. Vincent, in
fact, is a fantastic tumble of hills, culminating in the volcanic ridge
which runs lengthwise of the oval-shaped island. The culminating peak of
the great volcanic mass, for St. Vincent is nothing more, is Mont Garou,
of which La Soufriere is a sort of lofty excrescence in the northwest,
4,048 feet high, and flanking the main peak at some distance away.
It may be said that all the volcanic mountains in this part of the West
Indies have what the people call a "soufriere"--a "sulphur pit," or
"sulphur crater"--the name coming, as in the case of past disturbances
of Mont Pelee, from the strong stench of sulphuretted hydrogen which
issues from them when the volcano becomes agitated.
In 1812 it was La Soufriere adjacent to Mont Garou which broke loose on
the island of St.
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