The barracks here are capable of containing two hundred men, but their present condition is by no means enviable. One company is the military force now on this station.

Kingstown is situated in a marshy valley; and in former times, when not so well drained as at present, the troops at Old Woman's Point, from that cause, died very fast, and were very unhealthy. This evil has since been remedied; and now the Point is considered more healthy than any other part of the fort. Its situation is sufficiently high to be cool, without being exposed to the sudden gusts of wind that so often assail the Citadel.

The harbour of Kingstown is rendered beautifully complete by this Point, on which there is a battery of cannon, overhanging the sea. Like all other eminences, it is subject to cold winds; and the disease that now and then prevails is, perhaps, owing to this cause, aided, in some degree, by the imprudence of the soldiers, who, after a hot walk, or any other great exertion, are too apt to cool themselves in the breeze, by which means the perspiration is checked, and bad consequences ensue.

A great inconvenience arises in all these forts from a want of water; and, as there are no springs near, the troops are obliged to drink that which is caught in the different water-spouts, whence it is conveyed to capacious stone cisterns, or tanks, as they are called, built for the purpose. In the rainy season these tanks are generally full, but during the dry weather they become very low; and I have known the gar

rison reduced to the necessity of employing transport at the expense of government, for the purpose of conveying water into the fort from the town river.

And now, reader, if thou art fond of legends and romances, I will give thee a tale that will serve the double purpose of amusement and instruction. The subject is the aforementioned battery, entitled, Old Woman's Point, and the heroine thereof is neither a fair peasant, nor a beautiful votaress of fashion, nor a lively and engaging actress, but the very old woman from whose history the said Point derives its nomenclature.

To begin my tale, then, the first person of whom I shall speak, like the first man in the world, was called Adam, and was a native Indian of the Island of Guadaloupe. In the thirty-first year of his life there happened a birth and a death in the aforesaid island. To the birth Adam stood indebted for a child, to the death for a fortune. His fortune he spent, and his child grew apace, so did the colony canes. These were cut down to make sugar, but the child grew up to make a heroine for our story. All this happened in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

The lady married, that was right; she tormented her husband to death, that was wrong.

So the
So the poor

man died, and was buried. Masses were said for his soul, and his widow wore weeds. Readers, during the space of six long days she wept, whether for grief or for joy, our legend telleth not. On the seventh day she rested; on the eighth she

followed the example of all prudent widows-that is to say, she married again.

Bartholeme was the name of her husband, it became hers of course. The happy pair repaired to St. Vincent, at the time that island was in possession of the French. They spent the honeymoon at the village of New Edinborough; and their dwelling was an humble cot, the foundation thereof still remaineth, but the edifice hath long been razed. In present time, there are centipedes, and lizards, and snakes, and woodslaves, and serpents, that do live among the ruins. These animals have usurped the privilege of the ancient bon-vivants of Kingstown, who were wont, in olden time, to repair thither for the purpose of drinking their champagne beneath the luxuriant shade of a silk cotton tree, that spread its stately branches far and wide above their venerable heads.

This tree has been since levelled by the axe-not of an executioner, good reader, but of a contractor; who committed it to the flames for the base purpose of burning lime stone.

There is nothing more recorded of the dwelling or of the silk cotton tree, that shaded the same. So, in the next chapter, we will take up the history of our heroine herself, she who dwelt in the unfortunate cottage, and planted the unfortunate tree.

CHAPTER XXII.

OLD WOMAN'S POINT-A BALL.

"And in this legend all that glorious deed,

"Read whilst you arm you-arm you whilst you read."

Fairfax. "The duchess's ball was really a splendid affair, and every "thing went off' à merveille.'”

PARTIES disagreed, doubts were entertained concerning the moral respectability of our heroine and her husband. The most scrupulous feared they were not married; the least particular declared it to be of no consequence, whether they were or not. My aunt Josephine's opinion on the matter would have differed widely from that of the least particular. A certain Greek author desires us "never to deem a man happy till we have witnessed his end." Reader, thou shalt hear the end of our heroine's beloved :-having lived together, and in peace, in the aforesaid village of New Edinborough, longer than man and wife usually do they quarrelled.

"Than peace to keep, to go through needle's eye,

"However small, it easier far for camel is:

"And quarrels will fall out, I know not why,
"Even among well regulated families.”

"So says the poet, and I quite agree.'

The wife,

in these cases, is commonly stronger than her hus

band. Madame Bartholeme did not go to law--no, no, she took the law into her own hands, it was in strong hands then. The lady found an effectual way for making her husband " keep the peace:" with a conch-shell she beat out, not his brains, reader, for he had none, but whatever else of consequence his head might have contained. For this deed she obtained the name of Lambees.

**

To escape justice, she was forced to fly; so it was the victory first and the retreat afterwards. She retired among the Charaibs, to the interior of the island; here she lived by fishing, meat she had none; thus the lady was penitent, and fasted for her

sins.

Our heroine attracted the attention of a powerful chief; so, after a few years his wives grew jealous: wives, when they are jealous, are very devils; Lambees knew this by experience, for she had been one herself. She therefore returned to Ausingunary, the metropolis, since called Kingstown, and took up her abode on the northern point of the bay, which is the Old Woman's Point in question. This was coming to the point at once.

The French authorities were lenient, they did not think it worth while to pursue a lady for an offence so trifling as that of beating out her husband's brains: they looked only to the present; the future they could not see, the past they would not, besides, she brought them fish for their tables, and turtle for their

The French term, used by the negroes at St. Vincent, for conch.