From time immemorial, it has been in contemplation to erect a light-house on that point.  Every time a vessel has been wrecked, the whole island has been agog for a light-house.  Public meetings were called, and eloquent speeches made, and resolutions passed, to proceed to the work forthwith.  Bills were introduced into the assembly, long speeches made, and appropriations voted commensurate with the stupendous undertaking.  There the matter ended, and the excitement died away, only to be revived by another wreck, when a similar scene would ensue.  The light-house is not built to this day.  In personal activity, the Barbadians are as sadly deficient as in public spirit.  London is said to have scores of wealthy merchants who have never been beyond its limits, nor once snuffed the country air.  Bridgetown, we should think, is in this respect as deserving of the name Little London as Barbadoes is of the title “Little England,” which it proudly assumes.  We were credibly informed that there were merchants in Bridgetown who had never been off the island in their lives, nor more than five or six miles into the country.  The sum total of their locomotion might be said to be, turning softly to one side of their chairs, and then softly to the other.  Having no personal cares to harass them, and no political questions to agitate them—­having no extended speculations to push, and no public enterprises to prosecute, (save occasionally when a wreck on the southern point throws them into a ferment,) the lives of the higher classes seem a perfect blank, as it regards every thing manly.  Their thoughts are chiefly occupied with sensual pleasure, anticipated or enjoyed.  The centre of existence to them is the dinner-table.

  “They eat and drink and sleep, and then—­
   Eat and drink and sleep again.”

That the abolition of slavery has laid the foundation for a reform in this respect, there can be no doubt.  The indolence and inefficiency of the white community has grown out of slavery.  It is the legitimate offspring of oppression everywhere—­one of the burning curses which it never fails to visit upon its supporters.  It may be seriously doubted, however, whether in Barbadoes this evil will terminate with its cause.  There is there such a superabundance of the laboring population, that for a long time to come, labor must be very cheap, and the habitually indolent will doubtless prefer employing others to work for them, than to work themselves.  If, therefore, we should not see an active spirit of enterprise at once kindling among the Barbadians, if the light-house should not be build for a quarter of a century to come, it need not excite our astonishment.