Mr. Hutchinson,
who was English Consul at the time, tells us that "In a very short
time gaunt figures
Of men, women, and children might be seen
crawling through the streets, with scarcely an evidence of life in
their faces, save the expression of a sort of torpid carelessness as
to how soon it might be their turn to drop off and die. The
Portino, a steamer, carried back fifty of them to Cadiz, who looked
when they embarked more like living skeletons of skin and bone than
animated human beings." {47} I quote this not to cast reproach on
the Spanish Government, but merely to give a fact, a case in point,
of the deadly failure of endeavours to colonise on the West Coast, a
thing which is even now occasionally attempted, always with the same
sad results, though in most cases these attempts are now made by
religious but misinformed people under Bishop Taylor's mission.
The Spaniards did not entirely confine their attention to planting
colonists in a ready-made state on the island. As soon as they had
settled themselves and built their barracks and Government House,
they set to work and cleared away the bush for an area of from four
to six miles round the town. The ground soon became overgrown
again, but this clearing is still perceptible in the different type
of forest on it, and has enabled the gardens and little plantations
round Clarence to be made more easily.
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