Tom Waits and bibliomancy and Barbados

‘The captain is a one eyed dwarf, he’s throwing dice along the wharf.’ I sailed with him

Barbadoes, the easternmost of the Windward Islands in America: it is general a level country, though not without hills, it is 25 miles in length and 15 in breadth. It had formerly a good deal of wood, but is now almost consumed with carrying on the sugar-works.

The commodities which they export are sugar, rum, cotton, indigo, and ginger; and they have most of the fruits common to the climate. The number of white inhabitants are about 20,000, who have 100,000 negro slaves. They have no manufactures, nor do they breed many cattle; receiving most of their corn, cattle, flesh and salted from North America, and their clothes and furniture from England.

And they have one particular production called Barbadoes tar, which rises out of the earth, and swims upon the surface of the water. It is of greatest use in the dry belly-ache, and in diseases of the breast.

It is 70 miles E. of the islands of St Vincent, and 90 S.E. of Martinico. The capital town is St. Michael, or Bridgetown, which lies in lon. 59.36. W. lat. 13.5 N. Source: Barclay’s Dictionary 1813.

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