Under a tropical sky; a journal of first impressions of the West Indies

ii. w.

flr.

3

UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

UNDER A TROPICAL SKY

A JOURNAL OF FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF THE WEST INDIES

• Yet waft me from the harbour mouth,
Wild Wind ! I seek a warmer sky. "

— Tennyson.

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE

CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET
1873

[All rights reserved]

F

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

TO MY WIFE,

WHOSE INABILITY TO SHARE MY PLEASURES

WAS

MY CONSTANT REGRET.

>
CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

The Voyage — The Tasmanian — Meals — My Berth — Time on Board
Ship— High Sea— The Game of Bull— Flying Fish— Christmas
Day — Sunrises and Sunsets— In Sight. of Land — Barbadoes —
Carlisle Bay— Go on Shore .....

CHAPTER II.

Bridgetown — Head's Hotel — Ice Establishment — Carriages — Gar-
rison— Wooden Houses — Negroes — Currency — Windmills —
Cane-Fields — Roads — Glare of the White Rock — Trees —
Vegetables — Negro Huts — West Indian House — Mode of Life
— Fruits — Peculiarities in Talking . .10

CHAPTER III.

Tropical Rain — Waterford — Gullies — Apes' Hill — Fine View —
Turner's Hall Wood — Boiling Spring — Tar Wells — Butterflies
— Scotland — Breakfast Party — Cole's Care — Harrison's Cave . 24

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

PAGE

Circus — Church — Sermon — Christmas Decorations — Government
House — Conservatory — Ball — Black Hats — Bouquets — L -

— Beautiful Flowers — Telegraph Posts — Holetown — Speight's
Town — Guinea Corn — Birds — Washerwomen — Frogs . . 36

CHAPTER V.

Sea Bathing — Cherry-Tree Hill — St Nicholas Abbey — View from
Cherry-Tree Hill — Farley Hill — Adiantum Farleyense — Rock
Cutting— All Saints' Chapel— Animal Flower Cave— The Spout

— St John's Church — Fine View — Codrington College — Fresh-
water Bath — The Crane — Aloes — Lord's Castle — The Horse . 46

CHAPTER VI.

Barbadian Peasantry — Prevailing Crimes — Negro Religion — Creoles

— Great Want of Water in Barbadoes — Price of Land — Absentee
Proprietors — Managers — Signals^ The Corsica — Tobago — First
View of Georgetown — Hotel Hunting . . . .57

CHAPTER VII.

Georget own — Water Street — Houses — Canals — Negroes — Coolies —
Native Indians — Chinese Shops — Carriages — Beckwith's Hotel

— Dignity Ball — Birds — Fireflies — Flowers — Library — Clubs —
Swizzles — Churches — Currency — Climate . . .66

CHAPTER VIII.

UptheEssequibo — Steamer Eliza — Leguan Island — Luxuriant Forest

— Fort Island — Palms — Boveanders — Kaow Island — Penal
Settlement — Callicoon — Negro Boat Upset — Sounds at Night —
Cemetery — Barracarra — Cartabo — Cocoa-Nuts — Through the
Forest — Vanilla — Cassava — Indian Customs — Cushi Ants —
Hyari — Mora-Tree—Return . . . . .78

CONTENTS. xi

CHAPTER IX. ^

PAGE

To De Kinderen — Roads — Courida and Mangrove Bushes — Villages
— Plan of Estates — Cornelia Ida — Names of Estates — Sugar
Making — Victoria Regia — Manager's House at De Kinderen —
Electric Eel — Coolie Servants — Menagerie — Coolie and his
Wife — Hospital — Cottages — Flowers in the Trenches — The
Coolie Question — Rum ... 95

CHAPTER X.

To Berbice — Train — Mail Waggon — Drive — Negro Driver — Silk-
Cotton Tree — Cotton — Negro Villages — African Village —
Berbice River — New Amsterdam — Paris Brittain's Hotel —
Town Hall — Providence — Everton — Voyage back — Circus —
Start for Tobago ...... 113

CHAPTER XI.

Thermo — Scarborough — Walk — Old Gateway — The Fort — Ruins —
Beggars — Barbadoes again — The Nile — Southern Cross —
St Thomas — Hotel du Commerce — St Domingo — Jacmel — Pigs
— Kingston — Port Royal — Negro Porter — Custom-House —
BlundellHall 128

CHAPTER XII.

Carriages — Commercial Street — Cactus Hedges — Race Course —
Street Cries— Blundell Hall — Bedroom — Mosquitoes — Hostess
— Hotels in the West Indies — Rock Fort Road — Constant
Spring — Pens — Trees — Blue Hills — Tropical Shower . . 137

CHAPTER XIII.

To "the Bogwalk — Train — Railway— Spanish Town — Carriage —
Road — Beautiful Scenery — Butterflies and Birds — Roaring
River— To Newcastle— Unfortunate Start— The Road— The
Gardens — Walk up to Newcastle — Return — The Tagus . 148

Xll CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIV.

PAGB

St Thomas again — A ' ' Norther " — The Arno — Scene on the Gang-
way— St Christopher — Nevis — Antigua — English Harbour —
Mountains — Guadeloupe — Dominica — Martinique — St Pierre —
Appearance of the Island — Diamond Rock — St Lucia — The
Maund — Cemetery — View — Castries — Coaling the Arno —
Divers — Again in Carlisle Bay . . . . .162

CHAPTER XV.

Sugar Making in Barbadoes — Windmills — Brown Appearance of the
Island — The Nile — Last Look at the West Indies — Lovely
Weather — St Michael's — The Lizard — Plymouth — England
again — Society in Barbadoes and Demerara — The West Indies
as a Health Resort 172

UNDEE A TEOPICAL SKY.

CHAPTER I.

THE VOYAGE OUT.

Tuesday, the 17th of December 1872, the Royal Mail
steamship Tasmanian, after goodbyes had been said,
and all the mail-bags had been put on board, was igno-
miniously pulled round by the little steam-tug tender, and
steamed off down Southampton Water, right into a dark bank
of leaden clouds, behind which the sun had now sunk. It was
the fifty-ninth time that her bows had pointed across the wide
Atlantic towards the West Indies. It was my first voyage in
an ocean-going steamer, and consequently all was new to me
on board. As the tender steamed back to Southampton, hand-
kerchiefs were waved, until at last the increasing distance
prevented even those white flags of friendship from being seen,
and we had indeed said goodbye to old England, and all that
it contained near and dear to us. The first thing to be done

is to describe the ship and the mode of life of those on board.

A

UNDER A TROPICAL SKY,

The Tasmanian is a bark-rigged ship, 366 feet long and 39
feet wide: tons register, 1600 ; actual tonnage, 2956. The
engine-power is nominally 600 horses, actually 3000. Oil board
of her are about 90 passengers, first and second class. To feed
these passengers and the crew, are on board 1 milking cow, 3
oxen, lots of sheep and many pigs ; 500 chickens, besides geese,
turkeys, and ducks innumerable. Besides the officers and engin-
eers, and stokers and seamen to work the ship, there are, to look
after the creature-comfort of those on board, a chief steward and
a multitude of under-stewards ; a chief baker and under-bakers ;
a chief cook and under-cooks ; and a confectioner to look after the
pastry : and there is as well a butcher and his assistant, and a car-
penter and his mate. The meal-times on board were — breakfast
at nine, luncheon at half-past twelve, dinner at five, and tea at
half-past seven ; but sandwiches were to be procured from half-
past eight to half-past nine. Meals came rather too closely to-
gether, since after eating a good breakfast at nine, and luncheon
about three hours afterwards, it was not to be expected that a
man could approach the dinner-table at five o'clock with a very
extraordinary appetite, although, indeed, the sea air and the
fresh breeze did make one more ready than might have been
expected to appear at the table. Cooking was remarkably
good, and we had a great variety of food provided for us —
far more, indeed, than cou-ld have been expected under the
circumstances.

THE VOYAGE OUT.

My berth was in a cabin in the lower fore-saloon. " Lower
Victoria Square" we christened it before we had been long at sea.
It was a long way from the saloon ; but it was close to the
engines, and therefore in the steadiest part of the ship. The
only objection to it was that it was just underneath the shoot
whence they discharged the ashes and cinders into the sea ; and
as they performed that operation every four hours, night and day,
it was apt to become annoying. They made a great noise over
it, and the sound of the ashes running down the shoot was
like nothing so much as a heavy shower of walking-sticks and
marbles on the roof of one's cabin. The noises on board for
the first few days are disquieting, to say the least of it : one
soon gets accustomed to them, however ; but after dark the
shouts of the sailors, the whistling of the boatswain, the grind-
ing of the engines, with every now and then the bang of a
cabin doors which has been left ajar, or the thud of a heavy
wave against the side of the ship, make up a total of sounds
the meaning of which is quite uncertain to the unaccustomed
traveller, and which, for all you know to the contrary, may
betoken great disaster.

The time on board ship is marked by bells : eight bells is
eight o'clock morning and eyening. Beginning at eight
o'clock in the morning, half-past eight is marked by one bell,
and then one bell is added every half hour until the total is
eight bells again, which of course occurs at noon ; beginning

UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

again with one bell at half-past twelve, and increasing as
before, eight bells occurs at four o'clock in the afternoon.
However, this order of things is broken by the occurrence of
two short watches called dog-watches, and the bells run thus :
half-past four one bell, then one is added till four bells, which
occurs at six ; at half-past, one bell again, until half past-seven
is three bells, and then eight o'clock is eight. So it goes on
regularly till the dog-watches come round the next afternoon.
The dog-watches are introduced for the reason that the ship's
company is divided into six watches, and if there were not
some method of breaking the routine, some of the unfortunate
sailors would always have the night-duty. Why the two
shortened watches are dog-watches is said to be because they
are curtailed.

The Tasmanian was not far outside the Needles when she
began to fall in with bad weather; however, the wind and
sea did not reach their highest pitch of disquietude until Sa-
turday morning, when there was really a terrific sea running.
This lasted through the night. On Sunday morning the gale
moderated. Life-lines were stretched across the ship from side
to side of the quarterdeck for the sailors to hold on by, for no
one could stir without holding on to something ; and those poor
unfortunate passengers, myself amongst the number, who were
possessed of fore-and-aft berths, had, I believe, to hold on, even
in their sleep, to prevent themselves rolling out on to the floor

THE VOYAGE OUT.

of the cabin. The waves washed over the ship, or, to use a
nautical expression, she was shipping water over all, and
the only place secure from the chance of a wetting was the top
of the companion-stairs, which, consequently, was always
crowded with restless and inquiring passengers. "Fiddles,"
as the frames of wood are called which are used to keep plates
and knives and forks on the unsteady table, were to be seen at
every meal ; and it required a certain amount of dexterity to
take a bottle or glass from the swinging tray over the table, or
to replace it again.

However, a gale of wind must have an end ; and on Mon-
day the 23d the sea was quieting down, and one could move
about the ship with some degree of steadiness, though a heavy
swell caused one's footsteps to be rather uncertain. But hour
by hour the sea went down, and the barometer, the object of
everybody's most careful attention during the bad weather,
went up, and the thermometer went up, and people began to
come up on deck, and congratulate themselves that at last they
had weathered the storm, and that the sun was shining. The
folding-chairs, with one of which every old traveller provides
himself, but of the comfort of which I was unaware, and there-
fore chairless, were placed about the quarterdeck, and the
game of " bull " was commenced by the more enterprising of
the male passengers. This game is, in my opinion, one of the
feeblest games I know. A board is divided into twelve squares,

UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

in two of which a large B is painted, while the rest are
numbered from 10 to 100; little disks of iron covered with
leather are thrown from a distance, and the number on which
it rests is scored to the thrower : liners don't count, while a
E cancels the whole previous gain of that turn. May I ask
why 10 to 100, and not 1 to 10 1 Is it for the same reason
that the counter of that delectable game " bezique" is so full of
ciphers ? The game, of course, is to gain as many as the
players agree upon. Some brought chess up on the deck,
though yellow-backed novels occupied the attention of the
majority.

On Tuesday a flying fish came on board — a very large one,
said they who knew something about those cold-blooded ani-
mals. It was about twelve inches in length, silvery white,
something like a whiting, and with very large eyes. Its wing-
fins were nearly as long as its body, and slightly sickle-shaped.
From this time till the end of the voyage, a greater or less
number of flying fish were to be observed every day ; and I
cannot help thinking that they really do fly, and flap their
wings, and even change their course in their passage through
the air. They look more like a flight of large dragon-flies
speeding over the surface of the water than birds.

Wednesday was Christmas Day, though the temperature
was anything but Christmas heat. "We had lost just two hours
of time. The saloon was decorated with holly and mistletoe

THE VOYAGE OUT.

in quite a homelike style; and when dinner-time came, roast-beef
and plum-pudding formed the staple dishes of the meaL We
had prayers in the morning, and the ship's company was mus-
tered to attend in the saloon. la the evening the piano in
the fore-saloon was in great request, and songs and music,
volunteered by the company, pleasantly passed the time. How
we enjoyed the " Wee, wee Dog," and the " Mer-ma-id," old
and well-known though they might be ! and what hearty
laughter arose at each reiteration of " I was very thankful,"
the refrain of a song of the assistant-purser's on the topics of
the day !

The sunrises and sunsets were most beautiful. There was
very little twilight, and from the time the first tinge of light
showed in the eastern sky, until the sun sprang up in all its
glory, a succession of the most lovely tints passed over the face
of the heavens. Glorious orange, pearly grey, russet brown,
and rosy red, and the most delicate shadings and interminglings
of blues and greens, followed each other in rapid succession,
until at last a fringe of fire upon the overhanging clouds be-
tokened the sun's approach. The sky, though clear overhead,
had nearly always a fringe of clouds round the horizon ; and
these clouds added greatly to the glory of the sunrise, as their
depths were searched out and explored by the pencils of sun-
light, causing the most vivid contrasts of leaden grey and
burnished gold. Perhaps there were more delicate shades of

8 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

colour to be observed at sunset, but they lacked the rapid rush
and onslaught of the rising sun.

Time passed quickly. On the 31st of December we were three
hundred miles from Barbadoes, two days behind time on account
of the bad weather we had encountered. The sea was quite calm,
and there was no motion in the ship except a lazy roll from
side to side, which really was not unpleasant, though probably
it would have been very upsetting to any one who just now
came on board. But we, the passengers, were quite seasoned
to rolls and shakes and quivers ; and if the motion had any
effect upon us at all, perhaps it was just to put the edge on our
appetites, and make us more ready for our dinners. And still
more quickly passed the last day. On Wednesday, New Year's
Day, about eleven o'clock, a faint haze appeared in the distance,
hardly distinguishable whether mist or land. By degrees
it grew plainer and plainer, and land it was — a most welcome
sight indeed. We soon got near enough to plainly distinguish
the brighter green of the cane-fields, and the various large
houses. At this distance the island slightly reminded me of
the Sussex Downs around Brighton ; for there were no hedges
to be seen, very few trees, and the island had the undulating
appearance pertaining to the South Downs. We coasted round
the south end of the island, passing a point of land on which
stood a tall lighthouse, painted in alternate broad rings of
black and white ; and then going close enough in shore to

THE VOYAGE OUT.

distinguish palms by the seaside, and the strips of white sand,
and the low range of cliffs in places. In front of us we could
see ships at anchor, and the houses on the shore began to be
more frequent, and more trees and shrubs surrounded them as
we approached Carlisle Bay. Turning sharply round Need-
ham's Point, we were in the roadstead, and at three o'clock the
anchor was let go. Directly, a crowd of boats, each pulled by
four lusty negroes, surrounded us, the boatmen calling out, and
shouting, and pushing, and causing a scene of dire confusion in
their anxiety to secure a fare to shore. But until the harbour-
master had been on board, and had satisfied himself from the
doctor's papers that there was no infectious illness on the ship,
no one was allowed to land. He being satisfied, there was a
great rush on board, and directly I found myself shaking hands
with an old college friend, the offer of whose hospitality had
caused my visit to the West Indies. After getting my luggage
into one of the boats, a row of a quarter of an hour brought us
inside the Mole Head, and by the landing-steps ; and then,
with a mixed feeling of excitement, expectation, and withal
relief, I first set foot on tropical ground.

CHAPTER II.

BARBADOES — BRIDGETOWN — DRIVE TO W

MODE OF LIFE IN BARBADOES.

, .^,HE first sensation that I was cognisant of when I stepped
on shore at Bridgetown, the chief town of the island,
was a feeling of distance from home. When on board I had
not realised it ; but once on shore, it suddenly burst upon me
that I was nearly four thousand miles from England, and it
seemed to me immeasurable. But this was only for a moment ;
for the crowds of black faces on the quay, and the noise they
caused, roused me to see the necessity of getting my goods on
to my friend's cart, and escaping from the commotion as quickly
as possible. And then the four-mile drive from Bridgetown to

W , where my friend lived, totally dispelled every feeling

but interest. I could think of nothing but the black faces, and
the negro huts, and the strange trees, and the gorgeous flowers,
and the bright green sugar-cane — things which met my gaze on
every side.

Bridgetown is an irregularly-built town : the streets are
rather narrow, and for the most part unprovided with pave-

BARBADOES. 1 1

ments ; and, indeed, where they do have such luxuries, provision
has only been made for one foot-passenger at a time. High
Street, Broad Street, and Swan Street are the chief business
parts of the town ; and in them are situated all the principal
stores, where the Barbadians boast that anything can be
obtained. The following tale is told to exemplify this fact :
One man bet another that he could ask for something he
could not procure there, and then asked for a pair of skates.
The other fellow, not discouraged, set to work to find skates ;
and his perseverance was rewarded by discovering among the
rubbish of a second-hand dealer an old rusty pair of the
articles in question, and thus he won his bet and proved the
extraordinary resources of the town.

The storekeepers dispense with shop windows, and it re-
quires a lengthened stare inside the store to discover what is
sold there ; for they are not very lavish in painting either their
own names or the names of their trades over their stores.
Advertisements are scarce. With the exception of the placard
of a travelling circus or peripatetic theatrical company,
scarcely any bills adorn the walls ; and the few there are, are
about the productions of a firm of American chemists, and set
before you the advantages of " Florida Water " and " Sugar-
coated Pills." These two articles, I find, are extensively
advertised throughout the whole of the West Indies. The
houses in Bridgetown are chiefly built of stone, and roofed

1 2 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

with shingle, and usually three stories in height. Trafalgar
Square is an open space Barbadians are proud of, though it
seemed to me nothing remarkable. In this square stands a
bronze statue of Nelson in full uniform, and a large fountain
overgrown with green moss, and seeming rather uncared for.
On one side of the square rise the new public buildings, as
yet incomplete, built of very white stone, and Norman, tropi-
cally adapted, in architecture ; while towards the opposite side,
behind Nelson's image, a fine evergreen tree affords a welcome
shade to the crowds of negroes generally collected under its
branches. Behind this tree the space is bounded by the
Carenage, an estuary or backwater of the sea, which forms the
harbour of the town. This estuary is spanned by a white
stone bridge, one end of which swings for the purpose of letting
boats of moderate burden pass. At present the water above
the bridge is filled with banks of mud, covered with 'mangrove-
trees, amongst whose roots, at low tide, quantities of red-clawed
scavenger-crabs are to be seen crawling ; but it is one of the
schemes now in progress to clear it out and make it available
as harbour-room.

The best hotel in the town is Hoad's Albion Hotel, clean
but rather small. The host certainly does not stint his
visitors as to their food, but is, like everybody in the West
Indies, very independent ; for I heard of him refusing to provide
a dinner for some passengers from one of the Transatlantic

BARBADOES. 13

steamers, even though they offered liberal payment for it. But
one of the institutions of the place, and indeed of all West
Indian towns, is the ice-establishment — in other words, a drink-
ing-saloon. Here all kinds of cooling drinks are to be obtained ;
and a dining-room is attached, where very good dinners and
breakfasts may be procured. It is clean and well conducted,
though to get to the liquor-bar one has to pass through or
close to a provision-store, odorous of salted fish and other
slightly ill-savoured articles of commerce.

There are plenty of public vehicles in the streets, though
most of them are in a very dilapidated condition both as to
horse and carriage. Light-hooded phaetons to carry two fonn
the greatest number.

Some little distance to the south-east of the town is situated
St Ann's Garrison. The buildings are placed around the
Savannah,' as a large flat extent of grass, containing at a rough
estimate about a hundred acres, is called. Hound the edge of
this field, a little distance from the barrack-buildings, runs a
carriage-road, bordered for nearly its whole length on each
side by trees of various kinds. The Savannah serves both as
the Bridgetown race-course and as the cricket-ground. Here
also every Monday afternoon from five till seven o'clock plays
the Garrison band, and it is the correct thing for the dlite of
Bridgetown and its neighbourhood to go and hear it. Now
going to the band does not mean walking about in its vicinity

14 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

and chatting to your various friends ; but, on the contrary, it
means driving in your carriage as near the band as you like, and
then patiently sitting there until the band pleases to play " God
save the Queen." However, it is very pleasant and lazy to
sit still and listen to a military band, while the sun drops down
in the west, and the cool breeze of evening plays gently round ;
and while the moon rapidly increases her brightness, and sails
calmly amongst the light trade-wind-driven clouds overhead.

The road between the Garrison and the town is bordered with
pleasant villas, unlike most of the other houses in the island
by possessing boundary walls, drive-gates, and well-kept
shrubberies, with here and there some gay flowers about the
houses. There are very few gardens, from an English point of
view, in the island — that is, with grass-plots and beds ; the
flowers seem put down anywhere on the bare earth, and left to
take care of themselves.

In the outskirts of Bridgetown there is a continuous row of
wooden houses on each side of the various roads ; some in
good repair, some otherwise. They are never more than one
story in height, and are usually supported on a row of rough
stones, which raise the floor a few inches from the surface of
the ground. In size the huts are perhaps twenty feefc by ten,
though of course they vary considerably. Their roofs are
shingle, and they have no glass in the windows, which are
merely square apertures, closed either by jalousies, or trap-

BARBADOES.

door-like shutters with hinges at the top, and which when
propped open form effectual sunshades. The roads are all good,
very white, but rather narrow; and I never saw a footpath by
the side of a highroad throughout the island.

The streets of Bridgetown are always well filled with people.
Every shady place is taken possession of by negro women
selling cakes, or fruits, or sweets, which they carry in square
trays on their heads. Negro women carry everything on their
heads, from a bottle of medicine to a basket of manure for the
cane-fields. The consequence is, that they have an erect and
rather stately carriage, very, different from the slouching walk of
the English peasant woman. Everybody one meets of the lower
class is a negro ; and as Barbadoes is very thickly populated, a
great many people are always on the roads, especially near
the town, to which the negro women carry fruits and vegetables
from their little patches of garden-ground. Negro women
wear a kerchief round their heads, tied at the back, so as to
form a kind of turban ; this is generally white, but frequently
yellow or some other bright colour. Their dresses are of print,
long enough to touch the ground if let down ; but they usually
tie a string tightly round the hips, through which they pull
the dress, thus holding it up as far as the knee. Men and
women universally go barefoot. The women walk very
upright, and take very long steps ; so that a peculiar swaying
motion is imparted to the body, which, though not far removed

1 6 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

from a species of waddle, is not altogether ungraceful. A
young negro or coloured woman does not look unpicturesque
when dressed in the characteristic costume which I have
described ; but when the black girl is rich enough to afford the
ordinary European costume of crinoline, silk jacket, and hat
and flowers, she looks anything but delightful.

The currency in Barbadoes is English, but all prices and
wages are calculated in dollars and cents. The bank-notes of the
Colonial Bank are for five dollars — that is, £1, Os. 10d., instead
of a sovereign — and yet an American dollar or half-dollar will
not be taken in payment at a shop. This double currency is
very confusing at first, as it requires quite a mental sum to
find out that $1.80 is in plain English 7s. 6d.

The drive from Bridgetown to W was of course in-
teresting. I was not prepared to see so many windmills
scattered over the face of the laud. Windmills form one of
the chief characteristics of the island, and meet one's eye
at every turn. Wind is nearly without exception the only
power used in Barbadoes to grind sugar-cane, and each estate,
however small, has its windmill. Few of the flowers and
plants could I recognise ; but I was much struck by the

gorgeousness of the Poinsettia pulcherrima, which forms

«
large bushes one blaze of scarlet, and by the rampant way in

which the Bougainvillea, called there " Fleuretta," grows and
flowers. Soon after leavin? the town we came to cane-fields.

BARBADOES. 1 7

I must own that I was disappointed in my first sight of sugar-
cane ; I expected something like a jungle of canes, some fifteen
or twenty feet high, instead of the highly-cultivated fields
which met my view. From each plant or stool, as it is called,
spring five or six canes, some ten feet long and perhaps an inch
and a half in diameter. These stalks are yellowish green,
and bend down with their own weight, though propped up by
the neighbouring canes ; and from them spring out the long,
broad, flag-like leaves, of a bright fresh green colour near the
top of the cane, where they grow thickly, but generally withered
and sere nearer the root. Seen from above, a cane-field appears
nothing but a level waving expanse of yellow-green verdure,
which gets monotonous with long acquaintance. When in
blossom, the seed-stalks rise high above the level of the canes,
and wave their silvery plumes most gracefully in the breeze.
These seed-stalks are called " arrows." Roads are very good
and level, being cut through hills sometimes to the depth of
fifteen or twenty feet ; while ravines and gullies, sometimes of
great depth, are bridged over by solidly-built causeways.

The dazzling white of the coral-rock, of which the roads are
made, is very distressing to the eyes — so everybody says, though
I did not find it so in any especial degree. However, since
everybody thinks the glare so bad, all sorts of shifts are
made to mitigate its intensity. Some men wear large mov-
able brims to their hats, the under sides of which are lined

B

1 8 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

with green ; others wear large spectacles of various arrange-
ments of wire gauze and green glass ; while others, again, go
about with white linen or muslin masks, with either a pair of
holes to see through, or else ending abruptly just under the
eyes, with a loose flap to cover the nose. These contrivances
may be useful, but they certainly are not ornamental, and
give a hideous look to the wearer, while, of course, they com-
pletely disguise a man's personal appearance.

There are no hedges or fences in Barbadoes. The south
end of the island is gently undulating, of a coral formation,
but the north part is volcanic. There are very few trees to be
seen, with the exception of those close to the houses. The
bearded fig, a large spreading tree with bold evergreen foliage,
is one of the principal trees to be observed about the houses
near the town, and from it the name of the island is said to be
derived. It is so called because of the long masses of fibres
it sends down from its branches to the ground, which there
taking root, afford a firm support to the widespreading
branches, and give a peculiar and characteristic look to the tree.
Palms are scarce in the island. There are a few groves of
cocoanut-palms by the sea-shore ; but they look anything but
flourishing, for they have been attacked by a very disfiguring
and fatal disease of late years. Cabbage palms flourish well
in places, but remind one very much of the plume of a hearse
stuck on the top of a scaffold pole. Their stem is perhaps

BARBADOES. 19

sixty or eighty feet high, and two feet in diameter at the bottom,
and bare from top to bottom. On the top of this tall pole,
which thins gradually but not regularly as it ascends,
waves feebly in the wind a crown of leaves, looking sadly too
small for and out of proportion to its lengthy stem, but which
no doubt would appear sufficiently large if brought down from
its lofty elevation to the level of the eye. Sometimes the crown
of leaves gets blown off by an extra- violent gust of wind, and
then the tall pole is left, a melancholy memorial of some tropi-
cal storm. Mahogany-trees seem to be the commonest kind of
timber. Groves of them of greater or less extent are frequently
to be met with. The foliage is dark green j the leaves are not
unlike ash-leaves, only they are broader and rounder in outline.
Their fruit is a round brown capsule about the size of an
orange, and in shape like a pear upside down, and filled
inside with a number of chestnut-coloured seeds, like the keys
of an ash-tree, and beautifully packed and fitted into each,
other. Yams are dwarf trailing plants, and are cultivated
each on a little hillock, which they soon cover with their dark
green heart-shaped leaves. Between these hillocks is fre-
quently planted Indian corn, each plant grown singly, looking
sad and stiff in its solitary position, and certainly not graceful.
The sweet potato is a kind of convolvulus, with dingy lilac
flowers, which trails all over the ground, and completely covers
the field in which it grows. Eddoes are frequently planted

2O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

with it, but their large heart-shaped leaves soon get torn by
the wind. Plantains and bananas — for they are different
species of the same plant — are generally planted a couple of
yards from the edge of the cane-field, among the canes, to
protect them from the prevailing winds. But for all that,
their large flat and handsome leaves soon get torn and dis-
figured, and the tattered shreds blow flag-like from the main
rib of the leaf. Barbadoes fields are very clear from weeds,
and the weeding is done by women who are called " farmers."
The universal implement of labour is the hoe; and not a
spade, fork, or shovel is to be seen, and mortar even is mixed
with a hoe.

Negro huts are scattered along the sides of the roads all
over Barbadoes ; in fact, they are as thick all over the island as
plums in a pudding. It is said that it is not possible to raise
your voice in any part of it without being heard by some
neighbouring house. These huts are dotted about without the
slightest regard for regularity — sometimes a number of them
in a kind of promiscuous heap, sometimes one or two by them-
selves. They frequently have little patches of land or gardens
attached to them, but often are set down on the bare face of
a piece of stony or waste ground. Sometimes an almond or
a gooseberry tree grows close to them, but apparently more by
accident than design. Some of the huts are kept nicer than
others ; and many have a pig, or a sheep, or a goat tethered

BARBADOES. 21

beside them, or in rarer cases even a cow or a donkey. Chickens
and turkeys abound amongst the huts. Sheep have no wool,
but a kind of coarse hair, and are of as various colours as our
cows — black, brown, chestnut, and piebald occurring nearly as
commonly as white. Cows are much smaller than the average
size in England. Oxen and mules are the beasts of burden,
horses being kept solely for riding and driving.

The first thing that struck me on entering a West Indian
house was the extreme want of privacy in their mode of life ;
in fact, this is carried so far that one does not even shut one's
bedroom door at night. The reason is of course that every-
body wants to create a draught — a thing as much sought after
here as it is avoided at home — and so windows and doors are all
left open. There is seldom a hall," but the verandah generally
opens directly into the living-rooms ; and everybody walks
directly into the drawing-room when they come in from
riding or driving. In the rooms there are never carpets
nor curtains. On the beds are no blankets — the only covering
for a body at night is a single sheet, not even a counterpane ;
and all the time windows and doors are open, and there is a
great draught, but no one thinks of taking cold. One good
thing the wind does is to blow away the mosquitoes, since
for some reason — either because they think there are none, or
because they are seasoned to them — they have no mosquito-
nets ; but I know there are mosquitoes.

22 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

Soup is always provided for dinner, generally vegetable of
some kind. They have two very delightful kinds of fish —
namely, flying fish and dolphin. In no other island but
Barbadoes is the flying fish eaten, wherein they do not
exhibit wisdom, for the fish, fried after the bones have been
taken out, is most delicious. Dolphin is very firm and
delicate. The best vegetable they possess is without doubt
yam ; it is like the finest potato and butter — a very king in
comparison to potato. Sweet potatoes, eddoes, plantains,
and ochras are other vegetables, and potatoes are imported
from America. The two chief meals are breakfast, which is
more substantial than an English breakfast, and at which
vegetables are served, and dinner. A cup of coffee and a piece
of bread or toast is invariably brought to you about seven
every morning; but luncheon seldom consists of more than
some fruit, or a biscuit, or perhaps a little bread and cheese.

In fruits the West Indies are remarkably rich ; but yet in
most instances they seem to lack character, and there is a great
deal to eat for a v#ry little flavour. From this verdict must
be excepted the pine, and the various members of the orange
tribe. The taste for some of the fruits — such as golden apples,
or sugar apples, or sour sops — must take a good deal of
acquiring, though they seem to be enjoyable if they happen to
fall in with one's liking.

The pronunciation of English in Barbadoes is rather broad

BARBADOES. 2$

and drawling, and they have some peculiar uses of certain
words that sound strange to a new-comer's ear. One is the
use of the adverb " too " to denote a very strong " very." For
instance, "This fruit is too sweet," accenting the "too" rather
strongly, means that it is very good. The verb " to carry " is
used in quite a different sense from ours. " I '11 carry him to
town," or " Carry him out of doors," means " go with him," or
"accompany him." Again, the adjective "good" is used
adverbially in the sense of "nicely" or "properly;" for
example, " Show it to me good," or "You can't do it good."
Many other words are used with different meanings from those
we give them, but the ear soon gets accustomed to the strange
mode of using them.

CHAPTER III.

BOILING SPRING — TURNERS HALL WOOD — BREAKFAST
PARTY — COLE'S CAVE.

jHE first expedition I made to any of the places of
interest in Barbadoes was to the Boiling Spring, a
place which directly belies its name, for I found that it
was not a spring, neither did it boil. We were to break-
fast at Ape's Hill, an estate some four miles from the spring,

and perhaps fifteen from W . The road was not new

to me as far as Bridgetown, through which we passed. Soon
after leaving the town a storm of rain came on, a thing
very much to be dreaded, and with reason, for no one knows
how heavily it will rain, and a heavy tropical squall will find
out the weak places in any protective measures. The rain
comes down so fast and heavily that the drops break up into
mist when they hit the ground, and fly over the surface like
steam. Everybody seems frightened of rain, and avoids it
as sedulously as we should do. a draught ; and with cause, for
an umbrella is of very little use. So we turned for shelter into

BARBADOES. 2$

Bank Hall ; but a tropical rain seldom lasts long, and we were
soon on our way again. We changed horses at Waterford,
three miles from Georgetown. After leaving Waterford the
country gradually changed its character ; and instead of gently
undulating ground, clothed with bright green fields of waving
sugar-cane, jagged and abrupt rocks rose here and there, and
long rows of grey cliffs. These rocks all bear evidence on the
face of them that they are of coralline formation, and that at
some time or other they have been worn and wasted by the
sea. In places, too, the road would cross a deep gully or
ravine leading up from the sea, in the bottom of which would
grow wild palms and other trees. And here let me say that
no one who has not walked along and explored one of these
gullies can have any idea of a great beauty of Barbadoes, which
does not lie on the surface. Between upright walls of coral
rock, reminding one strongly of Cheddar Cliffs, hollowed out
into a thousand fantastic shapes, covered with green plants
where the slightest clinging hold is afforded, the ravine winds
along, here adorned with a stately silk-cotton tree, there
fringed with clumps of Spanish needle or wild palms, and
everywhere the home of countless shrubs. The bottom of the
gully is in places an expanse of green close-growing turf j in
places covered with boulders of rock, over, under, or round
which the explorer has to make his way. Detached corals strew
the ground ; and amongst the boulders a cloak of greenery

26 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

springs up, covering their bareness, and beautiful exceedingly.
Sometimes the perpendicular cliffs on either side give way to
sloping banks, which are either green expanses of grass, broken
at intervals by a jutting rock, or thickets of shrubs amongst
which blossom lovely flowers, and where a darting humming
bird is frequently to be seen.

Through a cutting in one of the ranges of coral rock, up
rather a steep hill, the road ran for some distance, the sides of
the cutting being covered with lycopodium, while frequent tufts
of silver fern peeped out from the crevices of the rock. Here
we passed a cabbage-palm, its stem covered from top to bottom
with a parasite, with little green leaves like a diminutive hart's
tongue fern, which greatly adorned the stiffness of its supporter.
Arrived at Ape's Hill, we found breakfast awaiting us, which
we thoroughly enjoyed, incited thereto by the appetites which
a long drive in the fresh morning air had given us. Breakfast
over, the carriage came to the door again, and a lovely drive of
three miles took us as far as a carriage could go. The road
was never laid out by an engineer ; for it turned and wound
and twisted, and went up hill and went down again, without
any regard for the convenience of beasts of burden. We were
now in a totally different country to any I had yet seen. Great
rocks rose on each side of us, covered with cactuses and lyco-
podiums and trailing plants; while down in the hollows under
the shadow of these cliffs lay still pools of water, on which

BAXBADOES. 2/

large lily-leaves lazily floated, surrounded by waving trees ;
whilst over all crowds of gorgeous dragon-flies sported in the
sunny air. By the roadside ran a little trickling rill, the first
running water I had seen in the island. Up a steep hill we
went : a sudden turn to the right, and a glorious view burst
upon us. It could scarcely be believed that we were in the
same land. Jagged hills of every shade of red and brown,
with sharp edges, and bare of foliage, lay all around us ; at our
feet lay a valley, cultivated here and there in patches wherever
sufficient soil could be found on the face of the rock. At the
further end of this valley, about two miles away, was a white
fringe of breakers upon a strip of yeUow sand, and beyond them
the deep blue sea stretched away until it met the sky.

Half a mile further we found horses awaiting us, and mount-
ing, we descended a steep hill, towards Turner's Hall Wood,
one of the very few patches of virgin forest now left in the
island, and which lay on the side of a steep hill on the opposite
side of the valley. Grand butterflies were sailing about in all
directions, and many times was I tempted to jump off my
horse and spread my net in pursuit of them ; but I deferred
this pleasure till later in the day. About a mile of awkward
road led us to the bottom of the valley, through which ran a
little brook, which, just where the road crossed it, formed a
tiny cascade over a ledge of rock. Crossing this brook we
dismounted, for the road now became impassible even to a

28 UNDEK A TROPICAL SKY.

horse. It was merely a track amongst the trees, the roots of
which crossed it in every direction, forming in some places per-
fect steps. A group of tall palms stood up in the valley, look-
ing very grand against the other foliage ; for their tall bare
stems were hidden by trees, and their waving crowns only could
be seen. Inside the wood was a dense mass of vegetation.
On all sides grew young palms, covered, I found to my cost,
with sharp prickles ; while tall sandbox- trees, with their trunks
studded from top to bottom with strong thorns and locust-
trees and mahogany-trees, rose up on every side, and a dense
undergrowth of shrubs filled in the spaces between their trunks.
The ground was covered with a species of maiden-hair fern,
while various kinds of grasses waved in the gentle breeze that
found its way through the wood. Up in the branches grew
large clumps of parasites, looking like green tufts of hart's
tongue fern ; and great creepers climbed to the tops of the
tallest trees, and from thence let down long thin roots to
the ground. Every now and then, up in the fork of some tree,
could be seen the brown nests of a colony of wood-ants, the
covered galleries from which reached down to the ground and
were carried along the tallest branches. Bright emerald-green
lizards glanced about in the patches of sunshine which found
their way through the thick foliage overhead.

After about half a mile of the steep rough path through the
wood, we came to the gully in which is the Boiling Spring, and

BARBADOES.

climbing down its rocky side, we soon came to the spring itself.
It is a round cavity about three feet in diameter, near the bed
of the stream with water from which it is filled, the surface of
which cavity is in perpetual commotion. No water rises in the
spring, and the commotion is caiised by gas, which escapes
from the sides of the cavity and rises through the water. But
the great wonder had yet to come. A negro girl appeared with
an old sauce-pan and a petroleum- can with its bottom knocked
out, and baling out about half the water with her sauce-pan,
she placed the can in the middle of the hole. She struck a
match, applied it to the spout, and it immediately burst up
into a bright blaze. A servant produced some eggs from a
basket, and in a trice the eggs were boiled and eaten to the
accompaniment of a bottle of beer, which was very acceptable
after our walk to the spring. The flame was extinguished by
merely taking away the can, and then the spring began to fill,
and when we left it was boiling away as merrily as ever.

After leaving the spring we resumed our ramble through the
wood, and after some more steep climbing we emerged on the
top of the hill on which the wood is situated, and another
glorious view met our gaze. A valley lay many hundred feet
below us, and the more gently-rising slope of the opposite hill
was covered with various estates, each with its windmill and
boiling-house ; while to our left, a couple of miles away, was
the blue sea, into which the opposite hill jutted forth as a

3O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY,

rugged promontory. Half way down, between the top of the
hill we were on and the valley below, are situated some wells,
to the top of which rises a kind of liquid tar, which has lately
become an article of export to England, and a very profitable one
too. By the roadside, as we approached the wood, we had seen
many wells and springs with their surface covered with oily tar,
and in some few places it exuded black from the rock itself.

"We returned through the wood, and as we approached the
carriage I gave way to the wish to possess myself of some of
the butterflies which abounded there ; so I chased butterflies
till I was nearly melted, and was rewarded by capturing some
fine specimens, which, however, were fated to give me but little
joy; for the next morning I found that the tiny black ants,
with which all houses swarm, had discovered my insects, and
had walked off with their bodies and the greater part of their
wings. In my ignorance I had not provided against their
attacks.

We arrived at W in perfect safety after our interesting

expedition. The part of the island in which Turner's Hall
Wood is situated is called Scotland, and is, from its appear-
ance, volcanic, without the tar-wells and the boiling spring to
prove it so.

The morning after my excursion to the north of the island,

I went to breakfast at Clapham, about two miles from W .

Before breakfast it is usual for the gentlemen of the party to

BARBADOES. 3 1

ride round and inspect the Estate, and form their opinions of
the crop and the produce it will yield. Since sugar-cane is
the only crop grown, they are concerned with that alone ; and
after inspection each guest puts down his opinion of the yield
on a piece of paper, and the average of the opinions being
struck, it is considered a very fair criterion of the yield which
may be expected. Cane in a very good year produces about
three hogsheads of sugar per acre ; but it is so much affected
by drought or unfavourable weather, that in a bad year it will
not produce a third of that quantity; and on the same estate,
even in a fine season, some fields may be very bad, while others
are just as good.- A little after eight the company had all
arrived, and horses being brought to the door, those who
cared to, mounted and started off on their ride round. After
inspecting the various cane-fields, which, as they were rather
scattered, took about an hour and a half to do, we returned to
the house, and found a very substantial breakfast awaiting us,
consisting of mutton, ducks, chickens, guinea-fowls, fricasseed
rabbits, and various other meats ; while the centre of the table
was taken up by an immense heap of " corn-jug," a compound
of finely-minced beef, corn, peas, and rice, boiled or stewed
together. Many kinds of vegetables were on the table, and
cakes also of various sorts.

Immense appetites did the guests bring to the table, and
things disappeared with astonishing rapidity. Conversation

32 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

had not much chance at first, but "after a short time the buzz
of voices began to be heard. The talk was chiefly about sugar,
about rain, and about mules and their prices. Every estate
keeps a rain-gauge, and the comparison of the various amounts
of rain which have lately fallen is a fruitful source of words ;
while mules being in universal request, and varying in price
as many or few ships come laden with them to the island,
are also a generally interesting topic. Breakfast at last
finished, cards were produced, and after a rubber or two, the
guests departed.

Cole's Cave is one of the natural curiosities of Barbadoes,
and one morning my friend and I started off to explore it.
It is in St Thomas's parish, nearly in the centre of the island,
and upon an estate called Walke's Spring. The country in
that part of Barbadoes, though from a distance it appears
level or very gently undulating, is seamed and riven by deep
gullies, and at the end of one of these gullies is situated the
cave. The entrance to it, in the side of a hill, is down a steep
funnel-shaped cavity, to the sides of which, abounding in ferns
and creeping plants, cling one or two tall trees. This ends in
a spacious cavern, lit from above by another opening into the
light of day, besides the one by which we entered. Opposite
to the entrance, close to the ground, is a roughly circular hole
some three feet in diameter, the entrance to the cave itself.
There is a tradition, that one Good Friday a man in a fit of

BARBADOES. 33

daring tried to ride a horse down the steep approach to the
cave, an exploit he paid for with his life, for he and his horse
were dashed to pieces at the bottom, and their blood sprinkled
on the rocky walls. And to this day, every Good Friday, the
blood may be seen, fresh and red, round the mouth of the
cavern.

After penetrating a few yards in a stooping position, the
entrance expands, and twenty yards more brings you to a de-
liciously cool stream of running water, which bursts out of the
left wall of the cavern, and flows murmuring away under your
feet into the darkness in front. Crossing the stream from side
to side, stumbling and scrambling over the stones with which
the floor of the cave is strewed, about three hundred yards
is accomplished, when the cave narrows to a little hole some
three feet square, the bottom of which is covered with water
to the depth of a foot. I was about to pull off my shoes
and socks for the purpose of exploring still further, when I was
stopped from doing so by my negro guide, who vehemently
urged me to desist ; whether because there really was nothing
beyond, or because there was some superstition attached to
the place, I could not quite make out. My guide was a char-
acter in a way : he was singularly chary of imparting informa-
tion as to the cave, and to all my questions and observations,
whether positive or negative, he promptly answered "Yes,

sir." I noticed this peculiarity, and asked him if he had been

c

34 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

far beyond this, and then asked him the searching question if
he had been fifty miles further, and on his answering as usual
" Yes," I came to the conclusion that he was not to be de-
pended upon.

The roof of the cave in some places was eaten away into the
resemblance of a gigantic honeycomb, while in others it was
adorned with quantities of stalactites, though they did not
reach any size. Eeturning from the barrier stream, which
part of the cave is called the " Long Pond," to the right another
gallery opened out, into which we turned. The stalactites here
were much larger and more diverse in form than in the other
gallery, though they were by no means large. Through holes in
the floor the murmur of running water ascended, and in one
place a strong gust of wind entered through a crevice in the
rock. The floor was covered with a thick coating of mud,
bearing the marks of water which had flowed in an opposite
direction to that in which we were progressing — that is, towards
the gallery we had just left — proving that the cave formed the
natural drainage for a large part of the country, and that there
was an opening into the air at the end of the gallery we were
now traversing. On either side were to be seen dark open-
ings tempting exploration, but which the guide said had been
as yet unvisited. Our way was at last stopped by a pool of
water similar to that in the first cave, so I turned back, and
emerged into the light of day after exactly an hour's stay in

BARBADOES. 35

the interior of the cavern. There is evidently great room
for further explorations inside, though whether they would
be recompensed by the discoveries to be made of course I
cannot telL

There is another cavern, called Harrison's, some two or three
miles from Cole's Cave, which some people affirm to be the
better worth visiting of the two, and I am sorry that I had no
opportunity of seeing for myself which was to be preferred.

The water in Cole's Cave is used by the neighbouring
cottages, and I met inside a party of boys carrying it up in
cans on the top of their heads, and lighting their way with
torches made of bundles of cane-trash. It is said that the
cave reaches as far as Bridgetown, and that the running water
finds its way into the Carenage near the town.

CHAPTEE IV.

CIRCUS — CHURCH — CHRISTMAS DECORA TIONS — GOVERNMENT
HOUSE — BALL — BLACK HATS — DRIVE TO L .

DAY or two after I arrived at Barbadoes, I went into
Bridgetown to see a circus that announced itself with
the far-spreading title of "The Great North and
South American and London Circus." Just arrived from
England as I was, when inside the tent I could hardly believe
myself out of that country; for the place was so badly lit up,
that the fact that nearly every spectator was black was not very
noticeable. The riding was nothing remarkable, and the dresses
were tawdry and gaudy : the ladies in one scene rode in yellow
calico habits, decorated with immense bows of green stuff.
Towards the end of the performance the negroes outside grew
envious and inquiring, and began to tear down the hoarding
that surrounded the tent, and soon had made a hole big enough
to creep through. One by one they crept in ; but there was a
strong force of policemen inside, who collared them as fast as

BARBADOES. 37

they got in, and walked them off to jail by the door, which
happened to be at the opposite side of the tent. Therefore,
as those outside did not know the fate of those who got
inside, they kept coming in, and the policemen kept walking
them out, for the rest of the performance.

The Sunday after my arrival, January 5th, I went to
church. It was outside and inside just like an English church,
only the windows were much larger, and were open to let the
refreshing breeze enter. It happened to be a rainy day, and
as a shower came on, there was a general rush to shut the
windows, without any regard to the noise that was made, or
the interruption that was caused to the service ; and as soon
as the rain was over, the windows were opened again directly
with an equal disregard of noise. The Christmas decorations
were up, and were very pretty, consisting of palm-leaves, and
texts and Vandykes of the leaves of the Spanish needle, a kind
of yucca. I thought it did not look so well as a nice holly -and
ivy-decorated church, though palm-branches form a very
graceful adornment. In the same church the next Sunday I
was nearly melted, for there was very little wind ; but I was
rewarded by hearing as the sermon a review, historical, poli-
tical, agricultural, moral, and religious, of the past year, and
a prospect, also qualified by the same adjectives, of the year to
come, from which review and prospect I derived much infor-
mation and not a little internal amusement.

38 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

There is a very good garden at Government House, and
a very nice conservatory, which I was asked to look at ; and
I went, for the moment forgetting that I was in the tropics,
and that glass would not be wanted ; so I expected glass and
flues, but it was merely a large square place, boarded to
keep out the wind, but otherwise open to the air. A fountain
was in the middle, and a mango-tree at one end, on which
were planted and hung about all sorts of orchids and parasites.
There is a very fine collection of ferns, and very fine speci-
mens of Adiantum Farleyense. There was a collection of
beautiful-leaved plants, and at one end of the conservatory
were three arches covered with creepers, underneath which
was arranged a collection of begonias in full blossom. Eound
the fountain grew fine specimens of Cyperus alternifolius,
while every vacant space was filled with ferns, and the inside
of the protecting fence was hung with orchids in cocoanuts.
It was very pretty, and the specimens were fine-growing
plants — not stunted, as our greenhouse flowers so often
are.

In the garden at Government House were the first walks
and grass-plots that I had seen. There was a bed covered
with Plumbago capensis, which looked very well. There were
many kinds of young palms growing up, and roses seemed to
flower better there than in other places in the island.

While I was in the island the English fleet visited Barba-

BARBADOES. 39

does, and in its honour a grand ball was given at a house
called Erdiston. The decorations were not untasteful, and
consisted of pink and white calico looped up in various ways,
and plentifully adorned with anchors cut out of silver paper.
The rooms were rather small and very much crowded, so that
there was hardly space to stir, and of course dancing was a
work of great labour. The band of the regiment played, and
played very well. The supper was a perfect scramble ; a rather
small room Avith a rather small door was allotted for it, and
therefore there were frequent dead-locks between those who
had supped and those who were anxious to do so. In conse-
quence, before the time that our party scrambled into the
room, the supper was dreadfully messed and pulled about ; and
there was not much left on the table but the carcasses of
poultry, for all meats and sweets had nearly disappeared.
Champagne, however, was abundant, but not so glasses to drink
it out of ; but the satisfaction was not very great even when
the glass had been procured, and filled and emptied ; for it was
rather poor stuff, and smacked strongly of the British goose-
berry.

There is one thing in Barbadoes I quarrel with immensely- —
that is, the way the tall black hat is worshipped. That institu.
tion, so ugly, so uncomfortable even in cold England, is twice
as ugly, three times as uncomfortable, in tropical Barbadoes,
where blackness is a sun-and-heat-attracting colour to be

4O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

sedulously avoided, and tightness a heat-giving quality to be
as sedulously shunned. 0 little Grundy-ridden island of
Barbadoes ! you, so small that everybody is either related to,
or an intimate of, everybody else, do you say that a black hat
is a token of respectability ? Surely you know who is respect-
able without that mark of Grundyitish slavery. 0 black hat !
the blackest blot on fair Barbadoes, would that I could drown
you in yon blue sea, and so wash away that stain of Grundy-
ism for ever !

N

The Barbadian ladies do not seem to have much taste for
flowers. While the most beautiful flowers grow all over the
island, I saw many bouquets at the ball composed of English
chrysanthemums and spindly rosebuds. In few of the houses
in which I have been have there been natural flowers about the
house, but what requirement there was for floral decoration was
satisfied in many cases by a vase of artificial or paper flowers.
A vase of paper flowers inside, and lovely jasmines and ipomoeas,
and the treasures of our greenhouses, outside, is a rather sur-
prising sight to an Englishman.

Having had an invitation to stay a few days at L , in

the parish of St Lucy, in the extreme north of the island, on
the 14th of January I drove there. From Bridgetown it is
about twenty miles away. The road runs close by the sea for
the greater part of the distance. -In the outskirts of Bridgetown
are situated some very pretty villas, and around them, in the

BARBADOES. 4!

spaces of ground which serve for gardens, grow some very
handsome flowers and trees. I have already referred to the Bou-
gainvillea and Poinsettia,both of which grow commonly. Barba-
does pride or flower-fence (Ccesalpinea) is very handsome ; it
is a straggling bush, with acacia-like leaves, and bears a loose
pea-shaped blossom, with a bunch of very long and numerous
stamens. Most beautiful ipomceas and convolvuluses abound,
of every shade of blue from bright turquoise to deep indigo
and purple ; while the rich crimson Ipomcea Horsfallii, and the
tiny scarlet-blossomed and delicate-leaved I. Quamoclit, were
frequently to be seen. The flowering trees which made the
greatest show were the acordia and the various jasmines, while
for magnificence of foliage the bread-fruit surpasses everything.
It is a tall-growing tree, with very large dark green and glossy
leaves very much cut and divided, while up amongst the
branches hang the lighter green balls, which are its fruit.
Then there is the ebony, not the ebony of commerce, with large
yellow-brown pods hanging in quantities amongst its leaves,
so light that they stir with the gentlest breeze, and rattle
against the branches and among themselves ; and so the tree
has gained the local name of " women's tongues," because of the
incessant noise it makes. The " flamboyant " is a low tree
which covers itself with scarlet blossoms at the commencement
of the rainy season, but which, when I saw it, was bearing its

long sickle-shaped pods at the ends of its somewhat gauntly-
i-

42 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

growing branches. Its pod is frequently two feet long, two
inches, in breadth, and half an inch thick.

By the side of the road for some distance from Bridgetown
runs a telegraph wire, supported on the usual stiff and ugly
posts ; it is part of the wire to St Lucia, and which, touching
at all the islands, connects them with America, aiid so with
England. The road, when sometimes running just above the
sea on some low cliff, or when sometimes separated from the
sea by a strip of land covered with manchineel-bushes, is very
interesting. Manchineel is one of the very few plants not to
be meddled with in Barbadoes. It grows as low bush-like
trees, with yellowish evergreen foliage, strikingly in style and
shape of leaf like an inoffensive pear-tree, but so full of acrid
and venomous juice that even a bruised leaf will raise a
troublesome blister should it touch the hand.

"VYe passed through two collections of houses dignified with
the name of towns — namely, Holetown and Speight's Town,
locally called " Spikes." The former place is nothing more
than a rather larger collection of wooden huts than usual, and
perhaps the huts themselves are rather more like houses
than usual, and seemed less likely to blow down at the first
gust of wind. The generality of huts are a standing monu-
ment to the fact that hurricanes are not usual occurrences
in Barbadoes, nor even -violent winds ; for I am sure even
a commonplace English storm would make a clean sweep of

BARBADOES. 43

the rickety old things. Speight's Town is certainly more like
a town than Holetown, for we drove through a continuous
though irregular street for about half a mile. The houses are
built of stone or brick, and not wood, and there are some very
lecent shops and stores to be seen. Close to the town there

re two jetties stretching out into the sea, and some few ships

rere anchored there.
Patches of Guinea corn were to be frequently seen by the

Dadside ; next to sugar-cane it is the most frequent crop, and
a very striking one. It is a tall-growing grass, perhaps twelve
or fifteen feet high, with a thin stem and scattered leaves ;

>earing at the top a large head, formed of a bunch of little
grains, each on their own stalk. Along the edges of the cane-
fields are planted pigeon peas, or bonavists, or sorrel-plants.
Pigeon peas grow on low bushes ; the blossoms are small and
yellow, and the peas themselves are brownish when boiled, and
rather tough, but not unlike our peas in flavour. The bonavist
is another vegetable of the pea tribe ; it is in appearance like
a dwarf French bean ; the pods, however, are not eaten, only
the seeds ; they are the shape of French beans, only smaller and
flatter, and very tender and well flavoured ; they make capital
soup. Sorrel is a plant of the mallow tribe, with very red
stems and leaf-stalks, from the fruit of which a very pleasant
and refreshing drink is made.

There is not a very great quantity of birds to be met with.

44 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

The commonest bird is called the " blackbird," and he is to be
seen on every piece of freshly-cultivated ground. He is about
the size of a starling, jetty black, with a long tail, and evidently
first cousin on one side to a magpie, and on the other to a
jackdaw. They are generally in small flocks. There is also
a brown bird, called a dove, rather common, which makes
a low dove-like cooing that always sounds distant, however
near it may be. A little bird, very much like a sparrow, no
handsomer certainly in dress, hops about ; and a yellow bird,
the size and look of a tomtit, haunts the borders of the cane-
fields. Humming birds frequently flit across the road, but
fly so swiftly that they are hardly distinguished before they
are gone ; and it is only when they come and rifle a flower of
its honey close to you, that you can have any idea of their
brilliant colouring.

There is no running water in Barbadoes except in the
north-east part of the island, and very few pools of standing
water ; but by those, there are generally to be seen negro women
washing. This is done by laying the clothes on one stone and
beating them with another. Starch is freely used by the washer-
women of the island, but chiefly where an Englishman could
dispense with it. Every part of a shirt is starched, and pocket-
handkerchiefs come home as stiff as cardboard. If they would
put more starch in a shirt-front, and less elsewhere, it would
greatly conduce to the comfort of the wearer.

BARBADOES. 4$

With the exception of the interest it derives from being so
close to the sea, the road is rather tame. But for one short
spell of one hundred yards, about a mile and a half to the
north of Speight's Town, it runs through a cutting of coral
rock some fifty feet deep, the sides of which seem actually to
overhang, and are literally clothed with trees, clinging to every
available spot, nearly meeting overhead, and darkening the
road. But we were soon out of this romantic cutting, and the
road became more uninteresting still, since it left the sea-shore
and struck inland. It became hilly too ; and in one place it
wound in curves up the side of a hill, so that it could be seen
below us for some distance.

For the last few miles it was dark, and we finished our drive
to the accompaniments of the shrill chirp of the crickets and
the croaking of the frogs. The crickets keep up an incessant
noise from dusk to sunrise ; while the frogs, or " crapauds," as
they are called, spend the dark hours in reiterating their
peculiar note, which is not unmusical, reminding one of water
poured slowly out of a bottle, or the syllables, "gog-log-log,"
spoken no quicker than ordinary talk.

CHAPTER V.

ST NICHOLAS ABBEY — FARLEY HILL — SPOUT — ST JOHN'S
CHURCH — CODRINGTON COLLEGE — THE CRANE.

HE morning after my arrival at L , I was "carried,"

to use a Barbadian expression, to a bathing-place some
four miles away, and if any place could tempt a man
to bathe, it would. It was a small wooden house situated in
a little bay between two bold promontories, and in front of it
stretched a shelf of rocks, over which the waves dashed
furiously. A basin some fifty feet square has been dug out
behind two or three of the largest rocks, and over part of this
basin the bathing-house is built. The basin is about four feet
deep at low tide, and about six at high water ; for that is all
the variance between high and low water at Barbadoes. The
sea is as clear as crystal, and the most delightful blue in colour ;
the sand so white and velvety, and the water so buoyant and
warm. Little fishes abound, about the size of a minnow, striped
with a lovely turquoise blue; .while larger fishes, green, yellow,
and black, swim about in the clear water. Out on the distant

BARBADOES. 47

rock barriers and promontories the waves break incessantly
into large snowy-white masses of foam, while from these
breakers drifts continually before the wind a fine mist,
dimming the outline of the distant cliffs and covering one's
hands and face with briny spray. In the coral rock close at
hand are imbedded recent shells ; and in one place I saw a
gigantic conch-shell gradually turning, I suppose, into a fossil.

An excursion I took from L to Cherry-Tree Hill, one of

the best points of view in the island, is worth describing. A
drive of a few miles brought us to St Nicholas Abbey. The
drive was, like most drives in Barbadoes, through nothing but
waving fields of sugar-canes, which I must say get rather
monotonous when one sees nothing but canes, or fields prepared
for canes, or fields of young canes, on every side and in every
direction ; while the only tree of any size that occurs about
these cane-fields to break the monotony is the tall, gaunt, and
somewhat sorrowful-looking cabbage-palm. St Nicholas Abbey
is an old stone-built English-looking house, and is all the more
English looking because it possesses those appendages, so rare
in Barbadoes — I think I may even say unique — chimney-stacks.
The house had a garden in front of it in English fashion, and
was fenced in ; there were quantities of trees round it, chiefly
mahogany.

Leaving St Nicholas Abbey, we drove to Cherry-Tree Hill.
The road climbs up a steep hill, and is bordered on each side

48 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

by a row of mahogany-trees, close behind which on either
side rise up steep cliffs of grey coral rock When the top is
reached there bursts upon you a splendid view of the country
described in a former chapter, and called Scotland. Jagged,
sharp, and nigged hills, clustered together in great disorder,
lay below us, of all shades of red and yellow and brown ; while
in the valleys, or wherever earth could be found, waved fields
of green cane, looking graceful and beautiful because of their
association with such rugged rocky scenery.

Then we drove on to Farley Hill, a very fine house, the
finest in Barbadoes. That most graceful fern Adiantum
Farleyense was raised here. The fernery is in a valley shaded
by evergreen and tamarind trees, and is full of the most
lovely ferns. I heard the history of Farleyense : it seems to
be undecided whether it is a species, or a variety, or a hybrid ;
and there seem to be some forcible arguments against each of
these views, though of course one must be the right one.
Against its being a distinct species it is said that it has never
been found wild, but comes up amongst Adiantum seedlings
in Farley Hill fernery, and in one other only in the island.
Against the view that it is a variety is urged the fact that
about one in ten of these seedlings is always a Farleyense, which
never varies in its form ; nor do the other seedlings vary from
each other, as they most probably would do if it were only a
sport. While, of course, against its being a hybrid, it is asked

BARBADOES. 49

how ferns which bear no flowers, and on whose spores no bees
or flies ever rest, can get hybridised with one another. My
informant, nevertheless, imagined it to be a hybrid between
Adiantum tenerum and A. macrophyllum, though if it is so, it
seems strange that it should not occur in many other ferneries
where there are specimens of those two species. After dis-
cussing the ferns we walked through the grounds, and up a
path bordered with graceful bamboos, which led to a spot
commanding a fine view, much the same in character as that
to be seen from Cherry-Tree Hill.

From Farley Hill we drove by a circuitous route back to

L , my host wishing to show me as much of the country as

possible. On the way we passed a curious cutting in a perpen-
dicular face of rock, some distance above the level of the road,
and said to have been made by the Caribs, the primeval
natives of the island. It is a cavity about four feet wide and
eight feet high, and the top seems to be a perfect semicircle ;
how far into the cliff it penetrates I could not see. That it
could have been made by uncivilised Caribs appears to me
doubtful. We called also at the Chapel of All Saints, where
there are some beautiful painted glass windows and many old
monuments. In almost all the churches of the island are old
monuments, bearing coats-of-arms and well-known English
names, and in many instances the date of the seventeenth
century.

5O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

The next morning I went to see a natural curiosity called
the Spout. I had hoped while I was in this part of the island
to visit a celebrated cave in the cliff at the extreme northern
point, but which is very difficult and dangerous to reach except
in certain conditions of wind and sea, which did not occur
during my stay. It is called the Animal-Flower Cave, on ac-
count of the variety and beauty of the sea-anemones which
inhabit some large natural basins in the floor of the cave. So
I was fain to be satisfied with hearing of its beauties. The
Spout, however, is very curious. The face of the country for
half a mile from the edge of the cliff, here perhaps fifty feet
high, is a stony waste without any vegetation but a creeping
saltwort or a straggling cactus here and there. The cliff is
broken into several ledges, and the whole coast is very rugged,
while rocks of all sizes stand solitarily amongst the waves.
Both rocks and cliff, however, preserve a certain squareness of
outline; in consequence their tops are flat, and over these rocks
break the waves, which run off their tops and ledges in most
beautiful cascades, which last generally until the next wave
comes, for they follow each other in somewhat quick succession.
The Spout is a hole in one of the flat ledges of the cliff, and
from this hole, a rough circular opening perhaps two feet in
diameter, rises in stormy weather a column of spray fifty feet
high 3 and though when I sa.w it, it rose only twenty feet at
the outside, still it was a magnificent sight. I discovered that

BARBADOES. 5 1

the Spout was not the wave that was forced through the hole
by its own rush, for the wave itself never appeared through
the hole ; but it was caused by the water, which by the break-
ing of one wave over the ledge was left there, running in a
volume down the Spout-hole ; for before the water could all
run away the next wave came, and filling up the mouth of the
cavern in the face of the cliff connected with the hole, the
compressed air turned back the water running down the hole,
and forced it up into the air in the finest imaginable spray.
Thanks to the prevailing wind, we were enabled to get quite
close to the Spout on the windward side of it. There seemed
to be many li ttle holes in the rock communicating with the main
cavern, for on listening closely, the air could be heard hissing
and humming through the crevices when a wave struck the face
of the cliff. Some distance from the Spout grew some very fine
clumps of prickly pear of two kinds — one tall and columnar, like
an elongated cucumber ; the other, the common sort, a collec-
tion of large fleshy green lobes covered with immense prickles.

After my return from L to \V , I went to visit St

John's Church and Codrington College. The drive was through
characteristic Barbadian scenery, through cane-fields, and cut-
tings in the coral rock, which are met with on every road —
here passing a grove of mahogany-trees, and there a group of
cabbage-palms, while nearly every rising ground was crowned
by a windmill From St John's Church a lovely view is ob-

52 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

tained, in which the sea forms the prominent feature. The
church is situated on the brow of a hill at least 600 feet above
the sea, and which slopes down steeply but gradually to the
shore, which is not much more than half a mile away as the
crow flies. By the shore, the ground, being rather more
level, is covered with canes ; while higher up, as it slants more
steeply, negro huts, with their patches of gardens placed in the
crevices of the rock, are to be observed. A large expanse of
ocean can be seen, as one is so high above it, and it is the
most delightful blue in colour. Through the cane, here and
there by the sea, peeps out in the distance the white road, and
solitary cocoanut-palms stand down by the water's edge. There
is a lovely orange-orchard attached to the Rectory of St John's.
Jn it there are quantities of trees as big as a full-grown apple
or pear tree, covered with their fruit — oranges, shaddocks, and
grape fruit, which hang down in every direction from their
branches, a most tempting sight.

After going over the church we drove along the top of the
cliff to Society Chapel, whence we walked to Codrington College,
which is situated on the level ground below. The carriage-road
to the College from St John's Church is very circuitous ; but
there is a shorter way down the face of the cliff, quite impas-
sable, however, for a carriage. Codrington College is a kind of
finishing school where boys have an advanced course of study,
but where, of course, they do not grant degrees. It is a large

BARBADOES. 5 3

collegiate-looking building, situated some three hundred yards
from the road, between which and it is a level expanse of turf,
broken towards the College by a large square pool of water.
Through the middle of this plot of grass runs the approach to
the College, bordered on each side by a closely-planted row of
cabbage-palms ; a row of which trees runs all round the grassy
expanse, and single specimens are scattered about near the
building. To the right and left of the College are shrubberies,
and single trees of teak, mahogany, and white wood show them-
selves in various directions.

Under the guidance of my friend I went to a small building
in one corner of the grounds, in which we found a delightful
fresh-water bath, perhaps ten yards wide and twenty long.
Procuring some towels from one of the students, without more
ado in we went and splashed about to our heart's content for a
quarter of an hour. The temperature of the water was delight-
ful, and the only drawback to its being the nicest dip I had
had for some time was, that we had a long and steep hill to
climb under the burning sun before we could get back to our
carriage. The bath was decorated with various mottoes, of
which water was the subject : the one that met the gaze on
entering was very good —

" Emblem of life, which, still, as we survey,
Seems motionless, yet ever glides away."

There are two or three spring? of water in the neighbourhood

54 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

of the College, one of which supplies the bath with an ever-
running stream, while another is conducted along the sea-shore
all round the south end of the island as far as Bridgetown, and
affords that town a constant supply of the purest water.

After our bath we called upon the Principal of the College,
and then climbed the steep path and regained with great satis-
faction the carriage.

Another part of the island that I visited was the south-east
corner, where is situated a watering-place called the Crane.
Here is the district in which aloes are grown, from which the
celebrated drug Barbadoes aloes is extracted. There are large
fields of them, like dwarf thick-leaved yuccas, not rising more
than a foot from the ground, and of a reddish-grey-green
colour. Some of the fields were in blossom, and their pecu-
liar but not unpleasant odour filled the air : the blossom is a
tall spike bearing from the top some way down the stem a
quantity of yellow tubes — in fact exactly like Tritoma uvaria,
only smaller, and yellow instead of red. Cotton, too, is grown
there ; but it is a very ragged and uninteresting plant, very
much like a vegetable called " ochra." There are also some
large fiat fields of sour grass, looking more like English
meadows than anything I had yet seen, though the grass
appeared to be very coarse and wiry.

At the farthest eastward point of this district is a large square
castellated building, called Lord's Castle or Long Bay Castle,

BARBADOES. 5 5

erected evidently, as they say, regardless of expense. The
chief story is raised some distance from the ground, and is
approached on each of the four sides by a wide flight of steps
composed of chequers of white and black marble. I did not go
inside, but was told that the stucco cornices were well worth
seeing. The building is situated on a bare and bleak promon-
tory, and overlooking, between it and the sea, a grove of cocoa-
nut-palms ; but still for all the beautiful foliage of those trees
it looks very desolate. It is a long distance from any other
gentleman's residence, and in consequence both of its grandeur
and solitariness no one lives there.

From the Castle we drove to the Crane, which consisted
chiefly of scattered and unpretending houses, with a thick
sprinkling of negro huts, and stopped to visit a place called
the " Horse," a half-natural and half-artificial curiosity. The
edge of the cliff" is approached, and in front is seen a flight of
steps apparently leading down to the sea ; on descending them,
however, they suddenly turn to the right and lead through a
cleft in the coral rock, bordered by high and rugged cliffs,
down to a cavern-like opening at the level of the sea, though
solid rock is interposed between you and the ocean. At the
bottom of this cavern are three natural basins of water, two of
which are connected with the sea, and fill and partly empty
with the rise and fall of every wave, while the third is con-
stantly full of fresh water. It is a grand place, with its rugged

56 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

rocks ; the dim light just struggling in through the top of the
ravine ; the ever filling and emptying cavities ; and last, not
least in inspiring awe, the never-ceasing thump of the waves
on the other side of the rocky barrier. We stayed there some
time, for it was cool and pleasant, while the sun outside was
hot and glaring.

Many were the breakfast parties I went to, and many were
the cane-fields I inspected, during my stay in Barbadoes, and
the hospitality I met with was unbounded. Every one seemed
to have entered into a conspiracy to promote my comfort and
happiness, and it was with a feeling of regret that I saw the
day appointed for my departure from such kind friends rapidly
approach.

CHAPTER VI.

NEGR OES — ES TA TES — LEA VE BA RBA DOES — TOBA GO — FIRS T
SIGHT OF DEMERARA — HOTEL-HUNTING.

fHE peasantry of Barbadoes is nearly entirely black,
though there are some few poor whites. They are civil,
industrious, and contented ; and since the island is so
thickly inhabited, they are obliged to work ; for though they
generally own their own huts, and get a good deal out of the
little patches of land attached to them, still it is not sufficient to
keep them without working. They have the credit of being in a
measure immoral, but since the females very largely outnumber
the males, it is so accounted for. They are, as a rule, very honest,
and no great crimes prevail amongst them. Offences against
the person, as assaults and suchlike, are rare. The greatest
temptation placed in their way, and one to which they seem
not unfrequently to fall victims, is the facility for stealing
sugar-cane from the cane-fields, which are totally unprotected
except by watchmen, who of course cannot be in many places
at one time. The negro is very fond of cane, and practically

58 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

lives upon it during the crop-time — that is, while sugar is being
made. The punishment for a first offence of stealing cane is
three months' imprisonment ; on a second conviction, six
months, which term is also the punishment for all after
offences of the same nature. Fowl-stealing is not very pre-
valent, though one sometimes hears of it ; but for that also
there is great facility because of the quantity of poultry kept
at the various estates. Children abound, and the boys run
about clothed in nothing till they are eight or ten, but the
girls are invariably decently dressed.

The negroes are very religious on Sundays, and flock to
church and chapel dressed in the most wondrous manner ; but
they do not carry their religion with them every day in the
week, nor does it penetrate very deep. A negro one day, after
hearing a powerful and uprousing sermon, announced to his
friends that he was quite ready to die that night. One of his
friends then, while the negro in question was going to bed by
the light of a candle, approached his front door and knocked
three times in a most sepulchral manner. " Who dere ] " asked
the negro. No answer, but three more knocks. " Who
dere ? " again he shouted. In a deep bass voice his friend
answered, " I am Michael, the angel of death." " What you
want here ? " parleyed the negro inside. " I am come for the
soul of Thomas Jones." -A scuffle inside, and " 0 Lor' ! 0
Lor5 ! " in a smothered voice. Out went the candle, and care-

BARB A DOES. 59

fully peeping through the window of the hut, he said, " You
come for Tom Jones, eh ? Well, him just gone out ; " and off
he bolted as fast as he could through the back door. Another
tale, much to the same purpose, is the following : A nigger
hut had a pumpkin-vine growing over the roof, and a fellow
once climbed up to steal the pumpkins, when, to his horror, the
vine gave way, and he was let through the roof, and came
down between the owner and his wife, who were in bed. At
his wit's end for an answer to the indignant complaint and
question of the disturbed sleeper, " Who dere ? " his disturber
answered, " I am de debil himself, come to take you away."
Away went the man and his wife, one one way, another
another, leaving the thief in possession of the house and his
stolen pumpkins, which had fallen through with him, and with
which he decamped in peace.

There are some coloured families who are wealthy in Bar-
badoes, but the line of demarcation between coloured people
and whites is strongly drawn and firmly maintained. People
in England consider that the word " creole " implies an ad-
mixture of coloured blood in the person so addressed. But it
is not so : it is an adjective implying bom in the colony,
and is not only applied to people, but also to animals, as creole
beef and creole mutton ; and I have even heard of creole soda-
water, in opposition to soda-water imported from England. All
the white people, therefore, are white Creoles, and the black

6O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

people are black Creoles, only in respect to the colony they are
born in, and not to the rest of the islands.

Both whites and blacks, however, agree in one respect, and
that is intense admiration for their native island, which I
think they have some cause for. A ludicrous story is told
of a negro who was cook of a sailing-vessel between England
and Barbadoes. During the voyage he dressed in the quietest
manner, and was all that a cook should be ; but just before
he landed it was observed that he was got up in the finest
style — black coat, white waistcoat, gold chain, tall hat, and
showy gloves. He was asked what was the matter. " Oh,"
said he, " Barbadoes is such a pomposity fine nation, I must
dress well to go on shore."

To a superficial observer the two great wants of Barbadoes,
to increase immensely its productive powers, are manure and
water. There is no running water in the island except in
Scotland, and though there is generally plenty of rain, still
that is not like a perpetual stream. Every inch of land that
can be cultivated is under cane, so that only the rocky and
scrubby land that will produce nothing is left to graze the
cattle upon. Now, without good feeding and plenty of litter
cattle will not produce manure, and except in crop-time there
is no litter; so that even the scrubby bushes which grow upon
the rocks are cut down and thrown into the cattle-pen, and
it may be imagined that branches of trees will not make first-

BARBADOES. 6 1

rate stuff for fields. So the consequence is, that great quan-
tities of guano are used, and cane is so stimulated that the
ratoons, as the second crop from the same plant is called, are
comparatively useless. Yet with all these disadvantages,
sugar-cane is a very paying crop in Barbadoes ; and land
fetches a high price, from £80 to £100 per acre, and with
good management will return quite ten or twelve per cent,
upon the purchase-money.

Many estates belong to absentee proprietors, who draw their
money, and live in England or elsewhere. The estate is then
put into the hands of an attorney, who manages it, and fre-
quently has many estates on his hands at the same time. An
attorney corresponds to a land agent, but lie is responsible for
the cropping and cultivation of an estate, as well as exercising
the ordinary duties of a land agent. He is paid by a percent-
age on the money produced by the crop. Under the attorney
are managers, selected and placed on the various estates by
himself, and who live in the estate houses. In consequence,
these houses are very frequentty sadly out of repair ; for since
the owner does not live in the house, he does not much mind
what condition it is in. The salary of a manager is about
£200 a year, but he has many perquisites ; horses are found
him, and their food and stabling, and other privileges really
double or treble that sum.

At last the 30th of January came, on which day I was to

62 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

start from Barbadoes to Demerara. There is a very perfect
system of signals all over Barbadoes, and some signal-station or
other is visible from every part of the island ; and by means
of flags one can always tell what ships are coming in, and
from what direction, so that there is no fear of missing the
steamer if a good watch is kept for the signal " steamer to
windward ; " for as the intercolonial boats await at Barbadoes
the arrival of the Transatlantic steamer, the signal for her
arrival is the signal for the departure of the other boats.

But the incoming steamer, the Moselle, had encountered bad
weather during her voyage ; so my luggage had been packed
up, and a constant watch had been kept from a neighbouring
hill on the signal-station for two days, before the looked-for
flag was hoisted. However, on the morning of Saturday, the
1st of February, the signal was flying • so I said goodbye to
my kind friends, and hastened down to Bridgetown, and went
on board the Corsica, the steamer going to Demerara.

The Corsica was not an edifying boat to travel in ; she had
high wooden bulwarks — so high, in fact, that you could see
nothing but sky when you were sitting down — and the deck and
saloon gave you a feeling of oppressiveness. Her steering appa-
ratus was of the shakiest : it kept up a continual lively quiver,
and the man at the wheel had to hold on like grim death to
keep it at all steady. Moreover, there was on board the circus
company, with nine horses and mules, which animals by no

TOBAGO. 63

means contributed a small share to the savoury and odoriferous
scents on board.

"We started from Barbadoes about three o'clock. Next
morning as soon as it was light I looked through my port-
hole, and saw that we were running by the side of land, so I
went up on deck and found that it was the island of Tobago.
I don't quite know why it was, but the idea of seeing Tobago
was quite a shock to my ideas of propriety. Having heard in
the days of infancy, and ever since, of the Old Man of Tobago,
who lived on rice, gruel, and sago, I had learned to look upon
the place as somewhat mythical, and should as soon have
expected to see the veritable bean-stalk up which Jack climbed,
as the residence of that celebrated old man.

' Tobago, from the vessel, seemed mountainous — all hills and
valleys — apparently too hilly to be cultivated, and scattered
over with trees and cocoa-palms. But my powers of observa-
tion were not of the clearest, for two reasons — firstly, the
unsteadiness of the vessel ; secondly, on account of rain, which
descended in frequent showers. At last we turned round a
point of land, and soon found ourselves off Scarborough, the
chief town of the island. From the steamer this town seemed
merely a collection of houses placed upon the side of a hill,
and bowered in trees. To the right a hill rose more precipi-
tously, on the top of which was placed a fort, a white low
building, with a few houses near it.

64 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

Inland one could see distant hills, all appearing well wooded,
and bringing to remembrance the country around Dunkeld.
Cocoa-palms abounded near the sea-shore, and further inland ;
but we were too far away to distinguish clearly the various
kinds of foliage. Some men came off from the shore with
humming-bird and other skins for sale.

It did not take long to transact our business at Tobago,
and soon we turned our head to sea and steamed off. Some
forty hours afterwards, on waking in the middle of the night,
I found that the Corsica had anchored at the mouth of the
Demerara river, waiting for morning and the tide. So, first
thing in the morning I went on deck, and found that the
beautiful blue of the water had merged into a pea- soup
colour ; while far in the distance lay the shore, looking as flat
and uninteresting as can be imagined, with tall chimneys stick-
ing up in all directions, some of them smoking in a way that
would not discredit an English factory. About seven o'clock
we once more started, and in about an hour we dropped
anchor in the Demerara river, off Georgetown. Since the site
of Georgetown is so flat, no good view is obtained on approach-
ing it from the river. Nothing is to be seen but low wooden
buildings and warehouses, over which in the distance can be
seen the towers of churches and the tops of the higher houses,
amongst which tower up tall cabbage and cocoanut palms.

As soon as the Corsica was safe at her moorings, she was

DEMERARA. 65

surrounded by a host of boats clamouring for passengers ; so
selecting a clean-looking one, I had my luggage carried down ;
and confiding in the old proverb, first come first served, as far
as hotel accommodation is concerned, I made the best and
quickest way I could to Beckwith's Hotel, the best establish-
ment of that kind in Georgetown. But although I was the
first passenger who arrived there, I did not get served, for
the place was full, so I had to seek other lodgings. I then
went to Baine's Hotel (which during my stay in Georgetown
was rechristened the Tavistock) ; but that also was full, having
been secured for the circus company. There was only one
hotel then left, the Phoenix, and thither I wended my way.
It was full also, and I was beginning to despair, when a gentle-
man with whom I had crossed the Atlantic in the Tasmanian
happened to hear my voice, and coming out of his room, kindly
allowed me to rig up a shakedown in the corner of his room
for two or three days, until I could be taken in at Beckwith's.
So I had my goods brought to the Phoenix, and after having
breakfast and a rest in the middle of the day, in the afternoon
sallied forth to explore the town.

CHAPTER VII.

DEMERARA.

( |$HE first impression that Georgetown gives you, on

\TI ^\

exploring, is its resemblance to a large garden rather
than a town. The streets are very wide, so wide
that the beaten track runs down the middle, and leaves a broad
grass-plot on each side of it. Either on each side the road, or
down the middle of some, runs a dyke or canal, which seemed
sometimes to be of a pestilential character. All the houses
are separate, and each one stands on its little plot of ground,
which is usually filled with flowering trees and shrubs and
palms, and thus giving a very pretty effect, though the perfect
flatness of the ground prevents much being seen at one glance.
The chief street of the city is Water Street, which runs parallel
to the river for some distance ; and as in it the houses approach
more closely to each other, it wears in a greater measure than
other parts of the town the appearance of an ordinary street.
The other streets of importance run parallel with this, inter-

DEMERARA. 6/

sected at regular intervals by cross streets, for the town is laid
out in regular squares.

The town is lighted with gas, although oil-lamps had been
abolished only a few weeks before I arrived there.

The houses are nearly entirely constructed of wood, roofed
with slates or shingle. Slates are ordered to be used by law
in the more populous parts of the town.

The houses are raised from the ground on pillars, to protect
the inhabitants from the damp rising from the marshy soil on
which they are built. Before each runs a balcony or gallery,
and the windows are shaded with jalousies or Venetian blinds.
In most instances the offices for the servants and kitchens are
placed in separate buildings ; and each house is surrounded by
trees and shrubs, and enclosed from the street by wooden
palings. White enters largely into the decoration of the outside
of the houses, and forms a pleasing contrast to the green of
the abundant foliage.

The macadam of the streets is carefully made and preserved,
but soon gets very uneven and bumpy, on account of the
marshy clay which forms the subsoil. As I said, wide strips of
grass run between the centre roadway and the trenches on each
side, which form the chief drainage of the town. These
trenches are flushed at high water, and as the tide retires it
carries away with it all offensive matter. Sometimes, however,
the trenches get so choked up with mud or other refuse that

68 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

the water in them stagnates, and gives a filthy and pestilential
look to those parts of the town in which this accident occurs.

There is no drinking-water except the rain, which is carefully
collected from the roofs of the houses and stored in large
wooden tubs. It is a satisfaction to know that one's drinking-
water is not drawn from, and has no connection with, the long
muddy trenches ; though what dead cats and dogs a careful
exploration of these tubs would reveal, imagination only can
depict.

Negroes seem in Georgetown to be of a higher class than at
Barbadoes. One sees more of them dressed in ordinary
European costume. Coolies and coolie women abound in the
streets. The men are slightly built, but sinewy, and with rather
a sly look about them. The women are all small, but many of
them are very good-looking ; they frequently carry about with
them a great weight of silver in armlets and necklaces and rings.
Some wear rings all round their ears, not only in the lobe. Most
of them wear a nose-ring, either through the middle cartilage
of the nose, or through one side or the other ; and if they are
not wearing the ring, they insert a small wooden or silver
stopper in the ring-place. They frequently wear rings on their
toes. Their commonest ornaments are silver coins hung side
by side to a chain, and of these they then form necklaces and
bands for their arms. They carry their children on their hips,
and the usual clothing for young children is simply a piece of

DEMERARA. 69

string tied round their waist. The men wear as clothing only
a loose short shirt with short sleeves, and a strip of cloth tied
round the waist, and looped and twisted up in a manner that
leaves the whole leg bare. The women wear short dresses
and a loose jacket over them, sometimes of bright colours, with
very short or no sleeves ; and over all is frequently thrown a
light scarf, which sometimes covers the back of the head also. /
They generally have long and beautiful hair, sometimes left flow-
ing down the back; and the parting of the hair of some of them,
according to their caste, is coloured red with anatto. The
especial weapon of the coolies is a light pole, some eight feet
long, made of hackia-wood, and called a hackia-stick ; they
frequently carry them with them into the town, and they look
as if, when used with skill, they would form very murderous
weapons indeed.

Sometimes in the streets of Georgetown may be seen the
natives of the country. Buck Indians they are called, while
the two sexes are distinguished by the names of Bucks and
Buckhines. I saw a man and two women walking down
Water Street one day ; they were copper-coloured and plump,
clothed in nakedness, with the exception only of a little
ornamental piece of cloth, perhaps a foot square, tied round
their waists with a narrow blue string. Their brown naked
bodies looked very strange to my unaccustomed eyes, as they
walked sedately along the street among a crowd of more

7O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

decently-dressed people, who seemed, however, to regard them
as quite a matter of course.

There are a good many Chinese in Georgetown and on the
plantations in the colony, most melancholy-looking always,
and nearly always dressed in blue. Portuguese, originally
immigrants from Madeira, are very flourishing in the colony :
they have gradually monopolised the liquor and the small i

shop-keeping trades ; and there is hardly a village, however/

M
small, in the interior, without its Portuguese shop.

The shops in Water Street are very good : they have large
plate-glass windows, well stocked with merchandise; and the
streets have pavements on each side, so that the shops can be
well seen. In some parts of the^town the Chinese congregate

and set up shops for their own people. The fronts of these

nedwith strips ofred paper covered with

characters, looking hopelessly entang

stranger, but no doubt of great importance to the person who

has stuck them up.

/ There are plenty of carriages for hire in the streets, but they
are the most sorry contrivances to be seen in any town. Not
that the carriages in themselves are so bad, though of
course they are rickety and dirty; but the horses carry enough
wretchedness to suffice both for themselves and the car-
riages. One day I hired one. of these conveyances to take me
tcall at a house about two miles out of the town. After

DEMERARA.

a very slow trot for the first mile, the deplorable animal in
the shafts reduced his pace to a walk, beyond which the liberal
allowance of whip made use of by the driver could not make
him move ; and last of all he stood stockstill and absolutely
refused to budge, so I had to get out of the carriage and walk
some distance while the wretched creature rested.

After I had been in Georgetown three days, I managed to
secure a room at Beckwith's Hotel, to which I moved myself
and all my belongings. The hotel was very clean and nice
while I was there in every respect but one, and that was, that
things provided for our meals, though good in quality, were
extremely limited in quantity ; and what is more, the attend-
ance was of so indifferent a character that this little took an
extremely long time to be disposed of, and dinner therefore
was a tedious performance. My bedroom was a small room
with three windows, one of which only had glass in it, while the
other two were filled with jalousies, which, however, shut up
close at night. Once or twice during the first night I spent
there I was awaked by a sound as of the pattering of heavy
rain ; but upon listening closer I found that it was the sound
of innumerable footsteps between my ceiling and the roof, and
I immediately put them down to rats; but on inquiry, I
found the noise was caused by a colony of bats which had
taken up their abode there.

Another noise that continues all night in Georgetown,

72 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

besides crickets and grasshoppers and crapauds, to which one
soon gets accustomed, is_J.hfi. crowwgTPrH&e--jiQiaestic

which useful biped abounds there. Cocks in Demerara crow
all night, and loudly too ; they keep up a continual roar, in
front, behind, to the right, to the left— big ones, little ones,
and middle-sized ones, all crowing one against another, and
waking the echoes of the night with their harsh noise.

One night, in a house about twenty yards from my bedroom
window, there was a dignity ball going on — that is, a

of coloureapeople. When I went to bed, soon after
ten o'clock, they were dancing most furiously to the strains of
a band consisting of a trombone, a flute, and a cornet. Two
or three times in the night I was aroused by the noise they
made; and in the morning about six, when I got up, the band
was still playing away, though they had got rather wild. The
flute continued on its way pretty steadily; but the cornet only
chimed in with a flourish every now and then, while the trom-
bone was reduced to scattering a few bass notes here and
there, without any regard for time or tune.

There is a bird common in the town which has a song exactly
like an English blackbird. In the early morning, before the
sun gets its full power, and shines with a paler light, more like
our summer sun, it requires but a little dreaminess and a stretch
of imagination to fancy one's self back in England, listening to
our English song-birds. Swallows and swifts, very much in

DEMERARA. 73

appearance like our summer visitors in England, abound in
Georgetown; but the commonest bird of all amongst the
houses, and which is to be heard in every tree, is called the
" Qu'est-ce-qu'il-dit," from its note, which is a very perfect
imitation of those words rapidly spoken. At night there is a
continual burr and buzz of grasshoppers and crickets ; and
besides the big crapauds they have in Barbadoes, there is
another kind which abounds in the dykes, and which I heard
called the Demerara nightingale. Its note, which it continues
through the night, is something like a subdued and short
whistle repeated at quickly-recurring intervals ; and as dif-
ferent individuals seem to have slightly different notes, the
effect is not unpleasing, though monotonous. The first night I
was in Georgetown, while sitting out in the verandah after it
was dark, I was much puzzled by seeing every one that passed,
as I thought, throw away the end of a cigar; but a little
observation told me that what I saw was not the falling ends
of cigars, but the flicker of fireflies by the roadside. After-
wards I saw them in thousands flitting about over a large
grassy meadow, and all I could compare them to was a shower
of very diminutive shooting stars.

Most beautiful flowers grow in the gardens by the various
houses, the commonest plant, and I think the showiest, being
the oleander, which grows everywhere, and bears its handsome
pink flowers in profusion. In many of the streets in which

74 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

there is a central canal, the sides of the water are thickly
planted with oleander-bushes, and they look extremely well
when in blossom. The Bougainvillea is common, and also a
creeper called petrsea, which bears a long dark blue raceme of
star-like flowers. The Botanical Gardens are not very well
kept ; there are one or two good things there, but grass and
weeds are far too common, and disfigure greatly the beds,
while the walks in many places are badly kept. (3n certain
days in the week the band from the^gamfeQQ^ plays there, and

at ^uchtimes it is a fashionable resort of the Georgetown
inhabitants.

There is a^yegy good public libraryand museum. Attached to

the building is a(tall k>wert)upon which^the signajs_for ships

ii , -- ~* " *** **"

and steamers areinade. and from which a very fine and com-

prehensive view of the town and surrounding country is to be
seen. Some of the specimens in the museum are very interest-
ing, but they are not nearly all named. There is not a good
collection of butterflies, nor are they arranged nor named, but
there are some very fine individual specimens. Some very inte-
resting sketches of the interior of the colony decorate the walls,
and there are some handsome cases of stuffed birds. The library
and reading-room is a large airy room, with a very fair collec-
tion of books, all got together within the last few years, for
the whole library was burnt^to J^ie_ground a short time ago.
In the town are two clubs, the British Guiana Club and the

DEMERARA.

75

town Club. My name was kindly put down at both,
and so I became an honorary member of them. The British
Guiana Club is on the model of an English one, where you can
dine or breakfast, as in England; but the other seems to be more f
of an institution for billiards, cards, liquor, and smoking, mingled /
with edifying conversation. Of the former an honorary mern-1
ber has the same privileges as an ordinary member, with the
exception of not being permitted to sleep in the bedrooms
attached to the club ; while in the latter an honorary member
may not order his own drinks, or at least may not pay for them :
an honorary member is supposed to be a person that should be
provided with liquor to any amount by his hosts, the members
of the club, without being called upon to pay for it himself.
Both clubs are exceedingly well supplied with books, papers, I
and periodicals, both American and English. {

The great drink of Deinerara is the swizzle. It is a species

of cocktail made of Angostura bitters ancT gm or brandy, and
-^^-^ 7i ^-cfr^-S. 2^ . — , — v

frothed up by rapidly turning round in the glass, between the
palms of the hand, a stick called a swizzle-stick, consisting of
a long stem with four or five short prongs sticking out from it
at the bottom. ^It jaji creamy concoction, and cool withal, for
plenty of ice is inserted (ice was only a cent a pound when I was ^
in Georgetown), but aMjift same timejnsinuating exceedingly.

People drink this, and in plenty, at all hours of the day, but

/"7N

more especially ..before breakfast (an<4 ^before dinner. The

76 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

servants in Demerara are nearly all Barbadians ; they have

driven the Creole blanks from

Georgetown is well supplied with churches and chapels. The
Cathedral is a plain church with a square tower. St Philip's
Church is the high church of the town, and a prettier churcli
inside I have seldom seen : it is lined throughout with stained
wood, and the arches are of light ironwork, and very taste-
fully decorated ; and there are some very elegant painted win-
dows in the chancel and in the body of the church. The
service was full choral, and the choir sang well. ^TJiev__were
chieflycolpuredmfiQ, and I fancied that their voices had a

more reedy quality than the voices of whites, but I suppose
that it was only fancy. The church, when I was there, was
well filled ; and the toilets of some of the ladies were really
pretty, and would have held their own amongst any assemblage

of ladies in England.
/

In the currency of British Guiana there is, besides dollars

/ and cents, a new element of confusion in the shape of guilders

/ and pieces of their fractional parts, the remains of the former

{ \f Dutch occupation of the colony. The price of goods is, as

X\ usual in the West Indies, given in dollars and cents, and to pay

I with you have besides English money, guilders, half guilders,

/ and quarter guilders. _AguiIder is Is. 4d., and just like

a shilling, only the edges are either milled diagonally or not

at all ; while the half guilder, value 8d., resembles a sixpence

DEMERARA. 77

in every respect. The consequence is, that unless you look at
every coin in particular as you pay it away, you are very liable
to give a guilder for a shilling, and so quietly dispose of four-
pence. A fourpenny-piece is called a " bit ; " and the price of

*" ' ~ • i

little articles is reckoned in "bits," the negroes saying "three

bits " in preference to a shilling, and a "bitand a half" in
preference to sixpence. """" ' — *

British Guiana has a very bad character for unhealthiness.
*v-^__ — • . "*

I wasnotTn the colony long enough to find out for myself the

truth of these statements, but I should fancy it is very much
exaggerated. I was surprised to find the heat so little oppres-
sive and the climate so agreeable. The length of the days
never varies more than forty minutes during the whole year.
I have no doubt that epidemics, when they arise, are more
virulent in the colony than in a more temperate region, but the
usual health seems to be good. In Mr Dalton's " History of
British Guiana " there are some statistics of health given,
which go very far to prove that Demerara is not the hotbed
of fevers and epidemics that is usually imagined, but, on the
contrary, taking the average of years, an exceptionally healthy
place.

CHAPTEE VIII.

UP THE ESSEQUIBO.

seven o'clock on Saturday morning, the 8th of Febru-
ary, the little steamer JEliza, not much bigger than a
penny-boat on the Thames, cast off her moorings at
the Steamboat Stelling, as they call the jetty from which the

^ — ~^ —

miers start at Georgetown, and turned her head t

p *J>ft Massarunj^jELggr.

.

perhaps fifty or
fifty-five miles from the mouth of the Essequibo. She had on
board seven persons — the commissioner visiting the settlement,
and his private secretary ; two Georgetown officials going out
for a holiday; and three strangers and tourists, wishful to
see all that there was to see, of whom I was one.

About three hours' steaming took us across the muddy
yellow water between the Demerara river and the mouth of
the Essequibo, and saw us calling at one of the numerous

UP THE ESSEQU1BO.

islands with which that river is studded, called Leguan Island,

*^"~~~- •

jrjxm which are many flourishing sugar estates. The mouth of

' ••

the Essequibo is twenty miles across, and is broken up into
four channels by three largejslands. all cultivated to a greater
or less extent, of which, however, the centre one, "Waakenaam^
isthejargest. Thesejslanda-ran^elromjen to fifteen miles
in length ; and there is one a little higher, Hog Island, much
"longer, though from its narrowness its area is not so large.
There are supposed to be 365 of these islands in the course of
the Essequibo.

In steaming from Georgetown to Leguan Island, the boat
was obliged, though she only drew five feet of water, to put
out so far to sea that land was nearly out of sight, on account
of the shallpwness of the water, and the numerou

indbanks,
"•"•*— .— - "
that extend in some instances many miles to. sea. At some

distance from the land the shore of this colony is characterised
by a lour ^p^ai^outline of thick bush, which, however, on
nearer approach, resolves itself into groups of tall palms, clumps
of bright green trees, and a low fringe of mangroves, while
peering up ajnojgriti^hn fnliagp. Tn.^y be seen the tall chimneys

sugar manufactories. The houses and villages

that may be behind this bush are entirely hidden ; but to its
rear extends the belt of land which in an unbroken level con-
stitutes the cultivated part of British Guiana.

Having called at Leguan Island, we steamed away up the

J

8O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

Essequibo, which soon began to contract in its great width.
As we neared one side we could more clearly mark the immense
variety both of colour and foliage which went to make up the
luxuriant forest which lined the banks of the river. Soon
after leaving Leguan we passed on our right
the seat of government when the colony of Essequibo was a
[Dutch possession. As we steamed close by its verdant banks,
there could be seen among the trees the remains of masonry
walls and embankments, which seemed in many places to be as
firm now as when they were first built.

The water of the river now began to get clearer, though it
retained a deep yellow colour. We kept near to the right
bank, so that we had the whole width of the river on one side
of us — a vast lake-like expanse, with island opening out
behind island, all covered with green forest, till in the
distance could be seen the opposite bank of the river some
four miles away. It would be impossible to describe all the
various trees of which the forest that fringed every shore
and island was composed, but to my European eye the palms
were the most striking objects. The Eta palm reared its tall
head of fan-like leaves far above the neighbouring vegetation,
and in company with the cabbage-palm and graceful cocoanuts
formed lovely groups in the forest. As we ascended the river
the vegetation grew more luxuriant, and appeared as a very
wall of foliage starting up from the water's edge. The Troolie

UP THE ESSEQUIBO. 8f

palni was frequently to be seen, whose long leaves are uni-
versally used as thatch for the huts of the dwellers on the
river-side. The Cocorete palm waved its somewhat stiff/

T — "«. — •— * /

and funereal leaves in the breeze, while other species reared/
their graceful heads on the slenderest of stems between the \
various trees of the forest. Close to the edge of the water grew I
magnificent ferns, and from the very highest branches long
lithe creepers hung down, and bathed their foliage in the
river.

Here and there amongst the forest could be seen the Troolie-
covered huts of the Boveanders and negroes ; and in some
neighbouring creek, which ran up amongst the trees near their
habitations, could be seen the bateaus belonging to these
people, small keelless boats propelled by spoon-shaped paddles.
Boveanders constitute, t.lift rhief population of the riveivbanks,
and have an admixture of Indian blood in their composition.^

Past miles and miles of this beauteous vegetation, past
innumerable beauteous islands, past lovely creeks running up
into the forest, and fringed with a green wall of verdure, we held
on our way, with the bright sun overhead throwing into fine
relief the various foliages of the forest. The air was aliv<
with butterflies. At last, but all too soon, we came to ihl
junction of the Essequibo with the Massaruni ; and leaving tht
EssequTbVon ourleft, and a large island, by name Kaow Island,\

on our right, we turned into the Massaruni, here nearly a mile

F

82 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

•wide, and saw the penal settlement in front of us. ChiKapw
Island is the Leper Asylum. Leprosy is a disease only too

common amongst the back and coloured population, and when
attacked they are conveyed to this residence. They are said
to display great apathy and indifference under the dreadful
affliction.

We arrived at the penal settlement about three o'clock. It
is situated on a rocky promontory jutting out into the river,
and is surrounded on all sides by the impenetrable tropical
forest, except where the water washes the foot of the height
on which it is built. It is a lovely place, so lovely that even an
enforced residence there must lose some of its punishment.

We took up our abode in a house provided for the use of
the visiting commissioner and his friends, and having inspected

our sleeping-apartments, Mr T , B , and myself took

the steamer's boat and two negroes to row over to^Qallicoon, a
Avood-cutting village on the opposite side of the river.

Just before we started we had seen a bateau set off for the
other side of the river, loaded with plantains which the
steamer had brought up from Georgetown. Before we had
gone many yards, a shout from the shore we had left directed
our attention to the bateau, and on looking in its direction
we saw the two men who had been paddling it struggling
in the water. One man quickly got astride the overturned
bateau, but the other kept struggling, and every now and

UP THE ESSEQUIBO. 83

then disappeared entirely. We thought he was drowning,
and rowing up to him as quickly as possible, we arrived
while he was still on the surface. As we reached him, how-
ever, he ceased from his exertions, and tranquilly floating, told
us not to mind about him, as he was all right, but to go to
the other fellow, as he could not swim, and without more ado
he recommenced his gymnastics. What was our amusement
to discover that the struggles of the supposed-to-be-drowning
man were caused by his frantic efforts to save his plantains,
which being very nearly the same weight as water, sank very
slowly, and as fast as one of his branches disappeared under
the water, he dived down to it and fetched it up again 1 A
boat from Callicoon having now come up, we continued on our
way, much relieved to find that a human life was not in danger.
The man having placed all the plantains that he had saved
on board the Callicoon boat, showed his skill by swimming to
shore, about a quarter of a mile distant.

Callicoon is a collection of huts and houses covered with
the universal Troolie thatch, where a colony of wood-cutters
abides. They have cleared the rocky bank of the river of trees
enough to allow them to perch their houses in the open spaces ;
but the branches of those trees that remain throw a shade
over the little village, and nearly entirely hide it from the

opposite shore. Mr T had some official business with a

Portuguese who keeps the village store. In all these little

84 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

villages and settlements are to be found the shops of Portu-
guese traders, whpsejniJ^jjiattQeolise the small shop-keeping

of the colony, and always appear flourishing.

Mr T 's business concluded, we re-entered our boat

and crossed the river again to the settlement. Dinner-time
soon arrived, and then, after a cigar, the whole party went
early to bed. In the stillness of the night the squeak of the
bats, the noises of the insects, mingled with the croaking of
the various frogs that abound by the water's edge, were very
audible. Grasshoppers and crickets kept up a continual song,
while a beetle, called, from the likeness of its noise to the whirr
of a grindstone, the razor-grinder, was heard above all sounds
by its shrillness. Sleep, however, soon brought unconscious-
ness, and the noisy silence of the tropical night passed away
unnoticed.

The next morning, Sunday, I was up early, and before break-
fast sallied forth to look more closely at the surroundings
of the penal settlement. The view from the settlement down
the Massaruni to its junction with the Essequibo is exceed-
ingly fine. The vast expanse of water seems to be a calm and
peaceful lake, dotted with islands ; while the larger one, Kaow
Island, is seen in the distance, in the centre of the picture,
situated in the very confluence of the two rivers. An avenue of
mango-trees leads down a steepish hill from the commissioner's
house to the river. Mango-trees have most densely-leaved

UP THE ESSEQUIBO. 8 5

branches, and as the branches grow very closely together, the
head of a mango-tree is absolutely impervious to light.

On a prettily-rising eminence at the back of the chief build-
ings is placed the cemetery. It is shrouded in flowering trees
and shrubs, and abundant flowers are growing amongst the
graves. There are one or two very good monuments, though
some few of them are rather ruinous. It seems very fairly kept.

There are a good many dwellings around the settlement,
where the various officials live who are connected with the
establishment. Luxuriant trees surround them, and they are
mostly prettily situated on the side of the hill, on the summit
of which stand the prison buildings. A long walk extends
back some distance into the bush, and on the banks of this
brightly-coloured lizards glide about, while butterflies of gor-
geous hues and other insects fill the air, and flutter over the
surrounding flowers.

After breakfast, while the commissioner was engaged with
his secretary on the business of his visit, the other five of the
party, borrowing one of the large boats belonging to the settle-
ment, and manning her with the steamer's men and two from
a neighbouring house, six in all, set out for Barracarra, some
distance up the river on the opposite bank, where a little
stream meanders through the forest, falling over the granite
rock in gentle cascades on its way to the sea.

We landed on a beach of white and glistening sand, and

86 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

directly came upon a deserted village, whose huts and houses
were falling to pieces through neglect. Three goats fled away,
startled at our approach. Passing these houses, we set off
along a faintly-marked track into the forest. Gorgeous butter-
flies floated by, and sported under the shade of the foliage,
some of which I was fortunate enough to transfer to my collect-
ing-box. Ferns abounded, but I had no facility at hand for
collecting them. A climbing fern festooned the branches of
the trees for twenty feet above the ground with its feathery and
luxuriant sprays, while the path in the more shady places was
carpeted with lycopodiums of various kinds. After walking
about half a mile, we found ourselves at the rocky bed of the
stream. I would I could worthily describe the scene.

In front the little stream descended from shelf to shelf of
the granite rock, forming in its descent deep pools of amber-
coloured water, bordered with arum-like plants, and fringed
with graceful and feathery ferns. Tiny lycopodiums covered
the faces of the granite boulders, and changed their ruggedness
into green velvet. A short distance above a tree had fallen
across the stream, and in its fall and death had given a
resting-place to parasites innumerable ; and on every side arose
the trunks of monarchs of the forest, in whose forks perched
orchids, and from whose branches depended giant creepers
reaching to the ground. The trees met overhead, keeping out
the glare of the tropical sun, and affording an atmosphere of

UP THE ESSEQUIBO. S/

refreshing coolness. In the more open spaces of the forest
around towered up tall palms, and the sombre Cocorete added
to the variety of the foliage with its erect and feathered leaves.
The murmur of the insects, the trickle of the water, and the
rustle of the leaves in the eastern wind made a music well
fitted to the scene.

We walked up by the side of the streamlet a short distance,
thoroughly enjoying the beauty of the scenery; and then, since
the forest became denser and the path less defined, we returned
to the boat.

The boat's head was now turned towards Cartabo, a large

estate belonging to Mr T , and situated upon the point of

laud formed by the junction of the Cayuni and the Massaruni
rivers, some six miles above the settlement. We passed on
our way the little island of Kykoveral, now overgrown with
trees, but at one time, when it belonged to the Dutch, the site
of a strong fort and garrison. We did not land there ; but
from it is to be obtained a very fine view of the two rivers in
whose confluence it is situated, and also of the penal settlement
down the Massaruni. We pushed on for Cartabo ; and arriv-
ing there, we anchored our boat to the stump of a tree and
went into the house.

Mr T then produced a hammer and chisel, and

proceeded to open a large deal box which stood in the corner
of one of the rooms, and when the lid came off, what an

88 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

assemblage of dainties was there ! A wild confusion and a
mixed heap of all that could be required to soften the hard-
ships of, or add luxury to, a man's existence in a tropical
forest ! Potted meats, preserved fish of various descriptions,
condensed milk, essence of coffee, jams, beer, soda-water, and
a host of other condiments and things too numerous to
be specified, lay mixed together in this wonderful box. With
such a store before us there was no danger of starving ; so

selecting what we thought we should like, Mr T sent

them down to the boat.

After discussing some brandy and soda water, which also
came out of this wondrous box, our next anxiety was to
secure some cocoanuts, which grew at the top of a tree some

fifty feet high, in front of the house. One of Mr T 's men

produced a long bamboo pole, and with that tried to knock
them down ; but the bamboo was only long enough to reach
them, and its bending nature prevented him from hitting them
with force enough ; and, moreover, in the middle of his efforts,
the bamboo broke in two with a loud crash.

With the offer of a shilling before him, one of the men from
the steamer proceeded to climb the tree most nimbly, and very
soon a perfect rain of cocoanuts was falling on the ground. I
tasted some milk fresh from the tree, and it was a very differ-
ent thing from cocoanut-mitk in England. The unripe fruit,
which they call "jelly cocoanuts," because the white part

UP THE ESSEQUIBO. 89

is as yet of the consistence of jelly, is very delicate in flavour.
Securing and tasting the cocoanuts took some time ; but when
the man had reached the ground in safety, and the scattered
fruit had been collected, we started off to explore again the forest,
with the idea of reaching a hill some distance at the back of
the house, from which a fine view of the river and the settle-
ment was to be obtained.

Our path lay for a hundred yards or so along the brink of
the river, while on the other side of us grew some fine clumps
of bamboos. Soon striking off into the forest, we followed a
beaten track, two men going before us with cutlasses to clear
out of the way any branches or trees that might have fallen
across the track, or if occasion needed, to cut a new path through
the forest.

Through the forest we went, which here was very dense,
and which seemed to be a collection of tree trunks and stems
of various sizes, decorated here and there with an orchid or
parasite, and supporting some eighty or a hundred feet above
our heads a canopy of leaves ; while on the ground, chiefly
covered with sticks and fallen wood, peeped out a graceful
fern or green lycopodium.

Continuing thus for a mile or so up a gentle ascent, we
came out upon a comparatively cleared place, from which a
lovely view of the wooded banks of the river was obtained.
Here were butterflies and insects of every description, and

90 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

grasshoppers in the bushes kept up an incessant song. A
handsome creeper climbed over the lower bushes, and bore at
regular distances dull scarlet flowers the size and shape of a
tulip. The sides of the open space were fringed with razor-
grass, which festooned itself about the bushes, and hung out
in places long arms to catch the unwary. It cuts sharply, and
grows in such quantities, that a good look-out must be kept
if it is to be avoided.

Having seen as much of the view as we cared for, we again
turned into the forest, now passing through open glades and
spaces surrounded by trees, but upon which, strange to say,
no bushes of any size, but only various grasses and low scrub,
grow. The soil seemed to be composed of nearly pure sand,
which may in a measure account for the bareness. "We passed
many fine orchids, but very few were in flower, and those the
more insignificant ones ; but a magnificent root of Cattleya,
superla was pointed out to me. Vanilla-plants grew up the
trees by the sides of these glades : I saw one magnificent plant,
the stem of which must have been one hundred feet long. It
climbed up the trunk of a tall tree for more than forty feet,
then along one of the branches, from the end of which it
dropped until it reached the ground again. Vanilla has a
single unbranched stem, perhaps a quarter of an inch in dia-
meter, with equidistant alternate leaves, light yellow-green in
colour and waxy in texture, and the plant runs up the trunk

UP THE ESSEQUIBO. 9 1

of a tree like a spray of ivy. There was a pod on the plant
ready to gather, which I at once transferred to my pocket.

We continued through the forest for a mile or more, fresh
beauties and objects of interest meeting our eyes at every
step, until at last we emerged into a clear space or open
field planted with cassava. Cassava is the staff of life with
the Indians ; the uncooked root is poisonous, being strongly
impregnated with prussic acid. The root is prepared as follows :
it is first grated by means of a board stuck full of sharp
stones, and the pulp is then placed in a long elastic wicker-
work tube, called a " matape," about three inches in diameter
when expanded. This tube is filled full of the grated cassava,
and the juice is extracted by suspending it to abeam or bough
of a tree, and attaching a heavy weight to the other end of
the matape, by which means it is pulled out to its original
size, and the poisonous juice falls into a calabash placed under-
neath. The root, after being thus squeezed, is dried in the sun,
and grated and sifted, and made into thin flat cakes, called
cassava bread ; and it is very good, crisp, and of a delicate flavour,
like etherealised oatcake. Tapioca is the farina of the cassava,
and is a well-known diet for invalids ; while the expressed
juice not only becomes innoxious when well boiled, but under
the name of " cassireep," forms the principal ingredient in the
celebrated pepper-pot of the West Indies, and is also used
as the foundation of Worcestershire and other sauces.

92 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

\ An intoxicating liquor called "paiworjjl is made from

\ cassava bread by fermentation, winch fermentation is increased

I by the women chewing large lumps of the bread ; and it is said

\ that the resulting liquid is not unlike malt liquor in appearance

I and taste.
/ V

Indians clear open spaces in the forest by cutting a quantity

of trees three-quarters through, and then they fell one tree in
the direction of the half-cut ones. The forest is so bound
together by creepers and bush ropes that the one tree involves
in its fall all those already cut, and the forest disappears as
if by magic.

Through the forest, in various directions, are to be observed
the tracks of the Cushi ants. ; I did not see any of the ants
themselves, but then: tracks are as well beaten as sheep-walks.
They march in large armies along these tracks, the moving
mass sometimes extending a mile in length, and when on the
march they destroy anything that takes their fancy. I was
shown one large clearing which had to be abandoned because
of the attacks of this ant, which allowed nothing to grow, but
bit off the vegetation as soon as it appeared above the ground.

A party of ants once entered Mr T 's house at Cartabo,

and carried off in one night jevery grain of a sack of rice.
_ IHigirnests are conical hillocks constructed of earth, decayed
jyood, and withered-lea vfis. and are frequently to be met witE"
in the interior of the forest.

UP THE ESSEQUIBO. 93

Keluctantly were we obliged to retrace our steps, since it
was now getting late, and we had a long roAV before us. We
took the boat close to the forest on the river-side as we rowed
down, and saw the foliage to great advantage. Here and there
a deep dark creek ran up into the forest under the shade of
the trees, tempting exploration. The Indians sometimes
poison these creeks with a substance called hyari, for the
purpose of catching fish. It is a plant of the leguminous order,
and the root contains a gummy milky juice, which is a power-
ful narcotic. It is prepared by the Indians by being beaten
with sticks until it is reduced to a coarse pulp. They then
mix it up with water till it becomes of a milky consistence.
They stretch a net across the mouth of the creek at high water,
for at that time the fish go up the creeks to feed. "When the
hyari is put into the water the fish become intoxicated, and come
to the surface of the water. They are then shot with bows and
arrows, though sometimes the Indians get so excited with
their pursuit that they dash in bodily amongst the stupefied
fish. The rivers and seas of British Guiana are said to abound
with the most delicious fish, and yet a fresh fish is never seen
on the table, while salt-fish, often of a very inferior description,
is invariably present at breakfast-time.

The mora-tree is a large tall-growing "tree, the inside of
which decays when it becomes old, and fills with a very
inflammable species of fugus. They are sometimes purposely

94 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

set fire to, when the hollow trunk draws like a chimney, and
flames come out at the end of every branch, and last of all
the tree collapses with a tremendous crash.

We arrived at the settlement after a most interesting and
pleasant day. The next morning, after an early breakfast, we
started back to Georgetown at seven o'clock. The morning
was wet and stormy, and we heartily congratulated ourselves
that the day before had been so propitious for our ramble.
The steamer Eliza reached Georgetown in safety about two
o'clock, after a most pleasant trip up the Essequibo.

CHAPTER IX.

AT DE KINDEREN.

HAD had an invitation to spend Sunday at a planta-
tion called De Kinderen, so at half-past nine on Satur-
day, February 15th, Mr T , who was to be my

companion, and myself, set out to drive to our destination.
)e Kinderen is on the JV'tJijL Co"asE)and the river Demerara

and ajjrive oQiftcon Tnilofi kv.betweenus and it ; however,
we safely landed ourselves, our carriage, and our horse on

the other side of the river, and having called on Mr M ,

at Vreed-en-Hoop, we set out on jmr drive.

The roadT is very good ; the macadamised portion is made
of the clay of the country burnt, and therefore, when fresh put
on, as it was in many places, it is of the colour and quality of
brick- ends. It is bounded on each side for its whole length by
deep dykes, and as every dyke, when originally laid out, was
laid out at right angles to some other dyke, it follows that there
are no curves in the road, but frequent corners, and frequent

96 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

bridges also, which are mostly of wood, though iron is some-
times used.

The road does not run inland, but along the seaward edge
of the estates, between them and the sea, from which it is
separated by a coppice-like growth of mangro^Q ar\d, conrida
bushes, farying in width fronTa1 fevr^ardsto se~vera1~hTIndred.
These belts of trees, though at last monotonous, were pretty and
interesting : sometimes this woodland grew on both sides the
road, and in such places perhaps the dykes would be fringed
with ferns and covered with water-lilies. Courida is not
unlike our broad-leaved upright-growing willow, and, like it,
also favours damp and marshy places. It is a most valuable
plant here. The land is so flat, and so nearly the level of the
sea, that if it were not protected by these tracts of land,
covered with scrub, and bound together by the interlaced roots
of innumerable couridas and mangroves, it would frequently
be overwhelmed by the waves. In fact, in many places, as it
is, they are obliged to build large embankments, sometimes
two or three deep, to keep the sea from breaking into the
estates.

There were some beautiful birds fluttering about ; one glossy
black fellow with a scarlet breast I especially noticed. Bright
plumages, blue and yellow, were frequent ; and one long-legged
fellow, with cinnamon-coloured wings and a beautiful red-
brown body, was common on the marshy bits of ground.

DE KINDEREN. 97

There are many villages along the road, and, of course, since
every estate employs five hundred labourers or more, there is a
village on every estate ; but there are some places where persons
have bought plots of land and erected their own houses, and in
consequence these villages are larger and more important than
the estate villages. The two chief ones we passed through at
the beginning of the journey were Blankenburg_ and Fellow-
ship.

All the estates" were originally laid out on the same plan. Each
estate depends entirely upon its water communications. They
were surrounded by four dams or embankments : two at the
sides, extending from front to back ; one in front, to exclude
the sea ; and one behind, to keep out the " bush-water " — that
is, the collected rain of the interior. Estates at present are
only in one depth round the seashore and up the river- sides,
therefore there is a lot of land behind, which sometime or
other will be cultivated, and it is called the second depth.
Of course, if the estates joined each other in the first depth,
there would be no water communication with the second depth
without going through another estate ; so between every other
^state a broader dam was left, called in Demerara and Esse-
quibo the " Company's Path," but in Berbice the "jvetting,"
and in the middle of this path a canal was dug. Four trenches
were dug out: two inside the side, lines, reaching from front

to rear ; one at the back ; and one in front, behind the front

G

98 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

dam, in which one or more sluices, or " kokers," as they were
termed by the Dutch, were placed to allow the drained water
to escape at ebb-tide. Two strong brick pillars were constructed
at the sides of the trench, at the top of which revolves by
means of spokes a large wooden axle, and draws up or lets
down a heavy wooden door, through which the water is easily
let out at ebb-tide, while it effectually excludes the outside
water. In the middle of the estate a raised dam was made,
called the " middle walk ; " and on each side of it, two deep
canals, called " navigation trenches," were dug, reaching from
front to back. From these canals smaller canals branched off at
right angles, and the estates were again divided and sub-divided
by canals, all at right angles to each other, into fields of about
five acres each. The navigation canals were supplied with '
fresh water, as salt water was supposed to be injurious to the
canes.

A drive of nine miles through country such as I have
described, along a road fringed on one side by scrub, and on
the other by the cane-fields of some estate, passing here and
there through collections of cottages and groves of cocoa palms,

brought us to Cornelia Ida, belonging to Mr S , where we

called. The names of the estates in the colony having been
drawn from many languages, are very extraordinary to an
English ear, more especially as the French names have an
English pronunciation given to them. Met-en-meer-zorg, Vreed-

DE KINDEREX. 99

en-Hoop, De Kinderen, Cornelia Ida, Better-fur-wagting, Vive
la Force, Mes Delices, Sans Souci, Malgre Tout, Mon Bijou,
Beehive, Diamond, Good Intent, Golden Grove, Hope-and-
Enterprise, and many others, drawn from every possible source,
are to be found in British Guiana.

At Cornelia Ida they were making sugar, so I went over the
manufactory and saw the whole process. The canes are cut, and
put into punts and brought along the various canals to the
side of the manufactory, and then placed on an endless band
some eight feet wide, and conveyed to the mill. They are then
crushed between gigantic rollers driven by a large engine, and
the juice flows away to a reservoir, the dirtiest-looking stuff
imaginable ; while the refuse of the cane, called " magass," is
received on another endless band, and hoisted up to a platform
on which is a little tramway, where it is received into trucks
and wheeled away underneath a large shed. The liquor is then
pumped up into receivers, in which lime is added to it to cor-
rect its acidity; and thence it goes to the coppers, where it is
boiled to a certain density. The scum that rises to the top is
skimmed off, and runs into tanks, whence it is taken, with all
the rubbish and molasses and refuse that arises during the
manufacture, to the rum-still, and turned into that delectable
spirit. The liquor having been boiled to a certain density in
the coppers, is put into a reservoir, and drawn from thence by
suction into the vacuum pan, a contrivance which crystallises

ICO UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

the sugar in a more even and regular manner than it can be
done in any other way. The liquid that goes into the vacuum
pan is thick and of an amber colour ; from the pan it falls into
receivers, and is now like thick treacle, in which the sugar
crystals are plainly discernible. Then it is taken in large
trays to the centrifugals, which are most clever contrivances,
something like a bandbox with wire-gauze sides, revolving
rapidly in an iron cylinder. The quickness of their action
is astonishing. As you look into the machine you see the
brown treacly-looking stuff getting whiter and whiter, until at
last, when the machine is stopped, there is nothing in it but

the finest and whitest sugar, ready for tea and coffee, all the

**f" * -- i-i~~>»~<<atVfc
molasses having flown away through the gauze, to be collected

and again put through the sugar-making process, to make what
is called molasses sugar, darker brown_jn £Q]QUJ-.^ It takes
only five minutes in the centrifugal' to turn it from a brown

mass into the whitest sugar.

_ '**

A large extent of machinery is required for the processes I
have just described. Five or six engines are required to work
the machines and pumps. And besides all this machinery,
the estates are so distant from civilisation that the proprietors
are obliged to keep duplicates of the most important parts of
the machines in case of accident, and sometimes a thousand
pounds or more are thus lying idle. The proprietor of course
^ ' has to have people of every trade about him — carpenters, smiths,

DE KINDER EN. 10 1

coopers, and various othertrades— so that any little job may J
be done at once with as little delay as possible to the working/ v
of the machinery. J

The sugar trade involves a very large capital ; for besides
all the expenses of machinery, the wages on a large estate — and
nearly all the estates in British Guiana are large — are about
£500 per week ; and besides wages there are other current
expenses.

After leaving Mr S 's, we passed through another

largish village, called Stuartsville, and in the trench by the

side of the road, in front of a large "house, there was a great
quantity of Victoria regia — in fact, the dyke was full of it.
It was not in flower, and I was told that when once it was
introduced into a trench it could hardly be exterminated. Of
course the dykes and canals are a very important part of the
colony, as they serve the place of roads on an estate, and every-
thing is conveyed along them in barges or punts — in fact, the
koker or sluice is the very mainspring of an estate, so it is
important that no spreading weed should get into the dykes ;
yet, nevertheless, in some places they are choked up with
lilies and water plants, and great labour is expended in keep-
ing them clean.

We now drew near De Kinderen, our destination. The
estate is more park -like and open than the generality, and there
is quite a respectable quantity of grass-land before the house,

IO2 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

studded with trees. We were received with the greatest
cordiality by Mr Tr , the owner.

The verandah of the house was full of various articles
— cages, boxes, and suchlike — while in one corner was an
immense pile of cocoanuts, in another a heap of shaddocks.
In one place was a large square box full of water, and in it a
large eel. I was asked to touch it, to feel how soft it was,
said my betrayer, and I all unsuspectingly did so, when a
sharp twinge ran all up my arm : it was an electric eel. It
gives rather a pleasant shock if not troubled much, but when
it is angry they are vejx violent. These eels are common in
,thQ creeksj}£_Lhe^cpuntry.

One servant at De Kinderen was a very nice-looking young
coolie woman, the wife of the cook of the establishment, and
mother of a very pretty little black-eyed and black-skinned
baby, some fourteen months old, that crawled about everywhere
over the house, and seemed to be a general favourite, going by
the name of the " Little Coolie Man." The mother was loaded
with silver armlets ancl bracelets ; round her neck hung also

a row of half-crowns strung on to a silver chain. The child

»

also had silver armlets and anklets upon him. The coolie
language is generally Hindustani, and they understand very
little English, so that one's talk to them must be of the very
simplest description.

Having had some luncheon after our long drive, Mr Tr

DE KINDER EN. IO-

took me and introduced me to his menagerie. He has lots of
monkeys and animals of various descriptions, while every-
where in the yard in which these animals are kept turtles and
tortoises are crawling about. It was amusing to see a turtle
crawling slowly and steadily across the yard, looking neither
to the right hand nor the left, while a fine peacock, evidently
for some reason offended with it, tried to strike terror into it
with his outspread tail. Some of the monkeys were very fine
animals : he had one spider monkey with a very small body
and head, and immensely long arms, legs, and tail. These
monkeys are chained to some posts which support a roof, and
their chains are long enough to allow them to sit on the roof
if they so please, and it seems to be a favourite place with
them. The spider monkey's delight was to swing by either
his hands or his tail from the edge of the roof, and let the rest
of his body and limbs hang perfectly limp and loose. I have
seen him for a quarter of an hour changing from hand to hand
and then to his tail, looking most ludicrous as he hung
down.

Mr Tr had many birds also — gold, silver, and common

pheasants, and doves of various descriptions. One of the most
handsome birds he had, which seemed perfectly domesticated
and ran about with the poultry and guinea-fowls, was the currie-
currie, a bright light scarlet bird with long legs and a long beak,
and a body about as large as a duck. They seemed very fond

104 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

of flying about, and looked very pretty as they spread their
scarlet-and-pink wings and rose from the ground.

When we came in from inspecting the animals, we found
waiting on the steps a coolie man and his wife who could not
agree, and had come to the manager (the person who manages
the estate, be he owner or not, is called the manager) to settle

their grievance. Mr Tr told me it was a fair sample of

the many little difficulties a manager has to contend with ; and
if he makes the slightest error in his judgment, it is immedi-
ately held up as an example of coolie oppression. In this case
the man's wife had taken a fancy to another man, and would
not come to live with her husband ; so he came to beg for a
separate house for her, where he would fight the other man on
neutral ground. She was, like many of the coolie women, very
good-looking, and loaded with silver and coins, and with a
nice-looking little baby in her arms ; for coolie children, as a rule,
are really nice-looking in spite of the darkness of their skins.

So Mr Tr said she should have another house, and they

went away. Afterwards he said he would not give a snap of his
fingers for her life ; for if her husband caught the other fellow
in her new house, he would be certain to chop her to pieces,
the universal way the coolies have of disposing of troublesome
wives, and the man would then be hanged. He thought the
woman was to blame, and would take steps to try to get her
removed to another estate, away from both her husband and

DE KINDEREN. 10$

his rival ; for he had no wish to be deprived of her husband's
services by his execution.

After this we had dinner, and then I was introduced to
the luxuries of a hammock, two of which were slung across
the drawing-room, and its insidious comfort and a good dinner
sent me fast asleep till bedtime.

On Sunday morning, after breakfast, I went with Mr Tr

his rounds, and first of all we visited the estate hospital.
Every manager is bound by law to provide an hospital, with
beds in proportion to the number of labourers employed,
together with medical attendance and nurses. In the hospital
at De Kinderen there were sixteen patients, chiefly cases of
intermittent fever : one man had died the night before of
inflammation of the lungs. The hospital was a large airy
building with comfortable beds, and apparently fitted up with
every comfort that persons in their station of life could require.
All the cases, with their symptoms and treatment, are entered
in a book in the most particular manner, and the entire
arrangements of the hospital seemed to my superficial obser-
vation everything that could be desired.

We then walked through the village. Every one we met
saluted us with "Morning, massa," as we went by. We entered
some of the houses, and saw them cooking their meals. Their
little cooking-places are small raised semicircles of mud placed
on the floor of the cottage near one of the walls, in which

IO5 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

they light a tiny fire of sticks, and cook their food in a little
pan over it.

The houses appeared to be very clean and comfortable ; they
contain each from five to seven bedrooms, with one or two
general rooms, and from four to six families live in each
house.

After passing through the estate houses where the coolies,
Chinese, and negroes live, we came to the African village,

where thosj^jduLJia££L been capturecj in sin vino;- vessels live.
Every one in the African village had been born in Africa, and
Jddnap_ped^thence when young. These people preferouilding
their own huts to living in the estate houses, so they have a
portion of the estate set out for their accommodation. Their
huts are low buildings roofed with Troolie palm, and the walls
are made of the dried tops of the sugar-cane, which are woven
together with sticks. They seemed a very contented lot of

people. Mr Tr addressed a knot of men standing round

the door of one of the huts, and told them that I was a gentle-
man who had come to inquire into their grievances, and to take
them back to Africa if they chose to go j but with one voice
they said they had no grievances, but stated their intention of
staying where they were. If these were a fair specimen of
such people, I could not see the discontented African of the
Negrophilists ; nor did they think it any hardship not to have
been sent back to Africa when captured in the slave-ship. I,

DE KINDER EX. IO/

for my part, could not see how they could have been better
off than they were then.

As we were returning through another part of the coolie
village, a woman in a great state of undress came out and

told a tale of woe to Mr Tr , not a word of which could I

understand, though it was supposed to be English. She had
on a tiny piece of linen looped round her waist in the mysterious
manner that coolies wear it, and a tiny shawl thrown over her
shoulders that covered only her back. JThev do not seem to. j" ^
care much whether they are naked or not. The end of the tale j K '

was that Mr Tr gave her a dollar to buy clothes with, L/

for she had by some means lost the few she wore at any time. \ /

In all the trenches about De Kinderen grows a species of lily,
which bears, I think, the loveliest flowers I ever saw. Imagine
a spike of rhododendron flowers of the most delicate pale
pink lilac, the spike six or eight inches high. In the centre of
the top petal the lilac fades into bright lemon yellow, and in
the middle of the yellow is a bright patch of the purest celestial
blue. It gives quite a lilac tint to the trenches in which it
grows. A negro who was passing got me a handful of the
flowers from the water ; but in my journey through the village
they attracted the notice of a coolie child in his mother's arms,
and as he seemed to have set his heart upon them, I gave them
to him, and he went off holding them at arm's-length, and
apparently as proud of them as he could be.

loS

UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

All the children came up and shook hands with us as we
went along, and seemed well to know where to find Mr

Tr 's eyeglass, through which they nearly all of them

looked, though I doubt if their powers of vision were thereby
materially assisted.

The cottages of the Chinese were decidedly the neatest.
Their beds were made of a kind of cane-work made by them-
selves ; they are always hung with curtains, and seem to be very
clean ; while they decorate their rooms with looking-glasses,
little pictures, and suchlike things, in a way that the people
of other nations do not think of doing.

One can hardly help thinking of the coolie system without
deciding that it is slavery in a mild shape, until one sees
for himself the position of affairs. I must own that I was
prejudiced against the system when I went to Demerara, but
during my stay there my opinions were in a very great degree
modified ; and I do not think that it is only the manager who
sins against the coolie, but that more frequentlyjthan is allowed
by philanthropists, the cooluTis in the wrong. Coolies are
entirely hedged round by regulations of law : they have cer-
tain tasks which are appointed by law ; and they receive a
certain pay for their work, also regulated by law ; and this pay
is so liberal that I was told a coolie can do his day's task and
earn his wages in three hours if he so please. They have
comfortable cottages found them, and they have an hospital to

DE KINDEREN. IOQ

go to in case of illness, and the best medical attendance and
nursing is found them for nothing ; and all this is secured
to them by law. And besides they have other privileges. If
they save money enough to buy a cow, and many of them do,
they have food and shelter provided for it by the manager.
They can go into the interior when they like, and cut from
the forest there as much wood as it pleases them ; they can get
a net and catch any quantity of fish they may require out of
the creeks and trenches ; and they can keep any amount of
poultry.

Coolies are very fond of rum, and tl^JJL>chief_drink is rurn-

^-^"Tr*^-*
and- water; and rum of a yervinferior description too, for They

buyjt from shops kept by Portuguese, as the managers are
restrained from giving it to them by law. I was told by the
manager of one of the largest estates in the colony, thatnearly
every coolie gets drunk when he receives his money on a

Saturday, and remains drunk alfSaturday, and lies about

, ___^ — i ii

the roadsides _op SijnrJxy^ in the heat and glare of the sun,
either drunk or incapable. I myself one Saturday, when
calling at an estate some distance from Georgetown, found a
coolie man lying dead drunk in the middle of the drive to
the manager's house, so that I had to turn aside the carriage
to avoid him ; and he had not moved an inch when I returned
after a long call at the house. The consequence is, that on
Monday the estate hospital is nearly full.

IOI

UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

Coolies are very treacherous ; they can never be quite tamed
(nor entirely trusted. The Chinese are bloodthirsty; they
will commit any murder without the slightest compunction,
but deliver themselves up to the authorities directly after-
wards. The negroes are revengeful. These, I was told, are
the chief characteristics of the three races of men employed
upon the sugar estates of British Guiana.

Not long ago, on the appointment of a new manager to the
" Farm Estate," of whom the coolies had heard bad reports,
they broke out, and marched in a body towards Georgetown.
On their way they came to the bridge over the Mahaica creek,

.which is a swing bridge. TlT,emagistrate of the district opened

"their

the bridge, and jyy^ife-saaaaaSsJ.ke.K Wjacg stoj^

£—*^ '"1 1 1 »*.

mjjxlijintil assistance arrived from Georgetown^ JbJad these
coolies arrived nt^Flnntniti^n Pprinr Ha]1 where the coolies

were notoriously disaffected, serious complications would have

/ been the result. At. Spring _JJa]l |Mj22Lw^p1'1 occurred at

,-"-""" """- — • — •

Devonshire Casj]&. laaLjuitumn was known before it was
|- — — ~ ^- — ^— *

w known to the authorities at Georgetown, although Spring
Hall is many miles further from Devonshire Castle than the
town, which must be traversed to reach it. Coolies must be
governed b]

I went off after butterflies on Sunday afternoon, but for
some reason or other, I was not very successful in my pursuit.
I very much admired, however, the flowers that grew wild,

DE KINDEREN. I I I

which were very pretty ; creeping over everything was Tlmn-
lergia alata, both orange and buff, dark- eyed and plain.
Ipecacuanha is another very common and showy plant. There
was a very pretty little garden at De Kinderen, full of the most
handsome plants and shrubs, interspersed with orange and
grape fruit and lime trees. I was shown the anatto tree, and
was much surprised to find, on securing a pod, that the red
seeds will mark one's hand like red chalk if wetted.

Some of the neighbouring planters, with a clergyman and
a doctor, came to dine with us on Sunday evening, and after
a good dinner and one or two cigars, the company left and we
went to bed.

The next morning was very wet and showery, and after
breakfast I went into the manufactory to see the process of
making rum. There is very little to see except the outside
of the still, and the rum running into large reservoirs. I was
immensely astonished to find that^um was white whpn it. r.oq
from the still, and thatthecolouring is only burnt sugar, more

or less_of which is _ added according; to the marjsfifr the mm is
to go to, for many people think that the darker the rum the_
stronger the spirit,

About two o'clock the weather cleared, and after a most
enjoyable visit at De Kinderen we started back to Georgetown.
We were delayed on our way for some time by a mule with
a load of wood far too heavy for it being unable to get it over

112 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

a bridge. The negro who was driving did nothing but shout
and make a noise, without ever thinking of putting his
shoulder to the wheel himself. However, our patience being

exhausted, Mr Tr and I went, and, by pushing the spokes

of the wheel, soon got the thing over the impediment.

We reached the ferry just too late for one boat and an hour
too soon for the next, so we again paid a visit to Vreed-en-
Hoop, where we waited till the time was up. We got back to
Georgetown soon after six.

CHAPTER X.

VISIT TO NEW AMSTERDAM — LEAVE BRITISH GUIANA.

HAD secured three places in the mail-waggon which
runs between Mahaica and the ferry at New Amster-
dam, and which is only able to accommodate five pas-
sengers, for myself and two fellow-tourists ; so on "Wednesday
morning, February the 19th, we started off. Everything mov-
able starts from Georgetown at seven in the morning. The
train starts for Mahaica, and the steamers start for their
various destinations at that hour.

British Guiana is divided into three counties, named after
the three rivers that flow through the country — Essequibo,
Berbice, and Demerara. Georgetown is the capital of Deme-
rara and the colony, Essequibo has no large town in it, and
the capital of Berbice is New Amsterdam, to which place our
journey was directed. New Amsterdam is seventy-five miles
from Georgetown, and the journey is performed partly by rail

and partly in the mail- waggon, and, of course, as the accom-

H

UXDER A TROPICAL SKY.

modation in the latter is limited, seats must be engaged before-
hand. The journey takes from seven in the morning until
four in the afternoon, and as there is comparatively nothing
to eat on the way, it becomes necessary to lay in a stock of
provisions, so we took some sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs
and bottles of beer with us.

At a quarter to seven a cab, which had been engaged to
take us to the station, came to the door, when to our horror
we discovered that even with a squeeze it would only hold
twxtbeside the driver, and as it was too late to think of catch-
ing the~Erain by walking to it, we turned the driver off his
seat and drove ourselves to the station, the coachman running
behind and mildly expostulating the whole way as well as he

keeping up_\yith the

could, whilst under the

carriage. We caught the train, but only by a few minutes.

The stations are merely sheds. The carriages are on the
American system, with doors at each end, but in the first class

the seats are along each side of the carriage ; there are seats

- — - — —• — """-•s,

on the top of the carriages, butthey were very disagreeable
and" smoky, as we were going dead against the wjnjj^ The
pace they go at is pretty fair, but the line is very shaky.
There are no fences on either side of the line, and the conse-
quence is, that all kinds of animals stray upon it, and the
driver is continually blowing a most terrific whistle to frighten
them off, for if he kills any he is fined for it by the company,

BERB1CE. 115

who have to pay the value to the owner. I don't think the
people have yet found out the dodge of putting their old and
worthless animals to be annihilated by the train and charged
for as prime beasts.

Besides the ordinary stations, some eight or ten in number,
on telling the engine-driver, £he train will stop ggywherte) on

the linefor persons to descend, so that there are generall
jnore stoppages than are set down in the time-bills. How-
ever, atha]f^a^t__eightwe anived in safety at Mahaica, as
,£ir_as the train goes, about five^d-tweiityjijile$jnjm^George-

town.

We found the other two places in the mail-waggon occupied
by a lady and gentleman, evidently newly married, for, unde-
terred by the presence of strangers, a gentle spooning went on
all the way. No doubt it was very nice, but it looked a little
foolish, and was rather amusing.

The first stage reached is another De Kinderen, nine miles
from Mahaica, where there is ajarge_catt^ faryp belonging to

the proprietor ofEeckwith's Hotel ; then comes Mahaicony,
_six miles furtheron. At Mahaicony there is a large police-
station on the left hand side of the road, where I believe
refreshments are to be procured, though, as we were well pro-
vided, we did not go to explore what provision there was for
hungry travellers. j)pposite to the police-station areC^rxT
Portuguese shops, where we replenished our stock of bottled

Il6 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

beer, as we were beginning to think that it was an extra
thirsty journey, and we had only provided for very moderate
wants. At Mahaicony there is a wide creek, crossed by a
wooden bridge. The next station is Abarri, seven miles away,
where there is another large creek, the boundary between the
counties of Demerara and Berbice, then Brahn, ten miles, Fort
Wellington, six miles, Number Six or Belle Air, six miles, and
then the Ferry, seven miles distant.

The drive at first was interesting, but towards the end of
the journey became monotonous, and J believe

have gone_to^sl££p_had it not_J>een for the eccentricitieja-jof.
our driver,^ most ridiculous specimen of the negro, in fact, no
" Bones " could have been more amusing. His name was pro-
nounced Pilot, and we imagined it was because he piloted the
coach so well on its journey, but he indignantly scoutedthe
idea, and said his namewasJPurl§it, which assemblage of letters
I imagine he thought spelled polite. His flow of words was
astonishing, but he evidently did not know the meaning of
half the words he used, for he used them in every kind of
sense, and if h^could^ not thJnV nf a wrr! lon^primHi to
please himjip tb.niigb^fiint.liiri^nfJTvyp.ni.iTinr mift He kept up
a continual chatter for the last three quarters of the journey,
after, I fancy, a slight modicum of liquor at the first two
or three stages. When asked a question, he would use as
many words as possible to answer, so many, in fact, that he

BERBICE. I 1 7

nearly always lost himself in the labyrinth of speech, and only
came to a stop when he discovered that he really did not know
what he was talking about. And yet he was equal to the
occasion, for then, after a pause, he would join on a sentence
or two, the purport of which always was that the driver

should be remembered at the end of the journey ; in fact, most

of his speeches seemed designed to impress that object on our
minds.

The road at first ran through Mahaica village, and then
crossed Mahaica creek over a wooden swing bridge, roofed in

•- _-.-.. /-Npi/-»_x-1-— ^_^-— "•"•

at the top. After crossing this creek we continued along
through immense tracts of flat land, upon which largejierds of

i •.•

cattle were grazing. Here and there upon these plains could

- . ~*^«

be seen a black group of carrion crows, indicating that there
some animal was lying dead, while bones and skeletons were
to be observed in every direction. After crossing the Mahaicony
creek, the road enters the bush, and is a mere track_ in the
forest. On each side of us grew palms and tall trees, and in
some places the sides of the road were covered with scrub,
so that there was only just space for the carriage, which was
scraped by the branches as it passed. Our Pilot grew quite
eloquent about the facilities the scrub gave to the " enemy "
for stopping Her Majesty's Mail, but when asked for a defini-
tion of " enemy," he was rather puzzled, and at last decisively
said that everybody except himself and his passengers were

Il8 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

" enemies." The road has never been macadamised, so it is
very rough in places.

/ We passed some very fine specimens of the silk-cotton tree,
with stems as straight as a line for three-quarters of the height
of the whole tree, which must in some instances be over a hun-
dred feet. One of the finest trees occupies the distinguished
position of exactly half-way between Georgetown and New
Amsterdam. Their stem throws out towards the ground large
thin buttresses, which increase greatly the apparent diameter
of the trunk at its base. The negroes regard this tree with
the greatest reverence, and hold it to be the direst misfortune
to have anything to do with the cutting down or destruction
of these trees ; in fact, they will have nothing to do with them
on any consideration. I was told by my informant, who was »
not a negro, that he knew of many instances where the
destruction of a silk- cotton tree, either accidentally or by pre-
meditation, had been accomjmniedjby ilLJuck. The silk-cotton

/"~~N"~ " ' **"""^ ^^

tree in the old slave times used to be invariably planted in the
yard belonging to an estate, and used usually to be the tree
to which the negro was tied when about to receive corporeal
punishment, and perhaps this fact has something to do with
the superstition. /

\J

A great feature in some parts] of the road is the number of
cotton bushes. In the time' of the American war many of the
proprietors began to grow cotton, but they started too late in

BERBICE.

the day ; and besides, the cotton of the country requires some
little time to come to perfection, — so that other places, which
began growing after this colony, got to market before they
could ; and when the end of the war came, the labour of the
colony was too dear and too lazy to compete with other coun-
tries, so the cotton-fields were abandoned, — and now cotton is
flourishing in great abundance in many places by the roadside.
Here and there an open place was reached in the bush,
where two or three cottages were situated, and at one part of
the journey the country opened out into an expanse of flat
marshy land, which continued for some miles, and over which,
in groups, were scattered collections of wretchedhuts^ in which
live, or I should rather say exist, lots of negroes, I should
think rapidly retrograding into barbarism. These huts are

Braised upon jvvopden ^pjllars. and are made of some kind of
fancy chiefly the tops^pf sugar-cane, woventogether

a-nrl n

roofed with palm jeaves. They are built
at all angles to each other, and in all directions over the
surface of the ground, and no decent roadjfi3-ds..tn anyjrf them.
In some places slight wooden frames show where a house
to have beengiecte^, iit_Qthers the hut Jba-a
constructed, but abandoned by its owner, and left to faUdowjL.

T7>r"rE?r"hft appropriated by som,e one else. All this country is
— --» ___ -— —
intersected by canals as regularly as the more cultivated parts,

and at one time must have been covered with various crops.

I2O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

Naked children run about amongst these huts, and pigs and
ducks wallow in the trenches. They have no attempts at
gardens, and only a few wild plantains or ochras grow about
the muddy plots surrounding the houses.

Our Pilot, when passing one of these houses rather better
than its neighbours, pulled up, and inquired after some ducks
that he had apparently ordered. They were not ready, so
with a flourish of his whip, and an indignant tone in his voice,
he said, " Send them on then, and the gentleman will doubt-
less recompense you according to their numbers and propor-
tions." No bad way, though a rather roundabout one, of
saying, that it depended upon their size and quality what he
got for them.

At various intervals appeared well-built schoolhouses, and
at Fort Wellington, a stage a mile or so on the Berbice side
of a larger and better-looking town than usual, called Hope-
town, there is a large church of some pretensions.

After passing Fort Wellington, we again entered the bush,
and the road was no better than an ordinary ride in a wood
in England. A mile or two on this side of the ferry across
the Berbice river is a large African village, literally em-
bowered in cocoa-nut trees, and the neatness of the houses
and gardens of these freed slaves contrasted most favourably
with the miserable dwellings of the free creole negroes which
we had just passed through.

BERBICE. 121

At last, to our great delight, in spite of the linguistical
vagaries of our coachman, \ve caught sight of the Berbice
river. It is rather larger than the Demerara, but is not so
convenient for navigation, since its mouth is divided into two
channels by a large island called Crab Island. The water is
of the usual complexion of river and sea in this part of the
world, a muddy pea-soup colour. We went to the hotel
formerly kept by Mr Paris Brittain, which was said by Anthony
Trollope to be the best hotel in the whole of the West Indies.
It is now kept by a Mrs Hicks, and certainly is better than
Beckwith's ; not that the rooms are ^better, but the dinners
and breakfasts are better than at the hotel at Georgetown, and
the style of the whole place superior. ^

New Amsterdam is a miniature of Georgetown ; there are
the same level roads, the same gardens, the same trenches along
the roadside, the same trees, and the same wooden houses.
When I say wooden houses, it must not be imagined that they
are merely magnified huts, but on the other hand they are
houses which, though plainly built, have some pretensions to
architectural elegance. The churches, of wood also, are very
good looking, and at a little distance could not be distinguished,
either in shape or size, or spire or tower, from an ordinary
English church.

The next morning we went, under the guidance of Mr
W , who very kindly acted as our cicerone in New Amster-

122 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

dam, through the market-place, then to the town-hall, and
up a tall tower which formed part of that building, from
whence, in consequence of its flatness, a fine view of the town
and surrounding country is obtained. After we had seen the

town-hall, Mr W procured for us a carriage to go a drive,

and accompanied us upon our expedition. "W^Jirst went to
JPlantation Providence, three miles from the town. The chief
thing at Providence is the garden. On each side the walk up
to the house from the gate is a broad patch of Thubergia,
both white and yellow, trailing over the ground, and intended,
I was told, to represent buttercups and daisies ; not a bad
imitation some distance off, but the individual flowers are too
numerous and too large. Growing on the various trees in
the garden were many lovely orchids in flower, and a plant
of Oncidium altissimum had a spike of flowers, I am afraid to
say how long, propped up against the verandah. One beauti-
ful plant was hanging from the underside of a large branch ;
its leaves were like thick rushes, sticking out oh all sides,
while the blossoms, yellowish-green and white, hung down
amongst the leaves, looking altogether like a most delicate
.miniature chandelier.

After staying sometime at Providence, and lounging about
amongst the flowers in the shady and beautiful garden, we

went on two or three miles to see the machinery at Plantation

*- r : ^ir-f' —

Everton. We called on the manager, and he took us over

BERBICE.

123

the manufactory; he. was making rumr h:it not sugar. Xot
far from Everton the road comes out upon the bank of the
river Berbice, about the middle of a long gentle curve, and a
magnificent view of the river is to be obtained both up and
down. There is much more variety and picturesqueness about
the roads near New Amsterdam than there is about George-
town ; in one place the road actually makes a long curve,
instead of the everlasting angles in other places.

After dinner, while I was playing billiards at the reading-
room, a friend came in to say that a gentleman had in a
neighbouring house a large butterfly that I might have if I
liked, so I immediately went, and found a beautiful specimen
of a Morpho, ignominiously fastened to a cork. He was at
least five inches across his wings ; a few drops of chloroform,
however, quickly killed him. I had some most exciting chases
after the butterflies in the course of the day, and secured some
nice specimens, though my eagerness frequently defeated my
purpose, and besides, eagerness in such a pursuit is rather warm
work in British Guiana.

We started back for Georgetown in a (steamer )t\\e next

— ^**^^**~— ~ — ^

morning at. eight o'clock, so we had to rise early to catch the
boat. There was a great mixture of races on board. In the
front part of the vessel were from seventy to eighty coolies,
Chinese and Negroes, lying about the deck in all sorts of
dress and undress, while there were about twenty passengers

J

1 24 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

in the cabin. We went on very nicely till we got well out to
sea, when we came to some dreadful things called rollers,
which made the little vessel roll and pitch and toss in the
most outrageous style. We shipped seas, and one especially
large one came in a body all over the poor unfortunate steer-
age passengers, and drenched them to the skin, and besides
this they were all so sick. However, these rollers did not last
ong, and we soon got into comparatively quiet water, but
sefore we reached Georgetown we came to some more, luckily,
xowever, of a milder description than the former ones, but
till rather unsteadying. I congratulated myself many times
that the sea had lost its baleful influence over me, and that I
was able to smoke my pipe and eat my meals in spite of all
the tossings.

We arrived at Georgetown about four o'clock quite safely,
and I think much to the joy of most of the passengers, for a
livelier passage on board a little steamer I had never seen.

One night I went to see the circus again, which had been
giving its performances all the time I was in the town. It
was a very superior performance to the one by the same
circus that I had seen in Barbadoes. Instead of being lighted
with tallow candles, which rained grease all over the under-
lying ground, it was lit up with ship's lanterns. The Governor
was there, and all the elite of Georgetown, and the ladies
were in evening dress. The audience was enormous ; I should,

GEORGETOWN. 125

at a guess, say there were a^jeast three thousand people ^
present. The band of the 2d "West India Regiment, then
stationed in Demerara, played the music, and the colonel and
the officers were present also. So altogether it was a very
grand affair.

"\Vednesday, the 26th of February, soon came now, and I
had to say goodbye to all my kind friends. The steamer
Arno was to start for Barbadoes at half-past four cm,tlmt-
day, so about four o'clock, after many parting^" swizzles'^/
and heartfelt good wishes, I went on board. We soon started,
and having discharged our pilot at the Lightship, went ahead
in good earnest for Tobago.

CHAPTER XL

FROM BRITISH GUIANA TO JAMAICA.

fp>HE Arno proved to be a most delightful ship, so
comfortable and very clean, in that respect far superior
to the Corsica. She had one defect, however. She
quivered most shockingly, in a manner most disturbing t£
those not accustomed to ships and their motions. She was
a paddle ship, and I fancy her engines were too powerful for
her size.

On Friday morning early we anchored off Scarborough, and
hearing from the captain that he would not start before noon,
two passengers and myself went on shore. When we got out of
the boat a small boy accosted us, and told us that he would
take us " there," but where " there " was we had n ) idea, but
thinking that at all events we should see something, we en-
trusted ourselves to his guidance. This " there " turned out
to be the house of one of the chief storekeepers in the town of

TOBAGO. . 127

Scarborough ; but as we approached the house, we did not
know whether it was a hotel or a boarding-house, nor why we
had been led there, — and this last point is still a mystery.

The walk from the landing stage was very pretty. The
road was cut in the side of a hill, so that upon our right hand
was a steep bank, and on our left a narrow level space, suffi-
cient for a hut here and there, while behind them the ground
sloped down again to a little rippling brook which ran at the
bottom of the ravine, one side of which we were ascending.
The road was shaded by trees of all kinds, through whose
branches shone the early morning sun, and from whence pro-
ceeded the song and twitter of birds, reminding one of England.
In the steep bank to the right, and forming part of it, we
passed some old brick buildings with solid casements, appar-
ently part of an old fort ; then across an old brick bridge,
nearly a ruin too, we climbed the opposite side of the ravine.
From the bridge was a pretty peep ; the hills on each side
narrowed until a turn in the ravine shut out further view.
At a bendv in the road we came upon a group of negro women
drawing water from a roadside well, situated under a nearly
overhanging rock, which was covered with creepers and shrubs,
whose breezed-stirred leaves were flecked with gold by the
morning sun just peeping amongst their branches. They were
chattering, laughing, and romping as they awaited their turn
to secure the wished-for fluid ; but they stopped when they

128 UNDER. A TROPICAL SKY.

saw us, and seemed quite surprised to see three strangers
plodding up the hill.

Cottages, or rather huts, were scattered about amongst the
trees, and upon a bank, some six feet above the road, were to
be seen two solid masonry pillars, capped with worked stone,
evidently the entrance to some ancient house now destroyed,
leaving no vestige behind to tell of its former greatness except
the entrance to its drive.

Although the house we went to was no hotel, and although
we could not give any very good account of our reason for
going there, yet we had pity taken on us, and had something
to drink. We were recommended to walk up to the fort, so
we started off up the steep hill to that place. It was a hot
and tiring walk, but when we got there we were well repaid
by the fine view of the island we had. In front of us was the
blue sea, while behind us to the right and left stretched range
after range of hills, one rising behind another, involuntarily
reminding us of Scotland. We rested ourselves on the top of
the hill, and then started back for the town. We inquired for a
carriage to drive us into the interior for an hour or two, but we
found the number of carriages on the island to be very limited.
1 heard that there was only one, and that a private one. Then
we wanted some breakfast, but as there is no hotel in the island,
there was no mode of procuring breakfast, so we decided to
leave the town and go back to the ship to get something to eat.

TOBAGO. 129

Scarborough, the chief town of Tobago, is not much more
than a collection of wooden houses, some more dilapidated
than others, but all looking more or less rickety, clustered
round an open square some height above the sea. This square
slopes gently from the north, that is, towards the sea, and at
the higher end is situated a building of some pretension, which,
I presume, contains the public offices, but it also, like the rest
of the island, seems rather out of repair. Amongst the
wretched wooden houses that comprise the present town, the
ruins of substantial brick and mortar masonry everywhere
meet the eye, and appear to prove that at some time the town
lias been a more flourishing, or at least, a better cared-for place.
In fact, I think that two of the greatest characteristics of the pre-
sent town are these old ruins, which crop up in every direction,
and beggars, who seem to abound also, for solicitations for
alms come very frequently. Perhaps a white stranger appears
upon the scene so seldom that he immediately causes an epidemic
of begging, which probably subsides when the white stranger
takes his departure, for the very good reason that there is
nothing left to beg.

On Saturday morning, at eight o'clock, we anchored in Car-
lisle Bay, at Barbadoes again, and I went to breakfast with
some of the other passengers at Head's Albion Hotel. We had
a very good breakfast there ; I saw more on the table, I verily
believe, for breakfast than I had seen for a week at Beck-

I3O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

with's for breakfast and dinner too. I was invited to stay at

W until the steamer Nile came in from England, in

which I was going to Jamaica. She was due on Sunday, and
about eleven o'clock the blue and white chequer flag was
hoisted at the Highgate signal-station, betokening a " steamer
to windward." So I took my things on board soon after she
had anchored, and then came on shore again until she finally
started, which was not until about half-past nine.

The Nile is a larger ship than the Tasmanian, but she does
not look nearly so imposing, because she has only two masts
and one funnel, while the Tasmanian has three masts and
two funnels. She is a very comfortable ship, and I was glad
to have the chance of taking the five days' voyage from Barba-
does to Jamaica in her, as, all being well, she would be the
ship I should return to England in on the 30th of March.

I saw the constellation of the Southern Cross one night when
I was on board the Nile, but I was not struck with its
beauty. It is not a cross, but an irregular diamond, and one
of the stars is much less than the other three. I think Orion
or the Great Bear far surpass it in magnificence.

On Monday morning we were running along the west side of
Martinique, with St Lucia behind us, and Dominica faintly
showing in the distance, and for the greater part of the day we
saw distant islands, capped with clouds, but they were only just
distinguishable. On Tuesday, about two o'clock, we arrived

52". THOMAS.

at St Thomas, and I immediately went on shore. As we enter
the harbour there is a white rock to be seen in the distance, so
like a ship in full sail, that it is called the " sail rock."

The harbour of St Thomas is a Jong bay, evidently at one
time the crater of a volcano, running up to the town, where it
widens out, surrounded by hills on every side. The name of
the town is Charlotte- Amelia, but it is usually called after
the name of the island, St Thomas ; it is very picturesque,
being situated on three hills at the northern end of the harbour,
which trends nearly due north and south. The houses seen
from the sea remind one of the houses to be found in toy
boxes, their roofs are so red, and their windows so black, and
their walls so gaily coloured with all tints from yellow to white.
The hills, which rise up steeply behind the town, are sparsely
covered with shrubs and trees, and scattered over the bases of
those which surround the harbour are detached houses. The
harbour is full of shipping, and the colour of the water is a
deep green, while outside it is a most beautiful blue.

There is one chief street in the town of fair width, and kept
very clean, which runs parallel with the harbour ; the houses
however, are irregular, but the stores seem well filled and well
kept. Towards the middle of the length of the street, it is
broken by a square surrounded with trees, under which sit
quantities of negro women, either resting themselves, or dis-
playing wares and fruits for sale.

132 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

The best hotel in the town is the Hotel du Commerce,
situated close to the wharf, where the small boats land their
passengers, towards the east end of the town. It seems to be
a very fair hotel, quite up to the West Indian average, though,
like all establishments of that kind in those parts, they have
the objectionable practice of putting all the eatables on the
table at the same time, and that time five minutes before the
bell is rung, so that everything gets cold before it is attacked.
There is a very good and clean ice establishment, otherwise
liquor bar, but there are some billiard-tables in it which are
deplorable.

One's ears are greeted with a great variety of tongues in the
course of one's walk along the chief street, English, Spanish,
and French being apparently talked by every native with
complete indifference, while, since St Thomas is the chief
harbour in the West Indies, sailors and people of all nation-
alities are met with.

We started from St Thomas about five on Tuesday. We
caught sight of Porto Eico on Wednesday, and on Thursday
afternoon we stopped at Jacmel, in Hayti. We had skirted
St Domingo for some time before we reached that town.
Tall hills rose up from the sea and lost their summits in the
clouds ; their sides were broken up by gullies and ravines, and
terminated in a row of long white cliffs, which glistened
brightly in the rays of the sun.

J ACM EL. 133

The town of Jacmel is situated on rising ground at the end
of a long bay ; there is a valley behind it, and then another
low range of hills, behind which tower up the mountains with
cloud-capped summits. To the left of the town there is lower
ground stretching among the hills, and a grove of cocoa-nuts
fringes the shore. The town is not large ; in the centre, on
the ridge of the hill, is the cathedral, apparently a pretty fair
building, though at the distance I was away not much detail
could be seen. The steamer did not anchor, and I did not go
on shore, though one or two of the passengers did. A few
ships were lying off the town, and in several places I saw the
Haytian flag flying, which, described heraldically, is " per fesse
dark blue and red."

High hills, sparsely covered with vegetation and intersected
with valleys, rise all around from the bay in which the
steamer is. In places on the hills curls of smoke arise as of
charcoal burning, but I was told that it was not so, as the
negroes of Hayti are too lazy to do anything so useful, but
they were merely clearing the ground for planting canes or
yam, or some other vegetable.

When those who had gone on shore returned, they said that
the town was swarming with pigs and tattered negroes ; and
one gentleman compared the pigs to rainbows on stilts, such
was the curve of their backs and the length of their legs, and
it was said that unless a pig had legs at least two feet six

134 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

inches long, he could not get about the loose stones and sand
which compose their streets.

"We stopped at Jacmel only for an hour and a half, and
after a little bit of a toss in the night, we caught sight of
Jamaica about nine o'clock on the morning of Friday the 8th
of March, and steamed along its southern shore. The hills
were covered with clouds, the remains of the storm that had
raged the previous night ; but these clouds, by letting the sun
shine through their intervening spaces, lit up with patches of
brightness the lower-lying lands. Bold hills, covered with
green verdure, rose from the sea, their sides channeled in
every direction with gullies, and their summits hidden in the
clouds.

After steaming along the island for three hours or more, we
caught sight of Kingston, which, though visible from the sea,
has in front of it a long low tongue of land, which forms, by
the sea enclosed, Kingston Harbour. This strip of low land is
called the Palisades, and here is situated the cemetery, where
so many victims of the yellow fever He buried that the name
has passed into a proverb. The harbour is approached only
by a narrow channel round one end of the bank, so that when
Kingston is first seen, though apparently near, it is really some
distance off.

Kingston is situated on a large flat plain, rising very gradu-
ally from the sea to the glorious Jamaica hills at the back, with

JAMAICA. 135

all their lovely deep valleys, so beautifully blue, and distant
ridges towering one above another, until the ever-present
fleecy clouds receive their summits in their white embrace.

We had the general in command of the troops of the West
India station on board, so we were saluted by the batteries at
Port Royal, where we stopped to deliver the letters for the ships
which were there. Port Royal is a military station, situated at
the extremity of the low bank I have before alluded to.

On arriving at the wharf at Kingston, to which the steamer
was made fast, so that people can do there what they can do
nowhere else in the West Indies, with the exception of St
Lucia, that is, walk on shore, a scene of the utmost con-
fusion ensued. Negroes rushed on board in great numbers to
seek for employment in carrying things on shore, much to the
disgust of the foreman of the porters, a very black negro him-
self, who, if he saw an unauthorised negro there, thought
nothing of knocking him down, and then kicking him off the
ship. The frantic behaviour of this foreman was very amus-
ing, though it added greatly to the confusion, for his proceed-
ings were equally summary, whether the culprit had loaded
himself with luggage or not. On the wharf were large piles
of coal ready to be taken to the ship, and by these heaps stood
men and women with baskets, in every stage of blackness and
tatters, waiting for the signal to commence coaling the ship.

At last I succeeded in getting my things on shore, and the

136 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

custom-house officer, disbelieving my assurance that I had
nothing contraband whatsoever in my luggage, was disobliging
enough to make me open my portmanteau, in which, however,
he found nothing but a fine collection of dirty clothes ; this
seemed to satisfy him, and he let the rest of my things pass
untouched.

I then went to Blundell Hall, the best hotel in the place,
where I succeeded in getting a room. As it was yet early, I
sallied forth, and, hiring a carriage, set off to explore the
town.

CHAPTER XII.

KINGSTON AND ITS ENVIRONS.

'IRST, as to the carriages of the locality. They are
square trays, supported upon four wheels, and
drawn by deplorable-looking horses ; on this tray
are two seats, both of the same pattern, each wide enough to
hold two persons, and on the front seat sits the driver ; over
these seats is supported a flat canopy, and on the back of the
seat is written the name of the carriage, which, after the
manner of boats at a watering place, are christened with all
manner of names drawn from the pages of romance, or
indicative of the speed, comforts, or advantages to be obtained
by hiring the carriage in question. They are called omnibuses.
The chief street of Kingston is Commercial Street, which
runs parallel to the sea for some distance. It is rather
narrow, and the pavement for foot passengers, raised some
distance above the level of the road, runs under an irregular
colonnade, which supports the upper storey of the houses,
usually projecting far beyond the ground floor. Most of the
shops are distinguished by signs, long narrow boards variously

138 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

painted, which project out from the second floor, half across
the street, and give a view down it a somewhat peculiar
appearance.

The town is laid out with streets at right angles to each other,
four wide streets forming a square of buildings, which is again
intersected at right angles by narrower lanes ; all the streets and
lanes are carefully named at the corners with white letters on
blue enamelled iron. Except in Commercial Street, the houses
in the streets are very irregular, large and small, good and bad,
repaired and unrepaired being promiscuously mixed up.
There is generally a few feet of space between each house, from
which peep out acacias or palm or other trees, which greatly
add to the picturesqueness of the effect produced by the
irregularity of the architecture.

After driving about several streets, the driver took me to
the camp, as the barracks near the town are called, and the
race-course. I was immediately struck by the plant the hedges
and fences are formed of, a tall-growing and very prickly
cactus, like a gigantic and much elongated cucumber, with its
branches shooting up as straight beside the parent stem as if
they were tied to it. Each stem is about four or five inches in
diameter, and as prickly as a hedgehog, and since they grow
very thickly on the ground, and some ten or twelve feet high if
they are allowed, you may imagine that they make a very
impenetrable fence.

KINGSTON. 139

The camp covers a surface of some three hundred acres ;
the barracks consist of two long lines of buildings two stories
high. Attached to them is an excellent hospital, and also [a,
splendid bath. The whole is surrounded by a high walL

The outlying streets reminded me more of the suburbs of an
English town than anything I had seen in the West Indies.
Perhaps the red bricks and white mortar of which they were
composed, and the high walls which were frequently to be met
with built of the same materials, gave an English look to a
place in the eyes of a man who, for the last four weeks, had
seen nothing but wooden houses. The flowers about the
houses were much the same as those in the rest of the West
Indies, but there was a pretty crimson purple Bougainvillea
rather common, darker than any I had seen either in Demerara
or an English greenhouse.

The race-course is a flat piece of land, which looks as hard as
a stone, but my driver told me that it was sandy, and was
even too soft when broken up for the races. It is more than
a mile round. There is no permanent grand stand, but one
is erected every race-time, and the reason I heard for that
was, that the people were such thieves that a fixed stand
would very soon be carried away piecemeal if left unprotected.
In the outskirts of the town are many patches of dry
sandy wastes, covered with low mimosa-like scrub, amongst
which grows every kind of cactus and prickly pear, in-

I4O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

eluding the elongated cucumbers of which the fences are
formed.

There are a good many street cries to be heard in King,
ston, but as to what they mean I have no conception. I was
told one meant " ice-creams," but it was more like the note of
a corncrake than anything else. All the cries were very harsh
and nasal, and to my unaccustomed ear seemed to have a very
strong likeness to each other.

Blundell Hall is, I was told, the best hotel in Kingston ; if
so, the others must be bad. Like nearly all the houses in that
town it is built of bricks and mortar, but unlike the generality
it is whitewashed. The front door opens directly into the
public room, which serves both for sitting and eating ; but the
sitting part of the business is usually carried on in the wooden
jalousie-enclosed balcony before the front door, and which is
approached by eight or ten steps from the street. A door
opposite the front door leads out of the general room into a
long narrow passage, at one end of which a flight of stairs
leads to the upper part of the house. Through this passage
is another balcony looking out into a square yard, in which
grow two or three cocoa-nut and tamarind trees. The yard is
surrounded by buildings, to the right by stables, to the left
with bedrooms on the first floor, but with what underneath
I never knew, while opposite the house was the scullery and
other domestic offices. Ducks and poultry inhabited the yard,

KINGSTON. 141

and amongst these domesticated animals were generally to
be seen two or three carrion crows, which abounded there,
walking solemnly about, and seeking what they might devour.
Carrion crows, or Turkey buzzards, are very useful as scaven-
gers, and their lives are most stringently protected by
law.

My bedroom was No. 6 of the range on the left side of the
yard, and was of a good size. The bed was very large, and
surrounded with mosquito curtains, which, on trial, confirmed
my suspicions that they were useless on account of their tat-
tered condition. They were, I think, composed more of holes
than of netting, and in the morning, after my first trial of
them, I discovered at least a dozen fat and well-fed mosquitoes
hanging on inside the curtains, and lazily and contentedly
waving their hind legs in the air.

Mosquitoes, if my bedroom was a type of all bedrooms in
Kingston, abounded. At whatever time I entered it, they
could be seen and heard, humming a hum of joy at seeing a
victim approach. I felt the nuisance of their noise more than
their bite, for that one gets accustomed to, but to hear their
envious hum, now far, now near, now perhaps apparently
within your very ear, is very disquieting. .

I allowed a mosquito to settle on my hand one day, and
philosophically examined him, while he plunged his dreaded
proboscis into my flesh. He was exactly the shape of a

I42 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

common gnat, and his body was grey, while his legs were
striped alternately with broad bars of black and narrow bars
of white. His proboscis or beak was brown, and about three-
quarters as long as his body, and his head was adorned with
two short and straight antennae. As he settled, he searched
about with his long probosis until he found a spot suitable
for his operations, and then he set to work. His antenna
waved with exultation as he buried his beak deeper and
deeper, and when finally he had settled himself comfortably,
he hoisted his hind legs in the air, and while he proceeded with
the work he was too occupied even to wave his antennae. His
proboscis was now buried nearly its whole depth in my hand,
perhaps about an eighth of an inch, but its insertion had not
been attended with the slightest pain or irritation. He was
now motionless, but a closer inspection revealed a slight suck-
ing movement in his proboscis, and his body began visibly to
distend. He was about two minutes satiating his appetite ;
but I was on murderous thoughts intent, and had no idea of
letting him escape, though I wished to see how long the opera-
tion continued before I sent him out of the world. In about
two minutes, as I said, his body was fully distended, and he
had assumed quite a crimson hue, and he began to fidget about,
without, however, withdrawing his proboscis from my hand.
Now, thought I, the time has arrived for sacrifice, and I raised
my other hand to immolate the little wretch. But as quick

KINGSTON. 143

as thought, so that it seemed all one movement, before I could
bring my hand down on him he had finished his meal, spread
his wings, and sprung off into the air and was gone, so escap-
ing his intended punishment. In about half an hour, the
place from which he had drawn his meal began to irritate me,
but it soon passed away, leaving only a little red spot.

Our hostess at Blundell Hall was, like all West Indian hotel-
keepers, a very independent lady of colour. I heard that on
the Friday the Nile came in, there were so many applica-
tions for rooms at her establishment that she got quite vexed,
and at last refused everybody, although she had one or two
rooms vacant, "because" she said, "she was quite tired of
giving out clean linen," which, I suppose, was required to
furnish a room for a new comer.

The great want of the West Indies generally is good hotel
accommodation. I believe that if nice comfortable hotels were
supplied, and good waiters and servants procured to attend
to them, instead of the -lazy and independent negroes, the
West Indies would be well frequented as a health resort
during the winter months ; but the fact is, that there is
simply no decent hotel accommodation, such as a delicate and
refined lady would feel at home in. At St Pierre, in Martinique,
I hear the best hotel in that part of the world is to be found,
but I did not visit it, and that also has some grievous defects.
I believe the absence of accommodation is to be accounted for

144 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

in a great measure by the laziness of the negro servants, who
will do no more work than they like, however much their
masters may wish it.

One of the most popular drives with the inhabitants of
Kingston is the Rock Fort road, which runs in an easterly
direction, and leads to Morant Bay. After getting clear of
the scattered houses in the outskirts of the town, it passes for
a mile or more through a perfect wood of cactuses and prickly
pears, some of which quite reach the dignity of trees, inter-
spersed with scattered acacia bushes. To the left rises steeply
a hill called " Commodore Mountain," towards the summit
of which, nestling amongst the trees, and approached by a
steep and winding path, is situated a house, the former resi-
dence of some commodore, who, I suppose, gave the name of
his rank to the hill on which he dwelt. On the right the
sea is approached, which ripples gently on a shingly beach, on
which, at intervals, shrubby trees find a scanty nourishment
for their roots. At the foot of Commodore Mountain, at the
side of the road, is an extensive limestone quarry, worked by
convict labour. Just past this quarry the road runs through
a stone-built fortress, on which a few cannons are mounted,
and which would apparently effectually bar any approach to
Kingston from that direction. Past the fort, the sea is again
approached, and in about a mile the regular turning place is
reached. The sun beats down very fiercely from the mountain

KINGSTON. 145

on the left, and causes the drive to be anything but a cool
one ; it is, however, a flat and good road, and that I suppose
outweighs its sultriness in the minds of the Kingston people.

I drove to a sugar plantation called Constant Spring, some
four of five miles from Kingston. The road lay between villas
standing back from the road, sometimes in grounds of five or
ten acres or more, which are quite park-like. These residences
are called " Pens," I fancy applying to lesser estates the term
which properly belongs to large cattle farms. The tall cactus
played a conspicuous part in forming their fences. After
passing many of these residences we came to wilder land, not
cultivated, but still with the trees thinly scattered enough to
allow you to see their different foliages to great advantage.
Vinca rosea, or "Old Maid," as it is called in Barbadoes, formed
pink masses in various places along the roadside.

A very striking tree is called by a name that sounds like
"Negumbite," but if that is the proper name, or whether
spelled right, I can't say. It does not grow to any great size,
and has a round outline with gloomy green leaves; about
March, however, it is entirely covered with azure blue flowers,
so much so that at the distance you can hardly tell whether its
leaves are not blue also. My driver told me that it was a
very powerful medicine, and was frequently used "for pain,"
which was rather vague, as he specified neither the quality
nor the locality of the pain it was to cure.

146 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

Another handsome tree was a kind of fig, which begins its
existence as a climber up some larger tree ; by degrees it
sends down to the ground stem after stem, until at last it
has completely encircled its support, and throws out a wide-
spreading head of dark green leaves, and becomes a large and
handsome forest tree. A few spindly and wretched-looking
branches, with light green leaves, showing above the dark
green of the fig, was all that remained of the tree that had
assisted it to assume its great proportions.

The whole way to Constant Spring the blue hills of
Jamaica were in front of me. They have a blue tint at a very
little distance off, so blue that a painting of them in their
natural tint would scarcely be believed in ; and then the colour
deepens gloriously in the ravines and gullies that plough up
their sides.

By the buildings at Constant Spring there is a large open
space like a village green, through which a little purling
stream of water runs ; but I did not find out if the name of
the estate was taken from an unfailing supply of water, or a
never-ending spring-time, which might be supposed to be the
case in so lovely an island.

As I was driving up to the plantation, I had noticed the
clouds gathering ominously upon the hills, but my Jehu pre-
tended to be weatherwise,' and said the storm would not come
down into the plain. He was wrong, however, and before

KINGSTON. 147

we got back to the town the squall overtook us. The water
came down in streams, not drops. The omnibuses have
curtains of oil-cloth attached to their canopies, which, under
such circumstances, are let down on the windward side or all
round if necessary, and which, though they keep out the rain,
keep out also the light, with the exception of a few straggling
rays that enter through the hole the reins are put through, and
through which the driver peeps to guide his horse aright. One
of these curtains became unbuttoned at one corner while it was
raining so heavily, and I was obliged to put my hand and arm
outside to button it again, but although I was not more than
fifteen seconds in doing so, my coat sleeve was wet through
to the skin in that short space of time. It ran down the sides
of the road like little rivers, and the heat of the ground and
the roofs of the houses caused quite a steam to rise as the rain
fell upon them. Luckily these storms or squalls do not last
long, and the only inconvenience that arose from it was my
wet arm.

CHAPTEE XIII.

THE BOGWALK — DRIVE TO THE GARDENS — WALK ON THE
NEWCASTLE ROAD.

i S my time in Jamaica was limited, I had to be very
hurried in my excursions, and was obliged to leave
unseen many beauties of the island. On Saturday,
the 8th of March, I started for the Bogwalk. The train left
Kingston for Spanish Town at ten o'clock, and at that time
I took my place in a first-class carriage, discovering, when I
took my ticket, that return tickets are not issued. The
carriages are made on the same plan as ours in England, but
the first-class have no stuffed seats, and are composed merely
of plain boards. The travelling is decidedly shaky, but a fair
speed is kept up ; the carriages, however, were not well coupled
up, and a good deal of bumping and thumping was the result.
About forty minutes takes you to Spanish Town. For the
first few miles the railway runs through the low sandy scrub,
covered with the acacia bushes that I have before mentioned ;
after awhile this scrub grows higher, and trees begin to be
mingled with the mimosas and cactuses. To the right, in the

THE BOG WALK. 149

distance, tower up the blue hills, while to the left, here and
there, can be obtained glimpses of the sea. After crossing one
or two little rivers the railway enters a large tract of marshy
ground, covered with bright green mangroves, under whose
branches deep dark still creeks of water stretch away into the
shade. At last, however, this marshy ground gives way to
large flat fields of long green grass, dotted with large trees, as
thickly as an English orchard. These fields are hedged in,
and the railway also, with a plant called pinguin (Bromelia),
a plant looking like a cross between a pine apple and an aloe,
with long thin yellowish-green leaves standing out stiffly on
every side, edged with a formidable array of large prickles.
The leaves, when the plants get well established, turn brilliant
crimson just at the end, while the very tip of the leaf is
golden yellow. It bears a bunch of yellow date-like fruit,
elevated from the centre of the plant on a short thick stem.

There is only one station between Spanish Town and
Kingston, and close by it is a spirit shop, which, I suppose,
serves as the refreshment-room, for all the time the train
stopped for the process of taking in water, which was appa-
rently a tedious one, it was surrounded by a group of negroes,
chattering aAvay at the top of their voices, thinking, perhaps,
that it was not the engine only that wanted a fresh supply of
liquid on so hot a day.

The railway banks in some places were golden with a bright

150 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

yellow flower, like a rock rose in blossom, with finely-divided
leaves and a stem creeping along the ground. The branches
of the trees were nearly everywhere bearded with a grey hair-
like moss, which grew in tufts along the branches ; I found
out afterwards that it was a flowering plant.

The station is some distance out of Spanish Town, so I
engaged a little negro boy to show me the way to the town,
and also to take me to a livery stable, where I might engage
a carriage for my projected drive. I don't think I have ever
beheld a town more generally out of repair than Spanish
Town. I don't think there is a decent house in the whole
place. The houses are for the most part brick, but there are
also many wooden huts. The streets are narrow and out of
repair, and the shops look most disreputable.

I went to have a cooling drink at a liquor shop, that looked
more respectable than the rest, while my carriage was being
prepared, and waited by no means patiently for it. The
liquor shop was distinguished by a sign, showing two most
extraordinary lions standing on their hind legs and pawing
frantically at each other.

When the carriage arrived, it was in no better repair than
the rest of the town. It was an old tumble-down buggy, and
the horse attached to it was a most wretched-looking little
animal, whose harness consisted in a great measure of string,
and I felt great compunction in trusting to it for a long drive.

THE BOG WALK.

However, the driver assured me that I should find it all that
could be required, so I got in and started off.

The road, which is good and hard, runs for two or three
miles on a perfect level, and is fenced on both sides with the
universal pinguin hedge, with sometimes a wide grassy strip
between the macadamised part and the fence. The land on
each side did not seem much cultivated ; here and there a
field dotted with trees, and in which cattle were grazing, was
to be observed, but for the greater part of this flat section of
the road it was bordered by a wood composed chiefly of
acacia and logwood trees, in some places covered with long
grey beards of moss, in others adorned by parasites and creep-
ing plants, the most frequent of which was a convolvulus
called "wild slip," which ran to the tops of the trees, and
covered them with festoons of purple-lilac flowers.

Wooden huts were scattered amongst the trees, and here
and there a liquor shop was surrounded by negroes, resting
and refreshing themselves, for it was market day, and I met
crowds of negro men and women going into Spanish Town
with their burdens of fruit and vegetables on their heads.

It was a glorious day, and the tropical sun covered every-
thing with its own brightness. In the distance rose a range
of low hills, covered to their tops with trees, and showing that
something beautiful was in front, but, as I found, not telling of
half the scenery that was at hand, for after two or three sud-

152 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

den curves to the right and the left, we found ourselves high
up above a river which ran and murmured some hundred feet
below us on our right hand, and down to which the ground
sloped precipitously.

' In the valley below a new dam is being constructed to
irrigate 10,000 acres ; it is being built by the Government,
and is to cost £80,000.

Then we turned suddenly away from the river, and passing
between some high banks covered with verdure, we came out
again near the river and about the same distance above it ;
and now the real beauties of the drive began. Down below
on our right rushed the river, fringed with towering bamboos,
waving gracefully in the gentle breeze, while the opposite bank
rose steeply, covered with all the variety and luxuriance of
tropical vegetation. On our left, too, rose a steep bank, into
which the road was cut, and in whose interstices and crannies
abounded the most lovely and graceful ferns, while languid
Heliconias and other insects fluttered lazily in the shade.
The branches of the trees above overspread the road, and a
light breeze which blew down the valley took away the
heat of the noonday sun. The road sloped gradually down to
the water's edge, and close to the massive remains of an old
Spanish fortress, now shrouded with verdure, crossed the
river on a rough wooden bridge on brick piers, destitute of any
parapet.

THE BOG WALK. 153

We now continued up the gorge, with the river on our left
some forty or fifty yards wide. The Bogwalk river, though
so calm and peaceful when I saw it, is liable to sudden fits of
anger, and rising some twenty feet above the road, sweeps
away everything in its wrath. Passengers along the road have
to use the utmost speed of horse or foot to escape the sudden
rush of the torrent. The hills rose up nearly perpendicular
on each side some four hundred feet, sloping only sufficiently
to afford a foothold for the trees, and in some places absolutely
precipitous. The river wound in and out amongst the hills,
affording fresh peeps of beauty at every turn. Let me try to
describe a reach of the river.

Steep cliffs rise up on either side, and apparently meet in
front, so that they seem to afford no outlet for the road nor
inlet for the river. They are clothed with greens of various
shades and leaves of various shapes to the very summit, while
by the road grow luxuriant ferns, chiefly maidenhair. Between
the road and the river rise at intervals rugged rocks, covered
with creepers and mossed over with lycopodiums, while by
the river edge wave giant tufts of bamboo and quivering
patches of wild cane and tall reed-like grass, the river all the
while foaming and murmuring over its rocky course. Just
across the river, a hundred yards ahead, the opposite bank of
the river ends in an overhanging precipice, a hundred feet high,
from the summit of which long lithe creepers drop down and

154 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

bathe their leaves in the water, under whose shade flourish
lovely green tufts of ferns and moss. And over all the sum-
mer sun shines down, powerless, however, to destroy the
refreshing stillness of the gorge. Yet, with all this beauty, the
wandering breeze kept now and again waving down to their
destination in the running stream yellow faded leaves.

Bright-hued butterflies glanced here and there, and a rustle
among the verdure told of the startled lizard, seeking security
amongst the crannies of the rocks from the intruder presump-
tuous enough to disturb it in its lovely home. But there was a
great lack of birds ; perhaps 'a lazy carrion crow would float
down the gorge, with its ashen grey wings extended, the
feathers at the end of them so wide apart that they seemed to
form a spectral hand, and perhaps a humming bird would
dart by so quickly that it was gone almost before it was seen
— but other birds there were none.

Everywhere in the sunshine Thunbergia alata covered the
bushes by the roadside with its buff flowers, and in the
shady places orchids flourished, sometimes forming immense
tufts of harts-tongue-like foliage.

I had dawdled along the way so much catching butter-
flies and picking ferns, that my watch warned me that it was
time to return, and I was obliged to do so, though I had not
reached the end of the gorge ; but I was in a perfect shiver
of delight at the beauty of what I had seen. My wretched

NEWCASTLE.

155

horse and rickety carriage brought me back to the railway
station at Spanish Town, and I returned to Kingston well
pleased with my excursion.

I was told at Kingston that even the Bogwalk is nothing to
be compared in beauty to the north side of the island, the
district called St Ann's. There the Soaring River falls in
fairy-like cascades over rocks and boulders, fringed with over-
hanging trees, seeming more like the scenery in a pantomime
than solid earth. I was sorry that I could not see these
beauties, but the Bogwalk is quite enough to satisfy a moderate
appetite for the loveliness of nature

My expedition, by which I intended to reach Newcastle,
was a very unlucky one, for I never succeeded in reaching
Newcastle at all. I had ordered my carriage at nine, and at
nine it arrived at the door of the hotel. Now these omnibus
things have no locking apparatus, and require a very wide circle
to turn in, and my driver, being, I suppose, in a great hurry
to get off, turned round too sharply, and the consequence was
that we were nearly upset, and somes crews were broken, and
getting the affair mended delayed us nearly an hour. At last,
however, he arrived with the renovated carriage.

The first few miles of our journey was through the usual
sandy scrub, covered with acacias and cactuses, one kind of
which was gay with large lemon-yellow blossoms, just like an
^evening primrose. In some of the trees by the roadside grows

156 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

a bush that in colour, appearance, and shape is exactly like
mistletoe, but I did not get near to any to see what kind of
plant it was. After a few miles we began to get amongst
rising ground. On our right was a low hill covered with
stunted scrub, and separated from the road by a wide and
shallow dry gully, that bore evidence of being a roaring
torrent in the rainy season. Amongst the bushes on the hill
crop out great patches of rock, whose grey tint forms a good
contrast to the various greens that surround it. A limestone
quarry is being worked at the foot of the hill, and round it
are picturesquely scattered a few thatched and whitewashed
cottages.

The road had quite an English appearance, for on each side
of the macadamised part is a strip of waste covered with low
shrubs and gay in many places with wild flowers ; while in
the hedgerows, here formed of a stiff-growing yucca-like plant,
and not of the nearly universal pinguin, grow some tall tama-
rind and mango trees. In front of us all the time were the
blue hills, looking more lovely as we approached them.

We now turned sharply to the right, and skirted the hills at
the distance of about a mile.

The road here is perfectly straight for over a mile, and is
called Hope Lane, " because," said my driver, " everybody
hopes to get to the end of it as fast as they can." It is nearly
level, but there is a little down-hill ; I could not, however,

NEWCASTLE, 157

convince my Jehu of this ; he maintained that it was up-hill
all the way from Kingston, and do all I could,. I could not get
him to own that we were going down-hill ; and all he would
admit was that it was a " hill," without any qualifying adjective,
either " up " or " down."

At last we came to the end of this long stretch, and, turning
sharply to the left, came out high on the one side of a gently
sloping valley, winding away amongst the hills in front of us,
and on the sides of which were scattered cottages and bright
green fields of sugar-cane. Birds were singing in the bushes
around with a song very like an English thrush. After a little
time the valley rapidly narrowed, and running down one side of
it we reached the bed of the stream. The rocks which bounded
the road on the left hand were green with fern, and shaded by
the trees which grew above. "We reached the stream which
foamed along in its narrow bed, in places fringed with waving
green bamboos, which clothed also the lower part of the
opposite bank, and in places trickling slowly through a wide
and stony gully, which bore testimony that at times the little
brook was a foaming torrent. Great aloes sent up their lofty
flower spikes in all directions, perching themselves on jutting
points of rock and in picturesque nooks ; on either side of the
valley were situated pretty cottages, while the hills rose up
on either side for many hundred feet.

We crossed a small tributary stream, and ran under the

158 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

rocks on the left hand side of the road, which in some places
assumed an absolutely precipitous character, and every crack
and cranny of which was filled with the verdure of ferns and
lycopodiums. A gentle ascent now brought us to Gordon-
town, or " Gardens," as it is usually called, which is merely a
collection of huts, amongst which are scattered a few soldiers'
tents, grouped round one or two central liquor shops. The
road ends here, ten miles from Kingston, and the rest of the
journey to Newcastle, five miles, has to be performed on horse-
back.

I then went to the office and inquired for a horse, and,
to my great dismay, I was told they were all engaged. The
troop-ship Orontes had come in the night before, and every
available animal was engaged upon Her Majesty's service,
bringing down the baggage of the 29th Eegiment and taking
up the goods of the 98th, who were going to take their
place at Newcastle. Here was bad luck ; but, having come so
far, I did not like to be beaten, and started off to walk up the
hill.

The path follows the bank of the stream, which comes down
a narrow and shady ravine in a succession of cascades. About
a mile of woodland and picturesque walking brought me to a
stone bridge over the stream, just before which a little trickling
stream poured in a tiny cascade over a precipice on the other
side of the river, though it could hardly be seen for the

NEWCASTLE.

159

luxuriance of the vegetation, which nearly hid it, as though
envious of its beauty. The path then continues, steeply and
stonily, by the stream until another bridge, but this a wooden
one, is reached. The river just beyond the bridge makes
a pretty cascade of some forty feet ; in fact, the river is
nothing but a succession of cascades, some small, mere rushes
of water over an opposing boulder, some larger, where the
water falls over some ridge of rock perhaps twenty feet high.
In the rocks by the side of the path gold fern abounds. On
some of the taller trees a long grey moss is to be seen, like
gigantic beards, eight or ten feet long, waving in the wind.
One fern that was rather common by the higher part of the
road, was in looks and scent exactly like our Lastrea oreopteris;
but I am not botanist enough to know if it really was our
English fern.

The path crosses the stream for the third time on
another wooden bridge, and reaches a collection of cottages,
and winds in and out amongst gigantic boulders. After a
little while I came to a place where the road divided, and I
had to choose between two paths ; unluckily there was no one
near to ask which was the right one ; but knowing that New-
castle was up-hill, I chose the upper one, leaving the other one
on my left, which seemed to lead down a valley rather than
up a hill. I passed a little stream of water and quenched my
thirst, for walking up a steep path, covered with loose and

1 6O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

angular stones that slipped with one at every step, and with a
tropical noonday sun glaring down upon me whenever I was
out of the shade of the trees, was not a particularly cool
operation. I had met many people soon after I started carrying
goods down the hill, the barefooted negroes stepping along as
firmly upon the angular stones as if they were traversing
the finest turf.

On I went, the road getting worse and worse ; cottages were
scattered about here and there on the side of the hill, while
in the distance appeared one or two good houses. At last,
after toiling up a particularly steep part of the path, I turned
a shoulder of the hill and saw Newcastle in front of me, perhaps
three quarters of a mile away as the crow flies, but apparently
twice as far by the road, which had to go round the head of
the valley that lay between Newcastle and myself. I met
here a man coming down, and I asked him how far it was up
there ; he said it was more than a mile, so here, thought I, I
have done enough, and will turn back, comforting myself
with the idea that it is a great thing to know when to turn
back.

Walking down was nearly as bad as walking up. The
steepness of the path cramped one's feet, and the giving way
of the loose stones made it additionally difficult. There was,
however, a cool breeze blowing up the valley, which was very
refreshing. The view was not very extensive when I was at

NEWCASTLE. l6l

the highest point of my walks. The hills all round are glorious ;
but the scene was entirely shut in with them, except straight
in front where the sea could be seen, and through a gorge to
the right, where a pretty but limited view of distant lowland
could be seen.

I got down again quite safely, though very nearly tired. I then
found out the mistake I had made. I should have taken the
lower path when the road divided, which leads more easily and
directly to Newcastle. The road I had taken leads to a place
called Clifton. Newcastle, as I saw it, was a large collection
of white houses with black roofs, situated on a sloping ridge,

; two thousand feet above the sea. The Fern-walk is the great
thing to see at Newcastle, but although I had missed my aim,

£ and had not seen it, still I had had a pleasant and lovely walk

i in the heart of tropical hills, a thing one doesn't get every day

\ of one's life.

The next day, in the evening, I went on board the steamer
Tagus and slept there, as she was to start the next morning
early. On Wednesday morning, therefore, we cast off from the
wharf at Kingston, and for many hours the blue hills of
Jamaica were fading away in the distance.

CHAPTER XIV.

JAMAICA TO BARBADOES.

, E arrived at St Thomas at nine o'clock on Saturday
morning, during the prevalence of what is called a
" norther," that is a mixture of wind and rain and
cold, reminding one more of an English November than the
tropics. I did not, therefore, go on shore, as the day was so
dreary. A bank of clouds was resting half way down the
hills at the back of the town, and frequent gusts of wind
drove the drizzling rain the whole length of the deck of the
ship under the awning, forcing everybody to seek shelter
below.

After dark, the town looked very well when the lamps were
lit. The three little hills upon which the town is situated
formed three pyramids of illumination, joined together by the
lights in the houses along the edge of the water. The town
is lighted with gas.

The next day I went on board the Arno, for, to my
delight, she was the steamer going down the islands. The

ST THOMAS. 163

ship, soon after I went on board, went alongside the Taa-
manian, which had just come in from England, and as soon as
there was a gangway between the two ships I went on board
the Tasmanian, to my great surprise meeting an old college
friend on the quarterdeck.

I was much amused, just before I went back to the Arno,
at the position of a man who had evidently imbibed more
liquor than was compatible with steadiness of brain or body.
It was about eleven o'clock at night, and what ship he belonged
to none of the officers of either steamer knew. He had come
off to the Tasmanian in a shore boat, and as it was certain that
he had no right there, they sent him across the gangway to the
Arno, and it being equally certain that he did not belong,
to her, he was not allowed to go on board her either. The
Tasmanian having once got him off, would not let him on
again, so he had the whole length of the gangway to himself,
and no more. However, he seemed very merry over it, and
at last, I believe, he was sent on shore.

The next day the Arno started about eleven o'clock in the
morning. The norther was still blowing; and so the day
passed — heavy rain showers, heavy squalls, and heavy sea;
and this lasted until it was dark.

At half-past three in 'the morning of the 18th of March we
anchored at Basseterre, the chief town of St Christopher,
or St Kitts, as it is colloquially called. The clouds had

164 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

partially cleared away, and the moon peeped out at intervals,
and lit up the town and the neighbouring cane-fields, which
stretched up the gentle slopes of a hill side, and could be
distinguished by their tint, lighter than that of the surround-
ing land. The features of the town I could not distinguish.
I could only see a collection of houses close down to the water's
edge, gleaming white in the moonlight.

A flock of boats soon came off from the shore, and the task
of transferring the goods from the Arno to them soon com-
menced, and I, having seen all there was to see, again went
below. After breakfast, St Kitts and Nevis were behind us,
which latter island is only separated from St Kitts by a
narrow channel, while to our right, or to starboard, to use a
nautical term, we were passing a round rock called Eedondo,
while some distance beyond it was the island of Montserrat,
with the tops of its mountains shrouded in clouds. Antigua
was ahead of us. The weather was much finer, but still squalls
of rain were to be seen in various directions, though overhead
the sky was clear.

At half-past twelve we stopped at Antigua, in the middle of
a storm of rain, in a little bay called English Harbour, sur-
rounded by hills, and twelve miles away from the chief town of
the island, St Johns. Jutting out into the bay is a little rocky
promontory, on which is "situated a flagstaff, surrounded by
a low wall with a cottage inside it, and approached from the

ANTIGUA. 165

sea by a flight of steps cut into the rock. Round this promon-
tory the water curves sharply, forming, as it were, a bay
within a bay. At the end of the little bay are some build-
ings belonging to a dockyard, and coloured a bright yellow.

The promontories are formed of grey sandstone, with layers
of stratification which are nearly horizontal, and worn by
the sea into all kinds of fantastic holes and caverns. The
hills on the sides of the bay are covered with low scrub,
amongst which grow quantities of aloes, sending their tall
flowering stalks far above the surrounding vegetation, while at
the level of the sea the hills terminate in a fine sandy beach,
which some passengers who went on shore said was literally
covered with shells. The outline of the island, as seen from
the sea, is very irregular, but the hills do not seem to reach
any great height.

The mountains of the West India Islands seem to consist
of a collection of pyramids. It is as if a large central pyramid
was supported by buttresses in the shape of pyramids, while
all the irregularities of the mountain side take a triangular
shape. It is, doubtless, owing to the volcanic action which
produced the greater part of them that they have this char-
acteristic. The mountains in Antigua are made up of these
peculiar little pyramidal hills.

At two o'clock we again started, and Guadeloupe was
reached just as the sun was setting, but it was quite dark

1 66 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

before we stopped at Basseterre, the chief town of the island.
Nothing could be seen but the lights of the town, which is
brilliantly lighted with gas. At eight we were off again, and
at two we reached Roseau, the chief town of Dominica ; here,
although the moon was shining, we could see nothing but
white houses down by the sea, and hear a gentle surf lapping
upon the shore. We stopped only about an hour.

At seven o'clock on Wednesday morning we made fast to a
buoy at St Pierre, in Martinique. During my passage in the
Nile from Barbadoes to St Thomas, we passed St Pierre
without stopping, and at a distance of two or three miles, so
that the outline of the island could be better seen. On each
side of St Pierre, which is situated at the entrance to a valley,
rises a high mountain, that to the right appearing from the
sea not unlike Ben Nevis in shape. St Pierre is a very neat
town, prettily placed between some steep cliffs and the
sea, but continuing past the end of these cliffs along the sea-
shore, and extending into the valley behind. On the top of
one of these cliffs, occupying an elevated position amongst the
green shrubs, is a white marble statue of the Empress Josephine,
who was a native of Martinique. Many ships were in the har-
bour, and a few at a greater distance away had the yellow flag
of quarantine flying at the foremast.

The mountain to the north of the town, or to the left as we
look at it from the sea, has a conical shape, from the highest

MARTINIQUE. 167

peak of which slope down to the sea long mountainous ridges,
like the ribs of some giant animal, composed of the usual
volcanic pyramids. To the south of the town the spurs of the
mountain come down to the sea, where they end as abruptly and
with apparently as smooth a face as if they had been sawn off
with a stonemason's saw. They are of grey sandstone, striped
with darker reds and browns. Between the cliffs run up from
the sea most lovely valleys, with their sides covered with
sugar-cane, and here and there a house or a cottage or a boil-
ing-house peeping out, while the entrances on the sea-shore are
fringed with groves of waving cocoa-nuts. The slopes of the
hills are cultivated in patches, but sometimes the cane-fields
run up to the very summits.

We steamed away from St Pierre at half-past eight, and at
about nine were off the large bay in which Port of France is
situated. The mountains here sink down, but past the bay is
a mountainous promontory, although the hills are not nearly
so high as in the north of the island. Just beyond this pro-
montory is the Diamond Rock, which played an important
part in the wars with France at the end of the last century.
Kingsley, in his " At Last," gives a very interesting account
of the proceedings connected with it.

We arrived at St Lucia about one, and making fast to the
wharf, I went on shore, and immediately started off to walk
to the Maund, up a hill some two miles away. The walk up

1 68 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

was a rather steep pull, winding round the hills at the back of
the town, and shaded by trees and shrubs. Cottages and
houses were situated on either side of the road the whole of
the way. At the top of the hill are some barrack buildings
now evidently disused, but part of which I hear is to be
turned into a house for the governor.

A cemetery is situated on the brow of a hill, rather lower
than that on which the other buildings are. From the outer
edge of it the view is lovely. At one's feet lies a lovely
and fertile valley, through which winds, with serpentine
course, a tiny river ; an arm of the sea enclosed with gently
sloping cultivated hills comes up to meet the stream, and
breaks in gentle ripples on the shore. Beyond the valley rise
rough, ragged hills, clothed only with forest, save here and
there where a patch of brighter green betokens the sugar-
cane ; beyond, and yet beyond, rise the crests of hills, and in
the distance a jagged chain of mountain peaks stands out
against the sky ; to the right extends the boundless sea, while
to the left the view is shut in by a spur of the hill on which I
am, over which, in the distance, mountains show their tops.

The cemetery itself is in ruins, though there are some
graves of comparatively recent date. Mostly built of brick or
stone, they are in all stages of decay ; some a mere shapeless
heap of stones, while amongst them grow sandbox trees, and
wild guava lends its green to adorn in some measure the

ST LUCIA. 169

ravages of time. Some of the tombs are of white marble and
quite architectural, but a neglected appearance clings to all.

The view looking over the town of Castries, or to the north,
is very fine. Down by a long bay, formed by a jutting hill
joined by a strip of low land to the rest of the island, is
situated this town, looking much larger and more imposing
from the height on which I stand than it really is. To the
right of the town the ground is broken up by a lot of little
hills, amongst which are seen green patches of cultivation.
The shore stretches away beyond the town, broken up into
irregular bays and promontories, while hazy and dim in the
far distance can be discerned the outline of Martinique.

The town of Castries is very poor ; the streets are laid out
at right angles to each other, and were evidently never intended
for carriages, as they are unevenly paved with very large flat-
topped boulders, and in most cases slope down rather steeply
to a central gutter.

The steamer stopped opposite the end of Bridge Street,
which seems to be the chief street in the town. To the left of
Bridge Street, some hundred yards away from the wharf, is a
large open place or square, surrounded by tall trees, chiefly
mango, sandbox, and tamarind, while between them are planted
oleanders. In the centre of the square, which in itself looks
desolate and bare, because grass grows only in patches, and
when it does grow is stunted and parched, is a desolate-looking

I/O UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

fountain, in the shape of an urn raised high upon a square
pedestal, from which a slender trickle of water is always flow-
ing. Under the shade of the trees are iron seats, so that the
town is not altogether without some attempts at comfort.

Bridge Street, I suppose, is so called, because at the end of
it is a wooden bridge over a little brook, not by any means of
pure water, which comes down from the hills, and doubtless
gathers its impurity in the outskirts of the town. The road
to the Maund starts over this bridge, and soon, after passing
it, a very creditable but rather age-stricken piece of masonry
is to be seen on the left, in the shape of a plain round arched
doorway with a round arched niche on each side ; it serves
now as an entrance to a yard or garden, in which is situated a
rather respectable house. Passing this, the road begins to
ascend in winding zigzags up the hill, and soon crosses another
stream, which showed in its rocky bed dark pools of stagnant
soapsuds and filth instead of pure water. I saw no shops
or stores of any respectability in the town, nor did I see a
carriage, nor indeed any road on which a carriage could run.

The Arno was coaled at Castries. This is done by a gang
of negroes, men and women, who carry the coal upon their
heads in baskets from a heap on shore, and throw it down on
board ship near the coal holes. The negroes are in every
degree of rags and every shade of blackness, both of coal-dust
and blood, but they seem very merry during their operations,

ST LUCIA. 171

in spite of the immense weight of coals they carry on their
heads.

At St Lucia the passengers for Trinidad, St Vincent, and
Grenada change steamers, and we found the Tyne awaiting
us there to take them to their destination.

On the side of the Arno furthest from the wharf was a
boat-load of naked negro boys, perhaps ten or a dozen of
them, who with loud voice testified their readiness to dive
into the water for any white coin we pleased to throw them.
We were much amused at their antics. They seemed to aim at
getting their hands under the coin, which sinks very slowly
through the water, though some coins were veritably brought
up from the bottom. One or two of them far excelled the
others in their swimming and diving powers, and, as far as
I could see, secured the lion's share of the profits.

We left St Lucia at five o'clock, the Trinidad steamer having
departed an hour before, and steamed out into a nasty sea, which
soon began to exert its influence over the unseasoned passengers.

The first thing on Thursday morning, after a good night's
rest, in spite of the moaning of the sea-stricken, and the
screams of a refractory baby, I saw Barbadoes once more out
of my cabin port. It did not take long to reach Bridgetown,
and at half-past eight we anchored in Carlisle Bay. On shore

I met my friend, and I again went to W for the few

days before my steamer left for England.

CHAPTEE XV.

LAST LOOK AT BARBADOES — THE VOYAGE HOME —
CONCLUSION.

'T was crop time in Barbadoes now ; sugar-making was
going on all over the island, but in a style very
different to Demerara. There are, with a few excep-
tions, no steam engines, no vacuum pans, no centrifugals, and
no magnificent manufactory for the reception of these
machines. The process is very simple, and as it is a very
paying one, I don't see the necessity of introducing more
complicated appliances into the island.

The cane is brought to the mill-door by ox-carts, and placed
in the mill by women, and from thence the juice runs into the
boiling-house by gravitation, where it is boiled down as in
Demerara, but on a much smaller scale. The coppers in
which it is boiled are called " taches." From the last tache
it is placed in large square boxes called " coolers," and when
cold is put into hogsheads, and placed on a frame, through

BARBADOES.

which the molasses drains away into an underground cistern,
leaving the sugar crystals in the hogshead. This is muscovado
or brown sugar.

By a process called " oscillating," a, finer crystal is formed.
" Oscillators " are things like paddle-wheels, which are turned
slowly round in the syrup while it is cooling.

For firing, both in Barbadoes and Demerara, the refuse of
the cane, called " magass," is used, and sometimes coal also.
I heard of a negro boy being told to get a couple of hogs-
heads of coal from Speight's Town and light the fire under the
taches with it. After the coal had been procured, the stoker
sent to the manager to say, that do all he could he could not
make this coal light. So the manager sent back to tell him
to break it smaller, and put more magass to it. However, it
was of no use, and at last the manager went to see what he
could do, and found that his stoker had been industriously
striving to set on fire some broken drain-pipes, which had
come up by mistake from the town, and which the negro did
not know from coal.

The great fault In the process of sugar-making, as carried on
in Barbadoes, is the variableness of the wind power used to
grind the canes ; if there is not sufficient wind, of course the
mill will not work; if there is too much, the mill goes so
quickly that it cannot be fed fast enough, and the sails fly
round with such speed that there is the danger of the mill

1/4 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

throwing off a "point," as the sails are called, and in con-
sequence, when the wind rises, it has to be turned away from
the force of the blast. On a squally day, a gang of negroes
seem to do little else but pull the mill to and from the force
of the wind.

Barbadoes looked very different on my second visit from
what it did when I first arrived. Instead of waving fields of
cane, I found brown fields of trash where the canes had been
cut. The roads were very dusty, and a coating of dust rested
on everything for yards on either side. The sun was far more
powerful, and the glaring white of the roads and coral rocks
was much more remarkable. In a month or six weeks the
cane harvest would be over, and brown fields would soon form
the pervading feature of the island. The trash from the cut
canes is placed all over the fields in which the young tcaues
are growing to form some little protection from the sun ; the
young canes were then some eighteen inches high, but it
would be July or August before they covered the ground.

On Sunday the 30th March the Nile came in, and I had to

say goodbye to all my kind W friends. I drove down to

Bridgetown about eleven, and then found that the steamer

would not start till five. However, my friend P< and myself

went on board at once, and the time passed all too quickly ;
and at last it was time, for him to go, and I said goodbye to
the last of my West Indian friends. Soon the Nile got under

THE VOYAGE HOME.

weigh, and in about half an hour we were in sight of W - .
I borrowed a telescope from one of the officers, and could
plainly see my W - friends standing in the verandah,
watching the ship go by. It was too far away to distinguish
anything with the naked eye. Soon all got indistinct even
with the telescope, and then, taking one last look, I went
below, and saw Barbadoes no more.

We had the most lovely weather for the first week of our
voyage, and in a very few days the wind began to get quite
cold. On Tuesday the 8th of April, about mid-day, it began
to get cloudy, and a fresh breeze sprang up, which continued
with rain for the rest of the day. This was a very exciting
day in the annals of our voyage. After breakfast the turtles
on board were transferred to the hold from the sheep pens,
where they had been quietly reposing on their backs, so
closely packed that they looked like gigantic scales on some
gigantic fish. The transfer was done in a very summary
manner. They were carried to the hatchway, and there a noose
of rope was made fast by a pulley to one of their flappers, and
they were lowered down to their destination, waving their
limbs and heads aimlessly in the air as they descended.

Then at twelve o'clock we came in sight of St Michael's,
one of the Azores, famed for its oranges ; and at one o'clock
we were about three miles away from the island, but it had
become so misty that no good view could be obtained. I

1/6 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

could see, however, that high cliffs faced the sea, lower
towards the middle of the visible shore of the island, where
there were situated a few white houses and a white church.
Separated from the land some fantastically-shaped rocks stood
out in the sea. What could be seen of the island was highly
cultivated, the land sloping up gradually and divided into
fields of bright green verdure, amongst which, towards the
edge of the cliffs, were dotted white houses. No trees were
visible, but darker lines, either gullies or strips of woodland,
ran down to the edge of the rocks from the higher land, which
was hidden in the driving mist.

We were soon past the island and out again into the open
sea ; it was very cold in the wind, and greatcoats and rugs
came out as if by magic. However, the wind and rain lasted
only until the middle of the next day, when the weather
cleared up, and by nightfall the Nile was again as steady as a
house. Soon after this we began to fall in with ships, and
various gaily-coloured and mysterious flags were hoisted bj
way of signals ; the weather was glorious, with hardly a cloud
in the sky or a ripple on the sea. On Saturday the 12th of
April, we caught sight of the Lizard, and about half-past five
fired our gun for the tender in Plymouth Sound.

The luggage took sometime to transfer from the steamer
to the tender, and there were innumerable quantities of mail-
bags to be sent on shore, so that it was after seven before the

CONCLUSION. 177

tender left the ship and steered for Plymouth, while the Nile
turned her head towards Cherbourg.

About half an hour brought the little steamer to shore, and
we were soon once more on the shores of old England.

And now, if I were asked which I liked best of the three
places I made any stay at, Barbadoes, Demerara, or Jamaica, I
should answer that I had no fair standard of comparison. In
Barbadoes I was staying with a family, and therefore saw a
great deal of society ; in Demerara I was staying at a hotel,
and my acquaintance was limited to bachelors, chiefly barris-
ters and officials of Bridgetown ; while in Jamaica I was the
unprotected traveller, without introduction, and not staying
long enough to become acquainted with anybody. In Barba-
does, however, the society seems to be more after the fashion
of English society. Families have been located there in many
instances for more than two hundred years, and their repre-
sentatives are as much attached to the soil as the represen-
tatives of county families in England, and in many cases they
are the descendants, through junior branches, of some of the
best families in England, and their estates are called after
the ancestral domain.

In Demerara it is otherwise. Though there are many
descendants of the old Dutch families left, still they have
become in later times Englishmen rather than Demerarans.
They have probably been sent to England to be educated,

M

178 UNDER A TROPICAL SKY.

they pay frequent visits to England themselves, perhaps
marry English wives, and in turn send their children to
England to commence the same routine. Therefore, the
society in Demerara is more transitional, and it seems as if no
one would stay there if they could return to England without
sacrificing their pecuniary interests. About Jamaica I cannot
speak.

My reason for taking the tour was to escape the winter
months in England, and at the same time to see if a thorough
change of climate would enable me to get rid of a tiresome
cough that had worried me for a couple of years. In this I
am glad to say I was successful, and I see no reason why the
West Indies should not become as favourite a health resort
during our cold winter as the south of France or tlie north
of Africa. The climate is lovely, the journey thither is easy,
the ships of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company are in
every respect first-rate, and, with introductions, there is plenty
of society; the only drawback is the want of good hotel
accommodation. There are hotels, but they are certainly not
up to the requirements of the fastidious ; but on the other
hand it only requires more visitors to bring about the
establishment of better hotels. Living is cheap, provisions are
good and abundant, and every European comfort and luxury
is to be obtained in the' principal towns. At every hotel in
the West Indies the charge for board and lodging is two

CONCLUSION.

dollars, or 8s. 4d. a day, and meals are generally abundant
and fairly cooked and served. Lastly, in my opinion, persons
seeking a change from our frost and snow at home might do
much worse than spend their winter months " under a tropical
sky."

THE END.

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at the end of his wanderings."

" The tone of this book is altogether delightful and refreshing." — Spec-
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"The impression left on the mind by his narrative is one of profound
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"This is one of the freshest and most interesting books of travel that
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"There is a delightful breeziness and vigour about Captain Butler's
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" His fascinating volume .... not only exciting, but instructive
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ALIFORNIA. ^Nordhoff.

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China. See Illustrations of.

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Keat's Eve of St. Agnes.
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Rogers' Pleasures of Memory.
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y Queen,
f Nature.

Gray's Elegy in a Churchyard. Wordsworth's Pastoral Poems.

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Christ in Song. Hymns of Immanuel, selected from all Ages,
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Christabel. See Bayard Series.

Christmas Presents. See Illustrated Books.

Chronicles of Castle of Amelroy. 4to. With Photographic
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Clara Vaughan. See Blackmore.

Coffin (G. C.) Our New Way Round the World. 8vo. 12s.

Commons Preservation (Prize Essays on), written in compe-
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Hero Trevelyan. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 2U.

Craik's American Millwright and Miller. With numerous
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Cruise of "The Rosario. See Markham (A. H.).

Cummins (Maria S.) Haunted Hearts (Low's Copyright
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Curtis's History of the Constitution of the United States.

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JALTON (J. C.) A Treatise on Physiology and
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!£*&&& Dana (R. H.) Two Years before the Mast and
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1 2 mo. 6s.

Dana (Jas. D.) Corals and Coral Islands. Numerous

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Darley (Felix O. C.) Sketches Abroad with Pen and
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many very fine Woodcuts and a Map, cloth extra, i&s.

" Et terrain Hesperiam venies, ubi Lydius arva
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VIRGIL, jEn. II., 781.

Devonshire Hamlets ; Hamlet 1603, Hamlet 1604. I Vol.

8vo. is. (>d.

De Witt (Madame Guizot). An Only Sister. Vol. V.
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Dhow-Chasing. See Sulivan.

Draper (John W.) Human Physiology. Illustrated with
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Dream Book (The) with 12 Drawings in facsimile by E. V. B.
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Duer's Marine Insurance. 2 vols. 3/. 3-r.

Duplais and McKennie, Treatise on the Manufacture and
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Dussauce (Professor H.) A New and Complete Treatise
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General Treatise on the Manufacture of Vinegar.

8vo.

NGLISH Catalogue of Books (The) Published

d
A

during 1863 to 1871 inclusive, comprising also the Important
merican Publications.

This Volume, occupying over 450 Pages, shows the Titles
of 32,000 New Books and New Editions issued during Nine
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%* The previous Volume, 1835 to 1862, of which a very few remain on
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Supplements, 1863, 1864, 1865, $s. dd. each ; 1866,

1867 to 1872, S.T. each.

Writers, Chapters for Self-improvement in English

Literature ; by the author of "The Gentle Life." 6s.

Erckmann-Chatrian, Forest House and Catherine's
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The Brothers Rantzau : A Story of the Vosges.

2 vols. crown 8vo. cloth. 21$.

AITH GARTNEY'S Girlhood, by the Author of

"The Gayworthys." Fcap. with Coloured Frontispiece, y.dd.

Favourite English Poems. New and Extended
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Favell (The) Children. Three Little Portraits. Crown iamo.

Four Illustrations. Cloth gilt. 4$.

" A very useful and clever story." — yohn Bull.

Few (A) Hints on Proving Wills. Enlarged Edition, sewed.

IS.

Fields (J. T.) Yesterdays with Authors. CrownSvo. los. 6d.
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Flammarion (C.) The Atmosphere. Translated from the
French of CAMILLE FLAMMARION. Edited by JAMES GLAISHER,
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ment of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. With 10 beautiful
Chromo-Lithographs and 81 woodcuts. Royal 6vo. cloth extra, bevelled
boards. 30$.

List of Publications. 15

Franc (Maude Jeane) Emily's Choice, an Australian Tale,
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Marian, or the Light of Some One's Home. Fcp.

3rd Edition, with Frontispiece. $s.

Silken Cords and Iron Fetters. 5.1-.

Vermont Vale. Small post 410., with Frontispiece. 5-r.

Minnie's Mission. Small post 8vo., with Frontis-

piece.

Frey (H.) The Microscope and Microscopical Tech-
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Friswell (J. H.) See Gffntle Life Series.
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AYWORTHYS (The), a Story of New England
Life. Small post 8vo. jr. 6d.

* Gems of Dutch Art. Twelve Photographs from
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Gentle Life (Queen Edition). 2 vols. in I. Small 4to. los. 6V.

THE GENTLE LIFE SERIES. Printed in
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ing suitable Volumes for Presents. Price 6s. each ;
or in calf extra, price icxr. 6d.

The Gentle Life. Essays in aid of the Formation of Cha-
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" His notion of a gentleman is of the noblest and truest order. A
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II.

About in the World. Essays by the Author of "The Gentle

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r6 Sampson Low and Co.'s

in.

Like unto Christ. A New Translation of the " De Imita-
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" Evinces independent scholarship, and a profound feeling for the
original. " — Nonconformist.

Could not be presented in a more exquisite form, for a more sightly
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Familiar Words. An Index Verborum, or Quotation Hand-
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"The most extensive dictionary ot quotation we have met with." —
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"Will add to the author's credit with all honest workers."— Exa-
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Essays by Montaigne. Edited, Compared, Revised, and
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VI.

The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Written by Sir
PHILIP SIDNEY. Edited, with Notes, by the Author of "The Gentle
Life." Dedicated, by permission, to the Earl of Derby. ^s. 6d.

" All the best things in the Arcadia are retained intact in Mr. Fris-
well's edition. — Examiner.

VII.
The Gentle Life. Second Series. Third Edition.

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VIII.

Varia : Readings from Rare Books. Reprinted, by per-
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"The books discussed in this volume are no less valuable than they
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for having rendered their treasures available to the general reader." —
Observer.

IX.

The Silent Hour: Essays, Original and Selected. By
the Author of "The Gentle Life." Second Edition.

"All who possess the 'Gentle Life' should own this volume." —
Standard.

List of Publications. 1 7

x.

Essays on English writers, for the Self-improvement of

Students in English Literature.

"The author has a distinct purpose and a proper and noble ambition to
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literature. To all (both men and women) who have neglected to read
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XI.

Other People's Windows. By J. HAIN FRISWELL. Second
Edition.

"The chapters are so lively in themselves, so mingled with shrewd
riews of human nature, so full of illustrative anecdotes, that the reader
cannot fail to be amused." — Morning Post.

XII.

A Man's Thoughts. By J. HAIN FRISWELL.

German Primer; being an Introduction to First Steps in
German. By M. T. PREU. 2s. 6d.

Getting On in the World ; or, Hints on Success in Life.
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Girdlestone (C.) Christendom. i2mo. 3^.
Family Prayers. I2mo. is. 6d.

Glover (Rev. R.) The Light of the Word. Third Edition.
i8mo. 2s. (xl.

Goethe's Faust. With Illustrations by Konewka. Small 410.
Price ioj. 6d.

Gouffe : The Royal Cookery Book. By JULES GOUFFE",

Chef-de-Cuisine of the Paris Jockey Club ; translated and adapted for
English use by ALPHONSE GOUFFE, head pastrycook to Her Majesty the
Queen. Illustrated with large plates, beautifully printed in colours, to-
gether with 161 woodcuts. 8vo. Coth extra, gilt edges. zl. zs.

Domestic Edition, half-bound. los. 6d.

" By far the ablest and most complete work on cookery that has ever
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The Book of Preserves ; or, Receipts for Preparing

and Preserving Meat, Fish salt and smoked, Terrines, Gelatines, Vege-
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" The Royal Cookery Book." i vol. royal 8vo., containing upwards of
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Girls' Books. A Series written, edited, or translated by the
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a. The Cousin from India.

3. Twenty Years Ago.

4. Is it True.

5. An Only Sister. By Madame GUIZOT DE WITT.

Gough (J. B.) The Autobiography and Reminiscences of
John B. Gough. 8vo. Cloth, los. 6d.

Great Lone-Land. See Butler.

Grant (Rev. G. M.). See Ocean to Ocean.

Greenleaf's Law of Evidence. 3 vols. S^s.

Guizot's History of France. Translated by ROBERT BLACK.
Royal 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. Vols. I. and II., cloth extra, each
34$. ; in Parts, zs. each (to be completed in about twenty parts).

Guyon (Mad.) Life. By Upham. Third Edition. Crown
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Method of Prayer. Foolscap, is.

ALL (E. H.) The Great West; Handbook for
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routes, railways, and steam communication, complete to pre-
sent time. • Boards, is.

Harrington (J.) Pictures of Saint George's Chapel, Wind-
sor. Photographs. 410. 63$.

Harrington's Abbey and Palace of Westminster. Photo-
graphs, s/. ss.

Harrison (Agnes). See Martin's Vineyard.

Harper's Handbook for Travellers in Europe and the
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Harz Mountains. See Blackburn.

Hawthorne (Mrs. N.) Notes in England and Italy. Crown
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Hayes (Dr.) Cast Away in the Cold; an Old Man's Story
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"The Open Polar Sea." With numerous Illustrations. Gilt edges, 6s.

The Land of Desolation; Personal Narrative of Ad-
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List of Publications. 19

Hazard (S.) Santo Domingo, Past and Present; With a
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Demy 8vo. cloth extra, i&r.

Extract from the notice in Spectator, March 22nd. — " This is a book
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Cuba with Pen and Pencil. Over 300 Fine Wood-
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" We recommend this book to the perusal of our readers." —
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"Mr. Hazard has completely exhausted his subject." — Pall Mall
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Hazlitt (William) The Round Table; the Best Essays of
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Healy (M.) Lakeville ; or, Shadow and Substance. A
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A Summer's Romance. Crown 8vo., cloth. IOT. 6d.

The Home Theatre. Small post 8vo. 3-r. 6d.

Henderson (A.) Latin Proverbs and Quotations ; with
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ALFRED HENDERSON. Fcap. 410., 530 pp. ios. 6d.

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»
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List of Publications. 29

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32 Sampson Low and Co.'s List of Publications.

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