AT LAST: A CHmSTMAfi IN THE WEST INDIES. AT LAST: A CHRISTMAS IN THE WEST INDIES. BY CHAELES KIXGSLEY. jr I T H ILLUSTRATION S. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. ir. ^ UBRARY NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN ITonbou mxh Iftb |Tork MACMILLAN AND CO. 1871. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE IX. PAGE SAN JOSEF . . . , 1 CHAPTEE X, NAPARIMA AND MONTSERRAT 27 CHAPTEE XL THE NORTHERN MOUNTAIN 91 CHAPTEE XIL THE SAVANNA OF ARIPO 164 CHAPTEE XTII. THE COCAL t 185 CHAPTEE XIV. THE "education QUESTION" IN TRINIDAD 224 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. PAGE THE RACES — A LETTER 259 CHAPTER XVI. A PROVISION GROUND 268 CHAPTER XVII. (AND LAST). HOMEWARD BOUND 292 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. PAGE A MANGROVE SWAMP Front. COOLIE A^^) NEGRO 1 A COOLIE FAMILY 47 BANANA ..... 61 TORTIJGA To face 81 COOLIE GROUP 85 FILLETTE To foce 107 AVOCADO PEAR 109 CANNON-BALL TREE , . 114 A TROPIC BEACH To foCC 160 YOUNG COCO-PALM 198 THE COCAL Tofaa 200 COOLIE SACRIFICING 257 X L7^T OF ILLVSTRATIONS, PAGE WAITING FOR THE RACES To face 260 THE LAST OF THE GIANTS „ 268 BREAD-FRUIT . . 269 YAM 274 SWEET POTATO 275 GUAVA 290 Coolie and Nejro. AT LAST. A CHRISTMAS IN THE WEST INDIES. CHAPTEPt IX. SAN JOSEF. J The road to the ancient capital of the island is pleasant enough, and characteristic of the West Indies. Not, indeed, ]2is to its breadth, make, and material, for they, contrary to 22 VOL. II. B SAN JOSEF. the wont of West India roads, are as good as they would he in Eiighand, hut on account of the quaint travellers along it, and the quaint sights whicli are to he seen over every hedge. You pass all the races of the island going to and from town or field work, or washing clothes in some clear brook, beside which a solemn Chinaman sits catching for his dinner strange fishes, known to my learned friend, Dr. Giinther, and perhaps to one or two other men in Europe : but certainly not to me. Always somebody or something new and strange is to be seen, for eight most pleasant miles. The road runs at first along a low^ cliff foot, with an ugl>' Mangrove swamp, looking just like an alder-bed at home, between you and the sea; a swamp which it would be worth while to drain by a steam-pump, and then plant \\\i\\ coco- nuts or bamboos ; for its miasma makes the southern corner of Port of Spain utterly pestilential You cross a railroad, the only one in the island, which goes to a limestone quarry, and so out alono; a wide straight road, with Neg'ro cottao'es ri^^ht and left, embowered in fruit and flowers. They grow fewer and finer as you ride on ; and soon you are in open country, principally of large paddocks. These paddocks, like all West Indian ones, are apt to be ragged with weeds and scrub. But the coarse broad-leaved grasses seem to keep the mules in good condition enough, at least in the rainy season. Most of these paddocks have, 1 believe, been under cane cultivation VEGAS. 3 at some time or other ; and have been thrown into grass during the period of depression dating from 1845. It has not been worth while, as jet, to break them up again, though the profits of sugar-farming are now, or at least ought to be, very large. But the soil along this line is originally poor and sandy; and it is far more profitable to break up the rich vegas, or low alluvial lands, even at the trouble of clearing them of forest. So these paddocks are left, often with noble trees standing about in them, putting one in mind —if it were not for the Palmistes and Bamboos and the crowd of black vultures over an occasional dead animal — of English parks. But few English parks have such backgrounds. To the right, the vast southern flat, with its smoking engine-house chimneys and bright green cane-pieces, and, beyond all, the black wall of the primaeval forest ; and to the left, some half mile off, the steep slopes of the green northern moun- tains blazing in the sun, and sending down, every two or three miles, out of some charming glen, a clear pebbly brook, each w^inding through its narrow strip of vega. The vega is usually a highly cultivated cane-piece, where great lizards sit in the mouths of their burrows, and watch the passer- by wdth intense interest. Coolies and jSTegros are at work in it : but only a few ; for the strength of the hands is away at the engine-house, making sugar day and night. There is a piece of cane in act of being cut. The B 2 SAN JOSEF. men are licwiiig duwn llie giant grass with cutlasses; tlie women stripping off the leaves, and then piling the cane in carts drawn by mules, the leaders of which draw by rope traces two or three times as long as themselves. You wonder why such a seeming waste of power is allowed, till you see one of the carts stick fast in a mud-hole, and discover that even in the West Indies there is a good reason for every- thiuii', and that the Creoles j^now their own business best. For the wheelers, being in the slough with the cart, are power- less : but the leaders, who have scrambled through, are safe on dry land at the end of their long traces, and haul out tlieir brethren, cart and all, amid the yells, and, I am sorry to say blows, of the black gentlemen in attendance. But cane-cutting is altogether a busy, happy scene. The heat is awful, and all limbs rain perspiration : yet no one seems to mind the heat; all look fat and jolly; and they have cause to do so, for all, at every spare moment, are sucking- sugar-cane. You pull up, and take off your hat to the j)arty. The Negros shout, " Marnin', sa !" The Coolies salaam gracefully, hand to forehead. You return the salaam, hand to heart, which is considered the correct thing on the part of a superior in rank ; whereat the Coolies look exceedingly pleased ; and then the whole party, Avithout visible reason, burst into shouts of laughter. SAX JOSEF. 5 The manager rides up, probably under an umbrella, as you are, and a pleasant and instructive cliat follows, wound up, usually, if the house be not far off, by an invitation to come in and Inive a li^ht drink ; an invitation which, considering the state of the thermometer, you will be tempted to accept, especially as you know that the claret and water will be excellent. And so you daw^dle on, looking at this and that new and odd si^ht, but most of all feastincr your eves on the beauty of the northern mountains, till you reach the gentle rise on which stands, eight miles from Port of Spain, the little city of San Josef AVe should call it, here in England, a village : still, it is not every village in England which has fought the Dutch, and earned its right to be called a city, by beatino- some of the bravest sailors of the seventeenth centur}'. True, there is not a single shop in it with plate- Q[lass windows : but what matters that, if its citizens have all that civilized people need, and more, and will heap what they have on the stranger so hospitably that they almost pain him by the trouble wdiich they take ? True, no carriages and pairs, w^ith powdered footmen, roll about the streets ; and the most splendid vehicles you are likely to meet are American buggies — four-wheeled gigs with heads, and aprons through which the reins can be passed in wet weather. But what matters that, as long as the buggies keep out sun and i-aiii effectually, and as lung as those who sit in them be rc.il 6 SAN JOSEF. gentlemen, and those wlio wait for tliem at home, whether in the city or the estates around, be real Ladies ? As for the rest — peace, plenty, perpetual sunnner, time to think and read — (for there are no daily papers in San Josef) — and what can man want more on earth ? So I thought more than once, as I looked at San Josef nestling at the mouth of its noble glen, and saiel to myself, — If the telortioned, having the greater part of the brain behind the ^ Pronounced like the Spanish nuuu Da^^a. 8 SAN JOSEF. ears ; but tlie greatest peculiarity of this singular Leing was his voice. In the course of my life I never heard such sounds uttered, by human organs as those formed by Daaga. In ordinary conversation he appeared to me to endeavour to soften his voice — it was a deep tenor ; but when a little excited by any passion (and this savage was the child of passion) his voice sounded like the low growl of a lion, Init when much excited it could be compared to nothing so aptly as the notes of a gigantic brazen trumpet. " I repeatedly questioned this man respecting the religion of his tribe. The result of his answ^ers led me to infer that the Paupans believed in the existence of a future state ; that they have a confused notion of several powders, good and evil, Ijut these are ruled by one supreme being called Holloloo. This account of the relicrion of Daac^a was confirmed bv the mili- O CD «/ tary chaplain who attended him in his last moments. He also informed me that he believed in predestination ; — at least he said that Holloloo, he knew, had ordained that he should come to white man's country and be shot. " Daaga having made a successful predatory expedition into the country of the Yarrabas, returned with a number of prisoners of that nation. These he, as nsual, took, bound and o-uarded, tow^ards the coast to sell to the Portnouese. The interprater, his countryman, called these Portuguese AVHITE (JE^^TLEMEX. The wdiitc gentlemen proved themselves THE SLA VE TRADE. 9 more than a match for the black gentlemen ; and the whole transaction between the Portuguese and Paupaiis does credit to all concerned in this gentlemanly traffic in human flesh. " Daaga sold his prisoners ; and nnder pretence of paying liin:i, he and his Paiipau guards were enticed on board a Por- tuguese vessel ; — they were treacherously overpowered by the Christians, wdio bound them beside their late prisoners, and the vessel sailed over ' the great salt water.' " This transaction caused in the breast of the savage a deep liatred against all wdiite men — a hatred so intense that he frequently, during and subsequent to the mutiny, declared he would eat the first wdiite man he killed ; yet this cannibal was made to swear allegiance to our Sovereign on the Holy Evangelists, and was then called a British soldier. " On the voyage the vessel on board which Daaga had been entrapped w^as captured by the British. He could not com- prehend that his new" captors liberated him : he had been over-reached and trepanned by one set of white men, and he naturally looked on his second captors as more successful rivals in the human, or rather inhuman, Guinea trade ; there- fore this event lessened not his hatred for white men in the abstract. " I was informed by several of the Africans wdio came wuth him that when, during the voyage, they upbraided Daaga 10 SAN JOSEF. Avith being the cause of their capture, he pacified them by promising that when they should arrive in white man's country, he woukl repay their perfidy by attacking them in the night. He further promised that if the Paupaus and Yarrabas would follow him, he would fight his vray back to Guinea. This account was fully corroborated by many of the mutineers, especially those who were shot with Daaga : they all said the revolt never would have happened but for Donald Stewart, as he was called by the officers ; but Africans who were not of his tribe called him Longa-longa, on account of his height. " Such was this extraordinary man, who led the mutiny I am about to relate. '•' A quantity of captured Africans having been brought hither from the islands of Grenada and Dominica, they were most imprudently induced to enlist as recruits in the 1st West India Eegiment. True it is, we have been told they did this voluntarily : but, it may be asked, if they had any will in the matter, how could they understand the duties to be imposed on them by becoming soldiers, or how comprehend the nature of an oath of allegiance? without which they could not, legally speaking, be considered as soldiers. I attended the whole of the trials of these men, and well know how difficult it was to make them comprehend any idea which was at all new to them by means of the best interpreters procurable, NEGRO HABITS. 11 " It has been said that by making those captured Xegros soldiers, a service was rendered them : this I doubt. Formerly it was most true that a soldier in a black regiment w^as better off than a slave ; but certainlv a free African in the West Indies now is infinitely in a better situation than a soldier, not only in a pecuniary point of view, but in almost every other respect. " To the African savao-e, wdiile beins: drilled into the duties of a soldier, many things seem absolute tyranny which would appear to a civilized man a mere necessary restraint. To keep the restless body of an African Negro in a position to wdnch he has not been accustomed — to cramp his splay-feet, w^ith his great toes standing out, into European shoes made for feet of a different form — to place a collar round his neck, wdiich is called a stock, and which to him is cruel torture — above all, to confine him every night to his barracks — are almost insupportable. One unacquainted wdth the habits of the Xegro cannot conceive wdth wdiat abhorrence he looks on having his disposition to nocturnal rambles checked by barrack regulations.-^ " Formerly the ' King's man,' as the black soldier loved to call himself, looked (not without reason) contemptuously on the planter's slave, although he himself was after all but ^ See Brj'an Edwards on the character of the African Xegros ; also Chan- velon's Histoire de la Martinique. 12 ,Sf^iY JOSEF. a slave to tlie State : but these recruits were enlisted shortly after a numher of their recently imported countrymen were wandering freely over the country, working either as free labourers, or settling, to use an apt American phrase, as squatters ; and to assert that the recruit, while under military probation, is better off than the free Trinidad labourer, w^ho goes where he lists and earns as much in one day as will keep him for three days, is an absurdity. Accordingly we find that Lieutenant-Colonel Bush, who commanded the 1st AVest India Regiment, thought that the mutiny was mainly owing to the ill-advice of their civil, or, we should rather say, un- military countrymen. This, to a certain degree, was the fact : but, by the declaration of Daaga and many of his countrymen, it is evident the seeds of mutiny were sown on the passage from Africa. " It has been asserted that the recruits were driven to mu- tiny by hard treatment of their commanding officers. There seems not the slightest truth in this assertion ; they were treated with fully as much kindness as their situation would admit of, and their chief was peculiarly a favourite of Colonel Bush and the officers, notwithstanding Daaga's violent and ferocious temper often caused complaints to be brought against him. " A correspondent of the Naval and Military Gazette was under an apprehension that the mutineers would be joined by THE OUTBREAK. 13 the praulial apprentices of the ch'cumjacent estates : not the slightest foundation existed for this a23prehension. Some months previous to this Daaga had planned a mutiny, hut this was interrupted by sending a part of the Paupau and STarraba recruits to St. Lucia. The object of all those con- spiracies was to get back to Guinea; which they thought they could accomplish by marching to eastward. " On the night of the 17th of June, 1837, the people of San Josef were kept awake by the recruits, about 280 in number, singing the war-song of the Paupaus. This wild song consisted of a short air and chorus. The tone was, although wild, not inharmonious, and the words rather euphonious. As near as our alphabet can convey them, they ran thus : — ' Dangkarree All fey, Oliiu werrei, All lay.' • which may be rendered almost literally by the following couplet : — Air Ijy the chief : ' Come to plunder, come to slay ;' Chorus of followers : ' "We are ready to obey. ' "About three o'clock in the morning their war-song i (highly characteristic of a predatory tribe) became very loud, and they commenced uttering their war-cry. This is dif- ferent from what we conceive the Indian war-whoop to be : it 14 SAN JOSEF. seems to be a kind of imitation of the growl of wild beasts, and has a most thrill inoj effect. " Fire now was set to a quantity of huts built for tlie accommodation of African soldiers to the northward of the barracks, as well as to the house of a poor black woman called Dalrymple. These burnt briskly, throwing a dismal glare over the barracks and picturesque town of San Josef, and overpowering the light of the full moon, which illu- mined a cloudless sky. The mutineers made a rush at the barrack-room, and seized on the muskets and fusees in the racks. Their leader, Daaga, and a daring Yarraba named Ogston, instantly charged their pieces ; the former of these had a quantity of ball-cartridges, loose powder, and ounce and pistol-balls, in a kind of grey worsted caj:). He must have provided himself with these before the mutiny. How he became possessed of them, especially the pistol-balls, I never could learn.; probably he was supplied by his un- military countrymen : pistol-balls are never given to in- fantry. Previous to this Daaga and three others made a rush at the regimental store-room, in wdiich was dej^osited a quantity of powder. An old African soldier, named Charles Dixon, interfered to stop them, on which Maurice Ogston, the Yarraba chief, who had armed himself with a sergeant's sword, cut down the faithful African. When do\\Ti Daaga said, in English, ' Ah, you old soldier, you knock down.' Dixon ITS CHILDISHXESS. 15 Tvas not Daaga's countryman, hence he could not speak to him in his own language. The Paupau then levelled his musket and shot the fallen soldier, who oroaned and died. The war-yells, or rather growls, of the Paupaus and Tarabbas now became awfully thrilling, as they helped themselves to cartridcjes : most of them were fortunatelv blank, or without ball. Xever was a premeditated mutiny so wild and ill planned. Their chief, Daaga, and Ogston, seemed to have had little command of the subordinates, and the whole acted more like a set of wild beasts who had broken their ca^'es than men resolved on war. "At this period, had a rursh been made at the officers' quarters by one half (they were more than 200 in number), and the other half surrounded the building, not one could have escaped. Instead of this they continued to shout their war-song, and howl their war-notes ; the}^ loaded their pieces with ball-cartridge, or blank-cartridge and small stones, and commenced firing at the long range of white buildings in which Colonel Bush and his officers slept. Thev wasted so much ammunition on this useless display of fury that the buildings were completely riddled. A few of the old soldiers opposed them, and were wounded ; but it fortu- nately happened that they were, to an inconceivable degree, ignorant of the right use of fire-arms — holding their muskets in their hands when they discharged them, without allowin"" 16 /S-l-V JO^EF. tlie biitt-eiid to rest against tlieir shoulders, or any part of their hodies. This fact accounts for the comparatively little mischief tliey did in proportion to the quantity of ammu- nition thrown away. " The officers and sergeant-major escaped at the back of the building, wliile Colonel Bush and Adjutant Bentley came down a little hill. The colonel commanded the mntineers to lay down their arms, and was answered by an irregular dis- charge of balls, Avhich rattled amongst the leaves of a tree under which he and the adjutant were standing. On this Colonel Bush desired Mr. Bentley to make the best of his way to St. James's Barracks for all the disposable force of the 89th Ptegiment. The officers made good their retreat, and the adjutant got into tlie stable where his horse was. He saddled and bridled the animal while the shots were comino; into the stable, without either man or beast getting injured. The officer mounted, but had to make his way tln^ough the mutineers before he could get into San Josef, the barracks standing on an eminence above the little town. On seeing the adjutant mounted, the mutineers set up a thrilling howl, and com- menced firing at him. He discerned the gioantic fio-ure of Daaga (alias Donald Stewart), with his musket at the trail : he spurred his horse through the midst of them ; they were grouped, but not in line. On looking back he saw Daaga aiming at him ; he stooped his head beside his horse's neck. THE MUTINY. 17 and effectually sheltered himself from about fifty shots aimed at him. In this position he rode furiously down a steep hill leading from the barracks to the church, and was out of danger. His escape appears extraordinary : but he got safe to town, and thence to St. James's, and in a short time, considering^ it is eleven miles distant, broucfht out a strongr detachment of European troops; these, however, did not arrive until the affair was over. " In the meantime a part of the officers' quarters w^as bravely defended by two o]d African soldiers, Sergeant Merry and Corporal Plague. The latter stood in the gallery near the room in v/hich were the colours; he was ineffectually fired at by some hundreds, yet he kept his post^ shot two of the mutineers, and, it is said, w^ounded a third. Such is the difference between a man acquainted with the use of fire- arms and those who handle them as mops are held. " In the meantime Colonel Bush got to a police-station above the barracks, and got muskets and a few cartridges from a discharged African soldier who was in the police establish- ment. Being joined by the policemen. Corporal Craven ^ and Ensign Pogson, they concealed themselves on an eminence above, and as the mutineers (about 100 in number) ap- proached, the fire of muskets opened on them from the little ^ This man, who was a friend of Daaga's, owed his life to a solitary act of humanity on the part of the chief of this wild tragedy. A musket was levelled at him^ when Daaga jmshed it aside, and said, "N"ot this man." VOL. II. C 18 SAN JOSEF. ambush. The little party fired separately, loading as fast as they discharged their pieces ; they succeeded in making the mutineers change their route. " It is wonderful what little courage the savages in general showed against the Colonel and his little party; who abso- lutely beat them, although but a twenty-fifth of their number, and at their own tactics, i.e. bush fighting. " A body of the mutineers now made towards the road to Maraccas, when the colonel and his three assistants contrived to get behind a silk-cotton tree, and recommenced firing on them. The Africans hesitated and set forward, when the little party continued to fire on them ; they set up a yell, and retreated down the hill. "A part of the mutineers now concealed themselves in the bushes about San Josef barracks. These men, after the affair was over, joined Colonel Bush, and with a mix- ture of cunning and effrontery smiled as though nothing had happened, and as though they were glad to see him ; although, in general, they each had several shirts and pairs of trousers on preparatory for a start to Guinea, by way of Band de I'Est.i " In the meantime the San Josef militia were assembled, to the number of forty. Major Giuseppi, and Captain and 1 People will smile at the simplicity of those savages ; but it should be recollected that civilized convicts were lately in the constant habit of at- tempting to escape from New South "Wales in order to walk to China. THE MUTINY. 19 Adjutaiit Eousseaii, of the second division of militia forces took command of tliem. They were in want of flints, powder, and balls — to obtain these they were obliged to break open a merchant's store ; however, the adjutant so judiciously distributed his little force as to hinder the mutineers from entering the town, or obtaining access to the militia arsenal, wherein there was a quantity of arms. Major Chadds and several old African soldiers joined the militia, aud were by them supplied with arms. " A good deal of skirmishing occurred between the militia and detached parties of the mutineers, which uniformly ended in the defeat of the latter. At length Daaga appeared to the right of a party of six, at the entrance of the town ; they were challenged by the militia, and the mutmeers fired on them, but without effect. Only two of the militia returned the fire, when all but Daaga fled. He was deliberately re- loading his piece, when a militia-man, named Edmond Luce, leaped on the gigantic chief, who would have easily beat him off, although the former was a strong young man of colour : but Daaga would not let go his gun ; and, in common with all the mutineers, he seemed to have no idea of the use of the bayonet. Daaga was dragging the militia-man away, when Adjutant Eousseau came to his assistance, and placed a sword to Daaga's breast. Doctor Tardy and several others rushed on the tall Negro, who was soon, by the imited efforts of c 2 20 SAX j()si:r. several, tlirowii down and secured. It was at tliis period that he re})eatedly exclaimed, while he hit liis own slioulder, 'The first white man I catch after this I will eat him.'^ "]\reanwhile about sixteen of the mutineers, led by the daring Ogston, took the road to Arinia ; in order, as they said, to commence their march to Guinea: but fortunately the militia of that village, composed principally of Spaniards, Indians, and Sambos, assembled. A few of these met them and stopped their march. A kind of parley (if intercourse carried on by signs could be so called) was carried on between the parties. The mutineers made signs that they wished to o-o forward, while the few militia-men endeavoured to detain them, expecting a reinforcement momently. After a time the militia agreed to allow them to approach the town ; as they were advancing they were met by the commandant, ^lartin Sorzano, Esq., with sixteen more militia-men. The com- mandant judged it imprudent to allow the Africans to enter the town with their muskets full cocked and poised ready to fire. An interpreter was now procured, and the mutineers were told that if they would retire to their barracks the identic- men present would intercede for their pardon. The Xegros refused to accede to these terms, and while the interpreter was addressing some, the rest tried to push forward. Some of the ^ I had tins anecdf^te from one of his countiymeii, an old Pauj)au soldier, who said he did not join the mntiiiy. THE MUTINY. 21 militia opposed them by liolding their muskets in a horizontal position, on which one of the mutineers fired, and the militia returned the fire. A melee commenced, in which fourteen mutineers were killed and wounded. The fire of the Africans produced little effect : they soon took to flight amid the woods which flanked the road. Twenty-eight of them w^ere taken, amongst whom w^as the Yarraba chief, Ogston. Six had been killed, and six committed suicide by strangling and hanging themselves in the woods. Only one man was wounded amongst the militia, and he but slightly, from a small stone fired from a musket of one of the \arrabas. " The quantity of ammunition expended by the rnutineers, and the comparatively little mischief done by them, was truly astonishing. It shows how little they understood the use of fire-arms. Dixon was killed, and several of the old African soldiers w^ere wounded, but not one of the officers w^as in the sliu'htest deoTee hurt. " I have never been able to get a correct account of the number of lives this wild mutiny cost, but believe it w^as not less than forty, including those slain by the militia at Arima ; those shot at San Josef; those who died of their wounds (and most of the wounded men died) ; the six who committed suicide ; the three that were shot by sentence of tiie court- martial, and one who was sliot while endeavouring to escape (Satchell). 22 SAN JOSEF. "A good-looking young nuin, named Torrens, was brought as prisoner to the presence of Colonel Bush. The Colonel wished to speak to him, and desired his guards to liberate him ; on which the young savage shook his sleeve, in which was concealed a razor, made a rush at the Colonel, and nearly succeeded in cutting his throat. He slashed the razor in all directions until he made an opening; he rushed through this : and, notwithstanding he was fired at, and I believe wounded, he effected his escape, was subsequently re-taken ; and again made his escape with Satchell, who after this was shot l)y a policeman. " Torrens was re-taken, tried, and recommended to mercy. Of this man's fate I am unable to speak, not knowing how far the recommendation to mercy was attended to. In ap- pearance he seemed the mildest and best-looking of the mutineers, but his conduct was the most ferocious of any. The whole of the mutineers were captured within one week of the mutiny, save this man, who was taken a month after. " On the 19th of July, Donald Stewart, otherwise Daaga, was brought to a court-martial. On the 21st AVilliam Satchell was tried. On the 22d a court-martial was held on Edward Coffin ; and on the 24th one was held on the Yarraba chief, Maurice Ogston, wdiose country name was, I believe, Mawee. Torrens was tried on the 29 th. THE MUTINY, 23 "The sentences of these courts-martial were unknown until the 14th of August, having been sent to Bar- bados in order to be submitted to the Commander-in- Chief, Lieutenant- General Whittingham, wlio approved of the decision of the courts, which was that Donald Stewart (Daaga), Maurice Ogston, and Edward Coffin, should suffer death by being shot ; and that William Satchell should be transported beyond seas during the term of his natural life. I am unacquainted with the sentence of Torrens. " Donald Stewart, Maurice Ogston, and Edward Coffin were executed on the 16th of August, 1837, at vSan Josef Bar- racks. ]Srothin<]j seemed to have been neoiected which could render the execution solemn and impressive ; the scenery and the weather gave additional awe to the melancholy proceed- ings. Fronting the little eminence where the prisoners were shot was the scene where their ill-concerted mutiny com- menced. To the right stood the long range of building on which they had expended much of their ammunition for the purpose of destroying their officers. The rest of the pano- rama was made up of an immense view of forest below them, and upright masses of mountains above them. Over those, heavy bodies of mist were slowly sailing, giving a sombre appearance to the primaeval woods which, in general, covered both mountains and plains. The atmosphere indi- cated an inter- tropical morning during the rainy season, and 24 SAN JOSEF. the sun slione respleiulently between dense columns of clouds. "At half-past seven o'clock the condemned men asked to be allowed to eat a hearty meal, as they said persons about to bo executed in Guinea were always indulged with a good repast. It is remarkable that these unhappy creatures ate most voraciously, even while they were being brought out of their cell for execution. " A little before the mournful procession commenced the condemned men were dressed from head to foot in wliite habiliments trimmed with black ; their arms w^re bound with cords. This is not usual in military executions, but was deemed necessary on the present occasion. An attempt to escape, on the part of the condemned, would have been pro- ductive of much confusion, and was properly guarded against. " The condemned men displayed no unmanly fear. On the contrary, they steadily kept step to the Dead March which the 1 mnd played ; yet the certainty of death tlu^ew a cadaverous and ghastly hue over their black features, while their singular and appropriate costume, and the three coffins being borne before them, altogether rendered it a frightful picture : hence it was not to be wondered at that two of the European soldiers fainted. " The mutineers marched abreast. The tall form and horrid looks of Daaga were almost appalling. The looks of Ogston THE MUTINY. 25 were sullen, calm, and determined ; those of Coffin seemed to indicate resignation. "At eight o'clock they arrived at the spot where three graves were dng ; here their coffins were deposited. The condemned men were made to face to westward ; three sides of a hollow square were formed, flanked on one side by a detachment of the 89th Eegiment and a party of artillery, w^hile the recruits, many of whom shared the guilt of the culprits, were appro- priately placed in the line opposite them. The firing party were a little in advance of the recruits. "The sentence of the courts-martial, and other necessary documents, having been read by the fort adjutant, Mr. Meehan, the chaplain of the forces read some prayers appropriated for these melancholy occasions. The clergy- man then shook hands w^ith the three men about to be sent into another state of existence. Daaga and Ogston coolly gave their hands : Coffin wrang the chaplain's hand affectionately, saying, in tolerable English, 'I am now done with the w^orld.' " The arms of the condemned men, as has been before stated, were bound, but in such a manner as to allow them to bring their hands to their heads. Their night-caps Avere drawn over their eyes. Coffin allowed his to remain, but Ogston and Daaga pushed theirs up again. The former did this calmly; the latt(}r show^ed great wrath, seeming to think him- 26 SAN JOSEF. self insulted ; and his deep metallic voice sounded in anger above that of the provost-marshal,^ as the latter gave the words 'Eeady! present!' But at this instant his vociferous daring forsook him. As the men levelled their muskets at him, with inconceivable rapidity he sprang bodily round, still preserving his squatting posture, and received the fire from behind ; while the less noisy, but more brave, Ogston, looked the firing-party full in the face as they discharged their fatal volley. " In one instant all three fell dead, almost all the balls of the firing-party having taken effect. The savage appearance and manner of Daaga excited awe. Admiration was felt for the calm bravery of Ogston, while Edward Coftin's fate excited commiseration. " There were many spectators of this dreadful scene, and amongst others a great concourse of Xegros. Most of these expressed their hopes that after this terrible example the recruits w^ould make good soldiers." Ah, stupid savages. Yes : but also — ah, stupid civilized people. ^ One of his countrymen exj^lained to mo wbat Daaga said on this occasion, viz. — "The curse of Holloloo on white men. Do they think that Daaga fears to fix his eyeballs on death ? " CHAPTEE X. XAPAEIMA AND MOXTSERRAT. I HAD a few days of pleasant wandering in the centre of the island, about the districts which bear the names of Xaparima and Montserrat ; a country of such extraordinary fertility, as well as beauty, that it must surely hereafter become the seat of a high civilization. The soil seems inexhaustibly rich. I say inexhaustibly ; for as fast as the upper layer is im- poverished, it will be swept over by the tropic rains, to mingle with the vegas, or alluvial flats below, and thus enriched again, while a fresh layer of Adrgin soil is exposed above. I have seen, cresting the highest ridges of Mont- serrat, ten feet at least of fat earth, falling clod by clod right and left upon the gardens below. There are, doubtless, comparatively barren tracts of gravel toward the northern mountains ; there are poor sandy lands, likewise, at the southern part of the island, which are said, nevertheless, to l)e specially fitted for the growth of cotton : but from San 28 NAP J RIM J. Fernando on the west coast to Manzanilla on tlie east, stretches a band of soil which seems to be capable of yielding any conceivable return to labour and capital, not omitting common sense. How long it has taken to prepare tliis natural garden for man is one of those questions of geological time which have been well called of late " appalling." How long was it since the " older Parian " rocks (said to belong to the Neoco- mian, or green-sand, era) of Point a Pierre Avere laid down at the bottom of the sea? How long since a still unknown thickness of tertiary strata in the Xariva district laid down on them ? How long since not less than six thousand feet of still later tertiar}^ strata laid down on them again ? What vast, though probably slow, processes changed that sea- bottom from one salt enough to carry corals and lime- stones, to one brackish enough to carry abundant remains of plants, deposited probably by the Orinoco, or by some river which then did duty for it ? Three such periods of disturbance have been distinguished, the net result of Avhich is, that the strata (comparatively recent in geological time) have been fractured, tilted, even set upright on end, over the whole lowland. Trinidad seems to have had its full share of those later disturbances of ■ the earth-crust, which carried tertiary strata up along the shoulders of the Alps ; which upheaved the chalk of the Isle of Wight, IMMENSE ANTIQUITY. 29 setting the tertiary beds of Alum Bay upriglit against it ; wliicli even, after the Age of Ice, thrust up the Isle of Moen in Denmark, and the Isle of Ely in Cambridgeshire, entangling tlie boulder clay among the chalk — how long ago ? Long enough ago, in Trinidad at least, to allow water — probably the estuary waters of the Orinoco — to saw all the upheaved layers off at the top into one Hat sea-bottom once more, leaving as projections certain harder knots of rock, such as the limestones of Mount Tamana ; and, it may be, the curious knoll of hard clav rock under which nestles the town of San Fernando. Long enough ago, also, to allow that whole sea-bottom to be lifted up once more, to the height, in one spot, of a thousand feet, as the lowland which occupies six- sevenths of the Isle of Trinidad. Long enough ago, ao'ain, to allow that lowland to be sawn out into hills and valleys, ridges and gulleys, which are due to the action of Colonel George Greenwood's geologic panacea, " Eain and Elvers," and to nothing else. Long enough ago, once more, for a period of subsidence, as I suspect, to follow the period of upheaval ; a period at the commencement of which Trinidad was perhaps several times as large as it is now, and has gradually been eaten away by the surf, as fresh pieces of the soft cliffs have been brought, by the sinking of the land, face to face with its slow, but sure destroyer. And how long ago began the epoch — the very latest which 30 NArAlilMA. this i'lobe has seen, which has been hjnL;- enough for all this ? The human imagination can no more grasp that time tlian it can grasp the space between us and the nearest star. Such thoughts were forced upon me as the steamer stopped off San Fernando ; and I saw, some quarter of a mile out at sea, a single stack of rock, which is said to have been joined to the mainland in the memory of the fathers of this genera- tion ; and on shore, composed, I am told, of the same rock, tliat hill of San Fernando which forms a beacon by sea and land for many a mile around. An isolated boss of the older Parian, composed of hardened clay wdiich has escaped destruction, it rises, though not a mile long and a third of a mile broad, steeply to a height of nearly six hundred feet, carrying on its cliffs the remains of a once magnificent vegeta- tion. Xow its sides are quarried for the only road-stone met with for miles around ; cultivated for pasture, in which the round-headed mango-trees grow about like oaks at home ; or terraced for villas and frardens, the charm of which cannot be told in words. All round it, rich sugar estates spread out, with the noble Palmistes left standinc^ here and there alons the roads and terraces ; and everywhere is activity and high cultivation, under the superintendence of gentlemen who are prospering, Tjecause they deserve to prosper. Between the cliff and the shore nestles the gay and grow- SAN FERNANDO. 31 iiig little town, which was, when we took the island in 1795, only a group of huts. In it I noted only one thing which looked unpleasant. The ISTegro houses, however roomy and comfortable, and however rich the gardens which surrounded them, were mostly patched together out of the most hetero- geneous and wretched scraps of wood ; and on inquiry I found that the materials were, in most cases, stolen ; that when a ISTegro wanted to build a house, instead of buying the mate- rials, he pilfered a board here, a stick there, a nail somewhere else, a lock or a clamp in a fourth place, about the sugar estates, regardless of the serious injury which he caused to working buildings ; and when he had gathered a sufficient pile, hidden safely away behind his neighbour's house, the new hut rose as if by magic. This continual pilfering, I was assured, was a serious tax on the cultivation of the estates around. But I was told, too, frankly enough, by the very gentleman who complained, that this habit was simply an heirloom from the bad days of slavery, when the pilfering of the slaves from other estates was connived at by their own masters, on the ground that if A's Xegros robbed B, B's Negros robbed C, and so all round the alphabet ; one more evil instance of the demoralizing effect of a state of things which, wrong in itself, was sure to be the parent of a hundred other wrongs. Being, happily for me, in the Governor's suite, I had oppor- 32 ' NAPJBIMA. tunities of seeing the interior of tlie island which an average traveller could not have ; and I looked forward with interest to visitinii new settlements in the forests of the interior, which very few inhabitants of the island, and cei'tainly no strangers, had as yet seen. Our journey began by landing on a good new jetty, and being transferred at once to the tram- way which adjoined it. A t-ruck, with chairs on it, as usual here, carried us off at a good mule-trot ; and we ran in the fast-fading light through a rolling hummocky country, very like the lowlands of Aberdeenshire, or the neighbour- hood of Waterloo, save that, as night came on, the fireflies flickered everywhere among the canes, and here and there the palms and ceibas stood up, black and gaunt, against the sky. At last we escaped from our truck, and found horses waiting, on which we floundered, through mud and moon- light, to a certain hospitable house, and found a hungry party, who had been long waiting for a dinner worth the waiting. It was not till next morning that I found into what a charming place I had entered overnight. Around were books, pictures, china, vases of flowers, works of art, and all appliances of European taste, even luxury : but in a house utterly un-European. The living rooms, all on the first floer, opened into each other by doorless doorways, and the walls were of cedar and other valuable woods, which HOW TO BUILD. 33 good taste had left rftill unpapered. AVindowless bay win- dows, like great port-holes, opened from each of them into a gallery which ran round the house, sheltered by broad sloping eaves. The deep shade of the eaves contrasted bril- liantly with the bright light outside : and contrasted too with the wooden pillars wdiich held up the roof, and which seemed on their southern sides white-hot in the blazing sunshine. AVliat a field was there for native art ; for richest orna- mentation of these pillars and those beams. Surely Trinidad, and the whole of northern South America, ought to become some day the paradise of wood-carvers, who, copying even a few of the numbeiiess vegetable and animal forms around, .may far surpass the old wood-carving schools of Burmah and Hindostan. And I sat dreaming of the lianes which might be made to wreathe the pillars; the flowers, fruits, birds, butterflies, monkeys, kinkajous, and what not, which might cluster about the capitals, or swing along the beams. Let men who have such materials, and such models, proscribe all tawdry and poor European art — most of it a bad imitation of bad Greek, or worse Eenaissance— and trust to Nature and the facts which lie nearest them. But when will a time come lor the West Indies when there Avill be wealth and civiliza- tion enough to make such an art possible ? Soon, if all tlie employers of labour were like tlie gentleman at whose VOJ.. II. D 34 NAPARIMA. Louse we were that day, and like some others iii the same ishiiid. And through the windows and between the pillars of the gallery, what a blaze of colour and light. The ground-floor was hedged in, a few feet from the walls, with high shrubs, which would have caused unwholesome damp in England, but were needed here for shade. Foreign Crotons, Dracaenas, Cereuses, and a dozen more curious shapes — among them a " cup-tree," with concave leaves, each of which would hold water. It was said to come from the East, and was unknown to me. Among them, and over the door, flowering crfeepers tangled and tossed, rich with flowers ; and beyond them a circular lawn (rare in the West Indies), just like an English one, save that the shrubs and trees which bounded it were hot-house plants. A few Carat-palms^ spread their huge fan-leaves among the curious flowering trees; other foreign palms, some of them very rare, beside them ; and on the lawn opposite my bedroom window stood a young Palmiste, which had been planted barely eight years, and was now thirty-eight feet in height, and more than six feet in girth at the butt. Over the roofs of the outhouses rose scarlet Bois immortelles, and tall clumps of Bamboo reflecting blue light from their leaves even under a cloud ; and beyond them and below them to the right, a park just like an English one 1 Sabal. HOW TO PLANT. 35 carried stately trees scattered on tlie turf, aud a sheet of artificial water. Coolies, in red or yellow waistcloths, and Coolie children, too, with nothing save a string round their stomachs (the smaller ones at least), were lishing in the shade. To the left, again, began at once the rich cultivation of the rolling cane-fields, among which the Squire had left standing, somewhat against the public opinion of his less tasteful neighbours, tall Carats, carrying their heads of fan-leaves on smooth stalks from fifty to eighty feet high, and Ceibas — some of them the hugest I had ever seen. Below in the valley were the sugar- works ; and beyond this half-natural, half-artificial scene, rose, some mile off, the lowering wall of the yet untouched forest. It had taken only fifteen years, but fifteen years of hard work, to create this paradise. And only the summer before all had been well-nigh swept away again. During the great drought the fire had ra^^ed about the w^oods. Estate after estate around had been reduced to ashes. And one day our host's turn came. The fire burst out of the woods at three different points. All worked with a will to stop it by cut- ting traces. But the wind was wild ; burning masses from the tree-tops were hurled far among the canes, and all was lost. The canes burnt like shavings, exploding with a per- petual crackle at each joint. In a few hours the whole estate, works, Coolie barracks, Negro huts, was black ash ; and the, D 2 36 NAPARIMA. liouse only, by extreme exertion, saved. I>ut the ground liad scarcely cooled when replanting and rebuilding com- menced ; and now the canes were from ten to twelve feet high, the works nearly ready for the coming crop- time, and no sign of the fire was left save a few leafless trees, M^hich we found, on riding up to them, to be charred at the base. And yet men say that the Englishman loses his energy in a tropic climate. "We had a charming Sunday there, amid charming society, down even to the dogs and cats ; and not the least charm- ing object among many was little Franky, the Coolie butler's child, who ran in and out with the dogs, gay in his little cotton shirt, and melon-shaped cap, and silver bracelets, and climbed on the Squire's knee, and nestled in his bosom, and played with his seals; and looked up trust- ini;ly into our faces w^ith great soft eyes, like a little brown guazu-j)ita fawn out of the forest. A hapj^y child, and in a happy place. Then to church at Savannah Grande, riding, of course ; for the mud was abysmal, and it was often safer to ride in the ditch than on the road. The village, with a tramway through it, stood high and healthy. The best houses ^vere those of Chinese. The poorer Chinese find peddling employments and trade about the villacres, rather than hard work on the CHINESE GARDENING. 37 estates; while they cultivate on ridges, with minute care, their favourite sweet potato. Eound San Fernando, a Chinese will rent from a sugar-planter a bit of land which seems hopelessly infested with weeds, even of the worst of all sorts,-^the creeping Para grass ^ — which was introduced a generation since, with some trouble, as food for cattle, and was supposed at first to be so great a boon that the .gentleman who brought it in received public thanks and a valuable testimonial. The Chinaman will take the land for a single year, at a rent, I believe, as high as a pound an acre, grow on it his sweet potato crop, and return it to the owner, cleared, for the time being, of every weed. The richei- shopiveepers have each a store : but they disdain to live at it. Xear by each you see a comfortable low house, with verandahs, green jalousies, and often pretty flowers in pots ; and catch glimpses inside of papered walls, prints, and smart moderator-lamps, which seem to be fashionable among the Celestials. But for one fashion of theirs, I confess, I was not prepared. We went to church — a large, airy, clean, wooden one — which ought to have had a verandah round to keep off the intolerable sunlight, and which might, too, have had another pulpit. For in getting up to preach in a sort of pill-box on a long stalk, I found the said stalk surging and nodding so ^ Pauicum sj). 38 NAPAJilMA. Tinder vny weiijht, that T liad to assume an attitude of most dignified repose, and to beware of "beating the drum eccle- siastic," or " danging the Bible to shreds/' for fear of toppling into the pews of the very smart, and really very attentive, brown ladies below. A crowded congregation it was, clean, gay, respectable and respectful, and spoke well both for the people and for their clergyman. But — happily not till the end of the sermon — I became aware, just in front of me, of a row of smartest Paris bonnets, net-lace shawls, brocades and satins, fit for duchesses ; and as the centre of each blaze of finery — " offam non faciem," as old Ammianus Marcellinus has it — the unmistakable visage of a Chinese woman. Whether they understood one word ; what thev thouoht of it all ; whether they were there for any purpose save to see and be seen, were questions to which I tried in vain, after service, to get an answer. All that could be told was, that the richer Chinese take deliG^ht in thus bedizening^ their wives on hicrh davs and holidays ; not with tawdry cheap finery, but with things really expensive, and worth v/hat they cost, especially the silks and brocades ; and then in sending them, whether for fashion or for loyalty's sake, to an English church. Be that as it may, there they were, ladies from the ancient and incom- prehensible Flowery Land, like fossil bones of an old world sticking out amid the vegetation of the new ; and we will charitably hope that they were the better for being there. A GIANT CEIBA. 39 After church we wandered about the estate to see huge trees. One Ceiba, left standing in a cane-piece, was very grand, from the multitude and mass of its parasites and its huge tresses of lianes; and grand also from its form. The prickly board-wall spurs were at least fifteen feet high, some of them, where they entered the trunk ; and at the summit of the trunk, which could not have been less than seventy or eighty feet, one enormous limb (itself a tree) stuck out quite horizontally, and gave a marvellous notion of strength. It seemed as if its length must have snapped it off, years since, where it joined the trunk ; or as if the leverage of its weight must have toppled the whole tree over. But the great vege- table had known its own business best, and had built itself up right cannily ; and stood, and will stand for many a year^ perhaps for many a century, if the Matapalos do not squeeze out its life. I found, by the bye, in groping my way to that tree through canes twelve feet high, that one must be careful, at least with some varieties of cane, not to get cut. The leaf-edges are finely serrated ; and more, the sheaths of the leaves are covered with prickly hairs, which give the Coolies sore shins if they work barelegged. The soil here, a-s everywhere, was exceedingly rich, and sawn out into rolling mounds and steep gullies — sometimes almost too steep for cane-cultivation — by the tropic rains. If, as cannot be doubted, denudation by rain has gone on here, for thou- 40 NAPARIMA. sands of years, at tlio same pace at wliich it goes on now, the amount of soil removed must he very great; so great, that the Naparimas may liave been, when they were first uplifted out of the (Julf, hundreds of feet higher than they are now. Another tree we went to see in the home park, of which I would have gladly obtained a photograph. A Poix doux,' some said it was ; others that it was a Figuier.^ I incline to the former belief, as the leaves seemed to me pinnated : but the doubt was pardonable enough. There was not a leaf on the tree which was not nigh one hundred feet over our heads. For size of spurs and wealth of parasites the tree was almost as remarkable as the Ceiba 1 mentioned just now. But the curiosity of the tree was a Carat-palm which had started between its very roots ; had run its straight and slender stem up parallel with the bole of its companion, and had then pierced through the head of the tree, and all its wilderness of lianes, till it spread its huge flat crown of fans among the hijrhest branches, more than a hundred feet aloft. The con- trast between the two forms of vegetation, each so grand, but as utterly different in every line as they ai-e in botanical affinities, and yet both living together in such close em- brace, was very noteworthy ; a good example of the rule, that while competition is most severe between forms most 1 Inga. ^ Ficus. AN " UNCLE TOM:' 41. closely allied, forms extremely wide apart may not compete at all, because each needs something which the other does not. On our return I was introduced to the "Uncle Tom" of the neighbourhood, who had come down to spend Sunday at the Squire's house. He was a middle-sized Negro, in cast of features not above the average, and Isaac by name. He told me how he had been born in Baltimore, a slave to a Quaker master; how he and his wife Mar3% during the second American war, ran away, and after hiding three days in the bush, got on board a British ship of war, and so became free. He then enlisted into one of the East Indian regi- ments, and served some years ; as a reward for which he had given him his five acres of land in Trinidad, like others of his corps. These Negro yeomen-veterans, let it be said in passing, are among the ablest and steadiest of the coloured population. Military service has given them just enougli of those habits of obedience of which slavery gives too much — • if the obedience of a mere slave, depending not on the in- dependent will, but on brute fear, is to be called obedience at all. Would that in this respect, as in some others, the white subject of the British crown were as well off as the black one. \Yould that during the last fifty years we had followed the wise policy of the Eomans, and by settling our soldiers on our colonial frontiers, established there communities of 42 NAPARIMA. loyal, able, and valiant citizens. Is it too late to begin now ? Is there no colony left as yet not delivered over to a self- government which actually means, more and more — accord- incr to the statements of those who visit the colonies — O government by an Irish faction; and which will offer a field for settling our soldiers when they have served their appointed time ; so strengthening ourselves, while we re- ward a class of men who are far more respectable, and far more deserving, than most of those on whom we lavish our philanthropy ? Surely such men would prove as good subjects as old Isaac and his comrades. For fifty-three years, I was told, he had lived and worked in Trinidad, always independent ; so independent indeed, that the very last year, when all but starving, like many of the coloured people, from ^the long drought which lasted nearly eighteen months, he refused all charity, and came down to this very estate to work for three months in the stifling cane-fields, earning — or fancying that he earned — his own livelihood. A simple, kindly, brave Christian man he seemed, and all who knew him spoke of him as such. The most curious fact, however, which I gleaned from him was his recollection of his own " conver- sion." His Mary, of whom all spoke as a woman of a higher intellect than he, had "been in the Gospel" several years before him, and used to read and talk to HIS " conversion:' 43 him ; "but, he said, without effect. At last he had a severe . fever ; and when he fancied himself dying, had a vision. He saw a grating in the floor, close by his bed, and through it the torments of the lost. Two souls he remembered specially ; one " like a singed hog," the other " all over black like a charcoal spade." He looked in fear, and heard a voice cry, "Behold your sins." He prayed; promised, if he recovered, to try and do better; and felt himself forsjiven at once. This was his story, which T have set down word for word ; and of which I can only say, that its imagery is no more gross, its confusion between the objective and subjective no more unphilosophical, than the speech on similar matters of many whom we are taught to call divines, theologians, and saints. At all events, this crisis in his life produced, according to his own statement, not merely a religious, but a moral change. He became a better man henceforth. He had the reputation, among those who knew him well, of being altogether a good man. If so, it matters little what cause he assigned for the improvement. Wisdom is justified of all her children ; and, I doubt not, of old black Isaac among the rest. In 1864 he had a great sorrow. Old Mary, trying to smoke the mosquitos out of her house with a charcoal-pan, 44 NAPARIMA. set fire, in her short-sightedness, to the place ; and everything was burned — the savings of years, the precious Bible among the rest. The Squire took her down to liis house, and nursed her : but she died in two days of cold and fright ; and Isaac had to begin life again alone. Kind folks built up his ajoupa, and started him afresh ; and, to their astonishment, Isaac OTew younc^ ac^ain, and set to work for himself. He had depended too much for many years on his wife's superior intellect : now he had to act for himself ; and he acted. But he spoke of her, like any knight of old, as of a guardian U'oddess — his f:juardian still in the other world, as she had been in this. He was happy enough, he said : but I was told that he had to endure much vexation from the neighbouring !N"egros, who were Baptists, narrow and conceited ; and who — just as the Baptists of the lower class in England would be but too apt to do — tormented him by telling liim that he was not sure of heaven, because he went to church instead of joining their body. But he, though he went to chapel in wet weather, clun<^ to his owai creed like an old soldier ; and came down to Massa's house to spend the Sunday whenever there was a Communion, walking some live miles thither, and as much back ai^ain. So much I learnt concerning old Isaac. And wdien in the afternoon he toddled aw^ay, and back into the forest, what J COOLIE PARADE. 45 wonder if I felt like Wordsworth after his talk with the old leech-iratherer ? — G" "And when he ended, I could have laughed myself to scorn to find In that decrepit mar. so firm a mind ; God, said I, he my help and stay secure, I'll think of thee, leech-gatherer, on the lonely moor," On the Monday morning there was a great parade. All the Coolies were to come np to see the Governor ; and after breakfast a long line of dark people arrived up the lawn, the women in their gaudiest muslins, and some of them in cotton velvet jackets of the richest colours. The Oriental instinct for harmonious hues, and those at once rich and sober, such as may be seen in Indian shawls, is very observable even in these Coolies, low-caste as most of them are. There were bangles and jewels among them in plenty; and as it was a high day and a holiday, the women had taken out the little gold or silver stoppers in their pierced nostrils, and put in their place the great gold ring which hangs down over the mouth, and is considered by them, as learned men tell us it was by Eebekah at the well, a special ornament. The men stood by themselves ; the women by themselves ; the chil- dren grouped in front ; and a merrier, healthier, shrewder- looking party I have seldom seen. Complaints there were none. All seemed to look on the Squire as a father, and each face brightened when he spoke to them by name. But 46 NAPARIMA. the great ceremony was the distributing by the Governor of red and yellow sweetmeats to the children out of a huge disli held up by the Hindoo butler, while Franky, in a long night- shirt of crimson cotton velvet, acted as aide-de-camp, and took his perquisites freely. Each of the little brown darlings got its share, the boys putting them into the flap of their waist- cloths, the girls into the front of their veils ; and some of the married women seemed ready enough to follow the children's example ; some of them, indeed, were little more than chil- dren themselves. The pleasure of the men at the whole ceremony was very noticeable, and very pleasant. Well fed, well cared for, well taught (when they will allow themselves to be so), and w4th a local medical man appointed for their special benefit. Coolies under such a master ought to be, and are, prosperous and happy. Exceptions there are, and must be. Are there none amon^j the workmen of En^ijlish manu- facturers and farmers ? Abuses may spring up, and do. Do none spring up in London and elsewhere ? But the Govern- ment has the power to interfere, and uses that power. These poor people are sufficiently protected by law from their white employers ; wliat they need most is protection for the new- comers against the usury, or swindling, by people of their own race, especially Hindoos of the middle class, who are covetous and ill-disx^osed, and who use their experience of the island for their own selfish advantage. But that evil also COOLIE FBOSPERITY. 47 Government is doing its best to put down. Already tlie Coolies have a far larger amount of money in the savings'- banks of the island than the Negros ; and their prosperity can be safely trusted to wise and benevolent laws, enforced by men who can afford to stand above public opinion, as A Coolie Family. well as above private interest. I speak, of course, only of Trinidad, because only Trinidad I have seen. But what I say I know intimately to be true. The parade over — and a pleasant sight it was, and one not easily to be forgotten — we were away to see the Salse, or 48 XAPARIMA. " niud-volcano," near Monkey Town, in the forest to the south-east. The cross-roads were deep in mud, all the worse because it was beginning to dry on the surface, forming u tough crust above the hasty-j^udding which, if broken through, held the horse's leg suspended as in a vice, and would have thrown him down, if it were possible to throw down a West-Indian horse. We passed in one place a quaint little relic of the older world ; a small sugar-press, rather than mill, under a roof of palm-leaf, which was worked by hand, or a donkey, just as a Spanish settler would have worked it three hundred years ago. Then on through plenty of garden cultivation, with all the people at their doors as we passed, fat and grinning : then up to a good high-road, and a school for C3olies, kept by a Presbyterian clergyman, Mr. Morton — I mast be allowed to mention his name — who, like a sensible man, wore a white coat instead of the absurd ve^m- lation black one, too macli affected bv all well-to-do folk, lav as well as clerical, in the West Indies. The school seemed good enough in all Avays. A senior class of young men — including one who had had his head nearly cut off last year by misapplication of that formidable weapon the cutlass, wdiich every coloured man and w^oman carries in the AVest Indies — could read pretty well ; and tlie smaller children — with as much clothing on as they could be persuaded to w^ear — were a sight pleasant to see. Among them, by the bye, w^as a COOLIE IVIVES. 49 little lady who excited my astonishment. She was, I was told, twelve years old. She sat summing away on her slate, bedizened out in gauze petticoat, velvet jacket — be- tween which and the petticoat, of course, the waist showed ju'st as nature had made it — gauze veil, bangles, necklace, nose-jewel ; for she was a married woman, and her Papa (Anglice, husband) wished her to look her best on so im- portant an occasion. This over-early marriage among the Coolies is a very serious evil, but one wdiich they have brought with them from their own land. The girls are practically sold by their fathers while yet children, often to wealthy men much older than they. Love is out of the question. But what if the poor child, as she grows up, sees some one, among that overplus of men, to whom she for the first time in her life takes a fancy ? Then comes a scandal ; and one which is often end.ed swiftly enough by the cutlass. Wife-murder is but too common among these Hindoos, and they cannot be made to see that it is wrong. " I kill my own wife. Why not? I kill no other man's wife," was said by as pretty, gentle, graceful a lad of two-and-twenty as one need see ; a convict performing, and perfectly, the office of housemaid in a friend's house. There is murder of wives, or quasi-wives now and then, among the baser sort of Coolies — murder because a poor girl will not give her ill- VOL. II. E 50 NAPARIMA. earned gains to the ruffiau who considers her as his property. But there is also law in Trinidad, and such offences do not go unpunished. Then on througli Savannah Grande and village again, and past more sugar estates, and past beautiful bits of forest, left, like English woods, standing in the cultivated fields. One patch of a few acres on the side of a dell was very lovely. Huge Figuiers and Huras ^vere mingled with palms and rich undergrowth, and lighted up here and there with purple creepers. So we went on, and on, and into the thick forest, and what was, till Sir Ealph Woodford taught the islanders what an European road was like, one of the pattern royal roads of the island. Originally an Indian trace, it had been widened by the Spaniards, and transformed from a line of mud six feet broad to one of thirty. The only pleasant reminiscence which I have about it was the finding in flower a beautiful parasite, undescribed by Griesbach ; ^ a '' wild pine " with a branching spike of .crimson flowers, purple tipped ; which shone in the darkness of the bush like a great bunch of rose- buds growing among lily -leaves. The present Governor, like Sir Ralph Woodford before him, has been fully aware of the old saying — which the Romans knew well, and which the English did not know, ^ iEclimsea Augusta. ^AN INDIAN PATH. 51 and only re -discovered some century since — that the " first step in civilization is to make roads ; the second, to make more roads ; and the third, to make more roads still." Through this very district (aided by men whose talents he had the talent to discover and employ) he lias run wide, level, and sound roads, either already completed or in pro- gress through all parts of the island which I visited, save the precipitous glens of the northern shore. Of such roads we saw more than one in the next few days. That day we had to commit ourselves, when we turned off the royal road, to one of the old Spanish-Indian jungle tracks. And here is a recipe for making one : — Take a rail- way embankment of average steepness, strew it freely with wreck, rigging and all, to imitate the fallen timber, roots, and lianes — a few flagstones and boulders here and there will be quite in place ; plant the whole with the thickest pheasant - cover; set a field of huntsmen to find their way through it at the points of least resistance three times a week during a wet winter ; and if you dare follow their footsteps, you will find a very accurate imitation of a forest-track in the wet season. At one place we seemed to be fairly stopped. We plunged and slid down into a muddy brook, luckily with a gravel bar i^i which the horses could stand, at least one by one ; and found opposite us a bank of smooth clay, bound with slippery E 2 52 NAPAHnrA. roots, some ten feet liioh. We stood and looked at it, and the longer we looked — in hunting phrase — the less we liked it. But there was no alternative. Some one jumped oft", and scrambled up on his hands and knees ; his horse was driven up the bank to him — on its knees, likewise, more than once — and cauoht staG^fi^eringj amon^r boughs and mud ; and by the time the whole cavalcade was over, horses and men looked as if thev had been brick-makini: for a week. But here again the cunning of these horses surprised me. On one very steep pitch, for instance, I saw before me two logs across the path, two feet and more in diameter, and what was worse, not two feet apart. How the brown cob meant to get over I could not guess : but as he seemed not to falter or turn tail, as an English horse would have done, I laid the reins on his neck and watched his legs. To my astonishment, he lifted a fore-leg out of the abyss of mud, put it between the logs, where I expected to hear it snap ; clawed in front, and shuftled behind ; put the other over the second log, the mud and water splashing into my face, and then brought the first freely out from between the logs, and — horrible to see — put a hind one in. Thus did he fairly walk through the whole ; stopped a moment to get his breath ; and then staggered and scrambled upward again, as if he had done nothing remarkable. Coming back, by the bye, those THE SALSE. 53 two logs lay heavy ou my lieart for a mile ere I nearecl them. He might get up over them : but how w^ould he get clowti again ? And I w^as not surprised to hear more than one behind me say, "I think I shall lead over." But being in front, if I fell, I could only fall into the mud, and not on the top of a friend. So I let the brown cob do what he would, determined to see how far a tropic horse's legs could keep him up : and, to my great amusement, he quietly leapt the whole, descending five or six feet into a pool of mud, which shot out over him and me, half blindino- us for the moment ; then slid away on his hauDches downward ; picked liimself up ; and went on as usual, solemn, patient, and seem- ingly stupid as any donkey. We had some difficulty in finding our quest, the Salse, or mud volcano. But at last, out of a hut half buried in ver- dure on the edge of a little clearing, there tumbled the quaintest little old black man, cutlass in hand, and, with- out being asked, went on ahead as our guide. Crook-backed, round-shouldered, his only dress a ragged shirt and ragged pair of drawers, be had evidently thriven upon the forest life for many a year. He did not walk nor run, but tumbled along in front of us, his bare feet plashing from log to log and mud-lieap to mud-heap, his grey w^oolly head wagging riglit and left, and his cutlass brushing almost instinctively at every bough lie passed, while he turned round every 54 NAPARIMA. moment to jabber something, usually in Creole French, wliich of course I could not understand. He led us well, up and down, and at last over a flat of rich muddy ground, full of huge trees, and of their roots likewise, where there was no path at all. The solitude was awful ; so was the darkness of the shade ; so was the stifling heat ; and right glad we were when we saw an opening in the trees, and the little man quickened his pace, and stopped with an air of triumph not unmixed with awe on the edge of a circular pool of mud and water some two or three acres in extent. " Dere de debbil's woodyard," said he, with somewhat bated breath. And no wonder ; for a more doleful, uncanny, half- made spot I never saw. The sad forest ringed it round with a green wall, feathered down to the ugly mud, on which, partly perhaps from its saltness, partly from the changeable- ness of the surface, no plant would grow, save a few herbs and creepers which love the brackish water. Only here and there an Echites had crawled out of the wood and lay along the ground, its long shoots gay with large cream-coloured flowers and pairs of glossy leaves ; and on it, and on some dead brushwood, grew a lovely little parasitic Orchis, an Oncidium, with tiny fans of leaves, and flowers like swarms of yellow butterflies. There was no track of man, not even a liunter's footprint ; MUD CBATEIiS. 55 but instead, tracks of beasts in plenty. Deer, quenco^ and lapo/^ with smaller animals, bad been treading np and down, probably attracted by the salt-water. They were safe enough, the old man said. ISTo hunter dare approach the spot. There were '' too much jumbies " here ; and when one of the party expressed a wish to lie out there some night, in the hope of good shooting, the Xegro shook his head. He would " not do that for all the world. De debbil come out here at night, and walk about ; " and he was much scandalized when the young gentleman rejoined, that the chance of such a sight would be an additional reason for bivouacking there. So we walked out upon the mud, which was mostly hard enough, past shallow pools of brackish water, smelling of asphalt, toward a group of little mud-volcanos on the further side. These curious openings into the nether-world are not permanent. They choke up after awhile, and fresh ones appear in another part of the area, thus keeping the whole clear of plants. They are each some two or three feet high, of the very finest mud, which leaves no feeling of grit on the fingers or tongue, and dries, of course, rapidly in the sun. On the top, or near the top, of each, is a round hole, a finger's-breadth, polished to exceeding smoothness, and running down through 1 Dicoteles (Peccary hog). ^ Ccelogeiiys paca. 56 NAPA EI MA. the cone as far as we could dig. From each oozes perpetually, with a clicking noise of gas-bubbles, water and mud ; and now and then, losing their temper, they spirt out their dirt to a considerable height ; a feat which we did not see per- formed, but wliich is so common that we were in some- thing like fear and trembling, while we opened a cone with our cutlasses. For though we could hardly have been made dirtier than we were, an explosion in our faces of mud with " a faint bituminous smell," and impregnated with " common salt, a notable proportion of iodine, and a trace of carbonate of soda and carbonate of lime,"^ would have been both unpleasant and humiliating. But the most puzzling thing about the place is, that out of the nmd comes up — not jumbies, but — a multitude of small stones, like no stones in the neighbourhood ; we fonnd concretions of iron sand, and scales which seemed to have peeled off them; and pebbles, quartzose, or jasper, or like in aj^pearance to flint ; but all evidently long rolled on a sea-beach. Messrs. Wall and Sawkins mention pyrites and gypsum as being found : but we saw none, as far as I recollect. All these must have been carried up from a considerable depth by the force of the same gases which make the little mud volcanos. Xow and then this " Salse," so quiet when we saw it, is ^ Dr. Davy (West Indies, art. Trinidad). SHAM EARTHQUAKES. said to be seized with a violent paroxysm. Explosions are heard, and large discharges of mud, and even flame, are said to appear. Some seventeen years ago (according to Messrs. Wall and Sawkins) such an explosion was heard six miles off; and next morning the .surface was found quite altered, and trees had disappeared, or been thrown down. But^ — as they wisely say — the reports of the inhabitants must be received with extreme caution. In the autumn of last year, some such explosion is said to have taken place at the Cedros Salse, a place so remote, unfortunately, that I could not visit it. The N'egros and Coolies, the story goes, came running to the overseer at the noise, assuring him that something terrible had happened ; and when he, in defiance of their fears, went off to the Salse, he found that many tons of mud — I was told thousands — had been thrown out. How true this may be, I cannot say. But Messrs. Wall and Sawkins saw with their own eyes, in 1856, about two miles from this Cedros Salse, the results of an explosion which had happened only two months before, and of which they give a drawing. A surface two hundred feet round had been upheaved fifteen feet, throwing the trees in every direction; and the sham earth- quake had shaken the ground for two hundred or three hundred vards round, till the natives fancied that their huts were going to fall. Tliere is a third Salse near Poole river, on the Upper 58 NAPA RIM A. Ortoire, ^vLlicll is extinct, or at least quiescent ; but this, also, I could not visit. It is about seventeen miles from the sea, and about two hundred feet above it. As for the causes of these Salses, I fear the reader must be content, for the present, with a somewhat muddy explanation of the muddy mystery. Messrs. Wall and Sawkins are inclined to connect it with asphalt springs and pitch lakes. " There is," they say, "easy gradation from the smaller Salses to the ordinary naphtha or petroleum springs." It is certain that in the .production of asphalt, carbonic acid, carburetted hydrogen, and water are given off. " May not," they ask, " these orifices be the vents by which such gases escape ? And in forcing their way to the surface, is it not natural that the liquid asphalt and slimy water should be drawn up and expelled ? " They point out the fact, that wherever such volcanos exist, asphalt or petroleum is found hard by. The mud volcanos of Turbaco, in New Granada, famous from Humboldt's description of them, lie in an asphaltic country. They are much larger than those of Trinidad, the cones being, some of them, twenty feet high. When Humboldt visited them in 1801, they gave off hardly anything save nitrogen gas. But in the year 1850, a "bituminous odour " had begun to be diffused; asphaltic oil swam on the surface of the small openings ; and the gas issuing from any of the cones could be ignited. Dr. Daubeny found the mud volcanos of THE TROPIC NIGHTFALL. 59 Macaliiba giving out bitumen, and bubbles of carbonic acid and carburetted hydrogen. The mud-volcano of Saman, in the Western Caucasus, gives off, with a continual stream of thick mud, ignited gases, accompanied with mimic earthquakes like those of the Trinidad Salses ; and this out of a soil said to be full of bituminous springs, and where (as in Trinidad) the tertiary strata carry veins of asphalt, or are saturated with naphtha. At the famous sacred Fire wells of Baku, in the Eastern Caucasus, the ejections of mud and inflammable gas are so mixed with asphaltic products, that Eichwald says "they should be rather called naphtha volcanos than mud volcanos, as the eruptions always terminate in a large emis- sion of naphtha." It is reasonable enough, then, to suppose a similar con- nection in Trinidad. But wdience come, either in Trinidad or at Turbaco, the sea-salts and the iodine ? Certainly not from the sea itself, which is distant, in the case of the Trinidad Salses, from two to seventeen miles. It must exist already in the strata below. And the ejected pebbles, which are evidently sea-worn, must form part of a tertiary sea-beach, covered by sands, and covering, perhaps, in its turn, vege- table debris which, as it is converted into asphalt, thrusts the pebbles up to the surface. We had to hurry away from the strange place ; for night was falling fast, or rather ready to fall, as always here, in a 60 MONTSERRAT. moment, ^vit]lOllt twiliglit, and we were scarce out of tlie forest before it w^as dark. The wild game was already moving, and a deer crossed our line of march, close before one of the horses. However, we were not benighted ; for the sun was hardly down ere the moon rose, bright and full ; and we floundered home through the mud, to start again next morn- infT into mud ai:,^ain. Through rich rolling land covered with cane ; past large sugar-works, where crop-time and all its bustle was just beginning ; along a tramway, w^hich made an excellent horse- road, and then along one of the new roads, wdiich are opening up the yet untouched riches of this island. In this district alone, thirty-six miles of good road and thirty bridges have been made, where formerly there were only tw^o abominable bridle-paths. It w^as a solid pleasure to see good engineering round the hill-sides ; gullies which but a year or two before w^ere break-neck scrambles into fords often impassable after all, bridged with baulks of incorruptible timber, on piers sunk, to give a hold in that sea of hasty-pudding, sixteen feet below the river-bed ; and side supports sunk as far into the banks ; a solid pleasure to congratulate the warden (who had joined us) on his triumj)hs, and to hear how he had sought for miles around in the hasty-pudding sea, ere he could find either gravel or stone for road metal, and had found it after all; or how in places, finding no COOLIE SETTLERS. Gl stone at all, he liacl been forced to metal the way with burnt clay, wdiich, as I can testify, is an excellent substitute ; or how again he had coaxed and patted the too-comfortable natives into being w^ell ^oaid for doing the very road-making which, if they had any notion of their ow^n interests, they w^ould combine to do for themselves. And so we rode on chatting, "While all the laud, Beneath a broad and eqnal-blowing breeze, Smelt of the coming summer ; " for it w^as winter then, and only 80° in the shade, till the road entered the virgin forest, through which it has been driven, on the American principle of making land valuable by begin- ning with a road, and expecting settlers to follow it. Some such settlers w^e found, clearing right and left ; among them a most satis- factory sight ; namely, more than one Coolie family, who had served their apprenticeship, saved money, bought Government land, and set up as yeomen; the foundation, it is to be hoped, of a class of intelligent and civilized peasant proprietors. Banana. 62 MONTSERRA T. These men, as soon as they have cleared as iiiuch land as their wives and cliildren, with their help, can keep in order, go off, usually, in gangs of ten to fifteen, to work, in many instances, on the estates from which they originally came. This fact practically refutes the opinion which was at first held by some attorneys and managers of sugar-estates, that the settling of free Indian immigrants would materially affect the labour supply of the colony. I must express an earnest hope that neither will any planters be short-sighted enough to urge such a theory on the present Governor, nor will the present Governor give ear to it. The colony at large must gain by the settlement of Crown lands by civilized people like the Hindoos, if it be only through the increased exports and imports ; while the sugar estates will become more and more sure of a constant supply of labour, without the heavy expense of importing fresh immigrants. I am assured, that the only expense to the colony is the fee for survey, amount- ine: to eighteen dollars for a ten-acre allotment, as the Coolie prefers the thinly-wooded and comparatively poor lands, from the greater facility of clearing them ; and these lands are quite unsaleable to other customers. Therefore, for less than U., an acclimatized Indian labourer with his family (and it must be remembered, that, while the Xegro families increase very slowly, the Cooliea increase very rapidly, being more kind and careful parents) are permanently settled in the A CACAO-CLEARING. 63 colony, the man to work five days a week on sugar estates, the family to grow provisions for the market, instead of being shipped back to India at a cost, including gratuities and etceteras, of not less than 50/. One clearing we reached — were I five-and-twenty, I should like to make just such another next to it — of a higher class still. A cultivated Scotchman, now no longer young, but hale and mighty, had taken up three hundred acres, and already cleared a hundred and fifty ; and there he intended to pass the rest of a busy life, not under his own vine and fig-tree, but under his own castor-oil and cacao-tree. We were welcomed by as noble a Scot's face as I ever saw, and as keen a Scot's eye ; and taken in and fed, horses and men, even too sumptuously, in a palm and timber house. Then we wandered out to see the site of his intended mansion, with the rich wooded hills of the Latagual to the north, and all around the unbroken forest, where, he told us, the howling monkeys shouted defiance morning and eveninc^ at him who did *' Invade their ancient solitary reign ." Then we went down to see the Coolie barracks, where the folk seemed as happy and well cared for as they were certain to be under such a master; then down a rocky pool in the river, jammed with bare white logs (as in some North American forest), which had been stopped in flood by one 64 MONTSEFdiA T. eiiuniious trunk across the .stream ; then back past the site ot" the ajoupa, which had been our host's first shelter, and wliich had disa2)peared by a cause strange enough to English ears. An enormous silk-cotton near by was felled, in spite of the Xegros' fears. Its boughs, when it fell, did not reach the ajoupa by twenty feet or more ; but the wand of its fall did, and blew the hut clean away. This may sound like a story out of Munchausen : but there was no doubt of the fact ; and to us wdio saw the size of the tree which did the deed it seemed probable enough. AYe rode aw^ay again, and into the " Morichal," the hills where Moriche palms are found; to see certain springs and a certain tree ; and w^ell w^orth seeing they were. Out of the base of a limestone hill, amid delicate ferns, under the shade of enormous trees, a clear pool bubbled up and ran away, a stream from its very birth, as is the W'Ont of limestone springs. It was a spot fit for a Greek nymph ; at least for an Indian damsel : but the nymph wdio came to draw^ water in a tin bucket, and stared stupidly and saucily at us, was anything but Greek, or even Indian, either in costume or manners. Be it so. White men are responsible for her being there ; so white men must not complain. Then we went in search of the tree. We had passed as w^e rode up some Huras (sandbox trees), which would have been considered giants in England; and I had been laughed at more than A GIANT TREE. 65 once for asking^, " Is that the tree ? or that ? " I soon knew why. We scrambled up a steep bank of broken limestone, through ferns and Balisiers, for perhaps a hundred feet ; and then were suddenly aware of a bole which justified the saying of one of our party — that, when surveying for a road he had come suddenly on it, he " felt as if he had run against a church tower." It was a Hura, seemingly healthy, un- decayed, and growing vigorously. Its girth — we measured it carefully — was forty-four feet, six feet from the ground, and as I laid my face against it and looked up, I seemed to be looking up a ship's side. It was perfectly cylindrical, branchless, and smooth, save, of course, the tiny prickles which beset the bark, for a height at which we could not guess, but which we luckily had an opportunity of measur- ing. A wild pine grew in the lowest fork, and had kindly let down an air-root into the soil. We tightened the root, set it perpendicular, cut it off exactly where it touched the ground, and then pulled carefully till we brought the plant, and half-a-dozen more strani^e vei^etables, down on our heads. The length of the air-root was just seventy-five feet. Some twenty feet or more above that first fork was a second fork ; a^dthen the tree began. A^^iere its head was we could not see. We could only, by laying our faces against the bole, and looking up, discern a wilderness of boughs carrying a green cloud of leaves, most of them too liigh for us to dis- YOL. II. F 66 MONTSEItRAT. cern their shape without the ghasses. We walked up the slope, and round about, in liopes of seeing the head of the tree clear enough to guess at its total height: but in vain. It was only when we had ridden some half mile up the hill that we could discern its masses rising, a bright green mound, above the darker foliage of the forest. It looked of any height, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet ; less it could hardly be. " It made," says a note by one of our party, "other huge trees look like shrubs." I am not surprised that my friend Mr. St. Luce D'Abadie, who measured the tree since my departure, found it to be one hundred and ninety-two feet in height. I was assured that there were still larger trees in the island. A certain Locust-tree and a Ceiba were mentioned. The Moras, too, of the southern hills, were said to be far taller. And I can well believe it; for if huge trees were as shrubs beside that Sandbox, it would be a shrub by the side of those Locusts figured by Spix and Martins, which fifteen Indians with outstretched arms could just embrace. At the bottom they were eighty-four feet round, and sixty where the boles became cylindrical By counting the rings of such parts as could be reached, they arrived at the con- clusion that they were of the age of Homer, and 332 years old in the days of Pythagoras. One estimate, indeed, reduced their antiquity to 2,052 years old; while another (^counting. EUPRORBIACEJ^. 67 I presume, two rings of fresh wood for every year) carried it up to 4,104. So we rode on and up the hills, by green and flowery paths, with here and there a cottage and a garden, and groups of enormous Palmistes towering over the tree-tops in every glen, talking over that wondrous weed, whose head we saw still far below. For weed it is, and nothinfj more. The wood is soft and almost useless, save for firing; and the tree it- self, botanists tell us, is neither more nor less than a gigantic Spurge, the cousin-german of the milky garden weeds with which boys burn away their warts. But if the modern theory be true, that when w^e speak (as we are forced to speak) of the relationships of plants, we use no metaphor, but state an actual fact ; that the groups into which we are forced to arrange them indicate not merely similarity of type, but community of descent — then how w^onderful is the kindred between the Spurge and the Hura — indeed, between all the members of the Euphorbiaceous group, so fantastically various iu outward form ; so abundant, often huge, in the Tropics, while in our remote northern island their only representa- tives are a few weedy Spurges, two Dog's Mercuries — weeds likewise — and the Box. Wonderful it is if only these last have had the same parentage — still more if they have had the same parentage, too, with forms so utterly different from them as the prickly-stemmed scarlet-flowered Euphorbia common F 2 68 VARIATION OF SPECIES in our liotlionscs ; as the huge succulent cactus-like Euphor- bia of the Canary Islands ; as the gale-like Phyllanthus ; the many-formed Crotons, wliich in the AVest Indies alone comprise, according to Griesbach, at least twelve genera and thirty species ; the hemp-like ]\Ianiocs, Physic-nuts, Castor oils ; the scarlet Poinsettia which adorns dinner-tables in -winter ; the pretty little pink and yellow Dalechampia, now common in hothouses ; the Manchineel, with its glossy poplar-like leaves ; and this very Hura, witli leaves still more like a popl-ar, and a fruit which differs from most of its family in having not three but many divisions, usually a multiple of three, up to fifteen ; a fruit which it is difficult to obtain, even where the tree is plentiful : for hanging at the end of long branches, it bursts when ripe with a crack like a pistol, scattering its seeds far and wide ; from whence its name of Hura crepitans. But what if all these forms are the descendants of one original form ? AYould that be one whit more wonderful, more inexplicable, than the theory that they were each and all, with their minute and often imas^inarv shades of dif- ference, created separately and at once? But if it be — which I cannot allow — what can the theoloc^aan sav, save that God's works are even more wonderful ilian we always believed them to be ? As for the theory being impossible : who are we, that we should limit the power of God ? " Is AND THEOLOGY. 69 anything too hard for the Lord ? " asked the prophet of old ; and Ave have a ridit to ask it as loui:^ as time shall last. If it be said that natural selection is too simple a cause to produce such fantastic variety : we always knew that God works by very simple, or seemingly simple, means ; that the universe, as far as we could discern it, was one organization of the most simple means; it was wonderful (or ought to have been) in our eyes, that a shower of rain should make the grass grow, and that the grass should become tiesh, and the flesh food for the thinking brain of man ; it was (or ought to have been) yet more wonderful in our eyes, that a child ^ should resemble its parents, or even a butterfly resemble — if not always, still usually — its parents like- wise. Ought God to appear less or more august in our eyes if we discover that His means are even simpler than we supposed? We held Him to be almighty and allwise. Are we to reverence Him less or more if w^e find that His might is greater. His wisdom deeper, than we had ever dreamed ? We believed that His care was over all His works ; that His providence watched perpetually over the universe. We were taught, some of us at least, by Holy Scripture, to believe that the whole history of tlie universe was made up of special providences : if, then, that should be true which Mr. Darwin says — " It may be metaphorically said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, through- 70 MONTSEBRAT. out the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding np all that is good ; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life," — if this, I say, were proved to be true, ought God's care, God's providence, to seem less or more magnificent in our eyes ? Of old it was said by Him without whom nothing is made — " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Shall we quarrel with physical science, if she gives us evidence that these words are true? And if it should be proven that the gigantic Hura and the lowly Spurge sprang from one common ancestor, what would the orthodox theologian have to say to it, saving — " I always knew that God was great : and I am not surprised to find Him greater than I thought Him ? " So much for the giant weed of the Morichal, from which we rode on and up through rolling country growing love- lier at every stej), and turned out of our way to see wild pine-apples in a sandy spot, or " Arenal " in a valley beneath. The meeting of the stiff marl and the fine sand was abrupt, and well marked by the vegetation. On one side of the ravine the tall fan-leaved Carats marked the rich soil ; on the other, the sand and gravel loving Cocorites appeared at once, crowding their ostrich plumes together. CARATS AND COCORITES. 71 Most of them were the common species of the island ' in which the pinn?e of the leaves grow in fours and fives, and at different angles from the leaf-stalk, giving the whole a brushy appearance, which takes oif somewhat from the perfectness of its beauty. But among them we saw — for the first and last time in the forest — a few of a far more beautiful species,- common on the mainland. In it, the pinnae are set on all at the same distance apart, and all in the same plane, in opposite sides of the stalk, giving to the whole foliage a grand simplicity ; and producing, when the curving leaf-points toss in the breeze, that curious appearance which I mentioned in an earlier chapter, of green glass wheels with rapidly revolving spokes. At their feet grew the pine- apples, only in flower or unripe fruit, so' that we could not quench our thirst with them, and only looked with curiosity at the small wild type of so famous a plant. But close by, and happily nearly ripe, we found a fair substitute for pine- apples in the fruit of the Karatas. This form of Bromelia, closelv allied to the Pinouin of which hedcres are made, bears a straggling plume of prickly leaves, six or eight feet long each, close to the ground. The forester looks foy a plant in which the leaves drooj) outwards — a sign that the fruit is ripe. After beating it cautiously (for snakes are very fond of coil- ing under its shade) he opens the centre, and finds, close to ^ Maximiliana Caribtea. ^ ^I. regia. t _> 2 MONTSEnBAT. the groiind, a group of Avliitisli fruits, nearly two inclies loug; peels carefully off the skin, \vliicli is beset with innu- merable sharp hairs, and eats the sour-sweet refreshing pulp : but not too often, for there are always hairs enough left to make the tongue bleed if more than one or two are eaten. AVith lips somewhat less parched, we rode away again to see the sight of the day ; and. a right pleasant sight it was. These Montserrat hills had been, within the last three years, almost the most lawless and neglected part of the island. Princi^oally by the energy and tact of one man, the wild inhabitants^ had been conciliated, brought under law", and made to pay their light taxes, in return for a safety and comfort enjoyed perhaps by no other peasants on earth. A few words on the excellent system, which bids fair to establish in this colony a thriving and loyal peasant pro- prietary. Up to 1847 crown-lands were seldom alienated. In that year a price was set upon them, and persons in illegal occupation ordered to petition for their holdings. Un- fortunately, though a time was lixed for petitioning, no time was fixed for paying ; and consequently the vast majority of petitioners never took any further steps in the matter. Unfortunately, too, the price fixed — £2 per acre — was too high ; and squatting went on much as before. SQUATTING. 73 It appeared to the late Goveruor that this evil would best be dealt with experimentally and locally ; and he accordingly erected the chief squatting district, Montserrat, into a ward, giving the warden large discretionary powers as Commissioner of crown-lands. The price of crown-lands was reduced, in 1869, to £1 per acre; and the Montserrat system extended, as far as possible, to other wards ; a movement which the results fully justified. In 1867 there were in Montserrat 400 squatters, holding lands of from three to 120 acres, planted with cacao, coffee, or provisions. Some of the cacao plantations were valued at £1,000. These people lived without paying taxes, and almost without law or religion. The Crown woods had been, of course, sadly plundered by squatters, and by others who should have known better. At every turn magnificent cedars might Lave been seen levelled by the axe, only a few feet of the trunk being used to make boards and shingles, while the greater part was left to rot or burn. These irregularities have been now almost stopped; and 266 persons, in Montserrat alone, have taken out grants of land, some of -400 acres. But this by no means represents the number of purchasers, as nearly an equal number have paid for their estates though they have not yet received their grants, and nearly 500 more have made application. Two villages have been formed; one of which is that where we rested, containing the church. The 74 MONTSERRAT. other contains the warelen's residence and office, the police- station, and a numerously attended school. The squatters are of many races, and of many hues of black and hrown. The half-breeds from the neighbouring coast of Venezuela, a mixture, probably of Spanish, Xegro, and Indian, are among the most industrious ; and their cacao plantations, in some cases, hold 8,000 to 10,000 trees. The south-west corner of Montserrat^ is almost entirely settled by Africans of various tribes — Mandingos, Foulahs, Homas, Yarribas, Ashantees, and Congos. The last occupy the lowest position in the social scale. They lead, for the most part, a semi-barbarous life, dwelling in miserable huts, and subsisting on the produce of an acre or two of badly cultivated land, eked out with the pay of an occasional day's labour on some neighbouring estate. The social portion of some of the Yar- ribas forms a marked contrast to that of the Congos. They inhabit houses of cedar, or other substantial materials. Their gardens are, for the most part, well stocked and kept. They raise crops of yam, cassava, Indian corn, &c. ; and some of them subscribe to a fund on which they may draw in case of illness or misfortune. They are, however (as is to be ex- ^ I quote mostly from a report of my friend Mr. Eobert Mitchell, who, almost alone, did this good work, and who has, since my departure, been sent to Denierara to assist at the investigation into the alleged Ol-usage of the Coolie immigrants there. No more just or experienced public servant could have been employed on such an errand. WILD WORK. 75 pected from superior intellect while still uncivilized), more difficult to manage than the Congos, and highly impatient of control. These Africans, Mr. Mitchell says, all belong nominally to some denomination of Christianity : but their lives are more influenced by their belief in Obeah. While the precepts of religion are little regarded, they stand in mortal dread of those who practise this mischievous imposture. Well might the Commissioner say, in 1867, that several years must elapse before the chaos which reigned could be reduced to order. The wonder is^ that in three years so much has been done. It was very difficult, at first, even to find the where- abouts of many of the squatters. The Commissioner had to work by compass through the pathless forest. Getting little orno food but cassava cakes and "guango" of maize, and now and then a little coffee and salt fish, without time to hunt the game which passed him, and continually wet through, he stumbled in suddenly on one squatting after another, to the astonishment of its owner, who could not conceive how he had been found out, and had never before seen a white man alone in the forest. Sometimes he was in considerable danger of a rough reception from people who could not at first understand what they had to gain by getting legal titles, and buying the lands the fruit of which they had enjoyed either for nothing, or for payment of a small annual assessment for 7G MOXTSEEIIAT. tlie cultivated portion. Tii another quarter — Toco — a noto- riously lawless squatter had expressed his intention of shootinir the Government otticiah The white gentleman walked straight up to the little forest fortress hidden in bush, and confronted the Negro, who had gun in hand. " T could have shot you if I had liked, buccra," " Xo, you could not. I should have cut you down first : so don't play the fool," answered the official quietly, hand on cutlass. The wild man gave in ; paid his rates ; received the crown title for his land ; and became (as have all these sons of the forest) fast friends with one whom they have learnt at once to love and fear. But among the Montserrat hills, the Governor had struck on a spot so fit for a new settlement, that he determined to found one forthwith. The quick-eyed Jesuits had founded a Mission on the same spot many years before. But all had lapsed again into forest. A group of enormous Palmistes stand on a plateau, flat, and yet lofty and healthy. The soil is exceeding fertile. There are wells and brooks of pure water all around. The land slopes down for hundreds of feet in wooded gorges, full of cedar and other admirable timber, with Palmistes tow^ering over them everywhere. Par away lies the lowland ; and every breeze of heaven sweeps over the crests of the hills. So one peculiarly tall A NEW TOWN. T^ palm was chosen for a central land-mark, an ornament to the town sqnare such as no capital in Europe can boast. Traces were cut, streets laid out, lots of crown-lands put up for sale, and settlers invited in the name of the Government. Scarcely eighteen months had passed since then, and already there ^litchell Street, Violin Street, Duhoulav Street, Farfan Street, had each its new houses built of cedar and thatched with palm. Two Chinese shops had celestials with pig-tails and thick-soled shoes grinning behind cedar counters, among stores of Bryant's safety matches, Huntley and Palmer's biscuits, and Allsop's pale ale. A church had been built, the shell at least, and partly floored, with a very simple, but not tasteless, altar ; the Abbe had a good house, with a gallery, jalousies, and white china handles to the doors. Tlie mighty palm in the centre of Gordon Square had a neat railing^ round it, as befitted the Palladium of the villao^e. Behind the houses, among the stumps of huge trees, maize and cassava, pigeon-peas and sweet potatoes, fattened in the sun, on ground which till then had been shrouded by vege- tation a hundred feet thick ; and as we sat at the head man's house, with French and English prints upon the walls, and drank beer from a Chinese shop, and looked out upon the loyal, thri^^ng little settlement, I envied the two young men who could say, " At least, we have not lived in vain ; for 78 MONTSERRA T. we have made this out of the primaival forest." Then on again. " We mounted " (I (^uote now from the notes of one to whom the existence of the settlement was due) " to the crest of the hills, and had a noble view southwards, lookinir over the rich mass of dark wood, flecked here and there with a scarlet stain of Bois immortelle, to the great sea of bright green sugar cultivation in the Xaparimas, studded by white works and villages, and backed far off by a hazy line of forest, out of which rose the peaks of the Moruga Mountains. ^lore to the west lay San Fernando hill, the calm gulf, and the coast toward La Brea and Cedros melting into mist. M thought we should get a better view of the northern mountains by riding up to old Kicano's house ; so we went thither, under the cacao rich with yellow and purple pods. •The view was fine : but the northern range, though visible, \v2is rather too indistinct, and the mainland was not to be seen at all." ]^evertheless, the panorama from the top of Montserrat is at once the most vast, and the most lovely, which I have ever seen. And whosoever chooses to go and live there may buy any reasonable quantity of the richest soil at one pound per acre. Then down off the ridge toward the northern lowland, lay a headlong old Indian path, by which we travelled, at last, across a rocky brook, and into a fresh paradise. PARADISES. 79 I must be excused for using tliis word so often : but I use it in the original Persian sense, as a place in which natural beauty has been helped by art. An English park or garden would have been called of old a paradise ; and the enceinte of a West Indian house, even in its present half-wild con- dition, well deserves the same title. That Art can help Kature there can be no doubt. " The perfection of Xature " exists only in the minds of sentimentalists, and of certain well- meaning persons, who assert the perfection of Xature when they wish to controvert science, and deny it when they wish to prove this earth fallen and accursed. Mr. l^esfield can make landscapes, by obedience to certain laws which Mature is aj)t to disregard in the struggle for existence, more beautiful than they are already by Xature ; and that without introducing foreign forms of vegetation. But if foreign forms, wisely chosen for their shapes and colours, be added, the beauty may be indefinitely increased. For the plants most capable of beautifying any given spot do not always grow therein, simply because they have not yet arrived there ; as may be seen by comparing any wood planted witli Ehodo- dendrons and Azaleas with the neiohbourinii wood in its native state. Thus may be obtained somewhat of that variety and richness which is wanting eA^erywhere, more or less, in the vegetation of our northern zone, only just recovering slowly from the destructive catastrophe of the glacial epoch ; 80 ^wxTSJ^:nRA t. a richnoss which, small as it is, vanishes as "we travel north- ward, till the drear landscape is sheeted more and more with monotonous multitudes of heather, grass, fir, or other social plants. But even in tlie Tropics the virgin forest, beautiful as it is, is without doulit much less beautiful, both in form and colours, than it might be made. AVithout doubt, also, a mere clearing, after a few years, is a more beautiful place than the forest ; because by it distance is given, and you are enabled to see the sky, and the forest itself beside ; because new plants, and some of them very handsome ones, are intro- duced by cultivation, or spring up in the rastrajo ; and lastlv, but not least, because the forest on the edqe of the clearing is able to feather down to the ground, and change what is at first a bare tangle of stems and boughs into a softly rounded bank of verdure and flowers. AMien, in some future civilization, the art which has produced, not merely a Chatsworth or a Dropmore, but an average English shrubbery or park, is brought to bear on tropic vegetation, then Xature, always willing to obey when conquered by fair means, will produce such effects of form and colour around tropic estates and cities as we cannot fancy for ourselves. Mr. "Wallace laments (and rightly) the absence in the tropic forests of such grand masses of colour as are supplied by a heather moor, a furze or broom-croft, a field of yellow char- lock, blue bugloss, or scarlet poppy. Tropic landscape gar- y- ..* v:^ Tortuga. A FOREST HOUSE. 81 clening will supply that defect; and a hundred plants of yellow Allanianda, or purple Dolichos, or blue Clitoria, or crimson Norantea, set side by side, as we might use a hun- dred Calceolarias or Geraniums, will carry up the forest waHs, and over the tree-tops, not square yards, but I had almost said square acres of richest positive colour. I can conceive no limit to the effects — always heightened by the intense sunlight and the peculiar tenderness of the distances — which landscape gardening will produce when once it is brought to bear on such material as it has never yet attempted to touch, at least in the West Indies^ save in the Botanic Garden at Port of Spain. And thus the little paradise at Tortuga to which we descended to sleep, though cleared out without any regard to art, was far more beautiful than the forest out of which it had been hewn three years before. The two^ first settlers refrretted the days when the house was a mere palm-thatched hut, where they sat on stumps wliich would not balance, and ate potted meat v/ith their pocket-knives. But it had grown now into a grand place, lit to receive ladies : such a house, or rather shed, as those South Sea Island ones which may be seen in Hodges' Illustrations to Cook's Voyages, save that a couple of bedrooms have been boarded off at the back, a little of&ce on one side, and a bulwark, like that of a ship, put round the gallery. And as we looked down through VOL. II. G 82 TORTUGA. the purple gorges, and up at the mountain woods, over wliich the stars were flasliing out bright and fast, and listened to the soft strange notes of the forest birds going to roost, again the thought came over me — Why should not gentlemen and ladies come to such spots as these to live ''the Gentle Life?" We slept that night, some in beds, some in hammocks, some on the floor, with the rich warm ni^ht wind rushin<^ down through all the house ; and then were up once more in the darkness of the dawn, to go down and bathe at a little cascade, where a feeble stream dribbled under ferns and bali- siers over soft square limestone rocks like the artificial rocks of the Ser]3entine, and those — copied probably from the rocks of Fontainebleau — which one sees in old French landscapes. But a bathe was hardly necessary. So drenched was the vegetation with night dew, that if one had taken off one's clothes at the house, and simply walked under the bananas, and through the tanias and maize which grew among them, one would have been well washed ere one reached the stream. As it was, the bathers came back with their clothes wet through. Xo matter. The sun was up, and half an hour would dry all again. One object, on the edge of the forest, was worth noticing, and was watched long, through the glasses; namely, two or three large trees, from which dangled a multitude of the pen- HANGING NESTS. 83 dant nests of the Merles:^ birds of tlie size of a jackdaw^ brown and yellow, and mocking-birds, too, of no small ability. The pouches, two feet long and more, swayed in the breeze, fastened to the end of the boughs with a few threads. Each had, about half-way down, an opening into the round sac below, in and out of which the Merles crept and fluttered, talking all the while in twenty different notes. Most tropic birds hide their nests carefully in the bush : the Merles hang theirs fearlessly in the most exposed situations. They find, I presume, that they are protected enough from monkeys, wild cats, and gato-melaos (a sort of ferret), by being hung at the extremity of the bough. So thinks M. Leotaud, the accomplished describer of the birds of Trinidad. But he adds with good reason : " I do not, however, understand how birds can protect their nestlings against ants ; for so large is the number of these insects in oiu? climes, that it would seem as if everything would become their prey." And so everything will, unless the bixd-murder be stopped. Already the parasol-ants have formed a warren close to Port of Spain, in what was forty years ago highly cultivated ground, from w^hich they devastate at night the northern gardens. The forests seem as empty of birds as the neigh- bourhood of the city ; and a sad answer will soon have to be given to M. L^otaud's question : — ^ Cassicus. g2 84 TORTUGA. "Tlie insectivorous tribes are the true representatives of our ornithology. There are so many which feed on insects and their hirvas, that it may be asked with much reason, What would become of our vegetation, of ourselves, should these insect destroyers disappear ? Everywhere may be seen" (M. L. speaks, I presume, of five-and-twenty years ago; my experience would make me substitute for his words, " Hardly anywhere can be seen,") " one of these insectivora in pursuit or seizure of its prey, either on the wing or on the trunks of trees ; in the coverts of thickets, or in the calices of flowers. Whenever called to witness one of those frequent migrations from one point to another, so often practised by ants, not only can the Dendrocolaptes (connected with our Creepers) be seen following the moving trail, and preying on the ants and the eggs themselves, but even the black Tanager aban- dons his usual fruits for this more tempting delicacy. Our frugivorous and baccivorous genera are also pretty numerous, and most of them are so fond of insect food that they unite, as occasion offers, with the insectivorous tribes." So it was once. Xow a traveller, accustomed to the swarms of birds which, not counting the game, inhabit an average English cover, would be surprised and pained by the scarcity of birds in the forests of this island. We rode down toward the northern lowland, along a broad new road of last year's making, terraced, with great labour, J FOREST SCHOOL. 85 along the hill, and stopped to visit one of those excellent Government schools which do honour, first to that wise le^is- lator, Lord Harris, and next to the late Governor. Here in the depths of the forest, where never policeman or school- master had been before, was a house of satin-wood and cedar a. Coolie group. not two years old, used at once as police-station and school, with a shrewd Spanish-speaking schoolmaster, and fifty-two decent little brown children on the school-books, and getting, when their lazy parents will send them, as good an education as they would get in England. I shall have more to say on 86 SAVONETTA. the education system of Trinidad. All it seems to me to want, with its late modifications, is compulsory attendance. Soon, turning down an old Indian path, we saw the Gulf once more, and between us and it the sheet of cane cultiva- tion, of which one estate ran up to our feet, " like a bright green bay entered by a narrow strait among the dark forest." Just before we came to it we passed another pleasant sight : more Coolie settlers, who had had lands granted them in lieu of the return passage to which they were entitled, were all busily felKng wood, putting up bamboo and palm- leaf cabins, and settling themselves down each one his own master, yet near enough to the sugar estates below to get remunerative work whenever needful. Then on, over slow miles (you must not trot beneath the burning midday sun) of sandy stifling flat, between high canes, till we saw with joy, through long vistas of straight traces, the Mangrove shrubbery which marked the sea. We turned into lar^^e suf^ar-works, to be cooled with sherrv and ice by a hospitable manager, whose rooms were hung with good prints, and stored with good books and knick- knacks from Europe, showing the signs of a lady's hand. And here our party broke up. The rest carried their mud back to Port of Spain ; I in the opposite direction back to San Fernando, down a little creek which served as a port to the estate. CALLING CRABS. 87 Plastered up to the middle like the rest of the party, besides splashes over face and hat, I could get no dirtier than I was already. I got without compunction into a canoe some three feet wide ; and was shoved by three Negros down a long winding ditch of mingled mud, water, and mangrove- roots. To keep one's self and one's luggage from falling out during the journey was no easy matter; at one moment, indeed, it threatened to become impossible. For where the mangroves opened on the sea, the creek itself turned sharply northward along shore, leaving (as usual) a bed of mud between it and the sea some quarter of a mile broad ; across which we had to pass as a short-cut to the boat, which lay far out. The difficulty was, of course, to get the canoe out of the creek up the steep mud-bank. To that end she was turned on her side, with me on board. I could just manage, by jamming my luggage under my knees, and myself against the two gunwales, to keep in, holding on chiefly by my heels and the back of my neck. But it befel, that in the very agony of the steepest slope, when the N'egros (who worked like really good fellows) were nigh waist-deep in mud, my eye fell, for the first time in my life, on a party of Calling Crabs, who had been down to the water to fish, and were now scuttling up to their burrows among the mangrove-roots ; and at the sight of the pairs of long-stalked eyes, standing upright like a pair of opera- 88 SAVON ETTA. glasses, and the long single arms wliicli each brandished, with frightful menaces, as of infuriated Xelsons, I burst into such a fit of laughter that I nearly fell out into the mud. The Xegros thought for the instant that the *' buccra parson " had gone mad : but when I pointed with my head (I dare not move a finger) to the crabs, off they went in a true Negro guffaw, which, when once begun, goes on and on, like thunder echoing round the mountains, and can no more stop itself than a Blackcap's song. So all the way across the mud the jolly fellows, working meanwhile like horses, laughed for the mere pleasure of laughing ; and wlien \ve got to the boat, the Xegro in charge of her saw us laughing, and laughed too for company, without waiting to hear the joke ; and as two of them took the canoe home, we could hear them laughincr still in the distance, till the lonely loathsome place rang again. I plead guilty to having given the men, as payment, not only for their work but for their jollity, just twice what they asked, which, after all, was very little. But what are Calling-Crabs ? I must ask the reader to conceive a moderate-sized crab, the front of whose carapace is very broad and almost straight, with a channel along it, in which lie, right and left, his two eyes, each on a footstalk half as long as the breadth of his body ; so that the crab, when at rest, carries his eyes as epaulettes, and peeps out at the joint of each shoulder. But when business is to be done, the eye- CALLING CRABS. 89 stalks jump bolt upright side by side, like a pair of little lighthouses, and survey the field of battle in a fashion utterly ludicrous. Moreover, as if he were not ridiculous enough even thus, he is (as Mr. Wood well puts it) like a small man gifted with one arm of Hercules, and another of Tom Thumb. One of his claw arms, generally th-e left, has dwindled to a mere nothing, and is not seen ; while along the whole front of his shell lies folded one mighty right arm, on which he trusts ; and with that arm, when danger appears, he beckons the enemy to come on, with such wild defiance, that he has gained there- from the name of Gelasimus Yocans — " The Calling Laugh- able:" and it were well if all scientific names were as well fitted. He is, as might be guessed, a shrewd fighter, and uses the true old " Bristol guard " in boxing, holding his long arm across his body, and fencing and biting therewith swiftly and sharply enough. Moreover, he is a respectable animal, and has a wife, and takes care of her ; and to see him in his glory, it is said, he should be watched sitting in the mouth of his burrow, his spouse packed safe behind him inside, while he beckons and brandishes, proclaiming to all passers-by the treasure which he protects, while he defies them to touch it. Such is the " Calling- Crab," of whom I must say, that if he was not tnade on purpose to be laughed at, then I should be induced to suspect that nothing was made for any purpose whatsoever. 90 SA N FERN A XDO. After which sight, and weary of waiting, not without some fear tliat — as the Kegros would have put it — " If I tap da wan moniant ma, I catch da confection," while of course a bucket or two of hot water was emptied on us out of a passing cloud, I got on board the steamer, and away to San Fernando, to wash away dirt and forget fatigue, amid the hospitality of educated and high-minded men, and of even more charming w^omen. CHAPTEE XL THE NORTHEEX MOUNTAINS. I HAD heard and read much of the Leauty ot mountain scenery in the Tropics. What I had heard and read is not exaggerated. I saw, it is true, in this little island no Andes, with such a scenerv among them and below them as Hum- boldt alone can describe — a type of the great and varied tropical world as utterly difPerent from that of Trinidad as it is from that of Kent — or Siberia. I had not even the chance of such a view as that from the Silla of Caraccas described by Humboldt, from which you look down at a height of nearly six thousand feet, through layer after layer of flc»ating cloud, which increases the seeming distance to an awful depth, upon the blazing shores of the Northern Sea. That view our host and his suite had seen themselves the year before ; and they assured me that Humboldt had not overstated its grandeur. The mountains of Trinidad do not much exceed 8,000 feet in height, and I could hope 92 THE KOBTHEBN MOUNTAINS. at most to see among them what my fancy had pictured among the serrated chines and green gorges of St. Vincent, Guadaloupe, and St. Lucia, hanging gardens compared witli ^vhich those of Babylon of old must have been Cockney mounds. The rock among these mountains, as I have said already, is very seldom laid bare. Decomposed rapidly by the troj)ic rain and heat, it forms, even on the steepest slopes, a mass of soil many feet in depth, ever increasing, and ever sliding into the valleys, mingled with blocks and slabs of rock still undecomposed. The waste must be enormous now. Were the forests cleared, and the soil no longer protected by the leaves and bound together by the roots, it would increase at a pace of which we in this temj)erate zone can form no notion, and the whole mountain-range slide down in deluges of mud, as, even in the temperate zone, the Mont Yentoux and other hills in Provence are slidini]^ now, sinc-e thev have been rashly cleared of their primaeval coat of woodland. To this degrading influence of mere rain and air must be attributed, I think, those vast deposits of boulder which encumber the mouths of all the southern glens, sometimes to a height of several hundred feet Did one meet them in Scotland, one would pronounce thom at once to be old glacier- moraines. But ]\Iessrs. AVall and Sawkins, in their geological survey of this island, have abstained from expressing any such opinion; and I think wisely. They are more simply explained NO LAKES. 93 as tlie mere leavings of the old sea- worn mountain wall, at a time when the Orinoco, or the sea, lay along their southern, as it now does along their northern, side. The terraces in which they rise mark successive periods of upheaval ; and how long these periods were, no reasonable man dare guess. But as for traces of ice-action, none, as far as I can ascertain, have yet heen met with. He would be a bold man who should deny that, during the abyss of ages, a cold epoch may have spread ice over part of that wide land which certainly once existed to the north of Trinidad and the Spanish Main : but if so, its traces are utterly obliterated. The commencement of the glacial epoch, as far as Trinidad is concerned, may be safely referred to the discovery of Wenham Lake ice, and the effects thereof sought solely in the human stomach and the increase of Messrs. Haley's well-earned profits. Is it owing to this absence of any ice-action that there are no lakes, not even a tarn, in the northern mountains ? Far be it from me to thrust my somewhat empty head into the battle which has raged for some time past between those who attribute all lakes to the scooping action of glaciers and those who attribute them to original depressions in the earth's surface : but it was im- possible not to contrast the lakeless mountains of Trinidad with the mountains of Kerry, resembling them so nearly in shape and size, but swarming with lakes and tarns. There are no lakes throughout the West Indies, save such as are 04 THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS. extinct craters, or otlierwise plainly attributable to volcanic action, as I presume are the lakes of Tropical Mexico and Peru. Be that as it niav, the want of water, or rather of visible water, takes away much from the beauty of these mountains, in which the eye gi'ows tired toward the end of a day's journey with the monotonous surges of green wood- land; and hails with relief, in going northward, the first glimpse of the sea horizon ; in going south, the first glimpse of the hazy lowland, in which the very roofs and chimney- stalks of the sugar estates are pleasant to the eye from the repose of their perpendicular and horizontal lines after the perpetual unrest of rolling hills and tangled vegetation. We started, then (to begin my story), a little after five one morning, from a solid old mansion in the cane-fields, which bears the name of Paradise, and which has all the right to the name which beautv of situation and f^oodness of in- habitants can bestow. As we got into our saddles the humming-birds were whirring round the tree-tops; the Qu'est-ce qu'il dits inquirinf^ the subject of our talk. The black vultures sat about lookinc^ on in silence, hoping that something to their advantage might be dropped or left behind — possibly that one of our horses might die. Ere the last farewell was given, one of our party pointed to a sight which I never saw before, and perhaps shall never THE SOUTHERN CROSS. 95 see again. It was tlie Soutliern Cross. Just visible in that winter season on the extreme southern horizon in early morn- ing, it hung upright amid the dim haze of the lowland and the smoke of the sugar-works. Impressive as was, and always must be, the first sight of that famous constellation, I could not but agree with those who say that they are disappointed by its inequality, both in shape and in the size of its stars. However, I had but little time to make up my mind about it ; for in five minutes more it had melted away into a blaze of sunlight, which reminded us that we ought to have been on foot half an hour before. So away we went over the dewy paddocks, through broad- leaved grasses, and the pink balls of the sensitive-plants and blue Commelyna, and the upright Xegro Ipecacuanha,^ with its scarlet and yellow flowers, gayest and commonest of weeds ; then down into a bamboo copse, and across a pebbly brook, and away toward the mountains. Our party consisted of a bat-mule, with food and clothes, two or three lN"egros, a horse for me, another for general use in case of break-down ; and four gentlemen who preferred walking to ridinf;^. It seemed at first a serious undertaking: on their part ; but one had only to see them begin to move, long, lithe, and light as deer-hounds, in their flannel shirts and trousers, with cutlass and pouch at their waists, to be sure ^ Asclepias curussavica. OG CAUKA. that tliey could Lutli go and stay, and were as well able to get to r>lanchisseiise as the horses beside which they walked. The ward of Blanchissense, on the north coast, whither we were bound, was of old, I understand, called Blanchi Sali, or something to that effect, signif}'ing the white cliffs. The French settlers degraded the name to its present form, and that so hopelessly, that the other day an old Negress in Port of Spain puzzled the officer of Crown praperty by informing him that she wanted to buy " a caiTe in what you call de washerwoman'^." It had been described to me as possibly the remotest, loneliest, and unhealthiest spot in her Majesty's tropical dominions. 'No white man can live there for more than two or three years without ruin ta hi& health. In spite of the perpetual trade-wind, and the steepness of the iiill-sides, malaria han^js for ever at the mouth of each little mountain torrent, and crawls up inland to leeward to a considerable height above the sea. But we did not intend to stay there long enaugh to catch fever and ague. We had plenty of quinine with us ; and cheerily we went up the valley of Caura, first over the great boulder and pebble ridges, not bare Like those of the Moor of Dinnet, or other Dee-side stone heap, but clothed with cane- pieces and richest rastrajo copses; and then entered the narrow gorse, which we had to follow into the heart of the hills, as our leader, taking one parting look at the broad THE SOUTHEBN LOWLAND. 97 green lowland behind us, reminded ns of Shelley's lines about the plains of Lombard}' seen from the Euganean hills : — " Beneath me lies like a green sea The "waveless plain of Lombardy, * * % * AVhere a soft and purple mist, Like a vaporous amethyst, Or an air-dissolved stone, Mingling light and fragrance, far From the curved horizon's bound To the point of heaven's profound. Fills the overflowing sky ; And the plains that silent lie Underneath, the leaves nnsodden Where the infant frost has trodden With his morning-winged feet, Whose bright fruit is gleaming yet ; And the red and golden vines Piercing with their trellised lines The rough dark-skirted wilderness. " But there the analogy stopped. It hardly applied even so far. Between us and the rouoh dark-skirted wilderness of the hisrh forests on Montserrat the infant frost had never trodden ; all basked in the equal heat of the perpetual summer ; awaiting, it may be, in ages to come, a civilization higher even than that w^hose decay Shelley deplored as he looked down on fallen Italy. No clumsy Avords of mine can give an adequate picture of the beauty of the streams and glens wdiich run down from either slope of the Northern Mountain. The reader must fancy VOL. IT. H I 98 THE NOnriTERN MOJ^XTAINS. for liimself the loveliest brook which he ever saw in Devon- shire or Yorkshire, Ireland or Scotland ; crystal-clear, bedded with grey pebbles, broken into rapids by rock-ledges or great white quartz boulders, swirling under steep cliffs, winding through flats of natural meadow and copses Then let hin transport his stream into the great Palm-house at Kew, stretch out the house up hill and down dale, five miles in length and two thousand feet in height ; pour down on it from above a blaze which lights up every leaf into a gem, and deepens every shadow into blackness, and yet that very blackness full of inner light — and if his fancy can do as much as that, he can imagine to himself the stream up which we rode or walked, now winding along the narrow track a hundred feet or two above, looking down on the upper surface of the forest, on the crests of palms, and the broad sheets of the Balisier copse, and often on the statelier fronds of true bananas, which had run wild along the stream-side, flowering and fruiting in the wilderness for the benefit of the parrots and agoutis ; or on huge dark clumps of bamboo, wliich (probably not in- digenous to the island) have in like manner spread themselves along all the streams in the lapse of ages. Xow we scramVjled down into the brook, and waded our horses through, amid shoals of the little spotted sardine,^ who are too fearless, or too unaccustomed to ^ Hydrocyon. .1 TROPIC BU EN-SIDE. 99 man, to get out of the way more than a foot or two. But near akin as they are to the trout, they are still nearer to tlie terrible Pirai,i of the Orinocquan waters, the larger of which snap off the legs of swimming ducks and the fingers of unwary boatmen, while the smaller surround the rash bather, and devour him piecemeal till he drowns, torn by a thousand tiny wounds, in water purpled with his own blood. These little fellows prove their kindred with the Pirai by merely nibbling at the bather's skin, making him tinoie from head to foot, while he thanks Heaven that his visitors are but two inches, and not a foot in length. At last we stopped for breakfast. The horses were tethered to a tree, the food got out, and we sat down on a pebbly beach after a bathe in a deep pool, so clear that it looked but four feet deep, though the bathers soon found it to be eight and more. A few dark logs, as usual, were lodged at the bottom, looking suspiciously like alligators or boa-constrictors. The alligator, however, does not come up the mountain streams ; and the boa-constrictors are rare, save on the east coast : but it is as well, ere you jump into a pool, to look whether there be not a snake in it, of any length from three to twenty feet. Over the pool rose a rock, carrying a mass of vegetation, to be seen, doubtless, in every such spot in the island, but of a 1 Serrasalmo. H 2 100 TIII'J N0ini1l':RN MOUNTAINS. riclincss and variety beyond description. Xearest to the water the ])riniaival garden began witli ferns and creeping SelaQjineUa. Xext, of course, the common Arum,^ with snow- white spathe and spadix, mingled witli the larger leaves of Balisier, wild Tania, and Seguine, some of the latter upborne on crooked fleshy stalks as thick as a man's leg, and six feet higli. Above them was a tangle of twenty different bushes, with leaves of every shape ; above them again, the arching shoots of a bamboo clump, forty feet high, threw a deep shade over pool and rock and herbage ; while above it again enormous timber trees were packed, one behind the other, up the steep mountain-side. On the more level ground were the usual weeds ; Ipomoeas with wdiite and purple flowers, Big- nonias, Echites and Allamandas, with yellow ones, scrambled and tumbled everywhere ; and, if not just there, then often enoucrh elsewhere, mig'ht be seen a sinofle Aristolochia scrambling up a low tree, from which hung, amid round leaves, huge flowers shaped like a great helmet with a ladle at the lower lip, a foot or more across, of purplish colour, spotted like a toad, and about as fragrant as a dead dog. But the plants which would strike a botanist most, I think, the first time he found himself on a tropic burn-side, are the peppers, groves of tall herbs some ten feet high or nrore, utterly unlike any European plants I have ever seen. 1 SpatliiphylluTii cannifolium. PEPFER-GROVES. 101 Some^ have round leaves, peltate, that is, with the footstalk springing from inside the circumference, like a one-sided umbrella. They catch the eye at once, from the gi-eat size of their leaves, each a full foot across ; but they are hardly as odd and foreisjn-lookin^ as the more abundant forms of peppers,- usually so soft and green that they look as if you might make them into salad, stalks and all, yet with a quaint stiffness and primness, given by the regular jointing of their knotted stalks, and the regular tiling of their pointed, droop- ing, strong-nerved leaves, which are usually, to add to the odd look of the plant, all crooked, one side of the base (and that in each species always the same side) being much larger than the other, so that the w^hole head of the bush seems to have got a twist from right to left, or left to right. Xothing can look more unlike than they to the climbing true peppers, or even to the creej)ing pepper-weeds, which abound in all waste land. But their rat-tails of small green flowers prove them to be peppers nevertheless. On we went, upward ever, past Cacao and Bois immortelle orchards, and comfortable settlers' hamlets ; and now and then tlirough a strip of virgin forest, in which we began to see, for the first time, though not for the last, that " re- splendent Calycophyllum " as Dr. Krueger calls it, Chaconia, as it is commonly called here, after poor Alonzo de Chacon, ^ Potlioniorplie. - Euckea and Artautlic 102 THE NORTTTERX MOUNTAiy.-(. the last SpaiiiVli governor of tliis island. It is indeed the jewel of these woods. A low straggling tree carries, on long pendent In-anches, leaves like a Spanish chestnut, a foot and more in length ; and at the ends of the branches, lonassed half-a-dozen without seeing them. The only chance, indeed, of coming across them, is when they are travelling from lagoon to lagoon, or basking on the mud at low tide. So all the game which we saw was a lovely white Egret,^ its back covered with those stiff pinnated, plumes which young ladies — when they can obtain them — are only too happy to wear in their hats. He, after being civil enough to wait on a bouQ-h till one of us c^ot a sitting shot at him, heard the cap snap, thought it as well not to wait till a fresh one was put on, and flapped away. He need not have troubled himself. The Kegros — but too apt to forget something or other — had forgotten to bring a spare supply; and the gun was useless. As we descended, the left bank of the river was entirely occupied with cocos ; and the contrast between them and the mancjroves on the right was made all the more strikiiiG^ bv the afternoon sun, which, as it sank behind the forest, left the mangrove wall in black shadow, while it bathed the palm- groves opposite with yellow light. In one of these palm- ^ Ardea Garzetta, THE MYSTERY OF A COCO-NUT. 213 groves we landed, for we were right thirsty ; and to drink lagoon water would be to drink cholera or fever. But there was plenty of pure water in the coco-trees, and we soon had our fill. A [N'egro walked — not climbed — up a stem like a four-footed animal, his legs and arms straight, his feet pressed flat against it, his hands clinging round it — a feat impossible, as far as I have seen, to an European — tossed us down plenty of green nuts ; and our feast began. Two or three blows with the cutlass, at the small end of the nut, cut off not only the pith-coat, but the point of the shell ; and disclose — the nut being held carefully upright meanwhile — a cavity full of perfectly clear water, slightly sweet, and so cold (the pith-coat being a good non-conductor of heat) that you are advised, for fear of cholera, to flavour it with a little brandy. After draining this natural cup, you are presented with a natural spoon of rind, green outside and white within, and told to scoop out and eat the cream which lines the inside of the shell, a very delicious food in the opinion of Creoles. After which, if you are as curious as some of us were, you will sit down under the amber shade, and examine at leisure the construction and germination of these famous and royal nuts. Let me explain it, even at the risk of prolixity. The coat of white pith ontside, with its green skin, will gradually develop and harden into that brown fibre of which matting is made. The clear water 214 THE COCAL. inside will gradually harden into that sweetmeat wliicli little boys eat off stalls and barrows in the street ; the first delicate deposit of which is the cream in the green nut. This is albumen, intended to nourish the young palm till it has grown leaves enough to feed on the air, and roots enough to feed on the soil; and the birth of that young palm is in itself a mystery and a miracle, well w^orth considering. ]\Iuch has been written on it, of which I, unfortunately, have read very little : but I can at least tell what I have seen with my own eyes. If you search among the cream-layer at the larger end of the nut, you will find, gradually separating itself from the mass, a little white lump, like the stalk of a very young mushroom. That is the ovule. In that lies the life, the " forma formativa," of the future tree. How that life works, according to its kind, who can tell ? What it does, is this : it is locked up inside a hard woody shell, and outside that shell are several inches of tough tangled fibre. How can it get out, as soft and seemingly helpless as a baby's finger ? All know that there are three eyes in the monkey's face, as the children call it, at the butt of the nut. Two of these eyes are blind, and filled up with hard wood. They are rudiments — hints — that the nut ought to have, perhaps had uncounted ages since, not one ovule, but three, the type-number in palms. One ovule alone is left ; and that is opposite the THE MYSTERY OF A COCO-NUT. 215 one eye which is less blind than the rest ; the eye which a schoolboy feels for with his knife, when he wants to get out the milk. As the nut lies upon the sand, in shade, and rain, and heat, that baby's finger begins boring its way, with unerring aim, out of the weakest eve. Soft itself, vet with immense wedsj- ing power, from the gradual accretion of tiny cells^ it pierces the wood, and then rends riHit and left the tousrh fibrous coat. Just so may be seen — I have seen — a large flagstone lifted in a night by a crop of tiny soft toadstools wdiich have suddenly blossomed up beneath it. The baby's finger pro- trudes at last, and curves upward toward the light, to com- mence the campaign of life : but it has meanwhile established, like a good strategist, a safe base of operations in its rear, from which it intends to draw supplies. Into the albuminous cream which lines the shell, and into the cavity where the milk once was, it throws out white fibrous vessels, which eat up the albumen for it, and at last line the whole inside of the shell with a white pith. The albumen gives it food wherewith to grow, upward and downward. Upward, the white plumule hardens into what will be a stem ; the one white cotyledon which sheaths it develops into a flat, ribbed, forked, green leaf, sheathing it still ; and above it fresh leaves, sheathing always at their bases, begin to form a tiny crown; and assume each, more and more, the pinnate form of the 216 THE COCAL. usual coco-leaf. But long ere this, from the butt of the white plumule, just outside the nut, white threads of root have struck down into the sand ; and so the nut lies, chained to the ground by a bridge-like chord, vvdiich drains its albu- men, through the monkey's eye, into the young plant. After a while — a few months, I believe — the draining of the nut is complete ; the chord dries up — I know not how, for I had neither microscope nor time w^herewith to examine — and parts ; and the little plant, having got all it can out of its poor wet-nurse, casts her ungratefully off to wither on the sand ; while it grows up into a stately tree, which will begin to bear fruit in six or seven years, and thenceforth continue, flowering and fruiting the wdiole year round without a pause, for sixty years and more, I think I have described this — to me — " miracuiuni " simply enough to be understood by the non-scientific reader, if only he or she have first learned the undoubt-ed fact — known, I find, to very few " educated " English people — that the coco- palm which produces coir-rope, and coco-nuts, and a hundred other useful things, is not the same plant as the cacao-bush which produces chocolate, nor anything like it. I am sorry to have to insist upon this fact : but till Professor Huxley's dream — and mine — is fulfilled ; and our schools deign to teach, in the i^tervals of Latin and Greek, some slight knowledge of this planet, and of those of its productions A WILD BIDE. 217 which are most commonly in use, even this fact may need to he re-stated more than once. "We re-emharked again, and rowed down to the river-mouth to pick up shells, and drink in the rich roaring trade hreeze, after the choking atmosphere of the lagoon ; and then rowed up home, tired, and infinitely amused, though neither ^Manati or Boa-constrictor had been seen ; and then we fell to siesta ; during which — with ^Ir. Tennyson's forgiveness — I read myself to sleep with one of his best poems ; and then went to dinner, not without a little anxiety. For M (the civilizer of Montserrat) had gone off early, with mule, cutlass, and haversack, back over the Doubloon and into the wilds of Manzanilla, to settle certain disputed squatter claims, and otherwise enforce the law ; and now the night had fallen, and he was not yet home. However, he rode up at last, dead beat, with a strong touch of his old swamp-fever, and having had an adventure, which had like to have proved his last. For as he rode throuc^h the Doubloon at low tide in the morning, he espied in the surf that river-god, or Jumby, of which I spoke just now ; namely, the grey back-fin of a shark; and his mule espied it too, and laid back her ears, knowing well what it was. M rode close up to the brute. He seemed full seven feet long, and eyed him surlily, dis- inclined to move off; so they parted, and M went on his way. But his business detained him longer than he 218 THE COCAL. expected; when he got back to the river-mouth it was quite dark, and the tide was full high. He must either sleep on the sands, which with fever ujDon him would not have been over safe, or try the passage. So he stripped, swam the mule over, tied her up, and then went back, up to his shoulders in surf ; and cutlass in hand too, for that same shark might be witliin two yards of him. But on his second journey he had to pile on his head first his saddle, and then his clothes and other goods ; few indeed, but enough to require both hands to steady them : and so walked helpless through the surf, expecting every moment to be accosted by a set of teeth, from which he would hardly have escaped with life. To have faced such a danger, alone and in the dark, and thoroughly well aware, as an experienced man, of its ex- tremity, was good proof (if any had been needed) of the indomitable Scots' courage of the man. JSTevertheless, he said, he never felt so cold down his back as he did during that last wade. By God's blessing the shark was not there, or did not see him; and lie got safe home, thankful for dinner and quinine. Going back the next morning at low tide, we kej)t a good look-out for M 's shark, spreading out, walkers and riders, in hopes of surrounding him and cutting him up. There w^ere half-a-dozen weapjons among us, of which my heavy bowie-knife was not the w^orst; and we should have given STRANGE GAME. 219 good account of him had we met him, and got between him and the deep water. But our valour was superfluous. The enemy was nowhere to be seen ; and we rode on, looking back wistfully, but in vain, for a grey fin among the ripples. So we rode back, along the Cocal and along that won- derful green glade, where I, staring at Xoranteas in tree-tops, instead of at the ground beneath my horse's feet, had the pleasure of being swallowed up — my horse's hind-quarters at least — in the very same slough which had engulfed M 's mule three days before, and got a roll in much soft mud. Then up to 's camp, where we expected breakfast, not with greediness, though we had been nigh six hours in the saddle, but with curiosity. For he had promised to send out the hunters for all game that could be found, and give us a true forest meal ; and we w^ere curious to taste what lapo, quenco, guazupita-deer, and other strange meats might be like. Xay, some of us agreed, that if the hunters had but brought in a tender young red mon- key,^ we would surely eat liim too, if it were but to say that we had done it. But the hunters had had no luck. They had brought in only a Pajui,^ an excellent game bird; an Ant-eater,"^ and a great Cachicame, or nine-banded Armadillo. The ant-eater the foolish fellows had eaten themselves — I ^ Mycetes ursinus. ^ Pent'lope. ^ Myrraecopliaga tiulactyla. 220 THE COCAL. would liave given tliem what tliey asked for liis skeleton; but tlie Armadillo was cut up and hashed for ns, and was eaten to the last scrap, being about the best game I ever tasted. I fear he is a foul feeder at times, who by no means confines himself to roots, or even worms. If what I was told be true, there is but too much probability for Captain Mayne Eeid's statement, that he will eat his way into the soft parts of a dead horse, and stay there until he has eaten his way out again. But, to do him justice, I never heard him accused, like the giant Armadillo^ of the Main, of digging dead bodies out of their graves, as he is doing in a very clever drawing^ in Mr. Wood's " Homes w^ithout Hands." Be that as it may, the Armadillo, whatever he feeds on, has the power of transmuting it into most delicate and wholesome flesh. Meanwhile — and hereby hangs a tale — I was interested, not merely in the Armadillo, but in the excellent taste with which it, and everything else, was cooked, in a little open shed over a few stones and firesticks. And complimenting my host thereon, I found that he had, there in the primaeval forest, an admirable French cook, to whom I begged to be introduced at once. Poor fellow 1 A little lithe Parisian, not thirty years old, he had got thither by a wild road. Cook to some good bourgeois family in Paris, he had fallen in love with his master's daughter, and she with him. And when ^ Priodoiita gigas. A FOB EST IDYLL. 221 their love was hopeless, and discovered, the two young foolish thinf;^s, not havinii — as is too common in France — the fear of God before their eyes, could think of no better resource than to shut themselves up with a pan of lighted charcoal, and so go they knew not whither. The poor girl went — and was found dead. But the boy recovered ; and was punished with twenty years of Cayenne; and here he was now, on a sort of ticket-of-leave, cooking for his livelihood. I talked a while with him, cheered him with some compliments about the Parisians, and so forth, dear to the Frenchman's heart — what else was there to say ? — and so left him, not without the fancy that, if he had liad but such an education as the middle classes in Paris have not, there were the makings of a man in that keen eye, large jaw, sharp chin. " The very fellow," said some one, '' to have been a first-rate Zouave." AYell : perhaps he was a better man, even as he was, than as a Zouave. And so we rode away again, and through Valencia, and through San Josef, weary and happy, back to Port of Spain. I would gladly, had I been able, have gone further due westward, into the forests which hide the river Oropuche, that I might have visited the scene of a certain two years' Idyll, which was enacted in them some forty years and more ago. In 1827, cacao fell to so low a price (two dollars per cwt.) that it w^as no longer worth cultivating ; and the head of the •222 THE COCAL. Y family, leaving liis slaves to live at ease on his estates, retreated, Avitli a household of twelve persons, to a small property of his own, which was buried in the primaeval forests of Oropuche. With them went his second son, Monsignor F , then and afterw^ards cure of San Josef, who died shortly before my visit to the island. I always heard him spoken of as a gentleman and a scholar, a saintly and cultivated priest of the old French School, re- spected and beloved by men of all denominations. His church of San Josef, though still unfinished, had been taxed, as well as all the Eoman Catholic churches of the island, to build the Pioman Catholic Cathedral at Port of Spain ; and he, refusing to obey an order which he considered un- just, threw up his cure, and retreated with the rest of the family to the palm-leaf ajoupas in the forest. M. F chose three of his finest ISTegros as companions. Melchior was to go out every day to shoot wild pigeons, coming every morning to ask how many were needed, so as not to squander powder and shot. The number ordered were always punctually brought in, besides sometimes a w^ild turkey — Pajui— or other fine birds. Alejos, who is now a cacao proprietor, and owner of a house in Arima, was chosen to go out every day, except Sundays, with the dogs; and scarcely ever failed to bring in a lapo or quenco. Aristobal was chosen for the fishing, and brought in good loads of ''JEL RIPOSOr 223 river fish, some sixteen pounds weight : and thus the little party of cultivated gentlemen and ladies were able to live, though in poverty, yet sumptuously. The Bishop had given jMonsignor F permission to perform service on any of his father s estates. So a little chapel was built ; the family and servants attended every Sunday, and many days in the week ; and the country folk from great distances found their way through the woods to hear Mass in the palm-thatched sanctuary of " El Eiposo." So did that happy family live '' the gentle life " for some two years ; till cacao rose again in price, the tax on the churches was taken off, and the F s returned again to the world : but not to civilization and Christianity. Those they had carried with them into the wilderness ; and those they brought back with them unstained. CHAPTEE XIV, THE "EDUCATION QUESTION" IN TEINIDAD. When I arrived in Trinidad, the little island was somewhat excited about changes in the system of education, which ended in a compromise like that at home, thougli starting from almost the opposite point. Among the many good deeds which Lord Harris did for the colony was the establishment throughout it of secular elementary ward schools, helped by Government grants, on a system which had, I think, but two defects. First, that attendance was not compulsory ; and next, that it was too advanced for the state of society in the island. In an ideal system, secular and religious education ought, I believe, to be strictly separate, and given, as far as possible, by different classes of men. The first is the business of scientific men and their pupils ; the second, of the clergy and their pupils : and the less either invades the domain of the other, the better for the community. But, like all ideals, it ONE SYSTEM OB TWO? 225 reciuires not only first-rate workmen, but first-rate material to work on ; an intelligent and liigh-mincled populace, who can and will think for themselves upon religious questions ; and who have, moreover, a thirst for truth and knowledge of every kind. With such a populace, secular and religious education can be safely parted. But can they be safely parted in the case of a populace either degraded or still savage ; given up to the " lusts of the flesh ;" with no desire for improvement, and ignorant of that " moral ideal," without the influence of wliich, as my friend Professor Huxley well says, there can be no true education ? It is well if such a people can be made to submit to one system of education. Is it wise to try to burden them with two at once ? But if one system is to give way to the other, which is most important : to teach them the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic ; or the elements of duty and morals ? And how these latter can be taught without religion is a problem as yet unsolved. So argued some of the Protestant, and the whole of the Eoman Catholic clergy of Trinidad, and withdrew their support from the Government schools, to such an extent that at least three-fourths of the children, I understand, went to no school at all. The Eoman Catholic clergy had, certainly, much to urge on their own behalf. The great majority of the coloured jjopulation of the island, besides a large picpoiticn of the VOL. II. Q 226 EDUCATION. white, belonged to their creed. Their influence was the chief (I had almost said the only) civilizing and Christianizing influence at work on the lower orders of their own coloured people. They knew, none so well, how much the Negro required, not merely to be instructed, but to be reclaimed from gross and ruinous vices. It was not a question in Port of Spain, any more than it is in Martinique, of whether the Negros should be able to read and write, but of whether they should exist on the earth at all for a few generations longer. I say this openly and deliberately; and clergy- men and police magistrates know but too well what I mean. The Priesthood were, and are, doing their best to save the Negro ; and they naturally wished to do their work, on behalf of society and of the colony, in their own way ; and to subordinate all teaching to that of Eeligion, which includes, with them, morality and decency. They therefore opposed the Government schools ; because they tended, it was thought, to withdraw the Negro from his Priest's influence. I am not likely, I presume, to be suspected of any leaning toward Piomanism. But I think a Pioman Catholic priest would have a right to a fair and respectful hearing, if he said : — "You have set these peo^jle free, without letting them go through that intermediate stage of feudalism, by which, and by which alone, the white races of Europe were educated into HOW TO TEACH THE NEGRO. 227 true freedom. I do not blame you. You could do no other- wise. But will you hinder their passing through that process of religious education under a priesthood, by which, and by which alone, the white races of Europe were educated up to something like obedience, virtue, and purity ? " These last, you know, we teach in the interest of the State, as well as of the Xegro : and if we should ask the State for aid, in order that we may teach them, over and above a little read- ing and writing — which will not be taught save by us, for we only shall be listened to — are we asking too much, or anytliiag wdiich the State will not be wise in crrantincf us ? We can have no temptation to abuse our power for political purposes. It would not suit us — to put the matter on its lowest ground ■ — to become demagogues. For our congregations include persons of every rank and occupation ; and therefore it is our interest, as much as that of the British Government, that all classes should be loyal, peaceable, and wealthy. " As for our peculiar creed, with its vivid appeals to the senses: is it not a question whether the utterly unimaginative and illogical Negro can be taught the facts of Christianity, or indeed any religion at all, save through his senses? Is it not a cpiestion whether w^e do not, on the wliole, give him a juster and clearer notion of the very tniths which you hold in common with us, than an average Protestant Missionary does? Q 2 228 EDUCATION. " Your Church of Enijkind " — it must be understood that the relations between the Anglican and the Itomisli clergy in Trinidad are, as far as I have seen, Iriendly and tolerant — '"does good work among its coloured mendjers. But it does so by speaking, as we speak, with authority. It, too, hnds it prudent to keep up in its services somewhat at least of that dignity, even j)omp, ""ivdiich is as neces- sary for the Xegro as it was for the half-savage European of the early Middle Age, if he is to be raised above his mere natural dread of spells, witches, and other harmful powers, to somewhat of admiration and reverence. " As for the merely dogmatic teaching of the Dissenters : we do not believe that the mere ISTegro really comprehends one of those propositions, whether true or false. Catholic or Cal- vinist, wliich have been elaborated by the intellect and the emotions of races who have gone through a training un- known to the Negro. With all respect for those w^ho dis- seminate such books, we think that the Xegro can no more conceive the true meaning of an average Dissenting Hymn- book, than a Sclavonian of the German Marches a thousand years ago could have conceived the meaning of St. Augus- tine's Confessions. Eor what we see is this — that when the personal influence of the white Missionary is withdrawn, and the Xegro left to perpetuate his sect on democratic principles, his creed merely feeds his inordinate natural THE CONFESSIONAL. 229 vanity witli the notion that everybody who differs from him is going to hell, while he is going to heaven whatever his morals may be." If a Eoman Catholic priest should say all this, he would at least have a right, I believe, to a respectful hearinfT. jN'ay, more. If he were to say, "You are afraid of our havini? too much to do with the education of the 'Ne^vo, because we use the Confessional as an instrument of educa- tion. Xow how far the Confessional is needful, or useful, or prudent, in a highly civilized and generally virtuous com- munity, may be an open matter. But in spite of all your English dislike of it, hear our side of the question, as far as Xegros and races in a similar condition are concerned. Do you know wdiy and how the Confessional arose ? Have you looked, for instance, into the old middle-age Penitentials ? If so, vou must be aware that it arose in an ai^e of coarseness, vvdiich seems now inconceivable ; in those barbarous times when the lower classes of Europe, slaves or serfs, especially in remote country districts, lived lives little better than those of the monkeys in the forest, and committed habitually the most fearful crimes, without any clear notion that they were doing wrong : while the upper classes, to judge from the literature which they have left, were so coarse, and often so profligate, in spite of nobler instincts and a higher sense of 230- EDtJCATIOlSr. duty, that tlie purest and ju&test spirits among them had' again and again to flee from their own class into the cloister or the hermit's cell. " In tliose days, it was found necessary to ask Christian people perpetually — Have you been doing this, or that ? For if you have, you are not only unfit to be called a Chris- tian ; you are unfit to be called a decent human being. And this, because there was every reason to suppose that they had been doing it ; and that they would not tell of themselves, if they could possibly avoid it. So the Confessional arose, as a necessary element for educating savages into common morality and decency. And for the same reasons we employ it among the Negros of Trinidad. Have no fears lest we should corrupt the minds of the young. They see and hear more harm daily than we could ever teach them, were we so devilishly minded. There is vice now, rampant and noto- rious, in Port of Spain, which eludes even our ConfessionaL Let us alone to do our best. God knows we are trying to do it, according to our light." If any Eoman Catholic clergyman in Port of Spain^ spoke thus to me — and I have been spoken to in words- not unlike these — I could only answer, " God's blessing on you, and all your efforts, whether I agree with you in detail or not." The Eoman Catholic inhabitants of the island are to the WHAT TO DO. 231 Protestant as about 2| to l.^ The whole of the more educated portion of them, as far as I could ascertain, are willing to entrust the education of their children to the clergy. The Archbishop of Trinidad, Monsignor Gonin, who has jurisdiction also in St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Gre- nada, and Tobago, is a man not only of great energy and devotion, but of cultivation and knowledge of the world ; having, I was told, attained distinction as a barrister else- where before he took Holy Orders. A group of clergy is woi'king under him — among them a personal friend of mine — able and ready to do their best to mend a state of things in which most of the children in the island, born nominal Roman Catholics, but the majority illegi- timate, were growing up not only in ignorance, but in hea- thendom and brutality. Meanwhile, the clergy were in want of funds. There were no funds at all, indeed, which would enable them to set up in remote forest districts a religious school side by side Avith the secular ward school ; and ^ In 1858 they were computed as : — Roman Catholics 44,576 Church of England 16,350 Presbyterians 2,570 Baptists 449 Independents, &c 239 From " Trinidad, its Geography, &c." by L. A. De Verteuil, ^M.D.P., a very able and interesting book. I regret much that its accomplished author resists the solicitations of his friends, and declines to bring out a fresh edition of one of the most complete monogi-aphs of a colony which I have yet seen. 232 EDUCATION. the colony could not well be asked for Government grants to two sets of schools at once. In face of these circum- stances, the late Governor thought fit to take action on the very able and interesting report of Mr. J. P. Keenan, one of the chiefs of inspection of the Irish Xational Board of Education, Avho had been sent out as special commissioner to inquire into the state of education in the island ; to modif}^ Lord Harris's plan, however excellent in itself; and to pass an Ordinance by wdiich Government aid was extended to private elementary schools, of whatever denomination, provided they had duly certificated teachers ; were accessible to all children of the neighbourhood without distinction of religion or race ; and " offered solid guarantees for abstinence from proselytism and intolerance, by subjecting their rules and course of teaching to the Board of Education, and empowering that Board at any moment to cancel the certificate of the teacher." In the wards in which such schools were founded, and proved to be working satisfactorily, the secular ward schools were to be discontinued. But the Government reserved to itself the power of re-opening a secular school in the ward, in case the private school turned out a failure. Such is a short sketch of an Ordinance which seems, to me et least, a rational and fair compromise, identical, mutatis mutandis, with that embodied in Mr. Eorster's new Education OBJECTIONS. 233 Act ; and the only one by Avhicli the lower orders of Trinidad were likely to get any education whatever. It was received, of course, with applause by the Eoman Catholics, and by a great number of the Protestants of the colony. But, as was to be expected, it met with strong expressions of dissent from some of the Protestant gentry and clergy; especially from one gentleman, who attacked the new scheme with an acuteness and liumour which made even those who differed from him regret that such remarkable talents had no wider sphere than a little island of 45 miles by 60. An accession of power to the Roman Catholic clergy was, of course, dreaded ; and all the more because it was known that the scheme met wdth the approval of the Archbisliop; that it was, indeed, a compromise with the requests made in a petition which that prelate had lately sent in to the Governor; a petition which seems to me most rational and temperate. It was argued, too, that though the existing Act — that of 1851 — had more or less failed, it might still succeed, if Lord Harris's plan was fully carried out, and the choice of the ward schoolmaster, the selection of ward school-books, and the direction of the course of instruction, was vested in local committees. Tlie simple answer was, that eighteen years had elapsed, and the colony had done nothing in that direc- tion ; that the great mnjority of children in the island did not go to school at all, wdiile those who did attended most irrcgu- 234 EDUCATION. larly, and learnt little or nothing ; ^ that the secular system of education had not attracted, as it was hoped, the children of the Hindoo immigrants, of wiiom scarcely one was to he found in a ward school ; that the ward schoolmasters were gene- rally inefhcient, and the Central Board of Education inactive ;: that there was no rigorous local supervision, and no local in- terest felt in the schools ; that there were fewer children in the Avard schools in 1868 than there had heen in 1863, in spite of the rapid increase of population : and all this for the simple reason which the Archbishop had pointed out — the want of religious instruction. As was to be expected, the good people of the island, being most of them religious people also, felt no enthusiasm about schools where little was likely to be taught beyond the three royal E's. I believe they w^re wrong. Any teaching which involves moral discipline is better than mere anarchy and idleness. But they had a right to their opinion ; and a right too, being the great majority of the islanders, to have that opinion respected by the Governor. Even now, it will be but too likely, I think, that the establishment and superintendence of schools in remote districts will devolve — as it did in Europe during the Middle Age — entirely on the different clergies, simply by default of laymen of sufficient zeal for 1 See Mr. Keenan's Keport, and other papers, printed bj' order of the House of Commons, 10th August, 1870. HIGHER EDUCATION. 235 the welfare of the coloured people. Be that as it may, the Ordinance has become Law ; and I have faith enoiicih in the loyalty of the good folk of Trinidad to believe that tliey will do their best to make it work. If indeed the present Ordinance does not work, it is difficult tu conceive any that will. It seems exactly fitted for the needs of Trinidad. I do not say that it is fitted for the needs of any and every country. In Ireland, for instance, such a system would be, in my opinion, simply retrograde. The Irishman, to his honour, has passed, centuries since, beyond the stage at which he requires to be educated by a priesthood in the primary laws of religion and morality. His morality is — on certain important points — superior to that of almost any people. What he needs is to be trained to loyalty and order ; to be brought more in contact with the secular science and civilization of the rest of Europe : and that must be done by a secular, and not by an ecclesiastical system of education. The higher education, in Trinidad, seems in a more satis- factory state than the elementary. The young ladies, many of them, go " home " — i.e. to England or France — for their Sf'hooling ; and some of the young men to Oxford, Cambridge, London, or Edinburgh. The Gilchrist Trust of the University of London has lately offered annually a Scholarship of 100/. a year for three years, to lads from the West India colonies, ^he examinations for it to be held in Jamaica, Barbados, 236 EDUCATION. Tiiiiidad, and Demei-ara ; and in Trinidad itself two Exhibi- tions of 150/. a year eacli, tenable for three years, are attain- able by lads of the Queen's Collegiate School, to help them toward their studies at a British University. The ColleG^iate School received aid from the State to the amount of 3,000/. per annum — less by the students' fees ; and was open to all denominations. But in it, again, the secular system would not work. The great majority of Roman Catholic lads were educated at St. Mary's College, which received no State aid at all. 417 Catholic pupils at the former school, as against 111 at the latter, were — as ]Mr. Keenan says — " a j)Oor expression of confidence or favour on the part of the colonists." The Eoman Catholic religion was the creed of the great majority of the islanders, and especially of the wealthier and l^etter educated of the coloured families. Justice seemed to demand that if State aid were given, it should be given to all creeds alike ; and prudence certainly demanded that the respectable young men of Trinidad should not be arrayed in two alien camps, in which the differences of creed were intensified by those of race, and — in one camp at least — by a sense of something very like injustice on the part of a Protestant, and, it must always be remembered, originally conquering, Government. To give the lads as much as possible the same interests, the same views ; to make them all alike feel that THE liOYAL COLLEGE. 237 they were growiug up not merely English subjects, but English men, was one of the most important social problems in Trinidad. And the simplest way of solving it was, to educate them as much as possible side by side in the same school, on terms of perfect equality. The late Governor, therefore, with the advice and consent of his Council, determined to develop the Queen's Collegiate School into a new Eoyal College, which was to be open to all creeds and races without distinction : but upon such terms as will, it is hoped, secure the willing attendance of Eoman Catholic scholars.^ Xot only it, but schools duly affiliated to it, are to receive Government aid; and four Ex- hibitions of 150/. a year each, instead of two, are granted to young men going home to a British University. The College was inaugurated — I am sorry to say after I had left the island — in June 1870, by the Governor, in the presence of (to quote the Port of Spain Gazette) the Council, consisting of The Honourable the Chief Judge Xeedham. J. Scott Bushe (Colonial Secretary). Charles W. Warner, C.B. E. J. Eai^les. F. AYarner. Dr. L. A. A. Verteuil. Henry Court. ^ See Papers on the State of liducation in Tiinida'l, p. 137 et seq. 238 EDUCATION. M. :\raxwell Philip. His Honour Mr. Justice Fitzgerald. Andre Bernard, Esq. The last five of these gentlemen being, I believe, Roman Catholics. Most of the Board of Education were also pre- sent ; the Principal and Masters of the Collegiate School, the Superiors and Pieverend Professors of St. Clary's College, the Clergy of the Churcli of England in the island; the leading professional men, and merchants, &c., and especially a large number of the Piornan Catholic gentry of the island ; ''MM. Ambard, O'Connor, Giuse23pi, Laney, Earfan, Gilliheau, Piat, Pantin, Leotaud, Besson, Eraser, Paiill, Hobson, Garcia, Dr. Padron," &c. I quote their names from the Gazette, in the order in which they occur. J\Iany of them I have not the honour of knowing: but judging of those whom I do not know by those wiiom I do, I should say that their presence at the inauguration w^as a solid proof that the foundation of the new^ College was a just and politic measure, opening, as the Gazette well says, a great future to the youth of all creeds in the colony. The late Governor's speech on the occasion I shall print entire. It will explain the circumstances of the case far better than I can do ; and it may possibly meet with interest and approval from those who like to hear sound spoken, even in a small colony. THE ROYAL COLLEGE. 239 " We are met here to-day to inangiirate the Eoyal College, an institution in which the benefits of a sound education, I trust, will he secured to Protestants and Eoman Catholics alike, without the slightest compromise of their respective principles. " The Queen's Collegiate School, of which this College is, in some sort, an out-growth and development, was founded with the same object : but, successful as it has been in other respects, it cannot be said to have altogether attained this. *' St. Mary's College was founded by j^rivate enterprise with a different view, and to meet the wants of those who objected to the Collegiate School. " It has lono- been felt the existence of two Colleges — one, the smaller, almost entirely supported by the State, the other, the larger, wholly without State aid — was objectionable ; and that the whole question of secondary education presented a most difficult problem. " Some saw its solution in the withdrawal of all State aid from higher education ; others in the establishment by the State of two distinct Denominational Colleges. " I have elsewhere explained the reason why I consider both these suggestions faulty, and their probable effect bad ; the one being certain to check and discourage superior education altogether, the other likely to substitute inefficient 240 EDUCATION. for etHcient teacliiiig, and small exclusive schools for a wide national institution. " I knew that, whilst insujjerable objections existed to a combined education in all subjects, that objection had its limits : that in America and in Germany I had seen Pro- testants and Catholics learning side by side ; that in Mauritius, a College numbering 700 pupils, partly Pro- testants, partly Eomau Catholics, existed ; and that similar establishments were not micommon elsewhere. "I therefore determined to endeavour to effect the estab- lishment of a College where combined study might be carried on in those branches of education with respect to which no objection to such a course was felt, and to sup- port with Government aid, and bring nnder Government supervision, those establishments where those branches in which a separate education was deemed necessary were taught. '• I had, when last at home, some anxious conferences with the highest ecclesiastical authority of the Pioman Catholic Church in England on the subject, and came to a complete understanding with him in respect to it. That distinguished prelate, himself a man of the highest University eminence, is not one to be indifferent to the interests of learning. His position, his known opinions, afford a guarantee that nothing sanctioned by him could, even by the most scrupulous, be THE BOYAL COLLEGE. 241 considered in the least degree inconsistent with the interests of his church or his religion. " He expressed a strong preference for a totally separate education: hut candidly admitted the ohjections to such a course in a small and not very wealthy island, and drew a wide distinction between combination for all purposes, and for some only. " There were certain courses of instruction in which com- bined instruction could not possibly be given consistently with due regard to the faith of the pupils ; there were others where it was difficult to decide whether it could or could not properly be given ; there were others again where it might be certainly given without objection. - " On this understanding the plan carried into effect is based : but the Legislature have gone far beyond what was then agreed ; and whilst Archbishop Manning would have assented to an arrangement which would have excluded certain branches only of education from the common course, the law, as now in force, allows exemption from attendance on all, provided competent instrnction is given to the pupils in the same branches elsewhere ; till, in fact, all that remains obligatory is attendance at examinations, and at the course of instruction in one or more of four "iven bi'anches of educa- tion, if it should so happen that no adequate teaching in that particular, branch is given in the pupil's own school. VOL. II. R 24£> EDUCATION. "A scheme more liberal — a bond more elastic — could hardly have been devised, capable of effecting, if desired, the closest union — capable of being stretched to almost any decree of slight connection ; and even if some Catliolics ■^'ould still prefer a wholly separate system, tliey must, if candid men, admit that the Protestant population here have a right to demand that they should not be called on to surrender, in order to satisfy a mere preference, the great advantages they derive from a united College under State control, with its efficient staff and national character. "If religious difficulties are met, and conscientious scruples are not wounded, a sacrifice of preferences must often be made. Private wishes must often yield to the public good. " In the first instance, all the boys of the former Collegiate School have become students of the College : but probably a school of a similar character, but affiliated to the College, will shortly be formed, in which a large number of those boys will be included. " That the headship of the College should be entrusted to the Principal of the Queen's Collegiate School will, I am sure, be universally felt to be only a just tribute to the zeal, efficiency, and success with which he has hitherto laboured in his office, whilst, in addition to these qualifications, he possesses the no less important one for the post he is about to fill, of a mind singularly impartial, just, liberal and candid. THE ROYAL COLLEGE. 243 " 1 hope that the other Professors of the College may be taken from affiliated schools indiscriminately, the lectures being given as may be most convenient, and as may be arranged by the College Council. '' It is intended by the College Council that the fees charged for attendance at the Eoyal College should be much lower than those heretofore charged at the Queen's Collegiate School. I do not believe that the mere financial loss will be great, whilst I believe a good education will, by this means, be placed within the reach of many who cannot now afford it. '*■ I hope — but I express only my own personal wish, not that of the Council, which, as yet, has pronounced no opinion — that some of the changes introduced in most states of modern education wdll be made here, and that especial attention will be given to the teaching of some of the Eastern languages. " It is almost impossible to overrate the importance of this both to the Government and the commimity ; — to the Govern- ment, as enabling it to avail itself of the services of honest, competent, and trustworthy interpreters ; and to the general comnmnity, as relieving both employer and employed from the necessity of depending on the interpretation of men not always very competent, nor always very scrupulous, whose mistakes or errors, whether wilful or accidental, may often R 2 244 EDUCATION. effect inucli injustice, and on ^vlluse iidelity life may not unfrequently depend. " I thank the members of the College Council for havinfj accepted a task which will, at first, involve much delicate tact, forbearance, caution, and firmness, and the exercise of talents I know them to possess, and which I am con- fident will be freely bestowed in working out the success of the institution committed to their care. " I thank the Principal and his staff for their past exer- tions, and I count with confidence on their future labours. " I thank the parents who, by their presence, have mani- fested their interest in our undertaking and their wishes for its success, and I especially thank the ladies who have been drawn within these walls by graver attractions than those which generally bring us together at this building. " I rejoice to see here the Superior of St. Mary's College, and the goodly array of those under his charge, and T do so for many reasons. '' I rejoice, because being not as yet affiliated or in any way officially connected with the Eoyal College, their pre- sence is a spontaneous evidence of their goodwill and kindly feeling, and of the spirit in which they have been disposed to meet the efforts made to considt their feelings in the arrangements of this institution ; a spirit yet further evinced by the fact that the Superior has infprmed me that he is THE ROYAL COLLEGE. 245 about voluntarily to alter the course of study pursued in St. Mary's College, so as more nearly to assimilate it to that pursued here. " I rejoice, because in their presence I hail a sign that the affiliation which is, I believe, desired by the great body of the Eonian Catholic community in this island, and to which it has been shown no insuperable religions obstacle exists, will take place at no more distant day than is necessary to secure the approval, the naturally requisite approval, of ecclesiastical authoritv elsewhere. " I rejoice at their presence, because it enables me before this company to express my high sense of the courage and liberality which have maintained their College for years past without any aid whatever from the State, and, in spite of manifold obstacles and discouragements, have caused it to increase in numbers and efficiency. " I rejoice at their presence, because I desire to see the youth of Trinidad of every race, without indifference to their respective creeds, brought together on all possible occasions, whether for recreation or for work : because I wish to see them engaged in friendly rivalry in their studies now, as they will hereafter be in the world, which I desire to see them enter, not as strangers to each other, but as friends and fellow-citizens. " I rejoice, because their presence enables me to take a 246 EDUCATION. personal farewell of so many of those who will in the next generation be the planters, the merchants, the official and professional men of Trinidad. By the time that you are men all the petty jealousies, all the mean resentments of this our day, will have faded into the oblivion which is their proper bourn. But the work now accomplished will not, T trust, so fade. They will melt and perish as the snow of the north would before our tropical sun : but the College will, I trust, remain as the rock on which the snow rests, and which remains uninjured by the heat, unmoved by the passing storm. May it endure and strengthen as it passes from the first feeble beginnings of this its infancy to a vigorous youth and maturity. You will sometimes in days to come recall the inauguration of your College, and perhaps not forget that its founder prayed you to bear in mind the truth that you will find, even now, the truest satisfaction in the strict discharge of duty ; that he urged you to form higli and unselfish aims — to seek noble and worthy objects ; and as you enter on the world and all its tossing sea of jealousies, strife, division and distrust, to heed the lesson which an Apostle, whose words we all alike revere, has taught us, ' If ye bite and devour one another, take ye heed that ye be not consumed one of another.' " Here, we hope, a point of union has been found which may last through life, and that whilst every man cherishes a A WEST INDIAN UNIVERSITY. 247 love for his own peculiar School, all alike will have an interest in their common College, all alike be proud of a national institution, jealous of its honour, and eager to advance its welfare. " It is a common thino' to hear the bitterness of religious discord here deplored. I for one, looking back on the history of past years, cannot think, as some seem to do, that it has increased. On the contrary, it seems to me that it has greatly diminished in violence when displayed, and that its displays are far less frequent. Such, I believe, will be more and more the case ; and that whilst religious distinctions will remain the same, and conscientious convictions unaltered, social and party differences consequent on those distinctions and con- victions will daily diminish ; that all alike will more and more feel in how many things they can think and act to- gether for the benefit of their common country, and of the community of wliich they all are members ; how they can be glad together in her prosperity, and be sad together in the day of her distress ; and work together at all times to pro- mote her good. That this College is calculated to aid in a great degree in effecting this happy result, I for one cannot entertain the shadow of a doubt. ' Esto perpetua ! ' " "Esto perpetua." But there remains, I believe, more yet to be done for education in the West Indies ; and that is to carry out Mr. Keenan's scheme for a Central University 248 EDUCATION. for the whole of tlie West Indian Colonies,^ as a focus of liigher education ; and a focus, also, of cultivated puhlic opinion, round which all that is shrewdest and noblest in the islands shall rally, and find strength in moral and intellectual union. I earnestly recommend all West Indians to ponder Mr. Keenan's weighty words on this matter ; believing that, as they do so, even stronger reasons than he has given for establishing such an institution will suggest themselves to West Indian minds. I am not aware, nor would the reader care much to know, wdiat schools there may be in Port of Spain for Protestant young ladies. I can only say that, to judge from the young ladies themselves, the schools must be excellent. But one school in Port of Spain I am bound in honour, as a clergy- man of the Church of England, not to pass by without earnest approval ; namely, " The Convent," as it is usually called. It was established in 1836, under the patronage of the Eoman Catholic Bishop, the Plight Pev. Dr. Macdonnel, and was founded by the ladies of St. Joseph, a religious Sisterhood which originated in France a few years since, for the special purpose of diffusing instruction through the colonies.^ This institution, wliich Dr. De Verteuil says is " unique in the West Indies," besides keeping up two large girls' schools for poor 1 Mr. Keenan's Eeport, pp. 63 — 67. 2 Dr. De Verteuil's " Trinidad." '' THE convent:' 249 cliildren, i>-ave in 18r)7 a hiG^lier education to 120 qiiis of the middle and upper classes, and the number has much in- creased since then. It is impossible to doubt that this Convent has been " a blessing to the colony." At the very time when, just after slavery was abolished, society through- out the island was in the greatest peril, these good ladies came to supply a want which, under the peculiar circum- stances of Trinidad, could only have been supplied by the self-sacrifice of devoted women. The Convent has not only spread instruction and religion among the wealthier coloured class : but it has done more ; it has been a centre of true civilization, purity, virtue, where one was but too much needed ; and has preserved, doubtless, hundreds of young creatures from serious harm ; and that without interfering in any wise, I should think, with their duty to their parents. On the contrary, many a mother in Port of Spain must have found in the Convent a protection for her daughters, better than she herself could give, against influences to which she herself had been but too much exposed during the evil days of slavery ; influences .which are not yet, alas 1 extinct in Port of Spain. Creoles will understand my words ; and will understand too, why I, I'rotestant though I am, bid heartily God speed to the good ladies of St. Joseph. To the Anglican clergy, meanwhile, whom 1 met in the West Indies, 1 am bound to offer my thanks, not for courtesies 250 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. sliown to me — that is a slight matter — but for the worthy fashion iu whicli they seem to be uphohling the honour of tlie good, ohl Churcli in the colonies. In Port of Spain I heard and saw enough of their work to believe that they are in nowise less active — more active they cannot be — than if they were sea-port clergymen in England. The services were performed thoroughly well; with a certain stateliness, which is not only allowable but necessary, in a colony where the majority of the congregation are coloured; but without the least fopp)ery or extravagance. The very best sermon, perhaps, for matter and manner, which I ever heard preached to unlet- tered folk, was preached by a young clergyman — a West Indian born — in the Great Church of Port of Spain ; and he had no lack of hearers, and those attentive ones. The Great Church was always a pleasant sight, with its crowded congregation of every hue, all well dressed, and with the universal AVest Indian look of comfort ; and it's noble span of roof overhead, all cut from island timber — another proof of what the wood-carver may effect in the island hereafter. Certainly distractions were frequent and troublesome, at least to a new-comer. A large centipede would come out and take a hurried turn round the Governor's seat ; or a bat would settle in broad daylight in the curate's hood; or one had to turn away one's eyes lest they should behold — not vanity, but — the magnificent head of a Cabbage-palm just CnniSTMAS COMMUNION. 251 outside tlie opposite ^villdoAV, with the black vultures trying to sit ou the footstalks in a high wind, and slipping down, and flopping up again, half the service through. But one soon got accustomed to the strange sights ; though it w^as, to say the least, somewhat startling to find, on Christmas Day, the altar and pulpit decked with exquisite tropic ^ flowers ; and eacli doorway arched over with a single pair of coco- nut leaves, fifteen feet hiLrh. The Christmas Day Communion, too, was one not easily to be forgotten. At least 250 persons, mostly coloured, many as black as jet, attended ; and were, I must say for them, most devout in manner. Pleasant it was to see the lame proportion of men among them, many young white men of the middle and upper class ; and still more pleasant, too, to see that all hues and ranks knelt side by side without the least distinction. One trio touched me deeply. An old lady — I know not who she was — with the unmistakeable long, delicate, once beautiful features of a high-bred West Indian of the 'Ancien Et'gime," came and knelt reverently, feebly, sadly, between two old Xegro women. One of them seemed her maid. Both of them might have been once her slaves. Here at least they were equals. True Equality — tlie consecration of humility, not the consecration of envy — first ap})eared on earth in the house of God, and at the altar of Christ : and I ques- tion much whether it will linger long in any spot ou earth 252 THE COOLIE OBFIIAX HOME. where that house and that altar are despised. It is easy to propose an equality without Christianity ; as easy as to propose to kick down the ladder by which you have climbed, or to saw off the bough on which you sit. As easy ; and as safe. But I must not forget, while speaking of education in Trinidad, one truly " educational " establishment which I visited at Tacarigua ; namely, a Coolie Orphan Home, assisted by the State, but set up and kept up almost entirely by the zeal of one man, — the Eev. Eichards, brother of the excellent Eector of Trinity Church, Port of Spain. This good man, having no children of his own, has taken for his children the little brown immigrants, who, losing father and mother, are but too apt to be neglected Ijy their own folk. At the foot of the mountains, beside a clear swift stream, amid scenery and vegetation which ' an European millionaire might envy, he has built a smart little quadrangle, with a long low house, on one side for the girls, on the other for the Ijoys ; a schoolroom, which was as well supplied with books, maps, and pictures as any average National School in England ; and, adjoining the buildings, a garden where the boys are taught to work. A matron — who seemed thoroughly worthy of her post — conducts the whole ; and comfort, cleanliness, and order were visible everywhere. A pleasant sight : but the pleasantest sight of all was to see the little bright-eyed brown THE COOLIE ORPHAN HOME. 253 daiiiiius clustering' round liini who was indeed their father in God ; who had delivered them from misery and loneliness, and — in the case of the girls — too probably vice likewise ; and drawn them, by love, to civilization and Christianity. The children, as fast as they grow up, are put out to domestic service, and the great majority of the boys at least turn out well. The girls, I was told, are curiously inferior to the boys in intellect and force of character ; an inferiority wdiich is certainly not to be found in Negros, among w^hom the two sexes are more on a par, not only intellectually, but physically also, than among any race wdiich I have seen. One iu stance, indeed, we saw of the success of the school. A young creature, brought up there, and well married near by, came in during our visit to show off her first baby to the matron and the children ; as pretty a mother and babe as one could well see. Only we regretted, that, in obedience to the supposed demands of civilization, and of a rise in life, she had discarded the graceful and modest Hindoo dress of her ancestresses, for a French bonnet and all that accompanies it. The transfiguration added, one must charitably suppose, to her self-respect ; if so, it must be condoned on moral grounds : but in an aesthetic view, she had made a great mistake. In remembrance of our visit, a little brown child, some three or four years old, who had been christened" that day, was 254 COOLIR TEMPLES. named after me; and I was glad to have my name connected, even in so minnte an item, witli an institution wliich at all events delivers children from the fancy tliat they can, without being good or doing good, conciliate the upper powers by hanging garlands on a trident inside a hut, or putting red dust on a stump of wood outside it, while they stare in and mumble prayers to they know not what of gilded wood. Tlie Coolie temples are curious places to those who have never before been face to face with real heathendom. Their mark is, generally, a long bamboo with a pennon atop, outside a low dark hut, with a broad flat verandah, or rather shed, outside the door. Under the latter, oppo- site each door, if I recollect rightly, is a stone or small stump, on which offerings are made of red dust and flowers. Prom it the worshippers can see the images within. The wdiite man, stooping, enters the temple. The attendant priest, so far from forbidding him, seems highly honoured, especially if the visitor give him a shilling ; and points out, in the darkness^for there is no li^ht save through the low O CD doors^three or four squatting abominations, usually gilded. Sometimes these have been carved in the island. Sometimes the poor folk have taken the trouble to bring them all the way from India on board ship. Hung beside them on the walls are little pictures, often very well executed in the miniature-like Hindoo style, by native artists in the island. IVHAT DO THEY MEAN? 255 Large brass pots, wliicli have some sacred meaning, stand about, and with them a curious trident-shaped stand, about four feet hi^-h, on the horns of which o-arlands of flowers are huno- as offerino'S. The visitor is told that the male figufes are Mahadeva, and the female Kali: we could hear of no other deities. I leave it to those who know Indian mythology better than I do, to interpret the meaning — or rather the past meaning, for I suspect it means very little now — of all this trumpery and nonsense, on which the poor folk seem to spend much money. It w^as impossible, of course, even if one had understood their language, to find out what notions they attached to it all ; and all I could do, on looking at these heathen idol chapels, in the midst of a Christian and civilized land, w^as to ponder, in sadness and astonishment, over a puzzle as yet to me inexplicable : namely, how human beings first got into their heads the vagary of worshipping images. I fully allow^ the cleverness and apparent reasonableness of M. Comte's now famous theory of the development of religions. I blame no one for holding it. But I can- not agree with it. The more of a "saine appreciation," as ^I. Comte calls it, I bring to bear on the known facts ; the more I "let my thought play freely around them,*' the more it is inconceivalde to me, according to any laws of the human intellect which I have seen at work, that savage or lialf-savaLLC folk should have invented idolatries. I do 256 THE GENESIS OF IDOL ATE Y. not believe that Fetisliisni is the parent of idolatry ; but rather — as I have said elsewhere — that it is the dregs and remnants of idolatr}^ The idolatrous nations now, as always, are not the savage nations : but those who profess a very ancient and decaying civilization. The Hebrew Scriptures uniformly represent the non-idolatrous and monotheistic peoples, from Abraham to Cvrus, as lower in what we now call the scale of civilization, than the idolatrous and polytheistic peoples about them. May not the contrast between the Patriarchs and the Pharaohs, David and the Philistines, tlie Persians and the Babylonians, mark a law of history of wider applica- tion than we are wont to suspect ? But if so, what was the parent of idolatry ? For a natural genesis it must have had, whether it be a healthy and necessary development of the human mind — as some hold, not without w^eighty arguments on their side; or wdiether it be a diseased and merely funci'oid growth, as I believe it to be. I cannot hold that it originated in Xature-w^orship, simply because I can find no evidence of such an origin. There is rather evidence, if the statements of the idolaters themselves are to be taken, that it originated in the worship of superior races by inferior races ; possibly also in the w^orship of works of art which those races, dviiio- out, had left behind them, and which the lower race, while unable to copy them, believed to be possessed of magical powers derived from a civilization which they LOST SCHOOLS OF ART. 251 had lost. After a while the priesthood, whicli has usually, in all ages and countries, proclaimed itself the depository of a knowledge and a civilization lost to the mass of the people, may ^ have sjained courac^e to imitate these old works of art, with proper improvements for the worse, and have persuaded th.e people that the new idols would do as well as the old ones. VOL. ir. s 258 AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY. "Would that some truly learned man would " let his thoughts play freely " round tins view of the mystery, and see wdiat can be made out of it. But whatever is made out, on either view, it will still remain a mystery — to me at least, as much as to Isaiah of old — how this utterly abnormal and astonish- ing animal called man first got into his foolish head that he could cut a thing out of wood or stone which would listen to him and answer his prayers. Yet so it is ; so it has been for unnumbered ages. Man may be defined as a speaking animal, or a cooking animal. He is best, I fear, defined as an idolatrous animal ; and so much the worse for him. But wdiat if that very fact, diseased as it is, should be a sure proof that he is more than an animal ? CHAPTER XV. the eaces — a letter. Dear , I have been to the races : not to bet, nor to see the horses run : not even to see the fair ladies on the Grand Stand, in all the newest fashions of Paris via l^ew York: but to wander en mufti among the crowd outside, and behold the humours of men. And I must say that their humours were very good humours ; far better, it seemed to me, than those of an English race-gTTOund. Xot that I have set foot on one for thirty years : but at railway stations, and elsewhere, one cannot help seeing what manner of folk, beside mere holiday folk, rich or poor, affect English races ; or help pronouncing them, if physio- gnomy be any test of character, the most degTaded beings, even some of those smar1>dressed men who carry bags with their names on ^them, which our pseudo-civilization has yet done itself the dishonour of producing. Xow, of that class I saw- absolutely none. I do not suppose that the brown fellows s 2 260 THE BACES. wlio hung about tlie horses, whether Barbadians or Trinidad men, were of very angelic morals : but they looked like heroes compared with the bloated hangdog roughs and quasi- grooms of English races. As for the sporting gentlemen, not having the honour to know them, I can only say that they looked like gentlemen, and that I wish, in all courtesy, that they had been more wdsely employed. But the N"egro, or the coloured man of the low^er class, 'was in his glory. He w^as smart, clean, shiny, happy, according to his light. He got up into trees, and clustered there, grinning from ear to ear. He bawled about island horses and Barbadian horses — for the Barbadians mustered strong, and a fight w^as exj)ected, wdaich, however, never came off; he sang songs, possibly some of them extempore, like that wdiich amused one's childhood concerning a once notable event in a certain island — *' I went to (la Place To see da horse-race, I see Mr. Barton A-wipin' ob his face. Bun, Alhmght, Run for your life ; See Mr. Barton A-comin' wid a knife. Oh, Mr. Barton, I sarry for your loss ; If you.no believe me, I tie my head across." LIVU FLOWER-BEDS. 261 That is — tio into moiiriiini:f. But no one seemed inclined to tie their heads across that day. The Coolies seemed as merry as the Negros ; even about the face of the Chinese there flickered, at times, a feeble ray of interest. The coloured women wandered about, in showy prints, great crinolines, and gorgeous turbans. The Coolie women sat in groups on the grass — ah Isle of the Blest, where people can sit on the grass in January — like live flower-beds of the most splendid and yet harmonious hues. As for jewels, of gold as well as silver, there were many there, on arms, ankles, necks and noses, which made white ladies fresh from England break the tenth commandment. I wandered about, looking at the live flower-beds, and giving passing glances into booths, which I longed to enter, and hear what sort of human speech might be going on therein: but I was deterred, first by the thought that much of the speech might not be over-edifying, and next by the smells, especially by that most hideous of all smells — new rum! At last I came to a crowd ; and in the midst of it, one of tliose great French merry-go-rounds, turned by machinery, with pictures of languishing ladies round the central column. All the way from the Champs Elysees the huge piece of fools' tackle had lumbered and creaked hither across the sea to ?^rartini(pie, and w^as now making the round of the islands ; and a very profitable, round, to judge from the number of its 262 THE RACES. customers. The hobby-horses swarmed with Negresses and Hindoos of the lower order. The Negresses, I am sorry to say, forgot themselves, kicked up their legs, shouted to the bystanders, and were altogether incondite. Tlie Hindoo women, though showing much more of their limbs than the Negresses, kept them gracefully together, drew their veils round their heads, and sat coyly, half frightened, half amused, to the delight of their " papas," or husbands, who had in some cases to urge theln to get up and ride, while they stood by, as on guard, with the long hardwood quarter-staff in hand. As I looked on, considered what a strange creature man is, and wondered what possible pleasure these women could derive from being whirled round till they were giddy and stupid, I saw an old gentleman seemingly absorbed in the veiy same reflection. He was dressed in dark blue, with a straw liat. He stood w^ith his hands behind his back, his knees a little bent, and a sort of wise, half-sad, half-humorous smile upon his aquiline high-cheek-boned features. I took him for an old Scot ; a canny, austere man — a man, too, who had known sorrow, and profited thereby; and I drew near to him. But as he turned his head deliberately round to me, I beheld to my astonishment the unmistakeable features of a Chinese. He and I looked each other full in the face, without a word ; and I fancied that we understood each other about the merry- go-round, and many things besides. And then we both walked A SEEIOUS QUESTIOX. 2G3 off different ways, as having seen enough, and more than enough. AYas he, after all, an honest man and true ? Or had he, like Ah Sin, in ]\lr. Bret Harte's delectable ballad, with "the smile that was child-like and bland" — •* In his sleeves, Avliicli were large, Twenty- four packs of cards, And — On his nails, which were taper, \Yhat's common in tapers — that's wax ?" I know not ; for the Chinese visage is unfathomable. But I incline to this day to the more charitalile judgment ; for the man's face haunted me, and haunts me still ; and I am weak enough to believe that I should know the man and like him, if T met him in another planet, a thousand years hence. Then I walked back under the blazing sun across the Savanna, over the sensitive plants and the mole-crickets' nests, while the great locusts whirred up before me at every step : toward the archway between the bamboo-clumps, and the red sentry sliining like a spark of fire beneath its deep shadow ; and found on my way a dying racehorse, with a gi'oup of coloured men round him, whom I advised in vain to do the one thing needful — put a blanket over him to keep off the sun, for the poor thing had fallen from sunstroke ; so I left them to jal)ber and do nothing : asking myself — Is the human race, in the matter of amusements, as civilized as it was — say three thousand years ago? People have, certainly 2G4 THE RACES. — quite of late years — given up going to see cocks fight, or lieretics burnt : but that is mainly because the heretics just now make the laws— in favour of themselves and the cocks. But are our amusements to be comj)ared with those of the old Greeks, with the one exception of liking to hear really good music? Yet that fruit of civilization is barely twenty years old; and we owe its introduction, be it always remem- bered, to the Germans. French civilization signifies practi- cally, certainly in the New World, little save ballet-girls, billiard-tables, and thin boots : English civilization, little save horse-racing and cricket. The latter sport is certainly blame- less ; nay, in the West Indies, laudable and even heroic, when played, as on the Savanna here, under a noon- day sun which feels hot enough to cook a mutton-chop. But with all respect for cricket, one cannot help looking back at the old games of Greece, and questioning whether man has advanced much in the art of amusing himself rationally and wliLlssomely. I had reason to ask the same question that evening, as we sat in the cool verandah, watching the fire- flies flicker about the tree-tops, and listening to the weaxy din of the tom- toms which came from all sides of the Savanna save our own, drowning the screeching and snoring of the toads, and even, at times, the screams of an European band, which was playing a " combination tune," near the Grand Stand, half a mile off. NEGRO LANCES. 265 To tlie music of tom-tom and chac-cliac, the coloured folk would dance perpetually till ten o'clock, after which time the rites of Mylitta are silenced by the policeman, for the sake of quiet folk in bed. They are but too apt, however, to break out again with fresh din about one in the^morning, under the excuse — '' Dis am not last night, Policeman. Dis am 'nother dav." Well : but is the nightly tom-tom dance so much more absurd than the nightly ball, which is now considered an integral element of white civilization? A few centuries hence may not both of them be looked back on as equally sheer barbarisms ? These tom-tom dances are not easily seen. The only glance I ever had of them was from the steep slope of once beautiful Belmont. "Sitting on a hill apart," my host and I were discoursing, not " of fate, free-will, free-knowledge absolute," but of a question almost as mysterious — the doings of the l^arasol-ants who marched up and down their trackways past us, and whether these doinfrs were ouided bv an intellect differing from ours, onlv in decfree, but not in kind. A lum- dred yards below ^ve espied a dance in a Negro garden ; a few couples, mostly of w^omen, pousetting to each other with violent and ungainly stampings, to the music of tom-tom and chac-chac, if music it can be called. Some power over the emotions it must have : for the Neirros are said to be f]:raduallv 266 THE BACES. maddened by it ; and ^vllite people liave told nie tliat its very monotony, if listened to long, is strangely exciting, like the monotony of a bagpipe drone, or of a drum. What more Avent on at the dance we could not see ; and if we had tried, we shoidd probably not have been allowed to see. ' The Negro is chary of admitting white men to his amusements ; and no wonder. If a London ball-room were suddenly invaded by Pho^'bus, Ares, and Hermes, such as Homer drew them, they would probably be unwelcome guests ; at least in the eyes of the gentlemen. The latter would, I suspect, thoroughly sympathise with the ISTegro in the old story, intelligible enough to those who know what is the favourite food of a West Indian chicken. '' Well, John, so they gave a dignity ball on the estate last night?" " Yes, massa, very nice ball. Plenty of pretty ladies, massa." " Why did you not ask me, John ? I like to look at pretty ladies as well as you." " Ah, massa : when cockroach give a ball, him no ask da fowls." Great and worthy exertions are made, every London Season, for the conversion of the Xegro and the Heathen, and the abolition of their barbarous customs and dances. It is to be hoped that the Negro and the Heathen will some day show TEE MOTE AND THE BEAM. 267 their gratitude to us, hj sending Missionaries hitlier to convert the London Season itself, dances and all ; and assist it to take the beam out of its own eye, in return for having taken the mote out of theirs. CHAPTER XVL A PROVISION GROUND. The " provision grounds " of the Xegros were very inter- esting. I liad longed to behold, alive and growing, fruits and plants wdiich I had heard so often named, and seen so often figured, that I had expected to recognize many of them at first sight ; and found, in nine cases out of ten, that I could not. Again, I had longed to gather some hints as to the possibility of carrying out in the West Indian islands that system of ''Petite Culture"' — of small spade farming — which I have long regarded, with Mr. John Stuart ]\Iill and others, as not only the ideal form of agriculture, but perhaps the basis of any ideal rustic civilization. And what scanty and imperfect facts I could collect I set down here. It was a pleasant sensation to have, day after day, old names translated for me into new facts. Pleasant, at least to me : not so pleasant, I fear, to my kind companions, whose courtesy I taxed to the uttermost by stopping to look over Tin Lu6t of the Li'uuits. BEAUTY OF FRUIT-TREES. 269 every fence, and ask, " AMiat is that ? And that ?" Let the reader ^vllo has a taste for the beautiful as well as the useful in horticulture, do the same, and look in fancy over the hedge of the nearest provision ground. There are orange-trees laden \\\t\\ fruit: who knows not them? and that awkward-houghed tree, with huge green fruit, and deeply-cut leaves a foot or more across — leaves so grand that, as one of our party often su^o-ested, their form ought to be introduced into architectural ornamentation, and to take the place of the Greek acanthus, which they surpass _ in beauty — that is, of ||| course, a Bread-fruit tree. That round-headed tree, with dark rich Portui]^al laurel foliao'e, airano'ed in stars at the end of each twig, is the Mango, always a beautiful object, whether in orchard or in open park. Bread frv.it. In the West Indies, as far as I have seen, the Mango has not yet reached the huge size of its ancestors in Hiudostan. There — to judge, at least, from photographs — the jMango must be indeed the queen of trees ; growing to the size of the largest English oak, and keeping always the round oak- like form. Pach in resplendent foliage, and still more rich 270 A r no VISION GROUND. ill fruit, the tree easily became encircled with an atmosphere of myth ill the fancy of the imaginative Hindoo. That tree with upright branches, and large, dark, glossy leaves tiled upwards along them, is the Mammee Sapota,^ beautiful likewise. And what is the next, like an evergreen peach, shedding from the underside of every leaf a golden light — call it not shade? A Star-apple ;2 and that young thing ■which you may often see grown into a great timber-tree, with leaves like a Spanish chestnut, is the Avocado,^ or, as some call it, alligator, pear. This with the glossy leaves, some- what like the Mammee Sapota, is a Sapodilla,"* and that wdth leaves like a great myrtle, and bright flesh-coloured fruit, a Malacca-apple, or perhaps a Eose-apple. ^ Its neigh- bour, with large leaves, grey and rough underneath, flowers as big as your tw^o hands, with greenish petals and a purple eye, followed by fat scaly yellow apples, is the Sweet-sop f and that privet-like bush with little Howers and green berries a Guava/ of which you may eat if you w^ill, as you may of the rest. The truth, however, must be told*. These West Indian fruits are, most of them, still so little improved by careful culture and selection of kinds, that not one of them (as far ^ Lucuma mammosa. 2 Chrysophyllum cainito. ^ Persea gratissima. ^ Sapota acliras. •^ Jambosa malaccensis and vulgaris. ^ Anona squamosa. ^ Psidium Guava. BANANAS. 271 as we have tried them) is to be compared with an average strawberry, plum, or pear. But how beautiful they are all and each, after their kinds ! What a joy for a man to stand at his door and simply look at them growing, leafing, blossoming, fruiting, without pause, through the perpetual summer, in his little garden of the Hesperides, where, as in those of the Phcenicians of old, " pear grows ripe on pear, and fig on fig," for ever and for ever ! Now look at the vegetables. At the Bananas and Plantains first of all. A stranger's eye would not distinguish them. The practical difference between them is, that the Plantain^ bears large fruits which rer|uire cooking; the Banana^ smaller and sweeter fruits, which are eaten raw\ As for the plant on which they grow^, no mere words can picture the simple grandeur and grace of a form which startles me whenever I look steadily at it. Por however common it is — none com- moner here — it is so unlike aught else, so perfect in itself, that, like a palm, it might well have become, in early ages, an object of worship. And who knows that it has not ? Who knows that there have not been races who looked on it as the Bed Indians looked on Mondaniin, the maize-plant ; as a gift of a god — perhaps the incarnation of a god ? Who knows ? Whence 1 Musn panidisiaor. 2 ^f sapieutum. 272 A PROVISION GROUND. did the ancestors of tluit plant come ? What was its wild stock like ages ago ? It is wild nowhere now on earth. It stands alone and iinic|ue in the vegetable kingdom, witli distant cousins, but no brother kinds. It has been cul- tivated so long that though it flowers and fruits, it seldom or never seeds, and is propagated entirely by cuttings. The only spot, as far as I am aware, in which it seeds regularly and plentifully, is the remote, and till of late barbarous Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal.^ There it regularly springs up in the second growth, after the forest is cleared, and bears fruits full of seed as close together as they can be pressed. ' How did the plant get there ? Was it once cultivated- there by a race superior to tlie now utterly savage islanders, and at an epoch so remote that it had not yet lost the power of seeding ? Are the Andamans its oricjinal home ? or rather, was its orimnal home that great southern continent of which the Andamans are perhaps a remnant ? Does not this fact, as well as the broader fact that different varieties of the Plantain and Banana girdle the earth round at the Tropics, and have girdled it as long as records go back, hint at a time when there was a tropic continent or archipelago round the whole equator, and at a civilization and a horticulture to which 1 I owe these curious facts, and specimens of the seeds, to the courtesy of Dr. King, of the Bengal army. The seeds are now in the hands of Dr. Hooker, at Kew. THE VEGETABLES. 273 those of old Egypt are upstarts of yesterday? There are those who never can look at the Banana without a feelincj of awe, as at a token of how ancient the race of man may be, and how little we know of his history. Most beautiful it is. The lush fat green stem ; the crown of huge leaves, falling over in curves like those of human limbs ; and below, the whorls of green or golden fruit, with the purple heart of flowers dangling below them ; and ail so full of life, that this splendid object is the product of a few months. I am told that if you cut the stem off at certain seasons, you may see the young leaf — remember that it is an endogen, and grows from within, like a palm, or a lily, or a grass — actually move upward from within and grow before your eyes ; and that each st^m of Plantain will bear from thirty to sixty pounds of rich food during the year of its short life. But, beside the grand Plantains and Bananas, there are other interesting plants, whose names you have often heard. The tall plant with stem unbranched, but knotty and zigzag, and leaves atop like hemp, but of a cold purplish tinge, is the famous Cassava,^ or Manioc, the old food of the Indians, poisonous till its juice is squeezed out in a curious spiral grass basket. The young Laburnums (as they seem), with purple flowers, are Pigeon-peas,- right good to eat. The ^ Janiplia Manihot. - Cajanus Indicus. VOL. II. T 274 A PBOVISION GROUND. ># creeping vines, like our Tamus, or Black Bryony, are Yams,^ — best of all roots. Tlie brandling broad-leaved canes, with strange white flowers, is Arrow-root.^ The tall mallow-like shrub, with large pale yellowish-white flowers, Cotton. The huge grass with beads on it^ is covered with the Job's tears which are precious in children's eyes, and will be used as beads for neck- laces. The castor-oil plants, and the maize — that last always beautiful — are of course well known. The ar- row leaves, three feet long, on stalks three feet high, like gigantic Arums, are Tanias,* whose roots are excel- lent. The plot of creeping convol- vulus-like plants, with purple flowers, is the Sweet, or true. Potato.^ And we must not overlook the French Physic-nut,^ with its hemp-like leaves, and a little bunch of red coral in the midst, with which the Xegro loves to adorn his garden, and uses it also as medicine ; or the Indian Shot/ which may be seen planted out now in summer gardens in England. Yam. Dioscorea. ^ Maranta. ^ Coix lacryma. Ipomcea Batatas. ^ Jatropha multifida. * Xanthosoma. ^ Canna. THE VEGETABLES. 275 Tlie Negro grows it, not for its pretty crimson flowers, but because its hard seed put into a bladder furnishes him with that detestable musical instrument the chac-chac, wherewith he accompanies nightly that equally detestable instrument the tom-tom. The list of vegetables is already ]on^: but there are a few more to be added to it. For there, in a corner, creep some plants of the Earth-nut,^ a little vetch which buries its pods in the earth. The owner will roast and eat their oily seeds. There is also a tall bunch of Ochro - — a purple-stemmed mallow-flowered plant — whose mucilaginous seeds will thicken his soup. Up a tree, and round the house-eaves, scramble a large coarse Pumpkin, and a more delicate Grana- dilla,^ whose large yellow fruits hang ready to be plucked, and eaten principally for a few seeds of the shape and colour of young cockroaches. If he be a prudent man (especially if he lives in Jamaica), he will have a plant of the pretty Overlook pea,'* trailing aloft somewhere, to prevent his garden ^ Arachis hypogsea. ^ Abelmoschus esculentus. ^ Passiflora. "* Canavalia. T 2 Sweet Potato. 27(5 A PROVISION GROUND. being " overlooked," i.e. bewitched by an evil eye, in case the Obeali-bottle which liaiiijs from the Mano-o-tree, changed with toad and spider, dirty water, and so forth, has no terrors for his secret enemy. He will have a Libidibi^ tree, too, for astringent medicine ; and his hedge wdll be composed, if he be a man of taste — as he often seems to be — of Hibiscns bushes, whose magnificent crimson flowers contrast with the bris^ht vellow bunches of the common Cassia, and the scarlet flowers of the Jumby-bead busli,^ and blue and white and pink Convolvuluses. The sulphur and purple Neerem- bergia of our hothouses, which is here one mass of flower at Christmas, an,d the creeping Crab's-eye Vine,^ will scramble over the fence-; wliile, as a finish to his little Paradise, he will have planted at each of its four corners an upright Dragon's-blood^ busl\ whose violet and red leaves bedeck our dinner-tables in winter ; and are here used, from tlieir unlikeness to. any other plant in the island, to mark boundaries. I have not dared — for fear of prolixity — to make this catalogue as complete as I could have done. But it must be remembered that, over and above all this, every hedqe and w^ood furnishes w^ild fruit more or less eatable ; the high forests plenty of oily seeds, in wdiich the tropic ^ Libidibia coriacea, now largely imported into Liverpool for tanning. ^ Erythrina corallodendrou, s Abrus precatorius. ^ Dracaena terminalis. B USH-MEDICINES. 277 nitin delights; and woods, forests, and fields medicinal plants uncounted. " There is more medicine in the bush, and better, than in all the shops in Port of Spain," said a wise medical man to me ; and to the Exhibition of 1862 ^Ir. M'Clintock alone contributed, from British Guiana, 140 species of barks used as medicine by the Indians. There is therefore no fear that the tropical small farmer should suffer, either from want, or from monotony of food ; and equally small fear lest, when his children have eaten themselves sick — as they are likely to do if, like the !N"egro children, they are eating all day long — he should be unable to find something in the hedge which will set them all rii^ht a^^ain. At the amount of food which a man can get off this little patch I dare not guess. Well says Humboldt, that an Euroj^ean lately arrived in the torrid zone is struck with nothing so much as the extreme smallness of the spots under cultivation round a cabin which contains a numerous family. The plantains alone ought, according to Humboldt, to give 133 times as much food as the same space of ground sown with wheat, and 44 times as much as if it grew potatoes. True, the plantain is by no means as nourishing as wheat : which reduces tlie actual difference between their value per acre to twenty-five to one. But under his plantains he can grow other vegetables. 278 A PROVISION GROUND. He has no winter, and therefore some crop or other is always coming forward. From whence it comes, that, as I just hinted, his wife and children seem to have always some- thing to eat in their mouths, if it be only the berries and nuts which abound in every hedge and wood. Neither dare I guess at the profit which he might make, and I hope will some day make, out of his land,, if he would cultivate somewhat more for exportation, and not merely for home consumption. If any one wishes to know more on this matter, let him consult the catalogue of contributions from British Guiana to the London Exhibition of 1862; especially the pages from lix. to Ixviii. on the starch-producing plants of the West Indies. Beyond the facts which T have given as to the Plantain, I have no statistics of the amount of produce which is usually raised on a West Indian provision ground. Xor would any be of use; for a glance shows that the limit of production has not been nearly reached. Were the fork used instead of the hoe ; were the weeds kept down ; were the manure returned to the soil, instead of festering about everywhere in sun and rain : in a word, were even as much done for the land as an English labourer does for his o-arden ; still more, if as much were done for it as for a suburban market-garden, the produce might be doubled or trebled, and that without exhausting the soil. ''LA PETITE culture:' 279 The West Indian peasant can, if lie will, cany " la petite culture" to a perfection and a wealth which it has not yet attained even in China, Japan, and Hindostan, and make every rood of ground not merely maintain its man, but its civilized man. This, however, will require a skill and a thoughtful- ness which the Negro does not as yet possess. If he ever had them, he lost them under slavery, from the brutalizing effects of a rough and unscientific " grande culture ; " and it will need several generations of training ere he recovers them. Garden-tillage and spade-farming are not learnt in a day, especially when they depend — as they always must in temperate climates — for their main profit on some article which requires skilled labour to prepare it for the market — on flax, for instance, silk, wine, or fruits. An average English labourer, I fear, if put in possession of half a dozen acres of land, would fare as badly as the poor Chartists who, some twenty years ago, joined in Feargus O'Connor's land scheme, unless he knew half-a-dozen ways of eking out a livelihood which even our squatters around Windsor and the ISTew Forest are, alas ! for- getting, under the money-making and man-unmaking influences of the " division of labour." He is vanishing fast, the old bee-keeping, apple-growing, basket-making, copse-cutting, many-counselled Ulysses of our youth, as handy as a sailor : and we know too well what he leaves 280 A P BO VISION GROUND. beliiud liini ; grand-cliiklren better fed, better clothed, better taudit than he, but his inferiors in intellect and in manhood, because — whatever they may be taaght — they cannot be taught by schooling to use their fingers and their wits. I fear, therefore, that the average Englisli labourer Avould not prosper here. He has not stamina enough for the hard work of the sugar plantation. He has not wit and handiness enough for the more delicate work of a little spade-farm : and he would sink, as the Xegro seems inclined to sink, into a mere grower of food for himself; or take to drink — as too manv of the white immiorants to certain West Indian colonies did thirty years ago — and burn the life out of himself with new rum. The Hindoo immigrant, on the other hand, has been trained by long ages to a somewhat scientific a^rriculture, and civilized into the want of manv luxuries for which the Ncoto cares nothinc^; and it is to him that we must look, I think, for a " petite culture " which will do justice to the inexhaustible wealth of the West Indian soil and climate. As for the house, which is embowered in the little Paradise which I have been describing, I am sorry to say that it is, in general, the merest wooden hut on stilts; the front half altogether open and unwalled ; the back half boarded up to form a single room, a passing glance into which THE MOTE A XT) THE BEAM AGAIN. 281 will not make the stranger wish to enter, if he has any nose, or any dislike of vermin. The group at the door, meanwhile, will do anything but invite him to enter ; and he wdll ride on, with something like a sigh at wdiat man might be, and what he is. Doubtless, there are great excuses for the inmates. A house in this climate is only needed for a sleeping or loung- ing place. The cooking is carried on between a few stones in the garden ; the w^ashing at the neighbouring brook. ISTo store-rooms are needed, where there is no wdnter, and every- thing grows fresh and fresh, save the saltfish, which can be easily kept — and I understand usually is kept — underneath the bed. As for separate bedrooms for boys and girls, and all those decencies and moralities for wdiich those wdio build model cottages strive, and wath good cause — of such things none dream. But it is not so very long ago that the British Isles were not perfect in such matters; some think that they are not quite perfect yet. So we will take the beam out of our ow^n eye, before we try to take the mote from the Negro's. The latter, how^ever, no man can do. For the Xegro, being a freeholder and the owner of his own cottage, must take the mote out of his own eye, having no landlord to build cottages for him ; in the meanwhile, however, the less said about his lodging the better. In the villages, how^ever, in Maraval, for instance, y 282 AGRICULTURE. houses of a far better stamp, belonging, I believe, to coloured people employed in trades ; long and low wooden buildings with jalousies instead of windows — for no glass is needed here; divided into rooms, and smart with paint, which is not as pretty as the native wood. You catch sight as you pass of prints, usually devotional, on the walls, com- fortable furniture, looking-glasses, and sideboards, and other pleasant signs that «, civilization of the middle classes is springing up ; and springing, to judge from the number of new houses building everywhere, very rapidly, as befits a colony whose revenue has risen, since 1855, from 72,300/. to 240,000/., beside the local taxation of the wards, some 30,000/. or 40,000/. more. What will be the future of agriculture in the West Indian colonies I of course dare not guess. The profits of sugar- growing, in spite of all drawbacks, have been of late very great. They will be greater still under the improved methods of manufacture which will be employed now that the sugar duties have been at least rationally reformed by Mr. Lowe. And therefore, for some time to come, capital will naturally flow towards sugar-planting; and great sheets of the forest will be, too probably, ruthlessly and wastefully swept away to make room for canes. And yet one must ask, regretfully, are there no other cultures save that of cane wdiich will yield a fair, even an ample, return, to men of POSSIBLE EXPORTS. 283 small capital and energetic habits ? AYliat of the culture of bamboo for paper-fibre, of which I have spoken already ? It has been, I understand, taken up successfully in Jamaica, to supply the United States' paper market. Why should it not be taken up in Trinidad ?. Why should not Plantain-meaP be hereafter largely exported for the use of the English working classes ? Why should not Trinidad, and other ishmds, export fruits — preserved fruits especially? Surely such a trade might be profitable, if only a quarter as much care were taken in the AVest Indies as is taken in England to improve the varieties by selection and culture ; and care taken also not to spoil the preserves, as now, for the English market, by swamping them with sugar or sling. Can nothing l)e done in growing the oil-producing seeds with which the Tropics abound, and for which a demand is rising in England, if it be only for use about machinery ? ISTothing, too, toward growing drugs for the home market ? Nothing toward using the treasures of gutta-percha which are now wasting in the lialatas-? Above all, can nothing be done to increase the yield of the cacao-farms, and the quality of Trinidad cacao ? For this latter industry, at Least, I have hope. ]My friend — if he will allow me to call him, so — Mr. John Law, has shown what extraordinary returns may be obtained from improved 1 Directions for preparing it may be found in the catalogue of contribu- tions from British Guiana to the International Exhibition of 1S62. Preface, pp. lix. Ixiii. 284 AGRICULTURE. cacao-crrowincf ; at least, so far to his own satisfaction that he is himself trying the experiment. He calculates ^ that 200 acres, at a maximum outlay of about 11,000 dollars spread over six years, and diminishing from that time till the end of the tenth year, should give, for fifty years after that, a net income of 6,800 dollars; and then "the industrious planter may sit clown," as I heartily hope Mr. Law will do, " and enjoy the fruits of his labour." Mr. Law is of opinion that, to give such a return, the cacao must be farmed in a very different way from the usual plan ; that the trees must not be left shaded, as now, by Bois Im- mortelles, sixty to eighty feet high, during their whole life. The trees, he says with reason, impoverish the soil by their roots. The shade causes excess of moisture, chills, weakens and retards the plants ; encourages parasitic moss and insects ; and, moreover, is least useful in the very months in which the sun is hottest, viz. February, March, and April, which are just the months in which the Bois Immortelles shed their leaves. He believes that the cacao needs no shade after the third year ; and that, till then, shade would Ije amply given by plantains and maize set between the trees, which would, in the very first year, repay the planter some 6,500 dollars on his first outlay of some 8,000. It is not for me to give an 1 "How to Establish and Cultivate an Estate of One ScLuare Mile in Cacao :" a Paper read to the Scientific Association of Trinidad, 1865. exclusive: sugab-gbowing. sss opinion upon the correctness of liis estimates : but the past history of Trinidad sliows so many failures of the cacao crop, that even a practically ignorant man may be excused for guessing that there is something wrong in the old Spanish system ; and that with cacao, as with wheat and every other known crop, improved culture means improved produce and steadier profits. As an advocate of " petite culture," I heartily hope that such may be the case. I have hinted in these volumes my belief that exclusive sugar cultivation, on the large scale, has Ijeen the bane of the AYest Indies. I went out thither with a somewhat forei^one conclusion in that direction. But it was at least founded on what I believed to be facts. And it was, certainly, verified by the fresh facts wdiich I saw there. I returned with a belief stronger than ever, that exclusive sugar cultivation had put a premium on unskilled slave-labour, to the disadvantage of skilled white-labour ; and to the disadvantage, also, of any attempt to educate and raise the Xegro, whom it was not worth while to civilize, as long as he was needed merely as an instrument exerting brute strength. It seems to me, also, tliat to the exclusive cultivation of sugar is owing, more than to any other cause, that frightful decrease throughout th islands of the white population, of which most English people are, I believe, fjuite unaware. Do they know, for instance, 286 AGRICULTUIiE. that Barbados could in Cromwell's time send tliree thousand white volunteers, and St. Kitts and Nevis a thousand, to help in the gallant conquest of Jamaica ? Do they know that in 1676 Barbados was reported to maintain, as against 80,000 black, 70,000 free whites ; while in 1851 the island con- tained more than 120,000 Negros and people of colour, as against only 15,824 whites ? That St. Kitts held, even as late as 1761, 7,000 whites ; but in 1826 — before emancipa- tion— only 1,600 ? Or that little IMontserrat, which held, about 1648, 1,000 white families, and had a militia of 360 effective men, held in 1787 only 1,300 wdiites, in 1828 only 315, and in 1851 only 150 ? It will be said that this ugly decrease in tlie white popu- lation is owing to the unfitness of the climate. I believe it to have been produced rather by the introduction of sugar cultivation, at wdiicli the white man cannot work. These early settlers had grants of ten acres a]3iece ; at least in Bar- bados. They grew not only provisions enough for themselves, but tobacco, cotton, and indigo — products now all but oblite- rated out of the British islands. They made cotton hammocks, and sold them abroad as well as in the island. They might, had they been wisely educated to perceive and use the natural w^ealth around them, have made money out of many other wild products. But the profits of sugar-growing were so enormous, in spite of their uncertainty, that, during the EXTIXCTION OF YEOMEN. 287 greater part of the eighteenth century, their little freeholds were bought up, and converted into cane-pieces by their wealthier neighbours, who could afford to buy slaves and sugar-mills. They sought their fortunes in other lands : and so was exterminated a race of yeomen, who might have been at this day a source of strength and honour, not onlv to the colonies, but to England herself It may be that the extermination was not altogether un- deserved ; that they were not sufticiently educated or skilful to carry out that " petite culture " which requires — as I have said already — not only intellect and practical education, but a hereditary and traditional experience, such as is possessed hj the Belgians, the Piedmontese, and, above all, by the charming peasantry of Provence and Languedoc, the fathers (as far as Western Europe is concerned) of all our agricid- ture. It may be, too, that as the sugar cultivation increased, they were tempted more and more, in the old hard drinking days, by the special poison of the West Indies — new rum, to the destruction both of soul and body. Be that as it may, their extirpation helped to make incAT-table the vicious system of large estates cultivated by slaves ; a system which is judged by its own results; for it Avas ruinate before emancipation ; and emancipation only gave the coup de grace. The " Latifundia perdidere " the Antilles, as they did Italy of old. The vicious system brought its own Xemesis. 288 AGRICULTURE. Tlic ruin of the West Indies at tlie end of the great Frencli war was princii)ally owing to that exclusive cultivation of the cane, whicli forced the planter to depend on a single article of produce, and left him embarrassed every time prices fell suddenly, or the canes failed from drought or hurri- cane. We all know what would be thought of an European farmer who thus staked his capital on one venture. " He is a bad farmer," says the proverb, " who does not stand on four legs, and, if he can, on five." If his wheat fails, he has his barley — if his barley, he has his sheep — if his sheep, he has his fatting oxen. The Provencal, the model farmer, can re- treat on his almonds if his mulberries fail ; on his olives, if his vines fail; on his maize, if his wheat fails. The West Indian might have had — the Cuban has — his tobacco ; his indigo too ; his coffee, or — as in Trinidad — his cacao and his arrow-root ; and half-a-dozen crops more : indeed, had liis intellect — and he had intellect in plenty — been diverted from the fatal fixed idea of making money as fast as possible by sugar, he might have ere now discovered in America, or imported from the East, plants for cultivation far more valuable than that Bread-fruit tree, of which such high hopes were once entertained, as a food for the Xegro. As it was, his very green crops were neglected, till, in some islands at least, he could not feed his cattle and mules with certainty ; while the sugar-cane, to which everything else had been NEED OF SKILLED L ABOVE. 289 sacrificed, proved sonietiiues, indeed, a valuable servant : but too often a tyrannous and capricious master. But those days are past ; and better ones have dawned, with better education, and a wider knowledge of the world and of science. AYhat West Indians have to learn — some of them have learnt it already — is that if they can compete withi other countries only by improved and more scientific cidtivation and manufacture, as they themselves confess, then they can carry out the new methods only by more skilful labour. They therefore require now, as they never required before, to give the labouring classes a prac- tical education ; to quicken their intellect, and to teach them habits of self-dependent and originative action, which are — as in the case of the Prussian soldier, and of the English sailor and railway servant — perfectly compatible with strict disci- pline. Let them take warning from the English manufacturing system, which condemns a human intellect to waste itself in perpetually heading pins, or opening and shutting trap-doors, and punishes itself by producing a class of workpeople w^ho alternate between reckless comfort and moody discontent. Let them be sure that they w^ill help rather than injure the labour-market of the colony, by making the labourer also a small free-holding peasant. He will learn more ui his own provision ground — properly tilled — than he will in the cane- piece : and he will take to the cane-piece and use for his VOL. II. U :29 0 AGRICULTURE. employer the selC-helpfuliiess wliich lie has learnt in the pro- vision ground. It is so in England. Our best agricultural day-labourers are, without exception, those who cultivate some scrap of ground, or follow some petty occupation, which prevents their depending entirely on wage-labour. And so I believe it w^ill be in the West Indies. Let the land-policy of the late Governor be follow^ed up. Let squatting be rigidly forbidden. Let no man hold possession of land without hav- ing earned, or inherited, money enough to purchase it, as a guarantee of his ability and re- spectability, or— as in the case of Coolies past their indentures — as a commutation for rights i>Xv^^5^^ ^^'hich he has earned in likewise. But let the coloured man of every race be encouraged to become a landholder and a producer in his own small way. He w^ill thus, not only by what he produces, but by what he con- sumes, add largely to the wealth of the colony; while his increased w^ants, and those of his children, till they too can purchase land, will draw him and his sons and Guava. A HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. 291 daugliters to the sugar- estates, as intelligent and helpful day-labourers. So it may be : and I cannot but trust, from what I have seen of the temper of the gentlemen of Trinidad, that so it will be. u 2 CHAPTEE XVII. (AND LAST). HOMEWARD BOUXI). At last we were homeward bound. We had been seven weeks in the island. AVe had promised to be back in Eng- land, if possible, within the three months ; and we had a certain pride in keeping our promise, not only for its own sake, but for the sake of the dear AVest Indies. We wished to show those at home how easy it was to get there ; how easy to get home again. Moreover, though going to sea in the Shannon was not quite the same " as going to sea in a sieve," our stay-at-home friends were of the same mind as those of the dear little Jumblies, whom Mr. Lear has made immortal in his " Xew Book of Xonsense " ; and we were bound to come back as soon as possible, and not "in twenty years or more," if we wished them to say : *' If we live, We too will go to sea in a sieve. To the Hills of the Chankly bore." VENEZUELAN BABBABISM. 293 So we left. But it was sore leaving. People had been very kind ; and were ready to be kinder still ; while we, busy — perliaps too busy — over our Natural History collections, had 'seen very little of our neighbours ; had been able to accept very few of the invitations which were showered on us, and wliich would, I doubt not, have given us opportunities for liking the islanders still more than w^e liked them abeady. Another cause made our leavinoj sore to us. The hunf:^er for travel had been aroused — above all for travel westward — and would not be satisfied. Up the Oroonoco we longed to go : but could not. To La Guayra and Caraccas we longed to go : but dared not. Thanks to Spanish Kepublican bar- barism, the only regular communication with that once magnificent capital of Xorthern Venezuela was by a filthy steamer, the Eegos Ferreos, which had become, from her very looks, a byword in the port. On board of her some friends of ours had lately been glad to sleep in a dog-hutch on deck, to escape the filth and vermin of the berths ; and went hungry for want of decent food. Caraccas itself was going through one of its periodic revolutions — it has not got through the fever fit yet — and neither life nor property were safe. But the loniiiufT to cro westward w^as on us nevertheless. It seemed hard to turn back after getting so far along the 294 HOMEWARD BOUND. great path of the human race ; and one had to reason witli oneself — Foolish soul, whiiher would you go ? You cannot go westward for ev^er. If you go up the Oroonoco, you will long to go up the Meta. If you get to Sta. Fe de Bogota, you will not be content till you cross the Andes and see Cotopaxi and Chimborazo. When you look down on the Pacific, you will be craving to go to the Gallapagos, after Darwin ; and then to the Marquesas, after Herman Melville ; and then to the Fijis, after Seeman; and then to Borneo, after Brooke ; and then to the Archipelago, after Wallace ; and then to Hindostan, and round the world. And wdien you get home, the westward fever will be stronger on you than ever, and you will crave to start again. Go home at once, like a reasonable man, and do your duty, and thank God for what you have been allowed to see ; and try to become of the same mind as that most brilliant of old ladies, who boasted that she had not been abroad since she saw the Apotheosis of Voltaire, before the French Eevolution ; and did not care to go, as long as all manner of clever people were kind enough to go instead, and write cliarming books about what they had seen for her. But the westward fever was slow to cool : and with wistful eyes we w^atched the sun by day, and Venus and the moon by night, sink dow^n into the gulf, to lighten lands which we should never see. A few days more, and we were steaming LAST SIGHT OF MONOS. 295 out to the Bocas — which we had be^^un to love as the <^ates of a new home — heaped with presents to the last minute, some of them from persons we hardly knew. Behind us Port of Spain sank into haze : before us Monos rose, tall, dark, and grim — if Monos could be grim — in moonless night. We ran on, and past the island ; this time we were going, not through the Boca de Monos, but through the next, the Um- brella Bocas. It was too dark to see houses, palm-trees, aught but the ragged outline of the hills against the northern sky, and beneath, sparks of light in sheltered coves, some of which were already, to one of us, well-beloved nooks. There was the OTeat e^ulf of the Boca de Monos. There w^as Mor- rison's — our !:^ood Scotch host of seven weeks since ; and the glasses were turned on it, to see, if possible, through the dusk, the almond-tree and the coco-grove for the last time. Ah, w^ell — When we next meet, what will he be, and where ? And where the handsome Creole wife, and the little brown Cupid who danced all naked in the log canoe, till the white gentlemen, swimming round, upset him ; and canoe, and boy, and men rolled and splashed about like a shoal of seals at play, beneath the cliff with the Seguines and Cereuses ; while the ripple lapped the Moriche-nuts about the roots of the Manchineel bush, and the skippers leaped and flashed outside, like silver splinters ? And here, where we steamed along, was the very spot where we had seen the shark's back- 296 HOMEWARD BOUND. fill w'lien wo rowed back fi'oin tlio first (Uiacliaro cave. And it was all over. We are siicli stuff' as dreams are made of. And as in a dream, or rather as part of a dream, and myself a phantom and a play-actor, I looked out over the side, and saw on the right the black walls of Monos, on the left the black walls of Huevos — a gate even grander, though not as narrow^, as that of ^lonos ; and the Umbrella Eock, capped with Mata- palo and Cactus, and night-blowdng Cereus, dim in the dusk. And now we were outside. The roar of the surf, the tumble of the sea, the rush of the trade-wind, told us that at once. Out in the great sea, with Grenada, and kind friends in it, ahead; not to be seen or reached till morning light. But we looked astern and not ahead. We could see into and through the gap in Huevos, through which we had tried to reach the Guacharo cave. Inside that notch in the cliffs must be the wooded bay, whence we picked up the shells among the fallen leaves and flowers. From under that dark w^all beyond it the Guacharos must be just trooping out for their nightly forage, as they had trooped out since — He alone who made them knows how long. The outline of Huevos, the outline of Monos, were growing lower and greyer astern. A long, ragged haze, far loftier than that on the starboard quarter, signified the Xorthern ^Mountains ; and far off on the port quarter lay a flat bank of cloud, amid whicli UP THE ISLANDS. 297 rose, or seemed to rise, the Cordillera of tlie Main, and the hills where jaguars lie. Canopus blazed high astern, and Fomalhaut below him to the west, as if bidding us a kind farewell. Orion and Aldebaran spangled the zenith. The young moon lay on her back in the far west, thin and pale, over Cumana and the Cordillera, with Venus, ragged and red with earth mist, just beneath. And low ahead, with the pointers horizontal, glimmered the cold pole-star, for which we were steerinf^, out of the summer into the winter once more. We grew chill as we looked at him ; and shuddered, it may be, cowered for a moment, at the thought of " Xifel- heim," the home of frosts and fogs, towards which we were bound. However, we were not yet out of the Tropics. We had still nearlv a fortnidit before us in which to feel sure there was a sun in heaven ; a fortnii^ht more of the " warm champagne " atmosphere which was giving fresh life and health to us both. And up the islands we went, wiser, but not sadder, than when we went down them ; casting wistful eyes; though, to windward, for there away — and scarcely out of sight — lay Tobago, to which we had a most kind invi- tation; and gladly would we have looked at that beautiful and fertile little spot, and have pictured to ourselves Eobinson Crusoe and ^lan Friday pacing along the coral beach in one of its little southern coves. jMore wistfullv still did we look '298 UOMEWARD BOUND to windward wlicii we tlioiiglit of Barbados, and of the kind people wlio were ready to welcome us into that prosperous and civilized little cane-garden, which deserves — and has deserved for now two hundred years, far more than poor old Ireland — the name of " The Emerald Gem of the Western World." But it could not be. A few hours at Grenada, and a few hours at St. Lucia, were all the stoppages possible to us. The steamer only passes once a fortnight, and it is necessary to spend that time on each island which is visited, unless the traveller commits himself — which he cannot well do if he has a lady with him — to the chances and changes of coasting schooners. More frequent and easy intercommunication is needed throughout the Antilles. The good people, whether white or coloured, need to see more of each other, and more of visitors from home. Whether a small weeklv steamer between the islands would pay in money I know not. That it would pay morally and socially, I am sure. Perhaps, when the telegraph is laid down along the isla.nds, the need of more steamers will be felt and supplied. Very pleasant was the run up to St Thomas's, not merely on account of the scenerv, but because w^e had once more — contrary to our expectation — the most agreeable of captains. His French cultivation — he had been brought up in Provence — joined to brilliant natural talents, had made him as good a ST. THOMAS'S AG A IX. 299 talker as lie doubtless is a sailor; and the charm of his conversation, about all matters on earth, and some above the earth, \Aill not be soon forgotten by those who went up with him to St. Thomas's, and left him there with regret. We transhipped to the Xeva, Captain Woolward — to whom I must tender my thanks, as I do to Captain Bax, of the Shannon, for all Ivinds of civility. We slept a night in the harbour, the town having just then a clean bill of health ; and were verv olad to find ourselves, duriiifr the next few days, none the worse for having done so. On remarking, the first evening, that I did not smell the harbour after all, I was comforted by the answer that — " When a man did, he had better go below and make his will." It is a pity that the most important harbour in the Caribbean sea should be so imhealthv. Xo doubt it offers advantag^es for traffic which «/ o can be found nowhere else : and there the steamers must continue to assemble, yellow fever or none. But why should not a hotel be built for the passengers in some healthy and airy spot outside the basin — on the south slope of Water Island, for instance, or on Buck Island — where they might land at once, and sleep in pure fresh air and sea-breeze ? The establishment of such an hotel would surely, when once known, attract to the West Indies many travellers to whom St. Thomas's is now as much a name of fear as Colon or the Panama. 300 HOMEWARD BOUND. We left St. Thomas's by a different track from tliat by wliicli we came to it. We ran northward up the magnificent landlocked channel between Tortola and Virgin Gorda, to pass to leeward of Virgin Gorda and Anegada, and so north- ward toward the gulf- stream. This channel has borne the name of Drake, I presume, ever since the year 1575. For in the account of that fatal, though successful voyage, which cost the lives both of Sir John Hawkins, who died off Porto Eico, and Sir Francis Drake, who died off Porto Bello, where Hosier and the greater part of the crews of a noble British fleet perished a hundred, and fifty years afterward, it is written in Hakluyt how — after running up X. and X.W. past Saba — the fleet " stood away S.W., and on the 8th of ISTovember, being a Saturday, we came to an anker some 7 or 8 leagues off among certain broken Hands called Las Virgines, which have bene accounted danoerous : but we found there a very ^ood rode, had it bene for a thousand sails of ships in 7 & 8 fadomes, fine sand, good ankorage, high Hands on either side, but no fresh water that we could find : here is much fish to be taken witb nets and hookes : also we stayed on shore and fowled. Here Sir John HaAvkins was extreme sick " (he died within ten days), " which his sickness began upon newes of the taking of the Francis " (his sternmost vessel). " The 18th day wee weied and stood north a iid by east into DRAKE'S CHANNEL. 301 a lesser sound' wliicli Sir Francis in his barge discovered the night before ; and ankored in 13 fadomes, having hie steepe hiles on either side, some league distant from our first ridiniT. " The 12 in the morning we weied and set sayle into the Sea due south throuoh a small streit but without danoer," — possibly the very gap in which the Ehone's wreck now lies — " and then stode west and by north for S. Juan de Puerto Rico." This northerly course is, plainly, the most advantageous for a homeward-bound ship, as it strikes the gulf-stream soonest, and keeps in it longest. Conversely, the southerly route by the Azores is best for outward-bound ships ; as it escapes most of the gulf-stream, and traverses the still Sargasso Sea, and even the extremity of the westward equatorial current. Strange as these Virgin Isles had looked w^hen seen from the south, outside, and at the distance of a few miles, thev looked still more strange when we were fairly threading our way between them, sometimes not a rifle-shot from the cliffs, with the white coral banks gleaming under our keel. Had they ever carried a Tropic vegetation? Had the hills of Tortola and Virgin Gorda, in shape and size much like those which surround a sea-loch in the Western Islands, ever been furred with forests like those of Guadaloupe or St. Lucia? 302 HOMEJVAIW BOUND. The loftier were now mere mounds of almost barren earth ; the lower were often, like " Fallen Jerusalem," mere long earthless moles, as of minute Cyclopean masonry. But what had destroyed their vegetation, if it ever existed ? Were thev not, too, the mere remnants of a submerfjed and destroyed land, connected now only by the coral shoals ? So it seemed to us, as we ran out 'past the magnificent harbour at the back of Virgin Gorda, where, in the old war times, the merchantmen of all the West Indies used to collect, to be conveyed homeward by the naval squadron, and across a shallow sea white Avith coral beds. We passed to leeward of the island, or rather reef, of Anegada, so low that it could only be discerned, at a few miles' distance, by the breaking surf and a few bushes ; and then plunged, as it were, suddenly out of shallow white water into deep azure ocean. An upheaval of only forty fathoms would, I believe, join all these islands to each other, and to the great mountain island of Porto Eico to the west. The same upheaval would connect Avith each other Anguilla, St. ^Martin, and St. Bartholomew, to the east. But Santa Cruz, though so near St. Thomas's, and the Virgin Gordas to the south, would still be parted from them by a gulf nearly 2,000 fathoms deep — a gulf which marks still, probably, the separation of two ancient con- tinents, or at least two archipelagos. Much light has been thrown on this curious problem WEST INDIAN LAND-SHELLS. 303 since our return, by an American naturalist, Mr. Bland, in a paper, read before the American Philosophical Society, on " The Geology and I'hysical Geography of the AYest Indies, with reference to the distribution of MoUusca." It is plain that of all animals, land-shells and reptiles give the surest tokens of any former connection of islands, being neither able to swim or fly from one to another, and very unlikely to be carried by birds or currents. Judging, therefore, as he has a right to do, by the similarity of the land-shells, Mr. Bland is of opinion that Porto Pdco, the Virgins, and the Anguilla group, once formed continuous dry land, connected with Cuba, the Bahamas, and Hayti ; and that their shell-fauna is of a Mexican and Central American type. The shell- fauua of the islands to the south, on the contrary, from Barbuda and St. Kitts down to Trinidad, is South American : but of two types, one Yenezuelan, the other Guianan. It seems, from Mr. Bland's researches, that there must have existed once not merely an extension of the North American Continent south-eastward, but that very extension of the South American Continent northward, at which I have hinted more than once in these pages. Moreover — a fact which I certainly did not expect — the western side of this supposed land, namely Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, the Grena- dines, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia, Have, as far as land-shells are concerned, a Venezuelan fauna ; wdiile the eastern side 304 HOMEWARD BOUND. of it, namely Barbados, Martinique, Dominica, Guada- loupe, Antigua, &c., have, most strangely, the fauna of Guiana. If tliis be so, a glance at the map will show the vast destruction of Tropic land during almost the very latest geological epoch ; and show, too, how little, in the present imperfect state of our knowledge, we ought to dare any speculations as to the absence of man, as well as of other creatures, on those great lands now destro3^ed. For, to supply the dry land which Mr. Bland's theory needs, we shall have to conceive a junction, reaching over at least five degrees of latitude, between the north of British Guiana and Barbados ; and may freely indulge in the dream .that the waters of the Oroonoco, when they ran over the lowlands of Trinidad, passed east of Tobago ; then northward between Barbados and St. Lucia ; then turned westward between the latter island and Martinique ; and that the mighty estuary formed — for a great part at least of that line — the original barrier which kept the land-shells of Venezuela apart from those of Guiana. A " stretch of the imagination," doubtless : but no greater stretch than will be required by any explanation of the facts whatsoever. And so, thanking Mr. Bland heartily for his valuable contribution to the infant science of Bio-Geology — I take leave, in these pages at least, of the Earthly Paradise. THE FALL OF SALNAVE. 305 Our run homeward was quite as successful as our run out. The magnificent Neva, her captain and her officers, were what these Eoyal ^lail steamers and their crews are — without, I believe, an ex:ception — all that we could wish. Our passengers, certainly, were neither so numerous nor so agreeable as when going out ; and the most notable personage among them was a keen-eyed strong-jawed little Corsican, who had been lately hired — so ran liis story — by the coloured insurgents of Hayti, to put down the President — alias (as usual in such Eepublics) Tyrant — Salnave. He seemed, by his own account, to have done liis \vork effectually. Seven thousand lives were lost in the attack on Salnave's quarters in Port au Prince. Whole families were bayonetted, to save the trouble of judging and shoot- ing them. Women were not spared : and — if all that I have heard of Hayti be true — some of them did not deserve to be spared. The noble old French buildings of the city were ruined — the Corsican said, not by his artillery, but by Salnave's. He had slain Salnave himself; and was now going back to France, to claim his rights as a French citizen, carrying with him Salnave's sword, which was wrapped in a newspaper, save when taken out to be brandished on the main deck. One could not but be interested in the valiant adventurer. He seemed a man such as Pied Pepublics and Eevolutions breed, and need ; very capable of doing rough VOL. ir. X 306 HOMEWARD BOUND. work, and not likely to be hampered by scruples as to the manner of doinj^^ it. If he is, as I take for granted, busy in France just now, he will leave his mark behind. Tlie voyage, however, seemed likely to be a dull one ; and to relieve the monotony, a wild-beast show was determined on, ere the weather grew too cold. So one day all the new curiosities were brought on deck at noon ; and if some great zoologist had been on board, he would have found materials in our show for more than one interesting lecture. The doctor contributed an Alligator, some 2ft. Gin. long ; another officer, a curiously-marked Ant-eater — of a species unknown to me. It was common, he said, in the Isthmus of Panama ; and seemed the most foolish and helpless of beasts. As no ants were procurable, it was fed on raw yolk of egg, which it contrived to suck in with its long tongue — not enough, however, to keep it alive during the voyage. The chief engineer exhibited a live *' Tarantula," or bird- catching spider, who was very safely barred into its box with strips of iron, as a bite from it is rather worse than that of an English adder. We showed a Vulturine Parrot and a Kinkajou. The Kinkajou, by the bye, got loose one night, and displayed his natural inclination, by instantly catching a rat, and dancing between decks with it in his mouth : but was so tame withal, that he let the stewardess stroke him in passing. The good THE ALLIGATOR'S LAMEXT. 307 lady mistook him for a cat ; and when she discovered next mornincj that she had been handlinu; a " loose wild beast," her horror was as great as her thankfulness for the supposed escape. In curious contrast to the natural tameness of the Kinkajou wa5 the natural untameness of a beautiful little Night-Monkey, belonging to the Purser. Its great owl's eyes were instinct with nothing but abject terror of everybody and everything' • and it was a miracle that ere the vovac^e was over it did not die of mere fright. How is it, en passant, that some animals are naturally fearless and tameable, others not ; and that even in the same familv ? Amono- the South American monkeys the Howlers are untameable ; the Sapa- jous less so ; while the Spider Monkeys are instinctively gentle and fond of man : as may be seen in the case of the very fine Marimonda (Ateles Beelzebub) now dying, I fear, in the Zoological Gardens at Bristol. As we got into colder latitudes, we began to lose our pets. The Ant-eater departed first : then the doctor, who kept his alligator in a tub on his cabin floor, was awoke by doleful wails, as of a babe. Being pretty sure that there was not likely to be one on board, and certainly not in his cabin, he naturally struck a light, and discovered the alligator, who had never uttered a sound before, outside his tub on the floor, bewailing bitterly his fate. Whether he " wept crocodile tears " besides the doctor could not discover ; but it X 2 308 IIO^[E I ] 'A RD BO UNO. was at least clear, that if swans sing before tliey die, alligators do so likewise : for the poor thing was dead next morning. It was time, after this, to stow the pets warm between decks, and as near the galley-fires as they conld be put. For now, as we neared the "roaring forties," there fell on us a gale from the north-west, and would not cease. The wind was, of course, right a-beani ; the sea soon ran very higli. The Xeva, being a long screw, was lively enough, and too lively ; for she soon showed a chronic inclination to roll, and that suddenly, by fits and starts. The fiddles were on the tables for nearly a week : but they did not prevent more than one of us finding his dinner suddenly in his lap instead of his stomach. However, no one was hurt, nor even frightened : save two poor ladies — not from Trinidad — who spent their doleful days and nights in screaming, telling their beads, drinking weak brandy-and-water, and informing the hunted stewardess that if they had known what horrors they were about to endure, they would have gone to Europe in — a sailing vessel The foreigners — who are usually, I know not why, bad sailors — soon vanished to their berths : so did the ladies : even those who were not ill jammed themselves into their berths, and lay there, for fear of falls and bruises ; while the Englishmen, and a coloured man or two — the coloured men usually stand the sea well — had the deck all to them- THE VIRTUES OF A STORM. 309 selves ; and slopped about, liolding on, and longing for a monkey's tail ; but on the whole rather liking it. For, after all, it is a glorious pastime to find oneself in a real gale of wind, in a big ship, with not a rock to run against within a thousand miles. One seems in such danger ; and one is so safe. And gradually the sense of security grows, and grows into a sense of victory, as with the boy who fears his first fence, plucks np heart for the second, is rather pleased at the third, and craves for the triumph of the fourth and of all the rest, sorry at last when the run is over. And when a man — not being sea-sick — has once discovered that the appa- rent heel of the ship in rolling is at least four times less than it looks, and that she will jump upright again in a quarter of a minute like a fisher's float ; has learnt to get his trunk out from under his berth, and put it back again, by jamming his forehead against the berth-side and his heels against the ship's wall ; has learnt — if he sleep aft — to sleep through the firing of the screw, though it does shake all the marrow in his backbone ; and has, above all, made a solemn vow to shave and bathe every morning, let the ship be as lively as she will : then he will find a full gale a finer tonic, and a finer stirrer of wholesome appetite, than all the drugs of Apothecaries' Hall. This particular gale, however, began to get a little too strong. We had a sail or two set, to steady the ship : on 310 HOMEWARD BOUND. the second iiiglit one split ^vitll a crack like a cannon ; and was tied np in an instant, cordage and strips, into inex- trical)le knots. The next night I was woke by a slap which shook the Neva from stem to stern, and made her stagger and writhe like a live thing struck across the loins. Then a dull rush of water which there was no mistaking. We had shipped a green sea. AVell, I could not hale it out again ; and there was plenty of room fo-r it on board. So, after ascertaining that K was not frightened, I went back to my berth and slept aiiain, somewhat wondering that the roll of the screw was all l)ut silent. Next mornine^ we found that a sea had walked in over the bridge, breaking it, and washing off it the first officer and the look-out man — luckily they fell into a sail and not overboard ; put out the galley-fires, so that we got a cold breakfast ; and eased the ship ; for the shock turned the indicator in the engine-room to "Ease her." The engineer, thinking that the captain had given the order, obeyed it. The captain turned out into the wet to know who had eased his ship, and then returned to bed, wisely remarking, that the ship knew her own business best ; and as she had chosen to ease the engines herself, eased she should be, his orders being "not to prosecute a voyage so as to endanger the lives of the passengers or the property of the Company." ENGLAND AGAIN. 311 So Ave went on easily for sixteen hours, the wise captain judging — and his judgment proved true — that the centre of the storm was crossing our course ahead; and that if we waited, it woukl pass us. So, as he expected, we came after a day or two into an ahnost windless sea, where smooth mountainous waves, the relics of the storm, were weltering aimlessly up and down under a dark sad sky. Soon we began to sight shij) after ship, and found ourselves on the great south-western high-road of the Atlantic; and found ourselves, too, nearing Mftheim day by day. Colder and colder grew the wdnd, lower the sun, darker the cloud- world overhead ; and we went on deck each morning, with some additional garment on, sorely against our wills. Only on the very day on which we sighted land, we had one of those treacherously beautiful days which occur, now and. then, in an English February, mild, still, and shining, if not w4th keen joyful blaze, at least with a cheerful and tender gleam from sea and sky. The Land's End was visible at a great distance ; and as we neared the Lizard, we could see not only the lighthouses on the Cliff, and every well-known cove and rock from ]\rullion and Kynance round to St. Keverne, but far inland likewise. Breage Church, and the great tin-works of Wheal Yor, stood out hard against the sky. We could see up the Looe Pool to 312 HOMEWARD BOUND. Ilclston Church, and away beyond it, lill we fancied that we could ahnost discern, across the isthmus, the sacred hill of Carnhrea. Along tlie Cornish shore we ran, through a sea swarming with sails : an exciting contrast to the loneliness of the wide ocean which we had left — and so on to Plymouth Sound. The last time I had been on that w^ater, I Avas looking up in awe at Sir Edward Codrington's fleet just home from the battle of Xavarino. Even then, as a mere boy, I was struck by the grand symmetry of that ample basin : the breakwater — then unfinished — lying across the centre; the heights of Bovisand and Caw^sand. and those again of Mount Batten and Mount Edgecumbe, left and right ; the citadel and the Hoe across the bottom of the Sound, the southern sun full on their walls, with the twin harbours and their forests of masts, winding away into dim distance on each side ; and behind all and above all, the purple range of Dartmoor, with the black rain-clouds crawling along its top. And now, after nearly forty years, the place looked to me even more grand than my recollection had pictured it. The newer fortifications have added to the moral effect of the scene, without takinix away from its physical beauty : and I heard without surprise — though not without pride — the foreigners express their admiration of this, their first specimen of an English Port. We steamed away again, after landing our letters, close past CHERBOURG. 313 the dear old ]\Ie%ystone. The warrener's hut stood on it still : and I wondered whether the old he-goat, who used to terrify me as a boy, had left any long-bearded descendants. Then under the Eevelstoke and Bolt Head cliffs, with just one flying glance up into the hidden nooks of delicious little Salcomhe, and away south west into the night, bound for Cherbourc^, and a verv different scene. We were awakened soon after midnight by the stopping of the steamer. Then a gun. After awhile another; and presently a third : but there was no reply, though our coming had been telegraphed from England ; and for nearly six hours we lay in the heart of the most important French arsenal, with all our mails and passengers waiting to get ashore ; and nobody deigning to notice us. True, we could do no harm there : but our delay, and other things which happened, were proofs — and I was told not uncommon ones — of that carelessness, unreadiness, and general indiscipline of French arrangements, which has helped to bring about, since then, an utter ruin. As the day dawned through fog, we went on deck to find the ship lying inside a long breakwater bristling with cannon, which looked formidable enouiih : but the whole thino- I was told, was useless against modern artillery and ironclads : and there was more than one jest on board as to the possibility of running the Channel Squadron across, and smashing Cherbourg 314 HOMEWARD BOUND. ill a single uiglit, unless the French learnt to keep a better look-out in time of war than they did in time of peace. Just inside us lay two or three ironclads ; strong and ugly : imtidy, too, to a degree shocking to English eyes. All sorts of odds and ends were hancrins^ over the side, and ahout the rigging ; the yards were not properly squared, and so forth ; till — as old sailors would say — the ships had no more decency about them than so many collier-brigs. Beyond them were arsenals, docks, fortifications, of which of course we could not judge ; and backing all, a cliff, some 200 feet high, much quarried for building- stone. An ugly place it is to look at ; and, I should think, an ugly place to get into, with the wind anywhere between N.W. and N.E. ; an artificial and expensive luxury, built originally as a mere menace to England, in days when France, which has had too long a moral mission to fight some one, thought of fighting us, who only wished to live in peace with our neighbours. Alas ! alas ! " Tu I'a voulu, George Dandin." She has fought at last : but not us. Out of Cherbourg we steamed again, sulky enough; for the delay would cause us to get home on the Sunday evening instead of the Sunday morning ; and ran northward for the iSTeedles. With what joy we saw at last the white wall of the island glooming dim ahead. With what joy we first discerned that huge outline of a visage on Freshwater Cliff, so INTO THE FROST AGAIN. 315 well known to sailors, which, as the eye catches it in one direction, is a ridiculous caricature ; in another, really noble, and even beautiful. With what joy did we round the old Xeedles, and run past Hurst Castle; and with what shivering, too. For the wind, though dead south, came to us as a continental wind, harsh and keen from off the frozen land of France, and chillecl us to the very maiTow all the way up to Southampton. But there were warm hearts and kind faces waiting us on the quay, and good news too. The gentlemen at the Custom- house courteously declined the least inspection of our lug- gage; and we were at once aw^ay in the train home. At first, I must confess, an English winter was a change for the worse. Fine old oaks and beeches looked to us, fresh from ceibas and balatas, like leafless brooms stuck into the ground bv their handles ; while the want of IvAit was for some days painful and depressing. But we had done it ; . and within the three months, as we promised. As the king in the old play says, "What has been, has been, and I've had mv hour." At last we had seen it ; and we could not unsee it. We could not not have been in the Tropics. THE END. LONDON : R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. Every Thursday, 2mce Ad.; Monthly Parts, Is. 4cZ. and Is. 8c?. Subscriptions— Annual, 18s. Qd.; Half-yearly, 9s. M.; Quarterly, 5s. NATURE. A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIEXCE. Vols. I.-III., Price 10s. 6d. each. LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS. Abel, F.A., F.R.S., H.M. Chem. Dep.,WooI- \vi(.'h. Agassiz, Prof. L., Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard Collei,'e. Andrews, Prof. T.. F.R.S., Queen's Univ., Duldin. Bastian. Prof. H. C, F.R.S., University College. Beale, Prof. Lionel S., F.R.S., King's Col- lege. Berthelot, Prof. , College de France, Paris. Brodie, Prof. Sir C, Bart., F.R.S., Oxford. Brown, Prof. A., Crum, Edinburgh Uni- versity. Brush, Prof. G. I., Sheffield Scientific School, Yale College. Busk, Prof. G.,F.R.S. Clifton, Prof. R. B., Oxford. Cooke, Prof J. P., jun. , Cambridge, U.S.A. Dana, Prof. J. D., Newhaveu, Conn., U.S.A. Darwin, C , F R S. Dumas, J. B., Sec. Imperial Acad, of Sciences, Pari.s. Farrar, Rev. F. W., F R.S., Harrow SchooL Fehling, Prof. Stuttgart. Fernet, Prof. E., Paris. Flower, Prof. AY. H., F.R.S., Royal College of Surgeons. Foster, Prof. Michael, Royal Institution. Foster, Prof. G. Carey, F.R.S., University College. Frankland, Prof. E., F.R.S., Royal College of Chem. Galloway, Prof. R., College of Science, Dublin. Galton, Douglas, F.R.S. Geikie, A., F.R S., Geological Survey of Scotland. Grant, Prof. R, F.R.S., Direc. Glasgow Observatorj'. Hauer, H. Franz von, Director Geological Institute, Yienna. Haughton. Rev. Prof S., F.R.S. Hirst, Prof. F.R.S., Gen. Sec. Bi-itish Asso- ciation. Hooker, Dr. J. D.. F.R.S., Director Royal Gardens, Kew. Humphry, Pmf.. F.R.S., Cambridge. Huxley, Prof. T. H., F.R.S , President Geo- logical Society. Jack, Prof , Owens College, Manchester. Jenkin, Prof. H. C. Fleeming, F.R.S., Edinburgh University. Jevons. Prof. W. S., Owens College, Man- chester. Johnson. Prof. S. "W., Sheffield Scientific School, Yale College. Jones, Dr. H. Bence, F.R.S., Secretary Royal Institution. Kingsley, Rev. Canon. Lankester, Dr. E., F.R.S. Liveing, Prof. G. D., F.C.S.. Cambridge. Lubbock, Sir John, Bart., F.R.S. Magnus, Prof., Berlin. Main, P. T., Cambridge University. Marschall, Count A. G. , Yienna. Maskelyne, N. S.. British Museum. 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