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THE ENGLISH 



IX 



THE WEST INDIES 



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THE ENGLISH 



IN 



THE WEST INDIES 



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THE ENG7J-fT 

IS 

LhE WEST T^ilii•^^?' 



ink noil nf (!Lisax> 




THE ENGLISH 



-i^i-iJ 



THE WEST INDIES 



THE BOW OF ULYSSES 



.TAMES ANTHONY rEOUBE 




LONGMANS. GBEEN, AND CO. 



PRISTRD BY 

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LOXDOX 



PBEFACE. 



»i 



My purpose in writing this book is so fully explained 
in the book itself that a Preface is unnecessary. 
I visited the West India Islands in order to increase 
my acquaintance with the condition of the British 
Colonies. I have related what I saw and what I 
heard, with the general impressions which I was led 
to form. 

In a few instances, when opinions were conveyed 
to me which were important in themselves, but which 
it might be undesirable to assign to the persons 
from whom I heard them, I have altered initials 
and disguised localities and circumstances. 

The illustrations are from sketches of my own, 

which, except so far as they are tolerably like 

the scenes which they represent, are witliout value. 

They have been made producible by tlie skill and 

care of the engraver, Mr. Pearson, to wliom my 

warmest thanks are due. 

J. A. F. 

Onslow Gardens : November 15, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Colonial policy — Union or separation — Self-government — Varieties 
of condition — The Pacific colonies — The West Indies — Pro- 
posals for a West Indian federation — Nature of the population 
— American union and British plantations — Original conquest 
of the West Indies 1 



CHAPTER II. 

In the train for Southampton — Morning papers — The new 
* Locksley Hall ' — Past and present — The * Moselle ' — Heavy 
weather — The petrel — The Azores 11 

CHAPTER III. 

The tropics — Passengers on board — Account of the Darien canal 
— Planters' complaints — West Indian history — The Spanish 
conquest — Drake and Hawkins — The buccaneers — The pirates 
— French and English — Rodney — Battle of April 12 — Peace 
with honour — Doers and talkers *28 

CHAPTER IV. 

First sight of Barbadoes — Origin of the name — P^re Labat — 
Bridgetown two hundred years ago— glavery and Christianity 
— Economic crisis — Sugar bounties — Aspect of the streets — 
Government House and its occupants — Duties of a governor of 
Barbadoes 37 

CHAPTER V. 

West Indian politeness — Nggro morals and felicity — Island of 
St. Vincent — Grenada — The harbour — Disappearance of the 
whites — An island of black freeholders — Tobago — Dramatic 
art — A promising incident 48 



viii THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTER VI. 

PAOE 

Charles Kingsley at Trinidad — * Lay of the Last Buccaneer ' — A 
French forhan — Adventure at Aves— Mass on board a pirate 
ship — Port of Spain — ^A house in the tropics — A political meet- 
ing — Government House — The Botanical Gardens — Kingsley's 
rooms — Sugar estates and coolies 59 



CHAPTER VII. 

A coolie village — Negro freeholds — Waterworks — Snakes — 
Slavery — Evidence of Lord Rodney — Future of the negroes 
— Necessity of EngUsh rule — The Blue Basin — Black boy and 
crayfish 75 

CHAPTER Vni. 

Home Rule in Trinidad — Political aspirations — Nature of the pro- 
blem — Crown administration — Colonial governors — A Russian 
apologue — Dinner at Government House — * The Three Fishers ' 
— Charles Warner — Alternative futures of the colony . 85 



CHAPTER IX. 

Barbadoes again — Social condition of the island — Political constitu- 
tion — Effects of the sugar bounties — Dangers of general bank- 
ruptcy — The Hall of Assembly — Sir Charles Pearson — Society 
in Bridgetown — A morning drive — Church of St. John's — Sir 
Graham Briggs — ^An old planter's palace — The Chief Justice 
of Barbadoes 100 



CHAPTER X. 

Leeward and Windward Islands — The Caribs of Dominica — Visit 
of P6re Labat — St. Lucia — The Pitons — The harbour at Castries 
— Intended coaling station — ^Visit to the administrator — The 
old fort and barracks — Conversation with an American — Con- 
stitution of Dominica — Land at Roseaii 129 



CHAPTER XI. 
y 

Curiosities in Dominica — Nights in the tropics — English and 
Catholic churches — The market place at Roseau — Fishing ex- 
traordinary — A storm— Dominican boatmen — Morning walks 
— Effects of the Leeward Islands Confederation — An estate culti- 
vated as it ought to be — A mountain ride — Leave the island — 
Reflections 150 



CONTENTS ix 



CHAPTER XII. 

Th e Darien canal — Jamaican mail packet — Captain W. — Retro- 
spect of Jamaican history — Waterspout at sea — Hayti — Jacmel 
— A walk through the town — A Jamaican planter — First sight 
of the Blue Mountains — Port Royal — Kingston — The Colonial 
Secretary — Gordon riots — Changes in the Jamaican consti- 
tution 176 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The English mails — Irish agitation — Two kinds of colonies — 
Indian administration — How far applicable in the West Indies 
— Land at Kingston — Government House — Dinner party — 
Interesting officer — Majuba Hill — Mountain station — Kingston 
curiosities — Tobacco — Valley in the Blue Mountains . . 204 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Visit to Port Royal — Dockyard — Town — Church — Fort Augusta 
— The eyrie in the mountains — Ride to Newcastle — Society in 
Jamaica — Religious bodies — Liberty and authority . . . 222 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Church of England in Jamaica — Drive to Castleton — 
Botanical Gardens — Picnic by the river — Black women — Ball 
at Government House — Mandeville — Miss Roy — Country 
society — Manners — American visitors — A Moravian mission- 
ary — The modem Radical creed 287 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Jamaican hospitality — Cherry Garden — George William Gordon — 
The Gordon riots — Governor Eyre — A dispute and its conse- 
quences-Jamaican country-house society — Modem specula- 
tion —2 A Spanish fable — Port Royal — The commodore — 
Naval theatricals — The modem sailor 255 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Present state of Jamaica — Test of progress — Resources of the 
island — Political alternatives — Black supremacy and probable 
consequences — The West Indian problem .... 277 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Passage to Cuba — A Canadian commissioner — Havana — The 
More — The city and harbour — Cuban money — American 

a 



X THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

PAQK 

visitors — The cathedral — Tomb of Columbus — New friends — 
The late rebellion — Slave emancipation — Spain and progress — 
A buU fight 288 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Hotels in Havana — Sights in the city — Cigar manufactories — 
West Indian industries — The Captain-General — The Jesuit 
college — Father Vinez — Clubs in Havana — Spanish aristocracy 
— Sea lodging house 809 

CHAPTER XX. 

Return to Havana — The Spaniards in Cuba — Prospects — American 
influence — Future of the West Indies — Enghsh rumours — 
Leave Cuba — The harbour at night — The Bahama Channel 
— Hayti — Port au Prince — The black republic — West Indian 
history 331 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Return to Jamaica — Cherry Garden again — Black servants — Social 
conditions — Sir Henry Norman — King's House once more — 
Negro suf&age — The will of the people — The Irish python — 
Conditions of colonial union — Oratory and statesmanship . 350 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Going home — Retrospect — Alternative courses — Future of the 
Empire — Sovereignty of the sea — The Greeks — The rights of 
man — Plato — The voice of the people — Imperial federation — 
Hereditary colonial policy — New Irelands — Effects of party 
government 362 



ILLUSTBATIONS. 



Mountain Crater, Dominica 



Silk Cotton Tree, Jamaica. 



Frontispiece 



Title page 



Blue Basin, Trinidad To face page 82 



Morning Walk, Dominica . 



Port Royal, Jamaica . 



• • • • « 



Valley in the Blue Mountains, Jamaica . 



Kingston and Harbour, from Cherry Garden 



Havana, from the Quarries 



Port au Prince, Hayti 



154 
194 
220 
26G 
294 
327 



THE 

ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES. 

CHAPTER I. 

Gatonial policy— Union oc separfttion— Self-government— Varieties of oon- 
ditiOQ— The Paciflc ooloniys— The West Indies— Pro ponals (or a, West 
ladiaa federation— Nature of the population — Amerioan nnion and 
British pi an tatiooB —Original conquest of the West Indies. 

(The Colonial Exhibitionlhas come and gone. Delegates 

. irom OIU' srent aelf-gm -prnofl il Q ii a nil ti r^ i ii a n hnvn inint nu A— 



i"" 4 



Bion we can meet and deliberate together with the aame 
regard for each other's welfare which has been shown in 
the late conference in London. 

ETent3 mock at human foresight, Eind nothing is cer- 




J 



THE 



ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES. 



CHAPTER I. 

Colonial policy — Union or separation — Self-government — Varieties of con- 
dition—The Pacific colonies— The West Indies— Proposals for a West 
Indian federation — Nature of the population — American union and 
British plantations —Original conquest of the West Indies. 

(The Colonial Exhibition} has come and gone. Delegates 
from our great self-governed dependencies have met and 
consulted together, and have determined upon a common 
course of action [for Imperial defencej The British race 
dispersed over the world have celebrated the Jubilee of the 
Queen with an enthusiasm evidently intended to bear a 
, sgecial and peculiftrjaeaning. The people of these islands 
and their sons and brothers and friends and kinsfolk in 
Canada, in Australia, and in New Zealand have declared 
with a general voice, scarcely disturbed by a discord, that 
they are fellow- subjects of W single sovereign, that they are> 
/ united in feeling, united in loyalty, united in interest, and 
J \ that they wish and mean to preserve unbroken the integrity.^ 
of the British Empire. This is the answer which the I 
democracy has given to the advocates of the doctrine of 
separation. The desire for union while it lasts is its own 
realisation. As long as we have no wish to part we shall 
not part, and the wish can never rise if when there is occa- 
sion we can meet and deliberate together with the same 
regard for each other's welfare which has been shown in 
the late conference in London. 

Events mock at human foresight, and nothing is cer- 

B 




THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



tain but the unforeseen. Constitutional government and 
an independent executive were conferred upon our larger 
colonies, with the express and scarcely veiled intention 
that at the earliest moment they were to relieve the 
mother country of responsibility for them. They were 
regarded as fledgelings who are fed only by the parent 
birds till their feathers are grown, and are then expected 
to shift for themselves. They were provided with the 
full plumage of parliamentary institutions on the home 
pattern and model, and the expectation of experienced 
politicians was that they would each at the earliest 
moment go off on their separate aeeounts, and would bid 
ua a friendly farewell. The irony of fate has turned to 
folly the wisdom of the wise. The wise themselves, the 
e political party which were moat anxious twenty years 
ago to ace the colonies independent, and contrived constitu- 
tions for them which they conceived must inevitably lead 
to separation, appeal now to the effect of those very 
constitutions in drawing the Empire closer together, as 
a reason why a similar method should be immediately 
adopted to heal the differences between Great Britain and 
Ireland. New converts to any belief, pohtical or theological, 
are proverbially zealous, and perhaps in this instance they 
are over-hasty. It does not follow that because people 
of the same race and character are drawn together by 
equality and liberty, people of different races and different 
characters, who have quarrelled for centuries, will be 
simUariy attracted to one another. Yet so far as our own 
colonies are concerned it is clear that the abandonment by 
the mother country of all pretence to interfere in their 
internal management has removed the only cause which 
coold possibly have created a desire for independence. 
We cannot, even if we wish it ourselves, shake off con- 
nections who cost us nothing and themselves refuae to be 
divided. Politicians may quarrel; the democracies have 



V. 



COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 3 

refused to quarrel ; and the result of the wide extension of ) 
^ 7 the suffrage throughout the Empire has been to show that \i/ 
A [ being one the British people everywhere intend to remain | 
/ one. TWith the same blood, the same language, the same 
' habits, the same traditions, they do not mean to be shattered 
into dishonoured fragmentsTI All of us, wherever we are, 
can best manage our own affairs within our own limits; 
yet local spheres of self-management can revolve round a 
conmion centre while there is centripetal power sufiScient </ 
to hold them ; and so long as England * to herself is true 's^. .{'^ 
and continues worthy of her ancient reputation, there are 
no causes working visibly above the political horizon which 
are likely to induce our self-governed colonies to take wing 
and leave us. The strain will come with the next great 
war. During peace these colonies have only experienced 
the advantage of union with us. They will then have to 
share our dangers, and may ask why they are to be involved 
in quarrels which are not of their own making. How 
they will act then only experience can tell ; and that there 
is any doubt about it is a sufficient answer to those rapid 
statesmen who would rush at once into the application of 
the same principle to countries whose continuance with us 
is vital to our own safety, whom we cannot part with though 
they were to demand it at the cannon's mouth. 

But the result of the experiment is an encouragement 
as far as it has gone to those who would extend self- 
government through the whole of our colonial system. 
It seems to lead as a direct road into the ' Imperial 
Federation ' which has fascinated the general imagina- 
tion. It removes friction. We relieve ourselves of re- 
sponsibilities. If federation is to come about at all as a 
definite and effective organisation, the spontaneous action 
of the different members of the Empire in a position in 
which they are free to stay with us or to leave us as they 
please, appears the readiest and perhaps the only means by 

B 2 



r 

^^H so 

^^r and t 



THE ENGLISH JN THE WEST INDIES 



whieb it can be brought to pass. So plausible is the theory, 
so obviously right would it be were the problem aa simple 
and the population of all our colonies as homogeneous as 
in Australia, that one cannot wonder at the ambition of 
politicians to win themselves a name and achieve a great 
result by the immediate adoption of it. Great results 
generally imply effort and sacrifice. Here effort is un- 
necessary and sacrifice is not demanded. Everybody is 
to have what he wishes, and tbe effect is to come about 
of itself. When we think of India, when we think of 
Ireland, prudence tells us to hesitate. Steps once taken 
in this direction cannot be undone, even if found to lead to 
the WTong place. But undoubtedly, wherever it is possible 
tbe principle of self-government ought to be applied in our 
colonies and will be applied, and the danger now is that it 
will be tried in baste in countries either as yet unripe for 
it or from the nature of things unfit for it. The liberties 
which we grant freely to those whom we trust and who do 
not require to be restrained, we bring into disrepute if we. 
concede them as readily to perversity or disaffection or toy 
/ those who, like most Asiatics, do not desire liberty, andJ 
[prosper best when they are led and guided. 

In this complex empire of ours the problem presents 
itself in many shapes, and each must be studied and dealt 
with according to its character. There is the broad distinc- 
tion between colonies and conquered countries. Colonists 
are part of ourselves. Foreigners attached by force to 
our dominions may submit to be ruled by us, but will 
not always consent to rule themselves in accordance with 
our views or interests, or remain attached to us if we 
enable them to leave us when they please. The Crown, 
therefore, as in India, rules directly by the police and 
the army. And there are colonies which are neither one 
nor the other, where our own people have been settled and 
have been granted the land in possession with the control of 



VARIETIES OF CHARACTER 5 

an insubordinate population, themselves claiming political 
privileges which had to be refused to the rest. This was 
the position of Ireland, and the result of meddling theoreti- 
cally with it ought to have taught us caution. Again, 
there are colonies like the West Indies, either occupied 
originally by ourselves, as Barbadoes, or taken by force 
from France or Spain, where the mass of the population 
were slaves who have been since made free, but where the 
extent to which the coloured people can be admitted to 
share in the administration is still an unsettled question- 
To throw countries so variously circumstanced under an 
identical system would be a wild experiment. Whether we 
ought to try such an experiment at all, or even wish to try 
it and prepare the way for it, depends perhaps on whether 
we have determined that under all circumstances the reten- 
tion of them under our own flag is indispensable to our safety. 
I had visited our great Pacific colonies. Circumstances 
led me afterwards to attend more particularly to the West 
Indies. Thej' were the earhest, and once the most prized, 
of all our distant possessions. They had been won by the 
most desperate struggles, and had been the scene of our 
greatest naval glories. In the recent discussion on the 
possibility of an organised colonial federation, various 
schemes came under my notice, in every one of which the 
onion of^the West Indian Islands undera free parliamentary 
constitution was regarded as a necessary preliminary. I was 
reminded of a conversation which I had held seventeen 
jears ago with a high colonial official specially connected 
I irith the West Indian department, in which the federation 
of the islands under such a constitution was spoken of as 
a measure already determined on, though with a view to an 
end exactly the opposite of that which was now desired. 
The colonies universally were then regarded in such quartera 
as a burden upon our resources, of which we were to relieve 
ourselves at the earhest moment. They were no longer of 





THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

value to UB ; the whole world had become our marliet ; and 
whether they were nominally attached to the Empire, or were 
independent, or joined themselves to some other power, was 
of no commercial moment to us. It was felt, however, that 
as long as any tie remained, we should be obliged to defend 
them in time of war ; while they, in consequence of their 
eounection, would be liable to attack. The sooner, therefore, 
the connection was ended, the better for them and for us. 

By the constitutions which had been conferred upon 
them, Australia and Canada, New Zealand and tlie Cape, 
were assumed to be practically gone. The same measures 
were to be taken with the West Indies. They were not 
prosperous. They formed no outlet for British emigration. 
The white population was diminishing; they were dis- 
satisfied; they lay close to the great American repubhc, 
to which geographically they more properly belonged. 
Eepresentative assemblies under the Crown had failed to 
produce the content expected from them or to give an 
impulse to industry. The free negi'oes could not long be 
excluded from the franchise. The black and white races 
had uot amalgamated and were not inclining to amalga- 
mate. The then recent Gordon riots had been followed by 
the suicide of the old Jamaican constitution. The govern- 
ment of Jamaica had been flung back upon the Crown, and 
the Crown was impatient of the addition to its obligations. 
The official of whom I speak informed me that a decision 
had been irrevocably taken. The troops were to be with- 
drawn from the islands, and Jamaica, Trinidad, and the 
English Antilles were to he masters of their own destiny, 
either to form into free communities like the Spanish 
American republics, or join the United States, or to do 
what they pleased, with the sole understanding that we 
were to have no more responaibihties. 

I do not know how far the scheme was matured. To 
an outside spectator it seemed too hazardous to have been 




WHITES AND BLACKS 

eeriously meditated. Yet I was told that it had not been 
meditated only but positively determined upon, and that 
farther discussion of a settled question would be fruitleaa 
and needlessly irritating. 

Politicians with a favourite scheme are naturally san- 
goine. It seemed to me that in a West Indian Federation 
the black ra«e would necessarily be admitted to their Ml 
rights as citizens. Their numbers enormously preponderated, 
and the late scenes in Jamaica were signs that the two colours 
would not blend into one, that there might be, and even 
inevitably would be, collisions between them which would \i 
lead to actions which we could not tolerate. The white 
residents and the negroes had not been drawn together by 
the abohtion of slavery, but were further apart than ever. 
The whites, if by superior intelligence they could gain the 
upper band, would not be allowed to keep it. As little 
would they submit to be ruled by a race whom they despised ; 
and I thought it quite certain that something would happen 
which would compel the British Government to interfere 
again, whether we Uked it or not. Liberty in Hayti had 
been followed by a massacre of the French inhabitants, 
and the French settlers had done no worse than we had done 
to deserve the ill will of their slaves. Fortunately opinion 
changed in' England before the esperiment could be tried. 
The colonial policy of the doctrinaire statesmen was no 

IBOoner understood than it was universally condemned, and 
they could not press proposals on the West Indies which 
the West Indians showed bo little readiness to meet. 
Bo things drifted on, remaining to appearance as they 
were. The troops were not recalled. A minor confedera- 
tion was formed in the Leeward Antilles. The Windward 
group was placed under Barbadoes, and islands which 
before had governors of their own passed luider subordinate 
administrators. Local councils continued under various 
conditions, the popular element being cautiously and silently 



1 



8 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

introduced. The blacks settled uito a condition of easy- 
going peasant proprietors. But so far as the white or English 
interest was concerned, two causes which undermined West 
Indian prosperity continued to operate. So long as sugar 
maintained its price the planters with the help of cooHe 
labour were able to struggle on ; but the beetroot bounties 
came to cut from under them the industry in which they 
had placed their main dependence ; the reports were con- 
tinually darker of distress and rapidly approaching ruin. 
Petitions for protection were not or could not be granted. 
They were losing heart— the worst loss of all; while the 
Home Government, no longer with a view to separation, 
but with the hope that it might produce the same effect 
which it had produced elsewhere, were still looking to 
their old remedy of the extension of the principle of self- 
government. One serious step was taken very recently 
towards the re-eatablishmeut of a constitution in Jamaica. 
It was assumed that it had failed before because the blacks 
were not properly represented. The council was again 
made partially elective, and the black vote was admitted 
on the widest basis. A power was retauied by the Crown 
of increasing in case of necessity the nominated ofiieial 
members to a number which would counterbalance the 
elected members ; but the power had not been acted on 
and was not perhaps designed to coutinue, and a restless 
hope was said to have revived among the negroes that the 
day was not far off when Jamaica would be as Hayti and 
they would have the island to themselveB. 

To a person like myself, to whom the proservation of 
the British Empu'e appeared to be the only public cause in 
which just now it was possible to feci concdm, the problem 
was extremely interesting. I had no projudicc against self- 
government. I had seen the Australian colonins growiD 
tmder it in health and strength with a rapidity whi 
rivalled the progress of the Amc'rican Uniou ' I ' 



THE AMERICAN UNION 9 

obfieryed in South Africa that the confuBiona and perplexi- 
ties there diminiehed exactly in proportion a8 the Home 
Oovernment eeaeed to interfere. I could not hope that aB 
an outsider I could see my way through difficulties where 
practised eyes were at a loss. But it was clear that the 
West Indies were suffering, be the cause what it might. I 
learnt that a party had risen there at last which was 
actually in favour of a union with America, and 1 wished 
to find an answer to a question which I had long asked 
myself to no purpose. My old friend Mr. Motley was once 
speaking to me of the probable accession of Canada to the 
American republic. I asked him if he was sure that Canada 
would like it. ' Like it ? ' he replied. ' Would I like the 
house of Baring to take me into partnership ? ' To be a 
partner in the British Empire appeared to me to be at least 
as great a thing as to be a state under the stars and 
Bttipes. What was it that Canada, what was it that any 
other colony, would gain by exchanging British citizenship 
for American citizenship ? What did America offer to 
those who joined her which we refused to give or neglected to 
give ? Was it that Great Britain did not take her coloniea 
into partnership at all ? was it that while in the United 
States thd. blood circulated freely from the heart to the 
extremities, so that ' if one member suffered all the body 
Buffered with it," our colonies were simply (as they used 
to be called) ' plantations,' offshoots from the old stock set 
down as circumstances had dictated in various parts of the 
globe, but vitally detached and left to grow or to wither 
according to their own inherent strength ? 

At one time the West Indian colonies had been more to 
us than such casual seedlings. They had been regarded 
as precious jewels, which hundreds of thousands of EngUsh 
hves had been sacrificed to tear from France and Spain. 
The Caribbean Sea was the cradle of the Naval Empire of 
, Oieat Britain. There Drake and Hawkins intercepted the 



lo THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

golden stream which flowed from Panama into tlie exchequer 
at Madrid, and famished Philip with the means to carry 
on his war with the Eeformation. The Pope had claimed 
to be lord of the new world as well as of the old, and had 
declared that Spaniards, and only Spaniards, should own 
territory or carry on trade there within the tropics. The 
seamen of England took up the challenge and replied with 
cannon shot. It was not the Crown, it was not the Govern- 
ment, which fought that battle : it was the people of 
England, who fought it with their own hands and their 
own resources. Adventurers, buccaneers, corsairs, priva- 
teers, call them by what name we wiU, stand as extra- 
ordinary but characteristic figures on the stage of history, 
disowned or acknowledged by their sovereign aa suited 
diplomatic convenience. The outlawed pirate of one year 
was promoted the next to be a governor and his country's 
representative. In those waters the men were formed and 
trained who drove the Armada through the Channel into 
wreck and ruin. In those waters, in the centuries which 
followed, France and England fought for the ocean empire^ 
and England won it — won it on the day when her own 
politicians' hearts had failed them, and all the powers of 
the world had combined to humiliate her, and Rodney 
shattered the French fleet, saved Gibraltar, and avenged 
I York Town. [If ever the naval exploits of this country aro / 
K done into an epic poem— and since the Iliad there has been j 
/ no subject better fitted for such treatment or better deserv- \ 
I ing it — the West Indies will be the scene of the most ' 
. briUiant cantos.. For England to allow them to drift away I 
from her "because they have no immediate marketable 
value, would be a sign that she had lost the feelings with 
which great nations always treasure the heroic traditions of 
"7 their fathers. When those traditions come to be regarded 
as something which concerns them no longer, their great- 
ness is already on the wane. 



PAST AND PRESENT n 



CHAPTER II. 

In the train for Southampton— Morning papers — The new * Locksley Hall ' — 
Past and 'present— The * Moselle * — Heavy weather— The petrel — The 
Azores. 

The last week in December, when the year 1886 was waning 
to its close, I left Waterloo station to join a West Indian 
mail steamer at Southampton. The air was frosty ; the fog 
lay thick over city and river ; the Houses of Parliament 
themselves were scarcely visible as I drove across West- 
minster Bridge in the heavy London vapour — a symbol of 
the cloud which was hanging over the immediate political- 
sr future. The morning papers were occupied with Lord 
Nj ^ Tennyson's new 'Locksley Hall' and Mr. Gladstone's 
remarks upon it. I had read neither ; but from the criti- 
cisms it appeared that Lord Tennyson fancied himself to 
have seen a change pass over England since his boyhood, 
and a change which was not to his mind. The fruit of 
the new ideas which were then rising from the ground had 
ripened, and the taste was disagreeable to him. The day 
which had followed that 'august sunrise' had not been 
'august' at all; and 'the beautiful bold brow of Freedom' 
had proved to have something of brass upon it. The ' use 
and wont ' England, the England out of which had risen 
the men who had won her great position for her, was losing 
its old characteristics. Things which in his eager youth 
Lord Tennyson had despised he saw now that he had been 
mistaken in despising ; and the new notions which were to 
remake the world were not remaking it in a shape that 



r 



t 



la TffE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

pleased him. Like Goethe, perhaps he felt that he was 
Btumbling over the roots of the tree which he had helped 
to plant. 

Tlie contrast in Mr. Gladstone's article was certainly 
remarkable. Lord Tennyson saw in institutions which 
wefe passing away the decay of what in its time had been 
great and noble, and he saw little rising in the place of 
them which humanly could be called improvement. To Mr. 
Gladstone these revolutionary years had been years of the 
sweeping off of long intolerable abuses, and of awaking to 
higher and truer perceptions of duty. Never, according to 
him, in any period of her history had England made more 
glorious progress, never had stood higher than at the 
present moment in material power and moral excellence. 
How could it be otherwise when they were the years of his 
own ascendency 9 

Metaphysicians tell us that we do not know anything as 
it really is. What we call outward objects are but impres- 
sions generated upon our sense by forces of the actual nature 
of which we are totally ignorant. We imagine that we hear 
a sound, and that the sound is something real which is out- 
side us ; but the sound is in the ear and is made by the 
ear, and the thing outside is but a vibration of air. If no 
animal existed with organs of hearing the vibrations might 
be as before, but there would be no such thing as sound ; 
and all our opinions on all subjects whatsoever were equally j 
, subjective. Lord Tennyson's opinions and Mr. Gladstone's f 
'l opinions reveal to us only the nature and texture of theirr 
' own minds, which have been affected in this way or that 1 
way. The scale has not been made in which we can weigh' 
the periods in a nation's life, or measure them one againat 
the other. The past is gone, and nothing but the bones of 
it can be recalled. We but half understand the present, 
for each age is a chrysalis, and we are ignorant into what 
it may develop, j We do not even try to understand it 



P^ST AND PRESENT 13 

honestly, for we shut our eyea against what we do not wish 
to see. I will not despond with Lord Tennyson. To take 
a gloomy view of things will not mend them, and modern 
enlightenment may have excellent gifts in store for us 
which will come by-and-by, but I will not say that they 
have come as yet. I will not say that public life is im- 
proved when party spirit has degenerated into an organised 
civil war, and a civil war which can never end, for it renews 
its life liie the giant of fable at every fresh election. I will 
not say that men are more honest and more law-abiding 
when debts are repudiated and law is defied in half the 
country, and Mr. Gladstone himBelf applauds or refuses to 
condemn acts of open dishonesty. We are to congratulate 
ourselves that duelling has ceased, but I do not know that 
men act more honourably because they can be called less 
sharply to account. ' Smuggling,' we are told, has disap- 
peared also, but the wrecker scuttles his ship or runs it 
ashore to cheat the insurance office. The Church may 
perhaps be improved in the arrangement of the services and 
in the professional demonstrativeness of the clergy, but I 
am not sure that the clergy have more influence over the 
minds of men than they had fifty years ago, or that the 
doctrines which the Church teaches are more powerful over 
public opinion. One would not gather that our morality 
was BO superior from the reports which we see in the news- 
paper, and girls now talk over novels which the ladies' 
maids of their grandmothers might have read in secret hut 
would have blushed while reading. Each age would do 
better if it studied its own faults and endeavoured to mend 
them instead of comparing itself with others to its own 
advantage. 

This only was clear to me in thinking over what Mr, 
Gladstone was reported to have said, and in thinking 
of his own achievements and career, that there are two 
olaaseB of men who have played and still play a pro* 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

minent part in the world — those who accomplish great 
things, and those who talk and make speeches about them. 
The doers of things are for the most part silent. Those who 
build np empires or discover secretsof science, those who paint 
great pictures or write great poems, are not often to be found 
spouting upon platforms. The silent men do the work. The 
talking men cry out at what is done because it is not done as 
they would have had it, and afterwards take possession of it / 
s if it was their own property. "Warren Hastings wins India 
{ for us ; the eloquent Burke desires and passionately tries to 1 
I hang him for it. At the supreme crisis in our history 
when America had revolted and Ireland was defiant, when 
the great powers of Europe had coalesced to crush us, and 
■we were staggering under the disaster at York Town, Eodney 
struck a blow in the West Indies which sounded over the 
world and saved for Britain her ocean sceptre. Just in 
time, for the popular leaders had persuaded the House of 
Commons that Eodney ought to be recalled and peace 
made on any terms. Even in politics the names of ora- 
torical statesmen are rarely associated with the organic 
growth of enduring institutions. The most distinguished 
of them have been conspicuous only as instruments of de- 
struction. Institutions are the slow growths of centuries. 
The orator cuts them down in a day. The tree falls, and 
the hand that wields the axe is admired and applauded. The 
speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero pass into literature, 
and are studied as models of language. But Demosthenes 
and Cicero did not understand the facts of their time; 
their language might be beautiful, and their sentiments 
noble, but with their fine words and sentiments they 
only misled their countrymen. The periods where the 
>j orator is supreme are marked always by confusion and 
disintegration. Goethe could say of Luther that he had 
thrown back for centuries the spiritual cultivation of man- 
kind, by calling the passions of the multitude to judge of 



THE BOW OF ULYSSES 15 

matters which should have been left to the thinkers. We 
ourselves are just now in one of those uneasy periods, and 
we have decided that orators are the fittest people to rule 
over us. The constituencies choose their members accord- 
ing to the fluency of their tongues. Can he make a speech ? 
is the one test of competency for a legislator, and the most 
persuasive of the whole we make prime minister. We 
admire the man for his gifts, and we accept what he says 
for the manner in which it is uttered. He may contradict 
to-day what he asserted yesterday. No matter. He can 
persuade others wherever he is persuaded himself. And 
such is the nature of him that he can convince himself of 
anything which it is his interest to beheve. These are the 
persons who are now regarded as our wisest. It was not 
always so. It is not so now with nations who are in a 
sound state of health. The Americans, when they choose 
a President or a Secretary of State or any functionary 
from whom they require wise action, do not select these 
famous speech-makers. Such periods do not last, for the 
condition which they bring about becomes always intoler- 
able. I do not believe in the degeneracy of our race. I 
believe the present generation of Englishmen to be capable 
of all that their fathers were, and possibly of more ; but we 
[are just no w in a moulting state, and are..8icL.whila.the 
I process is goin g on. Or to take another metaphor. The 
bowo^JQlj^fieLJ? J^5*F.?^ The worms have not eaten '^ 
into the horn or the moths injured the string, but the ■ vk>^ 
owner of the house is away and ^he suitors of Penelope 
Britannia consume her substance, rivals one of another, 
each caring only for himself, but with a common heart in 
evil. They cannot string the bow. Only the true lord and 
master can string it, and in due time he comes, and the 
cord is stretched once more upon the notch, singing to the 
touch of the finger with the sharp note of the swallow ; and 
the arrows fly to their mark in the breasts of the pretenders. 



,>.\ 




1 6 THE ENGLISH IN THE IVEST INDIES 



while Palias Athene looka on approving from her coign of 

vantage. 

Random meditations of this kind were eent flying 
through me by the newspaper articles on Tennyson and 
Mr. Gladstone, The air cleared, and my mind also, as we 
ran beyond the smoke. The fields were covered deep with 
snow ; a white vapour clung along the ground, the winter 
sky shining through it soft and blue. The ponds and 
canals were hard frozen, and men were skating and boys 
were shding, and all was brilliant and beautiful. The ladies 
of the forest, the birch trees beside the line about Farn- 
borough, were hung with jewels of ice, and gHttered like a 
|fretwork of purple and silver. It was like escaping out. of 
anightmare into happy healthy England once more. In 
the carriage with me were several gentlemen ; officers going 
out to join their regiments ; planters who had been at home 
on business ; young sportsmen with rifles and cartridge 
cases who were hoping to shoot alligators, &c., all bound 
like myself for the West Indian mail steamer. The elders 
talked of sugar and of bounties, and of the financial 
ruin of the islands. I had heard of this before I started, 
and I laarnt little from them which I had not known already ; 
but I had misgivings whether I was not wandering oif after 
all on a fool's errand. I did not want to shoot alligators, 
I did not understand cane growing or want to understand 
it, nor was I likely to find a remedy for encumbered and 
bankrupt landowners. I was at an age too when men 
grow unfit for roaming, and are expected to stay quietly at 
home. Plato Bays that to travel to any profit one should 
go between fifty and sixty ; not sooner because one has 

's duties to attend to as a citizen ; not after because the 
mind becomes hebetated. The chief object of going abroad, 
in Plato's opinion, is to converse with delot apBpesi, inspired 
men, whom Providence scatters about the globe, and from 
whom alone wisdom can be learnt. And I, alas ! was long 




THE 'MOSELLE' 17 

past the limit, and Qzloi, apSpe9 are not to be met with in 
these times. Bat if not with inspired men, I might fall in at 
any rate with sensible men who would talk on things which 
I wanted to know. Winter and spring in a warm climate 
were pleasanter than a winter and spring at home ; and as 
there is compensation in all things, old people can see some 
objects more clearly than young people can see them. 
They have no interests of their own to mislead their percep- 
tion. They have lived too long to beUeve in any formulas 
or theories. ' Old age,' the Greek poet says, ' is not wholly 
a misfortune. Experience teaches things which the young 
know not.' ^ Old men at any rate like to think so. 

The * Moselle,' in which I had taken my passage, was a 
large steamer of 4,000 tons, one of the best where all are 
good — on the West Indian mail line. Her long straight sides 
and rounded bottom promised that she would roll, and I may 
say that the promise was faithfully kept ; but except to the 
stomachs of the inexperienced rollmg is no disadvantage. 
A vessel takes less water on board in a beam sea when she 
yields to the wave than when she stands up stiff and straight 
against it. The deck when I went on board was slippery 
with ice. There was the usual crowd and confusion before 
departure, those who were gomg out being undistinguishable, 
till the bell rang to clear the ship, from the friends who had 
accompanied them to take leave. I discovered, however, 
to my satisfaction that our party in the cabin would not be 
a larg»-<me. The West Indians who had come over for the 
Colonial ExhibitionVere most of them already gone. They, 
along wilh Ihf) rest, had taken back with them a conscious- 
ness that their visit had not been wholly in vain, and that ) 
the interest of the old country in her distant possessions = j 
.seemed quickening into life once more. The commis- 

* & TcicyoK, ovx fiira'^a t^ yflfXf' Kaicd ' 

flfirrfipla 
kx*i Ti Ac^cu rAy y4wy co^Artoov, 



i8 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

sioners from all our dependencies had been feted in the 
great towns, and the people had come to Kensington in 
millions to admire the productions which bore witness to 
the boundless resources of British territory. Had it been 
only a passing emotion of wonder and pride, or was it a 
prelude to a more energetic policy and active resolution ? 
Any way it was something to be glad of. Receptions and 
public dinners and loyal speeches will not solve political 
problems, but they create the feeling of good will which 
underlies the useful consideration of them. The Exhibition 
had served the purpose which it was intended for. The 
conference of delegates grew out of it which has discussed 
in the happiest temper the elements of our future rela- 
tions. 

But the Exhibition doors were now closed, and the multi- 
tude of admirers or contributors were dispersed or dispersing 
to their homes. In the * Moselle * we had only the latest 
lingerers or the ordinary passengers who went to and fro 
on business or pleasure. I observed them with the curiosity 
with which one studies persons with whom one is to be 
shut up for weeks in involuntary intimacy. One young ) 
. Demerara planter attracted my notice, as he had with him ) 
') a newly married and beautiful wife whose fresh complexion 
' would so soon fade, as it always does in those lands where ! 
! nature is brilliant with colour and English cheeks grow 
I pale. I found also to my surprise and pleasure a daughter 
of one of my oldest and dearest friends, who was going out 
to join her husband in Trinidad. This was a happy accident 
to start with. An announcement printed in Spanish in 
large letters in a conspicuous position intimated that I 
must be prepared for habits in some of our companions 
of a less agreeable kind. 

' 8e suplica k los seiiores pasajeros de no escupir sobre 
la cubierta de popa.' 

I may as well leave the words untranslated, but the 



THE 'MOSELLE' 19 

^ supplication ' is not unnecessaxy. The Spanish colonists, 
like their countrymen at home, smoke everywhere, with the 
usual consequences. The captain of one of our mail boats 
found it necessary to read one of them who disregarded it 
a lesson which he would remember. He sent for the 
quartermaster with a bucket and a mop, and ordered him 
to stay by this gentleman and clean up till he had done. 

The wind when we started was light and keen from the 
north. The afternoon sky was clear and frosty. Southamp* 
ton Water was still as oil, and the sun went down crimson 
behind the brown woods of the New Forest. Of the * Mo-r 
8elle*s * speed we had instant evidence, for a fast Government 
launch raced us for a mile or two, and off Netley gave up 
the chase. We went leisurely along, doing thirteen knots 
without effort, swept by Galshot into the Solent, and had 
cleared the Needles before the last daylight had left us. In 
a few days the ice would be gone, and we should lie in the 
soft air of perennial summer. 

Singula de nobis anni prsdantnr etintes : 
Eripuere jocos, Yenerem, convivia, ludum — 

But the flying years had not stolen from me the delight of 
finding myself once more upon the sea; the sea which is^ 
eternally young, and gives one back one's own youth and f ' 
buoyancy. 

Down the Channel the north wind still blew, and the 
water was still smooth. We set our canvas at the Needles, 
and flew on for three days straight upon our course with a 
steady breeze. We crossed ' the Bay * without the fiddles 
on the dinner table ; we were congratulating ourselves that 
mid- winter as it was we should reach the tropics and never 
need them. I meanwhile made acquaintances among my 
West Indian fellow-passengers, and listened to their tale of 
grievances. The Exhibition had been well enough in its 
way, but Exhibitions would not fill an empty exchequer or 
restore ruined plantations. The mother country I found 

c 2 



\ 



20 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

/ was still regarded as ^tepmothef) and from more than one 
•quarter I heard a more than mattered wish that they could 
be * taken into partnership ' by the Americans. They were 
wasting away under Free Trade and the sugar bounties. 
The mother country gave them fine words, but words were 
all. If they belonged to the United States they would have 
the benefit of a close market in a country where there were 
50,000,000 sugar drinkers. Energetic Americans would 
come among them and establish new industries, and would 

V control the unmanageable negroes. From the most loyal I 
heard the despairing cry of the Britons, ' the barbarians 
drive us into the sea and the sea drives us back upon 
the barbarians.* They could bear Free Trade which 
was fair all round, but not Free Trade which was made 
into a mockery by bounties. And it seemed that their 
masters in Downing Street answered them as the Bomans 
answered our forefathers. * We have many colonies, and we 
shall not miss Britain. Britain is far off, and must take 
care of herself. She brings us responsibility, and she brings 
us no revenue ; we cannot tax Italy for the sake of Britons. 
We have given them our arms and our civilisation. We 
have done enough. Let them do now what they can or 
please.* Virtually this is what England says to the West 
Indians, or would say if despair made them actively trouble- 
some, notwithstanding Exhibitions and expansive senti- 
ments. The answer from Rome we can now see was thej 
, voice of dymg greatness, which was no longer worthy of the 'V^ 

\ place in the world which it had made for itself in the days 
of its strength ; but it doubtless seemed reasonable enough 
at the time, and indeed was the only answer which the 
Rome of Honorius could give. 

A change in the weather cut short our conversation, and 
drove half the company to their berths. On the fourth 
morning the wind chopped back to the north-west. A 
beam sea set in, and the ' Moselle ' justified my conjectures 



A STORM AT SEA 21 

about her. She rolled gunwale under, rolled at least forty 
degrees each way, and unshipped a boat out of her davits 
to windward. The waves were not as high as I have known 
the Atlantic produce when in the humour for it, but they 
were short, steep, and curling. Tons of water poured over 
the deck. The few of us who ventured below to dinner 
were hit by the dumb waiters which swung over our 
heads; and the liviug waiters staggered 'about with the 
dishes and upset the soup into our laps. Everybody was 
grumbling and miserable. Driven to my cabin I was 
dozing on a sofa when I was jerked off and dropped upon 
the floor. The noise down below on these occasions is con* 
siderable. The steering chains clank, unfastened doors 
slam to and fro, plates and dishes and glass fall crashing 
at some lurch which is heavier than usual, with the roar 
of the sea underneath as a constant accompaniment. 

When a wave strikes the ship full on the quarter and 
she staggers from stem to stern, one wonders how any 
construction of wood and iron can endure such blows with- 
out being shattered to fragments. And it would be shattered, 
as I heard an engineer once say, if the sea was not such a 
gentle creature after all. I crept up to the deck house to 
watch through the lee door the wild magnificence of the 
storm. Down came a great green wave, rushed in a flood 
over everything, and swept me drenched to the skin down 
the stairs into the cabin. I crawled to bed to escape cold, 
and slid up and down my berth like a shuttle at every roll 
of the ship till I fell into the unconsciousness which is a 
substitute for sleep, slept at last really, and woke at seven in 
the morning to find the sun shining, and the surface of the 
ocean still undulating but glassy calm. The only signs left 
of the tempest were the swallow-like petrels skimming to 
and fro in our wake, picking up the scraps of food and the 
plate washings which the cook's mate had thrown overboard; 
smallest and beautifullest of all the gull tribe, called petrel 



22 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

by our ancestors, who went to their Bibles more often than 
we do for their images, in memory of St. Peter, because 
they seem for a moment to stand upon the water when they 
stoop upon any floating object.^ In the afternoon we passed 
the Azores, rising blue and fairy-like out of the ocean; 
unconscious they of the bloody battles which once went on 
under their shadows. There it was that Grenville, in the 
* Revenge,' fought through a long summer day alone against 
a host of enemies, and died there and won immortal honour .^ 
/ The Azores themselves are Grenville's monument, and in. ^, 
y \ the memory of Englishmen are associated for ever with hi^ 
■ glorious story. Behind these islands, too, lay Grenville's 
comrades, the English privateers, year after year waiting 
for Philip's plate fleet. Behind these islands lay French 
squadrons waiting for the English sugar ships. They are 
<;alm and silent now, and are never likely to echo any more 
to battle thunder. Men come and go and play out their 
little dramas, epic or tragic, and it matters nothing to 
nature. Their wild pranks leave no scars, and the decks 
are swept clean for the next comers* 

* This is the explanation of the name which is given by Dampier. 



LIFE AT SEA 23 



CHAPTER III. 

The tropics — Passengers on board — ^Account of the Darien Canal — Planters* 
complaints — ^West Indian history — The Spanish conqnest— Drake and 
Hawkins — The buccaneers — The pirates — ^French and English — ^Rodney 
— Battle of April 12— Peace with honour — Doers and talkers. 

Another two days and we were in the tropics. The north- 
east trade blew behind us, and our own speed being taken 
■oflf from the speed of the wind there was scarcely air enough 
to fill our sails. The waves went down and the ports were 
opened, and we had passed suddenly from winter into per- 
petual summer, as Jean Paul says it will be with us in 
•death. Sleep came back soft and sweet, and the water was 
warm in our morning bath, and the worries and annoy- 
ances of Ufe vanished in these sweet surroundings like 
nightmares when we wake. ' How well the Greeks understood 
the spiritual beauty of the sea ! ^oKaaaa kXv^sl irdvra rav^ ) 
) dptoiTfov KaKCLj says Euripides. ' The sea washes off all the ' 
! woes of men.' The passengers lay about the decks in their 

I 

<jhairs reading story books. The young ones played Bull. 
The oflScers flirted mildly with the pretty young ladies. 
For a brief interval care and anxiety had spread their wings 
and flown away, and existence itself became deUghtful. 

There was a young scientific man on board who inte- 
rested me much. He had been sent out from Eew to take 
•charge of the Botanical Gardens in Jamaica — was quiet, 
modest, and unaffected, understood his own subjects well, 
and could make others understand them ; with him I had 
much agreeable conversation. And there was another 
singular person who attracted me even more. I took him 



24 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

at first for an American. He was a Dane I found, an* 
engineer by profession, and was on his way to some South 
American republic. He was a long lean man with grey 
eyes, red hair, and a laugh as if he so enjoyed the thing 
that amused him that he wished to keep it all to himself,.. 
Laughing inwardly till he choked and shook with it. Hi& 
chief amusement seemed to have lain in watching the per- 
formances of Liberal poUticians in various parts of the 
world. He told me of an opposition leader in some parlia- 
ment whom his rival in office had disposed of by shutting 
him up in the caboose. 'In the caboose,' he repeated,, 
screaming with enjoyment at the thought of it, and evi- 
dently wishing that all the parliamentary orators on the 
globe were in the same place. In his wanderings he had 
been lately at the Darien Canal, and gave me a wonderful 
account of the condition of things there. The original 
estimate of the probable cost had been twenty-six millions of 
our (English) money. Most of these millions had been spent 
already, and only a fifth of the whole had as yet been exe- 
cuted. The entire cost would not be less, under the exist- 
ing management, than one hundred and twenty millions, 
and he evidently doubted whether the canal would ever be 
completed at all, though professionally he would not confess 
to such an opinion. The waste and plunder had been incal- 
culable. The works and the gold that were set moving by 
them made a feast for unclean harpies of both sexes from 
every nation in the four continents. I liked everything 

about Mr. except his ears, the flaps of which stood 

; out at right angles. Tom Cringle's Ohcd may have been 
something like him. 

There was a small black boy among us, evidently of "» 
spore blood, for his hair was wool and his colour black \ 
]ZA ink. His parents must have been well-to-do, for the boy 
had been in Europe to be educated. The officers on board 
and some of the ladies played with him as they would play 



FASSENGEIiS 25 

with a monkey. He had little more sense than a monkey, 
perEaps lias, and the gestures of him grinning behind 
gratings and pushing out his long thin arms between the 
bars were curiously suggestive of the original from whom 

V we are told now that all of uscame. The worst of it was 
that, being Ufted above his own people, he had been taught 
/to despise them. He was spoilt as a black and could not 
be made into a white, and this I found afterwards was the 
invariable and dangerous consequence whenever a superior 
negro contrived to raise himself. He might do well enough 
himself, but his family feel their blood as a degradation. 
His children will not marry among their own people, and 
not only wiU no white girl marry a negro, but hardly any 
dowry can be large enough to tempt a West Indian white 
to make a wife of a black lady. This is one of the most 

y simster^features in the present state of social life there. 

Small personalities cropped up now and then. We had 
representatives of all professions among us except the 
Church of England clergy. Of them we had not one. The 
captain, as usual, read us the service on Sundays on a 
cushion for a desk, with the union jack spread over it. On 
board ship the captain, Uke a sovereign, is supreme, and in 
spiritual matters as in secular. Drake was the first com- 
mander who carried the theory into practice when he ex* 
communicated his chaplain. It is the law now, and the 
tradition has gone on unbroken. In default of clergy we 
had a missionary, who for the most part kept his lips closed. 
He did open them once, and at my expense. Apropos of 
nothing he said to me, * I wonder, sir, whether you ever 
read the remarks upon you in the newspapers. If all the 
attacks upon your writings which I have seen were coUected 
together they would make an interesting volume.' Thi& 
was all. He had deUvered his soul and relapsed into 
silence. 

From a Puerto Bico merchant I learnt that, if the 



26 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

English colonies were in a bad way, the Spanish colonies 
were in a worse. His own island, he said, was a nest of 
squalor, misery, vice, and disease. Blacks and whites were 
equally immoral; and so far as habits went, the whites 
were the filthier of the two. The complaints of the English 
West Indians were less sweeping, and, as to immorality 
between whites and blacks, neither from my companions in 
-the 'Moselle' nor anywhere afterward did I hear or see 
a sign of it. The profligacy of planter life passed away 
with slavery, and the changed condition of the two races 
makes impossible any return to the old habits. But they 
had wrongs of their own, and were eloquent in their ex- 
position of them. We had taken the islands from France 
and Spain at an enormous expense, and we were throwing 
^ them aside like a worn-out child's toy. We did nothing 
for them. We allowed them no advantage as British 
subjects, and when they tried to do something for them- 
selves, we interposed with an Imperial veto. The United 
States, seeing the West Indian trade gravitating towards 
New York, had offered them a commercial treaty, being 
willing to admit their sugar duty free, in consideration 
of the islands admitting in return their salt fish and 
flour and notions. A treaty had been actually agreed to 
between the United States and the Spanish islands. A 
flimilar treaty had been freely offered to them, which might 
have saved them from ruin, and the Imperial Government 
had disallowed it. How, under such treatment, could we 
•expect them to be loyal to the British connection ? 

It was a relief to turn back from these lamentations to 
the brilliant period of past West Indian history. With the 
planters of the present it was all %\i(jar — sugar and the lazy 
blacks who were England's darlings and would not work for 
them. The handbooks were equally barren. In them I found 
nothing but modern statistics pointing to dreary conclu- 
sions, and in the place of any human interest lonp; stories 



• 



WEST INDIAN HISTORY 27 

of constitutions, su&ages, representative assemblies, powers 
of elected members, and powers reserved to the Grown. 
Such things, important as they might be, did not touch my 
imagination. And to an Englishman, proud of his country, 
the West Indies had a far higher interest. Strange sc6nes7 
streamed across my memory, and a shadowy procession of : w 
great figures who have printed their names in history. ' 
i Columbus and Gortez, Yasco NuiLez, and Las Casas ; the < 
millions of innocent Indians who, according to Las Casas, 
were destroyed out of the islands, the Spanish grinding 
them to death in their gold mines ; the black swarms who 
were poured in to take their place, and the frightful story 
of the slave trade. Behind it all was ithe European drama , 
of the sixteenth century — Charles V. and Philip fighting 
against the genius of the new era, and feeding their armies 
with the ingots of the new world. The convulsion spread 
across the Atlantic. The English Protestants and the 
French Huguenots took to sea like water dogs, and chal- 
lenged their enemies in their own special domain. To the 
popes and the Spaniards the new world was the property 
of the Church and of those who had discovered it. A^^' 
papal bull bestowed on Spain all the countries which lay 
within the tropics west of the Atlantic — a form of Monroe 
doctrine, not unreasonable as long as there was force to 
maintain it, but the force was indispensable, and the Pro- 
testant adventurers tried the question with them at the 
cannon's mouth. They were of the reformed faith all of 
them, these sea rovers of the early days, and, like their 
enemies, they were of a very mixed complexion. The 
Spaniards, gorged with plunder and wading in blood, were 
at the same time, and in their own eyes, crusading soldiers 
of the faith, missionaries of the Holy Church, and de- 
fenders of the doctrines which were impiously assailed in 
Europe. The privateers from Plymouth and Bochelle paid 
also for the cost of their expeditions with the pillage of ships 



28 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

and towns and the profits of the slave trade ; and they too^ 
were the unlicensed champions of spiritual freedom in their 
own estimate of themselves. The gold which was meant 
for Alva's troops in Flanders found its way into the 
treasure houses of the London companies. The logs of the 
voyages of the Elizabethan navigators represent them 
faithfully as they were, freebooters of the ocean in one 
aspect of them ; in another, the sea warriors of the Refor- 
mation — uncommissioned, unrecognised, fighting on their 
own responsibility, liable to be disowned when they failed, ^ 
while the Queen herself would privately be a shareholder : 
in the adventure. It was a wild anarchic scene, fit cradle ■ 
of the spiritual freedom of a new age, when the nations of; 
the earth were breaking the chains in which king and ^/' '^ 
vpriest had bound them. 7 ; 

To the Spaniards, Drake and his comrades were corsarios^ 
robbers, enemies of the hiunan race, to be treated to a short 
shrift whenever found and caught. British seamen who* 
fell into their hands were carried before the Inquisition at 
Lima or Garthagena and burnt at the stake as heretics. 
Four of Drake's crew were unfortunately taken once at. 
Vera Cruz. Drake sent a message to the governor-general 
that if a hair of their heads was singed he would hang ten 
Spaniards for each one of them. (This curious note is at 
Simancas, where I saw it.) So great an object of terror at 
Ifadrid was El Draque that he was looked on as an incar- 
nation of the old serpent, and when he failed in his last 
enterprise and news came that he was dead. Lope de Vega 
sang a hymn of triumph in an epic poem which he called v 
* The Dragontea.' 

When Elizabeth died and peace was made with Spain,, 
the adventurers lost something of the indirect countenance 
which had so far been extended to them ; the execution of 
Baleigh being one among other marks of the change of 
mind. But they continued under other names, and no* 



JVEST INDIAN HISTOR Y 29 

active effort was made to suppress them. The Spanish 
Oovermnent did in 1627 agree to leave England in posses- 
sion of Barbadoes, but the pretensions to an exclusive right 
to trade continued to be maintained, and the English and 
French refused to recognise it. The French privateers 
seized Tortuga, an island off St. Domingo, and they and 
their English friends swarmed in the Caribbean Sea as 
buccaneers or flibustiers. They exchanged names, perhaps 
as a symbol of their alliance. 'Flibustier' was English 
and a corruption of freebooter. ' Buccaneer ' came from the 
boucan, or dried beef, of the wild cattle which the French 
hunters shot in Espaiiola, and which formed the chief of 
their sea stores. Boucan became a French verb, and, 
according to Labat, was itself the Carib name for the 
cashew nut. 

War breaking out again in GromwelPs time, Penn and 
Yenables took Jamaica. The flibustiers from the Tortugas 
drove the Spaniards out of Hayti, which was annexed to 
the French crown. The comradeship in religious enthu- 
siasm which had originally drawn the two nations together 
•cooled by degrees, as French Catholics as well as Protestants 
took to the trade. Port Boyal became the headquarters of 
the English buccaneers — the last and greatest of them^^ 
/being Henry Morgan, who took and plundered Panama, was 
knighted for his services, and was afterwards made governor 
of Jamaica. From the time when the Spaniards threw 
open their trade, and English seamen ceased to be delivered 
over to the Inquisition, the English buccaneers ceased to 
be respectable characters and gradually drifted into the 
pirates of later history, when under their new conditions 
they produced their more questionable heroes, the Eidds 
and Blackbeards. The French flibustiers continued long 
after — far into the eighteenth century — some of them with 
commissions as privateers, others as forhojis or unlicensed 
rovers, but still connived at in Martinique. 



30 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Adventurers, buccaneers, pirates pass across the stage—^ 
the curtain falls on them, and rises on a more glorious scene .^ 
^ ■ Jamaica had become the depot of the trade of England 

with the western world, and golden streams had poured 
into Port Royal. Barbadoes was unoccupied when England 
took possession of it, and never passed out of our hands ; 
but the Antilles — the Anterior Isles — which stand like a 
string of jewels round the neck of the Caribbean Sea, had 
been most of them colonised and occupied by the French^ 
and during the wars of the last century were the objects of 
a never ceasing conflict between their fleets and ours. The 
French had planted their language there, they had planted 
their religion there, and the blacks of these islands gene- 
rally still speak the French patois and call themselves 
Catholics ; but it was deemed essential to our interests that 
the Antilles should be not French but English, and Antigua, 
Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Grenada were 
taken and retaken and taken again in a struggle perpetu* 
ally renewed. When the American colonies revolted, the 
West Indies became involved in the revolutionary hurri- 
cane. France, Spain, and Holland— our three ocean rivals 
— combined in a supreme effort to tear from us our Imperial 
power. The opportunity was seized by Irish patriots to 
clamour for Irish nationality, and by the English Radicals 
to demand liberty and the rights of man. It was the most 
critical moment in later Knglish history. If we had yielded 
to peace on the t^srins which our enemies offered, and the 
English Lilwrals wished uh to ocjcept, the star of Great 
Britain would have set for ever. 

The West Indium were then inider the charge of Rodney, 
whose brilliant HuecoMMim hiui already made his name 
famous. Jle had done his cotintry more than yiK)man'8 
service. He hiul torn the Ijeoward iHlands from the French. 
He had punished the llollanders for joining the coalition 
by Ukuig the island of Ht. Ktrntm^hiuN and throe millions' 



RODNEY 31 

'worth of stores and money. The patriot party at home 
led by Fox and Burke were ill pleased with these victories, 
for they wished us to be driven into surrender. Burke 
denounced Bodney as he denounced Warren Hastings, 
and Bodney was called home to answer for himself. In 
his absence Demerara, the Leeward Islands, St. Eustachius 
itself, were captured or recovered by the enemy. The 
French fleet, now supreme in the western waters, blockaded 
Lord Gomwallis at York Town and forced him to capitulatcr 
The Spaniards had fitted out a fleet at Havannah, and the 
Count de Grasse, the French admiral, fresh from the 
victorious thunder of the American cannon, hastened back 
to refamish himself at Martinique, intending to join the 
Spaniards, tear Jamaica from us, and drive us finally and 
completely out of the West Indies. One chance remainedr 
Bodney was ordered back to his station, and he went at his 
best speed, taking all the ships with him which could then 
be spared. It was mid-winter. He forced his way to Bar- 
badoes in five weeks spite of equinoctial storms. The 
Whig orators were indignant. They insisted that we were 
beaten; there had been bloodshed enough, and we must 
sit down in our humiliation. The Government yielded,, 
and a peremptory order followed on Bodney's track, ' Strike 
your flag and come home.' Had that fatal command 
reached him Gibraltar would have fallen and Hastings's 
Indian Empire would have melted into air. But Bodney 
knew that his time was short, and he had been prompt to 
use it. Before the order came, the severest naval battle in 
EngUsh annals had been fought and won. De Grasse was 
a prisoner, and the French fleet was scattered into wreck 
and ruin. 

De Grasse had refitted in the Martinique dockyards.. 
He himself and every oflScer in the fleet was confident that 
England was at last done for, and that nothing was left but 
to gather the fruits of the victory which was theirs already.. 



32 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Hot Xerxes, when he broke through ThermopylsB and watched 
from the shore his thousand galleys streammg down to the 
Gulf of Salamis, was more assured that his prize was in his 
hands than De Grasse on the deck of the * Ville de Paris/ 
the finest ship then floating on the seas, when he heard that 
Bodney was at St. Lucia and intended to engage him. He 
•did not even beUeve that the English after so many reverses 
would venture to meddle with a fleet superior in force and 
inspirited with victory. All the Antilles except St. Lucia 
-were his own. Tobago, Grenada, the Grenadines, St. 
Vincent, Martinique, Dominica, Guadaloupe, Montserrat, 
Nevis, Antigua, and St. Eitts, he held them all in proud 
possession, a string of gems, each island large as or 
larger than the Isle of Man, rising up with high volcanic 
peaks clothed from base to crest with forest, carved into 
deep ravines, and fringed with luxuriant plains. In St. 
Lucia alone, lying between St. Vincent and Dominica, 
the English flag still flew, and Bodney lay there in the 
harbour at Castries. On April 8, 1782, the signal came 
from the north end of the island that the French fleet 
had sailed. Martinique is in sight of St. Lucia, and 
the rock is still shown from which Bodney had watched 
day by day for signs that they were moving. They were 
out at last, and he instantly weighed and followed. The 
air was light, and De Grasse was under the high lands of 
Dominica before Bodney came up with him. Both fleets 
were becalmed, and the English were scattered and divided 
by a current which runs between the islands. A breeze 
at last blew oflf the land. The French were the first to feel it, 
and were able to attack at advantage the leading English 
division. Had De Grasse * come down as he ought,' Bodney 
thought that the consequences might have been serious. 
In careless imagination of superiority they let the chance 
go by. They kept at a distance, firing long shots, which as 
it was did considerable damage. The two following days 



BATTLE OF THE TWELFTH OF APRIL 33 

the fleets manoeuvred in sight of each other. On the night 
of the eleventh Rodney made signal for the whole fleet 
to go south under press of sail. The French thought he was 
flying. He tacked at two in the morning, and at daybreak 
found himself where he wished to be, with the French fleet 
^n his lee quarter. The French looking for nothing but 
again a distant cannonade, continued leisurely along under 
the north highlands of Dominica towards the channel 
which separates that island from Guadaloupe. In number 
of ships the fleets were equal ; in size and complement of 
-crew the French were immensely superior; and besides 
the ordinary ships' companies they had twenty thousand 
soldiers on board who were to be used in the conquest 
of Jamaica. Knowing well that a defeat at that moment 
would be to England irreparable ruin, they did not dream 
that Rodney would be allowed, even if he wished it, to 
risk a close and decisive engagement. The English admiral 
^as aware also that his country's fate was in his hands. 
It was one of those supreme moments which great men 
. dare to use and small men tremble at. He had the ad- 
vantage of the wind, and could force a battle or decline 
it, as he pleased. With clear daylight the signal to en- 
gage was flying from the masthead of the 'Formidable,' 
Rodney's ship. At seven in the morning, April 12, 1782, 
the whole fleet bore down obUquely on the French line, 
Glutting it directly in two. Rodney led in person. Having 
passed through and broken up their order he tacked again, 
still keeping the wind. The French, thrown into confusion, 
were unable to reform, and the battle resolved itself into a 
number of separate engagements in which the English had 
the choice of position. 

Rodney in passing through the enemy's lines the first 
time had exchanged broadsides with the * Glorieux,' a 
seventy-four, at close range. He had shot away her masts 
and bowsprit, and left her a bare hull ; her flag, however, 



34 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Btill flying, being nailed to a splintered spar. So he left 
her unable at least to stir ; and after he had gone about came 
himself yardarm to yardarm with the superb * Ville de Paris/ 
the pride of France, the largest ship in the then worlds 
where De Grasse commanded in person. All day long the 
cannon roared. Bodney had on board a favourite bantam 
cock, which stood perched upon the poop of the * Formid- 
able ' through the whole action, its shrill voice heard crowing 
through the thunder of the broadsides. One by one the 
French ships struck their flags or fought on till they 
foundered and went down. The carnage on board them wa& 
terrible, crowded as they were with the troops for Jamaica* 
Fourteen thousand were reckoned to have been killed, 
besides the prisoners. The * Ville de Paris' surrendered 
last, fighting desperately after hope was gone till her masts 
were so shattered that they could not bear a sail, and her 
decks above and below were littered over with mangled 
limbs. De Grasse gave up his sword to Rodney on the 
* Formidable's ' quarter-deck. The gallant 'Glorieux,' un- 
able to fly, and seeing the battle lost, hauled down her flag^ 
but not till the undisabled remnants of her crew were too 
few to throw the dead into the sea. Other ships took 
fire and blew up. Half the French fleet were either taken 
or sunk ; the rest crawled away for the time, most of them 
to be picked up afterwards like crippled birds. 

So on that memorable day was the English Empire 
saved. Peace followed, but it was 'peace with honour.* 
The American colonies were lost; but England kept her 
West Indies; her flag still floated over Gibraltar; the 
, hostile strength of Europe all combined had failed to 
twist Britannia's ocean sceptre from her: she sat down 
maimed and bleeding, but the wreath had not been torn 
from her brow, she was still sovereign of the seas. 

"The bow of Ulysses was strung in those days. The 
order of recall arrived when the work was done. It was 



THOSE WHO MAKE EMPIRES 35 

proudly obeyed ; and even the great Burke admitted that 
no honour could be bestowed upon Bodney which he had 
not deserved at his country*s hands. If the British Empire 
is still to have a prolonged career before it, the men who 
/ make empires are. the men who can hold them together. • 
Oratorical reformers can overthrow what deserves to be over- 
thrown. Institutions, even the best of them, wear out, and 
must give place to others, and the fine political speakers are 
the instruments of their overthrow. But the fine speakers 
produce nothing of their own, and as constructive states- 
/ men their paths are strewed with failures. The worthies I 
/ of England are the men who cleared and tilled her fields, 1 
formed her laws, built her colleges and cathedrals, founded 
her colonies, fought her battles, covered the ocean with 
commerce, and spread our race over the planet to leave a 
mark upon it which time will not efface. These men are 
/ seen in their work, and are not heard of in Parliament. 
\Mien the accoimt is wound up, where by the side of them 
will stand our famous orators ? What will any one of them 
have left behind him save the wreck of institutions which 
had done their work and had ceased to serve a useful 
purpose ? That was their business in this world, and they 
did it and do it ; but it is no very glorious work, not a work 
over which it is possible to feel any * fine enthusiasm.' To 
chop down a tree is easier than to make it grow. When 
the business of destruction is once completed, they and. 
their fame and glory will disappear together. Our true* 
great ones will again be visible, and thenceforward will be 
visible alone. 

Is there a single instance in our own or any other 
history of a great political speaker who has added any- 
thing to human knowledge or to human worth? Lord 
Chatham may stand as a lonely exception. But except 
Chatham who is there ? Not one that I know of. Oratory 
is the spendthrift sister of the arts, which decks itself like 

111 



36 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

a Btrumpet with the tags and ornaments which it steals 
from real superiority. The object of it is not truth, but 
anything which it can make appear truth ; anything which 
it can persuade people to believe by calling in their passions 
-to obscure their intelligence. 



BARBADOES 37 



CHAPTER IV. 

First Bight of Barbadoes — Origin of the name— P^re Labat— Bridgetown two- 
hundred years ago — Slavery and Christianity — Economic crisis— Sogar 
bounties — Aspect of the streets — Government House and its occupants — 
Duties of a governor of Barbadoes. 

England was covered with snow when we left it on 
December 80. At sunrise on Jajiuary 12 we were anchored 
in the roadstead at Bridgetown, and the island of Barbadoes 
lay before us shining in the haze of a hot summer morning. 
It is about the size of the Isle of Wight, cultivated so far 
as eye could see with the completeness of a garden; no 
mountains in it, scarcely even high hills, but a surface 
pleasantly undulating, the prevailing colour a vivid green 
from the cane fields; houses in town and country white 
from the coral rock of which they are built, but the glare 
from them relieved by heavy clumps of trees. What the 
trees were I had yet to discover. You could see at a glance 
that the island was as thickly peopled as an anthill. Not 
an inch of soil seemed to be allowed to run to waste. Two 
hundred thousand is, I believe, the present number of 
Barbadians, of whom nine-tenths are blacks. They re- 
fuse to emigrate. They cling to their home with innocent 
vanity as though it was the finest country in the world, and 
multiply at a rate so rapid that no one Ukes to think about 
it. Labour at any rate is abundant and cheap. In Bar- 
badoes the negro is willing enough to work, for he has no 
^ other means of living. Little land is here allowed him to 
grow his yams upon. Almost the whole of it is still held by 
the whites in large estates, cultivated by labourers on the old 



38 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

system, and, it is to be admitted, cultivated most admirably. 
If the West Indies are going to ruin, Barbadoes, at any 
rate, is being ruined with a smiling face. The roadstead 
was crowded with shipping — large barques, steamers, and 
brigs, schooners of all shapes and sorts. The training 
squadron had come into the bay for a day or two on their 
way to Trinidad, four fine ships, conspicuous by their 
white ensigns, the squareness of yards, and generally im- 
posing presence. Boats were flying to and fro under sail 
or with oars, officials coming off in white calico dress, with 
awnings over the stern sheets and chattering crews of negroes. 
Notwithstanding these exotic symptoms, it was all thoroughly 
English ; we were under the guns of our own men-of-war. 
The language of the Anglo-Barbadians was pure English, 
the voices without the smallest transatlantic intonation. 
lOn no one of our foreign possessions is the print of 
^ j England's foot more strongly impressed than on Barbadoes. 
I It has been ours for two centuries and three-quarters, and 
was organised from the first on English traditional lines, 
with its constitution, its parishes and parish churches and 
churchwardens, and schools and parsons, all on the old 
model ; which the unprogressive inhabitants have been wise 
enough to leave undisturbed. 

Little is known of the island before we took possession 
of it — so little that the origin of the name is still uncertain. 
Barbadoes, if not a corruption of some older word, is Spanish 
or Portuguese, and means * bearded.' The local opinion is 
that it refers to a banyan or fig tree which is common there, 
and which sends down from its branches long hairs or 
fibres supposed to resemble beards. I disbelieve in this 
derivation. Every Spaniard whom I have consulted con- 
firms my own impression that * barbados ' standing alone 
could no more refer to trees than * barbati ' standing alone 
could refer to trees in Latin. The name is a century older 
than the English occupation, for I have seen it in a Spanish 



PAST HISTORY 39 

■chart of 1525. The question is of some interest, since it 
perhaps implies that at the first discovery there was a race 
-of bearded Caribs there. However this may be, Barbadoes, 
^fter we became masters of it, enjoyed a period of unbroken 
prosperity for two hundred years. Before the conquest of 
Jamaica, it was the principal mart of our West Indian 
trade; and even after that conquest., when all Europe drew 
its new luxury of sugar from these islands, the wealth and 
splendour of the English residents at Bridgetown astonished 
and stirred the envy of every passing visitor. Absenteeism 
as yet was not. The owners lived on their estates, governed 
the island as magistrates unpaid for their services, and 
•equally unpaid, took on themselves the defences of the island. 
Pere Labat, a French missionary, paid a visit to Barbadoes 
at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He was a clever, 
sarcastic kind of man, with fine literary skill, and describes 
what he saw with a jealous appreciation which he intended 
to act upon his own countrymen. The island, according to 
him, was running over with wealth, and was very imper- 
fectly fortified. The jewellers' and silversmiths' shops in 
Bridgetown were brilliant as on the Paris boulevards. The 
port was full of ships, the wharves and warehouses crammed 
with merchandise from all parts of the globe. The streets 
were handsome, and thronged with men of business, who 
were piling up fortunes. To the Father these sumptuous 
gentlemen were all most civil. The governor, an Enghsh 
milor, asked him to dinner, and talked such excellent French 
that Labat forgave him his nationality. The governor, he 
^aid, resided in a fine palace. He had a well- furnished 
library, was dignified, courteous, intelUgent, and lived in 
:state like a prince. A review was held for the French 
priest's special entertainment, of the Bridgetown cavalry. 
Five hundred gentlemen turned out from this one district 
^ulmirably mounted and armed. Altogether in the island 
he says that there were 3,000 horse and 2,000 foot, every one 



40 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

of them of course white and English. The oflBcers struck 
him particularly. He met one who had been five years a 
prisoner in the Bastille, and had spent his time there in 
learning mathematics. The planters opened their houses 
to him. Dinners then as now were the received form of 
English hospitality. They lived well, Labat says. They 
had all the luxuries of the tropics, and they had imported 
the partridges which they were so fond of from England.. 
They had the costliest and choicest wines, and knew how 
to enjoy them. They dined at two o'clock, and their dinner 
lasted four hours. Their mansions were superbly furnished, 
and gold and silver plate, he observed with an eye tO' 
business, was so abundant that the plunder of it would 
pay the cost of an expedition for the reduction of the 
island. 

There was another side to all this magnificence which 
also might be turned to account. There were some thou- 
sands of wretched Irish, who had been transplanted thither 
after the last rebellion, and were bound under articles to- 
labour. These might be counted on to rise if an invading, 
force appeared ; and there were 60,000 slaves, who would 
rebel also if they saw a hope of success. They were ill fed 
and hard driven. On the least symptom of insubordina- 
tion they were killed without mercy ; sometimes they were 
burnt ahve, or were hung up in iron cages to die.^ In the 
French and Spanish islands care was taken of the souls of 
the poor creatures. They were taught their catechism, they 
were baptised, and attended mass regularly. The Anglican. 

* Labat seems to say that they were hung up alive in these cages, and 
left to die there. He says elsewhere, and it may be hoped that the explana- 
tion is the truer one, that the recently imported negroes often destroyed 
themselves, in the belief that when dead they would return to their own 
country. In the French islands as well as the English, the bodies of 
suicides were exposed in these cages, from which they could not be stolenv 
to convince the poor people of their mistake by their own eyes. He says 
that the contrivance was successful, and that after this the slaves did not 
destroy themselves any more. 



SLA VER Y AND CHRISTIANITY ' 4 1 

clergy, he said with professional malice, neither baptised 
them nor taught them anything, but regarded them as 
mere animals. To keep Christians in slavery they held 
would be wrong and indefensible, and they therefore met 
the difficulty by not making their slaves into Christians. 
That baptism made any essential difference, however, he 
does not insist. By the side of Christianity, in the Catholic 
islands, devil worship and witchcraft went on among the 
same persons. No instance had ever come to his knowledge 
of a converted black who returned to his country who did 
not throw away his Christianity just as he would throw- 
away his clothes; and as to cruelty and immorality, he 
admits that the English at fiarbadoes were no worse than 
his own people at Martinique. 

In the collapse of West Indian prosperity w hich followed / 
on emancipation, Barbadoes escaped the misfortunes of the 
other islands. The black population being so dense, and the 
place itself being so small, the squatting system could not 
l)e tried ; there was plenty of labour always, and the 
planters being relieved of the charge of their workmen 
when they were sick or worn out, had rather gained than 
lost by the change. Barbadoes, however, was not to escape 
for ever, and was now having its share of misfortmies. It 
is dangerous for any country to commit its fortunes to an 
exclusive occupation. Sugar was the most immediately 
lucrative of all the West Indian productions. Barbadoes 
is exceptionally well suited to sugar-growing. It has no 
mountains and no forests. The soil is clean and has been 
carefully attended to for two hundred and fifty years. It 
had been owned during the present century by gentlemen 
who for the most part lived in England on the profits of their 
properties, and left them to be managed by agents and 
attorneys. The method of management was expensive* 
Their own habits were expensive. Their incomes, to which 
they had lived up, had been cut short lately by a series of 



42 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

bad seasons. Money had been borrowed at high interest 
jear after year to keep the estates and their owners going. 
On the top of this came the beetroot competition backed up 
by a bounty, and the Barbadian sugar interest, I was told, 
had gone over a precipice. The unencumbered resident 
proprietors could barely keep their heads above water. The 
returns on three-quarters of the properties on the island no 
longer suflBced to pay the expenses of cultivation and the 
interest of the loans which had been raised upon them. There 
was impending a general bankruptcy which might break up 
entirely the present system and leave the negroes for a time 
without the wages which were the sole dependence. 

A very dark picture had thus been drawn to me of the 
prospects of the poor little island which had been once so 
brilliant. Nothing could be less like it than the bright 
sunny landscape which we saw from the deck of our vessel. 
The town, the shipping, the pretty villas, the woods, and the 
wide green sea of waving cane had no suggestion of ruin 
about them. If the ruin was coming, clearly enough it 
had not yet come. After breakfast we went on shore in a 
boat with a white awning over it, rowed by a crew of black 
boatmen, large, fleshy, shining on the skin with ample feed- 
ing and shining in the face with innocent happiness. They 
rowed well. They were amusing. There was a fixed tariff, 
and they were not extortionate. The temperature seemed 
to rise ten degrees when we landed. The roads were blind- 
ing white from the coral dust, the houses were white, the 
sun scorching. The streets w ere not the streets described 
by Labat ; no splendid magazines or jewellers' shops like 
those in Paris or London ; but there were lighters at the 
quays loading or unloading, carts dashing along with mule 
teams and making w^alking dangerous ; signs in plenty of 
life and business ; few white faces, but blacks and mulattoes 
swarming. The houses were substantial, though in want of 
l)aint. The public buildings, law courts, hall of assembly 



THE STREETS OF BRIDGETO WN 43 

Ac. were solid and handsome, nowhere out of repair, 
though with something to be desired in point of smartness. 
The market square would have been well enough but for 
a. statue of Lord Nelson which stands there, very like, but 
small and insignificant, and for some extraordinary reason 
they have painted it a bright pea-green. 

We crept along in the shade of trees and warehouses 
till we reached the principal street. Here my friends 
brought me to the Icehouse, a sort of club, with reading 
rooms and dining rooms, and sleeping accommodation for 
members from a distance who do not like colonial hotels. 
Before anything else could be thought of I was intro- 
duced to cocktail, with which I had to make closer acquaint- 
ance afterwards, cocktail being the established corrective 
of West Indian languor, without which life is impossible. 
It is a compound of rum, sugar, lime juice, Angostura 
bitters, and what else I know not, frisked into effervescence 
by a stick, highly agreeable to the taste and effective for its 
immediate purpose. Cocktail over, and walking in the heat 
being a thing not to be thought of, I sat for two hours in a 
balcony watching the people, who were thick as bees in 
swarming time. Nine-tenths of them were pure black ; you 
rarely saw a white face, but still less would you see a 
discontented one, imperturbable good humour and self- 
satisfaction being written on the features of every one. 
The women struck me especially. They were smartly 
dressed in white calico, scrupulously clean, and tricked 
out with ribands and feathers ; but their figures were so 
good and they carried themselves so well and gracefully, 
that, although they might make themselves absurd, they 
could not look vulgar. Like the Greek and Etruscan 
women, they are trained from childhood to carry heavy 
weights on their heads. They are thus perfectly upright, and 
plant their feet firmly and naturally on the ground. They 
might serve for sculptors' models, and are well aware of 



44 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

it. There were no signs of poverty. Old and young seemed, 
well fed. Some had brought in baskets of fruit, bananas, 
oranges, pine apples and sticks of sugar cane ; others had 
yams and sweet potatoes from their bits of garden in the 
country. The men were active enough driving carts,, 
wheeling barrows, or selling flying fish, which are caught 
off the island in shoals and are cheaper than herrings in 
Yarmouth. They chattered like a flock of jackdaws, but 
there was no quarrelling ; not a drunken man was to be 
seen, and all was merriment and good humom\ My poor 
downtrodden black brothers and sisters, so far as I could 
judge from this first introduction, looked to me a very 
fortunate class of fellow-creatures. 

Government House, where we went to luncheon, is a large 
airy building shaded by heavy trees with a garden at the 
back of it. West Indian houses, I found afterwards, are all 
constructed on the same pattern, the object being to keep- 
the sun out and let in the wind. Long verandahs or 
galleries run round them protected by green Venetian 
blinds which can be opened or closed at pleasure ; the rooms 
within with polished floors, little or no carpet, and con- 
trivances of all kinds to keep the air in continual circula- 
tion. In the subdued green light, human figures lose 
their solidity and look as if they were creatures of air 
also. 

Sir Charles Lees and his lady were all that was poUte 
and hospitable. They invited me to make their house my 
home during my stay, and more charming host and hostess 
it would have been impossible to find or wish for. There 
was not the state which Labat described, but there was the 
perfection of courtesy, a courtesy which must have be- 
longed to their natures, or it would have been overstrained 
long since by the demands made upon it. Those who have 
looked on at a skating ring will have observed an orange 
or some such object in the centre round which the evolu- 



DUTIES OF A GOVERNOR 45 

tions are described, the ice artist sweeping out from it in 
long curves to the extreme circumference, curving back on 
interior arcs till he gains the orange again, and then off 
once more on a fresh departure. Barbadoes to the West 
Indian steam navigation is like the skater's orange. All 
mails, all passengers from Europe, arrive at Barbadoes first. 
There the subsidiary steamers catch them up, bear them 
north or south to the Windward or Leeward Isles, and on 
their return bring them back to Carlisle Bay. Every vessel 
"brings some person or persons to whom the Governor is 
-called on to show hospitality. He must give dinners to the 
officials and gentry of the island, he must give balls and 
concerts for their ladies, he must entertain the officers of 
the garrison. When the West Indian squadron or the 
training squadron drop into the roadstead, admirals, 
commodores, captains must all be invited. Foreign ships 
of war go and come continually, Americans, French, 
Spaniards, or Portuguese. Presidents of South American 
republics, engineers from Darien, all sorts and conditions 
of men who go to Europe in the English mail vessels, take 
their departure from Carlisle Bay, and if they are neglected 
regard it as a national affront. Cataracts of champagne 
must flow if the British name is not to be discredited. 
The expense is unavoidable and is enormous, while the 
Governor's very moderate salary is found too large by 
economic politicians, and there is a cry for reduction 
of it. 

I was of course most grateful for Sir Charles's invitation 
to myself. From him, better perhaps than from anyone, 
I could learn how far the passionate complaints which I had 
heard about the state of the islands were to be Ustened to 
us accounts of actual fact. I found, however, that I must 
postpone both this particular pleasure and my stay in 
Barbadoes itself till a later opportunity. My purpose had 
been to remain there till I had given it all the time which 



"l 

/ 



46 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

I could spare, thence to go on to Jamaica, and from Jamaica 
to return at leisure round the Antilles. But it had been 
\ ascertained that in Jamaica there was small-pox. I suppose / 
, that there generally is small-pox there, or typhus fever, or 
other infectious disorder. But spasms of anxiety assail 
periodically the souls of local authorities. Vessels coming 
from Jamaica had been quarantined in all the islands, and I 
found that if I proceeded thither as I proposed, I should be 
refused permission to land afterwards in any one of the other 
colonies. In my perplexity my Trinidad friends invited me to 
accompany them at once to Port of Spain. Trinidad was the 
most thriving, or was at all events the least dissatisfied, of 
all the British possessions. I could have a glance at the 
Windward Islands on the way. I could afterwards return to 
Barbadoes, where Sir Charles assured me that I should still 
find a room waiting for me. The steamer to Trinidad sailed 
the same afternoon. I had to decide in haste, and I decided 
to go. Our luncheon over, we had time to look over the 
pretty gardens at Government House. There were great 
cabbage palms, cannon-ball trees, mahogany trees, almond 
trees, and many more which were wholly new acquaint- 
ances. There was a grotto made by climbing plants and 
creepers, with a fountain playing in the middle of it, where 
orchids hanging on wires threw out their clusters of flowers 
for the moths to fertilise, ferns waved their long fronds 
in the dripping showers, humming birds cooled their 
wings in the spray, and flashed in and out like rubies and 
emeralds. Gladly would I have lingered there, at least for 
a cigar, but it could not be ; we had to call on the Com- 
mander of the Forces, Sir C. Pearson, the hero of Ekowe in 
the Zulu war. Him, too, I was to see again, and hear inte- 
resting stories from about our tragic enterprise in the 
Transvaal. For the moment my mind was filled sufficiently 
with new impressions. One reads books about places, but 
the images which they create are always unlike the real 



NE W IMPRESSIONS ^j 

object. All that I had seen was absolutely new and unex- 
pected. I was glad of an opportunity to readjust the in- 
formation which I had brought with me. We joined our 
new vessel before sunset, and we steamed away into the 
twilight. 



48 THE ENGLISH IN THE IVEST INDIES 



CHAPTER V. 

West Indian politeness— Negro morals and felicity — Island of St. Vincent — 
Grenada— The harbour — Disappearance of the whites — An island of black 
freeholders — Tobago— -Dramatic art — A promising incident. 

West Indian civilisation is old-fashioned, and has none of 
the pushing manners which belong to younger and perhaps 
more thriving communities. The West Indians themselves, 
though they may be deficient in energy, are uniformly ladies 
>^; - and gentlemen, and all their arrangements take their com- 

plexion from the general tone of society. There is a re- 
finement visible at once in the subsidiary vessels of the mail 
service which ply among the islands. They are almost as 
large as those which cross the Atlantic, and never on any 
line in the world have I met with officers so courteous and 
cultivated. The cabins were spacious and as cool as a tem- 
perature of 80**, gradually rising as we went south, would 
permit. Punkahs waved over us at dinner. In our berths a 
single sheet was all that was provided for us, and this was one 
more than we needed. A sea was running when we cleared 
out from under the land. Among the cabin passengers was 
a coloured family in good circumstances moving about with 
nurses and children. The little things, who had never been 
at sea before, sat on the floor, staring out of their large 
helpless black eyes, not knowing what was the matter with 
them. Forward there were perhaps two or three hundred 
coloured people going from one island to another, singing, 
dancing, and chattering all night long, as radiant and happy 



NEGRO MORALS 49 

as carelessness and content could make them. Sick or not 
sick made no difference. Nothing could disturb the imper- 
turbable good humour and good spirits. 

It was too hot to sleep ; we sat several of us smoking 
on deck, and I learnt the first authentic particulars of the 
present manner of life of these much misunderstood people. .! 
Evidently they belonged to a race far iniFerior to the Zulus \ J 
and Caffres, whom I had known in South Africa. They \ 
were more coarsely formed in limb and feature. They / 
} would have been slaves in their own country if they had i 
' not been brought to ours, and at the worst had lost nothing ( 
by the change. They were good-natured, innocent, harm- 
less, lazy perhaps, but not more lazy than is perfectly . 
natural when even Europeans must be roused to activity! 
by cocktail. ) 

TS the Antilles generally, Barbadoes being the only ex- 
ception, negro families have each their cabin, their garden 
ground, their grazing for a cow. They live surrounded by 
most of the fruits which grew in Adam's paradise — oranges 
and plantains, bread-fruit, and cocoa-nuts, though not apples. 
Their yams and cassava grow without effort, for the soil is 
easily worked and inexhaustibly fertile. The curse is taken ^ 
off from nature, and like Adam again they are under the \ \ 
covenant of innocence. Morals in the technical sense they ' 
have none, but they cannot be said to sin, because they have 
no knowledge of a law, and therefore they can commit no - 
breach of the law. Thex are naked and not ashamed. 
They are married as they call it, but not parsoned. The 
woman prefers a looser tie that she may be able to leave a 
man if he treats her unkindly. Yet they are not licentious. 
I never saw an immodest look in one of their faces, and 
never heard of any venal profligacy. The system is strange, 
but it answers. A missionary told me that a connection 
rarely turns out well which begins with a legal marriage. 
The children scramble up anyhow, and shift for themselves 



so THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

^ like chickens as soon as they are able to peck. Many die in 
this way by eating unwholesome food, but also many live, 
and those who do live grow up exactly like their parents. 
It is a very peculiar state of things, not to be understood, 
as priest and missionary agree, without long acquaintance. ] 
I There is evil, but there is not the demoralising effect of evil. 
) They sin, but they sin only as animals, without shame, 

/ because there is no sense of doing wrong. They eat the 
forbidden fruit, but it brings with it no knowledge of the 
^ difference between good and evil. They steal, but if detected 
they fall back upon the Lord. It was de will of de Lord 
that they should do this or that. De Lord forbid that they 
should go against his holy pleasure. In fact these poor 
children of darkness have escaped the consequences of the 

' Fall, and must come of another stock after all. 

Meanwhile they are perfectly happy. In no part of the 
globe is there any peasantry whose every want is so com- 

[ pletely satisfied as her Majesty's black subjects in these 
West Indian islands. They have no aspirations to make 
them restless. They have no guilt upon their consciences. 
They have food for the picking up. Clothes they need not, 
and lodging in such a climate need not be elaborate. They 
have perfect liberty, and are safe from dangers, to which if 
left to themselves they would be exposed, for the English 
rule prevents the strong from oppressing the weak. In 
their own country they would have remained slaves to 
more warlike races. In the West Indies their fathers 
underwent a bondage of a century or two, lighter at its 

worst than the easiest form of it in Africa ; their de- 

I 

' scendants in return have nothing now to do save to laugh 
and sing and enjoy existence. Their quarrels, if they 
have any, begin and end in words. If happiness is the 
be all and end all of life, and those who have most of it 
have most completely attained the object of their being, the 
* ziigger ' who now basks among the ruins of the West 



ST. VINCENT SI 

Indian plantations is the supremest specimen of present 
humanity. 

We retired to our berths at last. At waking we were 
at anchor off St. Vincent, an island of volcanic mountains 
robed in forest from shore to crest. Till late in the last 
century it was the headquarters of the Caribs, who kept up 
a savage independence there, recruited by runaway slaves 
from Barbadoes or elsewhere. Brandy and Sir Ealph 
Abercrombie reduced them to obedience in 1796, and St. 
Vincent throve tolerably down to the days of free trade. 
Even now when I saw it, Kingston, the principal town, 
looked pretty and well to do, reminding me, strange to say, 
of towns in Norway, the houses stretching along the shore 
painted in the same tints of blue or yellow or pink, with 
the same red-tiled roofs, the trees coming down the hill 
sides to the water's edge, villas of modest pretensions shining 
through the foliage, with the patches of cane fields, the equi- 
valent in the landscape of the brilliant Norwegian grass. The 
prosperity has for the last forty years waned and waned. 
There are now two thousand white people there, and forty 
thousand coloured people, and the proportion alters annually 
to our disadvantage. The usual remedies have been tried. 
The constitution has been altered a dozen times. Just now 
I believe the Crown is trjdng to do without one, having 
found the results of the elective principle not encouraging, 
but we shall perhaps revert to it before long ; any way, the 
tables show that each year the trade of the island de- 
creases, and will continue to decrease while the expenditure 
increases and will increase. 

I did not land, for the time was short, and as a beautiful 
picture the island was best seen from the deck. The 
characteristics of the people are the same in all the 
Antilles, and could be studied elsewhere. The bustle and 
confusion in the ship, the crowd of boats round the ladder, 
the clamour of negro men's tongues, and the blaze of colours 

^1 



52 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

from the negro women's dresses, made up together a scene 
sufficiently entertaining for the hour which we remained. 

In the middle of it the Governor, Mr. S , came on board 

with another official. They were going on in the steamer 
to Tobago, which formed part of his dominions. 

Leaving St. Vincent, we were all the forenoon passing 
the Grenadines, a string of small islands fitting into their 
proper place in the Antilles semicircle, but as if Nature had 
forgotten to put them together or else had broken some 
large island to pieces and scattered them along the line. 
Some were large enough to have once carried sugar planta- 
tions, and are now made over wholly to the blacks; others 
were fishing stations, droves of whales during certain months 
frequenting these waters ; others were mere rocks, amidst 
which the white-sailed American coasting schooners were 
beating up against the north-east trade. There was a stiff 
breeze, and the sea was white with short curling waves, 
but we were running before it and the wind kept the deck 
fresh. At Grenada, the next island, we were to go on shore. 

Grenada was, like St. Vincent, the home for centuries of 
man-eating Caribs, French for a century and a half, and 
finally, after many desperate struggles for it, was ceded to 
England at the peace of Versailles. It is larger than St. 
Vincent, though in its main features it has the same 
character. There are lakes in the hills, and a volcanic 
crater not wholly quiescent ; but the especial value of 
Grenada, which made us fight so hardly to win it, is the 
deep and landlocked harbour, the finest in all the Antilles. 

Pere Labat, to whose countrymen it belonged at the time 
of his own visit there, says that * if Barbadoes had such a 
harbour as Grenada it would be an island without a rival 
in the world. If Grenada belonged to the English, who 
knew how to turn to profit natural advantages, it would be 
a rich and powerful colony. In itself it was all that man 
could desire. To live there was to live in paradise.' Labat 



GRENADA 53 

found the island occupied by countrymen of his own, ^paisans 
aiseZf' he calls them, growing their tobacco, their indigo 
and scarlet rocou, their pigs and their poultry, and contented 
to be without sugar, without slaves, and without trade. 
The change of hands from which he expected so much had 
actually come about. Grenada did belong to the EngUsh, 
and had belonged to us ever since Bodney's peace. I was 
anxious to see how far Labat's prophecy had been fulfilled. 

St. George's, the ' capital,' stands on the neck of a 
peninsula a mile in length, which forms one side of the 
harbour. Of the houses, some look out to sea, some 
inwards upon the carenage, as the harbour is called. At 
the point there was a fort, apparently of some strength, on 
which the British flag was flying. We signalled that we 
had the Governor on board, and the fort repUed with a puflf 
of smoke. Sound there was none or next to none, but we 
presumed that it had come from a gun of some kind. We 

anchored outside. Mr. S landed in an official boat, with 

two flags, to distinguish it from a missionary's boat, which 
had only one. The crews of a dozen other boats then 
clambered up the gangway to dispute possession of the 
rest of us, shouting, swearing, lying, tearing us this way 
and that way as if we were carcases and they wild beasts 
wanting to dine upon us. We engaged a boat for ourselves 
as we supposed; we had no sooner entered it than the 
scandalous boatman proceeded to take in as many more 
passengers as it would hold. Bemonstrance being vain, we 
settled the matter by stepping into the boat next adjoining, 
and amidst howls and execrations we were borne trium- 
phantly o£f and were pulled in to the land. 

Labat had not exaggerated the beauty of the landlocked 
basin into which we entered on rounding the point. On 
three sides wooded hills rose high till they passed into 
mountains; on the fourth was the castle with its slopes 
and batteries, the church and town beyond it, and every- 



54 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

where luxuriant tropical forest trees overhanging the violet- 
coloured water. I could well understand the Frenchman's 
delight when he saw it, and also the satisfaction with which 
he would now acknowledge that he had been a shortsighted 
, prophet. The English had obtained Grenada, and this is 
^ what they had made of it. The forts which had been 
' erected by his countrymen had been deserted and dismantled; 
the castle on which we had seen our flag flying was a ruin ; 
the walls were crumbling and in many places had fallen 
down. One sohtary gun was left, but that was honeycombed 
and could be fired only with half a charge to salute with. It 
was true that the forts had ceased to be of use, but that 
was because there was nothing left to defend. The harbour 
is, as I said, the best in the West Indies. There was not 
a vessel in it, nor so much as a boat-yard where a spar 
could be replaced or a broken rivet mended. Once there had 
been a line of wharves, but the piles had been eaten by 
worms and the platforms had fallen through. Bound us 
when we landed were unroofed warehouses, weed-choked 
courtyards, doors gone, and window frames fallen in or out. 
Such a scene of desolation and desertion I never saw in my 
life save once, a few weeks later at Jamaica. An EngUsh 
lady with her children had come to the landing place to 
meet my friends. They, too, were more like wandering) 
/' ghosts than human beings with warm blood in them. All , 
their thoughts were on going home— home out of so miser- 
able an exile. 

^Nature had been simply allowed by us to resume posses- 
sion of the island. Here, where the cannon had roared, 
and ships and armies had fought, and the enterprising 
English had entered into occupancy, under which, as we 
are proud to fancy, the waste places of the earth grow 
green, and industry and civilisation follow as its inevitable 
fruit, all was now silence. Not Babylon itself, with its 
bats and owls, was more dreary and desolate. And this 



GRENADA 55 

was an English Grown colony, as rich in resources as any 
area of soil of equal size in the world. England had de- 
manded and seized the responsibiUty of managing it-this 
was the result. 

A gentleman, who for some purpose was a passing 
resident in the island, had asked us to dine with him. His 
house was three or four miles inland. A good road re- 
mained as a legacy from other times, and a pair of horses 
and a phaeton carried us swiftly to his door. The town of 
St. George's had once been populous, and even now there 
seemed no want of people, if mere numbers sufi&ced. We 
passed for half a mile through a straggling street, where 
the houses were evidently occupied though unconscious for 
many a year of paint or repair. They were squalid and 
dilapidated, but the luxuriant bananas and orange trees 
in the gardens reUeved the ugliness of their appearance. 
The road when we left the town was overshadowed with> 
gigantic mangoes planted long ago, with almond trees and 
cedar trees, no relations of our almonds or our cedars, but 
the most splendid ornaments of the West Indian forest. 
The valley up which we drove was beautiful, and the 
house, when we reached it, showed taste and culture. 

Mr. had rare trees, rare flowers, and was taking 

advantage of his temporary residence in the tropics to 
make experiments in horticulture. He had been brought 
there, I beUeve, by some necessities of business. He told 
us that Grenada was now the ideal country of modern 
social reformers. It had become an island of pure peasant 
proprietors. The settlers, who had once been a thriving and 
wealthy community, had melted away. Not more than six 
hundred English were left, and these were clearing out at 
their best speed. They had sold their estates for anything 
which they could get. The free blacks had bought them, 
and about 8,000 negro famiUes, say 40,000 black souls in all, 
now shared the soil between them. Each family lived inde- 



56 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

pendently, growing coffee and cocoa and oranges, and all were 
doing very well. The possession of property had brought 
a sense of its rights with it. They were as litigious as Irish 
peasants ; everyone was at law with his neighbour, and the 
island was a gold mine to the Attorney-General ; otherwise 
they were quiet harmless fellows, and if the politicians 
would only let them alone, they would be perfectly con- 
tented, and might eventually, if wisely managed, come to 
some good. To set up' a constitution in such a place was a 
ridiculous mockery, and would only be another name for 
swindling and jobbery. Black the island was, and black it * 
^ would remain. The conditions were never likely to arise 
which would bring back a European population ; but a 
governor who was a sensible man, who would reside and use 
his natural influence, could manage it with perfect ease. 
The island belonged to England ; we were responsible for 
what we made of it, and for the blacks' own sakes we ought 
) not to try experiments upon them. They knew their own ) 
} deficiencies, and would infinitely prefer a wise English ruler ^' y 
"* I to any constitution which could be offered them. If left \ 
' entirely to themselves, they would in a generation or 
two relapse into savages ; there were but two alternatives 
before not Grenada only, but all the English West Indies — 
either an English administration pure and simple like the 
East Indian, or a falling eventually into a state like that of 
Hayti, where they eat the babies, and no white man can 
own a yard of land. 

It was dark night when we drove back to the port. 
The houses along the road, which had looked so miserable 
on the outside, were now Ughted with paraflBn lamps. I 
could see into them, and was astonished to observe signs of 
comfort and even signs of taste — arm-chairs, sofas, side- 
boards with cut glass upon them, engravings and coloured 
prints upon the walls. The old state of things is gone, but 
a new state of things is rising which may have a worth of 



J 



DRAMATIC ART AMONG THE NEGROES $7 

its own. The plantQf civilisation "las yet has taken but 
feeble root, and is only beginning to grow. It may thrive 
yet if those who have troubled all the earth will consent for 
another century to take their industry elsewhere. 

The ship's galley was waiting at the wharf when we 

reached it. The captain also had been dining with a friend 

on shore, and we had to wait for him. The offshore night 

breeze had not yet risen. The harbour was smooth as a 

looking glass, and the stars shone double in the sky and 

on the water. The silence was only broken by the whistle 

of the lizards or the cry of some far-oflf marsh frog. The 

air was warmer than we ever feel it in the depth of an 

, jEngUsh summer, yet pure and dehcious and charged with 

' the perfume of a thousand flowers. One felt it strange that 

' with so beautiful a possession lying at our doors, we should \ ' 

have allowed it _to sUde out of our hands. I could say for 

myself, like Pere Labat, the island was all that man could 

desire. * En un mot, la vie y est delicieuse.' 

The anchor was got up immediately that we were on 
board. In the morning we were to find ourselves at Port 

of Spain. Mr. S , the Windward Island governor, who 

had joined us at St. Vincent, was, as I said, going to Tobago. 
De Foe took the human part of his Robinson Crusoe from 
the story of Juan Fernandez. The locaUty is supposed to 
have been Tobago, and Trinidad the island from which the 
cannibal savages came. We are continually shufiiing the 
cards, in a hope that a better game may be played with 
them. Tobago is now annexed to Trinidad. Last year 
it was a part of Mr. 8 's dominions which he periodi- 
cally visited. I fell in with him again on his return, 
and he told us an incident which befell him there, illus- 
trating the unexpected shapes in which th^ schoolmaster is 
appearing among the blacks. An intimation was brought 
to him on his arrival that, as the Athenian journeymen hady ', 
played Pyramus and Thisbe at the nuptials of Theseus and 



S8 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Hippolyta, a party of villagers from the interior of Tobago 
would like to act before his Excellency. Of course he con- 
sented. They came, and went through their performance. 

To Mr. S 's, and probably to the reader's astonishment, 

I the play which they had selected was the 'Merchant of 
., I Venice.' Of the rest of it he perhaps thought, like the queen 
of the Amazons, that it was 'sorry stuff,' but Shylock's 
representative, he said, showed real appreciation. With 
freedom and a peasant proprietary, the money lender is a 
necessary phenomenon, and the actor's imagination may 
have been assisted by personal recollections. 



CHARLES KINGSLEY 59 






CHAPTER VI. 

Charles Eingslej at Trinidad— * Lay of the Last Buccaneer' — A French /or&a» 
— Adventure at Aves — Mass on board a pirate ship — Port of Spain — 
A house in the tropics — ^A political meeting— Government House — The 
Botanical Gardens — Eingsley's rooms — Sugar estates and coolies. 

I MIGHT spare myself a description of Trinidad, for the 
natural features of the place, its forests and its gardens, 
its exquisite flora, the loveliness of its birds and insects, 
have been described already, with a grace of touch and a 
fullness of knowledge which I could not rival if I tried, by 
my dear friend Charles Kingsley. He was a naturalist by 
instinct, and the West Indies and all belonging to them 
had been the passion of his life. He had followed the logs 
and journals of the Elizabethan adventurers till he had made / 
their genius part of himself. In Amyas Leigh, the hero of 
* Westward Ho,' he produced a figure more completely re- ' 
presentative of that extraordinary set of men than any other ) 
novelist, except Sir Walter, has ever done for an age re- 
mote from his own. He followed them down into their 
latest developments, and sang their swan song in his ' Lay 
of the Last Buccaneer.' So characteristic is this poem of 
the transformation of the West Indies of romance and ad- 
venture into the West Indies of sugar and legitimate trade, 
that I steal it to ornament my own prosaic pages. 

THE LAY OF THE LAST BUCCANEER. 

Oh 1 England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high, 
But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I ; 
And such a port for mariners I'll never see again 
Ab the pleasant Isle of Aves heside the Spanish main. 



6o THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and stout, 
All furnished weU with small arms and cannon all about ; 
And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fietir and free 
To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally. 

Then we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold, 
Which he virung with cruel tortures from Indian folks of old ; 
Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone, 
Who flog men and keelhaul them and starve them to the bone. 

Oh ! palms grew high in Aves, and fruits that shone like gold, 
And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold, 
And the negro maids to Aves from bondage fast did flee 
To welcome gallant sailors a sweeping in from sea. 

Oh ! sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze 

A swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees, 

With a negro lass to fan you while you listened to the roar 

Of the breakers on the reef outside which never touched the shore. 

But Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be. 
So the king's ships sailed on Aves and quite put down were we. 
All day we fought like bull dogs, but they burnt the booms at night, 
And I fled in a piragua sore woimded from the fight. 

Nine days I floated starving, and a negro lass beside, 

Till for all I tried to cheer her the poor young thing she died. 

But as I lay a gasping a Bristol sail came by. 

And brought me home to England here to beg until I die. 

And now I'm old and going : I'm sure I can't tell where. 
One comfort is, this world's so hard I can't be worse off there. 
If I might but be a sea dove, I'd fly across the main 
To the pleasant Isle of Aves to look at it once again. 

By the side of this imaginative picture of a poor 
English sea rover, let me place another, an authentic one, 
of a French forhan or pirate in the same seas. Kingsley's 
Aves, or Isle of Birds, is down on the American coast. 
There is another island of the same name, which was 
occasionally frequented by the same gentry, about a hun- 
dred miles south of Dominica. Pi^re Labat going once 
from Martinique to Guadaloupe had taken a berth with 
Captain Daniel, one of the most noted of the French corsairs 
of the day, for better security. People were not scrupulous 



A JiRENCH PIRATE 6i 

in those times, and Labat and Daniel had been long 
good friends. They were caught in a gale off Dominica, 
blown away, and carried to Aves, where they found an 
English merchant ship lying a wreck. Two English ladies 
from Barbadoes and a dozen other people had escaped on 
shore. They had sent for help, and a large vessel came for 
them the day after Daniel's arrival. Of course he made 
a prize of it. Labat said prayers on board for him before 
the engagement, and the vessel surrendered after the first 
shot. The good humour of the party was not disturbed by 
this incident. The pirates, their prisoners, and the ladies 
stayed together for a fortnight at Aves, catching turtles 
and boucanning them, picnicking, and enjoying themselves. 
Daniel treated the ladies with the utmost poUteness, 
carried them afterwards to St. Thomas's, dismissed them 
unransomed, sold his prizes, and wound up the whole affair 
to the satisfaction of every one. Labat relates all this with 
wonderful humour, and tells, among other things, the 
following story of Daniel. On some expedition, when he 
was not so fortunate as to have a priest on board, he was in 
want of provisions. Being an outlaw he could not furnish 
himself in an open port. One night he put into the har- 
bour of a small island, called Los Santos, not far from 
Dominica, where only a few families resided. He sent a 
boat on shore in the darkness, took the priest and two 
or three of the chief inhabitants out of their beds, and car- 
ried them on board, where he held them as hostages, and 
then under pretence of compulsion requisitioned the island 
to send him what he wanted. The priest and his com- 
panions were treated meanwhile as guests of distinc- 
tion. No violence was necessary, for all parties understood 
one another. While the stores were being collected, Daniel 
suggested that there was a good opportunity for his crew 
to hear mass. The priest of Los Santos agreed to say it for 
them. The sacred vessels &c. were sent for from the church 



62 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

on shore. An awning was rigged over the forecastle, and 
an altar set up under it. The men chanted the prayers. 
The cannon answered the purpose of music. Broadsides 
were fired at the first sentence, at the Eocaudiat, at the 
Elevatiorif at the Benediction^ and a fifth at the prayer for 
the king. The service was wound up by a Vive le Roi ! A 
single small accident only had disturbed the ceremony. 
One of the pirates, at the Elevation^ being of a profane mind, 
made an indecent gesture. Daniel rebuked him, and, as 
the offence was repeated, drew a pistol and blew the man's 
brains out, saying he would do the same to any one who 
was disrespectful to the Holy Sacrament. The priest being 
a little startled, Daniel begged him not to be alarmed ; he 
was only chastising a rascal to teach him his duty. At any 
rate, as Labat observed, he had effectually prevented the 
rascal from doing anything of the same kind again. Mass 
being over, the body was thrown overboard, and priest and 
congregation went their several ways. 

Kingsley's * At Last ' gave Trinidad an additional inte- 
rest to me, but even he had not prepared me completely 
for the place which I was to see. It is only when one has 
seen any object with one's own eyes, that the accounts 
given by others become recognisable and instructive. 

Trinidad is the largest, after Jamaica, of the British 
West Indian Islands, and the hottest absolutely after none 
of them. It is square-shaped, and, I suppose, was once 
a part of South America. The Orinoco river and the 
ocean currents between them have cut a channel between 
it and the mainland, which has expanded into a vast 
shallow lake known as the Gulf of Paria. The two en- 
trances by which the gulf is approached are narrow and 
are called hocas or mouths — one the Dragon's Mouth, the 
other the Serpent's. When the Orinoco is in flood, the 
water is brackish, and the brilliant violet blue of the 
Caribbean Sea is changed to a dirty yellow; but the 



PORT OF SPAIN 63 

harbour which is so formed would hold all the commercial 
navies of the world, and seems formed by nature to be the 
depot one day of an enormous trade. 

Trinidad has had its period of )roma ncei| Columbus 
was the first discoverer of it. Raleigh was there after- 
wards on his expedition in search of his gold mine, and 
tarred his vessels with pitch out of the famous lake. The 
island was alternately Spanish and French till Picton took 
it in 1797, since which time it has remained EngUsh. The 
Garib part of the population has long vanished. The rest 
of it is a medley of English, French, Spaniards, negroes, 
and coolies. The English, chiefly migratory, go there to 
make money and go home with it. The old colonial 
families have few representatives left, but the island 
prospers, trade increases, coolies increase, cocoa and coffee 
plantations and indigo plantations increase. Port of Spain, 
the capital, grows annually ; and even sugar holds its own 
in spite of low prices, for there is money at the back of it, 
and a set of people who, being speculative and commercial, 
are better on a level with the times than the old-fashioned 
planter aristocracy of the other islands. The soil is of 
extreme fertility, about a fourth of it under cultivation, the 
rest natural forest and unappropriated Crown land. 

We passed the * Dragon's Jaws * before daylight. The 
sun had just risen when we anchored off Port of Spain. 
We saw before us the usual long line of green hills with 
mountains behind them ; between the hills and the sea was 
a low, broad, alluvial plain, deposited by an arm of the 
Orinoco and by the other rivers which run into the gulf. 
The cocoa-nut palms thrive best on the water's edge. They 
stretched for miles on either side of us as a fringe to the 
shore. Where the water was shoal, there were vast swamps 
of mangrove, the lower branches covered with oysters. 

However depressed sugar might be, business could not 
be stagnant. Ships of all nations lay round us taking in or 



64 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

discharging cargo. I myself formed for the time being 

part of the cargo of my friend and host Mr. G , who had 

brought me to Trinidad, the accomplished son of a brilliant 
mother, himself a distinguished lawyer and member of the 
executive council of the island, a charming companion, an 
invaluable public servant, but with the temperament of 
a man of genius, half humorous, half melancholy, which 
does not find itself entirely at home in West Indian sur- 
roundings. 

On landing we found ourselves in a large foreign-looking 
town, * Port of Spain * having been built by French and 
Spaniards according to their national tendencies, and espe- 
cially with a view to the temperature, which is that of a 
forcing house and rarely falls below 80°. The streets are 
broad and are planted with trees for shade, each house where 
room permits having a garden of its own, with palms and 
mangoes and coffee plants and creepers. Of sanitary ar- 
rangements there seemed to be none. There is abundance 
of rain, and the gutters which run down by the footway 
are flushed almost every day. But they are all open. 
Dirt of every kind lies about freely, to be washed into them 
or left to putrefy as fate shall direct. The smell would not 
be pleasant without the help of that natural scavenger the 
Johnny crow, a black vulture who roosts on the trees and 
feeds in the middle of the streets. We passed a dozen of 
these unclean but useful birds in a fashionable thorough- 
fare gobbling up chicken entrails and refusing to be 
disturbed. When gorged they perch in rows upon the 
roofs. On the ground they are the nastiest to look at 
of all winged creatures ; yet on windy days they presume 
to soar like their kindred, and when far up might be taken 
for eagles. 

The town has between thirty and forty thousand 
people living in it, and the rain and Johnny crows between 
them keep off pestilence. Outside is a large savannah or 



A HOUSE IN THE TROPICS 65 

park, where the villas are of the successful men of business. 
One of these belonged to my host, a cool airy habitation 
with open doors and windows, overhanging portico, and 
rooms into which all the winds might enter, but not the 
sun. A garden in front was shut off from the savaiinah by 
a fence of bananas. At the gate stood as sentinel a cabbage 
palm a hundred feet high ; on the lawn mangoes, oranges, 
papaws, and bread-fruit trees, strange to look at, but 
luxuriantly shady. Before the door was a tree of good 
dimensions, whose name I have forgotten, the stem and 

branches of which were hung with orchids which G had 

collected in the woods. The borders were blazing with 
varieties of the single hibiscus, crimson, pink, and fawn 
colour, the largest that I had ever seen. The average 
diameter of each single flower was from seven to eight 
inches. Wind streamed freely through the long sitting 
room, loaded with the perfume of orange trees ; on table 
and in bookcase the hand and mind visible of a gifted and 
cultivated man. The particular room assigned to myself 
would have been equally delightful but that my possession 
of it was disputed even in daylight by mosquitoes, who for 
bloodthirsty ferocity had a bad pre-eminence over the worst 
that I had ever met with elsewhere. I killed one who was 
at work upon me, and examined him through a glass. 
Bewick, with the inspiration of genius, had drawn his exact 
likeness as the devil — a long black stroke for a body, a nick 
for a neck, horns on the head, and a beak for a mouth, 
spindle arms, and longer spindle legs, two pointed wings, and 
a tail. Line for line there the figure was before me which in 
the unforgetable tailpiece is driving the thief under the 
gallows, and I had a melancholy satisfaction in identifying 
him. I had been warned to be on the look-out for scorpions, 
centipedes, jiggers, and land crabs, who would bite me if I 
walked slipperless over the floor in the dark. Of these, I 
met with none, either there or anywhere ; but the mosquito 



66 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

of Trinidad is enough by himself. For malice, mockery, 
and venom of tooth and trumpet, he is without a match in 
the world. 

From mosquitoes, however, one could seek safety in 
tobacco smoke, or hide behind the lace curtains with which 
every bed is provided. Otherwise I found every provision 
to make life pass deliciously. To walk is difficult in a 
damp steamy temperature hotter during daylight than the 
hottest forcing house in Kew. I was warned not to exert 
myself and to take cocktail freely. In the evening I might 
venture out with the bats and take a drive if I wished in the 
twilight. Languidly charming as it all was, I could not help 
asking myself of what use such a possession could be either 
to England or to the English nation. We could not colonise 
it, could not cultivate it, could not draw a revenue from 
it. If it prospered commercially the prosperity would be of 
French and Spaniards, mulattoes and blacks, but scarcely, 
if at all, of my own countrymen. For here too, as elsewhere, 
they were growing fewer daily, and those who remained were 
looking forward to the day when they could be released. 
If it were not for the honour of the thing, as the Irish- 
man said after being carried in a sedan chair which had no 
bottom, we might have spared ourselves so unnecessary a 
conquest. 

Beautiful, however, it was beyond dispute. Before 
sunset a carriage took us round the savannah. Tropical 
human beings Hke tropical birds are fond of fine colours, 
especially black human beings, and the park was as 
brilliant as Kensington Gardens on a Sunday. At nightfall 
the scene became yet more wonderful ; air, grass, and trees 
being alight with fireflies each as brilliant as an English 
glowworm. The palm tree at our own gate stood like a 
ghostly sentinel clear against the starry sky, a single long 
dead frond hanging from below the coronet of leaves 
and clashing against the stem as it was blown to and fro 



POLITICS IN TRINIDAD 67 

by the night wind, while long-winged bats swept and 
whistled over our heads. 

The commonplace intrudes upon the imaginative. At 
moments one can fancy that the world is an enchanted place 
after all, but then comes generally an absurd awakening. 
On the first night of my arrival, before we went to bed there 
came an invitation to me to attend a political meeting which 
was to be held in a few days on the savannah. Trinidad is 
a purely Crown colony, and has escaped hitherto the intro- 
duction of the election virus. The newspapers and certain 
busy gentlemen in ' Port of Spain ' had discovered that they 
were living under * a degrading tyranny,' and they demanded 
a ' constitution.' They did not complain that their aflfairs 
had been ill managed. On the contrary, they insisted that 
they were the most prosperous of the West Indian colonies, 
and alone had a surplus in their treasury. If this was so, 
it seemed to me that they had better let well alone. The 
population, all told, was but 170,000, less by thirty thousand 
than that of Barbadoes. They were a mixed and motley 
assemblage of all races and colours, busy each with their 
own affairs, and never hitherto troubling themselves about 
politics. But it had pleased the Home Government to set up 
the beginning of a constitution again in Jamaica, no one 
knew why, but so it was, and Trinidad did not choose to be 
behindhand. The official appointments were valuable, and 
had been hitherto given away by the Crown. The local 
popularities very naturally wished to have them for them- 
selves. This was the reality in the thing so far as there was 
a reality. It was dressed up in the phrases borrowed from 
the great English masters of the art, about privileges of 
manhood, moral dignity, the elevating influence of the 
suffrage, &c., intended for home consumption among the 
believers in the orthodox Badical faith. 

For myself I could but reply to the gentlemen who 
had sent the invitation, that I was greatly obliged by the 

F 2 



68 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

compliment, but that I knew too little of their affairs to 
make my presence of any value to them. As they were 
doing so well, I did not see myself why they wanted an 
alteration. Political changes were generally little more than 
turns of a kaleidoscope ; you got a new pattern, but it was 
made of the same pieces, and things went on much as 
before. If they wanted political Uberty I did not doubt 
that they would get it if they were loud and persistent 
enough. Only they must understand that at home we were 
now a democracy. Any constitution which was granted 
them would be on the widest basis. The blacks and coolies 
outnumbered the Euro^^eans by four to one, and perhaps 
when they had what they asked for they might be less 
pleased than they expected. 

You rise early in the tropics. The first two hours of 
daylight are the best of the day. My friend drove me round 
the town in his buggy the next morning. My second duty was 
to pay my respects to the Governor, Sir William Eobinson, 
who had kindly offered me hospitality, and for which I must 
present myself to thank him. In Sir William I found one of 
those happy men whose constitution is superior to climate, 
who can do a long day's work in his office, play cricket or 
lawn tennis in the afternoon, and entertain his miscellaneous 
subjects in the evening with sumptuous hospitality — ^ 
vigorous, effective, perhaps ambitious gentleman, with a 
clear eye to the views of his employers at home on whom 
his promotion dei)endH —certain to make himself agreeable 
to them, likely to leave his mark to useful purpose on the 
colonies over which he presides or may preside hereafter. 
Here in Trinidad he was learning Spanish in addition to 
his other linguistic accomplishments, that he might show 
proper courtesies to Spanish residents and to visitors from 
South America. 

The * Residence' stands hi a fine situation, in large 
grounds of its own at the foot of the mountains. It has 



GOVERNMENT HOUSE AND GARDENS 69 

been lately built regardless of expense, for the colony is rich, 
and likes to do things handsomely. On the lawn, under the 
windows, stood a tree which was entirely new to me, an 
enormous ceiba or silk cotton tree, umbrella shaped, fifty 
yards in diameter, the huge and buttressed trunk throwing 
out branches so massive that one wondered how any woody 
fibre could bear the strain of their weight, the boughs 
twisting in and out till they made a roof over one's head, 
which was hung with every fantastic variety of parasites. 

Vast as the ceibas were which I saw afterwards in other 
parts of the West Indies, this was the largest. The ceiba 
is the sacred tree of the negro, the temple of Jumbi the 
proper home of Obeah. To cut one down is impious. No 
black in his right mind would wound even the bark. A 
Jamaica police officer told me that if a ceiba had to be 
removed, the men who used the axe were well dosed with 
rum to give them courage to defy the devil. 

From Government House we strolled into the adjoining 
Botanical Gardens. I had long heard of the wonders of 
these. The reality went beyond description. Plants with 
w^hich I was familiar as shrubs in English conservatories 
were here expanded into forest giants, with hundreds of 
others of which we cannot raise even Lilliputian imitations. 
Let man be what he will, nature in the tropics is always 
grand. Palms were growing in the greatest luxuriance, of 
every known species, from the cabbage towering up into the 
sky to the fan palm of the desert whose fronds are reservoirs 
of water. Of exogenous trees, the majority were leguminous 
in some shape or other, forming flowers like a pea or vetch 
and hanging their seed in pods ; yet in shape and foHage they 
distanced far the most splendid ornaments of an Enghsh 
park. They had Old World names with characters wholly 
different : cedars which were not conifers, almonds which 
were no relations to peaches, and gum trees as unlike 
eucalypti as one tree can be unlike another. Again, you 



70 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

saw forms which you seemed to recognise till some unex- 
pected anomaly startled you out of your mistake. A gigantic 
Portugal laurel, or what I took for such, was throwing out 
a flower direct from the stem like a cactus. Grandest 
among them all, and happily in full bloom, was the sacred 
tree of Burmah, the Amherstia nohilis, at a distance like a 
splendid horse-chestnut, with crimson blossoms in pendant 
bunches, each separate flower in the convolution of its 
parts exactly counterfeiting a large orchid, with which it 
has not the faintest affinity, the Amherstia being leguminous 
like the rest. 

Underneath, and dispersed among the imperial beauties, 
were spice trees, orange trees, coffee plants and cocoa, ot 
again, shrubs with special virtues or vices. We had to be 
careful what we were about, for fruits of fairest appearance 
were tempting us all round. My companion was preparing 
to eat something to encourage me to do the same. A 
gardener stopped him in time. It was nux vomica. I 
was straying along a less frequented path, conscious of a 
heavy vaporous odour, in which I might have fainted had 
I remained exposed to it. I was close to a manchineel 
tree. 

Prettiest and freshest were the nutmegs, which had a glen 
all to themselves and perfumed the surrounding air. In 
Trinidad and in Grenada I believe the nutmegs are the largest 
that are known, being from thirty to forty feet high ; leaves 
brilliant green, something like the leaves of an orange, but 
extremely delicate and thin, folded one over the other, the 
lowest branches sweeping to the ground till the whole tree 
forms a natural bower, which is proof against a tropical 
shower. The fragrance attracts moths and flies; not 
mosquitoes, who prefer a ranker atmosphere. I saw a pair 
of butterflies the match of which I do not remember even 
in any museum, dark blue shot with green like a peacock's 
neck, and the size of English bats. I asked a black boy to 



A REMARKABLE VINE 71 

catch me one. * That sort no let catchee, massa/ he said ; 
and I was penitently glad to hear it. 

Among the wonders of the gardens are the vines as they 
call them, that is, the creepers of various kinds that climb 
about the other trees. Standing in an open space there was 
what once had been a mighty * cedar.' It was now dead, 
only the trunk and dead branches remaining, and had been 
murdered by a ' fig ' vine which had started from the root, 
twined itself Hke a python round the stem, strangled out 
the natural life, and spreading out in all directions had 
covered boughs and twigs with a foliage not its own. So far 
the * vine ' had done no worse than ivy does at home, but there 
was one feature about it which puzzled me altogether. The 
lowest of the original branches of the cedar were about 
twenty feet above our heads. From these in four or five 
places the parasite had let fall shoots, perhaps an inch in 
diameter, which descended to within a foot of the ground and 
then suddenly, without touching that or anything, formed 
a bight like a rope, went straight up again, caught hold of 
the branch from which they started, and so hung suspended 
exactly as an ordinary swing. In three distinctly perfect 
instances the * vine ' had executed this singular evolution, 
while at the extremity of one of the longest and tallest 
branches high up in the air it had made a clean leap of 
fifteen feet without visible help and had caught hold of 
another tree adjoining on the same level. These perform- 
ances were so inexplicable that I conceived that they must 
have been a freak of the gardener's. I was mistaken. He 
said that at particular times in the year the fig vine threw 
out fine tendrils which hung downwards like strings. The 
strongest among them would lay hold of two or three others 
and climb up upon them, the rest would die and drop oflf, while 
the successful one, having found support for itself above, 
would remain swinging in the air and thicken and prosper. 
The leap he explained by the wind. I retained a suspicion 



72 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

that the wind had been assisted by some aspiring energy in 
the plant itself, so bold it was and so ambitious. 

But the wonders of the garden were thrown into the shade 
by the cottage at the extreme angle of it (the old Govern- 
ment House before the present fabric had been erected), 
where Kingsley had been the guest of Sir Arthur Gordon. 
It is a long straggling wooden building with deep verandahs 
lying in a hollow overshadowed by trees, with views opening 
out into the savannah through arches formed by clumps of 
tall bamboos, the canes growing thick in circular masses 
and shooting up a hundred feet into the air, where they 
meet and form frames for the landscape, pecuUar and even 
picturesque when there are not too many of them. These 
bamboos were Kingsley's special deUght, as he had never 
seen the like of them elsewhere. The room in which he 
wrote is still shown, and the gallery where he walked up and 
down with his long pipe. His memory is cherished in the 
island as of some singular and beautiful presence which still 
hovers about the scenes which so deUghted him in the closing 
evening of his own life. 

It was the dry season, midwinter, yet raining every day 
for two or three hours, and when it rains in these countries 
it means business. 'V\Tien the sky cleared the sun was 
intolerably hot, and distant expeditions under such condi- 
tions suited neither my age nor my health. With cocktail 
I might have ventured, but to cocktail I could never 
heartily reconcile myself. Trinidad has one wonder in it, 
a lake of bitumen some ninety acres in extent, which all 
travellers are expected to visit, and which few residents 
care to visit. A black lake is not so beautiful as an ordi- 
nary lake. I had no doubt that it existed, for the testimony 
was unimpeachable. Indeed I was shown an actual spe- 
cimen of the crystalKsed pitch itself. I could believe with- 
out seeing and without undertaking a tedious journey. I 
rather sympathised with a noble lord who came to Port of 



NEGROES AND COOLIES 73 

Spain in his yacht, and like myself had the lake impressed 
upon him. As a middle course between going thither and 
appearing to sUght his friends* recommendations, he said 
that he would send his steward. 

In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire 
was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what they were 
doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking 
about, and this could best be done by drives about the 
town and neighbourhood. The cultivated land is a mere 
fringe round the edges of the forest. Three-fourths of the 
soil are untouched. The rivers running out of the 
mountains have carved out the usual, long deep valleys, 
and spread the bottoms with rich alluvial soil. Here 
among the wooded slopes are the country houses of the 
merchants. Here are the cabins of the black peasantry 
with their cocoa and cofifee and orange plantations, which 
as in Grenada they hold largely as freeholds, reproduc- ] 
ing as near as possible the Ufe \^ Paradise of our first ^ 
parents, without the consciousness of a want which they ^ 
are unable to gratify, not compelled to work, for the earth 
of her own self bears for them all that they need, and 
ignorant that there is any difference between moral good ' 
and evil. 

Large sugar estates, of course, there still are, and as the 
owners have not succeeded in bringing the negroes to work 
regularly for them,* they have introduced a few thousand 
coohes under indentures for five years. These Asiatic im- 
portations are very happy in Trinidad ; they save money, and 
many of them do not return home when their time is out, but 
stay where they are, buy land, or go into trade. They are 
proud, however, and will not intermarry with the Africans. 
Few bring their families with them ; and women being 

* The negroes in the interior are beginning to cultivate sugar cane in 
small patches, with common mills to break it up. If the experiment suo- 
<oeeds it may extend. 



74 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

rj scanty among them, there arise inconveniences and some* 
V times serious crimes. 

It were to be wished that there was more prospect of 

the race becoming permanent than I fear there is. They y 

/work excellently. They are picturesqu^ additions to the) 

s landscape, as they keep to the bright colours and graceful - 

^A*^' / drap ery o f India. The grave dignity of their faces con- . 



trasts remarkably with the broad, good-humoured, but 
common features of the African. The black women look 
with envy at the straight hair of Asia, and twist their un- 
happy wool into knots and ropes in the vain hope of being \ 
mistaken for the j)urer race ; but this is all. The African' 
an^ the Asiatic will not mix, and the African being the 
stronger will and must prevail in Trinidad as elsewhere in 
the West Indies. Out of a total population of 170,000, 
there are 25,000 whites and mulattoes, 10,000 coolies, the 
rest negroes. The English part of the Europeans shows no 
tendency to increase. The English come as birds of 
passage, and depart when they have made their fortunes. 
The French and Spaniards may hold on to Trinidad as a 
home. Our people do not make homes there, and must be 
looked on as a transient element. 



• .A* 




^' 



A COOLIE VILLAGE 75 



CHAPTER Vn. 

A coolie village — Negro freeholds — Waterworks — Pythons — Slavery— 
Evidence of Lord Bodney — Future of the negroes— Necessity of English 
role — The Blue Basin— Black boy and crayfish. 

The second morning after my arrival, my host took me to 
a coolie village three miles beyond the town. The drive 
was between spreading cane fields, beneath the shade of 
bamboos, or under rows of cocoa-nut palms, between the 
stems of which the sun was gleaming. 

Human dwelling places are rarely interesting in the 
tropics. A roof which will keep the rain out is all that is 
needed. The more free the passage given to the air under 
the floor and through the side, the more healthy the habi- 
tation ; and the houses, when we came among them, seemed 
merely enlarged packing cases loosely nailed together and 
raised on stones a foot or two from the ground. The rest 
of the scene was picturesque enough. The Indian jewellers 
were sitting cross-legged before their charcoal pans, making 
silver bracelets and earrings. Brilliant garments, crimson 
and blue and orange, were hanging to dry on clothes lines. 
Men were going out to their work, women cooking, children 
(not many) playing or munching sugar cane, while great 
mango trees and ceibas spread a cool green roof over all. \ 
Like Rachel, the coolies had brought their gods to their new 
home. In the centre of the village was a Hindoo temple, 
made up rudely out of boards with a verandah running round 
it. The doors were locked. An old man who had charge 
told us we could not enter ; a crowd, suspicious and sullen, 
gathered about us as we tried to prevail upon him. So we 



76 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

had to content ourselves with the outside, which was gaudily 
and not unskilfully painted in Indian fashion. There were 
gods and goddesses in various attitudes ; Vishnu fighting 
with the monkey god, Vishnu with cutlass and shield, the 
monkey with his tail round one tree while he brandished two 
others, one in each hand, as clubs. I suppose that we smiled, 
for our curiosity was resented, and we found it prudent to 
withdraw. 
/ \5i^6 coolies are useful creatures. Without them sugar j 
cultivation in Trinidad and Demerara would cease alto-'^i^V 
gether. They are useful and they are singularly ornamental.' 
Unfortunately they have not the best character with the 
police. There is little crime among the negroes, who 
quarrel furiously but with their tongues only. The cooUes ; 
have the fiercer passions of their Eastern blood. Their * 
women being few are tempted occasionally into infideUties, 
and would be tempted more often but that a lapse in virtue 
is so fearfully avenged. A coolie regards his wife as his 
property, and if she is unfaithful to him he kills her with- 
out the least hesitation. One of the judges told me that he 
had tried a case of this kind, and could not make the man 
understand that he had done anything wrong. It is a pity « 
that a closer intermixture between them and the negroes ^ 
seems so hopeless, for it would solve many difficulties. 
There is no jealousy. The negro does not regard the coolie 
as a competitor and interloper who has come to lower his 
wages. The coolie comes to work. The negro does not 
want to work, and both are satisfied. But if there is no 
jealousy there is no friendship. The two races are more 
absolutely apart than the white and the black. The Asiatic 
insists the more on his superiority in the fear perhaps that 
if he did not the white might forget it. 

Among the sights in the neighbourhood of Port of Spain 
are the waterworks, extensive basins and reservoirs a few 
miles oflf in the hills. We chose a cool afternoon, 'when the 



)- 



\r'*^ 



<y 



NEGRO FREEHOLDS 77 

temperature in the shade was not above 86**, and went to 
look at them. It was my first sight of the interior of the 
island, and my first distinct acquaintance with the change 
which had come over the West Indies. Trinidad is not 
one of our oldest possessions, but we had held it long enough 
for the old planter civilisation to take root and grow, and 
our road led us through jungles of flowering shrubs which 
were running wild over what had been once cultivated estates. 
Stranger still (for one associates colonial hfe instinctively 
with what is new and modern), we came at one place on an 
avenue of vast trees, at the end of which stood the ruins of 
a mansion of some great man of the departed order. Great 
man he must have been, for there was a gateway half 
crumbled away on which were his crest and shield in stone, 
with supporters on either side, like the Baron of Bradwar- 
dine's Bears ; fallen now Uke them, but unlike them never, 
I fear, to be set up again. The Anglo- West Indians, like the 
English gentry in Ireland, were a fine race of men in their 
day, and perhaps the improving them oflf the earth has 
been a less beneficial process in either case than we are in 
the habit of supposing. _ 

Entering among the hills we came on their successors. 
In Trinidad there are 18,000 freeholders, most of them- 
negroes and representatives of the old slaves. Their cabins 
are spread along the road on either side, overhung with bread- 
fruit trees, tamarinds, calabash trees, out of which they make 
their cups and water jugs ; the luscious granadilla chmbs 
among the branches ; plantains throw their cool shade over 
the doors ; oranges and limes and citrons perfume the air, 
and droop their boughs under the weight of their golden 
burdens. There were yams in the gardens and cows in the 
p^docks, and cocoa bushes loaded with purple or yellow 
pods. Children played about in swarms, in happy idleness 
and abundance, with schools, too, at intervals, and an occa- 
sional Catholic chapel, for the old rehgion prevails in 



78 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

I Trinidad, never having been disturbed. What form could 
human life assume more charming than that which we were 
now looking on ? Once more, the earth does not contain 
any peasantry so well off, so well cared for, so happy, so 
sleek and contented as the sons and daughters of the eman- 
cipated slaves in the English West Indian Islands. Sugar 
may fail the planter, but cocoa, which each peasant can 
grow with small effort for himself, does not fail and will 
not. He may * better his condition,' if he has any such 
ambition, without stirring beyond his own ground, and so 
far, perhaps, his ambition may extend, if it is not turned oflf 
upon politics. Even the necessary evils of the tropics are 
not many or serious. His skin is proof against mosquitoes. >/ 
There are snakes in Trinidad as thefe^were snakes in Eden. 
' Plenty snakes,* said one of them who was at work in his 
garden, ' plenty snakes, but no bitee.* As to costume, he 
would prefer the costume of innocence if he was allowed. >/ 
Clothes in such a climate are superfluous for warmth, and to 
the minds of the negroes, unconscious as they are of shame, 
superfluous for decency. European prejudice, however, still 
passes for something ; the women have a love for finery, 
which would prevent a complete return to African simpU- ^ 
city ; and in the islands which are still French, and in those 
like Trinidad, which the French originally colonised, they 
dress themselves with real taste. They hide their wool in 
red or yellow handkerchiefs, gracefully twisted ; or perhaps 
it is not only to conceal the wool. Columbus found the 
Carib women of the island dressing their hair in the same 
fashion.* 

The waterworks, when we reached them, were even more 
beautiful than we had been taught to expect. A dam has 
been driven across a perfectly limpid mountain stream ; a 
wide open area has been cleared, levelled, strengthened with 

* Traen las oabezas atadas con unos panuelos labrados hermosos que 
pareoen de lejos de seda 7 almazarrones. 



THE WATERWORKS OF PORT OF SPAIN 



79 



masonry, and divided into deep basinB or reservoiis, through 
which the current continually flowa. Hedges of hihiseae 
shine with crimBon blossoms. Innumerable bumming 
birds glance to and fro among the trees and shrubs, and 
gardens and ponds are overhung by magnificent bamboos, 
which 80 astonished me by their size that I inquired if 
their height had been measured. One of them, I was told, 
had lately fallen, and was found to be 130 feet long A single 
drawback only there was to this enchantmg spot, and it 
was again the snakes. There are huge pythons in Trinidad 
which are supposed to have crossed the straits from the 
continent. The cool water pools attract them, and they are 
seen occasionally coiled among the branches of the bamboos. 
Some washerwomen at work in the stream had been dis- 
turbed a few days before our visit by one of these monsters, 
who had come down to see what they were about. They 
are harmless, but trying to the nerves. One of the men 
about the place shot this one. and he told me that lie had 
shot another a short time before asleep in a tree. The 
keeper of the works was a retired soldier, an Irish-Scot from 
Limerick, hale, vigorous, and happy as the blacks them- 
selves. He had married one of them — a remarkable exception 
to an almost universal rule. He did not introduce us, but 
the dark lady passed by us in gorgeous costume, just noticing 
our presence with a sweep which would have done credit to 
a duchess. 

We made several similar small expeditions into the 
settled parts of the neighbourhood, seeing always (what- 
ever else we saw) the boundless happiness of the black race. 
Under the rule of England in these islands the two milUon 
of these poor brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly 
contented specimens of the human race to be found upon 
the planet. Even Schopenhauer, could he have known them, 
would have admitted that there were some of us who were 
not hopelessly wretched. If happiness be the satisfaction 



8o THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

of every conscious desire, theirs is a condition which 

admits of no improvement : were they independent, they 

might quarrel among themselves, and the weaker become 

the bondmen of the stronger ; under the beneficent despotism 

of the EngHsh Government, which knows no difference of 

colour and permits no oppression, they can sleep, lounge, 

and laugh away their lives as they please, fearing no danger. 

If they want money, work and wages are waiting for them. 

I No one can say what may be before them hereafter. The ^ 

"1^ powers which envy human beings too perfect felicity/ 

A may find ways one day of disturbing the West Indian 

^v "^ ' ^ negro ; but so long as the English rule continues, he may 

ibe assured of the same tranquil existence. ^ 



i 



s^ 



As life goes he has been a lucky jm^tal. He was taken "^ 



, C AS uie goes ne nas oeen a mcKyjau^iai. ne was laKen ^ 
/ away from Dahomey and Ashantee — to be a slave indeed, ( 
>f< / but a slave to a less cruel master than he would have found ( ^ 
I at home. He had a bad time of it occasionally, and the ) 
^ plantation whip and the branding irons are not all dreams, 
yet his owner cared for him at least as much as he cared 
for his cows andhis Jhorses. Kind usage to animals is 
more economical than barbarity, and Englishmen in the 
West Indies were rarely inhuman. Lord Eodney says: 
* I have been often in all the West India Islands, and I have 
often made my observations on the treatment of the negro 
slaves, and can aver that I never knew the least cruelty in- 
flicted on them, but that in general they lived better than 
the honest day-labouring man in England, without doing a 
fourth part of his work in a day, and I am fully convinced 
that the negroes in our islands are better provided for and 
live better than when in Guinea.' Rodney, it is true, was 
a man of facts and was defective in sentiment. Let us 
suppose him wrong, let us believe the worst horrors of the 
slave trade or slave usage as fluent tongue of missionary 
or demagogue has described them, yet nevertheless, when 
we consider what the lot of common humanity has been 




ENGLISH RULE AND THE NEGROES 



and is, we shall be dishonest if we deny that the balance 
has been more than redressed ; and the negroes who were 
taken away out of Africa, as compared with those who were 
left at home, were as the 'elect to salvation,' who after a Jt 
W brief purgatory are secured an eternity of blessedness. \/ j-W 

(The one condition is the maintenance of the authority of I . jn 
the EngUsh crown. The whites of the islands cannot p^. 'i^ 

I equitably rule them. They have not shaken off the old 

i traditions. If, for the sake of theory or to shirk responsi- 
/bility, we force them to govern themselves, the state oft),. 
Hayti stands as a ghastly example of the condition into ) 
(which they will then inevitably fall. If we persist, we'l 
shall be sinning ]againat light — the clearest light that was 
ever given in such affairs. The most hardened beUever in 
the regenerating effects of political liberty cannot be com- 
pletely blind to the ruin which the infliction of it would 
necessarily bring upon the race for whose interests they *' 
pretend particularly to care. 

The Pitch Lake I resisted all exhortations to visit, but 
the days m the forest were delightful — pre-eminently a 
day which we spent at the ' Blue Eaain,' a pool scooped out 
in the course of ages by a river falling through a mountain 
gorge ; blue, not from any colour in the water, which is 
purely transparent, but from a peculiar effect of sky reflec- 
tion through an opening in the overhanging trees. As it 
was far off, we had to start early and encounter the noon- 
day heat. We had to close the curtains of the cax-riage to 
(escape the sun, and in losing the sun we shut out the wind. 
All was well, however, when we turned into the hills. 
Thenceforward the road followed the bottom of a densely 
wooded ravine ; impenetrable foliage spreading over our 
heads, and a limpid river flashing along in which our horses 
cooled their feet and lips as we crossed it again and again. 
There were the usual cabins and gardens on either side of 
QB, sometimes single, sometimes clastering into villages. 



^^^ ns. 



«2 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

and high above them the rocks stood out, broken into pre- 
cipices or jutting out into projecting crags, with huge trees 
starting from the crevices, dead trunks with branching arms 
clothed scantily with creepers, or living giants with blue or 
orange-coloured flowers. Mangoes scented the valley with 
their blossom. Bananas waved their long broad leaves — 
some flat and unbroken as we know them in conservatories, 
some split into palm-like fronds which quivered in the 
breeze. The cocoa pods were ripe or ripening, those which 
had been gathered being left on the ground in heaps as we 
see apples in autumn in an English orchard. 

We passed a lady on the way who was making sketches 
and daring the mosquitoes, that were feeding at leisure 
upon her face and arms. The road &iled us at last. We 
alighted with our waterproofs and limcheon basket. A 
couple of half-naked boys sprang forward to act as guides 
and porters — nice little fellows, speaking a French patois 
for their natural language, but with English enough to 
eaorti. shillings and amuse the British tourist. With their 
b^lp we scrambled along a steep slippery path, the river 
roaring below, till we came to a spot where, the rock being 
Qoft, a waterfall had cut out in the course of ages a natural 
hollow, of which the trees formed the roof, and of which 
the floor was the pool we had come in search of. The fall 
itself was perpendicular, and fifty or sixty feet high, the 
water issuing at the top out of a dark green tunnel among 
overhanging branches. The sides of the basin were draped 
with the fronds of gigantic ferns and wild plantains, all in 
wild luxuriance and drippiug with the spray. In clefts 
above the rocks, large cedars or gum trees had struck their 
roots and flung out their gnarled and twisted branches, 
which were hung with fern ; while at the lower end of the 
pool, where the river left it again, there grew out from 
among the rocks near the water's edge tall and exquisitely 
grouped acacias with crimson flowers for leaves. 



THE BLUE BASIS %i 

The place broke on ii> saddenlv as ^e scrambled ronnd 
a comer from below. Three vounor blacks were bathing in 
the po(d, and as we had a ladv with as. they were induced, 
thoogh snUenlv and with some diSculty. to return into their 
scanty gannents and depart. Never certainly was there a 
more inTiting spot to swim in, the more so from exciting 
possibilities of adventore. An English gentleman went to 
bathe there shortly before our coming. He was on a rock, 
swaying his body for a plunge, when something caught his 
eye among the shadows at the bottom. It proved to be a 
large dead python. 

We had not the luck ourselves of falling in with so in- 
teresting a beast. Great butterflies and perhaps a hum- 
ming bird or two were flitting among the leaves as we came 
up ; other signs of life there were none, unless we call life 
the motion of the plantain leaves, waving in the draughts 
of air which were eddying round the waterfall. We sat 
down on stones, or on the trunk of a fallen tree, the 
mosquitoes mercifully sparing us. We sketched a little, 
talked a little, ate otu* sandwiches, and the male part of us 

lighted oiur cigars. G then, to my surprise, produced a 

fly rod. In the streams in the Antilles, which run out of 
the mountains, there is a fisli in great abundance which 
they call mnlUt^ an inferior trout, but a good substitute 
where the real thing is not. He runs sometimes to five 
pounds weight, wiU take the fly, and is much sought after 
by those who trj* to preserve in the tropics the amusements 

and habits of home. G had caught many of them in 

Dominica. If in Dominica, whv not in Trinidad ? 

He put his tackle together, tied up a east of trout flies, 
and commenced work. He tried the still water at the 
lower end of the basin. He crept round the rock and 
dropped his line into the foam at the foot of the fall. No 
mullet rose, nor fish of any kind. One of our small boys 
had looked on with evident impatience. He cried out at 

o 2 



84 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

last, ' No mullet, but plenty crayfish,' pointing down into the 
water ; and there, following the direction of his finger, we 
beheld strange grey creatures, like cuttle-fish moving about 
on the points of their toes, the size of small lobsters. The 
flies were dismounted, a bare hook was fitted on a fine gut 
trace, with a spUt shot or two to sink the line, all trim and 
excellent. A fresh-water shrimp was caught imder a stone 

for a bait. G went to work, and the strange things 

took hold and let themselves be lifted halfway to the sur- 
face. But then, somehow, they let go and disappeared. 

Our small boy said nothing ; but I saw a scornful smile 
upon his lips. He picked up a thin dry cane, found some 
twine in the luncheon basket which had tied up our sand- 
wiches, found a pin there also, and bent it, and put a 
shrimp on it. With a pebble stone for a sinker he started 
in competition, and in a minute he had brought out upon 
the rock the strangest thing in the shape of a fish which 
I had ever seen in fresh water or salt. It was a true 
* crayfish,' ecrevisse, eight inches long, formed regularly 
with the thick powerful tail, the sharp serrated snout, 
the long antennae, and the spider-like legs of the lobster 
tribe. As in a crayfish, the claws were represented by 
the correctly shaped but diminutive substitutes. 

When we had done wondering at the prize, we could 
admire the smile of conscious superiority in the face of the 
captor. The fine tackle had been beaten, as usual, by the 
proverbial string and crooked pin, backed by knowledge in 
the head of a small nigger boy. 



HOME RULE IN TRINIDAD 85 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Home Bule in Trinidad — Politioal aspirations — Nature of the problem — 
Crown administration — Colonial governors — A Russian apologue — Dinner 
at Government House — * The Three Fishers *— Charles Warner — Alter- 
native futures of the colony. 

Thb political demonstration to which I had been invited 
came off the next day on the savannah. The scene was 
pretty enough. Black coats and white trousers, bright- 
coloured dresses and pink parasols, look the same at a 
distance whether the wearer has a black face or a white 
one, and the broad meadow was covered over with sparkling 
groups. Several thousand persons must have attended, not 
all to hear the oratory, for the occasion had been taken when 
the Governor was to play close by in a cricket match, and 
half the crowd had probably collected to see His Excellency 
at the wicket. Placards had been posted about the town, 
setting out the purpose of the meeting. Trinidad, as I 
said, is at present a Crown colony, the executive council and 
the legislature being equally nominated by the authorities. 
The popular orators, the newspaper writers, and some of 
the leading merchants in Port of Spain had discovered, as 
I said, that they were living under what they called *a 
degrading tyranny.' They had no grievances, or none that 
they alleged, beyond the general one that they had no 
control over the finance. They very naturally desired that 
the lucrative Government appointments for which the colony 
paid should be distributed among themselves. The elective 
principle had been reintroduced in Jamaica, evidently as a 
step towards the restoration of the fall constitution which 



I 



86 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

had been surrendered and suppressed after the Gordon 
riots. Trinidad was almost as large as Jamaica, in pro- 
portion to the popnlation wealthier and more proBperous, 
and the people were invited to come together m over- 
whelming numbers to insist that the ' tyranny ' should end. 
The Home Government In their action about Jamaica had 
shown a spontaneous readiness to transfer responsibility 
from themselves to the inhabitants. The promoters of the 
meeting at Port of Spain may have thought that a little 
pressure on their part might not be unwelcome as an 
excuse for further concessions of the same kind. Whether 
this was so I do not know. At any rate they showed that 
they were as yet novices in the art of agitation. The 
language of the placard of invitation was so violent that, 
in the opinion of the legal authorities, the printer might 
have been indicted for high treason. The speakers did 
their best to imitate the fine phrases of the apostles of 
liberty in Europe, but they succeeded only in caricaturing 
their absurdities. The proceedings were described at length 
in the rival newspapers. One gentleman's speech was said 
to have been so brilliant that every sentence was a ' gem of 
oratory,' the gem of gems being when he told his hearers 
that, ' if they went into the thing at all, they should go 
the entire animal.' All went off good-humouredly. In 
the Liberal journal the event of the day was spoken of as 
the moat magnificent demonstration in favour of human 
freedom which bad ever been seen in the West Indian 
Islands. In the Conser^'ative journal it was called a ridi- 
culous fiasco, and the people were said to have come 
together only to admire the Governor's batting, and to 
laugh at the nonsense which was coming from the platform. 
Finally, the same journal assured us that, beyond a hand- 
ful of people who were interested in getting hold of the 
anticipated spoils of office, no one in the island cared about 
the matter. 



3 



COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 87 

The result, I believe, waa some petition or other which 
would go home and pass as evidence, to miuds eager to 
believe, that Irinidad was rapidly ripening for responsible 
government, promising relief to an overburdened Secretary 
for the Colonies, who has more to do than he can attend to, 
and is pleased with opportunities of gratifying popular 
sentiment, or of showing oH' in Parliament the development 
of colonial institutions. He knows nothing, can know no- 
thing, of the special conditionB of our hundred dependen- 
cies. He accepts what his representatives in the several 
colonies choose to tell him ; and his representatives, being 
birds of passage responsible only to their employers at 
home, and depending for their promotion on making them- 
selves agreeable, are under irresistible temptations to report 
what it will please the Secretary of State to hear. 

For the Secretary of State, too, is a bird of passage as 
they are, passing through the Colonial Office on his way to 
other departments, or holding the seals as part of an ad- 
ministration whose tenure of office grows every year more 
precarious, which exists only upon popular sentiment, and 
cannot, and does not, try to look forward beyond at furthest 
the next session of Parliament. 

But why, it may be aaked, should not Trinidad govern 
itself as well as Tasmania or New Zealand ? Why not 
Jamaica, why not all the West Indian Islands ? I will an- 
I Bwer by another question. Do we wish these islands to 
remain as part of the British Empire? Are they of any J 
use to us, or have we ij;esponBibiUtie6 connected with them 
of which we are not entitledto Tlri-est ourselves ? A govern- 
ment elected by the majority of the people (and no one 
would think of setting up constitutions on any other 
basis) reflects from the nature of things the character of 
the electors. All these islands tend to become partitioned 
into black peasant proprietaries. In Grenada the process 
ia almost complete. In Trinidad it is rapidly advancing. 







THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

No one can stop it. No one ought to wish to stop it. But 
the ownership of freeholds is one thing, and political power 
is another. The blacks depend for the progress which they \ 
may be capable of making on the presence of a white com- 1 
munity among them ; and although it is undesirable or / 
impossible for the blacks to be ruled by the minority of the 
white residents, it is equally undesirable and equally im- 1 
possible that the whites should he ruled by them. The 
relative numbers of the two races being what they are, 
responsible government in Truiidad means government by 
a black parliament and a black ministry. The negro voters 
might elect, to begin with, their half-caste attorneys or 
Bueh wliites (the most disreputable of their colour) as would 
court their suffrages. But the black does not love the 
mulatto, and despises the white man who consents to be 
"his servant. He has no grievances. He is not naturally a 
politician, and if left alone with his own patch of land, will 
never trouble himself to look further. But he knows what 
^as happened ui St. Domingo. He has heard that his race 
is already in full possession of the finest of all the islands. 
If he has any thought or any hopes about the matter, it is 
that it may be with the rest of them as it has been with St. 
Domingo, and if you force the power into his hands, you 
must expect him to use it. Under the constitution which 
you would set up, whites and blacks may be nominally 
equal ; but from the enormous preponderance of numbers 
the equality would lie only in name, and such English 
people, at least, as woiJd be really of any value, would re- 
fuse to remain in a false and intolerable i)08ition. Already 
the English population of Trinidad is dwindling away 
under the uncertainties of their future position. Complete 
the work, set up a constitution with a black prime minister 
and a black legislature, and they will withdraw of them- 
selves before they are compelled to go. Spaniards and 
French might be tempted by advantages of trade to remain 




COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 89 

in Port of Spain, as a few are still to be found in Hayti. 
They, it \% possible, might in time recover and reassert 
their eupremacj. Englishmen have the world open to 
them, and will prefer lands where they can live under less 
degrading conditions. In Hayti the black republic allows 
no white man to hold land in freehold. The blacks else- 
where with the same opportunities will develop the same 
aspirations. 

Do we, or do we not, intend to retain our West Indian 
Islands under the sovereignty of the Queen ? If we are 
willing to let them go, the question is settled. But we 
ought to face the alternative. There is but one form of 
government under which we can retain these colonies with 
honour and security to oiuselves and with advantage to 
the negroes whom we have placed there— the mode of 
government which succeeds with us so admirably that it is 
the world's wonder in the Kasi Indies, a success so unique 
and so extraordinary that it seems the last &om which we 
are willing to take example. 

In Natal, where the circumstances are analogous, and 
where report says that efforts are being also made to force 
on constitutional independence, I remember suggesting a 
few years ago that the governor should be allowed to 
form his own council, and that in selecting the members 
of it he should go round the colony, observe the farms 
where the land was wull inclosed, the helds clean, the 
farm buildings substantial and in good repair ; that he 
should call on the owners of these to be his advisers and 
assistants. In all Natal be might find a dozen such. 
They would be unwilling to leave their own business for bo 
thankless a piu^ose ; but they might be induced by good 
feeling to grant him a few weeks of their time. Under 
such an administration I imagine Natal would have a 
happier future before it than it will experience with the 
boon which is designed for it. 



90 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

In the West Indies there is mdefinite wealth waiting 
to be developed by intelligence and capital ; and men 
with such resources, both English and American, might 
be tempted still to settle there, and lead the blacks along 
with them into more settled manners and higher forms of 
I civilisation. But the future of the blacks, and oiir own 
I influence over them for good, depend on then- being pro- 
I tected from themselves and from the schemers who would 
take advantage of them. However little may be the share 
to which the mass of a population be admitted in the 
government of their country, they are never found hard to 
manage where they prosper and are justly dealt with. The 
children of darkness are even easier of control than the 
children of Ught. Under an administration formed on the 
model of that of our Eastern Empire these islands would bei 
peopled in a generation or two with dusky citizens, as proud 
as the rest of us of the flag under which they will have \ 
thriven, and as willing to defend it against any invading 
enemy as they are now unquestionably indifferent. Partially 
elected councils, local elected boards, &c., serve only as con- 
trivances to foster discontent and encourage jobbery. They 
open a rift which time will widen, and which will create for 
UB, on a smaller scale, the conditions which have so troubled 
us in Ireland, where each concession of popular demands 
makes the maintenance of the connection more difficult. 
In the Pacific colonies self-government is a natural right ; 
the colonists are part of ourselves, and have as complete a 
claim to the management of their own affairs as we have to 
the management of ours. The less we interfere with them 
the more heartily they identify themselves with us. But if 
we choose besides to indulge our ambition with an empire, 
if we determine to keep attached to our dominion countries 
which, like the East Indies, have been conquered by the 
Bword, countries, like the West Indies, which, however 
acquired, are occupied by races enormously outnumbering 




i 



ENGLANUS DUTY 91 

OB, many of whom do not speak our language, are not con- 
nected with ua by Bentiment, and not visibly connected by 
interest, with whom our own people will not intermarry or 
hold social intercouree, but keep aloof from, as superior from 
inferior — to impose on siich coimtries forms of self-govern- 
ment at which we have ourselves but lately arrived, to 
put it in the power of these overwhelming numbers to shake 
us off if they please, and to assume that when our real 
motive has been only to save ourselves trouble they will 
be warmed into active loyalty by gratitude for the confi- 
dence which we pretend to place in them, is to try an 
experiment which we have not the slightest right to expect 
to be successful, and which if it fails is fatal. ^ 

(Once more, if wo mean to keep the blacks as British 
subjects, we are bound to govern them, and to govern them 
well. If we cannot do it, we had better let them go alto- ' 
gether. And here is the real difficulty. It is not that men 
competent for such a task cannot be found. Among the 
public servants of Great Britain there are persons always 
to be found fit and wilhng for posts of honour and difficulty 
if a sincere effort be made to find them. Alas ! in times past 
we have sent persons to rule our Baratarias to whom 
Ssncho Panza was a sage — troublesome members of Parlia- 
ment, younger brothers of powerful famiUes, impecunious 
peers ; favourites, with backstairs influence, for whom a 
provision was to be found ; colonial clerks, bred in the 
office, who had been obsequious and useful. 

One had hoped that in the new zeal for the colonial 
connection such appointments would have become impossible 
for the future, yet a recent incident at the Mauritius has 
l)roved that the colonial authorities are still unregenerate. 
The unfit are still maintained in their places ; and then, 
to prevent the colonies from suffering too severely under 
their incapacity, we set up the local councils, nominated 
or elected, to do the work, while the Queen's representative 




92 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

enjoys his salary. Instances of glaring impropriety like 
that to which I have alluded are of course rare, and among 
colonial governors there are men of quality so high that we 
would desire only to see their power equal to it. But bo 
hmited is the patronage, on the other hand, which remains 
to the home administration, and so heavy the pressure 
brought to bear upon them, that there are persons alao 
in these situations of whom it may be said that the less 
they do, and the lesfi they are enabled to do, the better 
for the colony over which they preside. 

The West Indies have been sufferers from another cause. 
In the absence of other use for them they have been made 
to serve as places where governors try their 'prentice hand 
and learn their business before promotion to more important 
situations. Whether a man has done well or done ill makes, 
it seems, very little difference unless he has offended pre- 
judices or interests at home : once in the service he acquires 
a vested right to continue in it. A governor who had been 
suspended for conduct which is not denied to have been 
most improper, is replaced with the explanation that if he 
was not sent back to his old post it would have been neces- 
sary to provide a situation tor him elsewhere. Why would 
it ? Has a captain of a man-of-war whose ship is taken 
from him for misconduct an immediate claim to have 
another ? Unfortunate colonies ! It is not their interest 
which is considered under this system. But the subject is 
so delicate that I must say no more about it. I will re- 
commend only to the attention of the British democracy, 
who are now the parties that in the last instance are 
responsible, because they are the real masters of the Em- 
pire, the following apologue. 

In the time of the Emperor Nicholas the censors of the 
press seized a volume which had been published by the 
poet Kriloff, on the ground that it contained treasonable 
matter. Nicholas sent for Kriloff. The censor produced 



COLONIAL GOVERNORS 93 

the incriminated passage, and Kriloff was made to read it 
aloud. It was a fable. A governor of a Russian province 
was represented as arriving in the other world, and as being 
brought up before Bhadamanthus. He was accused, not of 
any crime, but of having been simply a nonentity — of 
having received his salary and spent it, and nothing more. 
Bhadamanthus listened, and when the accusing angel had 
done sentenced the prisoner into Paradise. * Into Para- 
dise ! ' said the angel, * why, he has done nothing ! ' ' True,* 
said Bhadamanthus, ' but how would it have been if he had 
done anything ? ' 

* Write away, old fellow,' said Nicholas to Kriloff. 

Has it never happened that British colonial officials who 
have similarly done nothing have been sent into the Para- 
dise of promotion because they have kept things smooth 
and have given no trouble to their employers at home ? 

In the evening of the day of the political meeting we 
dined at Government House. There was a large represen- 
tative party, English, French, Spaniards, Corsicans — ^ladies 
and gentlemen each speaking his or her own language. 
There were the mayors of the two chief towns of Trinidad 
— Port of Spain and San Fernando — both enthusiastic for a 
constitution. The latter was my neighbour at dinner, and 
insisted much on the fine qualities of the leading persons 
in the island and the splendid things to be expected when 
responsible government should be conceded. The training 
squadron had arrived from Barbadoes, and the commodore 
and two or three officers were present in their uniforms* 
There was interesting talk about Trinidad's troublesome 
neighbour, Guzman Blanco, the President of Venezuela. It 
seems that Sir Walter Baleigh's Eldorado has turned out 
to be a fact after all. On the higher waters of the Orinoko 
actual gold mines do exist, and the discovery has quickened 
into life a long unsettled dispute about boundaries between 
British Guiana and the republic. Don Guzman has been 





THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

encroaching, 80 it was alleged, and in other ways had been 
offensive and impertinent. Ships were going — had been 
actually ordered to La Guyra, to pull bis noBe for him, and 
to tell him to behave himself. The time is past when we flew 
our hawks at game birds. The opinion of most of the 
party was that Don Guzman knew it, and that his noae 
would not be pulled. He would regard our frigates as 
picturesque ornaments to his harbour, give the oEGcers in 
command the pohtest reception, evade their demands, offer 
good words in plenty, and nothing else but words, and in 
the end would have the benefit of our indifference.' 

In the late evening we had music. Our host sang well, 
our hostess was an accomplished artist. They had duets 
together, Itahau and English, and the lady then sang ' The 
Three Fishers,' Kingsley being looked on as the personal 
property of Trinidad and as one of themselves. She sang 
it very well, as well as any one could do who had no direct 
acquaintance with an English sea-coast people. Her voice 
was beautiful, and she showed genuine feehng. The silence 
when she ended was more compUmentary than the loudest 
applause. It was broken by a stupid member of council, 
who said to me, ' Is it not strange that a poet with such a 
gift of words as Mr. Kingsley should have ended that song 
with so weak a line? "The sooner it's over the sooner to 
sleep " is nothing but prose.' He did not see that the fault 
which he thought he had discovered is no more than the 
intentional ' dying away ' of the emotion created by the 
story in the common lot of poor humanity. We drove 
back across the savannah in a blaze of fireflies. It is not 
till midnight that they put their lights out and go to sleep 
with the rest of the world. 

One duty remained to me before I left the island. The 
"Warners are among the oldest of "West Indian families, 

' A squadron did go while I was in tha West iDdies, I have not heaiil 
that an; other reBnlt oame ol it. 



CHARLES WARNER 



9S 



distinguished thvough many generations, not the least tn 
their then living chief and representative, Charles Warner, 
who in the highest ministerial offices had steered Trinidad 
through the trying times which followed the abolition of 
slavery. I had myself in early life been brought into rela- 
tione with other members of his family. He himself was 
a very old man on the edge of the grave ; but hearing that 
I was in Port of Spain, he had expressed a wish to see me. 
I found him in his drawing room, shrunk in stature, pale, 
bent double by weight of years, and but feebly able to lift 
his head to speak. I thought, and I judged rightly, that he 
could have but a few weeks, perhaps bat a few days, to live. 
There is something peculiarly solemn in being brought 
to speak with a supremely eminent man, who is already 
struggling with the moment which ia to launch him into 
a new existence. He raised himself in his chair. He 
gave me his withered hand. His eyes still gleamed with 
the light of an untouched intelligence. All else of him 
seemed dead. The soul, untouched by the decay of the 
frame which had been its earthly tenement, burnt bright 
as ever on the edge of its release. 

When words are sctirce they are seldom spent in vain, 
And they breathe truth who breathe their words in pain. 

He roosed himself to talk, and he talked sadly, for all 
things at home and everywhere were travelUng on the road 
which he well knew could lead to no good end. No states- 
man had done better practical work than he, or work which 
had borne better fruit, could it he allowed to ripen. But 
for him Trinidad would have been a wilderness, savage as 
when Columbus found the Caribs there. He belonged to 
the race who make empires, as the orators lose them, who 
^0 things and do not talk about them, who build and do 
not cast down, who reverence ancient habits and institutions 
as the organic functions of corporate national character ; 
a Tor; of the Tories, who nevertheless recognised that 





THE ENGLlSrf IN THE If'EST INDIES 

Toryism itself waa passing away under the universal sol- 
vent, and had ceased to be a faith which could be believed 
in as a guide to conduct. 

He no inure than any one could tell what it was now 
wisest or even possible to do. He spoke like some ancient 
seer, whose eyes looked beyond the present time and the 
present world, and saw politics and progress and the wild 
whirlwind of change as the play of atoms dancing to and 
fro in the sunbeams of eternity. Yet he wished well to our 
poor earth, and to us who were still struggling upon it. 
He was sorry for the courses on which he saw mankind to 
be travelling. Spite of all the newspapers and the blowing 
of the trumpets, he well understood whither all that was 
tending. He spoke with horror and even loathing of the 
sinister leader who was drawing England into the fatal 
whirlpool. He eould still hope, for he knew the power of 
the race. He knew that the English heart was unaffected, 
that we were suffering only from delirium of the brain. 
The day would yet come,he thought, when we should struggle 
back into sanity again with such wreck of our past great- 
ness as might still be left to us, torn and shattered, but 
elotlied and in our right mind, and cured for centuries of 
our illusions. 

My forebodings of the nearness of the eod were too well 
founded. A month later I heard that Charles Warner waa 
dead. To have seen and spoken with such a man was 
worth a voyage round the globe. 

On the prospects of Trinidad I have a few more words 
to add. The tendency of the island is to become what 
Grenada has become already — a community of negro free- 
holders, each living on his own homestead, and raising or 
gathering off the ground what his own family will consume. 
They will multiply, for there is ample room. Three-quarters 
of the soil are still unoccupied. The 140,000 blacks will 
rapidly grow into a half-million, and the half-million, as 



FUTURE OF THE ISLAND 97 

long as we are on the spot to keep the peace, will speedily 
double itself again. The English inhabitants will and 
must be crowded out. The geographical advantages of 
the Guif of Paria will secure a certain amount of trade. 
There will be merchants and bankers in the town as float- 
ing passage birds, and there will be mulatto lawyers and 
shopkeepers and newspaper writers. But the blacks hate 
the mulattoes, and the mulatto breed will not maintain 
itself, as with the independence of the blacks the intimacy 
between blacks and whites diminishes and must diminish. 
The English peasant immigration which enthusiasts have 
believed in is a dream, a dream which passed through the 
ivory gate, a dream which will never turn to a waking reality ; 
and unless under the Indian system, which our rulers will 
never try unless the democracy orders them to adopt it, the 
English interest will come to an end. 

The English have proved in India that they can play a 
I /great and useful part as rulers over Irecognised inferiorsl 
Even in the West Indies the planters were a real some- 
thing. Like the English in Ireland, they produced a 
remarkable breed of men : the Codringtons, the Warners^ 
and inany illustrious names besides. They governed 
cheaply on their own resources, and the islands under their 
rule were so profitable that we fought for them as if our 
Enapire was at stake. All that is gone. The days of 
'* ; races>r6 supposed to be numbered. Trade drifts 
away to {£e nearest market — to New York or New Orleans 
— and in a money point of view the value of such posses- 
sions as Trinidad will soon be less than nothing to us. 

As long as the present system holds, there will be an 
appreciable addition to the sum of human (coloured human) 
happiness. Lighter-hearted creatures do not exist on the 
globe. But the continuance of it depends on the continu- 
ance of the English rule. The peace and order which they 
benefit by is not of their own creation. In spite of schools 

H 



•y 




b 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

and miBsionariea, the dark connection still maintains itself 
witb, Satan's invisible mjrld, and modern education con- 
tends nTValn^itE^Obeab worship. As it has been in Hayti, 
BO it must be in Trinidad if the English leave the blackB 
to be their own masterB, 

Scene after scene passes by on the magic slide. The 
man-eating Caribs first, then Columbns and his Spaniards, 
the French conquest, the English occupation, but they 
have left behind them no self-quickening seed of healthy 
civilisation, and the prospect darkens once more. It ie 
a pity, for there is no real necessity that it should 
darken. I.T^e West Indian negro is conscious of bi^ 
own defects, \and responds more willingly than most to 
a gmding" band. He is faithful and afEectionate to those 
who are just and kind to him, and with a century or two 
of wise administration he might prove that his inferiority 
is not inherent, and that with the same chances as the 
wHitB-faHinay- rise to the same level, I cannot part with^ 
the hope that the English people may yet insist that the i 
chance shall not be denied to him, and that they may yet j , 
give their oEGcials to understand that they must not, shall l,,.- 
not, shake off their responsibilities for this unfortunate 
people, by Hinging them back upon themselves ' to manage \ 
their own affairs,' now that we ha^'e no further use for them. 

I was told that the keener-witted Trinidad blacks are 
watching as eagerly as we do the development of the Irish 
problem. They see the identity of the situation. They see 
that if the Radical view prevails, and in every country 
the majority are to rule, Trinidad will be theirs and the 
government of the English will be at an end. I, for myself, 
look upon Trinidad and the West Indies generally as an 
opportunity for^he further extension of the influence of-, 
^ English race in their special capacity of leaders andi^ . 
governors of men. We cannot with honour divest ourselves 
of our respoDBibility for the blacks, or after the eloquence /* 



fy 



BRITISH DOMINION 99 

-we have poured out and the self -laudation which we have ' 
allowed ourselves for the suppression of slavery, leave them 
now to relapse into a state from which slavery itself was 
the first step of emancipation. Our world-wide dominion 
will not be of any long endurance if we considpr that we 
have discharged our full duty to our fellow-subjects when we 
have set them free to follow their own devices. If that is 
to be all, the sooner it vanishes into history the better for 
us and for the world. 



u'Z 



loo THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTEE IX. 

Barbadoes again — Social condition of the island — Political constitution — 
Effects of the sugar bounties — Dangers of general bankruptcy — The Hall 
of Assembly — Sir Charles Pearson — Society in Bridgetown — A morning 
drive — Church of St. John's — Sir Graham Briggs — An old planter's 
palace — The Chief Justice of Barbadoes. 

Again at sea, and on the way back to Barbadoes. The 
commodore of the training squadron had offered me a berth 
to St. Vincent, but he intended to work up under sail against 
the north-east trade, which had risen to half a gale, and I 
preferred the security and speed of the mail boat. Among 

the passengers was Miss , the lady whom I had seen 

sketching on the way to the Blue Basin. She showed me 
her drawings, which were excellent. She showed me in her 
mosquito-bitten arms what she had endured to make them, 
and I admired her fortitude. She was English, and was on 
her way to join her father at Codrington College. 

We had a wild night, but those long vessels care little 
for winds and waves. By morning we had fought our way 
back to Grenada. In the St. Vincent roadstead, which we 
reached the same day, the ship was stormed by boatloads 
of people who were to go on with us ; boys on their way to 
school at Barbadoes, ladies young and old, white, black, 
and mixed, who were bound I know not where. The night 
fell dark as pitch, the storm continued, and we were no 
sooner beyond the shelter of the land than every one of them 

save Miss and myself was prostrate. The vessel 

ploughed on upon her way indifferent to us and to them. 
We were at Bridgetown by breakfast time, and I was now 



> - 



NEGROES IN BARBADOES loi 

to have an opportunity of studying more at leisure the 
earliest of our West Indian colonies. 

Barbadoes is as unlike in appearance as it is in social 
condition to Trinidad or the Antilles. There are no moun- 
tains in it, no forests, no rivers, and as yet no small free- 
holders. The blacks, who number nearly 200,000 in an 
island not larger than the Isle of Wight, are labourers, 
working for wages on the estates of large proprietors. Land 
of their own they have none, for there is none for them. 
Work they must, for they cannot live otherwise. Thus every 
square yard of soil is cultivated, and turn your eyes where 
jou will you see houses, sugar canes, and sweet potatoes. 
Two hundred and fifty years of occupation have imprinted 
strongly an EngUsh character ; parish churches solid and 
respectable, the English language, the English police and 
parochial system. However it may be in the other islands, 
England in Barbadoes is still a soUd fact. The headquarters 
of the West Indian troops are there. There is a commander- 
in-chief residing in a 'Queen's House,' so called. There is 
a savannah where there are Enghsh barracks under avenues 
of almond and mahogany. Bed coats are scattered about 
the grass. OflScers canter about playing polo, and naval 
and military uniforms glitter at the side of carriages, and 
horsemen and horsewomen take their evening rides, as well 
mounted and as well dressed as you can see in Botten Bow. 
Barbadoes is thus in pleasing contrast with the conquered 
islands which we have not taken the trouble to assimilate. 
In them remain the wrecks of the French civilisation which 
we superseded, but we have planted nothing of our own. 
BarbadoeSi the European aspect of it at any rate, is English 
throughout. 

The harbour when we arrived was even more brilliant 
than we had left it a fortnight before. The training 
squadron had gone, but in the place of it the West 
Indian fleet was there, and there were also three American 



b 



102 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

frigates, old wooden vessels out merely on a criiise, but 
heavily sparred, smart and well set up, with the stars and 
stripes floating carelessly at their sterna, as if in these western 
seas, be the nominal dominion British, French, or Spanish, 
the American has a voice also and intends to be heard. 

We had no sooner anchored than a well-appointed 
boat was alongside with an awning and an ensign at the 
stern. Colonel — — , the chief of the police, to whom 

it belonged, came on board in search of Miss , who 

was to be his guest in Bridgetown. She introduced me 
to him. He insisted on my accompanying him home 
to breakfast, and, as he was a person in authority, I had 
nothing to do but obey. Colonel — ~, to whose politeness 
then and afterwards I was in many ways indebted, had seen 
life in various forms. He had been in the navy. He had 
been in the army. He had been called to the bar. He 
was now the head of the Barbadoes police, wth this 
anomalous addition to his other duties, that in defaidt of 
a chaplain he read the Church service on Sundays in 
the barracks. He had even a licence from the bishop to 
preach sermons, and being a man of fine character and 
original sense he discharged this last function, I was told, 
remarkably well. His house was in the heart of the town, 
but shaded with tropical trees. The rooms were protected 
by deep outside galleries, which were overrun with Bougain- 
villier creepers. He was himself the kindest of entertainers, 
his Irish lady the kindest of hostesses, with the humorous 
high breeding of the old Siigo aristocracy, to whom she 
belonged. I found that I had been acquainted with some 
of her kindred there long ago, in the days when the Anglo- 
Irish rule had not been discovered to be a upas tree, and 
cultivated human life was still possible in Connaught. 
Of the breakfast, which consisted of all the West Indian 
dainties I had ever heard or read of, I can say nothing, 
nor of the pleasant talk which followed. I was to see more 



THE CONSTITUTION OF BARBADOES 



103 



^^^ ma 



of Colonel , for he offered to drive me some day across 

the island, a promise which he punctually fulfilled. My 
stay with him for the present could be but brief, as I was 
expected at Government House, 

I have met with exceptional hospitality from the gover- 
nors of British colonies in many parts of the world. They 
are not chosen like the Roman proconsuls from the ranks of 
trained statesmen who have held high administrative offices 
at home. They are appointed, as I said just now, from 
various motives, sometimes with a careful regard to fitness 
for their post, sometimes with a regard merely to routine or 
convenience or to personal influence brought to bear in their 
favour. I have myself seen some for whom I should have 
thought other employment would have been more suitable ; 
but always and everywhere those that I have fallen in with 
have been men of honour and integrity above reproach or 
suspicion, and I have met with one or two gentlemen in these 
situations whose admirable qualities it is impossible to praise 
too highly, who in then: complicated responsibilities — respon- 
sibilities to the colonies and responsibilities to the authorities 
at home — have considered conscience and duty to be their 
safest guides, have cared only to do what they beUeved to 
he right to the best of their abihty, and have left their 
interests to take care of themselves. 

The Governor of Barbadoes is not despotic. He controls 
the administration, but there is a constitution as old as the 
Btuarts; an Assembly of thirty-three members, nine of whom 
the Crown nominates, the rest are elected. The friction 
is not so violent as when the nusnber of the nominated 
and elected members is equal, and as long as a property 
qualification was required for the franchise, the system may 
have worked tolerably without producing any violent niJn- 
obief. There have been recent modifications, however, 
pointing in the same direction as those which have been 
made in Jamaica. By an ordinance from home the suffrage 




04 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

hae been widely extended, obvioUEly as a step to larger 
intended changes. 

Under snch conditiouB and with an uncertain future a 
governor can do little save lead and influence, entertain 
visitors, discharge the neeessary courtesies to all classeH of 
his subjects, and keep his eyes open. These duties at least 
Sir Charles Lees discharges to perfection, the entertaining 
part of them on a scale so liberal that if Fere Labat came back 
he would suppose that the two hundred years which have 
gone by since his visit was a dream, and that Government 
House at least was still as be left it. In an establishment 
which had so many demands upon it, and where so many 
visitors of all kinds were going and commgj I had no claim 
to be admitted. I felt that I should be an intruder, and had 
I been allowed would have taken myself elsewhere, but Sir 
Charles's peremptory generosity admitted of no refusal. As 
a snbject I was bound to submit to the Queen's representa- 
tive. I cannot say I was sorry to be compelled. In 
Government House I should see and hear what I could 
neither have seen nor heard elsewhere. I should meet 
people who could tell me what I most wanted to know. I 
had understood already that owing to the sugar depression 
the state of the island was critical. Officials were alai-med. 
Bankers were alarmed. No one could see beyond the next 
year what was likely to happen. Sir Charles himself would 
have most to say. He was eridently anxious. Perhaps if 
he had a fault, he was over anxious ; but with the possi- 
bility of social confusion before him, with nearly 200,000 
peasant subjects, who in a few months might be out of work 
and so out of food, with the inflammable negro nature, and 
a suspicious and easily excited public opinion at home, the 
position of a Governor of Barbadoes is not an enviable one. 
The Government at home, no doubt with the best intentions, 
has aggravated any peril which there may be by enlarging 
the sufErage. The experience of Governor Eyre in Jamaica 




& 



SOCIAL CONDITION 105 

has taught the danger of being too active, but to be too 
inactive may be dangerous also. If there is a Btir again in 
any part of these islands, and violence and massacre come of 
it, as it came in St. Domingo, the responsibility is with the 
governor, and the account will be strictly exacted of him. 

I must describe more particularly the reasons which 
there are for uneasiness. On the day on which I landed I 
saw an article in a Bridgetown paper in which my coming 
there was spoken of as perhaps the last straw which would 
break the overburdened back. I know not why I should he 
thought likely to add anything to the load of Barbadian 
afflictions. I should be a worse friend to the colonies than 
I have tried to be if I was one of those who would quench 
the smoking Hax of loyalty in any West Indian heart. But 
loyalty, I very well know, is sorely tried just now. The 
position is painfully simple. The great prosperity of the 
island ended with emancipation. Barbadoes suffered less 
than Jamaica or the Antilles because the population was 
large and the land hmited, and the blacks were obliged to 
work to keep themselves alive. The abolition of the sugar 
duties was the next blow. The price of sugar fell, and the 
estates jielded little more than the expense of cultivation. 
Owners of properties who were their own managers, and had 
Bense and energy, continued to keep themselves afloat ; bnt 
absenteeism had become the fashion. The brilliant society 
which is described by Labat had been melting for more 
than a century. More and more the old West Indian 
&milieB removed to England, farmed their lands through 
agents and overseers, or sold them to speculating capitalists. 
The personal influence of the white man over the black, 
which might have been brought ahout by a friendly inter- 
course after slavery was aboUshed, was never so much as 
attempted. The higher class of gentry found the colony 
more and more distasteful to them, and they left the ar- 
jangement of the labour question to persons to whom the 




I 



b 



q6 the ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



blacks were nothing, emancipated though they might be, 
except instmnients of production. A negro can be attached 
to his employer at least as easily as a horse or a dog. 
The horse or dog requires kind treatment, or he becomes 
indifferent or sullen ; so it is with the negro. But the 
forced equality of the races before the law made more diffi- 
cult the growth of any kindly feeling. To the overseer on 
a plantation the black labourer was a machine out of 
which the problem was to get the maximum of work with 
the minimum of pay. In the slavery times the horse and 
dog relation was a real thing. The master and mistreM 
joked and laughed with their dark bondsmen, knew Csesar 
from Pompey, knew how many children each had, gave 
them small i^resents, cared for them when they were sick, 
and maintained them when they were old and past work. 
All this ended with emancipation. Between whites and 
blacks no relations remained save that of employer and 
employed. They lived apai't. They had no longer, save 
in exceptional instances, any personal communication with 
each other. The law refusing to recognise a difference, the 
social line was drawn the harder, which the law was unable 
to reach. 

In the Antilles, the plantations broke up as I had seen 
in Grenada. The whites went away, and the land was 
divided among the negroes. In Barbadoes, the estates 
were kept together. The English character and the English 
habits were printed deeper there, and were not so easily 
obliterated. But the stars in their courses have fought 
against the old system. Once the West Indies had a mono- 
poly of the sugar trade. Steam and progress have given 
them a hundred natxwal competitors ; and on the back of 
these came the unnatural bounty-fed beetroot sugar com- 
petition. Meanwhile the expense of Kving increased in the 
days of inflated hope and ' unexampled prosperity.' Free 
trade, whatever its immediate consequences, was to make 



DANGERS OF BANKRUPTCY 107 

e rich m the end. When the income of an estate 
fell short one year, it was to rise in the next, and money 
was borrowed to make ends meet ; when it didn't rise, more 
money was borrowed ; and there is now hardly a property 
in the island which is not loaded to the sinking point. Tied 
to sugar -growing, Barbadoes has no second industry to fall 
back upon. The blacks, who are heedless and light-hearted, 
increase and multiply. They will not emigrate, they are 
80 much attached to their homes ; and the not distant pros- 
pect is of a general bankruptcy, which will throw the land 
for the moment out of cultivation, with a hungry unem- 
ployed multitude to feed without means of feeding them, 
and to control without the personal acquaintance and 
influence which alone can make control possible. 

At home there is a general knowledge that things are 
not going on well out there. But, true to our own ways of 
thinking, we regard it as their affair and not as ours. If 
cheap sugar ruins the planters, it benefits the English work- 
man. The planters had their innings ; it is now the con- 
sumer's turn. What are the West Indies to us? On the 
map they appear to belong more to the United States than 
to us. Let the United States take them and welcome. 
80 thinks, perhaps, the average Englishman ; and, anaJogous 
to him, the West Indian proprietor reflects that, if admitted 
into the Union, he would have the benefit of the American 
market, which would set him on hie feet again ; and that 
the Americans, probably finding that they, if not we, could 
make some profit out of the islands, would be likely to 
settle the black question for him in a more satisfactory 
manner. 

That such a feeling as this should exist is natural and 
pardonable ; and it would have gone deeper than it has gone 
if it were not that there are two parties to every bargain, 
And those in favour of such a union have met hitherto with 
DO encouragement. The Americans are wise in their gene- 



I 



1 08 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

rfltion. They looked at Cuba ; they looked at 8t. Domingo. 
They might have had both on easy terms, but they tell you 
that their constitution does not allow them to hold depen- 
dent states. What they annex they absorb, and they did 
not wish to absorb another million and a half of blacks 
and as many Roman Catholics, having enough already of 
both. Our EngUsh islands may be more tempting, but 
there too the black cloud hangs thick and grows yearly 
thicker, and through English indulgence is more charged 
with dangerous elements. Already, they Bay, they have 
every advantage which the islands can give them. They 
exercise a general protectorate, and would probably interfere 
if France or England were to attempt again to extend their 
dominions in that quarter ; but they prefer to leave to the 
present owners the responsibility of managing and feeding 
the cow, while they are to have the milking of it. 

Thus the proposal of annexation, which has never gone 
beyond wishes and talk, has so far been coldly received ; but 
the Americans did make their offer a short time since, at 
which the drowning Barbadians grasped as at a floating 
plank. England would give them no hand to save them 
from the effects of the beetroot bounties. The Americans 
were willing to relax their own sugar duties to admit West 
Indian sugar duty free, and give them the benefit of their 
own high prices. The colonies being unable to make 
treaties for themselves, the proposal was referred home and 
was rejected. The Board of Trade had, no doubt, excellent 
reasons for objecting to an arrangement which would have 
Hung our whole commerce with the West Indies into 
American hands, and might have formed a prelude to a 
closer attachment. It would have been a violation also of 
those free-trade principles which are the English political 
gospel. Moreover, our attitude towards our colonies has 
changed, too, in the last twenty years ; we now vrish to 
preserve the attachment of communities whom a generation 




EFFECTS OF THE SUGAR BOUXTIES 109 

back ve sboold have told to do as they liked, and hax^ 
bidden them God speed apon their way ; and this treaty may 
have been regarded as a step towards separation. Bat the 
onfcxtanate Barbadians foond themselves, with the harbour 
in a^t, driven oat again into the finee-trade harricane. 
We would not help them oarselres ; we declined to let the 
Americans help them ; and help themselves they coold 
not. They dare not resent oar indifference to their in- 
terests, which, if they were stnmger, would have been more 
visibly displayed. They mast wait now for what the fature 
wiU bring with as much composure as they can command, 
but I did hear outcries of impatience to which it was 
unpleasant to listen. Nay, it was even suggested as a 
means of inducing the Americans to for^^ their reluctance 
to take them into the Union, that we might relinquish such 
rights as we possessed in Canada if the Americans would 
relieve us of the West Indies, for which we appeared to care 
so little. 

If Barbadoes is driven into bankruptcy, the estates will 
have to be sold, and wiU probably be broken up as they 
have been in the Antilles. The first difficulty will thus be 
got over. But the change cannot be carried out in a day. 
If wages suddenly cease, the negroes will starve, and will 
not take their starvation patiently. At the worst, however, 
means will probably be found to keep the land from falling 
out of cultivation. The Barbadians see their condition in 
the light of their grievances, and' make the worst of it. 
The continental powers may tire of the bounty system, 
or something else may happen to make sugar rise. The 
prospect is not a bright one, but what actually happens in 
this world is generally the imexpected. 

As a visit my stay at Government House was made 
simply delightful to me. I remained there (with interrup- 
tions) for a fortnight, and Lady L did not only permit, 

but she insisted that I should be as if in an hotel, and come 





THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

and go as I liked. The climate of Barbadoea, so far aa I 
can apeak of it, is aa sparkling and invigorating as cham- 
pagne. Cocktail may be wanted in Trinidad. In Barba- 
does the air ia all one aaka for, and between night breezes 
and sea breezea one haa plenty of it. Day begina with 
daylight, aa it ought to do. You have slept without know- 
ing anything about it. There are no venomoua crawling 
creatures. Cockroaches are the worst, but they acuttle out 
of the way so alarmed and ashamed of themselves if you 
happen to aee them, that I never could bring myself to hurt 
one. You spring out of bed aa if the proceaa of getting 
up were actually pleasant. Well-appointed West Indian 
houses are generally provided with a fresh-water swimming 
bath. Though cold by courtesy the water seldom falls 
below 65°, and you float luxuriously upon it without dread 
of chill. The early coffee follows the bath, and then the 
stroll under the big trees, among strange flowers, or in 
the grotto with the ferns and humming birds. If it 
were part of one's regular life, I suppose that one would 
want something to do. Sir Charles was the most active of 
men, and had been busy in his office for an hour before I 
had come down to lounge. But for myself I discovered 
that it was possible, at least for an interval, to be perfectly 
idle and perfectly happy, surrounded by the daintiest 
an English hothouse, with palm trees waving 
like fane to cool one, and with sensitive plants, which are 
common as daisies, strewing themaelvea under one'a feet 
to be trodden upon. 

After breakfaat the heat would be considerable, but witli 
an umbrella I could walk about the town and aee what was 
to be aeen. Alas ! here one has something to desire. Where 
Pere Labat saw a display of splendour which reminded him of 
Paris and London, you now find only »Uirei on the American 
pattern, for the most part American goods, bad in quality 
and extravagantly dear. Treaty or no treaty, it is to 



THE HALL OF THE ASSEMBLY jii 

America that the trade is drifting, and we might as well 
-concede with a good grace what muat soon come of itself 
whether we like it or not. The streets are relieved from 
ugliness by the trees and hy occasional handsome buildings. 
Often I stood to admire the pea-green Nelson. Once I 
went into the Assembly where the legislature was discussing 
more or less unquietly the prospects of the island. The 
question of the hour was economy. In the opinion of 
patriot Barbadians, sore at the refusal of tlie treaty, the 
readiest way to reduce expenditure was to diminish the 
salaries of officials from the governor downwards. The 
officials, knowing that they were very moderately paid 
already, naturally demurred. The moat interesting part of 
the thing to me was the )utll in which the proceedings were 
going on. It is handsome in itself, and has a series of 
painted windows representing the English sovereigns from 
James I. to Queen Victoria. Among them in his proper 
place stood Oliver Cromwell, the only formal recognition of 
the great Protector that I know of in any part of the 
English dominions. Barbadoes had been Cavalier to its 
general sympathies, but has taken an independent view of 
things, and here too has had an opinion of its own. 

Hospitality was always a West Indian characteristic. 
There were luncheons and dinners, and distinguished per- 
sons to be met and talked to. Among these I had the K^jecial 
good fortune of making acquaintance with Sir Charles 
Pearson, now commanding-in-ehief in those parts. Even in 
these days, crowded as they are by small incidents made 
large by newspapers, we have not yet forgotten the defence of 
a fort in the interior of Zululand where Sir Charles Pearson 
and his small garrison were cut off from their communica- 
tions with Natal. For a week or two he was the chief object 
of interest in every English house. In obedience to orders 
which it was not his business to question, he had assisted 
Bir T. Shepfitone in the memorable annexation of the 




112 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Transvaal. . He had seen also to what that annexation led^ 
and, being a truth-speaking man, he did not attempt to con- 
ceal the completeness of our defeat. Our military establish- 
ment in the West Indies is of modest dimensions ; but a 
strong English soldier, who says little and does his duty, and 
never told a lie in his life or could tell one, is a comforting 
figure to fall in with. One feels that there will be some* 
thing to retire upon when parliamentary oratory has finished 
its work of disintegration. 

The pleasantest incident of the day was the evening drive 

with Lady L . She would take me out shortly before 

sunset, and bring me back again when the tropical stars were 
showing faintly and the fireflies had begim to sparkle about 
the bushes, and the bats were flitting to and fro after the 
night moths like spirits of darkness chasing human souls. 

The neighbourhood of Bridgetown has little natural 
beauty ; but the roads are excellent, the savannah pic- 
turesque with riding parties and polo players and loung- 
ing red jackets, every one being eager to pay his or her 
respect to the gracious lady of the Queen's representative. 
We called at pretty villas where there would be evening 
teas and lawn tennis in the cool. The society is not exten- 
sive, and here would be collected most of it that was worth 
meeting. At one of these parties I fell in with the ofl&cers 
of the American squadron, the commodore a very in- 
teresting and courteous gentleman whom I should have 
taken for a fellow-countryman. There are many diamonds, 
and diamonds of the first water, among the Americans as 
among ourselves ; but the cutting and setting is different. 

Commodore D was cut and set like an Englishman. 

He introduced me to one of his brother officers who had 
been in Hayti. Spite of Sir Spencer St. John, spite of all 
the confirmatory evidence which I had heard, I was still 
incredulous about the alleged cannibalism there. To my 
inquiries this gentleman had only the same answer to 



A MORNING DRIVE 



>I3 



give. The fact was beyond question. He h^id himaelf 
known inBtaiices of it. 

The Gommodore had a grievance against ub illustrating 
West Indian manners. These islands are as nervous about 
their health as so many old ladies. The yellow flags float 
on ship after ship in the Bridgetown roadstead, and crews, 
passengers, and cargoes are sternly interdicted from the 
land. Jamaica was in ill name from small-pox, and, as 
Cuba will not drop its intercourse with Jamaica, Cuba falls 
also under the biui. The commodore had directed a case 
of cigars from Havana to meet him at Barbadoes, They 
arrived, but might not bo transferred from the steamer 
which brought them, even on board his own frigate, lest he 
might bring infection on shore in his cigar case. They 
went on to England, to reach him perhaps eventually in 
New York. 

Colonel 's duties, as chief of the police, obliged him 

to make occasional rounds to visit his stations. He re- 
collected his promise, and lie inv-ited me one morning to 
accompany him. We were to breakfast at his house 0]i 
our return, so I anticipated an excursion of a few miles at 
the utmost. He called for me soon after sunrise with a 
light carriage and a brisk pair of horses. We were rapidly 
clear of the town. The roads were better than the best I 
have seen out of England, the only fault in them being the 
white coral dust which dazzles and blinds the eyes. Every- 
where there were signs of age and of long occupation. The 
stone steps leading up out of the road to the doors of the 
houses Lad been worn by human feet for hundreds of years. 
The houses themselves were old, and as if suffering from 
the universal depression — gates broken, gardens disordered, 
and woodwork black and blistered for want of paint. But 
if the habitations were neglected, there was no neglect in 
the fields. Sugar cane alternated with sweet potatoes and 
yams and other strange things the names of which I heard 




THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

and forgot ; but there was not a weed to be seen or broken 
fence where fence was needed. The soil was clean, every 
inch of it, as well hoed and trenched as in a Middlesex 
market garden. Salt fish and flour, which is the chief fooc( 
of the blacks, is imported ; but vegetables enough are 
raised in Barbadoes to keep the cost of living incredibly 
low ; and, to my uninatructed eyes, it seemed that even if 
sugar and wages did fail there could be no danger of any 
sudden famine. The people were thick as rabbits in a 
warren ; women with loaded baskets on their heads laugh- 
ing and chirruping, men driving donkey carts, four donkeys 
abreast, smoking their early pipes as if they had not a 
care in the world, as, indeed, they have not. 

On we went, the Colonel's horses stepping out twelve 
miles an hour, and I wondered privately what was to 
become of our breakfast. We were striking right across 
the island, along the coral ridge which forms the backbone 
of it. We found ourseh'es at length in a grove of orange 
trees and shaddocks, at the old church of St. John's, which 
stands upon a perpendicular cliff; Codrington College on 
the level under our feet, and beyond us the open Atlantic 
and the everlasting breakers from the trade winds fringing 
the shore with foam. Far out were the white sails of the 
fishing smacks. The Barbadians are ciireless of weather, 
and the best of boat sailors. It was very pretty in the 
bright morning, and the church itself was not the least 
interesting part of the scene. The door was wide open. 
We went in, and 1 seemed to be in a parish church in 
England as parish ehiu-ches used to be when I was a child. 
There were the old-fashioned seats, the old unadorned 
communion table, the old pulpit and reading desk and the 
clerk's desk below, with the hon and the unicorn conspicu- 
ous above the chancel arch. The white tablets on the wall 
bore familiar names dating back into the last century. On 
the floor were flagstones still older with armorial bearings and 




^7. JOHN'S CHURCH 115 

lettei-a cut in stone, half effaced by the feet of the genera- 
tions who had trodden up the same aisles till they, too, lay 
down and rested there. And there was this, too, to be 
remembered — that these Barbadian ehurchee, old as they 
might seem, had belonged always to the Anglican com- 
munion. No mass had ever been said at that altar. It 
was a milestone on the high road of time, and was venerable 
to me at once for its antiquity and for the era at which it 
had begun to exist. 

At the porch was an ancient slab on which was a coat of 
arms, a crest with a hand and Bword, and a motto, ' iSic 
/(OS, stc nostra, tuemui;' The inscription said that it was 
in memory of Michael Mahon, ' of the kingdom of Ireland,' 
erected by his children and grandchildren. Who was 
Slichael Mahon? Some expatriated, so-called rebel, I sup- 
pose, whose sword could not defend him from being 
Bai'bados'd with so many other poor WTetches who were 
sent the same road — victims of the tragi-eomedy of the 
English government of Ireland. There were plenty of them 
wandering about in Labat's time, ready, as Labat observes, 
to lend a help to the French, should they take a fancy to 
land a force in the island. 

The churchyard was scarcely so home-like. The graves 
were planted with tropical shrubs and Sowers. Falma 
waved over the square stone momiments — stephanotis and 
jessamine crept about the iron railings. The primroses 
and hyacinths and violets, with which we dress the mounda 
under which our friends are sleeping, will not grow in the 
tropics. In the place of them are the exotics of our hot- 
houses. We too are, perhaps, exotics of another kind in 
these islands, and may not, after all, have a long abiding 
place in them. 

Colonel , who with his secular duties combined 

serious and spiritual feehng, was a friend of the clergyman 
of St. John's, and hoped to introduce me to him. This 



Ti6 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

gentleman, however, was absent from Lome. Our round 
was still but half completed ; we had to mount again and 
go another seven miles to inspect a police station. The 
police themselves were, of course, blacks — well-grown fine 
men, in a high state of discipline. Onr rieit was not 
expected, but all was as it should be ; the rooms well swept 
and airy, the horses in good condition, stable clean, harness 
and arms polished and ready for use. Serious as might be 
the trials of the Barbadians and decrepit the financial con- 
dition, there were no symptoms of neglect either on the 
farms or in the social machinery. 

Altogether we drove between thirty and forty miles that 
morning. We were in time for breakfast after all, and I 
had seen half the island. It is like the Isle of Thanet, or 
the country between Calais and Boulogne. One character- 
istic feature must not be forgotten : there are no rivers 
and no waterpower ; steam engines have been introduced, 
but the chief motive agent is still the never-ceasing 
trade wind. You see windmills everywhere, as it was in 
the time of Labat. The planters are reproached as being 
behind the age ; they are told that with the latest improve- 
ments they might still defy their beetroot enemy. It may 
be BO, hut a wind which never rests ia a force which costs 
little, and it is possible that they understand their own 



Another morning excursion showed me the rest of the 
country, and introduced me to scenes and persons still more 
interesting. Sir Graham Briggs ' is perhaps the most dis- 
tinguished representative of the old Barbadian families. 
He is, or was, a man of large fortune, with vast estates in 
this and other islands. A few years ago, when prospects 
were brighter, he was an advocate of the constitutional 

' As I curreot the proofs I learn, to my great boitow, that Sir QTaham 
is riead. 1 hnve lost in him a latelj- made but valued friend ; and the colony 
has lost the ablest of its tegiglators. 



S//i GSAHAM BRIGGS 117 

deTelopment so much recommended from England. The 
West Indian Iwlanda were to be confederated into a dominion 
like that of Canada, to take over the reaponaibilities of 
government, and to learn to stand alone. The decline in the 
value of property, the general decay of the white interest 
in the islands, and tlie rapid increase of the blacks, taught 
those who at one time were ready for the change what the 
real nature of it would be. They have paused to consider ; 
and the longer they consider the less they like it. 

Sir Graham had called upon me at Government House, 
and had spoken fully and freely about the offered American 
sugar treaty. As a severe sufferer he was naturally irri- 
tated at the rejection of it ; and in the mood in which I 
found him, I should think it possible that if the Americans 
would hold their hands out with an offtir of admission into 
the Union, he and a good many other gentlemen would 
meet them halfway. He did not say so — I conjecture only 
from natural probabilities, and from what I should feel 
myself if I were in their position. Happily the temptation 
cannot fall in their way. An American official laconically 
summed up the situation to me : ' As satellites, sir, as much 
as you please; but as part of the primary — no, sir.' The 
Americana will not take them into the Union ; they must 
remain, therefore, with their English primary and make 
the best of it ; neither as satellites, for they have no proper 
motion of their own, nor as incorporated in the British 
Empire, for they derive no benefit from their connection 
with it, but as poor relations distantly acknowledged. I 
did not expect that Sir Graham would have more to say to 
me than he had said already; but he was a cultivated 
and noteworthy person, his bouse was said to he the 
most splendid of the old Barbadian merchant palaces, 
and 1 gratefully accepted an invitation to pay him a short 
visit. 

I started as before in the early morning, before the sun 






8 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

was above the trtes. The road followed the line of the 
shore. Originally, I believe, Barbadoes was like the AntilleB, 
covered with forest. In the interior little remains save 
cabbage palms and detached clumps of mangy-looking 
mahogany trees. The forest is gone, and human beings 
have taken the place of it. For ten miles I was driving 
through a string of straggling villages, each cottage or 
cabin hav-ing its small vegetable garden and clump of 
plantains. Being on the western or sheltered side of the 
island, the sea was smooth and edged with mangrove, 
through which at occasional openings we saw the shining 
water and the white coral beach, and fishing boats either 
drawn up upon it or anchored outside with theii' sails 
up. Trees had been planted for shade among the houses. 
There were village greens with great silk-cotton trees, 
banyans and acacias, mangoes and oranges, and shad- 
docks with their large fruit glowing among the leaves 
like great golden melons. The people swarmed, children 
tumbling about half naked, so like each other that one 
wondered whether their mothers knew their own from their 
neighbours' ; the fishermen's wives selling flying fish, of 
■which there are infinite numbers. It was an innocent, 
pretty scene. One missed green fields with cows upon 
them. Guinea grass, which is all that they have, makes 
excellent fodder, but is ugly to look at ; and is cut and 
carried, not eaten where it grows. Of animal life there were 
innumerable donkeys — no black man will walk if he can find 
a donkey to carry him — infinite poultry, and pigs, familiar 
enough, but not allowed a free entry into the cabins as in 
Irelajid. Of birds there was not any great variety. The 
humming birds preferred less populated quarters. There 
were small varieties of finches and sparrows and buntings, 
winged atoms without beauty of form or colour ; there were 
a few wild pigeons ; but the prevailing figure was the Bar- 
badian crow, a little fellow no bigger than a blackbii'd, a 




NEGRO WOMEN 

diminutive jackdaw, who gets his living upon worms and 
insects and parasites, and so tame that he would perch upon 
a iKiy's head if he saw a chance of iindijig anything eatable 
there. The women dress ill in Barbadoes, for they imitate 
English ladies ; but no dress can conceal the grace of their 
forma when they are young. It struck Pere Labat two 
'Centuries ago, and time and their supposed sufTerings ao 
slaves have made no difference. They work harder than 
the men, and are used as beasts of burden to fetch and 
■carry, but they carry their loads on their heads, and thus 
from childhood have to stand upright with the neck straight 
and firm. They do not spoil their shapes with stays, or 
their walk with high-heeled shoes. They plant their feet 
firmly on the ground. Every movement is elastic and 
rounded, and the grace of body gives, or' seems to give, 
grace also to the eyes and expression. Poor things ! it can- 
not compensate for their colour, which now when they are 
free is harder to bear than when they were slaves. Their 
prettiness, such as it is, is short-lived. They grow old 
early, and an old negress is always hideous. 

After keeping by the sea for an hour we turned inland, 
And at the foot of a steep hill we met my host, who trans- 
ferred me to his own carriage. We had still four or five 
miles to go through cane fields and among sugar mills. At 
the end of them we came to a gi'and avenue of cabbage 
palms, a hundred or a hundred and twenty feet high. How 
their slim stems with their dense coronet of leaves survive 
a hurricane is one of the West Indian marvels. They 
escape destruction by the elasticity with which they yitld 
to it. The branches which in a calm stand out symmetri- 
cally, forming a circle of which the stem is the exact centre, 
bend round before aviolentwind,are pressed close together, 
and stream out horizontally like a horse's tail. 

The avenue led up to Sir Graham's house, which stands 
L^OO feet above the sea. The garden, once the wonder of the 






120 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

ialaiid, was running wild, though rare trees and Bhruhe. 
san'ived from its ancient splendour. Among thfjm were two 
Welimgtonias as tall as the palmB, but bent out of shape by 
the trade winds. Passing through a hall, among a litter of 
Carib curiositiee, we entered the drawing room, a magnifi- 
cent saloon extending with various compartments over the 
greater part of the ground-floor story. It was filled with 
rare and curious things, gathered in the days when sugar 
was a horn of plenty, and selected with the finest taste ; 
pictures, engravings, gems, antiquarian relics, books, maps, 
and manuscripts. There had been fine culture in the West 
Indies when all these treasures were collected. The English 
settlers there, like the English in Ireland, had the tastes of 
a grand race, and by-and-by we shall miss both of them 
when they are overwhelmed, as they are litely to be, in 
the revolutionary tide. Sir Graham was stemming it to the 
best of his ability, and if he was to go under would go 
under lite a gentleman. A dining room almost as large 
had once been the scene of hospitahties like those which are 
celebrated by Tom Cringle. A broad staircase led up from 
the hall to long galleries, out of which bedrooms opened ; 
with cool deep balconies and the universal green blinds. 
It was a palace with which Aladdin himself might have 
been satisfied, one of tliose which had stirred the envying 
admiration of foreign travellers in the last century, one 
of many then, now probably the last surviving representa- 
tive of Ajiglo-West Indian civilisation. Like other forms 
of human life, it has had its day and could not last for ever. 
Something better may grow in the place of it, but also 
something worse may grow. The example of Hayti ought 
to suggest misgivings to the most ardent philo-negi-o 
enthusiast. 

West Indian cookery was famous over the world. Pere 
Labat devotes at least a thousand pages to the dishes com- 
poimded of the spices and fruits of the islands, and their 



SOCIAL REVOLUTION 121 

fish and fowl. Carib tradition was developed by artists 
from London and Paris, The Cariba, according to 
Labat, only ate one another for ceremony and on state 
occasions ; their common diet was as escelleut as it 
was innocent ; and they had ascertained by careful expe- 
rience the culinary and medicinal virtues of every animal 
and plant around them. Tom Cringle is eloquent on the 
same subject, but with less scientific knowledge. My own 
unfortunately is less than hia, and I can do no justice 
at all to Sir Graham's entertainment of me ; I can but say 
that be treated me to a AVest Indian banquet of the old 
sort, infinite in variety, and with subtle differences of 
flavour for which no language provides names. The wine 
— laid up consule I'lanm, when Pitt was prime minister, 
and the days of liberty as yet were not — was as admirable 
as the dishes, and the fruit more exquisite than either. 
Such pineapples, such shaddocks, I had never tasted before, 
and shall never taste again. 

Hospitable, generous, splendid as was Sir Graham's re- 
ception of me, it was nevertheless easy to see that the 
prospects of the island sat heavy upon him. We had a 
long conversation when breakfast was over, which, if it 
added nothing new to what I had heard before, deepened 
and widened the impression of it. 

The English West Indies, like other parts of the world, 
are going through a silent revolution. Elsewhere the 
revolution, as we hope, is a transition state, a new birth; a 
passing away of what is old and worn out, that a fresh and 
healthier order may rise in its place. In the West Indies 
the most sanguine of mortals will find it difficult to enter- 
tain any such hope at all. We have been a ruling power 
there for two hundred and fifty years ; the whites whom 
we planted as our representatives are drifting into ruin, 
and they regard England and England's pohcy as the prin- 
cipal cause of it. The blacks whom, in a fit of virtuous 




132 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

benevolence, we emancipated, do not feel that they are par- 
I ticolarly obliged to us. They think, if they think at all, 
I that they were ill treated originally, and have received no I 
I more than was due to them, and that perhaps it was not 
benevolence at all on our part, but a deaire to free ourselves 
from the reproach of slaveholdiug. At any rate, the tenden-J 
■ cies now in operation are loosening the hold which we posBesa 
on the islands, and the longer they last the looser that hold 
will become. French influence is in no danger of dying out 
in Martinique and Guadaloupe. The Spanish race is not 
dying in Cuba and Puerto Rico. England will soon be no 
more than a name in Barhadoes and the Antilles. Having 
acquitted our conscience by emancipation, we have left our 
West Indian interest to sink or swim. Our principle has been 
to leave each part of our empire (except the East Indies) to 
take care of itself : we give the various inhabitants liberty, 
and what we understand by fair play ; that we have any 
further moral responsibilities towards them we do not 
imagine, even in our dreams, when they have ceased to be 
of commercial importance to us; and we assume that the 
honour of being British subjects will suffice to secure their 
allegiance. It will not sufGce, as we shall eventually dis- 
cover. We have decided that if the West Indies are to 
become again prosperous they must recover by their own 
energy. Our other colonies can do without help ; why not 
they ? We ought to remember that they are not like the 
other colonies. We occupied them at a time when slavery 
was considered a lawful institution, profitable to ourselves 
and useful to the souls of the negroes, who were brought by 
it within reach of salvation.' We became ourselves the 

' It vas on this groniid atone that slavery woe permitted in the French 
islands. Labat bojb : 

' C'est une loi Irfig-anoienne qoe les tefres soumiBea aui rois 3e France 
Tendent Ubrea tous caui qui a'y peuvent retirer. C'eat ce ijui fit i|iie le roi 
Louis XIII, de iflorieuae m^moire, au^ pieux qu'il etoit «a^, eut toutes lee 
peinea du monde i oonBentir qoe leg premiers babitantB des ialea euasent 




^ 



WEST INDIAN CONFEDERATION 123 

■chief slave dealers in the world. We peopled our ialands 
with a population of blacks more dense by far in proportion 
to the whites than France or Spain ever ventured to do. 
We did not recognise, as the French and Spaniards did, 
that if our western colonies were permanently to belong to 
lis, we must occupy them ourselves. We thought only of 
the immediate profit which was to be gathered out of the 
slave gangs ; and the disproportion of the two races — always 
dangerously large — has increased with ever-gathering velo- 
city since the emancipation. It is now beyond control on 
the old lines. The scanty whites are told that they must 
work out their own salvation on equal terms with their 
old servants. The relation is an impossible one. The in- 
dependent energy which we may fairly look for in Australia 
^d New Zealand is not to be looked for in Jamaica and 
Barbadoes ; and the problem must have a new solution. 

Confederation is to be the remedy, we are told. Let the 
islands be combined tinder a constitution. The whites 
collectively will then be a considerable body, and can assert 
themselves successfully. Confederation is, as I said before 
of the movement m Trinidad, but a turn of the kaleidoscope, 
the same pieces with a new pattern. A West Indian self- 
governed Dominion is possible only with a full negro vote. 
If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks. It will be 
a rule by the blacks and for the blacks. Let a generation 
or two pass by and carry away with them the old tradi- 
tions, and an English governor-general will be found pre- 
siding over a black council, delivering the speeches made for 
him by a black prime minister ; and how long could this 
endure? No Enghsh gentleman would consent to occupy 

ies esclavea : et ue se rendit enfin qu'am preEsontes flail icitat ions qu'on lu; 
foisoit Ae leur octroyer cette permiRsion que parce qu'on lai remontra que 
o'^Coiton mojen inlaillible et I'Dniqne qn'll j eQt pour inspirer le culte du 
vru Dieu am Africaine, les retirer de ridolAtrip. et les faire pecH^v^rer 
juftqii'i la motl dans la religion chretienne qu'on leur (eroit eiiibraasar.' 
Vol. iv. p. 14. 




124 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

BO absurd a situation. The two races are not equal and will 
not blend. If the white people do not depart of themselves, 
black legislation will make it impossible for any of them to 
stay who would not be better out of the way. The Anglo- 
Irish Protestants will leave Ireland if there is an Irish 
Catholic parliament in College Green ; the whites, for the 
same reason, will leave the West Indies; and in one and 
the other the connection with the British Empire will dis- 
appear along with them. It must be so ; only politicians 
whose horizon does not extend beyond their personal future, 
and whose ambition is only to secure the immediate triumph 
of their party, can expect anything else. 

Before my stay at Barbadoes ended, I ha d^ an oppor- 
tunity of meeting at dinner a negro of pure blood "who has 
risen to eminence by his own talent a53~T;bSfacter. He 
has held the office of attorney-general. He is now chief 
justice of the island. Exceptions are supposed proverbially , 
to prove nothing, or to prove the opposite of what they 
appear to prove. When a particular phenomenon occurs 
rarely, the probabilities are strong against the recurrence 
of it. Having heard the craniologicol and other objections 
to the supposed identity of the negro and white races, I 
came to the opinion long ago in Africa, and I have seen no 
reason to change it, that whether they ai-e of one race or 
not there is_na,originaI or congenital difference of capacity \ 
between them, any more "than there is between a black I 
horse and a black dog and a white horse and a white dog. i 
With the same chances and with the same treatment, 
I believe that distinguished men would be produced equally 

from both races, and Mr. 's well-earned success is 

an additional evidence of it. But it does not follow that 
what can be done eventually can be done immediately, and 
the gulf which divides the colours is no arbitrary prejudice, 
but has been opened by the centuries of training and dis- 
cijfHimwhich have given jis the start in the race. We set 



HISTORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT laj 

it down to slavery. It would be far truer to set it down to 
freedom. The African blacke have been free enough for 
thousands, perhaps for tens of thouBanda of years, and it 
[has been the absence of restraint which has prevented them J J 

■jItTom becoming civnised. Generation "has" folT6we~d"gehera^ ' 
I tion, and the children are as like their father as the suc- 
■cessive generations of apes. The whites, it is likely enough, 
succeeded one another with the same similarity for a long 
«erieB of ages. It is now supposed that the human race 
has been upon the planet for a hundred thousand years at 
least, and the first traces of civilisation cannot be thrown 
back at farthest beyond six thousand. During all those 
ages mankind went on treadijig in the same steps, century 
after century making no more advance than the birds and 
beasts. In Egypt or in India or one knows not where, 
accident or natural development quickened into life oar 
moral and intellectual faculties ; and these faculties have 
growTi into what we now experience, not in the freedom in 
which the modern takes delight, but under the sharp rule r^Ajfcttl 
■of the strong over the weak, of the wise over the unwise. ^ ' 

j Cfiir'own AngTo-Norman race has become capable of eelf- 
government only after a thousand years of civil andepiritual 

■ authority. European government, European instruction, 
■continued steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded 
by a higher instinct, may shorten the probation period of 
the negro. Individual blacks of exceptional quality, like 
Frederick Douglas in America, or the Chief Justice of Bar- 
badoes, will avail themselves of opportunities to rise, and 
the freest opportunities ought to be offered them. But it 
is as certain as any future event can be that if we give the 
negroes as a body the pohtical powers which we claim for 
ourselves, they will use them only to their own injury. 

IThey will shde back into their old condition, and the chance I 
will be gone of lifting them to the level to which we have I 
no right to say that they are incapable of rising. 



r 

^ 1 ^ 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



Chief Justice R owes his elevation to his English 

)K|enviromiient and his Enghsh legal traiiring^^TIe would I 
inot pretend' that he eould have made himself what he is in 
tHayti or in Dahomey. Let English authority die away, 
and the average black nature, such as it now is, be left free 
to assert itself, and there will be no more negroes like him 
in Barbadoea or anywhere. 

Naturally, I found him profoundly interested in the 
late revelations of the state of Hayti. Sir Spenser St, John, 
an English official, after residing for twelve years in Port 
an Prince, had in a published narrative with many details 
and particulars, declared that the republic of Toussaint 
rOuverture, the idol of all believers in the new gospel of 
liberty, had, after ninety years of independence, become a 
land where cannibalism could be practised with impunity. 
The African Obeah, the worship of serpents and trees and i 
stones, after smouldering in all the West Indies in the form ; 
of witchcraft and poisoning, had broken out in Hayti in all 
its old hideousnesa. Children were sacrificed as in the old . 
days of Moloch and were devoured with horrid ceremony, I 
salted limbs being preserved and sold for the benefit of; 
those who were imable to attend the full solemnities. I 

That a man in the position of a British resident should 
have ventured on a statement which, if untrue, would be 
ruinous to himself, appeared in a high degree improbable. 
Yet one had to set one incredibility against another. Not- 
withstanding the character of the evidence, when I went out 
to the West Indies I was still unbeheving, I could not 
bring myself to credit that in an island nominally Catholic, 
where the French language was spoken, and there were 
cathedrals and chm'ches and priests and missionaries, so 
horrid a revival of deiil-worship could have been really 
possible. All the inquiries which I had been able to make, 
from American and other officers who had been in Hayti, 
confirmed Sir S. St. John's story. I had hardly found a 



CANNIBALISM IN HAYTI 127 

person who entertained a doubt of it. I was perplexed and 
uncertain, when the Chief Justice opened the subject and 
asked me what I thought. Had I been convinced I should 
have turned the conversation, but I was not convinced and 
I was not afraid to say so. I reminded him of the universal 
conviction through Europe that the Jews were habitually 
guilty of sacrificing children also. There had been de- 
tailed instances. Alleged offenders had been brought before 
courts of justice at any time for the last six hundred 
years. Witnesses had been found to swear to facts which 
had been accepted as conclusive. Wretched creatures 
in Henry HI.'s time had been dragged by dozens at horses' 
tails through the streets of London, broken on the wheel, 
or torn to pieces by infuriated mobs. Even within the 
last two years, the same accusation had been brought 
forward in Bussia and Germany, and had been established 
apparently by adequate proof. So far as popular conviction 
of the guilt of the Jews was an evidence against them, 
nothing could be stronger ; and no charge could be without 
foundation on ordinary principles of evidence which revived 
so often and in so many places. And yet many persons, I 
said, and myself among them, believed that although the 
accusers were perfectly sincere, the guilt of the Jews was 
from end to end an hallucmation of hatred. I had looked 
into the particulars of some of the trials. They were 
like the trials for witchcraft. The belief had created the 
fact, and accusation was itself evidence. I was prepared to 
find these stories of child murder in Hayti were bred simi- 
larly of anti-negro prejudice. 

Had the Chief Justice caught at my suggestion with 
any eagerness I should have suspected it myself. His grave 
diffidence and continued hesitation in offering an opinion 
confirmed me m my own. I told him that I was going to 
Hayti to learn what I could on the spot. I could not expect 
that I, on a flying visit, could see deeper into the truth 



128 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

than Sir Spenser St. John had seen, but at least I should 
not take with me a mind already made up, and I was not 
given to credulity. He took leave of me with an expression 
of passionate anxiety that it might be found possible to 
remove^ black a stain from hisjmfortunate race.^ n/ 



129 



CHAPTEE X. 

Leeward and Windward Islands — The Garibs of Dominica — Visit of Pdre 
Labat— St. Luoia — The Pitons — The harbour at Castries — ^Intended 
coaling station — Visit to the administrator — The old fort and barracks 
— Conversation with an American — Constitution of Dominica — ^Land at 
Roseau. 

Beyond all the West Indian Islands I had been curious to ) 
see Dominican It was the scene of Bodney's great fight 
on April 12. It was the most beautiful of the Antilles and 
the least known. A tribe of aboriginal Caribs still lingered 
In the forests retaining the old look and the old language, 
and, except that they no longer ate their prisoners, retain- 
ing their old habits. They were skilful fishermen, skilful 
basket makers, skilful in many curious arts. 

The island lies between Martinique and Guadaloupe, and 
is one of the group now called Leeward Islands, as distin- 
guished from St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, &c., which 
form the Windward. The early geographers drew the 
line differently and more rationally. The main direction 
of the trade winds is from the east. To them the 
Windward Islands were the whole chain of the Antilles, 
which form the eastern side of the Caribbean Sea. The 
Leeward were the great islands on the west of it — Cuba, 
St. Domingo, Puerto Bico, and Jamaica. The modern 
division corresponds to no natural phenomenon. The drift 
of the trades is rather from the north-east than from the 

' Not to be confounded with St. Domingo, which is called after St* 
Domenic, where the Spaniards first settled, and is now divided into the 
two black republics of St. Domingo and Hayti. Dominica lies in the chain 
of the Antilles between Martinique and Guadaloupe, and was so named by 
Ck>lumbn8 because he discovered it on a Sunday. 



^tf»..f'.^i 



r 



h. 



130 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

south-east, and the names eerve only now to describe our 
own not very successful political groupings- 
Dominica cuts in two the French West Indian posses- 
sions. The French took it originally from the Spaniards, 
occupied it, colonised it, planted in it their religion and their 
language, and fought desperately to maintain then- posses- 
sion. Lord Rodney, to whom we owe our own position in 
the West Indies, insisted that Dominica must belong to us 
to hold the French in check, and regarded it as the most 
important of all our stations there. Eodney made it 
English, and English it has ever since remained in spite 
of the furious efforts which France made to recover an 
island which she so highly valued during the Napoleon 
wars. I was anxious to learn what we had made of a place 
whi^ we had fought _so hard for. 

Though Dominica is the most mountainous of all the 
Antilles, it is split into many valleys of exquisite fertility. 
Through each there runs a full and ample river, swarming 
with fish, and yielding waterpower enough to drive all the 
mills which industry could build. In these valleys and on the 
rich levels along the shore the French had once their cane 
fields and orange gardens, their pineapple beds and indigo 
plantations. 

Labat, who travelled through the island at the close 
of the seventeenth century, found it at that time chiefly 
occupied by Caribs. With his hungry appetite for know- 
ledge, he was a guest in their villages, acquainted himself 
with their characters and habits, and bribed out of them 
by lavish presents of brandy the secrets of their medicines 
and poisons. The Fere was a clever, curious man, with a 
genial human sympathy about him, and was indulgent to 
the faults which the poor coloured sinners fell into from 
never having known better. He tried to make Christians 
of them. They were willing to be baptised as often as he 
liked for a glass of brandy. But he was not very angry 




THE CARIBS 131 

when he found that the Christianity went no deeper. Moral 
virtues, he concluded charitably, could no more be expected 
out of a Carib than reason and good sense out of a woman. 

At Roseau, the capital, he fell in with the then queen of 
Dominica, a Madame Ouvernard, a Carib of pure blood, 
who in her time of youth and beauty had been the mis- 
tress of an English governor of St. Kitts. When Labat 
saw her she wtis a hundred years old with a family of 
children and grandchildren. She was a grand old lady, 
unclothed almost absolutely, bent double, bo that under 
ordinary circumstances nothing of her face could be seen. 
Labat, however, presented her with a couple of bottles of 
eau de vie, under the influence of which she lifted up to 
hira a pair of still brilliant eyes and a fair mouthful of 
teeth. They did very well together, and on parting they 
exchanged presents in Homeric fashion, she loading him 
with baskets of fruit, he giving a box in return full of pins 
and needles, knives and scissorsy 

Labat was a student of lap^ages before phUology had 
become a science. He discoy^red from the language of the 
Caribs that they were North American Indians. They called 
themselves Bannri, whiph meant 'come from over sea.' 
Their ^al^ct was almost identical with what he had heard 
spokeaur Florida. They were cannibals, but of a peculiar 
kind. Human flesh wan not their ordinary food ; but they 
' boucanned ' or dried the limbs of distinguished enemies 
whom they had killed in battle, and handed them round to 
be gnawed at special festivals. They were a light-hearted, 
pleasant race, capital shots with bows and arrows, and ready 
to do anything he asked in return for brandy. They killed 
a hammer shark for his amusement by diving under the 
monster and stabbing him with knives. As to their 
religion, they had no objection to anything. But their real 
belief was in a sort of devil. 

Soon after Labat's visit the French came in, drove the 



132 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Caribs into the mountains, introduced negro slaves, and an 
ordered form of society. Madame Ouvernard and her court 
went to their own place. Canes were planted, and indigo 
and coffee. A cathedral was built at Boseau, and parish 
churches were scattered about the island. There were 
convents of nuns and houses of friars, and a fort at the 
port with a garrison in it. The French might have been 
there till now had not we turned them out some ninety 
years ago ; English enterprise then setting in that direc- 
tion under the impulse of Eodney's victories. I was my- 
self about to see the improvements which we had introduced 
into an acquisition which* had cost us so dear. 

I was to be dropped at Roseau by the mail steamer 
from Barbadoes to St. Thomas's. On our way we touched 
at St. Lucia, another once famous possession of ours. 
This island was once French also. Bodney took it in 1778. 
It was the only one of the Antilles which was left to us in 
the reverses which followed the capitulation of York Town. 
It was in the harbour at Castries, the chief port, that 
Rodney collected the fleet which fought and won the great 
battle with the Count de Grasse. At the peace of Ver- 
sailles, St. Lucia was restored to France ; but was retaken 
in 1796 by Sir Balph Abercrombie, and, like Dominica, 
has ever since belonged to England. This, too, is a beauti- 
ful mountainous island, twice as large as Barbadoes, in 
which even at this late day we have suddenly discovered 
that we have an interest. The threatened Darien canal has 
awakened us to a sense that we require a fortified coaling 
station in those quarters. St. Lucia has the greatest 
natural advantages for such a purpose, and works are al- 
ready in progress there, and the long-deserted forts and 
barracks, which had been made over to snakes and lizards, 
are again to be occupied by EngUsh troops. 

We sailed one evening from Barbadoes. In the grey of 
the next morning we were in the passage between St. 



7 HE PITONS OF ST. LUCIA 133 

Lucia and St. Vincent just under the * Pitons,' which were 
soaring grandly above us in the twilight. The Pitons are 
two conical mountains rising straight out of the sea at the 
southern end of St. Lucia, one of them 8,000 feet high, 
the other a few feet lower, symmetrical in shape like sugar 
loaves, and so steep as to be inaccessible to any one but a 
member of the Alpine Club. Tradition says that four 
English seamen, belonging to the fleet, did once set out to 
climb the loftier of the two. They were watched in their 
ascent through a telescope. "When halfway up one of them 
was seen to drop, while three went on ; a few hundred feet 
higher a second dropped, and afterwards a third ; one 
had almost reached the summit, when he fell also. No 
account of what had befallen them ever reached their ship. 
They were supposed to have been bitten by the fer de 
lance, the deadliest snake in St. Lucia and perhaps in 
the world, who had resented and punished then- intrusion 
into regions where they had no business. Such is the 
local legend, born probably out of the terror of a reptile 
which is no legend at all, but a living and very active 
reality. 

I had gone on deck on hearing where we were, and saw 
the twin grey peaks high above me in the sky, the last stars 
glinunerifg oL their fops and the waves washing against 
the black precipices at their base. The night had been 
rough, and a considerable sea was running, which changed, 
however, to an absolute calm when we had passed the Pitons 
and were under the lee of the island. I could then observe 
the peculiar blue of the water which I was told that I should 
find at St. Lucia and Dominica. I have seen the sea of 
very beautiful colours in several parts of the world, but I 
never saw any which equalled this. I do not know the cause. 
The depth is very great even close to the shore. The 
islands are merely volcanic mountains with sides extremely 
steep. The coral insect has made anchorages in the bays 



r 



134 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 




and iiiletB, elsewhere you are out of soundingB almost ini- 
mediately. As to St. Liicia itself, if I had not seen Grenada, 
if I had not known what I was about to see in Dominica, I 
should have thought it the most exquisite place which nature 
had ever made, so perfect were the forma of the forest-clothed 
hills, the glena dividing them and the high mountain ranges 
in the interior still draped in the white mist of morning. 
Here and there along the shore there were bright green 
spots which meant cane fields. Sugar cane in these 
countries is always called for brevity cane. 

Here, as elsewhere, the population is almost entirely 
negro, forty thousand blacks and a few hundred whites, 
the ratio altering every year to white disadvantage. The 
old system has not, however, disappeared as completely as 
in other places. There are still white planters with large 
estates, which are not encumbered as in Earbadoes. They 
are struggling along, discontented of course, but not wholly 
despondent. The chief complaint is the somewhat weary 
one of the laziness of the blacks, who they say will work 
only when they please, and are never fully awake except at 
I dinner time. I do not know that they have a right to'' 
, expect anything else from poor creatures whom the law calls 
human, but who to them are only mechanical tools, not bo 
manageable as tools ought to be, with whom they have no 
acquaintance and no human relations, whose wages are 
but twopence an hour and are diminished by fines at the ^ 
arbitrary pleasure of the overseer. 

Life and hope and energy are the qualities most needed, 
When the troops return there will be a change, and spirit 
may be put into them again. Castries, the old French 
town, Ues at the head of a deep inlet which runs in among 
the mountains lite a fiord. This is to be the future 
coaling station. The mouth of the bay is narrow with a 
high projecting ' head ' on either side of it, and can be 
easily and cheaply fortified. There is little or no tide in 



THE HARBOUR AT ST. LUCIA 135 

these seaa. There is depth of water BufBcient in the 
greater part of the harbour for Hne-of-battle ships to anchor 
and turn, and the few coral shoals which would be in the 
way are beuig torn up with dredging machines. The 
island hae borrowed seventy thousand pounds on Govern- 
ment security to prepare for the dignity which awaits it 
and for the prosperity which is to fohow. There was real 
work actively going on, a rare and perhaps unexampled 
phenomenon in the English West Indies. 

We brought up alongside of a wharf to take in coal. It was 
a strange scene ; cocoa-nut palms growing incongruously out 
of coal stores, and gorgeous flowering creepers chmhing over 
the workmen's sheds. Volumes of smoke rose out of the 
dredging engines and hovered over the town. We had 
come back to French costume again ; we had left the white 
dresses behind at Barbadoes, and the people at Castries 
were bright as parrots in crimsons and blues and greens ; 
but fine colours looked oddly out of place by the side of the 
grimy reproduction of England. 

I went on shore and fell in with the engineer of the 
works, who kindly showed me his plans of the harbour, and 
explained what was to be done. He showed me also some 
beautiful large bivalves which bad been brought up in the 
scrapers out of the coral. They were new to me and new 
to him, though they may be familiar enough to more 
experienced naturalists. Among other curiosities he had a 
fer de lance, lately killed and preserved in spirits, a rat- 
tailed, reddish, powerful -looking brute, about four feet long 
and as thick as a child's wrist. Even when dead I looked 
at him respectfully, for his bite is fatal and the effect 
almost instantaneous. He is fearless, and wUl not, lik& 
most snakes, get out of your way if he hears you coming, 
but leaves you to get out of his. He has a had habit, too, 
of taking his walks at night ; he prefers a path or a road 
to the grass, and your house or your garden to the forest ; 



I 






136 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

while if you etep upon him you will never do it again. 
They have introduced the mongoose, who has cleared 
the enakes out of Jamaica, to deal with him ; but the 
mongoose knows the creature that he has to encounter, and 
as yet has made Uttle progress in extirpating him. 

St. Lucia is under the jurisdiction of Barbadoea. It has 
no governor of its own, but only an administrator indif- 
ferently paid. The elective principle has not yet been 
introduced into the legislatm'e, and perhaps will not be 
introduced since we have discovered the island to be of 
consequence to us, unless as part of some general confedera- 
tion. The present administrator— Mr. Laborde, a gentle- 
man, I suppose, of French descent — is an elderly official, 
and resides in the old quarters of the general of the forces, 
900 feet above the sea. He has large responsibilities, and, 
having had large experience also, seems fully equal to the 
duties which attach to him. He cannot have the authority 
of a complete governor, or undertake independent enter- 
prises for the benefit of the island, as a Rajah Brooke might 
do, but he walks steadily on in the Hues assigned to him. 
St. Lucia is better off in this respect than most of the 
Antilles, and may revive perhaps into something like 
prosperity when the coaling station is finished and under 
the command of some eminent engineer officer. 

Mr. Laborde had invited us to lunch with him. Hotaes 
were waiting for us, and we rode up the old winding track 
which led from the town to the barracks. The heat below 
was oppressive, but the air cooled as we rose. The road is 
so steep that resting places had been provided at iuterrals, 
where the soldiers could recover breath or shelter them- 
selves from the tropical cataracts of rain which fall without 
notice, as if the string had been pulled of some celestial 
ehower bath. The trees branched thickly over it, making 
an impenetrable shade, till we emerged on the plateau at 
the top, where we were on comparatively level ground, with 



THE CANTONMENTS AT ST. LUCIA 137 

the harbour immediately at our feet. The situation had 
been chosen by the French when St. Lucia was theirs. 
The general's house, now Mr. Laborde's residence, is a long 
airy building with a deep colonnade, the drawing and dining 
rooms occupying the entire breadth Df the ground floor, with 
doors and windows on both sides for coolness and air. The 
western front overlooked the sea. Behind were wooded hills, 
green valleys, a mountain range in the background, and the 
Pitons blue in the distance. As we were before our time, 
Mr. Laborde walked me out to see the old barracks, maga- 
zines, and water tanks. They looked neglected and dilapi- 
dated, the signs of decay being partly hid by the creepers 
with which the walls were overgrown. The soldiers' quarters 
were occupied for the time by a resident gentleman, who 
attended to the essential repairs and prevented the snakes 
from taking possession as they were inclined to do. I forget 
how many of the fer de lance sort he told me he had killed 
in the rooms since he had lived in them. 

In the war time we had maintained a large establish* 
ment in St. Lucia ; with what consequences to the health 
of the troops I could not clearly make out. One informant 
told me that they had died like flies of yellow fever, and 
that the fields adjoining were as full of bodies as the 
Brompton cemetery ; anqj;her that yellow fever had never 
been known there or any dangerous disorder ; and that if 
we wanted a sanitary station this was the spot for it. 
Many thousands of pounds will have to be spent there 
before the troops can return ; but that is our way with the 
colonies — to change our minds every ten years, to do and 
undo, and do again, according to parUamentary humours, 
while John Bull pays the bill patiently for his own ir- 
resolution. 

The fortress, once very strong, is now in ruins, but, I 
Buppose, will be repaired and rearmed unless we are to trust 
to the Yankees, who are supposed to have established a 



138 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Pax Dei in these waters and will permit no aggressive ac- 
tion there either by us or against us. We walked round 
the walls ; we saw the hill a. mile off from which Aber- 
erombie had battered out the French, having dragged his 
guns through a roadless forest to a spot to which there 
seemed no access except on wings. The word ' impossible * 
was not known in those days. What Englishmen did once 
they maj- do again perhaps if stormy days coBne back. 
The ruins themselves were silently impressive. One could 
hear the note of the old bugles as they sounded the reveille 
and the roaring of the /«' de joie when the shattered 
prizes were brought in from the French fleet. The signs 
of what once had been were still visible in the parade 
ground, in the large mangoes which the soldiers had planted, 
in the English grass which they had introduced and on 
which cattle were now grazing. There was a clump of guavaa, 
hitherto only known to me in preserves. I gathered a 
blossom as a remembrance, white like a large myrtle 
flower, but heavily scented — too heavily, with an odour of 
death about it. 

Mr. Laborde's conversation was instructive. His enter- 
tainment of u8 was all which our acquired West Indian 
fastidiousness could desire. The inevitable cigars followed, 
and Mr. L. gave me a beating at billiards. There were 
some lively young ladies in the party, and two or three of 
the ship's officers. The young ones played lawn tennis, 
and we old ones looked on and wished the years off our 
shoulders. 60 passed the day. The sun was setting when 
we mounted to ride down. So short is the twilight in these 
latitudes, that it was dark night when we reached the town, 
and we required the light of the stars to find our boat. 

When the coaling process was ^lished, the ship bad been 
washed down in our absence and was anchored off beyond the 
reach of the dirt ; but the ports were shut ; thewindsails had 
been taken down ; the air in the cabins was stifling; so I 




I 



A CASUAL AMERICAN 139 

stayed on deck till midnight with a clever young American, 
who was among our fellow-passengers, talking of many 
things. He was ardent, confident, self-asserting, but not 
disagreeably either one or the other. It was rather a 
pleasure to hear a man speak in these flabby uncertain 
days as if he were sure of anything, and I had to notice 
again, as I had often noticed before, how well informed 
casual American travellers are on public affairs, and how 
sensibly they can talk of them. He had been much in the 
West Indies, and seemed to know them well. He said that 
all the whites in the islands wished at the bottom of their 
hearts to be taken into the Union ; but the Union Govern- 
ment was too wise to meddle with them. The trade would 
fall to America of itself. The responsibility and trouble 
might remain where it was, I asked him about the 
Canadian fishery dispute. He thought it would settle it- 
self in time, and that nothing serious would come of it. 
' The Washington Cabinet had been a little hard on Eng- 
land,' he admitted ; ' but it was six of one and half a dozen 
of the other,' ' Hojiours were easy ; neither party could 
score.' ' We had been equally hard on them about Alaska.' 

He was less satisfied about Ireland. The telegraph had 
brought the news of Mr. Goschen's defeat at Liverpool, 
and Home Eule, which had seemed to have been disposed 
of, was again within the range of probabilities. He was 
watching with pitying amusement, like most of Iiis country- 
men, /the weakness__of,_willj with which England allowed „ 
herself to be worried by so contemptible a business ; but he 
did seem to fear, and I have heard others of his country- 
men say the same, that if we let it go on much longer the 
Americans may become involved in the thing one way or 
another, and trouble may rise about it between the two 
countries. 

We weighed ; and I went to bed and to sleep, and so 
missed Pigeon Island, where Bodney'a fleet lay before the 



I40 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

paction, and the rock from which, through his telescope, he 
watched De Grasse come out of Martinique, and gave his 
own signal to chase. We rolled as usual between the 
islands. At daylight we were again in shelter under 
Martinique, and again in classic regions ; for close to us 
was Diamond Rock — once his Majesty's ship * Diamond,* 
commissioned with crew and officers— one of those curious 
true incidents, out of which a legend might have grown in 
other times, that ship and mariners had been turned to 
stone. The rock, a lonely pyramid six himdred feet high, 
commanded the entrance to Port Eoyal in Martinique. 
Lord Howe took possession of it, sent guns up in slings to 
the top, and left a midshipman with a handful of men in 
charge. The gallant little fellow held his fortress for 
several months, peppered away at the French, and sent 
three of their ships of war to the bottom. He was blockaded 
at last by an overwhelming force. No relief could be spared 
for him. Escape was impossible, as he had not so much 
as a boat, and he capitulated to famine. 

We stayed two hours under Martinique. I did not land. 
It has been for centuries a special object of care on the part 
of the French Government. It is well looked after, and, 
considering the times, prosperous. It has a fine garrison, 
and a dockyard well furnished, with frigates in the harbours 
ready for action should occasion arise. I should infer from 
what I heard that in the event of war breaking out between 
England and France, Martinique, in the present state of 
preparation on both sides, might take possession of the rest 
of the Antilles with little difficulty. Three times we took 
it, and we gave it back again. In turn, it may one day, 
perhaps, take us, and the English of the West Indies 
become a tradition like the buccaneers. 

The mountains of Dominica are full in sight from 
Martinique. The channel which separates them is but 
thirty miles across, and the view of Dominica as you 



FIRST SIGHT OF DOMINICA 141 

approach it is extremely grand. Grenada, St. Vincent, 
St. Lucia, Martinique are all volcanic, with lofty peaks and 
ridges ; but Dominica was at the centre of the force which 
lifted the Antilles out of the ocean, and the features which 
are common to all are there in a magnified form. The 
moimtains range from four to five thousand feet in height. 
Moimt Diablot, the highest of them, rises to between five 
and six thousand feet. The moimtains being the tallest in 
all the group, the rains are also the most violent, and the 
ravines torn out by the torrents are the wildest and most 
magnificent. The volcanic forces are still active there. 
There are sulphur springs and boiling water fountains, and 
in a central crater there is a boiling lake. There are strange 
creatures there besides : great snakes — harmless, but ugly 
to look at ; the diablot — from which the mountain takes its 
name — a great bird, black as charcoal, half raven, half 
parrot, which nests in holes in the ground as puffins do, 
spends all the day in them, and flies down to the sea at 
night to fish for its food. There were once great numbers 
of these creatures, and it was a favourite amusement to 
hunt and drag them out of their hiding places. Labat says 
that they were excellent eating. They are confined now in 
reduced numbers to the inaccessible crags about the peak 
which bears their name. 

Martinique has two fine harbours. Dominica has none. 
At the north end of the island there is a bay, named after 
Prince Bupert, where there is shelter from all winds but 
the south, but neither there nor anjrwhere is there an 
anchorage which can be depended upon in dangerous 
weather. 

Roseau, the principal or only town, stands midway 
along the western shore. The roadstead is open, but as 
the prevailing winds are from the east the island itself 
forms a breakwater. Except on the rarest occasions there 
is neither surf nor swell there. The land shelves off 




142 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

rapidly, and a gunshot from shore no cable can find the 
bottom, but there is an anchorage in front of the town, 
and coasting smacks, American schooners, passing steamere 
bring up close under the rocks or alongside of the jetties 
which are built out from the beach upon piles. 

The situation of Eoseau is exceedingly beautiful. The 
sea is, if possible, a deeper azure even than at St. Lucia ; the 
air more transparent ; the forests of a lovelier green than I 
ever saw in any other country. Even the rain, which falls in 
Huch abundance, falls often out of a clear sky as if not to inter- 
rupt the sunshine, and a rainbow almost perpetually hangs 
its arch over the island. Koseau itself stands on a shallow 
promontory. A long terrace of tolerable-looking houses 
faces the landing place. At right angles to the terrace, 
straight streets strike backwards at intervals, palms and 
bananas breaking the lines of roof. At a little distance, 
you see the towers of the old French Catholic cathedral, 
a smaller but not ungraceful-looking Anglican church, and 
to the right a fort, or the ruins of one, now used as a police 
barrack, over which flies the English flag as the symbol of 
our titular dominion. Beyond the fort is a pubUc garden 
with pretty trees in it along the brow of a precipitous cliff, 
at the foot of which, when we landed, lay at anchor a 
couple of smart Yankee schooners and half a dozen coast- 
ing cutters, while rounding inwards behind was a long 
shallow bay dotted over with the sails of fishing boats. 
"White negro villages gleamed among the palms along the 
shore, and wooded mountains rose immediately above 
them. It seemed an attractive, innocent, sunny sort of 
place, very pleasant to spend a few days in, if the inner side 
of things corresponded to the appearance. To a looker-on 
at that calm scene it was not easy to realise the desperate 
battles which had been fought for the possession of it, the 
gallant hves which had been laid down under the walls of 
that crumbling castle. These cliffs had echoed the roar of 



^^^ aa 



THE DOMINICAN CONSTITUTION 143 

Eodoey's guns on the day which saved the British Empire, 
and the island I was gazing at was England's Salamis. 

The organisation of the place, too, seemed, so far as I 
could gather from official hooks, to have been carefully 
attended to. The constitution had been touched and 
retouched by the home authorities as if no pains could be 
too great to make it worthy of a spot bo saered. There is 
an administrator, which is a longer word than governor. 
There ia an executive council, a colonial secretary, an 
attorney -general, an auditor - general, and other such 
' generals of great charge.' There is a legislative assembly 
of fourteen members, seven nominated by the Crown and 
seven elected by the people. And there are revenue officers 
and excise officers, inspectors of roads, and civil engineers, 
and school boards, and medical officers, and registrars, 
and magistrates. Where would political perfection be 
found if not here with such elaborate machinery ? 

The results of it all, in the official reports, seemed equally 
satisfactory till you looked closely into them. The tariff of 
articles on which duties were levied, and the list of articles 
rtiised and exported, seemed to show that Dominica most 
be a beehive of industry and productiveness. The revenue, 
indeed, was a little startling as the result of this army of 
officials. Eighteen thousand pounds was the whole of it, 
not enough to pay their salaries. The population, too, on 
whose good government so much thought had been ex- 
pended, was only 30,000 ; of these 30,000 only a hundred 
were English. The remaining whites, and those in scanty 
numbers, were French and CathoHcs. The soil was as rich 
as the richest in the world. The cultivation was growing 
annually less. The inspector of roads was likely to have an 
easy task, for except close to the town there were no roads 
at all on which anything with wheels could travel, the old 
roads made by the French having dropped into horse tracks, 
and the horse tracks into the beds of torrents. Why in an 



144 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

island where the resources of modem statesmanship had 
been applied so lavishly and with the latest discoveries in 
political science, the eflfect should have so ill corresponded 
to the means employed, was a problem into which it would 
be curious to inquire. 

The steamer set me down upon the pier and went on 
upon its way. At the end of a fortnight it would return and 
pick me up again. Meanwhile, I was to make the best of 
my time. I had been warned beforehand that there was no 
hotel in Boseau where an Englishman with a susceptible 
skin and palate could survive more than a week ; and as I 
had two weeks to provide for, I was uncertain what to do 
with myself. I was spared the trial of the hotels by the 
liberality of her Majesty's representative in the colony. 
Captain Churchill, the administrator of the island, had heard 
that I was coming there, and I was met on the landing 
stage by a message from him inviting me to be his guest 
during my stay. Two tall handsome black girls seized my 
bags, tossed them on their heads, and strode off with a light 
step in front of me, cutting jokes with their friends ; I 
following, and my mind misgiving me that I was myself the 
object of their wit. 

I was anxious to see- Captain Churchill, for I had heard 
much of him. The warmest affection had been expressed 
for him personally, and concern for the position in which 
he was placed. Notwithstanding * the latest discoveries of 
political science,' the constitution was still imperfect. The 
administrator, to begin with, is allowed a salary of only 
500Z. a year. That is not much for the chief of such an 
army of officials; and the hospitalities and social civili- 
ties which smooth the way in such situations are beyond 
his means. His business is to preside at the coimcil, where^ 
the official and the elected members being equally balanced 
and almost invariably dividing one against the other, his 
duty is to give the casting vote. He cannot give it against 



II 



THE DOMINICAN CONSTITUTION 145 

his own oflScers, and thus the machine is contrived to create 
the largest amount of friction, and to insure the highest 
amount of unpopularity to the administrator. His situa- 
tion is the more difficult because the European element in 
Roseau, small as it is at best, is more French than English. 
The priests, the sisterhoods, are French or French-speaking. 
A French patois is the language of the blacks. They are 
I almost to a man Catholics, and to the French they look^ 
as their natural leaders. England has done nothing, abso-l 
! lutely nothing, to introduce her own civilisation ; and thus 
Dominica is English only in name. Should war come, fl[^ 
? boatload of soldiers from Martinique would suffice to re- 
cover it. Not a black in the whole island would draw a 
trigger in defence of English authority, and, except the 
Crown officials, not half a dozen Europeans. The adminis- 
trator can do nothing to improve this state of things. He 
is too poor to open Government House to the Roseau shop- 
keepers and to bid for social popularity. He is no one. 
He goes in and out unnoticed, and flits about like a bat in 
the twiUght. He can do no good, and from the nature of 
the system on the construction of which so much care was 
expended, no one else can do any good. The maximum of 
expense, the minimum of benefit to the island, is all that 
has come of it. 

Meanwhile the island drifts along, without credit to 
borrow money and therefore escaping bankruptcy. The 
blacks there, as everywhere, are happy with their yams and 
cocoa nuts and land crabs. They desire nothing better 
than they have, and do not imagine that they have any 
rulers unless agitated by the elected members. These 
gentlemen would Uke the official situations for themselves 
as in Trinidad, and they occasionally attempt a stir with 
partial success ; otherwise the island goes on in a state of 
torpid content. Captain Churchill, quiet and gentlemanlike, 
gives no personal o£fence, but popularity he cannot hope 



146 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

for, having no means of recommending himself. The only 
really powerful Europeans are the Catholic bishop and 
the priests and sisterhoods. They are looked up to with 
genuine respect. They are reaping the harvest of the long 
and honourable efforts of the French clergy in all their 
West Indian possessions to make the blacks into Catholic 
Christians. In the Christian part of it they have suc- 
ceeded but moderately ; but such religion as exists in the 
island is mainly what they have introduced and taught, 
and they have a distinct influence which we ourselves have 
not tried to rival. 

But we have been too long toiling up the paved road to 
Captain Churchill's house. My girl-porter guides led me 
past the fort, where they exchanged shots with the lounging 
black poUce, past the EngUsh church, which stood buried 
in trees, the churchyard prettily planted with tropical 
flowers. The sim was dazzling, the heat was intense, and 
the path which led through it, if not apparently much used, 
looked shady and cool. 

A few more steps brought us to the gate of the Eesidence, 
where Captain Churchill had his quarters in the absence of 
the Governor-in- Chief of the Leeward Islands, whose visits 
were few and brief. In the event of the Governor's arrival 
he removed to a cottage in the hills. The house was hand- 
some, the gardens well kept ; a broad walk led up to the 
door, a hedge of lime trees closely cUpt on one side of it, on 
the other a lawn with orange trees, oleanders, and hibiscus, 
palms of all varieties and almond trees, which in Dominica 
grow into giants, their broad leaves turning crimson before 
they fall like the Virginia creeper. We reached the 
entrance of the house by wide stone steps, where coimtless 
lizards were lazily basking. Through the bars of the 
railings on each side of them there were intertwined the 
runners of the largest and most powerfully scented stepha- 
notis which I have ever seen. Captain Churchill (one of 



CAPTAIN CHURCHILL AND HIS HOUSEHOLD 147 

the Marlborough Churchills) received me with more than 
cordiality. Society is not abundant in his Barataria, and 
perhaps as coming from England I was welcome to him in 
his solitude. His wife, an English Creole — that is, of pure 
English blood, but born in the island — was as hospitable as 
her husband. They would not let me feel that I was a 
stranger, and set me at my ease in a moment with a warmth 
which was evidently unassumed. Captain C. was lame, 
having hurt his foot. In a day or two he hoped to be able 
to mount his horse again, when we were to ride together 
and see the curiosities. Meanwhile, he talked sorrowfully 
enough of his own situation and the general helplessness of 
it. A man whose feet are chained and whose hands are in 
manacles is not to be found fault with if he cannot use 
either. He is not intended to use either. The duty of an 
administrator of Dominica, it appears, is to sit still and do 
nothing, and to watch the flickering in the socket of the 
last remains of English influence and authority. Individu- 
ally he was on good terms with everyone, with the Catholic 
bishop especially, who, to his regret and mine, was absent 
at the time of my visit. 
^ His establishment was remarkable ; it consisted of two 
black girls — a cook and a parlourmaid — who 'did every- 
thing,' and 'everything,' I am bound to say, was done well 
enough to please the most fastidious nicety. The cook- 
ing was excellent. The rooms, which were handsomely 
furnished, were kept as well and in as good order as in 
the Churchills' ancestral palace at Blenheim. Dominica 
has a bad name for vermin. I had been threatened with 
centipedes and scorpions in my bedroom. I had been 
warned there, as everywhere in the West Indies, never 
to walk across a floor with bare feet, lest a land crab 
should lay hold of my toe or a jigger should bite a hole 
in it, lay its eggs there, and bring me into the hands 
of the surgeon. Never while I was Captain C.'s guest 

b 2 



148 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

did I see either centipede, or scorpion, or jigger, or any 
other unclean beast in any room of which these girls had 
charge. Even mosquitoes did not trouble me, so skilfully and 
carefully they arranged the curtains. They were dressed in 
the fashion of the French islands, something like the Moorish 
slaves whom one sees in pictures of Eastern palaces. They 
flitted about silent on their shoeless feet, never stumbled, 
or upset chairs or plates or dishes, but waited noiselessly 
like a pair of elves, and were always in their place when 
wanted. One had heard much of the idleness and care- _ 
lessness of negro servants. In no part of the globe have 
I ever seen household work done so well by two pairs of 
hands. Of their morals I know nothing. It is usually 
said that negro girls have none. They appeared to me to 
be perfectly modest and innocent. I asked in wonder what 
wages were paid to these black fairies, beUeving that at no 
price at all could the match of them be found in England. 
I was informed that they had three shillings a week each, and 
*• found themselves,' i.e. found their own food and clothes. 
And this was above the usual rate, as Government House 
was expected to be liberal. The scale of wages may have 
something to do with the difficulty of obtaining labour in the 
West Indies. I could easily believe the truth of what I had 
been often told, that free labour is more economical to the 
employer than slave labour. 

The views from the drawing-room windows were enchant- 
ingly beautiful. It is not the form only in these West Indian 
landscapes, or the colour only, but form and colour seen 
through an atmosphere of very peculiar transparency. On 
one side we looked up a moimtain gorge, the slopes covered 
with forest; a bold lofty crag standing out from them 
brown and bare, and the moimtain ridge behind half buried 
in mist. From the other window we had the Botanical 
Gardens, the bay beyond them sparkling in the sunshine, 
and on the farther side of it, a few miles o£f, an island for- 



1-5 






FIEJV FROM THE GARDENS 149 

tress which the Marquis de Bouille, of Eevolution notoriety, 
took from the EngUsh in 1778. The sea stretched out blue 
and lovely under the fringe of sand, box trees, and almonds 
which grew along the edge of the cliff. The air was per- 
fumed by white acacia flowers sweeter than orange blossom. 
Captain C. limped do\vn with me into the gardens for a 
fuller look at the scene. Dusky fishermen were busy with 
their nets catching things like herrings, which come in 
daily to the shore to escape the monsters which prey upon 
them. Canoes on the old Carib pattern were slipping along 
outside, trailing lines for kingfish and bonitos. Others 
were setting baskets, like enormous lobster pots or hoop 
nets — such as we use to catch tench in English ponds — 
these, too, a legacy from the Caribs, made of strong tough 
cane. At the foot of the cliff were the smart American 
schooners which I had seen on landing — broad-beamed, 
shallow, low in the water with heavy spars, which bring 
Yankee * notions ' to the islands, and carry back to New 
York bananas and limes and pineapples. There they 
were, models of Tom Cringle's *Wave,' airy as English 
yachts, and equal to anything from a smuggling cruise to a 
race for a cup. I could have gazed for ever, so beautiful, so 
new, so like a dream it was, had I not been brought back 
swiftly to prose and reality. Suddenly out of a clear sky, 
without notice and without provocation, first a few drops of 
rain fell, and then a deluge which set the gutters running. 
We had to scuttle home under our umbrellas. I was told, 
and I discovered afterwards by fuller experience, that 
this was the way in Dominica, and that if I went out any- 
where I must be prepared for it. In our retreat we 
encountered a distinguished-looking abbe with a collar 
and a gold cross, who bowed to my companion. I would 
gladly have been introduced to him, but neither he nor 
we had leisure for courtesies in the torrent which was falling 
upon us. 



ISO THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTEE XI. 

Curiosities in Dominica — Nights in the tropics — ^English and Catholic 
churches — The market place at Boseau — Fishing extraordinary —A 
storm— Dominican boatmen — Morning walks— Effects of the Leeward 
Islands Confederation — An estate cultivated as it ought to be— A moun- 
tain ride— Leave the island — Reflections. 

There was much to be seen in Dominica of the sort which 
travellers go in search of. There was the hot sulphur 
spring in the mountains ; there was the hot lake ; there 
was another volcanic crater, a hollow in the centre of the 
island now filled with water and surrounded with forest ; 
there were the Caribs, some thirty families of them living 
among thickets, through which paths must be cut before 
we could reach them. We could imdertake nothing till 
Captain C. could ride again. Distant expeditions can 
only be attempted on horses. They are bred to the work. 
They climb like cats, and step out safely where a fall or a 
twisted ankle would be the probable consequence of at- 
tempting to go on foot. Meanwhile, Boseau itself was to 
be seen and the immediate neighbourhood, and this I could 
manage for myself. 

My first night was disturbed by unfamiliar noises and 
strange imaginations. I escaped mosquitoes through the 
care of the black fairies. But mosquito curtains will not 
keep out sounds, and when the fireflies had put out their 
lights there began the singular chorus of tropical midnight. 
Frogs, lizards, bats, croaked, sang, and hissed with no in- 
termission, careless whether they were in discord or har- 
mony. The palm branches outside my window swayed in 
the land breeze, and the dry branches rustled crisply as if 



NIGHT SOUNDS 151 

they were plates of silver. At intervals came cataracts of 
rain, and above all the rest the deep boom of the cathedral 
bell tolling out the hours like a note of the Old World. The 
CathoUc clergy had brought the bells with them as they 
had brought their faith into these new lands. It was 
pathetic, it was ominous music ; for what had we done and 
what were we doing to set beside it in the century for 
which the island had been ours ? Towards morning I 
heard the tinkle of the bell of the convent adjoining the 
garden calling the nuns to matins. Happily in the tropics 
hot nights do not imply an early dawn. The darkness 
lingers late, sleep comes at last and drowns our fancies in 
forgetfulness. 

The swimming bath was immediately imder my room. 
I ventured into it with some trepidation. The basement 
story in most West Indian houses is open, to allow the air 
free passage imder them. The space thus left vacant is 
used for lumber and rubbish, and, if scorpions or snakes are 
in the neighbourhood, is the place where one would look for 
them. There the bath was. I had been advised to be 
careful, and as it was dark this was not easy. The fear, 
however, was worse than the reality. Awkward encounters 
do happen if one is long in these countries ; but they are 
rare, and seldom befall the accidental visitor; and the 
plunge into fresh water is so delicious that one is willing to 
risk the chance. 

I wandered out as soon as the sun was over the hori- 
zon. The cool of the morning is the time to see the 
people. The market girls were streaming into the town with 
their baskets of vegetables on their heads. The fishing 
boats were out again on the bay. Our Anglican church 
had its bell too as well as the cathedral. The door was open, 
and I went in and foimd a decent-looking clergyman pre- 
paring a flock of seven or eight blacks and mulattoes for the 
Communion. He was taking them through their catechism. 



152 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

explaining very properly that religion meant doing one's 
duty, and that it was not enough to profess particular 
opinions. Dominica being Eoman Catholic, and Boman 
Catholics not generally appreciating or understanding the 
claims of Anglicans to the possession of the sacraments, he 
pointed out where the difference lay. He insisted that we 
had priests as well as they ; we had confession ; we had 
absolution ; only our priests did not claim, as the Catholics 
did, a direct power in themselves to forgive sins. Their 
oflBce was to tell sinners that if they truly and sincerely re- 
pented and amended their lives God would forgive them. 
What he said was absolutely true ; but I could not see in 
the dim faces of the catechumens that the distinction was 
particularly intelligible to them. If they thought at all, 
they probably reflected that no divinely constituted succes- 
sor of the Apostles was needed to commimicate a truism 
which every sensible person was equally able and entitled 
to tell them* Still the good earnest man meant well, and I 
wished him more success in his missionary enterprise than 
he was likely to find. 

From the Church of England to the great rival establish- 
ment was but a few minutes' walk. The cathedral was five 
times as large, at least, as the building which I had just 
left — old in age, old in appearance, with the usual indif- 
ferent pictures or coloured prints, with the usual decorated 
altar, but otherwise simple and venerable. There was no 
service going on, for it was a week-day; a few old men 
and women only were silently saying their prayers. On 
Sundays I was told that it was overflowing. The negro 
morals are as emancipated in Dominica as in the rest of 
the West Indies. Obeah is not forgotten ; and along with 
the Catholic religion goes on an active belief in magic and 
witchcraft. But their religion is not necessarily a sham 
to them ; it was the same in Europe in the ages of faith. 
Even in enlightened Protestant countries people calling, 



STJ^EETS OF ROSEAU 153. 

themselves Christians believe that the spirits of the dead 
can be called up to amuse an evening party. The blacks 
in this respect are no worse than their white kinsmen. The 
priests have a genuine human hold upon them; they 
baptise the children ; they commit the dead to the ceme- 
tery with the promise of immortality ; they are personally 
loved and respected ; and when a young couple marry, as 
they seldom but occasionally do, it is to the priest that 
they apply to tie them together. 

From the cathedral I wandered through the streets of 
Roseau; they had been well laid out; the streets them- 
selves, and the roads leading to them from the country, had 
been carefully paved, and spoke of a time when the town 
had been full of life and vigour. But the grass was grow- 
ing between the stones, and the houses generally were 
dilapidated and dirty. A few massive stone buildings there 
were, on which time and rain had made no impression ; but 
these probably were all French — built long ago, perhaps in 
the days of Labat and Madame Ouvernard. The English 
hand had struck the island with paralysis. The British 
flag was flying over the fort, but for once I had no pride in 
looking at it. The fort itself was falling to pieces, like the 
fort at Grenada. The stones on the slope on which it stands 
had run with the blood which we spilt in the winning of it. 
Dominica had then been regarded as the choicest jewel in 
the necklace of the Antilles. For the last half-century we 
have left it to desolation, as a child leaves a toy that it is 
tired of. 

In Boseau, as in most other towns, the most interesting 
spot is the market. There you see the produce of the soil; 
there you see the people that produce it ; and you see them, 
not on show, as in church on Sundays, but in their active^ 
working condition. The market place at Boseau is a large 
square court close to the sea, well paved, surrounded by ware- 
houses, and luxuriantly shaded by large overhanging trees. 



r 



Ik 



154 THE EXGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

I'nder these trees were hundreds of black women, youiig 
and old, with their fish and fowls, and fruit and bread, their 
yams and aweet potatoes, their oranges and limes and 
plantains. They had walked in from the country five or 
ten miles before sunrise with their loaded baskets on their 
beads. They would walk back at niyht with flour or salt 
fish, or oil, or whatever they hapjjened to want. I did not~7i 
see a single sull«i face among them. Their figures were l\ 
unconsciooB of lacing, and their feet of the monstrosities j I 
whitdi we call shoes. They moved with the lightness i 
and elasticity of leopards. I thought that I Iiad never eee^/f 
in any drawing room in London so many perfectly graceful 
forma. They could not mend theii' faces, but even in some 
of these there was a swarthy beauty. The hair was hope- 
less, and they knew it, but they turn the defect into an V 
ornament by the , coloured handkerchief which they Iwist 
about their heads, leaving the ends flowing. They chattered 
like jackdaws about a church tower. Two or three of the 
best looting, seeing that I admired them a Httle, used their 
eyea and made some laughing remarks. They spoke in their 
French patois, clipping o£f the first and last syllables of the 
words. I but half understood them, and could not return 
their shots. I can only say that if their habits were as 
loose as white people say they are, I did not see a single 
licentious expression either in face or manner. They seemed 
to me lighthearted, merry, innocent young women, as free 
■ from any thought of evil as the peasant girls in Brittany. 

Two middle-aged dames were in a state of violent 
excitement about some subject on which they differed in 
opinion. A ring gathered about them, and they declaimed 
at one another with fiery volubihty. It did not go beyond 
words ; but both were natural orators, throwing their heads 
back, waving their arms, limbs and chest quiveruig with 
emotion. There was no personal abuse, or disposition to 
claw each other. On both sides it was a rhetorical out- 



THE MARKET GIRLS 155 

pouring of emotional argument. One of them, a tall pure 
blood negress, black as if she had just landed from Guinea, 
began at last to get the best of it. Her gesticulations be- 
-came more imposing. She shook her finger. Mandez this, 
Bhe said, and mandez that, till she bore her antagonist down 
and sent her flying. The audience then melted away, and 
I left the conqueror standing alone shooting a last volley at 
the retreating enemy and making passionate appeals to the 
universe. The subject of the discussion was a curious one. 
It was on the merits of race. The defeated champion had 
a taint of white blood in her. The black woman insisted 
that blacks were of pure breed, and whites were of pure breed. 
Mulattoes were mongrels, not creatures of God at all, but 
•creatures of human wickedness. I do not suppose that the 
mulatto was convinced, but she accepted her defeat. The 
<KHiqaeror, it was quite clear, was satisfied that she had the 
best of the discussion, and that the hearers were of the 
same opinion. 

From the market I stepped back upon the quay, where 
I had the luck to witness a novel form of fishing, the most 
singular that I have ever fallen in with. I have mentioned 
the herring-sized white fish which come in upon the shore 
of the island. They travel, as most small fish do, in 
enormous shoals, and keep, I suppose, in the shallow waters 
to avoid the kingfish and bonitos, who are good judges in 
their way, and find these small creatures exceptionally 
excellent. The wooden pier ran out perhaps a hundred 
and fifty feet into the sea. It was a platform standing on 
piles, with openings in several places from which stairs led 
down to landing stages. The depth at the extremity was 
about five fathoms. There is little or no tide, the difference 
between high water and low being not more than a couple 
of feet. Looking down the staircases, I saw among the 
piles in the brilliantly clear water unnumbered thousands 
of the fish which I have described. The fishermen had 



156 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

carried a long net round the platform from shore to shore^ 
completely inclosing it. The fish were shut in, and had na 
means of escape except at the shore end, where boys were 
busy driving them back with stones ; but how the net was- 
to be drawn among the piles, or what was to be done next,. 
I was curious to learn. I was not left long to conjecture^ 
A circular bag net was produced, made of fine strong thready 
coloured a light green, and almost invisible in the sea* 
When it was spread, one side could be left open and could be 
closed at will by a running line from above. This net was 
let carefully down between the piles, and was immediately 
swollen out by the current which runs along the coast into 
a deep bay. Two young blacks then dived ; one saw them 
swimming about under water Uke sharks, hunting the fish 
before them as a dog would hunt a flock of sheep. Their 
companions, who were watching from the platform, waited 
till they saw as many driven into the purse of the inner net 
as they could trust the meshes to bear the weight of. The 
cord was then drawn. The net was closed. Net and all 
that it contained were hoisted into a boat, carried ashore and 
emptied. The net itself was then brought back and spread 
again for a fresh haul. In this way I saw as many fish 
caught as would have filled a large cart. The contrivance, 
I believe, is one more inheritance from the Caribs, whom 
Labat describes as doing something of a similar kind. 

Another small incident happened a day or two after, 
which showed the capital stuflf of which the Dominican 
boatmen and fishermen are made. They build their own 
vessels large and small, and sail them themselves, not 
afraid of the wildest weather, and doing the local trade 
with Martinique and Guadaloupe. Four of these smacks,, 
cutter-rigged, from ten to twenty tons burden, I had seen 
lying at anchor one evening with an American schooner 
under the gardens. In the night, the oflf-shore wind rose 
into one of those short violent tropical storms which if 



DOMINICAN BOATMEN 157 

they lasted longer would be called hurricanes, but in these 
winter months are soon over. It came on at midnight, and 
lasted for two hours. The noise woke me, for the house 
shook, and the roar was like Niagara. It was too dark, 
however, to see anything. It died away at last, and I slept 
till daybreak. My first thought on waking was for the 
smacks and the schooner. Had they sunk at their 
moorings ? Had they broken loose, or what had become 
of them ? I got up and went down to the cliff to see. The 
damage to the trees had been less than I expected. A few 
torn branches lay on the lawn and the leaves were cast 
about, but the anchorage was empty. Every vessel of 
every sort and size was gone. There was still a moderate 
gale blowing. As the wind was off-shore the sea was 
tolerably smooth for a mile or two, but outside the waves 
were breaking violently, and the foam scuds were whirling 
off their crests. The schooner was about four miles off, 
beating back under storm canvas, making good weather of 
it and promising in a tack or two to recover the moorings. 
The smacks, being less powerful vessels, had been driven 
farther out to sea. Three of them I saw labouring heavily 
in the offing. The fourth I thought at first had disap- 
peared altogether, but finally I made out a white speck on 
the horizon which I supposed to be the missing cutter. One 
of the first three presently dropped away to leeward, and 
I lost sight of her. The rest made their way back in good 
time. Towards the afternoon when the wind had gone 
down the two that remained came in after them, and before 
night they were all in their places again. 

The gale had struck them at about midnight. Their 
-cables had parted, and they had been blown away to sea. 
The crews of the schooner and of three of the cutters 
were all on board. They got their vessels under command, 
and had been in no serious danger. In the fourth there 
was no one but a small black boy of the island. He had 



158 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

been asleep, and woke to find himself driving before the 
wind. In an hour or two he would have been beyond 
the shelter of the land, and in the high seas which then 
were running must have been inevitably swamped. The 
little fellow contrived in the darkness — no one could tell 
how — to set a scrap of his mainsail, get his staysail up, 
and in this condition to lie head to the wind. So handled,, 
small cutters, if they have a deck over them, can ride out an 
ordinary gale in tolerable security. They drift, of course ; 
in a hurricane the only safety is in yielding to it ; but they 
make fair resistance, and the speed is checked. The most 
practical seaman could have done no better than this boy. 
He had to wait for help in the morning. He was not 
strong enough to set his canvas properly, and work hi& 
boat home. He would have been driven out at last, and a& 
he had neither food nor water would have been starved 
had he escaped drowning. But his three consorts saw him. 
They knew how it was, and one of them went back to his- 
assistance. 

I have known the fishing boys of the English Channel 
all my Ufe ; they are generally skilful, ready, and daring 
beyond their years ; but I never knew one lad not more 
than thirteen or fourteen years old who, if woke out of hi& 
sleep by a hurricane in a dark night and alone, would have 
understood so well what to do, or have done it so eflfectually. 
There are plenty more of such black boys in Dominica, and 
they deserve a better fate than to be sent drifting before 
constitutional whirlwinds back into barbarism, because we,, 
on whom their fate depends, are too ignorant or too care- 
less to provide them with a tolerable government. 

The kind Captain Churchill, finding himself tied to his 
chair, and wishing to give me every assistance towards see- 
ing the island, had invited a Creole gentleman from the other 

side of it to stay a few days with us. Mr. F , a man 

about thirty, was one of the few survivors from among the 



WALKS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 159 

planters ; he had never been out of the West Indies, but 
was a man of honesty and intelligence, could use his eyes, 
and form sound judgments on subjects which immediately 
concerned him. I had studied Boseau for myself. With 

Mr. F for a companion, I made acquaintance with the 

environs. We started for our walks at daybreak, in the cool of 
the morning. We climbed cliflFs, we rambled on the rich levels 
about the river, once richly cultivated, and even now the soil 
is luxuriant in neglect ; a few canefields still survive, but most 
of them are turned to other uses, and you pass wherever 
you go the ruins of old mills, the massive foundations of 
ancient warehouses, huge he^Ti stones built and mortared 
w*ell together, telling what once had been ; the mango trees, 
which the owners had planted, waving green over the wrecks 
of their forgotten industry. Such industry as is now to be 
found is, as elsewhere in general, the industry of the black 
peasantry. It is the same as in Grenada : the whites, or 
the English part of them, have lost heart, and cease 
to struggle against the stream. A state of things more 
hopelessly provoking was never seen. Skill and capital and 
labour have only to be brought to bear together, and the 
land might be a Garden of Eden. All precious fruits, and 
precious spices, and gums, and plants of rarest medicinal 
virtues will spring and grow and flourish for the asking. 
The Umes are as large as lemons, and in the markets of the 
United States are considered the best in the world. 
*^ As to natural beauty, the W^est Indian Islands are like 
. Scott's novels, where we admke most the one which we i 
. have read the Tftst. But Dominica bears the palm awayl 

"Trom aU of them. One morning Mr. P took me a 

walk up the Boseau river, an ample stream even in what is 
called the dry season, with deep pools full of eels and mul- 
let. We entered among the hills which were rising steep 
above us. The valley grew deeper, or rather there were a 
series of valleys, gorges dense with forest, which had been 



«6o THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

torn out by the cataracts. The path was like the mule tracks 
of the Alps, cut in other days along the sides of the precipices 
with remnants of old conduits which supplied water to the 
mills below. Eich odorous acacias bent over us. The 
flowers, the trees, the birds, the insects, were a maze of 
perfume and loveliness. Occasionally some valley opposite 
the sun would be spanned by a rainbow as the rays shone 
through a morning shower out of the blue sky. We wan- 
dered on and on, wading through tributary brooks, stopping 
every minute to examine some new fern or plant, peasant 
women and children meeting us at intervals on their way 
into the town. There were trees to take shelter under 
when indispensable, which even the rain of Dominica could 
not penetrate. The levels at the bottom of the valleys and 
the lower slopes, where the soil was favourable, were care- 
lessly planted with limes which were in full bearing. Small 
black boys and girls went about under the trees, gathering 
' the large lemon-shaped fruit which lay on the ground thick 
as apples in a West of England orchard. Here was all this 
profusion of nature, lavish beyond all example, and the 
enterprising youth of England were neglecting a colony 
which might yield them wealth beyond the treasures of the 
old sugar planters, going to Florida, to Texas, to South 
America, taking their energy and their capital to the land of 
the foreigner, leaving Dominica, which might be the garden 
of the world, a precious emerald set in the ring of their 
own Antilles, enriched by the sacred memories of glorious 
English achievements, as if such a place had no existence. 
Dominica would surrender herself to-morrow with a Ught 
^ heart to France, to America, to any country which would * 
.accept the charge of her destinies. Why should she care 
any more for England, which has so little care for her? 
Beauties conscious of their charms do not like to be so 
thrown aside. There is no dislike to us among the blacks, 
they are indifferent, but even their indifference would be 



ENGLISH RULE i6r 

^^ changed into loyalty if we made the slightest effort to 

' recover it. The poor black was a faithful servant as long \ ^ K- 

as he was a slave. As a freeman he is conscious of his 
\ inferiority at the bottom of his heart, and would attach 
' himself to a rational white employer with at least as much 
fideUty as a spaniel. Like the spaniel, too, if he is denied 
the chance of developing under guidance the better qualities 
which are in him, he will drift back into a mangy cur. 

In no country ought a government to exist for which 
respect is impossible, and English rule as it exists in 
Dominica is a subject for a comedy. The Governor- 
General of the Leeward Islands resides in Antigua, and in 
theory ought to go on progress and visit in turn his subordi- 
nate dominions. His visits are rare as those of angels. The 
eminent person, who at present holds that high office, has 
been once in Nevis ; and thrice in Dominica, but only for the 
briefest stay there. Perhaps he has held aloof in consequence 
of an adventure which befell a visiting governor some time 
ago on one of these occasions. When there is a constitution 
there is an opposition. If there are no grievances the 
opposition manufacture them, and the inhabitants of Boseau 
were persuaded that they were an oppressed people and 
required fuller liberties. I was informed that His Excellency 
had no sooner landed and taken possession of Government 
House, than a mob of men and women gathered in the market 
place under the leadership of their elected representative. 
The girls that I had admired very likely made a part of it. 
They swarmed up into the gardens, they demonstrated under 
the windows, laughing, shouting, and petitioning. His 
Excellency first barricaded the doors, then opened them and 
tried a speech, telling the dear creatures how much he loved 
and respected them. Probably they did not understand him, 
as few of them speak English. Producing no effect, he 
retreated again, barred the door once more, sUpped out at a 
back entrance down a lane to the port, took refuge on board 

M 



i62 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

his steamer, and disappeared. So the story was told me — 
not by the administrator, who was not a man to turn English 
authority into ridicule — but by some one on the spot, who 
repeated the current report of the adventure. It may be 
exaggerated in some features, but it represents, at any rate, 
the feeling of the place towards the head representative of 
the existing government. 

I will mention another mcident, said to have occurred 
still more recently to one of these gi-eat persons, very like 
vhat befell Saneho Panza in Barataria. This, too, may 
have been wickedly turned, but it was the subject of general 
talk and general amusement on board the steamers which 
make the round of the Antilles. Universal belief is a fact 
of its kind, and though it tends to shape itself in dramatic 
form more completely than the facts justify, there is usuaUy 
some truth at the bottom of it. The telegi-ams to the 
West Indies pass through New York, and often pick up 
something on the way. A warning message reached a 
certain colony that a Yankee-Irish schooner with a Fenian 
crew was coming down to annex the island, or at least 
to kidnap the governor. This distinguished gentleman 
ought perhaps to have suspected that a joke was being 
played upon his fears ; but he was a landlord. A governor- 
general had been threatened seriously in Canada, why 
not he in the Antilles? He was as much agitated as 
Saneho himself. All these islands were and are entirely 
undefended save by a police which cannot be depended on 
to resist a desperate invasion. They were called out. 
Rnmour said that in half the rifles the cartridges were 
found afterwards inverted. The next day dispelled the 
alarm. The schooner was the creation of s>ome Irish 
telegraph clerk, and the scare ended in laughter. But 
under the jest lies the wretched certainty that the Antilles 
have no protection except in their own population, and so 
little to thank England for that scarcely one of the inha- 



EFFECTS OF CONFEDERATION 163 

bitants, except the officials, would lift a finger to save the 
connection. 

Once more, I tell these stories not as if they were 
authenticated facts, but as evidence of the scornful feeling 
towards English authority. The current belief in them is 
a fact of a kind and a very serious one. 

The confederation of the Leeward Islands may have been 
a convenience to the Colonial Office, and may have allowed 
a slight diminution in the cost of administration. The 
whole West Indies might be placed under a single governor 
with only good results if he were a real one like the 
Oovernor-General at Calcutta. But each single island has 
lost from the change, so far, more than it has gained. 
Each ship of war has a captain of its own and officers of 
its own trained specially for the service. If the Antilles 
are ever to thrive, each of them also should have some 
trained and skilful man at its head, unembarrassed by 
local elected assemblies. The whites have become so weak 
. that they would welcome the abolition of such assemblies. ( 
The blacks do not care for politics, and would be pleased to 
see them swept away to-morrow if they were governed : 
wisely and fairly. Of course, in that case it would be' 
necessary to appoint governors who would command con- 
fidence and respect. But let governors be sent who 
would be governors indeed, like those who administer the 
Indian presidencies, and the white residents would gather 
heart again, and English and American capitalists would 
'bring their money and their enterprise, and the blacks 
would grow upwards instead of downwards. Let us per- 
sist in the other line, let us use the West Indian governments ( 
as asylums for average worthy persons who have to be pro- 
vided for, and force on them bla<5k parliamentary institu- 
tions as a remedy for such persons' inefficiency, and these 
I beautiful countries will become like Hayti, with Obeahl 
.triumphant, and children offered to the devil and salted and j 

k2 



1 64 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

eaten, till the conBcience of mankind wakes again and the 
Americans sweep them all away. 

I had an opportunity of seeing what can really be done in 
Dominica by an English gentleman who has gone the right 
way to work there. Dr. Nicholls came out a few years ago 
to Boseau as a medical ofiScer. He was described to me as 
a man not only of high professional skill, but with consider- 
able scientific attainments. Either by purchase or legacy 
(I think the latter) he had become possessed of a small 
estate on a hillside a mile or two from the town. He had 
built a house upon it. He was cultivating the soil on 
scientific principles, and had poUtely sent me an invitation 
to call on him and see what he was about. I was delighted 
to avail myself of such an opportunity. 

I do not know the exact extent of the property which 
was under cultivation ; perhaps it was twenty-five or thirty 
acres. The chief part of it was planted with lime trees, the 
limes which I saw growing being as large as moderate-sized 
lemons ; most of the rest was covered with Liberian coffee, 
which does not object to the moist climate, and was growing 
with profuse luxuriance. Each tree, each plant had been 
personally attended to, pruned when it needed pruning, sup- 
ported by bamboos if it was overgrowing its strength, while 
the ground about the house was consecrated to botanical 
experiments, and specimens were to be seen there of every 
tropical flower, shrub, or tree, which was either remarkable 
for its beauty or valuable for its chemical properties. His 
limes and coffee went principally to New York, where they 
had won a reputation, and were in special demand ; but 
ingenuity tries other tracks besides the beaten one. Dr. 
Nicholls had a manufactory of citric acid which had been 
found equally excellent in Europe. Everything which he 
produced was turning to gold, except donkeys, seven or eight 
of wliich were feeding under his windows, and which mul- 
tiplied so fast that he could not tell what to do with them. 



CAPABILITIES OF THE SOIL 165 

Industries so various and so active required labour, 
and I saw many of the blacks at work with him. In ap- 
parent contradiction to the general West Indian experience, 
he told me that he had never found a difiSculty about it. 
He paid them fair wages, and paid them regularly without 
the overseer's fines and drawbacks. He knew one from the 
other personally, could call each by his name, remembered 
where he came from, where he lived, and how, and could 

joke with him about his wife or mistress. They in con- 
sequence clung to him with an innocent affection, stayed 
with him all the week without asking for holidays, and 
worked with interest and goodwill. Four years only had 
elapsed since Dr. Nicholls commenced his undertakings, 
and he already saw his way to clearing a thousand pounds 
a year on that one small patch of acres. I may mention 
that, being the only man in the island of really superior 
attainments, he had tried in vain to win one of the seats 
in the elective part of the legislature. 

There was nothing particularly favourable in the situa- 
tion of his land. All parts of Dominica would respond as 
willingly to similar treatment. What could be the reason, 
Dr. Nicholls asked me, why young Englishmen went plant- 
ing to so many other countries, went even to Ceylon and 
Borneo, while comparatively at their own doors, within a 
fortnight's sail of Plymouth, there was this island im- 
measurably more fertile than either ? The explanation, I 
suppose, is the misgiving that the West Indies are consigned ] 
by the tendencies of English policy to the black population, ' 
and that a local government created by representatives of the . 
negro vote would make a residence there for an energetic ; 
and self-respecting European less tolerable than in any 
other part of the globe. The republic of Hayti not only 

I excludes a white man from any share of the administration, 
but forbids his acquisition or possession of real property in 

! any form. Far short of such extreme provisions, the most 



1 66 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

prosperous industry might be blighted by taxation. Self- 
government is a beautiful subject for oratorical declamation. 
If the fact corresponded to the theory and if the possession 
of a vote produced the elevating effects upon the character 
which are so noisily insisted upon, it would be the welcome 
panacea for political and social disorder. Unfortunately 
the fact does not correspond to the theory. The possession 
of a vote never improved the character of any human being 
and never will. 

There are many islands in the West Indies, and an 
experiment might be ventured without any serious risk. 
Let the suffrage principle be applied in its fullness where 
the condition of the people seems best to promise success. 1 
In some one of them — Dominica would do as well as any ' 
other — let a man of ability and character with an ambition 
\^ to distinguish himself be sent to govern with a free hand. 
Let him choose his own advisers, let him be untrammelled, 
unless he falls into fatal and inexcusable errors, with inter- 
ference from home. Let him have time to carry out any 
plans which he may form, without fear of recall at the end 
of the normal period. After ten or fifteen years, let the 
results of the two systems be compared side by side. I 
imagine the objection to such a trial would be the same 
which was once made in my hearing by an Irish friend of 
mine, who was urging on an English statesman the conver- 
sion of Ireland into a Crown colony. * You dare not try 
it,' he said, * for if you did, in twenty years we would be 
the most prosperous island of the two, and you would be 
wanting to follow our example.' 

We had exhausted the neighbourhood of Eoseau. After 
a few days Captain C. was again able to ride, and we 
could undertake more extended expeditions. He provided 
me with a horse or pony or something between both, a 
creature that would climb a stone staircase at an angle of 
forty-five, or slide down a clay slope soaked by a tropical 



A MOUNTAIN RIDE 167 

shower, with the same indiflference with which it would 
canter along a meadow. In the slave times cultivation had 
been carried up into the mountains. There were the old 
tracks through the forest engineered along the edges of 
precipices, torrents roaring far down below, and tall green 
trees standing in hollows underneath, whose top branches 
were on a level with our eyes. We had to ride with 
macintosh and umbrella, prepared at any moment to have 
the floods descend upon us. The best costume would be 
none at all. While the sun is above the horizon the island 
seems to lie under the arches of perpetual rainbows. One 
gets wet and one dries again, and one is none the worse 
for the adventure. I had heard that it was dangerous. 
It did no harm to me. A very particular object was to 
reach the crest of the mountain ridge which divides Dominica 
down the middle. We saw the peaks high above us, but it 
was useless to try the ascent if one could see nothing when 
one arrived, and mists and clouds hung about so persistently 
that we had to put off our expedition day after day. 

\ A tolerable morning came at last. We started early. A 
faithful black youth ran alongside of the horses to pick us 
up if we fell, and to carry the indispensable luncheon basket. 
We rode through the town, over the bridge and by the foot 
of Dr. Nicholls's plantations. We passed through lime and 
banana gardens rising slowly along the side of a glen 
above the river. The road had been made by the French 
long ago, and went right across the island. It had once 
been carefully paved, but wet and neglect had loosened 
the stones and tumbled them out of their places. Trees 
had driven their roots through the middle of the track. 
Mountain streams had taken advantage of convenient 
cuttings and scooped them into waterways. The road 
commissioner on the official staff seemed a merely orna- 
mental functionary. We could only travel at a foot pace and 
in single file. Happily our horses were used to it. Along 



i68 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

this road in 1805 Sir George Prevost retreated with the 
English garrison of Boseau, when attacked in force from 
Martinique ; saved his men and saved the other part of th6 
island till relief came and the invaders were driven out 
again. That was the last of the fighting, and we have been 
left since in undisturbed possession. Dominica was then 
sacred as the scene of Eodney's glories. Now I suppose, 
if the French came again, we should calculate the mercantile 
value of the place to us, and having found it to be nothing 
at all, might conclude that it would be better to let them 
keep it. 

\ We went up and up, winding round projecting spurs of 
"Aountain, here and there coming on plateaus where pio- 
neering blacks were clearing patches of forest for their yams 
and coflfee. We skirted the edge of a valley several miles 
across, on the far side of which we saw the steaming of the 
sulphur springs, and beyond and above it a mountain peak 
four thousand feet high and clothed with timber to the 
summit. In most countries the vegetation grows thin as 
you rise into the higher altitudes. Here the bush only 
seems to grow denser, the trees grander and more self- 
asserting, the orchids and parasites on the boughs more 
variously brilliant. There were tree ferns less splendid 
than those in New Zealand and Australia, but larger than 
any one can see in English hothouses, wUd oranges bending 
under the weight of ripe fruit which was glowing on their 
branches, wUd pines, wild begonias scattered along the 
banks, and a singularly brilliant plant which they call the 
wild plantain, but is not a plantain at aU, with large broad 
pointed leaves radiating out from a centre like an aloe's, 
and a crimson flower stem rising up straight in the middle. 
^^ It was startling to see such insolent beauty displaying itself 
indifferently in the heart of the wUdemess with no human 
eye to look at it unless of some passing black or wandering 
Carib. 



A MOUNTAIN RIDE 169 

The track had been carried across hot streams fresh 
from boiling springs, and along the edge of chasms where 
there was scarcely foothold for the horses. At length we 
found ourselves on what was apparently the highest point 
of the pass. We could not see where we were for the 
trees and bushes which surrounded us, but the path began 
to descend on the other side. Near the summit was a lake 
formed in an old volcanic crater which we had come specially 
to look at. We descended a few hundred feet into a hollow 
among the hills where the lake was said to be. Where was 
it, then ? I asked the guide, for I could discover nothing 
that suggested a lake or anything like one. He pointed 
into the bush where it was thicker with tropical under- 
growth than a wheatfield with ears of corn. If I cared to 
creep below the branches for two hundred yards at the risk 
of meeting snakes, scorpions, and other such charming 
creatures, I should find myself on the water's edge. 

To ride up a mountain three thousand feet high, to be 
near a wonder which I could not see after aU, was not what 
I had proposed to myself. There was a traveller's rest 
at the point where we halted, a cool damp grotto carved 
into the sandstone ; we picketed our horses, cutting leafy 
boughs off the trees for them, and making cushions for 
ourselves out of the ferns. We were told that if we walked 
on for half a mile we should see the other side of the island, 
and if we were lucky we might catch a glimpse of the lake. 
Meanwhile clouds rolled down off the mountains, filled the 
hollow where we stood, and so wrapped us in mist, that the 
question seemed rather how we were to return than whether 
we should venture farther. 

While we were considering what to do, we heard steps 
approaching through the fog, and a party of blacks came 
up on their way to Boseau with a sick companion whom 
they were carrying in a palanquin. We were eating our 
luncheon in the grotto, and they stopped to talk to our 



I70 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

guide and stare at us. Two of them, a lad and a girl, came 
up closer to me than good manners would have allowed if 
they had possessed such things ; the ^ I am as good as 
you, and you will be good enough to know it,' sort of tone 
which belongs to these democratic days showing itself 
rather notably in the rising generation in parts of these 
islands. I defended myself with producing a sketch book 
and proceeding to take their likenesses, on which they fled 
precipitately. 

Our sandwiches finished, we were pensively consuming 
our cigars, I speculating on Sir George Prevost and his 
party of redcoats who must have bivouacked on that very 
spot, when the clouds broke and the sun came out. The 
interval was likely to be a short one, so we hurried to our 
feet, walked rapidly on, and at a turn of the path where a 
hurricane had torn a passage through the trees, we caught a 
sight of our lake as we had been told that perhaps we might 
do. It lay a couple of hundred feet beneath us deep and 
still, winding away round a promontory under the crags and 
woods of the opposite hills : they caU it a crater, and I suppose 
it may have been one, for the whole island shows traces of 
violent volcanic disturbance, but in general a crater is a 
bowl, and this was like a reach of a river, which lost itself 
before one could see where it ended. They told us that in 
old times, when troops were in the fort, and the white men 
of the island went about and enjoyed themselves, there were 
boats on this lake, and parties came up and fished there. 
Now it was like the pool in the gardens of the palace of the 
sleeping princess, guarded by impenetrable thickets, and 
whether there are fish there, or enchanted princesses, or the 
huts of some tribe of Garibs, hiding in those fastnesses from 
negroes whom they hate, or from white men whom they do 
not love, no one knows or cares to know. I made a hurried 
pencil sketch, and we went on. 

A little farther and we were out of the bush, at a 



A MOUNTAIN RIDE 171 

rooky terrace on the rim of the great valley which carries 
the rainfall on the eastern side of the mountains down into 
the Atlantic. We were 3,000 feet above the sea. Far 
away the ocean stretched out before us, the horizon line 
where sky met water so far distant that both had melted 
into mist at the point where they touched. Mount 
Diablot, where Labat spent a night catching the devil 
birds, soared up on our left hand. Below, above, around 
us, it was forest everywhere ; forest, and only forest, a 
land fertile as Adam's paradise, still waiting for the day 
when * the barren woman shall bear children.' Of course 
it was beautiful, if that be of any consequence — ^moun- 
tain peaks and crags and falling waters, and the dark 
green of the trees in the foreground, dissolving from 
tint to tint to grey, violet, and blue in the far-oflf distance. 
Even at the height where we stood, the temperature must 
have been 70°. But the steaming damp of the woods was 
gone, the air was clear and exhilarating as champagne. 
What a land ! And what were we doing with it ? This 
fair inheritance, won by English hearts and hands for the 
use of the working men of England, and the English 
working men lying squalid in the grimy alleys of crowded 
towns, and the inheritance turned into a wilderness. 
Visions began to rise of what might be, but visions which 
were taken from me before they could shape themselves. 
The curtain of vapour feU down over us again, and all 
was gone, and of that glorious picture nothing was left but 
our own two selves and the few yards of red rock and soil 
on which we were standing. 

There was no need for haste now. We returned slowly 
to our horses, and our horses carried us home by the 
way that we had come. Captain G. went carelessly in 
front through the fog, over boulders and watercourses and 
roots of fallen trees. I followed as I could, expecting 
every moment to find myself flying over my horse's head ; 



172 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Btumbling, plunging, sUding, but getting through with it 
somehow. The creature had never seen me before, but was 
as careful of my safety as if I had been an old acquaintance 
and friend. Only one misadventure befell me, if misad- 
venture it may be called. Shaken, and damp with heat, 
I was riding under a wild orange tree, the fruit within 
reach of my hand. I picked an orange and plunged my 
teeth into the skin, and I had to remember my rashness 
for days. The oil in the rind, pungent as aromatic salts, 
rushed on my palate, and spurted on my face and eyes. 
The smart for the moment half blinded me. I bethought 
me, however, that oranges with such a flavour would be 
worth something, and a box of them which was sent home 
for me was converted into marmalade with a finer flavour 
than ever came from Seville. 

What more can I say of Dominica ? I stayed with the 
hospitable G.'s for a fortnight. At the appointed time the 
returning steamer called for me. I left Captain G. with a 
warm hope that he might not be consigned for ever to a 
post which an English gentleman ought not to be con- 
demned to occupy; that if matters could not be mended 
for him where he stood, he might find a situation where 
his courage and his understanding might be turned to 
useful pm-pose. I can never forget the kindness both of 
himself and his clever, good, graceful lady. I cannot 
forget either the two dusky damsels who waited upon me 
like spirits in a fairy tale. It was night when I left. The 
packet came alongside the wharf. We took leave by the 
gleaming of her lights. The whistle screamed, and Domi- 
nica, and all that I had seen, faded into a memory. All 
that I had seen, but not all that I had thought. That 
island was the scene of the most glorious of England's 
many famous actions. It had been won for us again and 
again by the gaUantry of our seamen and soldiers. It had 
been secured at last to the Grown by the genius of the 



REFLECTIOJSIS ON ENGLISH AD MINI STRATI QN^iiz 

greatest of our admirals. It was once prosperous. It 
might be prosperous again, for the resources of the soil are 
untouched and inexhaustible. The black population are 
exceptionally worthy. They are excellent boatmen, excel- 
lent fishermen, exceUent mechanics, ready to undertake 
any work if treated with courtesy and kindness. Yet in 
our hands it is falling into ruin. The influence of England 
there is gone. It is nothing. Indifference has bred in- 
difference in turn as a necessary consequence. Something 
must be wrong when among 30,000 of our fellow-subjects 
not one could be found to lift a hand for us if the island 
were invaded, when a boat's crew from Martinique might 
take possession of it without a show of resistance. 
jL If I am asked the question. What use is Dominica to us ? 
I decline to measure it by present or possible marketable 
value ; I »TiRwgr pimply that it is part of the dominions of the 
Queen. If we pinch a finger, the smart is feRuTthe brain. 
If we neglect a wound in the least important part of our 
persons, it may poison the system. Unless the blood of an 
organised body circulates freely through the extremities, the 
extremities mortify and drop off, and the dropping off ofj Tt^ 
any colony of ours will not be to our honour and may be to 
our shame. Dominica seems but a small thing, but our 
larger colonies are observing us, and the world is observing 
us, and what we do or fail to do works beyond the limits of ^ 
its immediate operation. The mode of management which 
produces the state of things which I have described cannot 
possibly be a right one. We have thought it wise, with a 
perfectly honest intention, to leave our dependencies gene- 
rally to work out their own salvation. We have excepted 
India, for with India we dare not run the risk. But we 
have refused to consider that others among our possessions 
may be in a condition analogous to India, and we have allowed 
them to drift on as they could. It was certainly excusable, 
and it may have been prudent, to try popular methods first, 






174 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

but we have no right to persist in the face of a failure so 
complete. We are obliged to keep these islands, for it 
seems that no one will relieve us of them ; and if they are 
to remain ours, we are bound so to govern them that our 
name shall be respected and our sovereignty shall not be a 
mockery. Am I asked what should be done? I have 
answered already. Among the silent thousands whose 
quiet work keeps the Empire alive, find a Bajah Brooke if 
you can, or a Mr. Smith of Scilly. If none of these are 
attainable, even a Sancho Panza would do. Send him out 
with no more instructions than the knight of La Mancha 
gave Sancho — to fear God and do his duty. Put him 
on his metal. Promise him the respect and praise of 
all good men if he does well ; and if he calls to his help 
intelligent persons who understand the cultivation of soils 
and the management of men, in half a score of years 
Dominica would be the brightest gem of the Antilles. 
From America, from England, from all parts of the world, 
admiring tourists would be flocking there to see what 
Grovemment could do, and curious politicians with jealous 
eyes admitting reluctantly unwelcome conclusions. 

Woman I no mortal o'er the widespread earth 

Can find a fault in thee ; thy good report 

Doth reach the widespread heaven, as of some prince 

Who, in the likeness of a god, doth rule 

O'er subjects stout of heart and strong of hand ; 

And men speak greatly of him, and his land 

Bears wheat and rye, his orchards bend with fruit. 

His flocks breed surely, the sea yields her fish. 

Because he guides his folk with wisdom. And they grow 

In grace and manly virtue.^ 

1 £ yivaif oifK 6,v rls at fipor&y hr' &irclpova yauiy 
vfuc4oi ' Ij ydp (Tcv kK4os ohpayhy tbpby Ucdyti * 

iufUpdtny 4v iroWoiai iced t^Bifioiaty iLvdatrtoy, 

tbHuclas dy^x^cri' ^4fni<ri 84 ycua fi4\aiya 

•rvpohs Kol Kpi$ds, $piBfi<n 84 8cV8f>ca Kopv^^ 

rlm-fi 8' ffiwtia firjXa, $d\aa(ra 84 irap4xf^ ^X^vs, 

41 tlirf*cir\s ' iiprrwffi 84 \ao\ ^ wtnov, — OdysBeyt xix. 107. 



REFLECTIONS ON ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION 175 

Because ^ he guides with wisdom.' That is the whole 
secret. The leading of the wise few, the willing obedience 
of the many, is the beginning and the end of all right 
action. Secure this, and you secure everything. Fail to 
secure it, and be your liberties as wide as you can make 
them, no success is possible. 



176 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTEB XII. 

The Darien canal — Jamaica mail packet — Captain W. — Betrospeot of 
Jamaican history — Waterspout at sea — Hayti — Jacmel— A walk through 
the town — A Jamaican planter— First sight of the Blue Mountains — Port 
Royal— Kingston — The Colonial Secretary — GK>rdon riots— Changes in 
the Jamaican constitution. 

Once more to Barbadoes, but merely to change there from 
steamer to steamer. My course was now across the Carib- 
bean Sea to the great islands at the bottom of it. The 
English mail, after caUing and throwing off its lateral 
branches at Bridgetown, pursues its direct course to Hayti 
by Jamaica, and so on to Vera Cruz and the Darien canal. 
This wonderful enterprise of M. Lesseps has set moving the \ 
\ loose negro population of the Antilles and Jamaica. Un- 
I willing to work as they are supposed to be, they have 
i swarmed down to the isthmus, and are still swarming ; 
I thither in tens of thousands, tempted by the dollar or 
I dollar and a half a day which M. Lesseps is furnishing. 
The vessel which called for us at DominicE^, was crowded 
with them, and we picked up more as we went on. Their 
average stay is for a year. At the end of a year half of 
them have gone to the other world. Half go home, made 
easy for life with money enough to buy a few acres of land 
and * live happy ever after.' Heedless as schoolboys, they 
plunge into the enterprise, thinking of nothing but the 
harvest of dollars. They might earn as much or more at 
their own doors if there were any one to employ them, but 
quiet industry is out of joint, and Darien has seized their 
imaginations as an Eldorado. 

If half the reports which reached me are correct, in all 



THE DARIEN CANAL 177 

the world there is not perhaps now concentrated in any 
single spot so much swindling and villany, so much foul 
disease, such a hideous dungheap of moral and physical 
abomination, as in the scene of this far-famed undertaking | j 
of nineteenth-century engineering. By the scheme, as it 
was first propounded, six-anc[4wenty millions of English 
money were to unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to 
form a highway for the commerce of the globe, and enrich 
with untold wealth the happy owners of original shares. 
The thrifty French peasantry were tempted by the golden 
bait, and poured their savings into M. Lesseps's lottery 
box. Almost all that money, I was told, has been already 
spent, and only a fifth of the work is done. Meanwhile the 
human vultures have gathered to the spoil. Speculators, 
adventurers, card sharpers, hell keepers, and doubtful 
ladies have carried their charms to this delightful market. 
The scene of operations is a damp tropical jungle^ intensely 
/ hot, swarming with mosquitoes, snakes, " aUigators, scor- 
pions, and centipedes ; the home, even as nature made it, 
of yeUow fever, typhus, and dysentery, and now made im- 
measurably more deadly by the multitudes of people who 
crowd thither. Half buried in mud he about the wrecks 
of costly machinery, consuming by rust, sent out under 
lavish orders, and found unfit for the work for which they 
were intended. Unburied altogether lie also skeletons 
of the human machines which have broken down there, 
picked clean by the vultures. Everything which imagina- 
tion can conceive that is ghastly and loathsome seems to 
be gathered into that locality just now. I was pressed to 
go on and look at th^ moral surroundings of ^ the greatest 
undertaking of our age,* but my curiosity was less strong 
than my disgust. I did not see the place, and the descrip- 
tion which I have given may be overcharged. The accounts 

which reached me, however, were uniform and consistent. 

• . - - - 

N 



,S~>' o- 



^ 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Not one person whom I met and who could speak from per- 
sonal knowledge had any other story to tell. 

We looked again into St, Lucia on our way. The train- 
ing squadron was lying outside, and the harbotir was covered 
with boats full of blue-jacketa. The big ships were rolling 
heavily. They could have eaten up Rodney's fleet. The 
great ' Ville de Paris ' would have been a mouthful to the 
smallest of them. Man for man, officers and crew were 
as good as Eodney ever commanded. Yet, somehow^Jhey 
produce small effect on the imagination of the colonistB. 
The impression is that they are meajit more for show than 
for serious use. Alas ! the stars and stripes on a Yankee 
trader have more to say in the West Indies than the white 
ensigns of a fleet of British ironclads. 

At Barbadoes there was nothing more for me to do or see. 
The English mail was on the point of sailing, and I hastened 
on board. |One does not realise distance^n maps.) Jamaica 
belongs to the West Indies, and the West Indies are a col- 
lective entity. Yet it is removed from the Antilles by the 
diameter of the Caribbean Sea, and is farther off than 
Gibraltar from Southampton. Thus it was a voyage of 
several days, and I looked about to see who were to be my 
companions. There were several Spaniards, one or two 
English tourists, and some ladies who never left their 
cabins. The captain was the most remarkable figure : an 
elderly man with one eye lost or injured, the other aa 
peremptory as I have often seen in a human face ; rough 
and prickly on the outside as a pineapple, internally very 
much resembling the same fruit, for at the bottom he was 
jtrue, genuine, and kindly hearted, very amusing, and inti- 
mately known to all travellers on the "West Indian line, in 
the service of which he had passed forty years of his life. 
In his own ship he was sovereign and recognised no superior. 
Bishops, colonial governors, presidents of South American 
republics were, so far as their office went, no more to him 



THE JAMAICA MAIL PACKET 

than other people, and as long as they were on hoard were 
chattels of which he had temporary charge. Peer and 
peasant were alike under his orders, which were ahao- 
lute as the lawe of Mcdes and Persians. On the other 
hand, his eye was quick to see if there was any personal 
merit in a man, and if you deserved his respect you would 
have it. One particular merit he had which I greatly 
approved. He kept his cabin to himself, and did not turn 
it into a smoking rcx)m, as I have known captains do a great 
deal too often, 

I All my own thoughts were fixed upon Jamaica. I had 
[ read so much about it, that my memory was fidl of persons 
I and scenes and adventures of which Jamaica was the stage 
1 or subject. Penn and Venables and the Puritan conquest, 
and Morgan and the buccaneers ; Port Eoyal crowded with 
Spanish prizes ; its busy dockyards, and English frigates 
and privateers fitting out there for glorious or desperate 
.enterprises. The name of Jamaica brought them crowding 
lUp with uicident on incident ; and behind the history came 
jj^V" PTom Cringle and the wild and reckless, yet wholesome and 
'.^ hearty, planter's life in Kingston ; the dark figures of the 
■^ pirates swinging above the mangroves at Gallows Point ; 
I the balls and parties and the beautiful quadroons, and the 

V j laughing, merry, innocent children of darkness, with the' 
tricks of the middies upon them. There was the tragic 
f "iy Bide of it too, in slavery, the last ugly flash out of the cloud 
,-(• being not two decades distant in the Eyre and Gordon 

time. Interest enough there was about Jamaica, and things 
would be strangely changed in Kingston if nothing re- 
fhV mamed of the society which was once so brilliant. There, 
if anywhere, England and English rule were not yet a 
vanished quantity. There was a dockyard still, and a com- 
modore in command, and a guardship and gunboats, and 
English regiments and West Indian regiments with English 
1 officers. Some representatives, too, I knew were to be found 




i8o THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

of the old Anglo-West Indiana, men whose fathers and 
grandfathers were born in the island, and whose fortunes 
were bound up in it. Aaron Bang ! what would not one 
have given to meet Aaron ? The real Aaron had been 
gathered to his fathers, and nature does not make two such i 
I as he was ; hut I might fall in with something that would I 
/ remind me of him, Paul GeUd and Pepperpot Wagtail, I 
and Peter Mangi-ove, better than either of them — the like- f 
nesB of these might be surviving, and it would be delightful 
to meet and talk to them. They would give fresh flavour 
to the immortal ' Log.' Even another Tom was not im- 
possible ; some middy to develop hereafter into a frigate 
captain and to sail again into Port Royal with his prizes 
in tow. 

Nature at all eTent8_cou!d not be. changed. The white 
rollers would still be breaking on the coral reefs. The 
palms would still be waving on the spit which forms the 
harbour, and the amber mist would be floating round the 
peaks of the Blue Mountains. There were English soldiers [ 
. \ and sailors, and English people. The English language ! ' 
r I was spoken there by blacks as well as whites. The religion '; 
was English. Onr__cguntrjjvent Jor_80mething, and there ' /' 
(would be some persons, at least, to whom the old land was j 
jlx [ more than a stepmother, and who were not sighing in their 
I hearts for annexation to the American Union. The 
governor, Sir Henry Norman, of Indian fame, I was sorry 
to learn, was still absent ; he had gone home on some legal 
businesa. Sir Henry had an Imperial reputation. He had 
been spoken of to me in Barbadoes as able, if he were 
allowed a chance, to act as Viceroy of all the islands, and 
to set them on their feet again. I could well believe that 
a man of less than Sir Henry's reputed power could do it 
— for in the thing itself there was no great difficulty — if ' ~.' ^ 
only we at home were once disenchanted ; though all the ; l^ 
ability in the world would be thrown away as long as the 



k 



PRESIDENT SALOMON 181 

enchantment continued. I did aee Sir Henty, as it turned 
out, but only for a few hours. 

Oiu: voyage was without remarkable incident ; as voyages 
are apt to be in these days of powerful steamboats. One 
morning there was a tropical rain storm which was worth 
seeing. We had a strong awning over the quarter-deck, ' 
HO I could stand and watch it. An ink-black clond came -rlimi * 
suddenly up hrom the north which seemed to hang into the] \i^ 
sea, the surface of -the water below being violently agitated. ' 
According to popular belief, the cloud on these occasions is 
drawing up water which it afterwards discharges. Were 
this so, the water discharged would be salt, which it never 
is. The cause of the agitation is a cyclonic rotation of air 
or local whirlwind. The most noticeable feature was the 
blackness of the cloud itself. It became so dork that it 
would have been difficult to read any ordinary print. The 
rain, when it burst, fell nut in drops but in torrents. 
The deck was Hooded, and the scuttle-holes ran like jets 
from a pump. The awning was ceasing to be a shelter, 
for the water was driven bodily through it ; but the down- 
pour passed off as suddenly as it had risen. There was 
no lightning and no wind. The sea under our side was 
glassy smooth, and was dashed into millions of holes by'V 
the plunging of the rain pellets. \ 

The captain in his journeys to and fro hEid become | 
acquainted with the present blafik President of Hayti, Mr. ! 
Salomon. 1 had heard of this gentleman as an absolute \ 
person, who knew how to make himself obeyed, and who 
treated opposition to his authority in a very summary 
maimer. He seemed to be a favourite of the captain's. 
He had been educated in France, had met with man; 
changes of fortune, and after an exile in Jamaica had 
become quasi-king of the black repubUc. I much wished 
to see this paradise of negi-o liberty ; we were to touch at 
Jacmei, which is one of the principal ports, to leave the 



k 



182 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

mails, and Captain W- -was good enough to say that, if I 

liked, I might go on shore for an hour or tvo with the officer 

in charge. 

Hayti, aa eTeryone knows who haa studied the black 
problem, is the western portion of Columbus's Espanola, or 
St. Domingo, the largest after Cuba and the most fertile in 
natural resources of all the islands of the Caribbean Sea. It 
was the earliest of the Spanish settlements in the New World. 
The Spaniards found there a million or two of mild and inno- 
cent Indians, whom in their first enthusiasm they intended 
to convert to Christianity, and to offer as the first fruits of 
their discovery to the Virgin Mary and St. Doraenic. The 
saint gave his name to the island, and his temperament to 
the conquerors. In carrying out their pious design, they 
converted the Indiana off the face of the earth, working 
them to death in their mines and plantationK. They filled 
their places with blacks from Africa, who proved of tougher 
constitution. They colonised, they built cities ; they throve 
and prospered for nearly two hundred years, when Hayti, the 
most valuable half of the island, was taken from them by 
the buccaneers and made into a French province. The rest, 
which keeps the title of St. Domingo, continued Spanish, 
and is Spanish stili^a thinly inhabited, miserable, Spanish 
republic. Hayti became afterwards the theatre of the exploits 
of the ever-glorious Toussaint I'Ouverture. When the 
French Revolution broke out, and Liberty and the Bights of 
Man became the new gospel, slavery could not be allowed 
to continue in the French dominions. The blacks of the 
colony were emancipated and were received into the national 
brotherhood. In sympathy with the Jacobins of France, 
who burnt the chateaux of the nobles and guillotined the 
owners of them, the liberated slaves rose as soon as they 
were free, and massacred the whole French population, 
man, woman, and child. Napoleon sent an army to punish 
the murderers and recover the colony. Toussaint, who had 




THE BLACK REPUBLIC 

I no share in the atrocitiea, and whose fault was only that he" 
had been caught by the prevailing political epidemic and 
believed in the evangel of freedom, surrendered and was 
carried to France, where he died or else was made an end 
of. The yellow fever avenged him, and secured for his 
countrymen the opportunity of trying out to the uttermost 
the experiment of negro self-government. The French 
troopa perished in tens of thouBands. They were reinforced 
again and again, but it was like pouring water into a sieve. 
The climate won a victory to the black man which he could 
not win for himself. They abandoned their enterprise at 
last, and Hayti was free. We English tried our hand to 
recover it afterwards, but we failed also, and for the sameL, 
reason. 

Hayti has thus for nearly a century been a black inde- 
pendent state. The negro race have had it to themselves 
and have not been interfered with. They were equipped 
when they started on their career of freedom with the 
Catholic religion, a civilised language, European laws and v' 
manners, and the knowledge of various arts and occupations 
which they had learnt while they were slaves. They speak 
French still ; they are nominally Catholics still ; and the tags / 
and rags of the gold lace of French civilisation continue ) 
to cling about their institutions. But in the heart of them 
has revived the old idolatry of the Gold Coast, and in the 
villages of the interior, where they are out of sight and can 



k 



pent's honour after the manner of their forefathers. Per- 
haps nothing better could be expected from a liberty which 
was inaugurated by assassination and plunder. Political 
changes which prove successful do not begin in that way. 
The Bight of Leogane is a deep bay carved in the side 
of the island, one arm of which is a narrow ridge of high 
moimtains a hundred and fifty miles long and from thirty 
to forty wide. At the head of this bay, to the north of the 



ft 



184 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

ridge, is Port au Prince, the capital of this remarkable 
community. On the south, on the immediately opposite 
Bide of the mountains and facing the Caribbean Sea, ia 
Jacmel, the towD nest in importance. We arrived off it 
shortly after daybreak. The houses, which are white, 
looked cheerful in the sunlight. Harbour there was none, 
but an open roadstead into which the swell of the sea sets 
heavily, curling over a long coral reef, which forms a 
partial shelter. The mountain range rose behind, sloping 
off into rounded woody hills. Here were the feeding 
grounds of the herds of wild cattle which tempted the 
buccaneers into the island, and from which they took their 
name. The shore was abrupt ; the land broke off in cliffs of 
coral rock tmted brilliantly with various colours. One rather 
striking white cliff, a ship's officer assured me, was chalk ; 
adding flint when I looked incredulous. His geological 
education was imperfect. We brought up a mile outside 
the black city. The boat was lowered. None of the other 
passengers volunteered to go with me ; the EngUsh are 
ont of favour in Hayti just now ; the captain discouraged 
landings out of mere curiosity ; and, indeed, the officer with 
the mails had to reassure himself of Captain W 's con- 
sent before he would take me. The presence of Europeans 
in any form is barely tolerated. A few only are allowed to 
remain about the ports, just as the Irish say they let a 
few Danes remain in Dublin and Waterford after the battle 
of Clontarf, to attend to the ignoble business of trade. 

The country after the green of the Antilles looked 
brown and parched. In the large islands the winter 
months are dry. As we approached the reef we saw the 
long hills of water turn to emerald as they rolled up the 
shoal, then combing and breaking in cataracts of snow- 
white foam. The officer in charge took me within oar's 
length of the rock to try my nerves, and the sea, he did 
not fail to tell me, swEirmed with sharks of the worst pro- 



^^ pa 



J AC MEL 185 

pensitiee. Two Bteamers were lying inside, one of which, 
belonging to an English company, had ' happened a mis- 
fortune,' and was breaking up as a deserted wreck. A 
Yankee clipper schooner had just come in with salt fish 
and crackers — a singularly beautiful vessel, with immense 
beam, which would have startled the builders of the Cowea 
racers. It was precisely like the schooner which Tom 
Cringle commanded before the dockyard martinets had 
improved her into ugliness, built on the lines of the old 
pirate craft of the islands, when the lives and fortunes of 
men hung on the extra speed, or the point which they 
could lie closer to the wind. Her return cargo would be 
co&e and bananas, 

EngUshmen move about in Jacmel as if they were 
ashamed of themselves among their dusky lords and 
masters. I observed the Yankee skipper paddling him- 
self off in a canoe with his broad straw hat and his 
cigar in bis mouth, looking as if all the world belonged to 
him, and as if all the world, and the Hayti blacks in 
particular, were aware of the fact. The Yankee, whether 
we like it or not, is the acknowledged sovereign in these 
waters. 

The landing place was, or had been, a jetty built on 
piles and boarded over. Half the piles were broken ; 
the planks bad rotted and fallen through. The swell was 
rolling home, and we had to step out quickly as the boat 
rose on the crest of the wave. A tattered crowd of negroes 
were loafing about variously dressed, none, however, en- 
tirely without clothes of some kind. One of them did kindly 
give me a hand, observing that I was less light of foot than 
once I might have been. The agent's office was close by. 
I asked the head clerk — a Frenchman — to find me a guide 
through the town. He called one of the bystanders whom 
he knew, and we started together, I and my black com- 
panion, to see as much as I could in the hour which 



'J 




i86 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

was allowed me. The language wa^ less hopeless than at 
Dominica. We found that we could understand each 
other — he, me, tolerably ; I, him, in fragments, for his 
tongue went as fast aa a shuttle. Though it was still 
barely eight o'clock the sun was scalding. The streets 
were filthy and the stench abominable. The houses were 
of white stone, and of some pretensions, but ragged and 
uninviting — paint nowhere, and the woodwork of the win- 
dows and verandahs mouldy and worm-eaten. The in- 
habitants swarmed as in a St. Giles's rookery. I suppose 
they were all out of doors. K any were left at home 
Jacmel must have been as populous as an African ants' 
nest. As I had looked for nothing better than a Kaffir 
kraal, the degree of civilisation was more than I expected. 
I expressed my admiration of the buildings ; my guide was 
gratified, and pointed out to me with evident pride a new 
hotel or hoarding house kept by a Madam Somebody who 
was the great lady of the place. Madame Ellememe was 
sitting in a shady balcony outside the first-floor windows. 
She was a large menacing- looking mulatto, like some 
ogress of the ' Arabian Nights,' capable of devouring, if she 
found them palatable, any number of salt babies. I took 
oflf my hat to this formidable dame, which she did not 
__\^oon descend to notice, and we passed on, A few houses in 
the outskirts stood in gardens with inclosures about them. 
There is some trade in the place, and there were evidently 
famihes, negro or European, who lived in less squalid 
style than the generality. There was a governor there, 
my guide informed me — an ornamental personage, much 
respected. To my question whether he had any soldiers, I 
was answered ' No ; ' the Haytiana didn't like soldiers. I was 
to understand, however, that they were not common blacks. 
They aspired to be a commonwealth with public rights and 
alliances. Hayti a repubhc, France a republic : France 
and Hayti good friends now. They had a French bishop 



J ACM EL 187 

and French priests and a French currency. In spite of 
their land laws, they were proud of their affinity with the 
great nation ; and I heard afterwards, though not from my 
Jacmel companion, that the better part of the Haytians 
would welcome back the French dominion if they were not 
afraid that the Yankees would disapprove, 

My guide persisted in leading me outside the town, and 
as my time was limited, I tried in varioua ways to induce 
him to take me back into it. He maintained, however, that 
he had been told to show me whatever was most interest- 
ing, and I found that I was to see an American windmill- 
pump which had been just erected to supply Jacmel with 
fresh water. It was the first that had been seen in the island, 
and was a wonder of wonders. Doubtless it implied ' pro- 
gress,' and would assist in the much-needed ablution of 
the streets and kennels. I looked at it and admired, and 
having thus done homage, I was allowed my own way. 

It was market day. The Yankee cargo had been un- 
loaded, and a great open space in front of the cathedral was 
covered with stalls or else blankets stretched on poles to keep 
the sun off, where hundreds of Eaytian dames were sitting 
or standing disposing of their wares — piles of salt fiah, 
piles of coloured calicoes, knives, Bcissors, combs, and 
brushes. Of home produce there were great baskets of 
loaves, fruit, vegetables, and butcher's meat on slabs. I 
looked inquisitively at these last ; but I acknowledge that 
I saw no joints of suspicious appearance. Children were 
running about in thousands, not the least as if they were 
in fear of being sacrificed, and babies hung upon their 
mothers as if natural affection existed in Jacmel as much 
as in other places, I asked no compromising questions, 
not wishing to be torn in pieces. Sir Spencer St. John's 
book has been heard of in Hayti, and the anger about it is 
considerable. The scene was interesting enough, but the 
smell was unendurable. The wild African black is not ' 




I 



k 



1 88 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

filthy in hie natural state. He washes much, and, as wild/ 
animalB do, at least tries to keep himself clear of vermin. The I 
blEickH in Jacmel appeared (like the same animals as Boon^ 
as they are domesticated) to lose the sense which belongs I 
to them in their wild condition. My prejudices, if I have! 
any, had not blinded me to the good qualities of the men 
and women in Dominica. I do not think it was prejudice 
wholly which made me think the faces which I saw in . 
Hayti the most repulsive which 1 had ever seen in the world, 
or Jacmel itself, taken for all in all, the foulest, dirtiest, i 
and nastiest of human habitations. The dirt, however, I 
will do them the justice to say did not seem to extend to ' 
their churches. The cathedral stood at the upper end of 
the market place. I went in. It was airy, cool, and decent- 
looking. Some priests were saying mass, and there was a 
fairly large congregation. 1 wished to get a nearer sight 
of the altar and the images and pictures, imagining that 
in Hayti the sacred persons might assume a darker colour 
than in Europe ; but I could not reach the chancel without 
disturbing people who were sajing their prayers, and, 
to the disappointment of my companion, who beckoned 
me on, and would have cleared a way for me, I controlled 
my curiosity and withdi'ew. 

My hour's leave of absence was expired. 1 made my way 
back to the landing place, where the mail steamer's boat was 
waiting for me. On the steamer herself the passengers 
were waiting impatiently for breakfast, which had been put 
oEE on our account. We hurried on board at our best speed ; 
but before breakfast could be thought of, or any other 
thing, I had to strip and plunge into a bath and wash 
away the odour of the great negro repubhc of the West 
which clung to my clothes and skin. 

Leaving Jacmel and its associations, we ran all day 
along the land, skirting a range of splendid mountains be- 
tween seven and eight thousand feet high ; past the Isle a 



A JAMAICA PLANTER 189 

Vache ; past the bay of Cayee, once famous as the haunt of 
the sea-rovers ; past Cape Tubiron, the Cape of Shai-ks. At 
evening we were in the channel which divides St. Domingo 

from Jamaica. Captain insisted to me that this was 

the scene of Rodney's action, and he pointed out to me the 
headland under which the British fleet had been lying. 
He was probably right in saying that it was the scene 
of some action of Rodney's, for there ia hardly a corner 
of the West Indies where he did not leave behind him 
the print of his cannon shot ; but it was not the scene 
of the great fight which saved the British Empire. That 

was below the cliffs of Dominica ; and Captain W , as 

many others have done, was confounding Dominica with 
St. Domingo. 

The next morning we were to aschor at Port Royal. 
We had a Jamaica gentleman of some consequence on 
board. I had failed so far to make acquaintance with him, 
but on this last evening he joined me on deck, and I gladly 
used the opportunity to learn something of the present 
condition of things. I was mistaken in expecting to find a 
more vigorous or more sanguine tone of feeling than I had 
Jeft at the Antilles. There was the same despondency, I 
^ /the same sense that their state was hopeless, and that no- 1 (-- 
thing which they could themselvea do would mend it. HeJ 



I hea 

^^ thii 



thing which they c 
himself, for instance, was the owner of a large sugar estate 
which a few years ago was worth 60,000?. It was not en- 
cumbered. He was his own manager, and had spared no 
cost in providing the newest machinery. Yet, with the pre- 
sent prices and with the refusal of the American Commercial 
Treaty, it would not pay the expense of cultivation. He 
held on, for it was all that be could do. To sell was im- 
possible, for no one would buy even at the price of the 
stock on the land. It was the same story which I had 
heard everywhere. The expenses of the administration, 
this gentleman said, were out of all proportion to the 




k 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

resoTirceB of the island, and were yearly increasing. The 
planters had governed in the old days as the English 
landlords had governed Ireland. They had governed 
cheaply and on their owq resources. They had authority ; 
they were respected ; their word was law. Now their 
power had been taken from them, and made over to paid 
officials, and the expense was double what it used to be. 
Between the demands made on them in the form of taxation 
and the fall in the value of their produce their backs were 
breaking, and the ' landed interest ' would come to an 
end, I asked him, as I bad asked many persons without 
getting a satisfactory answer, what he thought that the 
Imperial Government could do to mend matters. He/ 

f seemed to think that it was too late to do anything. The' 
blacks were increasing so fast, and the white influence was' 
diminishing so fast, that Jamaica in a few years would be-' 
another Hayti. 

In this gentleman, too, I found to my sorrow that there 
was the same longing for admission to the American Union 
which I had left behind me at the Antilles. In spite of 
soldiers and the naval station, the old country was still 
, looked upon as 'a stepmother,'' and of genuine loyalty there 
was, according to him, little or nothing. If the West Indies 
were ever to become prosperous again, it could only be when 
they were annexed to the United States. For the present, 
at least, he admitted that annexation was impossible. Not 
on account of any possible objection on the part of the 
British Government ; it seems to be assumed by every one 
that the British Government cares nothing what they do ; 
not wholly on account of the objections of the Americans, 
though he admitted that the Americans were unwilling to 
receive them ; but because in the existing state of feeling 
such a change could not be carried out without civil war. 
In iTamaica, at least, the blacks and mulattoes would resist. 
There were nearly 700,000 of them, while of the whites 



i 



I mc 



JAMAICAN PROSPECTS 191 

there were but 15,000, and the relative numbers were every 
pyear becoming more unfavourable. The blacks knew that\ 
I under England they had nothing to fear. They would have 1 
J 1 everything more and more their own way, and in a short J 
I time they expected to have the island to themselves. They 
^ might collect arms ; they might do what they pleased, and 
no English officer dared to use rough measures with them ; 
while, if they belonged to the Union, the whites would re- 
cover authority one way or another. The Americans were 
ready with their rifles on occasions of disorder, and their 
own countrymen did not call them to account for it as 
we did. The blacks, therefore, preferred the liberty which 
they had and the prospects to which they looked forward, 
and they and the mulattoea also would fight, and fight des- 
perately, before they would allow themselves to be made 
American citizens. 

The prospect which Mr. laid before me was not 

a beautiful one, and was coming a step nearer at each 
advance ihat was made in the direction of constitutional 
self-government ; for, like every other person with whom I 
spoke on the subject, he said emphatically that Europeans 
would not remain to be ruled under a black representative 
system ; nor would they take any part in it when they 
would be BO overwhelmingly outvoted and outnumbered. 
They would sooner forfeit all that they had in the world 
and go away. An effective and economical administration 
on the Indian pattern might have saved all a few years 
ago. It was too late now, and Jamaica was past recovery. . 
(At this rate it was a sadly altered Jamaica since Tom( . 
t /Cringle's time, though his friend Aaron even then had' 
1 seen what was probably coming. But I could not accept 
entirely all that Mr. had been saying, and had to dis- 
count the natural irritation of a man who sees his fortune 
sliding out of his hands. Moreover, for myself, I never Usten 
much to a desponding person. Even when a cause is lost 




^ 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



utterly, and no rational hope remains, I wonld still go 
down, if it had to be so, with my spirit nnbroken and my 

face to the enemy. Mr. perhaps would recover heart 

if the price of sugar mended a little. For my own part, I do 
not care much whether it mends or not. The economics of 
the islands ought not to depend exclusively on any single 
article of produce. I believe, too, in spite of gloomy pro- 
gnostics, that a loyal and prosperous Jamaica is still among 
the possibilities of the future, if we will but study in earnest 

the character of the problem. Mr. , however, did most 

really convey to me the convictions of a large and in- 
fluential body of West Indiana — convictions on which they 
are already acting, and will act more and more. With 
Hayti so close, and with opinion in England indifferent to 
what becomes of them, they will clear out while they have 
something left to lose, and will not wait till ruin is upon 
them, or tQl they are ordered off the land by a black legis- 
lature. There is a saying in Hayti that the white man has 
no rights which the blacks are bound to recognise, 

I walked forward after we had done talking. "We had 
five hundred of the poor creatures on board on their way to 
the Darien pandemonium. The vessel was rolling with a 
heavy beam sea. I found the whole mass of them reduced 
into the condition of the pigs who used to occupy the fore- 
deck in the Cork and Bristol packets. They were lying in a 
confused heap together, helpless, miserable, without con- 
sciousness apparently, save a sense in each that he was 
wretehed. Unfortunate brothers-in-law ! following the 
laws of political economy, and carrying their labour to the 
dearest market, where, before a year was out, half of them 
were to die. They had souls, too, some of them, and 
honest and kindly hearts. I observed one man who was 
Buffering less than the rest reading aloud to a prostrate 
group a chapter of the New Testament ; another was read- 
ing to himself a French Catholic book of devotion. 



KINGSTON 



»93 



The dawQ was breaking in the east when I came on 
deck in the morning. The Blue Mountains were hanging 
over UB on our right hand, the peaks buried in white mist 
which the unrisen sun was faintly tinting with orange. 
We had passed Morant Bay, the scene of Gordon's raeh [ / 
^attempt to imitate Toussaint I'Ouverture. As bo often in- 
the Antilles, a level plain Btretched between the sea and 
the base of the hillB, formed by the debris washed down by 
the rivers in the rainy season. Among cane fields and 
cocoa-nut groves we saw houses and the chimneys of the 
sugar factories ; and, as we came nearer, we aaw men and 
horses gomg to their early work. Presently Kingston itself 
came in sight, and Up Park Camp, and the white barracks 
high np on the mountain side, of which one had read and 
heard so much. Here was actually Tom Cringle's Kingston, 
and between us and the town was the long sand spit which 
incloses the lagoon at the head of which it is built. How 
this natural breakwater had been deposited I could find 
no one to tell me. It is eight miles long, rising but a few 
feet above the water-line, in places not more than thirty 
yards across — nowhere, except at the extremity, more than 
sixty or a hundred. The thundering swell of the Caribbean 
Sea breaks upon it from year's end to year's end, and never 
washes it any thinner. Wliere the sand is dry, beyond the 
reach of the waves, it is planted thickly all along with 
palms, and appears from the sea a soft green line, over 
which appear the masts and spars of the vessels at an- 
chor in the harbour, and the higher houses of Kingston 
itself. To reach the opening into the lagoon yoii have to ran 
on to the end of the sandbank, where there is a peninsula 
on which is built the Port Royal so famous in West Indian 
story. Halfway down among the palms the lighthouse 
stands, from which a gun was fired as we passed, to give 
notice that the Enghsli mail was coming in. Treacherous 
coral reefs rise out of the deep water for several miles. 




194 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

some under water and risible only by the breakers over them, 
others forming into low wooded islands. Only local pilotB 
can take a ship safely through these powerful natural de- 
fence works. There are but two channels through which 
the lagoon can be approached. The eastern passage, along 
which We were steaming, runs so near the shore that an 
enemy's ship would be destroyed by the batteries among 
the sandhills long before it could reach the mouth. The 
western passage is less intricate, but that also is com- 
manded by powerful forts. In old times Kingston was un- 
attackable, so strong bad the position been made by nature 
and art combined. It could be shelled now over the spit 
from the open sea. It might be destroyed, but even bo 
could not easily be taken. 

I do not know that I have ever seen any scene more 
interesting than that which broke upon my eyes as we 
' rounded the point, and the lagoon opened out before me. 
Kington, which we had passed halt an hour before, lay 
six miles off at the head of it, now inside the sand ridge, 
blue and hazy in the distance. At the back were the 
moantaiuB. The mist had melted off, standing in shadowy 
grey masses with the sun rising behind them. Imme- 
diately in front were the dockyards, forts, and towers of 
Port Royal, with the guardship, gunboats, and tenders, with 
street and terrace, roof and turret and glistening vane, all 
clearly and sharply defined in the exquisite transparency of 
the air. The associations of the place no doubt added to 
the impression. Before the first hut was run up in Kings- 
ton, Port Iloyal was the rendezvous of all English ships 
which, for spoil or commerce, frequented the West Indian 
seas. Here the buccaneers sold their plunder and squan- 
dered their gains in gambling and riot. Here in the later 
century of legitimate wars, whole fleets were gathered to 
take in stores, or refit when shattered by engagements. 
Here Nelson had been, and Collingwood and Jervis, and all 



FORT ROYAL 195 

our other naTal heroes. Here prizes were brought in for 
adjndication, and pirates to be tried and hanged. In this 
spot more than id any other, beyond Great Britain her- 
self, the energy of the Empire once was throbbiag. The / 
* Urgent,' an old two-decker, and three gunboats were all that 
were now floating id the once crowded water ; the * Urgent,' 
no longer equipped for active service, imperfectly armed, 
inadequately manned, but still flaunting the broad white 
ensign, and grand with the houses which lay behind her. 
There were batteries at the point, and batteries on the op- 
posite shore. The morning bugle rang out clear and in- 
spiriting from the town, and white coats and gold and silver 
lace glanced in and out as men and officers were passing 
to parade. Here, at any rate, England was still alive. 

The channel at the entrance is a mile in width. The 
lagoon (the open part of it) may be seven or eight miles 
long and half as many broad. It forms the mouth of th(^ 
Cobre river, one of the largest in Jamaica, on which, ten 
miles up, stands the original seat of government established 
by the Spaniards, and called after them Spanish Totmi. 
The fashion of past times, as old as the times of Thucydides, 
and continued on till the end of the last century, was to 
choose the sites for important towns in estuaries, at a dis- 
tance from the sea, to be out of the reach of pirates. 
The Cobre, running down from Spanish Town, turns the 
plain through which it flows into a swamp. The swamp 
covers itself with mangroves, and the mangroves fringe the 
shore of the lagoon itself for two-thirds of its circuit. As 
Jamaica grew in wealth and population the trade was 
carried from Port Boyal deeper into the bay. Another 
town sprang up there, called King's Town, or shortly 
'Kingston.' The administration was removed thither for 
convenience, and though fallen away from its old conse- 
quence, Kingston, with its extended suburbs, its churches 
and warehouses, and large mansions overhung with trees, 

o 2 



196 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

looks at a distance like a place of consideration. Many ships 
lay along the wharves, or anchored a few cables' distance 
oflf. Among them were a couple of Spanish frigates, which 
remain there in permanence on the watch for refugees 
from Cuba. On the slopes behind the town, as far as eye 
could see, were the once splendid estates of the sugar 
princes of the last century. One of them was pointed out 
to me as the West Indian home of the author of * Tom 
Cringle.' 

We had to stop for a few minutes as the officer of the 
port came alongside for the mails. We then went on at 
reduced speed. The lagoon is generally shoal. A deep 
water channel runs along the side of it which is farthest 
from the sea ; made, I suppose, by the river, for as usual 
there is little tide or none. Halfway up we passed under 
the walls of Fort Augusta, now a ruin and almost deserted, 
but once mounting a hundred guns. The money which 
we spent on the defence of Jamaica in the old times was 
not always laid out wisely, as will be seen in an account 
which I shall have to give of this remarkable structure ; 
but, at any rate, we were lavish of it. 

Of the sharks with which the water used to swarm we 
saw none. Fort Eoyal Jack and his kindred are said to 
have disappeared, driven or frightened out by the screws of 
the steamers. But it is not a place which I should choose 
for a swim. Nor did the nigger boys seem as anxious as I 
had seen them in other spots to dive for sixpences under 
the ship's side. 

No account is made of days when you come into port 
after a voyage. Cargoes have to be landed, or coal has to 
be taken in. The donkey engines are at work, hoisting 
packing cases and luggage out of the hold. Stewards run 
to and fro, and state-room doors are opened, and busy 
figures are seen through each, stuffing their portmanteaus 
and preparing for departure. The church bells at Eingston, 



hi 



KINGSTON BARBOUR 197 

ringing for early service, reminded me that it was Sunday. 
We brought up at a jetty, and I cannot Bay that, close at 
hand, the town was as attractive aa it had appeared when 
first I saw it. The enchantment was gone. The blue haze 
of distance gave place to reahty. The water was so fetid 
under the ship's side that it could not be pumped into the 
baths. Odours, not Arabian, from open drains reminded 
me of Jacmel. The streets, up which I could see from the 
afterdeck, looked dirty and the houses shabby. Docks 
and wharves, however, are never the brightest part of any 
town, English or foreign. There were people enough at 
any rate, and white faces enough among them. Gang- 
ways were rigged from the ship to the shore, and ladies 
and gentlemen rushed on board to meet their friends. 
The companies' agents appeared in the captain's cabin. 
Porters were scrambling for luggage ; pushing, shoving, 
and swearing. Passengers who had come out with us, and 
had never missed attendance at the breakfast table, were 
hurrying home unbreakfasted to their wives and families. 
My own plans were uncertain. I had no friends, not even 
an acquaintance. I knew nothing of the hotels and lodging 
bouses, save that they had generally a doubtful reputation. 
I had brought with me a letter of introduction to Sir H. 
Norman, the governor, but Sir Henry had gone to England. 
On the whole, I thought it best to inclose the letter to Mr. 
Walker, the Colonial Secretary, who I understood was in 
Kingston, with a note asking for advice. This I sent by a 
messenger. Meanwhile I stayed on board to look about 
me from the deck. The ship was to go on the nest morn- 
ing to the canal works at Darien. Time was precious. 
Immediately on arriving she had begun to take in coal, 
Sunday though it might be, and a singular spectacle it 
was. The coal yard was close by, and some hundreds of 
negroes, women and men, but women in four times the 
number, were hard at work. The entire process was by 



I 



ig8 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

hand and basket, each basket holdmg from eighty to a 
hnndred pounds weight. Two planks were laid down at a 

I steep incline from the ship's deck to the yai-d. Swinging [] 
their loads on their heads, erect as statues, and with a step 
elastic as a racehorse's, they marched up one of the planks, I 

1 emptied their baskets into the coal bunkers, and ran down v 

^the other. Round and round they went under the blazing 
aun all the morning through, and round and round they 
would continue to go all the afternoon. The men took it 
comparatively easy. The women flew along, laughing, 
and clamouring, as if not knowing what weariness was — | 
willing beasts of burden, for they had the care upon them 
of their children ; the men disclaiming all responsibilitiea / 
that score, after the babies have been once brought into i 
the world. The poor women are content with the arrange- 
ment, which they prefer to what they would regard as legal 
bondage. They earn at this coaling work seven or eight 
shillings a day. If they were wives, their husbands would 
take it from them and spend it in rum. The companion 
who is not a wife can refuge and keep her earnings for her 
little ones. If black suffrage is to be the rule in Jamaica, / 
I would take it away from the men and would give it 
to the superior sex. The women are the working bees of 
the hive. They would make a tolerable nation of black 
amazona, and the babies would not be offered to Jumbi, 

When I had finished my meditations on the coaling 
women, there weref other black creatures to wonder , at ; j 
great boobies or peEcans, old acquaintances of the Zoo- i 
logical Gardens, who act as scavengers in these waters. >. 
We had perhaps a couple of dozen of them round us as ', 

I large as vultures, ponderous and sleepy to look at when 
squatting on rocks or piles, overweighted by their enormous 
bills. On the wing they were astonishingly swift, wheeling 
in circles, till they could fix their prey with their eyes, 
then pouncing upon it with a violent slanting plunge. I 



A WEST INDIAN BREAKFAST 



'99 



I. 



BnppoBe their beaks might be broken if they struck directly, 
but I never eaw one miss its aim. Nor do they ever go 
below the surface, but seize always what is close to it, I 
was told — I do not know how truly— that like the diablota 
in Dominica, they nest in the mountains and only come 
down to the sea to feed. 

Hearing that I waa in search of quarters, a Mies Burton, 
a handsome mulatto woman, came up and introduced ' 
herself to me. Hotels in the English West Indies are 
generally detestable. This dame bad set up a boarding 
house on improved principles, or rather two boarding 
houses, between which she invited me to take my choice, 
one in the suburbs of Kingston, one on the bank of a river 
in a rocky gorge in the Blue Mountains. In either of 
these she promised that she would make me happy, and I 
do not doubt that she would have succeeded, for her fame 
had spread through all Jamaica, and her face was as merry 
as it was honest. As it turned out I was provided for 
elsewhere, and 1 lost the chance of making an acquaint- 
ance which I should have valued. When she spoke to me 
Bhe seemed a very model of vigour and health. She died 
suddenly while I was in the island. 

It was still early. When the vessel was in some order 
again, and those who were going on shore had disappeared, 
the rest of us were called down to breakfast to taste some 
of those Jamaica delicacies on which Paul Gelid was so 
eloquent. The friut waa the chief attraction : pineapples, 
of which one can eat as much as one likes in these 
countries with immunity from after suffering; oranges, 
more excellent than even those of Grenada and Dominica ; 
shaddocks, admirable as that memorable one which seduced 
Adam ; and for the first time mangoes, the famous Number 
Eleven of which I had heard such high report, and was now 
to ta*te. The English gardeners can do much, but they 
oanuot ripen a Number Eleven, and it is too delicate to 




I 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

bear carriage. It must be eaten in the tropics or nowhere. 
The mango is the size and shape of a swan's egg, of a 
ruddy ytllow colour when ripe, and in flavour like an 
exceptionally good apricot, with a very shght intimation of 
resin. The stone is disproportionately large. The fleeh 
adheres to it, and one abandons as hopeless the attempt 
to eat mangoes with clean lips and fingers. The epicures 
insist that they should be eaten only in a bath. 

The heat was considerable, and the feast of fi'uit was 
the more welcome. Soon after the Colonial Secretary 
pohtely answered my note in person. In the absence of 
the governor of a colony, the colonial secretary, aa a 
rule, takes his place. In Jamaica, and wherever we 
have a garrison, the commander of the forces becomea 
acting governor ; I suppose because it is not convenient 
to place an officer of high military rank under the orders 
of a civilian who is not the direct representative of the 
sovereign. In the gentleman who now called on me X 
found an old acquaintance whom I had known as a boy 
many years ago. He told me that, if I had made no other 

arrangements. Colonel J , who was the present chief> 

was expecting me to be hia guest at the ' King's House ' 
during my stay in Jamaica. My reluctance to trespass on 
the hospitality of an entire stranger was not to be allowed. 
Soldiers who have distinguished themselves are, next to 
lawyers, the most agreeable people to be met with, and 
when I was convinced that I should really be welcome, I 
had no other objection. An aide-de-camp, I was told, 
would call for me in the afternoon. Meanwhile the secre- 
tary stayed with me for an hour or two, and I was able to 
learn somethhig authentic from him as to the general con- 
dition of things. I had not given entire credit to the re- 
presentations of my planter friend of the evening before. 
Mr. Walker took a more cheerful view, and, although the 
proBiwctfl were not as bright as they might be, he saw 



y 



i 



THE COLONIAL SECRETARY 201 

no reason for despondency. Sugar was down of course. 
The public debt bad increased, and taxation was heavy. 
Many gentlemen in Jamaica, as in the Antilles, were sell- 
ing, or trying to sell, their estates and go out of it. On 
the other hand, expenses of government were bemg re- 
duced, and the revenue showed a surplus. The fruit trade 
with the United States was growing, and promised to grow 
still further. American capitalists had come into the island, 
and were experimenting on various industries. The sugar 
treaty with America would naturally have been welcome ; 
but Jamaica was less dependent on its sugar crop, and the 
action of the British Government was less keenly resented. 
In the Antilles, the Colonial Secretary admitted, there 
might be a desire for annexation to the United States, 
and Jamaican landowners had certainly expressed the same 
wish to myself. Mr. Walker, however, assured me that, while 
the blacks would oppose it unanimously, the feeling, if it 
existed at all among the whites, was confined aa yet to a 
very few persons. They had been Enghsh for 230 years, 
and the large majority of them wislied to remain Enghsh. 
There had been suffering among them ; but there had been 
suffering in other places besides Jamaica. Better times 
might perhaps be coming with the opening of the Darien 
canal, when Ivingaton might hope to become again the 
centre of a trade. Of the negroes, both men and women, 
Mr. Walker spoke extremely favourably. They were far 
less indolent than they were supposed to be ; they were 
settling on the waste lands, acquiring property, growing 
yams and oranges, and harming no one ; they had no 
grievance left ; they knew it, and were perfectly contented, 
Afl Mr. Walker was an official, I did not ask him about 
the working of the recent changes in the constitution ; nor 
could he have properly answered me if I had. The state 
of things is briefly this : Jamaica, after the first settlement, 
leceived a parliamentary form of government, modelled on 



20J THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

that of Ireland, the colonial liberties being restricted by a 
law analogous to PoyningH' Act. The legislature, so con- 
structed, of course represented the white interest only and 
was entirely composed of whites. It remained substantially 
unaltered till 1853, when modifications were made which 
admitted coloured men to the suffrage, though with so high 
a franchise as to be almost exclusive. It became generally 
felt that the franchise would have to he extended. A 
popular movement, led by Mr. Gordon, who was a member 
of the legislature, developed into a riot, into bloodshed and 
panic. Gordon was hanged by a court-martial, and the 
assembly, aware that, if allowed to exist any longer, it conld 
exist only with the broad admission of the negro vote, pro- 
nounced its own dissolution, surrendered its powers to the 
Crown, and represented formally ' that nothing but a strong 
government could prevent the island from lapsing into the 
condition of Hayti.' 

The surrender was accepted. Jamaica was administered 
till within the last three years by a governor, officials, and 
council, all nominated by the Queen. No dissatisfaction 
had been expressed, and the blanks at least had enjoyed 
a prosperity and tranquillity which had been unbroken by 
a single disturbance. If the island has suffered, it has 
suffered from causes with which pohtical dissatisfaction has 
had nothing to do, and which, therefore, political changes 
cannot remove. In 1884 Mr. Gladstone's Government, for 
reasons which I have not been able to ascertain, revived 
suddenly the representative system ; constructed a council 
composed equally of nominated and of elected memljers, 
and placed the franchise so low as to include practically 
every negro peasant who possessed a hut and a garden. So 
long as the Crown retains and exercises its power of nomi- 
nation, no worse results can ensue than the inevitable 
discontent when the votes of the elected members are dis- 
regarded or overborne. But to have ventured so important 



/AMAICAX COXSriTUTIOX 203 

an ah€ratioii with the int^ntioii of leaving it withoat 
farther extension would hare been an act of gratuitous 
folh-y of which it would be impossible to imagine an English 
cabinet to hare been capable. It is therefore assumed and 
imderstood to hare been no more than an initial step to* 
wards passing on the management of Jamaica to the black 
constituencies. It has been so construed in the other 
islands, and was the occasion of the agitation in Trinidad 
which I obserred when I was there. 

My own opinion as to the wisdom of such an experiment 
matters Uttle : but I have a rig^t to say that neither blacks 
nor whites have asked for it ; that no one who knows any- 
thing of the West Indies and wishes them to remain En^^ish 
sincerely asked for it ; that no one agitated for it save a 
fiew newspaper writers and mulattoes whom it would raise 
into consequence. If tried at all, it will be tried either with 
a deliberate intention of cutting Jamaica free from us alto- 
gether, or else in deference to English political supersti- 
tions, which attribute supernatural virtues to the exercise 
of the franchise, and assume that a form of self-government 
which suits us tolerably at home will be equally beneficial 
in all countries and under all conditions. 



204 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



A, 



CHAPTER Xin. 

The English mails — Irish agitation — Two kinds of colonies — Indian 
administration — How far applicable in the West Indies — ^Land at 
Kingston — Government House — Dinner party — Interesting officer — 
Majaba Hill— Moontain station — Kingston curiosities— Tobacco— Valley 
in the Blue Mountains. 

I AM reminded as I write of an adventure which befell 
Archbishop Whately soon after his promotion to the see of 
Dublin. On arriving in Ireland he saw that the people 
were miserable. The cause, in his mind, was their ignor- 
ance of political economy, of which he had himself written 
what he regarded as an excellent manual. An Irish 
translation of this manual he conceived would be the best 
possible medicine, and he commissioned a native Scripture 
reader to make one. To insure correctness he required 
the reader to retranslate to him what he had written line 
by line. He observed that the man as he read turned 
sometimes two pages at a time. The text went on cor- 
rectly, but his quick eye perceived that something was 
written on the intervening leaves. He insisted on know- 
ing what it was, and at last extorted an explanation^ 
*Your Grace, me and my comrade conceived that it was 
mighty dry reading, so we have just interposed now and 
^hen a bit of a pawem, to help it forward, your Grace/ 
I am myself imitating the translators, and making sand- 
wiches out of politics and local descriptions. 

We had brought the English mails with us. There were 
letters to read which had been in the ship with us, though 
out of our reach. There were the newspapers to read.. 



LETTERS FROM ENGLAND 






\. 



They told me nothing but the weary round of Ii'ish out- 
rages and the rival remedies of Tory or Radical politieiaiisi 
who cared for Ireland less than I did, and considered only 
how to trim their sails to keep in office or to get it. How 
eick one is of all that ! Half-a-dozen times at least in 
Anglo-Irish history things have come to the aame point. 
' All Ireland cannot govern the Earl of Kildare,' said some- 
one in Henry VIII. 's privy council. Then answered Wolsey, 
in the tone of Mr, Gladstone, ' Let the Earl of Kildare 
govern all Ireland.' Elizabeth wished to conciliate, Shan 
O'Neil, Desmond, Tyrone promised in turn to rule Ireland 
in loyal union with England under Irish ideas. Lord Grey, 
who was for 'a Mahometan conquest,' was censured and 
' girded at : ' yet the end was always broken heads. From 
1641 to 1649 an Irish parliament sat at Kilkenny, and 
Charles I. and the Tories dreamt of an alliance between 
Irish popery and English loyalism. Charles lost his head, 
and Cromwell had to make an end of Irish self-government 
at Drogheda and Wexford. Tyrconnell and James II. were 
to repeal the Act of Settlement and restore the forfeited 
lands to the old owners. The end of that came at the Boyne 
and at Aghrim. Grattaii would remake the Irish nation. 
The EngUsh Liberals seni Lord Eitzwilliam to help him, 
and the Saxon mastiff and the Celtic wolf were to live as 
brothers evermore. The result has been always the same ; 
the wretched country inflated with a dream of independence, 
and then trampled into mud again. So it has been. So it 
wiU be again. Ireland cannot be independent, for England 
ifl stronger than she, and cannot permit it. Yet nothing 
less will satisfy her. And so there has been always a 
weary round of fruitless concessions leading to demands 
which cannot be gratified, and in the end we are driven 
back upon force, which the miserable people lack the 
courage to encounter like men. Mr. Gladstone's experi- 
ment differs only &om its antecedents because in the past 




THE ENGLISH m THE WEST INDIES 



^H 3o6 Ti 

I the English friends of Irish liberty had a real hope that a 

I reconciliation was possible. They believed in what they 

were trying to do. The present enterprise is the creation 
of parliamentary faction. I have never met any person 
acquainted with the minds and motives of the public men 
I of the day who would not confess to me that, if it had 

Buited the interests of the leaders of the present Radical 

» party to adopt the Irish policy of the Long Parliament, 

their energy and their eloquence would have been equally at 
the service of the Protestant ascendency, which they have 
now denounced as a upas tree. They even ask you with 
wide eyes what else you would expect ? 
Mr. Sexton says that if England means to govern 
Ireland she must keep an army there as large as she keeps 
in India. England could govern Ireland in perfect peace, 
without an army at all, if there was no faetion in the House 
of Commons. Either party government will destroy the 
British Empire, or the British nation will make an end of 
party government on its present lines. There are sounds 
in the air like the cracking of the ice of the Neva at the 
incoming of spring, as if a nobler spirit was at last awaking 
in us. In a few more years there may be no more Badicals 
and no more Conservatives, and the nation will be all 
in all. 
/ Here is the answer to the question so often asked> I 
•>t I What is the use of the colonies to ua ? The colonies are a I 
I hundredfold multiplication of the area of our own limited ] 
' islands. In taking possession of so large a portion" of the~ j 
globe, we have enabled ourselves to spread and increase 
and carry ourselves, our language and our liberties, into 
all climates and continents. We overflow at home ; there j 
are too many of us here already ; and if no lands belonged 
' to us but Great Britain and Ireland, we should become a 
email insignificant power beside the mighty nations which 
^^H are forming around us. There is space for hundreds of 



THE USE OF COLONIES 107 

millions of us in the territoriea of which we and our 
fathers have poseeased ourselvea. lo Canada, Australia, 
New Zealand we add to our numbers and our resources. 
There are so many more EugHshmen in the world able 
to hold their own against the mightiest of tlieir rivals. 
And we have another function, such as the Romans had^2~\ 
The sections of men on this globe are unequally gifted. 
Some are strong and can govern themselves ; some are I ^^''T'^M 
I weak and are the prey of foreign mvaders or internal! 
anarchy ; and freedom, which all desire, is only attainable 
by weak nations when they are subject to the rule of 
others who are at once powei^ul and just. This was the 
duty which fell to the ^atin race two thousand years ago. 
In these modern times it has fallen to ours, and in the die- i 
charge of it the highest features in the EngUsh character Vij 
have displayed themselves. CircumHtances forced on ua 
the conquest of India ; we have given Lidia in return | 
internal peace undisturljed by tribal quarrels or the ambi- 
tions of dangerous neighbours, with a law which deals 
out right to high and low ajnong 250,000,000 human 
beings. 

Never have rulers been less self-seeking than we have 
been in our Asiatic empire. No ' lex de repetundia ' has 
been needed to punish avaricious proconsuls who had 
fattened on the provinces. In such positions the English 
s how atj heir best, and do their best. India has been the . 
training school of our greatest soldiers and greatest admi- 1 i^ 
nistrators. Strike off the Anglo-Indian names from the | 
roll of famous Englishmen, and we shall lose the most illus- 
trious of them all. 

In India the rule of England has been an unexampled 
success, glorious to ourselves and of infinite benefit to our- 
subjects, because we have been upright and disinterested, 
and have tried sincerely and honourably to do our duty. 
In other countries belonging to us, where with the same 





THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

methods we might Imve produced the same results, we 
have applied them with a hesitating and less clean band. 
We planted Ireland as a colony with our own people, we 
gave them a parliament of their own, and set them to 
govern the native Irish for us, instead of doing it ourselves, 
to save appearances and to save trouble. We have not failed 
altogether. All the good that has been done at all in that 
poor island has been done by the Anglo-Irish landlords. 
But it has not been much, as tbe present condition of 
things shows. In the West Indies similarly the first settlers 

-J carried with them theiij Eriglish institution^ They were 
themselves a handful. The bulk of the population were 
slaves, and as long as slavery continued those institutions 
continued to work tolerably in the interest of the white 
race. When the slaves were emancipated, the distinction 
of colour done away with, and the black multitude and 
their white employers made equal before tbe law and 
equally privileged, Constitutional government became no 
longer adapted to the new conditions. The white minority 
could not be trusted with the exclusive possession of poli- 
tical power. Tbe blacks could not be trusted, with the 
equally dangerous supremacy which their numbers would 
insure them. Our duty, if we did not and do not mean 

^ I to abandon them altogether, has been to govern both with 
j the same equity with which we govern at Calcutta. If you 
choose to take a race like the Irish or like the negroes 
whom you have forced into an unwilling subjection and 
have not treated when in that condition with perfect justice 
^if you take such a race, strike the fetters off them, and 
arm them at once with all the powers and privileges of 
loyaJ citizens, you ought not to be surprised if they 
attribute your concessions to fear, and if they turn again 
I and rend you. When we are brought in contact with races of [ 
men who are not strong enough or brave enough to defend I 
their own independence, and whom our own safety cannot j 



MEDITATIONS ON GOVERNMENT 209 

allow to fall under any other power, our right and our 
duty is to govern )5uch races and to govern them well, or 
they wiD have a right in turn to cut our throats. This is 
our mission. When we have dared to act up to it we have 
succeeded magnificently; we have failed when we have 
paltered and trifled ; and we shall fail again, and the great 
empire on which the sun never sets will be shattered to 
atoms, if we refuse to look facts in the face. 

From these meditations, suggested by the batch of news- 
papers which I had been studying, I was roused by the 
arrival of the promised aide-de-camp, a good-looking and 
good-humoured young officer in white uniform (they all 
wear white in the tropics), who had brought the governor's 
carriage for me. Government House, or King's House, as 
it is called, answering to a ' Queen's House ' in Barbadoes, 
is five miles from Kingston, on the slope which gradually 
ascends from the sea to the mountains. We drove through 
the town, which did not improve on closer acquaintance. 
The houses which front towards the streets are generally 
insignificant. The better sort, being behind walls or over- 
hung with trees, were imperfectly visible. The roads were 
deep in white dust, which flies everywhere in whirling clouds 
from the unceasing wind. It was the dry season. The 
rains are not constant in Jamaica, as they are in the 
Antilles. The fields and the sides of the mountains were 
bare and brown and parched. The blacks, however, were 
about in crowds in their Sunday finery. Being in a British 
island, we had got back into the white calicoes and ostrich 
plumes, and I missed the grace of the women at Dominica ; 
but men and women seemed as if they had not a care in the 
world. We passed Up Park Camp and the cantonments of 
the West India regiments, and then through a ' scrub ' of 
dwarf acacia and blue-flowered lignum vitse. Handsome 
villas were spread along the road with lawns and gardens, 
and the road itself was as excellent as those in Barbadoes. 





u> 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Half an hour's drive brought ub to the lodge, and through 
the park to the King's House itself, which stands among 
groups of fine trees four hundred feet above the sea. 

All the large houses in Jamaica— and this was one of 
the largest of them — are like those in Barbadoes, with the 
type more completely developed, generally square, built of 
stone, standing on blocks, hollow underneath for circulation 
of air, and approached by a broad flight of steps. On the 
three sides which the sun touches, deep verandahs or bal- 
conies are thrown out on the first and second floors, closed 
in front by green blinds, which can be shut either com- 
pletely or partially, so that at a distance they look like 
houflCR of cards or great green boxes, made pretty by the 
trees which shelter them or the creepers which climb over 
them. Behind the blinds run long aiiy darkened galleries, 
and into these the sitting rooms open, which are of course 
Btill darker with a subdued green light, in whi(rh, till you 
are used to it, you can hardly read. The floors are black, 
1 smooth, and polished, with loose mats for carpets. The I 
I reader of ' Tom Cringle ' will remember Tom's misadventure I 
I when he blundered into a party of pretty laughinr; girls,) 
I slipped on one of these floors with a retrospective misad-j 
venture, and could not rise till his creole cousin slipped a 
petticoat over his head. All the arrangements are made to 
shut out heat and light. The galleries have sofas to lounge 
upon — everybody smokes, and smokes where he pleases ; 
the draught sweeping away all residuary traces. At the 
King's House to increase the accommodation a large 
separate dining saloon has been thrown out on the north 
side, to which you descend from the drawing room by 
stairs, and thence along a covered passage. Among the 
mango trees behind there is a separate suite of rooms for 
the aides-de-camp, and a superb swimming bath sLsty feet 
long and eight feet deep. Altogether it was a sumptuous 
«ort of palEice where a governor with 7,000/. a year might 



KING'S HOUSE 211 

spend his term of office with considerable comfort were it 
not haunted by recollections of poor Eyre. He, it seems, 
lived in the ' King's House,' and two miles off, within sight 
of his windows, lived Gordon. 

I had a more than gracious welcome from Colonel J 

and his family. In him I found a high-bred soldier, who 
had served with distinction in India, who had been at the 
storm of Delhi, and who was close by when Nicholson was 
shot. No one could have looked fitter for the post which 
he now temporarily occupied. I felt uncomfortable at being 
thus thrust upon his hospitahty. I had letters of intro- 
duction with me to the various governors of the islands, 

but on Colonel J I had no claim at all. I was not 

even aware of his existence, or he. very likely, of mine. If 
not he, at any rate the ladies of his establishment, might 
reasonably look upon me as a bore, and if I had been 
allowed I should simply have paid my respects and have 
gone on to my mulatto. But they would not hear of it. 
They were so evidently hearty in their invitation to me 
that I could only submit and do my best not to be a bore, 
the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. 

In the circle into which I was thrown I was unlikely 
to hear much of West Indian poUtics or problems. Colonel 

J was acting as governor by accident, and for a few 

months only. He had his professional duties to look after ; 
his term of service in Jamaica had nearly expired ; and he 
conid not trouble himself with possibiUties and tendencies 
with which he would have no personal concern. As a 
spectator he considered probably that we were not making 
much of the West Indies, and were not on the way to make 
much. He confirmed the complaint which I had heard so 
often, that the blacks would not work for wages more than 
three days in the week, or regularly upon those, preferring 
to cultivate their own yams and sweet potatoes ; but as it 
was admitted that they did work one way or another at 

p 2 




THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



^^1 home, I could not see that there was much to complain of. 

^^1 The blacks were only doing as we do. We, too, only work 

^^H as much as we like or as we must, and we prefer working 

^^H for ourselves to working for others. 

^^f On biB special subjects the Colonel waB as interesting as 
f^^ he could not help being. He talked of the army and of the 
recent changes in it without insisting that it was going to 
the devil. He talked of India and the Russians, and for 
a wonder he had no Eussophobia. He thought that 
England and Russia might as easily be friends as enemies, 
and that it would be better for the world if they were. 
As this had been my own fixed opuiion for the last thirty 
years, I thought him a very sensible man. In the even- 
ing there was a small dinner party, made up chiefly of 
officers from the West Indian regiments at Kingston. 
The English troops are in the mountains at Newcastle, 
four or five thousEind feet up and beyond common visit- 
ing distance. Among those whom I met on this occasion 
was an officer who struck me particularly. There was a 
mystery about his origin. He had risen from the rankfi,> 
but was evidently a gentleman by birth ; he bad seen 1 
J service all over the world ; he had been in Chili, and, 
1^ I among his other accomplishments, spoke Spanish fluently ; 
I he entered the EngUsh army as a private, had been in the 
war in the Transvaal, and was the only survivor of the 
regiment which was surprised and shot down by the Boers 
in an intricate pass where they could neither retreat nor 
defend themselves. On that occasion he had escaped and 
eaved the colours, for which he was rewarded by a com- 
mieaion. He was acquainted with many of my friends 
there who had been in the thick of the campaign ; knew 
Sir Owen Lanyon, Sir Morrison Barlow, and CoHey. He had 
Binrveyed the plateau on Majuba Hill after the action. I 
had heard one side of Ihe story from a Boer officer ; from 
^^_ Mr. I heard the oUiit ; and they were not very unlike. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE BOER WAR 213 

Both agreed that the ball which killed Golley did not come 
from a Dutch rifle. My Boer informant said that he 
was last seen trying to rally a party of his own men who 
were running. They wheeled round and fired wildly. 
Colley was six or eight yards behind them. One of the 

balls struck him and he fell dead. Mr. said that, 

seeing the day irreparably lost, and his own reputation 
shattered along with it, he was generally believed to have 
shot himself. Friend and foe alike loved Golley, and 
legends like these are an unconscious tribute to his me- 
mory. The truth can never be known. We believe as 

we wish or as we fancy. Mr. was so fine an officer, 

so clever a man, and so reserved about his personal affairs, 
that about him too 'myths' were growing. He was 
credited in the mess room with being the then unknown 
author of * Solomon's Mines.' Mr. Haggard will forgive a 

mistake which, if he knows Mr. , he will feel to be a 

compliment. 

From general conversation I gathered that the san- 
guine views of the Colonial Secretary were not widely 
shared. The English interest was still something in 
Jamaica ; but the phenomena of the Antilles were present 
there also, if in a less extreme form. There were 700,000 
coloured people in the island, but 14,000 or 16,000 whites ; 
and the blacks there also were increasing rapidly, and the 
whites were stationary if not declining. There was the 
same uneasy social jealousy, and the absence of any social 
relation between the two races. There were mulattoes in 
the island of wealth and consequence, and at Government 
House there are no distinctions ; but the Enghsh residents 
of pure colonial blood would not associate with them, social 
exclusiveness increasing with political equaUty. The blacks 
disliked the mulattoes ; the mulattoes despised the blacks, 
and would not intermarry with them. The impression 
was that the mulatto would die out, that the tendency of 



i?i4 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

the whites and blacks was to a constantly sharpening 
separation, and that if things went on as they were going 
for another generation, it was easy to see which of the two 
colours would then be in the ascendant. The blacks were 
growing saucy, too ; with much else of the same kind. I 
could but listen and wait to judge for myself. 

Meanwhile my quarters were unexceptionable, my kind 
entertainers leaving nothing undone to make my stay with 
them agreeable. In hot climates one sleeps lightly ; but 
light sleep is all that one wants, and one wakes early. 
The swimming bath was waiting for me miderneath my 
window. After a plunge in the clear cold water came 
coffee, grown and dried and roasted on the spot, and 
' made ' as such coffee ought to be. Then came the early 
walk. One missed the tropical luxuriance of Trinidad 
and Dominica, for the winter months in Jamaica are al- 
most rainless ; but it would have been beautiful anywhere 
else, and the mango trees were in their glory. There was 
a corner given to orchids, which were hung in baskets and 
just coming into flower. Lizards swarmed in the sun- 
shine, running up the tree trunks, or basking on the garden 
seats. Snakes there are none ; the mongoose has cleared 
them all away so completely that there is nothing left for 
him to eat but the poultry, in which he makes havoc, and, 
having been introduced to exterminate the vermin, has 
become a vermin himself. 

To drive, to ride, to visit was the employment of the 
days. I saw the country. I saw what people were doing, 
and heard what they had to say. 

The details are mostly only worth forgetting. The 

senior aide-de-camp. Captain C , an officer in the 

Engineers, was a man of ability and observation. He, too, 
like the Colonel, was more interested in his profession, to 
which he was anxious to return, than in the waning for- 
tunes of the West Indies. He superintended, however, the 



THE MOUNTAIN STATION 215 

social part of the governor's business to perfection. Any- 
thing which I wished for had only to be mentioned to be 
provided. He gave me the benefit too, though less often 
than I could have wished, of his shrewd, and not ungeniali 
observations. He drove me one morning into Kingston. 
I had passed through it hastily on the day of my landing. 
There were libraries, museums, public offices, and such like 
to be seen, besides the town itself. High up on the moun- 
tain side, more often in the clouds than out of them, the 
cantonments of the English regiments were visible from 
the park at Government House. The slope where they 
had been placed was so steep that one wondered how they 
held on. They looked like tablecloths stretched out to dry. 
I was to ride up there one day. Meanwhile, as we were 
driving through the park and saw the white spots shining 
up above us, I asked the aide-de-camp what the privates 
found to do in such a place. The ground was too steep 
for athletics ; no cricket could be possible there, no lawn 
tennis, no quoits, no anything. There were no neighbours. 
Sports there were none. The mongoose had destroyed the 
winged game, and there was neither hare nor rabbit, pig nor 
deer ; not a wild animal to be hunted and killed. With 
nothing to do, no one to speak to, and nothing to kill, what 
could become of them ? Did they drink ? Well, yes. They 
drank rum occasionally ; but there were no public-houses. 
They could only get it at the canteen, and the daily allow- 
ance was moderate. As to beer, it was out of reach alto- 
gether. At the foot of the mountains it was double the 
price which it was in England. At Newcastle the price was 
doubled again by the cost of carriage to the camp. I 
inquired if they did not occasionally hang themselves. 
* Perhaps they would,' he said, * if they had no choice, but 
they preferred to desert, and this they did in large num- 
bers. They slipped down the back of the range, made their 
way to the sea, and escaped to the United States.' The 



ji6 THE ENGLISH IN THE iVEST INDIES 

oEGcers — what became of them ? The officers ! Oh, well ! 
they gardened ! Did they like it ? Some did and some 
didn't. They were not so ill off as the men, as occasionally 
they could come down on leave. 

One wondered what the process had been which had led 
the authorities to select such a situation. Of course it was for 
the health of the troops, but the hill country in Jamaica is 
wide ; there were many other places available, less utterly 
detestable, and ennui and discontent are as mischievous as 
fever. General , a short time ago, went up to hold an in- 
quiry into the desertions, and expressed his wonder how such 
things could be. With such air, such scenery, such viewB 
far and wide over the island, what could human ereatarea 
wish for more ? ' You would desert yourself, general,' said 
another officer, ' if you were obliged to stay there a month,' 

Captain C undertook that I should go up myself in 

a day or two. He promised to write and make arrange- 
ments. Meanwhile we went on to Kingston. It was not 
beautiful. There was Kodney's statue. Rodney is venerated 1 
in Jamaica, as he ought to be ; but for him it would have 
been a Spanish colony again. But there is nothing grand \ 
abont the buildings, nothing even handsome, nothing even \ 
specially characteristic of England or the English mind. ' 
They were once perhaps business-like, and business having 
slackened they are now dingy. Shops, houses, wharves, 
want brightness and colour. We called at the office of the 
Colonial Secretary, the central point of the administration. 
It was an old mansion, plain, unambitious, sufficient per- 
haps for its purpose, but lifeless and dark. If it represented 
economy there would be no objection. The public debt has 
doubled since it became a Crovrn colony. In 1876 it was 
half a million. It is now more than a million and a half. 
The explanation is the extension of the railway system, and 
there has been no culpable extravagance. I do not suppose 
that the re-establishmcnt of a constitution would mend 



PUBLIC EXPENDITURE 217 

matters. Democracies are always extravagant. The ma- 
jority, who have little property or none, regulate the 
expenditure. They lay the taxes on the minority, who 
have to find the money, and have no interest in sparing 
them. 

Ireland when it was governed by the landowners, 
Jamaica in the days of slavery, were administered at a cost 
which seems now incredibly small. The authority of the 
landowners and of the planters was undisputed. They 
were feared and obeyed, and magistrates unpaid and local 
constables sufficed to maintain tolerable order. Their 
authority is gone. Their functions are transferred to the 
police, and every service has to be paid for. There may be 
fewer serious crimes, but the subordination is immeasurably 
less, the expense of administration is immeasurably greater. 
I declined to be taken over sugar mills, or to be shown the 
latest improvements. I was too ignorant to understand in 
what the improvements consisted, and could take them 
upon trust. The public bakery was more interesting. In 
tropical climates a hot oven in a small house makes an 
inconvenient addition to the temperature. The bread for 
Kingston, and for many miles around it, is manufactured 
at night by a single company and is distributed in carts in 
the morning. We saw the museum and public library. 
There were the usual specimens of island antiquities — of 
local fish, birds, insects, reptiles, plants, geological forma- 
tions, and such like. In the library were old editions of 
curious books at the West Indies, some of them unique, 
ready to yield ampler pictures of the romance of the old 
life there than we at present possess. I had but leisure to 
glance at title-pages and engravings. The most noticeable 
relic preserved there, if it be only genuine, is the identical 
bauble which Cromwell ordered to be taken away from the 
Speaker's table in the House of Commons. Explanations 
are given of the manner in which it came to Jamaica. 



I 



L 



aiS THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

The evidence, so fa>r as I could understand it, did not 
appear conclusive. 

Among the new industries in the island in the plEice of 
sugar was, or ought to he, tobacco. A few years ago I 
asked Sir J. Hooker, the chief living authority in such 
matters, why Cuba was allowed the monopoly of delicate 
cigar tobacco — whether there were no other countries where 
it could be grown equally good. He said that at the very 
moment cigEtrs, as fine as the linest Havanas, were being 
produced in Jamaica. He gave me an excellent specimen' 
with the address of the house which suppUed it ; and for a 
year or two I was able to buy from it what, if not perfect, 
was more than tolerable. The house acquii-ed a reputation ; 
and then, for some reason ot other, perhaps from weariness 
of the same flavoiu", perhaps from a falling off in the 
character of the cigars, I, and possibly others, began to be 
less satisiied. Here on the spot I wished to make another 

experiment. Captain C introduced me to a famous 

manufacturer, a Spaniard, with a Spanish manager under 
him who had been trained at Havana. I bespoke his good 
will by adjuring him in his own tongue not to disappoint 
me ; and I believe that he gave me the best that he had. 
But, alas ! it is with tobacco as with most other things. 
Democracy is king ; and the greatest happiness of the 
greatest number is the rule of modern life. The average 
of everything is higher than it used to be; the high 
quahtj which rises above mediocrity is rare or is non- 
existent. We are swept away by the genius of the age, and 
must he content with such other blessings as it has been 
pleased to bring with it. 

Why should I mDnnnr thus and vunl; moan ? 
The gods will have it so^thoii will be done.' 

The earth is patient also, and aUowa the successive 

' EoripiileB. 



^ 



VALLEY IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS 819 

geno-ations of human creatures to play their parte upon 
her surface as they please. She spina on upon her own 
■course ; and seas and skies, and crags and foreHts, are 
spiritual and beautiful as ever. 
>i^ Gordon's Town is a straggUng village in the Blue Bange 

underneath Newcastle. Colonel J- had a villa there, and 

one afternoon he took me over to see it. You pass abruptly 
from the open country into the mountains. The way to 
Gordon's Town was by the side of the Hope river, which 
cuts its way out of them in a narrow deep ravine. The 
stream was now trickling faintly among the stones ; the 
enormous boulders in the bed were round as cannon balls, 
and weighing hundreds of tons, show what its power must 
he in the coming down of the floods. Within the limits of 
the torrent, which must rise at such times thirty feet above 
its winter level, the rocks were bare and stern, no green 
thing being able to grow there. Above the line the tropical 
vegetation was in all its glory : ferns and plantains waving 
in the moist air ; cedars, tamarinds, gum trees, orange trees 
striking their roots among the clefts of the crags, and hang- 
ing out over the abysses below them. Aloes flung up their 
tall spiral stems ; flowering shrubs and creepers covered 
bank and slope with green and blue and white and yellow, 
and above and over our heads, as we drove along, stood 
out the great limestone blocks which thunder down when 
loosened by the rain. Farther up the hill sides, where the 
slopes are less precipitous, the forest has been burnt off by 
the unthrifty blacks, who use fire to clear the ground for 
their yam gardens, and destroy the timber over a dozen 
acres when they intend to cultivate but a single one. The 
landscape suffers less than the soil. The effect to the eye 
is merely that the mountains in Jamaica, as in temperate 
climates, become bare at a moderate altitude, and their 
outlines stand out sharper against the sky. 

Introduced among scenery of this kind, we followed the 



k 



2 20 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

river two or three miles, when it was crosaed by a bridge, 
above which stood my friend Miss Barton's lodging house, 
where she had designed entertaining me. At Gordon's 
Town, which is again a mile farther on, the valley widens 
out, and there are cocoa and coffee plantationB. Through 
an opening we saw far above our heads, hke specks of snow 
against the mountain side, the homes or prisons of onr 
unfortunate troops. Overlooking the village through which 
we were passing, and three hundred feet above it, was 
perched the Colonel's villa on a projecting spur where a 
tributary of the Hope river has carved out a second ravine. 
We drove to the door up a steep winding lane among coflEee 
bushes, which scented the air with their jessamine-like 
blossom, and wild oranges on which the fruit hung un- 
touched, glowing like balls of gold. We were now eleven 
hundred feet above the sea. The air was already many de- 
grees cooler than at Kingston. The ground in front of the 
house was levelled for a garden. Ivy was growing about 
the trellis work, and scarlet geraniums and sweet violets 
and roses, which cannot be cultivated in the lower regions, 
were here in full bloom. Elsewhere in the grounds there 
was a lawn tennis court to tempt the officers down from 
their eyrie in the clouds. The house was empty, in charge 
of servants. From the balcony in front of the drawing 
room we saw peak rising behind peak, till the highest, 
four thousand feet above us, was lost in the white mist. 
Below was the valley of the Hope river with its gardens 
and trees and scattered huts, with buildings here and 
there of higher pretensions. On the other side the 
tributary stream rushed down its own ravine, while the 
breeze among the trees and the sound of the falling waters 
swayed up to ns in intermittent pulsations. 

The place had been made, I beHeve, in the days of 
plantation prosperity. What would become of it aD, if 
Jamaica drifted after her sisters in the Antilles, as some 



J 










1 






1 


VALLEY IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, JAMAICA 


J 



VALLEY IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS 221 

persons thought that she was drifting, and became, like 
Grenada, an island of small black proprietors ? Was such 
a fate really hanging over her ? Not necessarily, not by any 
law of nature. If it came, it would come from the dispirit- 
ment, the lack of energy and hope in the languid repre- 
sentatives of the English colonists ; i^r the land even in the s/ 
mountains will gro^what-it is asked to grow, and men do 
not live by sugar alone ; and my friend Dr. NichoU in 
Dominica had shown what English energy^^)iild do if it 
was alive and vigorous. The pale complaining beings of 
whom I saw too many, seemed as if they could not be of the 
same race as the men who ruled in the days of the slave 
trade. The question to be asked in every colony is, what 
sort of men is it rearing? If that cannot be answered 
satisfactorily, the rest is not worth caring for. The blacks 
do not deserve the ill that is spoken of them. The (yolonel's 
house is twelve miles from Kingston. He told me that a 
woman would walk in with a load for him, and return on ) ^ 
the same day with another, for a shilling. With such 
material of labour wisely directed, whites and blacks might ( 
live and prosper together ; but even the poor negro will I 
not work when he is regarded only as a machine to bringl 
grist to his master's miU. 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Visit to Port Boyal— Dookyard— Town— Chnreh— Fort Angnata— The eyrie 
in the roountaina — Bide to Newcastle— Society in Jamaica — Beligioua 
bodies — Liberty and authority. 



A NEW PORT was being built at the mouth of the harbour. 
New batteries were being armed on the sandbanks at Port 

Eoyal. Colonel J had to inNpect what was going on, and 

he allowed me to go with him. We were to lunch with the 
commodore of the station at the Port Royal dockyard, I 
could then see the town^or what was left of it, for the story 
went that half of it had been swallowed up by an earth- 
quake. We ran out from KingRton, passing under the sterna 
of the Spanish frigates. I was told that there were always 
one or more Spanish ships of war stationed there, but no 
one knew anything about them except generally that they 
were on the look-out for Cuban conspirators. There was no 
exchange of courtesies between their officers and ours, nor 
even official communication beyond what was formally necee- 
sary. I thought it strange, but it was no business of mine. 
My surprise, however, was admitted to be natural. As 
the launch drew little water, we had no occasion to follow 
the circuitous channel, but went straight over the shoals. 
We passed close by Gallows Point, where the Johnny crows 
used to pick the pirates' bones. In the mangrove swamp 
adjoining, it was said that there was an old Spanish ceme- 
tery ; but the swamp was poisonous, and no one had ever 
seen it. At the dockyard pier the commodore was waiting 
for uB, I found that he was an old acquaintance whom I 



PORT ROYAL 223 

had met ten years before at the Cape. He was a brisk, 
smart officer, quiet and sailor-like in his manners, but ^sith 
plenty of talent and cultivation. He showed us his stores 
and his machinery, large engines, and engineers to work 
them, ready for any work which might be wanted, but ap- 
parently with none to do. We went over the hospital, airy 
and clean, with scarcely a single occupant, so healthy has 
now been made a spot which was once a nest of yellow fever. 
Naval stores soon become antiquated ; and parts of the 
great square were paved with the old cannon balls which 
had become useless on the introduction of rifled guns. The 
fortifications were antiquated also, but new works were be- 
ing thrown up armed with the modem monster cannon. 
One difficulty struck me ; Port Royal stood upon a sand- 
bank. In such a place no spring of fresh water could be 
looked for. On the large acreage of roofs there were no 
shoots to catch the rain and carry it into cisterns. Whence 
did the water come for the people in the town ? How were 
the fleets supplied which used to ride there ? How was it 
in the old times when Port Royal was crowded with revelling 
crews of buccaneers ? I found that every drop which is 
consumed in the place, or which is taken on board either of 
merchant ship or man-of-war, is brought in a steam tug 
from a spring eight miles off upon the coast. Before steam 
came in, it was fetched in barges rowed by hand. Nothing 
could be easier than to save the rain which falls in abun- 
dance. Nothing could be easier than to lay pipes along the 
sand-spit to the spring. But the tug plies daily to and fro, 
and no one thinks more about the matter. 

A West Indian regiment is stationed at Port Royal. 
After the dockyard we went through the soldiers' quarters 
and then walked through the streets of the once famous 
station. It is now a mere hamlet of boatmen and fishermen, 
squalid and wretched, without and within. Half-naked 
children stared at us from the doors with their dark, round 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

eyes, I found it hard to call up the scenes of riot, and con- 
V fusion, and wild excitement which are alleged to have been 
witnessed there. The story that it once covered a far larger 
area has been, perhaps, invented to account for the incon- 
gruity. Old plans exist -which seem to show that the end of 
the spit could never have been of any larger dimensions than 
it is at present. There is proof enough, however, that in"/ 
the sand there lie the remauis of many thousand English 
BoldierB and seamen, who ended their lives there for one 
cause or other. The bones lie wa close that they are turned 
' up as iji a country churchyard when a fresh grave ia dug. 
The walls of the old church are inlaid thickly with monu- 
ments and monumental tablets to the memory of officers of 
either service, young and old ; some killed by fever, some 
by accidents of war or sea; some decorated with the 
honours which they had won in a hundred fights, some 
carried off before they had gathered the first flower of fame. 
The costliness of many of these memorials was an affecting 
indication how precious to their families those now rest- 
ing there once had been. One in high relief struck me 
as a characteristic specimen of Kuhillac's workmanship. 
It was to a young lieutenant who had been killed by the 
bursting of a gun. Flame and vapour were rushing out of 
the breech. The youth himself was falluig backwards, with 
his arms spread out, and a vast preternatural face — death, 
judgment, eternity, or whatever it was meant to be — was 
glaring at him through the smoke. Bad art, though the 
execution was remarkable ; but better, perhaps, than the 
weeping angels now grown common among ourselves. 

After luncheon the commodore showed us his curiosities, 
esitecially his garden, which, considering the state of his 
water supply, he had created imder unfavourable condi- 
tions. He had a very respectable collection of tropical 
ferns and flowers, with palms and plantains to shade and 
shelter them. He was an artist besides, within the lines of 



FORT AUGUSTA 325 

his own profession. Drawings of ships and boats of all 
sorts and in all attitudes by his owTi brush or pencil were 
hanging on the walls of his working room. He was good 
enough to ask me to spend a day or two with him at 
Port Royal before I left the island, and I looked forward with 
special pleasure to becoming closer acquainted with such a 
genuine piece of fine-grained British oak. 

There were the usual ceremonies to be attended to. 
The officers of the guardship and gunboats had to be called 
on. The forts constructed, or in the course of construction, 
were duly inspected. I beheve that there is a real serious 
intention to strengthen Port Royal in view of the changes 
which may come about through the opening, if that event 
ever takes place, of the Darien canal. 

Our last visit was to a fort deserted, or all but deserted 
— the once too celebrated Fort Augusta, which deserves 
particular description. It stands on the inner side of the 
lagoon commanding the deep-water channel at the point of 
the great mangrove swamp at the month of the Cobre 
river. For the purpose for which it was intended no 
better situation could have been chosen, had there been 
nothing else to be considered except the defence of the 
harbour, for a vessel trying to reach Kingston had to pass 
close in front of its hundred guns. It was constructed on a 
scale becoming its importance, with accommodation for two 
or three regiments, and the regiments were sent thither, 
and they perished, regiment after regiment, officers and 
men, from the malarious exhalations of the morass. Whole 
battalions were swept away. The ranks were filled up by 
reinforcements from home, and these, too, went the same 
joad. Of one regiment the only survivors, according to 
the traditions of the place, were a quartermaster and a 
corporal. Fmally it occurred to the authorities at the 
Horse Guards that a regiment of Hussars would be a useful 
addition to the garrison. It was not easy to see what HaBsars 



2z6 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

were to do there. There is not a, spot where the horses 
could stand twenty yarde beyond the lines • nor could they 
reach Port Augusta at all except in barges. However, it 
was perhaps well that they were sent. Horses and men 
went the way of the rest. The loss of the men might 
have been supplied, but horses were costly, and the loss 
of them was more serious. Fort Augusta was gradually 
abandoned, and is now used only as a powder magazine. 
A guard is kept thereof twenty blacts from the West Indian 
force, but even these are changed every ten days^so deadly 
the vapour of that malarious jungle is now understood 
to be. 

I never saw bo spectral a scene as met my eyes when 
we steamed up to the landing place — ramparts broken 
down, and dismantled cannon lying at the foot of the wall \ 
overgrown by jungle. The sentinel who presented arms I 
was like a corpse in uniform. He was not pale, for he waa 
a negro— he was green, and he looked like some ghoul or 1 
afrite in a ghastly cemetery. The roofs of the barracks 
and storehouses had fallen in, the rafters being left standing 
with the light shining between them as through the bones 
of skeletons. Great piles of shot lay rusting, as not worth 
removal; among them conical shot, so recently had thia 
fatal charnel house been regarded as a fit location for 
British artillerymen. 

I breathed more freely as we turned our backs upon the 
hideous memorial of parliamentary administration, and 
steamed away into a purer air. My conservative instincts 
J-X had undergone a shock. As we look back into the past, the 
brighter features stand out conspicuously. The mistakes 
and miseries have sunk in the shade and are forgotten. 
In the present faults and merits are visible alike. The 
faults attract chief notice that they may be mended ; and 
as there seem so many of them, the impulse is to conclude 
that the past was better. It is well to be sometimes re- 



NEWCASTLE ai-j 

minded what the past really was. In Colonel J I 

found a strong advocate of the late army reforms. Thanks 
to recovering energy and more distinct conseientiousneas, 
thanks to tlie aU-seeing eye of the Press, such an experi- 
ment as that of Fort Augusta could hardly be tried again, 
or if tried could not be persisted in. Extravagance and 
absurdities, however, remain, and I was next to witness au 
instance of them. 

Having ceased to quarter our regiments in mangrove 
BWamps, we now build a camp for tliem among the clouds. 

I mentioned that Captain C ■ had undertaken that I 

ahould see Newcastle. He had written to a friend there to 
Bay that I was coming up, and the junior aide-de-camp 
kindly lent his services aa a guide. As far as Gordon's Town 
we drove along the same road which we had followed before. 
There, at a small wayside inn, we found horses waiting 
which were accustomed to the mountain. Suspicious mists 
were hanging about aloft, but the landlord, after a glance at 
them, promised us a fine day, and we mounted and set off. 
My animal's merits were not in his appearance, but he had 
been up and down a hundred times, and might be trusted 
to aceomphsh his hundred and first without misfortune. 
For the first mile or so the road was tolerably level, 
following the bank of the river under the shade of the 
forest. It then narrowed into a horse path t^nd zigzagged 
upwards at the side of a torrent into the deep pools of 
which we occasionally looked down over the edges of 
uncomfortable precipices. Then again there was a level, 
with a village and coffee plantations and oranges sjid 
bananas. After this the vegetation changed. We issued 

[out upon open mountain, with English grass, English] 
clover, Enghsh gorse, and other famihar acq uain tances I 
introduced to make the isolation leBs_ mtolerable. The 
track was so rough and narrow that we could rido only in 
single file, and was often no better than a watercourse ; yet 




228 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

by this and no other way every article had to be carried 
on donkeys' backs or hnman heads which was required 
for the consumption of 300 infantry and 100 artillerymen. 
Artillerymen might seem to imply artillery, but they have 
only a single small field gun. They are there for health's 
sake only, and to be fit for work if wanted below. An 
hour's ride brought us to the lowest range of houses, which 
were 4,000 feet above the sea. From thence they rose, 
tier above tier, for 500 feet more. The weather bo far 
had held up, and the views had been glorious, but we 
passed now into cloud, through which we saw, dimly, 
groups of figures listlessly lounging. The hillside was 
bare, and the slope so steep that there was no standing 
on it, save where it had been flattened by the spade ; 
and here in this extraordinary place were 400 young 
Englishmen of the common type of which soldiers are 
made, with nothing to do and nothing to enjoy — remain- 
ing, unless they desert or die of ennni, for one, two, or 
three years, as their chance may be. Every other day 
they can see nothing, save each other's forms and 
faces in the fog ; for, fine and bright as the air may be 
below, the moisture in the air is condensed into cloud by 
the chill rock and soil of the high ranges. The officers 
come down now and then on furlough or on duty ; the 
men rarely and hardly at all, and soldiers, in spite of 

General , cannot always be made happy by the 

picturesque. They are not educated enough to find 
employment for their minds, and of amusement there Ib 
none. 

We continued our way np, the track if anything 
growing steeper, till we reached the highest point of the 
camp, and found ourselves before a pretty cottage with 
creepers climbing about it belonging to the major in com- 
mand. A few yards off was the officers' mess room. They 
expected us. They knew my companion, and visitors from 



NE WCASTLE 229 

the onder-world were naturally welcome. The major was 
an active clever man, with a bright laughing Irish wife, 
whose relations in the old country were friends of my own. 
The American consul and his lady happened to have rid- 
den up also the same day ; so, in spite of fog, which grew 
thicker every moment, we had a good time. As to seeing, we 
could see nothing ; but then there was nothing to see except 
views ; and panoramic views from momitain tops, extolled 
as they may be, do not particularly interest me. The officere, 
BO f aj as I could leam, are less ill off than the privates. 
Those who are married have their wives with them ; they 
can read, they can draw, they can ride ; they have gardens 
about their houses where they can grow English flowers 
and vegetables and try experiments. Science can be followed 

anywhere, and is everywhere a resource. Major told 

me that he had never known what it was to find the day too 
long. Healthy the camp is at any rate. The temperature 
never rises above 70° nor sinks often below 60". They require 
charcoal iires to keep the damp out and blankets to sleep 
under; and when they see the sun it is an agreeable change 
and something to talk about. There are no targe incidents, 
but small ones do instead. "While I was there a man came 
to report that he had slipped by accident and set a stone 
rolling ; the stone had cut a water pipe in two, and it had 
to be mended, and was an afternoon's work for somebody. 
Such ofBcers as have no resources in themselves are, of 
course, bored to extinction. There is neither furred game 
to hunt nor feathered game to shoot ; the mongoose has 
eaten up the partridges. I suggested that they should 
import two or three couple of bears from Norway ; they 
would fatten and multiply among the roots and sugar canes, 
with a black piccaninny now and then for a special deUeacy. 
One of the party extemporised us a speech wliieh would be 
made on the occasion in Exeter Hall. 

We had not seen the worst of the weather. Aa we 



230 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

mounted to ride back the fog changed to rain, and the rain 
to a deluge. The track became a torrent. Macintoshes 
•were a vanity, for the water rushed down one's neck, and 
every crease made itself into a conduit carrying the stream 
among one's inner garments. Dominica itself had not 
prepared me for the violence of these Jamaican downpour- 
ings. False had proved our prophet down below. There 
was no help for it but to go on ; and we knew by experience 
that one does not melt on these occasions. At a turn of 
the road we met another group of riders, among them 

Lady N , who, during her husband's absence in England, 

was living at a country house in the hills. She politely 
stopped and would have spoken, but it was not weather to 
stand talking in ; the torrent washed us apart. 

And now comes the strangest part of the story. A 
thousand feet down we passed out below the clouds into 
clear bright sunshine. Above us it was still black as ever ; 
the vapour clung about the peaks and did not leave them* 
Underneath us and round us it was a lovely summer's day. 
The farther we descended the fewer the signs that any rain 
had fallen. When we reached the stables at Gordon's Town, 
the dust was on the road as we left it, and the horsekeeper 
congratulated us on the correctness of his forecast. Clothes 
soon dry in that country, and we drove down home none 
the worse for our wetting. I was glad to have seen a place 
of which I had heard so much. On the whole, I hoped that 
perhaps by-and-by the authorities may discover some 
camping ground for our poor soldiers halfway between the 
Inferno of Fort Augusta and the Caucasian clififs to which 
they are chained like Prometheus. Malice did say that 

Newcastle was the property of a certain Sir , a high 

official of a past generation, who wished to part with it, and 
found a convenient purchaser in the Government. 

The hospitalities at Government House were well main- 
tained under the J administration. The Colonel was 



PARTIES AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE 

gTEiciouB, the lady beautiful and brilliant. There were 
parties and evening parties, when all that was best in the 
island was collected ; the old Jamaican aristocracy, arm; 
and navy officers, civiliajiB, eminent lawyers, a few men 
among them of high intelligence. The tone was old" 
fashioned and courteous, with little, perhaps too httte, of 
the go-a-keadism of younger colonies, but not the less 
agreeable on that account. As to prospects, or the present 
condition of things in the island, there were wide differences 
of opinion. If there was unanimity about anything, it was 
about the consequences likely to arise from an extension of 
the principle of self-government. There, at all events, lay 
the right road to the wrong place. The blacks had nothing 
to complain of, and the wrong at present was on the other 
side. The taxation falls heavily on the articles consumed 
by the upper classes. The duty on tea, for instance, was a 
shilling a pound, and the duties on other luxuries in the 
same proportion. It did not touch the negroes at all. 
They were acquiring land, and some thought that there 
ought to be a land tas. They would probably object and 
resist, and trouble would come if it was proposed, for the 
blacks object to taxes ; as long as there are white men to 
pay them, they will be satisfied to get the benefit of the 
expenditure. But let not their Enghsh friends suppose 
that when they have the island for their own they will tax 
themselves for police or schools, or for any other of those 
educational institutions from which the believers in pro- 
gress Einticipate such glorious results. 

As to the planters, it seemed agreed that when an estate 
was unencumbered and the owner resided upon it and 
managed it himself, be could still keep afloat. It waa 
agreed also that when the owner was an absentee the cost 
of management consumed all the profits, and thus the 
same impulse to sell which had gone so far in the Antilles 
was showing itself more and more in Jamaica also. Fine 




333 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

properties all about the iBlaod were in the market for Einy 
price which purchasers could be found to give. Too many- 
even of the old English fsjnilies were tired of the struggle, 
and were longing to be out of it at any cost. 

At one time we beard much of tbe colonial Church and 
the power which it wae acquiring, and as it seems unlikely 
that the political authority of the white race will be allowed 
to reassert itself, it must be through their minds and 
through those other qualities which religion addresses that 
the black race will be influenced by the white, if it is ever 
to be influenced at all. 

I had marked the respect with which the Catholic clergy 
were treated in Dominica, and even the Hayti Republic 
still maintains the French episcopate and priesthood. But 
Z could not hnd that the Church of England in Jamaica 
either was at present or had ever been more than the 
Church of the Enghsh in Jamaica, respected as long as the 
Enghsh gentry were a dominant power there, but with no 
independent charm to work on imagination or on super- 
stition. Labat says, as I noted above, that the English 
clergy in his time did not baptise the black babies, on the 
curious ground that Christians could not lawfully be held 
as slaves, and the slaves therefore were not to be made 
Christians. A Jesuit Father whom I met at Government 
House told me that even now the clergy refuse to baptise 
the illegitimate children, and as, according to the official 
returns, two-thirds of the children that are born in Jamaica 
come into the world thus irregularly, they are not hkely 
to become more popular than they used to be. Perhaps 

Father was doing what a good many other people do, 

making a general practice out of a few instances. Perhaps 
the blacks themselves who wish their children to be Chris- 
tians carry them to the minister whom they prefer, and 
that minister may not be the Anglican clergyman. Of 
Catholics there are not many in Jamaica ; of the Moravians 



INFLUENCES OF RELIGION 



m 



I heard on all sides the warmest praise. They, above all 
the reUgious bodies in the island, are admitted to have a 
practical power for good over the limited number of people 
which belong to them. But the Moravians are but a 
few. They do not rush to make converts in the highways 
and hedges, and my observations in Dominica almost led 
me to wish that, in the absence of other forms of spiritual 
authority, the Catholics might become more numerous 
than they are. The priests in Dominica were the only 
Europeans who, for their own sakes and on independent 
grounds, were looked up to with fear and respect. 

The religion of the future ! That is the problem of 
problems that rises before us at the close of this waning 
century. The future of the West Indies is a small matter, 
Tet that, too, like ail else, depends on the spiritual beliefs 
which are to rise out of the present confusion. Men will 
act well and wisely, or ill and foolishly, according to the 
form and force of their conceptions of duty. Once be- 
fore, under the Roman Empire, the conditions were not 
wholly dissimilar. The inherited creed had become unbe- 
lievable, and the scientific intellect was turning materialist. 
Christianity rose out of the chaos, confounding statesmen 
and philosophers, and became the controlling power among 
mankind for 1,800 years. But Clu-istianity found a soil 
prepared for the seed. The masses of the inhabitants of 
the Boman world were not materiahst. The masses of the 
people beheved already in the supernatural and in penal 
retribution after death for their sins. Lucretius complains 
of the misery produced upon them by the terrors of the 
anticipated Tartarus. Serious and good men were rather 
tm'ning away from atheism than welcoming it ; and if they 
doubted the divinity of the Olympian gods, it was not 
because they doubted whether gods existed at all, but be- 
cause the immoralities attributed to them were unworthy 
of the exalted nature of the Divme Being. The phenomena 



234 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

are different now* Who is now made wretched by the 
fear of hell ? The tendency of popular thought is against 
the supernatural in any shape. Far into space as the 
telescope can search, deep as analysis can penetrate into 
mind and consciousness or the forces which govern natural 
things, popular thought finds only uniformity and connection 
of cause and effect — no sign anywhere of a personal will 
which is influenced by prayer or moral motive. When a 
subject is still obscure we are confident that it admits of 
scientific explanation ; we no longer refer * ad Deum/ 
whom we regard as a constitutional monarch taking no 
direct part at all. The new creed, however, not having 
crystaUised as yet into a shape which can be openly pro- 
fessed, and as without any creed at all the flesh and the 
devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old names 
and forms, as we maintain the monarchy. We surround 
both with reverence and majesty, and the reverence, being 
confined to feeling, continues to exercise a vague but whole- 
some influence. We row in one way while we look another* 
In the presence of the marked decay of Protestantism as 
a positive creed, the Protestant powers of Europe may* 
perhaps, patch up some kind of reconciliation with the old 
spiritual organisation which was shattered in the sixteenth 
century, and has since shown no unwillingness to adapt 
itself to modem forms of thought. The Olympian gods 
survived for seven centuries after Aristophanes with the 
help of allegory and 'economy.' The Church of Home 
may survive as long after Calvin and Luther. Carlyle 
mocked at the possibiUty when I ventured to say so to him. 
Yet Carlyle seemed to think that the mass was the only form 
of faith in Europe which had any sincerity remaining in it* 
A reUgion, at any rate, which will keep the West Indian 
blacks from falUng back into devil worship is still to seek. 
Constitutions and belief in progress may satisfy Europe, 
but will not answer in Jamaica. In spite of. the priests. 



LIBERTY AND AUTHORITY 333 

bhild murder and caimibaliBni have reappeared in Hayti ; 
but without them thingB might have been worse than they 
are, and the preservation of white authority and influence 
in any form at all may be better than none. ; 

^^hitfi-aa;t^oritjjj]iLwhite_iiifluence-jiiaj, however, still / 
be preserved in a nobler and better way. Slavery was a sur- 
, vival from a social order which had passed away, and slavery / 
\ could not be continued. It does not follow that perse it was 
I a crime. The negroes who were sold to the dealers in the I 
African factories were most of them either slaves already to 
Worse masters or were sen-i, servants in the old meaning/ 
of the word, prisoners of war, or else criminals, servad or' 
preserved from death. They would otherwMe have been killed; 
and since the slave trade has been abolished are again billed 
in the too celebrated ' customs.' It was a crime when the 
chiefs made war on each other for the sake of captives whom 
they could turn into money. In many instances, perhaps 
in most, it was innocent and even beneficent. Nature haa 
ji, made ua unequal, and Acts ot Parliament cannot make ua rT 
eqnsX Some must lead and some must follow, and the 
question is only of degree and kind. For myself, I would 1 
rather be the slave of a Shakespeare or a Burghley than \ 
the slave of a majority in the House of Commons or the 
slave of my own foUy. Slavery ia gone, with all that 
belonged to it ; but it will be an ill day for mankind if no 
one is to be compelled any more to obey those who are 
wiser than himself, and each of us is to do only what ia 
right in our own eyes. There may be authority, yet not 
slavery : a soldier is not a slave, a sailor is not a slave, a 
child is not a slave, a wife is not a slave; yet they may not 
live by their own wills or emancipate themselves at their 
own pleasure from positions in which nature has placed 
them, or into which they have themselves voluntarily 
entered. The negroes of the West Indies arc children, , 



and not yet disobedient children. They have their dreams, 



236 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

but for the present they are dreams only. If you enforce 
self-government upon them when they are not asking for 
it, you may turn the dream into a reaUty. and wilfuUy drive 
them^back mto the condition of their ancestors, from which 
the slave trade was the beginning of their emancipation. 



SUNDAY AT KINGSTON 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Chuioh o( England in Jamaica— Drive to Caatleton— Botanical Qardens 
^Pionic by the river— Blaolt women — Ball at Government House — 
Handeville— Misa Bo;— Conntr; aocietj — Manners— Amerioan visiton 
— A Moravian nuBaionary- The modern Radical creed. 

Ip I have spoken without enthusiasm of the working of the 
Church of England among the negroes, I have not meant 
to be disrespectful. As I lay awake at daybreak on the 
Sunday morning after my arrival, I heard the sound of 
church bells, not Catholic bells as at Dominica, but good old 
English chimes. The Church ia disestablished so far as law 
can disestablish it, but, as in Barbadoes, the royal Etrms 
still stand over the arches of the chancel. Introduced with 
the English conquest, it has been identified witli the ruling 
order of English gentry, respectable, harmless, and useful, 
to those immediately connected with it. 

The parochial system, as in Barbadoes also, was spread 
over the island. Each parish had its church, its parsonage 
and its school, its fonts where the white children were bap- 
tised — in spite of my Jesuit. I shall hope not whites only ; 
and its graveyard, where in time they were laid to rest. 
With their quiet Sunday services of the old type the coun- 
try districts were exact reproductions of English country 
villages. The church whose bells I had heard was of the 
more fashionable suburban iy^, standing in a central 
sitnation halfway to Kingston. The service was at the old 
English hour of eleven. We drove to it in the orthodox 
fashion, with our prayer books and Sunday costumes, the 
Colonel in uniform. The gentry of the neighbourhood are 



rasS THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES ^| 

antiquated in their habits, and to go to church on Sunday ^| 
ia still regarded as a simple duty. A dozen carriages stood 
under the shade at the doors. The congregation was upper 
middle-class Enghsh of the beat sort, and was large, though 
almost wholly white. White tablets as at Port Boyal 
covered the walls, with familiar English names upon them. 
But for the heat I could have imagined myself at home. 
There were no Aeltou Bangs to be seen, or Paul Gehds, with 
the rough sense, the vigour, the energy, and roystering light- 
heartednesB of our grandfathers. The faces of the men were 
serious and thoughtful, with the shadow resting on them of 
an uncertain future. They are good Churchmen still, and 
waJk on in the old paths, wherever those paths may lead. 
They are old-fashioned and slow to change, and are perhaps 
belated in an eddy of the great stream of progress ; but they 
were pleasant to see and pleasant to talk to. After service 
there were the usual shakings of hands among friends out- 
side ; arrangements were made for amusements and expedi- 
tions in which I was invited to join^whieh were got up, 
perhaps, for my own entertainment. I was to be taJcen to 
the sights of the neighbourhood ; I was to see this ; I waa 
to see that ; above all, I must see the Peak of the Blue 
Mountains. The peak itself I could see better from below, 
for there it stood, never moving, between seven and eight 
thousand feet high. But I had had mountain riding enough, 
and was allowed to plead my age and infirmities. It wEis 
arranged finally that I should be driven the next day to 
Castleton, seventeen miles off over a mountain pass, to see 
the Botanical Gardens. 

Accordingly early on the following morning we set off ; 

two carriages full of us ; Mr. M , a new friend lately 

made, but I hope long to be preserved, on the box of his four- 
in-hand. The road was as good as all roads are in Jamaica 
and Barbadoes, and more cannot be said in their favour. 
Forest trees made a roof over our heads as we climbed to 



k 



4 



DRIVE TO CASTLETON 339 

the crest of the ridge. Thence we descended the side of a 
long valley, a stream running below ub which gradually 
grew mto a river. We passed through all varieties of culti- 
vation. On the high ground there was a large sugar plan- 
tation, worked by coolies, the first whom I had seen in 
Jamaica. In the alluvial meadows on the river-side were 
tobacco fields, cleanly and carefully kept, belonging to my 
Spanish friend In Kingston, and only too rich in leaves. 
There was sago too, and ginger, and tamarinds, and cocoa, 
and coffee, and cocoa-nut palms. On the hOl-sides were 
the garden farms of the blacks, and were something to see 
and remember. They receive from the Government at an 
almost nominal quit rent an acre or two of uncleared forest. 
To this as the first step they set light ; at twenty difi'erent 
Bpots we saw their fires blazing. To clear an acre they waste 
the timber on half a dozen or a dozen. They plant their yams 
and sweet potatoes among the ashes and grow crops there 
till the soil is exhausted. Tlien they move on to another, 
which they treat with the same recklessness, leaving the 
first to go back to scrub. Since the Chinaman burnt hia 
house to roast his pig, such waste was never seen. The 
male proprietors were lounging about smoking. Their 
wives, as it was market day, were tramping into Kingston 
with then- baskets on their head ; we met them Hterally in 
thousands, all merry and light-hearted, their little ones 
with little baskets trudging at their side. Of the lords of 
the creation we saw, perhaps, one to each hundred women, 
and he would be riding on mule or donkey, pipe in mouth 
and carrying nothing. He would be generally sulky too, 
while the ladies, young and old, had all a civil word for ub 
and curtsied under their loads. Decidedly if there is to be | 
a black constitution I would give the votes only to the 1 
women. 

We reached Caatleton at last. It was in a hot damp 
valley, said to be a nest of yellow fever. The gardens 



14° THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

slightly disappointed me ; my expectationa had been too 
much raised by Trinidad. There were lovely flowers of 
course, and curious plants and trees. Every known palm 
ia growing there. They try hard to grow roses, and they 
say that they succeed. They were not in flower, and I 
could not judge. But the familiar names were aJl there, 
and others which were not familiar, the newest Importationa 
called after the great ladies of the day. I saw one labelled 
Mabel Morrison. To find the daughter of an ancient 
college friend and contemporary gi\Tng a name to a plant 
in the New World makes one feel dreadfully old ; but I 
expected to find, and I did not find, some useful practical 
horticulture going on. They ought, for instance, to have 
been trying experiments with orange trees. The orange in 
Jamaica is left to nature. They plant the seeds, and 
leave the result to chance. They neither bud nor graft, 
and go upon the hypothesis that as the seed is, so will be 
the tree which comes of it. Yet even thus, so favourable 
is the soil and climate that the oranges of Jamaica are 
prized al>ove all others which are sold in the American 
market. With skill and knowledge and good selection 
they might produce the finest in the world. ' There are 
dollars in that island, sir,' as an American gentleman said 
to me, ' if they will look for them in the right way.' 
Nothing of this kind was going on at Castleton ; so much 
the worse, but perhaps things will mend by-and-by. I 
was consoled partly by another specimen of the AmJiergtia 
twbilis. It was not so large as those which I had seen at 
Trinidad, but it was in splendid bloom, and certainly is 
the most gorgeous flowering tree which the world contains. 
I Wild nature also was luxuriantly beautiful. We pic- 
nicked by the river, which here is a full rushing stream 
■with pools that would have held a salmon, and did hold 
abundant mullet. We found a bower formed by a twisted 
vine, 80 thick that neither sun nor rain could penetrate 



CASTLETON 241 

the roof. The floor was of shining shingle, and the air 
^breathed cool from off the water. It was a spot which 
nymph or naiad may haunt hereafter, when nymphs are 
bom again in the new era. The creatures of imagination • 
have fled away from modem enlightenment. But we were a ^ 
pleasant party oriiuman beings, lying about under the 
shade upon the pebbles. We had brought a blanket of ice 
with us, and the champagne was manufactured into cup 
by choicest West Indian skill. Figures fall unconsciously 
at such moments into attitudes which would satisfy a 
painter, and the scenes remain upon the memory like some 
fine finished work of art. We had done with the gardens, 
and I remember no more of them except that I saw a 
mongoose stalking a flock of turkeys. The young ones and 
their mother gathered together and showed fight. The old 
cock, after the manner of the male animal, seemed chiefly 
anxious for his own skin. On the way back we met the 
returning stream of women and children, loaded heavily as 
before and with the same elastic step. In spite of all that 
is incorrect about them, the women are the material to 
work upon ; and if they saw that we were in earnest, they 
'Would lend their help to make their husbands bestir them- 
selves. A Dutch gentleman once boasted to me of the 
wonderful prosperity of Java, where everybody was well off 
and everybody was industrious. He so insisted upon the 
industry that I asked him how it was brought about. Were 
the people slaves ? * Oh,' he cried, as if shocked, * God 
forbid that a Christian nation should be so wicked as to 
keep slaves ! ' * Do they never wish to be idle ? ' I asked. 
* Never, never,' he said ; * no, no : we do not permit anyone 
to be idle.' 

My stay with Colonel J was drawing to a close ; one 

great festivity was impending, which I wished to avoid ; 
but the gracious lady insisted that I must remain. There 
was to be a ball, and all the neighbourhood was invited. 

R 




342 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Pretty it was sure to be. Windows and doors, gaUeries 
and paseages, would be all open. The gardens would be 
lighted up, and the guests could spread an they pleased. 
Brilliant it all was ; more brilliant than you would see in 
our larger colonies. A ball in Sydney or Melbourne is like 
a ball in the north of England or in New York. There are 
the young men in black coats, and there are brightly 
dressed young ladies for them to dance with. The chape- 
rons sit along the walls ; the elderly gentlemen withdraw 
to the card room. Here all was different. The black coats 
in the ball at Jamaica were on the backs of old or middle- 
aged men, and, except Government officials, there was hardly 
a young man present in civilian dress. The rooms Rhttered 
with scarlet and white and blue and gold lace. The offi- 
cers were there from the garrison and the fleet ; but of 
men of business, of professional men, merchants, planters, 
lawyers &c. there were only those who bad grown up to 
middle age in the island, whose fortunes, bad or good, 
were bound up with it. When these were gone, it eeemed 
as if there would be no one to succeed them. The coveted / 
heirs of great estates were no longer to be found for mothere 1 
to angle after. The trades and professions in KingatonJ 
had ceased to offer the prospect of an income to younger 
brothers who had to make their own way. For 260 years 
generations of Englishmen had followed one upon another, 
but we seemed to havecome to the last. Of gentlemen 
unconnected with the public service, under thirty-five or 
forty, there were few to be seen; they were seeking; 
their fortimes elsewhere. The English interest in Jamaica 
is still a considerable thing. The English flag flies over 
Government House, and no one so far wishes to remove it- 
But the British population is scanty and refuses to grow. 
Ships and regiments come and go, and oflacers and State 
employes make what appears to be a brilliant society. 
But it is in appearance only. The station is no longer a 



I 



MANDEVILLE 243 

favourite one. They are gone, those pleasant gentry whose 
country houses were the paradise of middies sixty years ago. 
All is changed, even to the officers themselves. The 
drawling ensign of our boyhood, brave as a lion in the [r\..\''V' 
field, and in the mess room or the drawing room an 
idiot, appears also to be dead as the dodo. Those that one 
meets now are intelligent and superior men — no trace of 
the frivolous sort left. Is it the effect of the abolition of 
purchase, and competitive examinations? Is it that the 
times themselves are growing serious, and even the most 
empty-headed feel that this is no season for levity ? 

I had seen what Jamaican life was like in the upper 
spheres, and I had heard the opinions that were current in 
them ; but I wished to see other parts of the country. I 
wished to see a class of people who were farther from head 
quarters, and who might not all sing to the same note. I 
determined to start off on an independent cruise of my 
own. In the centre of the island, two thousand feet 
above the sea, it was reported to me that I should find 
a delightful village called Mandeville, after some Duke of 
Manchester who governed Jamaica a himdred years ago. 
The scenery was said to have a special charm of its own, 
the air to be exquisitely pure, the land to be well cultivated. 
Village manners were to be found there of the old-fashioned 
sort, and a lodging house and landlady of unequalled merit. 
There was a railway for the first fifty miles. The line at 
starting crosses the mangrove swamps at the mouth of the 
Cobre river. You see the trees standing in the water on 
each side of the road. Bising slowly, it hardens into level 
grazing ground, stocked with cattle and studded with 
mangoes and cedars. You pass Spanish Town, of which 
only the roofs of the old State buildings are visible from 
the carriages. Sugar estates follow, some of which are still 
in cultivation, while ruined mills and fallen aqueducts show 
where others once had been. The scenery becomes more 

B 2 



244 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

broken as you begin to ascend into the hills. Biver beds, 
dry when I saw them, but powerful torrents in the rainy 
season, are crossed by picturesque bridges. You come to 
the forest, where the squatters were at their usual work, 
burning out their yam patches. Columns of white smoke 
were rising all about us, yet so abundant the timber and 
so rapid the work of restoration when the devastating 
swarm has passed, that in this direction they have as yet 
made no marked impression, and the forest stretches as far 
as eye can reach. The glens grew more narrow and the 
trees grander as the train proceeded. After two hours we 
arrived at the present terminus, an inland town with the 
singular name of Porus. No explanation is given of it in 
the local handbooks ; but I find a Porus among the com- 
panions of Columbus, and it is probably an interesting relic 
of the first Spanish occupation. The railway had brought 
business. Mule carts were going about, and waggons; 
omnibuses stood in the yards, and there were stores of 
various kinds. But it was all black. There was not a 
white face to be seen after we left the station. One of 
my companions in the train was a Cuban engineer, now 
employed upon the line; a refugee, I conjectured, be- 
longing to the beaten party in the late rebellion, from 
the bitterness with which he spoke of the Spanish 
administration. 

Porus is many himdred feet above the sea, in a hollow 
where three valleys meet. Mandeville, to which I was 
bound, was ten miles farther on, the road ascending all the 
way. A carriage was waiting for me, but too small for my 
luggage. A black boy offered to carry up a heavy bag for 
a shilling, a feat which he faithfully and expeditiously per- 
formed. After climbing a steep hill, we came out upon a 
rich undulating plateau, long cleared and cultivated ; green 
fields with cows feeding on them ; pretty houses standing 
in gardens ; a Wesleyan station ; a Moravian station, with 



& 



MANDE VILLE 345 

chapels and parsonages. The red soil was mixed with 
crumbling lumps of white coral, a ready-made and in- 
eshauatible supply of manure. Great silk -cotton trees 
towered up in lonely magnificence, the home of the dreaded 
Jumbi — woe to the wretch who strikes an axe into those 
sacred stems ! Almonds, cedars, mangoes, gum trees spread 
their shade over the road. Orange trees were everywhere ; 
sometimes in orchards, sometimes growing at their own 
wild will in hedges and copse and thicket. Finally, at the 
ontsku-ts of a perfectly English village, we brought up at 
the door of the lodging house kept by the justly celebrated 
Miss Roy. The house, or cottage, stood at the roadside, at the 
top of a steep flight of steps ; a rambling one-story building, 
from which rooms, creeper-covered, had been thrown out as 
they were wanted. There was the universal green verandah 
into which they all opened ; and the windows looked out over 
a large common, used of old, and perhaps now, as a race- 
course ; on wooded slopes, with sunny mansions dropped here 
and there in openings among the woods ; farm buildings at 
intervals in the distance, surrounded by chimps of palms ; 
and beyond them ranges of mountains almost as blue as 
the sky against which they were faintly visible. Miss Koy, 
the lady and mistress of the establishment, came out to 
meet me: middle-aged, with a touch of the black blood, but 
with a face in which one places instant and sure depen- 
dence, shrewd, quiet, sensible, and entirely good-humoiu-ed. 
A white-haired brother, somewhat infirm and older than 
she, glided behind her as her shadow. She attends to 
the business. His pride is in his garden, where be has 
gathered a collection of rare plants in admired disorder ; 
the night-blowing eereus hanging carelessly over a broken 
paling, and a palm, unique of its kind, waving behind it. 
At the back were orange trees and plantains and coffee 
bushes, with long-tailed humming birds flitting about their 
nests among the branches. All kind of delicacies, from 



* 



I 



346 TJfE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

frnit and preeervea to coffee, Miss Roy grows for her vieitora 
on her own soil, and prepares from the first stage to the 
laBt with her own cunning hands. 

Having made acquaintance with the mistress, I strolled 
out to look about me. After walking up the road for a 
qnai-ter of a mile, I found myself in an exact reproduction 
of a Warwickshire hamlet before the days of railways and 
brick chimneys. There were no elma to be sure — there 
were silk-cotton trees and mangoes where the elma should 
have been ; but there were the boys playing cricket, and a 
market house, and a modest inn, and a shop or two, and a 
blacksmith's forge with a shed where horses were standing 
waiting their turn to be shod. Across the green was the 
parish church, with its three aisles and low square tower, in 
which hung an old peal of bells. Parish stocks I did not 
observe, though, perhaps, I might have had I looked for 
them ; but there was a schoolhouse and parsonage, and,. 
withdrawn at a distance as of superior dignity, what had 
once perhaps been the squire's mansion, when squire and 
such-like had been the natural growth of the country. It 
was as if a branch of the old tree had been carried over 
and planted there ages ago, and as if it had taken root and 
become an exact resemblance of the parent stock. The 
people had black faces ; but even they, too, had shaped their 
manners on the old English models. The men touched 
their hats respectfully (as they eminently did not in Kings- 
ton and its environs). The women smiled and curtsied, 
and the children looked shy when one spoke to them. 
The name of slavery is a horror to us ; but there must 
have been something human and kindly about it, too, when 
it left upon the character the marks "oT" courtesy and good 
breeding, I wish I could say as much for the effect of 
modern iHeas, The negroes in MandevUle were, perhaps, 
as happy in their old condition as they have been since 
their glorious emancipation, and some of them to this day 



I 



i 



'■\ 



^- 



AMERICAN GUESTS 247 

speak regretfully of a time when children did not die of 
neglect ; when the sick and the aged were taken care of, 
and the strong and healthy were, at least, as well looked 
■after as their owner's cattle. 

Slavery could not last ; but neither can the condition 
last which has followed it. The equality between black and 
white is a forced equality wd. not, a real one, and "Nature 
in the long run haslEer way, and readjusts in their proper ] 

I relations what theorists and philanthropists have disturbed. 
I was not Miss Boy's only guest. An American lady 
and gentleman were staying there ; he, I believe, for his 
healthy as the climate of Mandeville is celebrated. Ameri- 
cans, whatever may be their faults, are always unaffected ; 
and so are easy to get on with. We dined together, and 
talked of the place and its inhabitants. They had been 
struck like myself with the manners of the peasants, which 
were something entirely new to them. The lady said, and 
without expressing the least disapproval, that she had 
fallen in with an old slave who told her that, thanks to God^ 
/ he had seen good times. ' He was bred in a good home, 
with a master and^mistress belonging to him. What the 
master and mistress had the slaves had, and there was no 
difference ; and his master used to visit at King's House, 
and his men were all proud of him. Yes, glory be to God, 

. he had seen goodjtimes.' 

In the evening we sat out in the verandah in the soft 
Bweet air, the husband and I smoking our cigars, and the 
lady not minding it. They had come to Mandeville, as we 
go to Italy, to escape the New England winter. They 
had meant to stay but a few days ; they found it so 
^iharming that they had stayed for many weeks. We 
talked on till twilight became night, and then appeared a 
«how of natural pyrotechnics which beat anything of the 
kind which I had ever seen or read of : fireflies as large 
^ks cockchafers flitting round us among the leaves of the 



248 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

creepers, with two long antennse, at the point of each of 
^hich hangs out a blazing lanthom. The unimaginative 
colonists call them gig-lamps. Had Shakespeare ever 
heard of them, they would have played round Ferdinand 
and Miranda in Frospero's cave, and would have borne a 
fairer name. The light is bluish-green, like a glowworm's, 
but immeasurably brighter ; and we could trace them far 
away glancing like spirits over the meadows. 

I could not wonder that my new friends had been 
charmed with the place. The air was exquisitely pure ; 
the temperature ten degrees below that of Kingston, never 
oppressively hot and never cold; the forest scenery as 
beautiful as at Arden; and Miss Boy's provision for us, 
rooms, beds, breakfasts, dinners, absolutely without fault. 
If ever there was an inspired coffee maker. Miss Boy was 
that person. The glory of Mandeville is in its oranges. 
The worst orange I ate in Jamaica was better than the best 
I ever ate in Europe, and the best oranges of Jamaica are 
the oranges of Mandeville. New York has found out their 
merits. One gentleman alone sent twenty thousand boxes to 
New York last year, clearing a doUar on each box ; and this, 
as I said just now, when Nature is left to produce what she 
pleases, and art has not begun to help her. Fortunes 
larger than were ever made by sugar wait for any man, 
and the blessings of the world along with it, who will set 
himself to work at orange growing with skill and science in 
a place where heat will not wither the trees, nor frosts, as 
in Florida, bite off the blossoms. Yellow fever was never 
heard of there, nor any dangerous epidemic, nor snake nor 
other poisonous reptile. The droughts which parch the 
lowlands are unknown, for an even rain falls all the year 
and the soil is always moist. I inquired with wonder why 
the unfortunate soldiers who were perched among the crags 
at Newcastle were not at Mandeville instead. I was told 
that water was the di£Siculty ; that there was no river or 



MANDEVILLE 249 

running stream there, and that it had to be drawn from 
wells or collected into cisterns. One must applaud the 
caution which the authorities have at last displayed ; but 
cattle thrive at MandeTille, and sheep, and black men and 
women in luxuriant abundance. One would like to know 
that the general who sold the Newcastle estate to the 
Government was not the same person who was allowed to 
report as to the capabilities of a spot which, to the common 
observer, would seem as perfectly adapted for the purpose 
as the other is detestable. 

A few English families were scattered about the neigh- 
bourhood, among whom I made a passing acquaintance. 
They had a lawn-tennis club in the village, which met once 
a week ; they drove in with their pony carriages ; a lady 
made tea under the trees; they had amusements and 
pleasant society which cost nothing. They were not rich ; 
but they were courteous, simple, frank, and cordial. 

Mandeville is the centre of a district which all resembles 
it in character and extends for many miles. It is famous 
for its cattle as well as for its fruit, and has excellent grazing 

grounds. Mr. , an officer of police, took me round 

with him one morning. It was the old story. Though 
there were still a few white proprietors left, they were 
growing fewer, and the blacks were multiplying upon them. 
The smoke of their clearances showed where they were at 
work. Many of them are becoming well-to-do. We met them 
on the roads with their carts and mules ; the young ones 
armed, too, in some instances with good double-barrelled 
muzzle-loaders. There is no game to shoot, but to have 
a gun raises them in their own estimation, and they like to 

l^ prepared for contingencies. Mr. had a troublesome 

place of it. The negro peasantry were good-humoured, he 
said, but not universally honest. They stole cattle, and 
would not give evidence against each other. If brought 
into court, they held a pebble in their mouths, being under 



250 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

the impression that when they were bo provided perjury^ 
did not count. Their education was only skin-deep, and/ 
the schools which the Government provided had not/ 

touched their characters at all. Mr. 's duties brought! 

him in contact with the unfavourable specimens. I received 
a far pleasanter impression from a Moravian minister^ who 
called on me with a friend who had lately taken a farm. I 
was particularly glad to see this gentleman, for of the 
Moravians everyone had spoken well to me. He was not 
the least enthusiastic about his poor black sheep, but he 
said that, if they were not better than the average English 
labourers, he did not think them worse. They were called 
idle. They would work well enough if they had fair wages, 
and if the wages were paid regularly ; but what could be 
expected when women servants had but three shillings a 
week and ' found themselves,' when the men had but a 
shilling a day and the pay was kept in arrear, in order that, 
if they came late to work, or if they came irregularly, it 
might be kept back or cut down to what the employer 
chose to give? Under such conditions any man of any 
colour would prefer to work for himself if he had a garden, 
or would be idle if he had none. ' Living ' costs next to 
nothing either to them or their families. But the minister 
said, and his friend confirmed it by his own experience, 
that these same fellows would work regularly and faithfully 
for any master whom they personally knew and could rely 
upon, and no EngUshman coming to settle there need be 
afraid of failing for want of labour, if he had sense and 
energy, and did not prefer to he down and groan. The 
I blacks, my friends said, were kindly-hearted, respectful, 
vl and well-disposed, but they we re chi ldren ; easily excited, 
easily tempted, easily misled, and totally unfit for self- 
government. If we wished to ruin them altogether, we 
should persevere in the course to which, they were sorry to 
hear, we were so inclined. The real want in the island 



AMERICAN EXPERIENCES 251 

w as of intelligent Englishmen to employ and dirfifitJihem, v 
and Englishmen were going away so fast that they feared 
there would soon be none of them left. This was the 
opinion of two moderate and excellent men, whose natural 
and professional prejudices were all on the black man's 
side. 

It was confirmed both in its favourable and un- 
favourable aspects by another impartial authority. My 
first American acquaintances had gone, but their rooms 
were occupied by another of their countrymen, a specimen 
of a class of whom more will be heard in Jamaica if the 
fates are kind. The English in the island cast in their lot 
with sugar, and if sugar is depressed they lose heart. 
Americans keep their ^ eyes skinned/ as they call it, to look 
out for other openings. They have discovered, as I said, 
' that there are dollars in Jamaica,' and one has come, and 
has set up a trade in plantains, in which he is making a 
fortune ; and this gentleman had perceived that there were 
* dollars in the bamboo,' and for bamboos there was no 
place in the world like the West Indies. He came to 
Jamaica, brought machines to clear the fibre, tried to make 
ropes of it, to make canvas, paper, and I know not what. 
I think he told me that he had spent a quarter of a million 
dollars, instead of finding any, before he hit upon a pay- 
ing use for it. The bamboo fibre has certain elastic incom- 
pressible properties in which it is without a rival. He 
forms it into ' packing ' for the boxes of the wheels of rail- 
way carriages, where it holds oil like a sponge, never 
hardens, and never wears out. He sends the packing over 
the world, and the demand grows as it is tried. He has 
set up a factory, thirty miles from Mandeville, in the valley 
of the Black Biver. He has a large body of the negroes 
working for him who are said to be so unmanageable. 
He, like Dr. Nicholls in Dominica, does not find them 
unmanageable at all. They never leave him ; they work for 



^ 






252 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

him from year to year as regularly as if they were slaves. 
They have their small faults, but he does not magnify them 
into vices. They are attached to him with the old-fashioned 
affection which good labourers always feel for employers 
whom they respect, and dismissal is dreaded as the severest 
of pimishmentb. In the course of time he thought that ' 
they might become fit for political privileges. To confer 
such privileges on them at present would fling Jamu^^ 
back into absolnte^barbarism.) 

I said I wished that more of his countrymen would 
come and settle in Jamaica as he had done and a few 
others already. American energy would be like new blood 
in the veins of the poor island. He answered that many 
would probably come if they could be satisfied that there 
would be no more poUtical experimenting ; but they would 
not risk their capital if there was a chance of a black 
parliament. ^__ 

If we choose to make Jamaica into ^ i[ayti>e need x;^ 
not look for Americans down that way. ^ --' 

Let us hope that enthusiasm for constitutions will for 
once moderate its ardour. The black race has sufiEered 
/ enough at our hands. They have been sacrificed to slavery ; 
are they to be sacrificed again to a dream or a doctrine ? 
There has a new creed risen, while the old creed is failing. 
It has its priests and its prophets, its formulas and its 
articles of belief. 

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary 
that he hold the Badical faith. 

And the Badical faith is this : all men are equal, and 
the voice of one is as the voice of another. 

And whereas one man is wise and another foolish, and 
one is upright and another crooked, yet in this suffrage 
none is greater or less than another. The vote is equal, 
the dignity co-eternal. 



K 



THE RADICAL CREED 253 

Truth is one and right is one ; yet right is right because 
the majority so declare it, and justice is justice because 
the majority so declare it. 

And if the majority affirm one thing to-day, that is 
right ; and if the majority affirm the opposite to-morrow, 
that is right. 

Because the will of the majority is the ground of 
right and there is no other, &c. &c. &c. 

This is the Badical faith, which, except every man do 
keep whole and undefiled, he is a Tory and an enemy of the 
State, and without doubt shall perish everlastingly. 

Once the Radical was a Liberal and went for toleration 
and freedom of opinion. He has become a beUever now. 
He is right and you are wrong, and if you do not agree 
with him you are a fool; and you are wicked besides. 
Voltaire says that atheism and superstition are the two 
poles of intellectual disease. Superstition he thinks the 
worse of the two. The atheist is merely mistaken, and can 
be cured if you show him that he is wrong. The fanatic 
can never be cured. Yet each alike, if he prevails, will 
destroy human society. What would Voltaire have expected 
for poor mankind had he seen both the precious qualities 
combined in this new Symholum Fidei ? 

A creed is not a reasoned judgment based upon experi- 
ence and insight. It is a child of imagination and passion. 
Like an organised thing, it has its appointed period and 
then dies. You cannot argue it out of existence. It works 
for good ; it works for evil ; but work it will while the life 
is in it. Faith, we are told, is not contradictory to reason, 
but is above reason. Whether reason or faith sees truer, 
events will prove. 

One more observation this American gentleman made 
to me. He was speaking of the want of spirit and of the 
despondency of the West Indian whites. * I never knew. 



254 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

sir,' he said, *• any good come of desponding men. If you 
intend to strike a mark, you had better believe that you can 
strike it. No one ever hit anything if he thought that 
he was most likely to miss it. Tou must take a cheerful 
view of things, or you will have no success in this world.' 

*Tyne heart tyne a',' the Scotch proverb says. The 
Anglo- West Indians are tyning heart, and that is the worst 
feature about them. They can get no help except in them- 
selves, and they can help themselves after all if we allow 
them fair play. The Americans will not touch them 
pohtically, but they will trade with them ; they will bring 
their capital and their skill and knowledge among them, and 
make the islands richer and more prosperous than ever 
they were — on one condition: they will risk nothing in 
such enterprises as long as the shadow hangs over them of 
a possible government by a black majority. Let it suffice 
to have created one Ireland without deliberately manufac^ 
turing a second. 



CHERRY GARDEN 455 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Jamaican hospitality— Cherry Garden — G^rge William Gordon — ^The Gor- 
don riots— Governor Eyre — A dispute and its oonseqaenoes —Jamaican 
oountry-hoase society — Modem speculation — A Spanish fable — Port 
Boyal~The commodore — Naval theatricals — The modem sailor. 

The sarviying representatives of the Jamaican gentry are 
as hospitable as their fathers and grandfathers used to be. 
An English visitor who wishes to see the island is not 
allowed to take his chance at hotels — where, indeed, his 
chance would be a bad one. A single acquaintance is 
enough to start with. He is sent on with letters of intro- 
duction from one house to another, and is assured of a 
favourable reception. I was treated as kindly as any 
stranger would be, and that was as kindly as possible. 
But friends do not ask us to stay with them that their 
portraits may be drawn in the traveller's journals ; and I 
mention no one who was thus good to me, unless some 
general interest attaches either to himself or his residence. 
Such interest does, however, attach to a spot where, after 
leaving Mandeville, I passed a few days. The present 
owner of it was the chief manager of the Kingston branch 
of the Colonial Bank : a clever accomplished man of busi- 
ness, who understood the financial condition of the West 
Indies better perhaps than any other man living. He was 
a botanist besides; he had a fine collection of curious 
plants which were famous in the island ; and was other- 
wise a gentleman of the highest standing and reputation. 
His lady was one of the old island aristocracy — high-bred, 



7 



>^ 



V 



256 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

cultivated, an accomplished artist; a person who would 
have shone anywhere and in any circle, and was, there- 
fore, contented to be herself and indifferent whether she 
shone or not. A visit in such a family was likely to be 
instructive, and was sure to be agreeable ; and on these 
grounds alone I should have accepted gratefully the oppor- 
tunity of knowing them better which they kindly made for 
me by an invitation to stay with them. But their place, 
which was called Cherry Garden, and which I had seen 
from the grounds at Government House, had a further im- 
portance of its own in having been the house of the unfor- 
tunate George William Gordon. 

The disturbances with which Mr. Gordon was connected, 
and for his share in which he was executed, are so recent 
and so notorious that I need give no detailed account of 
them, though, of course, I looked into the history again 
and listened to all that I could hear about it. Though I 
had taken no part in Mr. Eyre's defence, I was one of those 
who thought from the first that Mr. Eyre had been un-l 
worthily sacrificed to public clamour. Had the agitation 
4n Jamaica spread, and taken the form which it easily 
might have taken, he would have been blamed as keenly by 
one half of the world if he had done nothing to check it 
as he was blamed, in fact, by the other for too much energy. 
Garlyle used to say that it was as if, when a ship had been 
on fire, and the captain by skill and promptitude had put 
the fire out, his owner were to say to him, * Sir, you poured 
too much water down the hold and damaged the cargo." 
The captain would answer, * Yes, sir, but I have saved your 
ship.' This was the view which I carried with me to 
Jamaica, and I have brought it back with me the same in 
i essentials, though qualified by clearer perceptions of the 
real nature of the situation. 

Something of a very similar kind had happened in 
Natal just before I visited that colony in 1874. I had 



/ 



GEORGE WILLIAM GORDON 257 

seen the whites there hardly recovering from a panic in 
which a common police case had been magnified by fear 
into the beginning of an insurrection. Langalibalele, a 
Caffir chief within the British dominions, had been in- 
subordinate. He had been sent for to Maritzberg, and 
had invented excuses for disobedience to a lawful order. 
The whites believed at once that there was to be a general 
Caffir rebellion in which they would all be murdered. 
They resolved to be beforehand with it. They carried 
fire and sword through two considerable tribes. At first 
they thought that they had covered themselves with glory ; 
calmer reflection taught many of them that perhaps they 
had been too hasty, and that Langalibalele had never in- 
tended to rebel at all. The Jamaican disturbance was of a 
similar kind. Mr. Gordon had given less provocation than 
the Caffir chief, but the circumstances were analogous, and 
the actual danger was probably greater. Jamaica had 
then constitutional, though not what is called responsible, 
government. The executive power remained with the Crown. 
There had been differences of opinion between the governor 
and the Assembly. Gordon, a man of colour, was a pro- 
minent member of the opposition. He had called public 
'meetings of the blacks in a distant part of the island, and 
/ was endeavouring to bring the pressure of public opinion 
\ on the opposition side. Imprudent as such a step might 
have been among an ignorant and excitable population, 
where whites and blacks were so unequal in numbers, and 
where they knew so little of each other, Mr. Gordon was 
not going beyond what in constitutional theory he was 
legaUy entitled to do ; nor was his language on the plat- 
form, though violent and inflammatory, any more so than 
mdiat we listen to patiently at home. Under a popular 
constitution the people are sovereign; the members of 
the assembUes are popular delegates; and when there is 
a division of opinion any man has a right to call the 

8 



\- 



y 



«S8 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

constituencies to express their sentiments. If stones were 
thrown at the police and seditious cries were raised, it was 
no more than might be reasonably expected. 

We at home can be calm on such occasions because 
we know that there is no real danger, and that the law is 
strong enough to assert itself. In Jamaica a few thousand ^ 
white people were living in the middle of negroes forty S 
times their number — once their slaves, now raised to be I 
their political equals — each regarding the other on the least / 
provocation with resentment and suspicion. In England 
(ihe massacre in Hayi^ is a half-forgotten story. Not 
one person in a'thousand of those who clamoured for the 
prosecution of Governor Eyre had probably ever heard of 
it. In Jamaica it is ever present in the minds of the 
Europeans as a frightful evidence of what the negroes are 
capable when roused to frenzy. The French planters had 7^ 
V done nothing particularly cruel to deserve their animosity^ ^ 
and were as well regarded by their slaves as ever we had 
been in the English islands. Tet in a fever of poUtical 
excitement, and as a reward for the decree of the Paris 
Eevolutionary Government, which declared them free, they 
allowed the liberty which was to have elevated them to 
the white man's level to turn them into devils ; and they 
massacred the whok of the Fre nch inhabitants. It was ^ 
) inevitable that whck^^e volcanainj&maica. began to show/ 
] symptoms of similar activity the whites residing there 
/ should be unable to look on with the calmness which we, 
- from thousands of miles away, imreasonably expected of 
o^ them. (1?hey fa Sgmed^ heir houses in flames, and them- 
selves and their families at the mercy of a furious mob. % 
No personal relation between the two races has grown up / 
to take the place of slavery. The white gentry have blacks 
for labourers, blacks for domestic servants, yet as a rule j 
(though, of course, there are exceptions) they have no I 
interest in each other, no esteem nor confidence: thereV 



.'7 



GOVERNOR EYRE AND GORDON 359 

fore any Bymptom of agitation is certain to produce a 
paniCy and panic is always violent. 

The blacks who attended Gordon's meetings came armed -^. 
with guns and cutlasses ; a party of white volunteers went ^ 
in consequence to watch them, and to keep order if 
they showed signs of meaning insurrection. Stones were 
thrown; the Biot Act was read, niore stones followed, 
and then the volunteers fired, and several persons were 
killed. Of course there was fury. The black mob then 
actually did rise. They marched about that particular 
-district destroying plantations and burning houses. That 
they did so little, and that the flame did not spread, was 
a proof that there was no premeditation of rebellion, no 
prepared plan of action, no previous communication be- 
tween the different parts of the island with a view to any 
common movement. There was no proof, and there was 
no reason to suppose, that Gordon had intended an armed v 
outbreak. He would have been a fool if he had, when 
<K)nstitutional agitation and the weight of numbers at his 
back would have secured him all that he wanted. When 
inflammable materials are brought together, and sparks 
are flying, you cannot equitably distribute the blame or the 
punishment. Eyre was responsible for the safety of the 
island. He was not a Jamaican. The rule in the colonial 
service is that a governor remains in any colony only long 
enough to begin to understand it. He is then removed 
to another of which he knows nothing. He is therefore 
absolutely dependent in any difficulty upon local advice. 
When the riots began every white man in Jamaica was of 
one opinion, that unless the fire was stamped out promptly 
they would all be murdered. Being without experience 
himself, it was very difficult for Mr. Eyre to disregard so 
•complete a unanimity. I suppose that a perfectly calm 
and determined man would have seen in the unanimity 
itself the evidence of alarm and imagination. He ought 

8 2 



y 




t6o THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

perhaps to have relied entirely on the police and the re- 
gular troops, and to have called in the volunteers, fiat 
jhere again was a difSculty ; for the police were black, and 
the West India regiments were black, and the Sepoy re- / 
bellion was fresh in everybody's memory. He had no 
time to deliberate. He had to act, and to act promptly ; 
and if, relying on his own judgment, he had disregarded 
what everyone round him insisted upon, and if mischief 
had afterwards come of it, the censure which would have 
fallen upon him would have been as severe as it would 
have been deserved. He assumed that the English colo- 
nists were right and that a general rebellion had begun. 
They all armed. They formed into companies. The dis- 
4iurbed district was placed under martial law, and these 
extemporised regiments, too few in number to be merciful, 
saw safety only in striking terror into the poor wretches. 
It was in Jam aica as it was in Natal afterwards ; but we 
must allow.for/^man^ature| and not_be hasty to hlamtf?5>^ 
If the rising at Morant Bay was but the boiling over of ar 
pot from the oratory of an excited patriot, there was de- 
plorable cruelty and violence. But, again, it was all too 
natural/ Men do not bear easily to see their late ser- 
on their way to become their political masters, and 
they believe the worst of them because they are afraid. A 
model governor would have rather restrained their ardour 
than encouraged it, but all that can be said against Mr. 
Eyre (so far as regarded the general suppression of the 
insurgents) is that he acted as nine hundred and ninety- \ 
nine men out of a thousand would have acted in his place, | 
and more ought not to be expected of average colonial ' 
governors. 

His treatment of Gordon, the ori^al cause of the dis- 
turbance, was more questionable. Gordon had returned to 
his own~Kbuse, the house where I was going, within sight of 
Eyre's windows. It would have been fair, and perhaps right* 



EYRE AND GORDON i6i 

to arrest hiniy and right also to bring him to trial, if he 
had committed any offence for which he could be legally 
pmiished. So strong was the feeling against him that, if 
every white man in Kingston had been empannelled, there 
would have been a unanimous verdict and they would not 
have looked too closely into niceties of legal construction. 
Unfortunately it was doubtful whether Gordon had done 
anything which could be construed into a capital crime. 
He had a ri^t to call public meetings together. He had 
a right to appeal to political passions, and to indulge as 
freely as he pleased in the patriotic commonplaces of plat- 
forms, provided he did not himself advise or encourage 
a breach of the peace, and this it could not easily be 
y pro ved that h e had done. He was, however, the leader of 
the opposition ~io the Government. The opposition had, 
( broken into a riot, and Gordon was guilty of having ex- 1 
dted the feelings which led to it. The leader could not i 
be allowed to escape unpunished while his foUowers were 
I being shot and flogged. The Kingston district where he 
resided was under the ordinary law. Eyre sent him into 
the district which was under martial law, tried bJTn by a\ 
^military court and hanged him. 

The Cabinet at home at first thanked their representa- 
tive for having saved the island. A clamour rose, and they 
sent out a commission to examine into what had happened. 
The commission reported unfavourably, and Eyre was dis- 
missed and ruined. In Jamaica I never heard anyone express 
a doubt on the full propriety of his action. He carried away ! 
with him the affection and esteem of the whole of the i 
English colonists, who believe that he saved them from* 
destruction. In my own opinion the fault was not in Mr. ' 
Eyre, and was not in the unfortunate Gordon, but in those 
Iwho had insisted on applying a constitutional form of 
Igovemment to a country where the population is so un- { 
JEavourably divided. If the numbers of white and black ^ 



26i THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

were more nearlj^^equal, the objection would be less, for the 
W ^fnatural superioritj^f the white would then assert itself 
withbuli'^Sfficalty, and there would be no panics. Where the 
I disproportion is so enormous as it is in Jamaica, where 
intelligence and property are in a miserable minority, and 
a half-reclaimed race of savages, cannibals not long ago, 
and capable, as the state of Hayti shows, of reverting ta 
cannibalism again, are living beside them as their political 
equals, such panics arise fromj jthe nature of thing s) and 
will themselves cause the catastrophe from the dread of 
which they spring. Mutual fear and mistrust can lead to 
nothing in the end but violent collisions. The theory of 
constitutional government is that the majority shall rule 

/ the minority, and as long as the qualities, moral and mental, 
of the parties are not grossly dissimilar, such an arrange- 
ment forms a tolerable modus vivendu Where in character, 
in mental force, in energy, in cultivation, there is no 
equality at all, but an inequality which has existed for 
thousands of years, and is as plain to-day as it was in the 
/ Egypt of the Pharaohs, to expect that the intelligent few 
will submit to the unintelligent many is to expect what 
has never been found and what never ought to be found* 
The whites cannot be trusted to rule the blacks, but for the 
blacks to rule the whites^is a yet grosser-anomaly. Were 
England out of the way, there would be a war of extermi- 
nation between them. England prohibits it, and holds the 
balance in forced equality. England, therefore, so long 
as the West Indies are English, must herself rule, and rule 
impartially, and so acquit herself of her self-chosen respon- ^ 
sibilities. Let the colonies which are occupied by our own , 

j^ I race rule themselves as we rule ourselves. The English \A 
constituencies have no rights over the constituencies of 
Canada and Australia, for^the Canadians and Australians 
are as well able to manage their own affairs as we are 
to manage ours. If they prefer even to elect governors 



DRIVE TO CHERRY GARDEN 263 

of their own, let them do as they please. The link 
betwg gn ns la co nrmjiTiity of blood and interest^ and will ^ 
not part over details of administration. Bat in these other 
colonies which are our own we must accept \the facts as^ 
they ^e) Those who will not recognise realities are always 
h^at^JnJkhe end. 

The train from Poms brought us back to Kingston an 
hour before sunset. The evening was lovely, even for 
Jamaica. The sea breeze had fallen. The land breeze 
had not risen, and the dust lay harmless on road and 
hedge. Cherry Garden, to which I was bound, was but 
seven miles distant by the direct road, so I calculated on a 
delightfal drive which would bring me to my destination 
before dark. So I calculated ; but alas ! for human expecta- 
tion. I engaged a ' buggy ' at the station, with a decent- 
looking conductor, who assured me that he knew the way 
to Cherry Garden as weU as to his own door. His horse 
looked starved and miserable. He insisted that there was 
not another in Kingston that was more than a match for it. 
We set out, and for the first two or three miles we went on 
well enough, conversing amicably upon things in general. 
But it so happened that it was again market day. The 
road was thronged as before with women plodding along 
with their baskets on their heads, a single male on a 
donkey to each detachment of them, carrying nothing, like 
an officer with a company of soldiers. Foplishjndi^ation v 
rose in me, and I asked my friend if he was not ashamed 
of seeing the poor creatures toiling so cruelly, while their 
lords and masters amused themselves. I appealed to his 
feelings as a man, as if it wasjikely.that ha had got any. 
The wretch only laughed. ' Ah, massa,',h6 said, with his 
tongue in his cheek, ' women do women's work, men do 
men's work — all right.' *And what is men's work?' I 
asked. Instead of answering he went on, ' Look at they 
women, massa — how they laugh — how happy they bel 



264 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Nobody more happy than black woman, massa.' I would 
not let him off. I pricked into him, till he got excited 
too, and we argued and contradicted each other, till at last 
the horse, finding he was not attended to, went his own way 
and that was a wrong one. Between Kingston and oar 
destination there is a deep sandy flat, overgrown with bush 
and penetrated in all directions with labyrinthine lanes. 
Into this we had wandered in our quarrels, and neither of 
us knew where we were. Ths sand was loose ; our miser- 
able beast was above his fetlocks in it, and was visibly 
dropping under his efforts to drag us along even at a walk« 
The sun went down. The tropic twiUght is short. The 
evening star shone out in the west, and the crescent moon 
over our heads. My man said this and said that ; every 
word was a Ue, for he had lost his way and would not allow 
it. We saw a light through some trees. I sent him to 
inquire. We were directed one way and another way, 
every way except the right one. We emerged at last upon 
a hard road of some kind. The stars told me the general 
direction. We came to cottages where the name of Cherry 
Garden was known, and we were told that it was two miles 
off ; but, alas ! again there were two roads to it ; a short 
and good one, and a long and bad one, and they sent 
us by the last. There was a steep hill to climb, for the 
house is 800 feet above the sea. The horse could hardly 
crawl, and my ' nigger ' went to work to flog him to let off 
his own ill humour. I had to stop that by force, and at 
last, as it grew too dark to see the road under the trees, 
I got out and walked, leaving him to follow at a foot's 
pace. The night was lovely. I began to think that we 
should have to camp out after all, and that it would be no 
great hardship. 

It was like the gloaming of a June night in England, the 
daylight in the open spots not entirely gone, and mixing 
softly with the light of moon and planet and the flashing 



DRIVE TO CHERRY GARDEN 265 

of the fireflies. I plodded on mile after mile, and Cherry 
Garden still receded to one mile farther. We came to a 
gate of some consequence. The outline of a large mansion 
was visible with gardens round it. I concluded that we 
had arrived, and was feeling for the latch when the forms 
of a lady and gentleman appeared against the sky who 
were strolling in the grounds. They directed me still 
upwards, with the mile which never diminished still to be 
travelled. Like myself, our weary animal had gathered 
hopes from the sight of the gate. He had again to drag 
on as he could. His owner was subdued and silent, and 
obeyed whatever order I gave him. The trees now closed 
over us so th ick tha t I^ould see nothing. Vainly I repented 
of my unnecess a ry philanth ropy which had been the cause 
of the mischief ; what had I to do with black women, or 
white either for that matter ? I had to feel the way with 
my feet and a stick. I came to a place where the lane 
again divided. I tried the nearest turn. I found a trench 
across it three feet deep, which had been cut by a torrent. 
This was altogether beyond the capacity of our unfortunate 
animal, so I took the other boldly, prepared if it proved 
wrong to bivouac till morning with my * nigger,' and go on 
with my argument. Happily there was no need ; we came 
again on a gate which led into a field. There was a drive 
across it and wire fences. Finally lights began to glimmer 
and dogs to bark : we were at the real Cherry Garden at 
last, and found the whole household alarmed for what had 
become of us. I could not punish my misleader by stinting 
his fare, for I knew that I had only myself to blame. He 
was an honest fellow after all. In the disturbance of my 
mind I left a rather valuable umbreUa in his buggy. He 
discovered it after he had gone, and had grace enough to 
see that it was returned to me. 

My entertainers were much amused at the cause of 
the misadventure, perhaps unique of its kind ; to address 



?66 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

homilies to the black people on the treatment of their wiyea 
not being the fashion in these parts. 

If there are no more Aaron Bangs in Jamaica, there are 
very charming people ; as 1 found when I turned this new leaf 

in my West Indian experience. Mr. M could not have 

taken more pains with me if I had been his earliest friend.. 
The chief luxury which he allowed himself in his simple life 
was a good supply of excellent horses. His business took 
him every day to Kingston, but he left me in charge of his 
family, and I had 'a good time,' as the Americans say. 
The house was large, with fine airy rooms, a draught sa 
constantly blowing through it that the candles had to be 
covered with bell glasses ; but the draughts in these coun- 
tries are the very breath of life. It had been too dark when. 
I arrived to see anything of the surroundings, and the next 
morning I strolled out to see what the place was like. It 
lies just at the foot of the Blue Mountains, where the gra- 
dual. slope from the sea begins to become steep. The plain 
of Kingston lay stretched before me, with its woods and 
cornfields and villas, the long straggling town, the ships at 
anchor in the harbour, the steamers passing in and out 
with their long trails of smoke, the sand-spit like a thin 
grey line lying upon the water, as the natural breakwater 
by which the harbour is formed, and beyond it the broad 
blue expanse of the Caribbean Sea. The foreground waa 
like an EngUsh park, studded over with handsome forest 
trees and broken by the rains into picturesque ravines. 
Some acres were planted with oranges of the choicer sorts^ 
as an experiment to show what Jamaica could do, but they 
were as yet young and had not come into bearing. Bound 
the houses were gardens where the treasures of our hot- 
houses were carelessly and lavishly scattered. Stephanotis. 
trailed along the railing or climbed over the trellis. Oleanders 
white and pink waved over marble basins, and were sprinkled 
by the spray from spouting fountains. Crotons stood about 



mpBHpilfP9PPWV«nvi9VffF^n^^^«ni^n^*ir. I ■ K.n m ■ v^mwmf^^m 



CHERRY GARDEN 267 

in tubs, not small plants as we know them, but large 
shrubs ; great purple or parti-coloured bushes. They have 
a fancy for crotons in the West Indies; I suppose as a 
change from the monotony of green. I cannot share it. 
A red leaf, except in autumn before it falls, is a kind of 
monster, and I am glad that Nature has made so few of 
them. In the shade of the trees behind the house was a col< 
lection of orchids, the most perfect, I believe, in the island. 
And here Gordon had lived. Here he had been arrested 
and carried away to his death; his crime being that he had 
dreamt of regenerating the negro race by baptising them in 
the Jordan of English Badicalism. He would have brought , . 
about nothing but confusion, and have precipitated Jamaica 
prematurely into the black anarchy into which perhaps it 
is still destined to fall. But to hang him was an extreme 
measure, and, in the present state of public opinion, a 
dangerous one. 

One does not associate the sons of darkness with keen 
perceptions of the beautiful. Yet no mortal ever selected a 
lovelier spot for a residence than did Gordon in choosing 
Cherry Garden. How often had his round dark eyes wan- 
dered over the scenes at which I was gazing, watched the 
early rays of the sun slanting upwards to the high peaks of 
the Blue Mountains, or the last as he sank in gold and 
crimson behind the hills at Mandeville ; watched the great 
steamers entering or leaving Fort Boyal, and at night the 
gleam of the lighthouse from among the palm trees on the 
spit. Poor fellow ! one felt very sorry for him, and sorry 
for Mr. Eyre, too. The only good that came of it all was 
the surrender of the constitution and the return to Crown ^ 
government, and this our wonderful statesmen are begin- 
ning to undo. 

No one understood better than Mr. M the troubles 

and dangers of the colony, but he was inclined, perhaps by 
temperament, perhaps by knowledge, to take a cheerful view 



268 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

of things. For the present at least he did not think that 
there was anything serious to be feared. The finances, of 
which he had the best means of judging, were in tolerable 
condition. The debt was considerable, but more than half 
of it was represented by a railway. If sugar was languish- 
ing, the fruit trade with the United States was growing 
with the liveUest rapidity. Planters and merchants were 
not making fortunes, but business went on. The shares in 
the Colonial Bank were not at a high quotation, but the 
securities were sound, the shareholders got good diyidends, 
and eight and ten per cent, was the interest charged on 
loans. High interest might be a good sign or a bad one. 

Anyway Mr. M could not see that there was much to be 

a&aid of in Jamaica. There had been bad times before, 
and they had survived notwithstanding. He was a man of 
business, and talked himself little about politics. As it had 
been, so it would be again. 

In his absence at his work I found friends m the neigh^ 
bourhood who were all attention and politeness. One to<^'. 
me to see my acquaintances at the camp again. Another- 
drove me about, showed me the house where Scott had 
hved, the author of ' Tom Cringle.* One round in particular 
left a distinct impression. It was through a forest which 
had once been a flourishing sugar estate. Deep among the 
trees were the ruins of an aqueduct which had brought 
water to the mill, now overgrown and crumbling. The 
time had not been long as we count time in the history of 
nations, but there had been enough for the arches to fall in, 
the stream to return to its native bed, the tropical vegeta- 
tion to spring up in its wild luxuriance and bury in shade 
the ruins of a past civilisation. 

I fell in with interesting persons who talked meta- 
physics and theology with me, though one would not have 
expected it in Jamaica. In this strange age of ours the 
vj^ spiritual atmosphere is more .confused than at any period 



MODERN SCEPTICISM 269 

; daring the last eighteen hundred years. Men's hearts) 
are failing them for fear, not knowing any longer where to / 
rest. We look this way and that way, and catch at one 
another like drowning men. Go where you will, you find 
the same phenomena. Science grows, and observers are 
adding daily to our knowledge of the nature and structure 
of the material universe, but they tell us nothing, and can 
tell us nothing, of what we most want to know. They . 
H) c annot tell us ^ at_our .own__nature is. They cannoTtell ^ 
us what God is, or what duty is. We had a belief once, in 
which, as in a boat, we floated safely on the unknown 
ocean ; but the philosophers and critics have been boring 
holes in the timbers to examine the texture of the wood, 
and now it leaks at every one of them. We have to help 
ourselves in the best way that we can. Some strike out 
new ideas for themselves, others go back to the seven 
sages, and lay again for themselves the old eggs, which, 
after laborious incubation, will be addled as they were 
addled before. To my metaphysical friends in Jamaica the 
' Light of Asia * had been shining amidst German dreams, 
and the moonUght of the Yedas had been illuminating the 

pessimism of Schopenhauer. So it is all round. Mr. 

goes to Mount Carmel to listen for communications from 
Elijah ; fashionable countesses to the shrine of Our Lady 
at Lourdes. * Are you a Buddhist ? ' lisps the young lady 
in Mayfair to the partner with whom she is sitting out at 
a ball. ^ It is so nice,* said a gentleman to me who has 
been since promoted to high office in an unfortunate colony, 
' it is so nice to talk of such things to pretty girls, and it 
always ends in one way, you know.' Conversations on 
theology, at least between persons of opposite sex, ought to 
be interdicted by law for everyone under forty. But there 
are questions on which old people may be permitted to ask 
one another what they think, if it only be for mutual com- 
fort in the general vacancy. We are born alone, we pass 



270 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

alone into the great darkness. When the curtain falls is 
the play over ? or is a new act to commence ? Are we to 
start again in a new sphere, carrying with us what we 
have gained in the discipline of our earthly trials? Are 
we to become again as we were before we came into this 
world, when eternity had not yet splintered into time, or 
the miiyersal being dissolved into individual existences? 
For myself I have long ceased to speculate on these sub- 
jects, being convinced that they have no bottom which can 
be reasoned out by the intellect. We are in a world where 
much can be learnt which affects our own and others' 
earthly welfarci and we had better leave the rest alone. 
Yet one listens and cannot choose but sympathise when 
anxious souls open out to you what is going on within 
them. A Spanish legend, showing with whom these in* 
quiries began and with what result, is not without its 
value. 

Jupiter, having made the world, proceeded to make 
animals to live in it. The ass was the earliest created. He 
looked about him. He looked at himself ; and, as the habit 
of asses is, he asked himself what it all meant ; what it was 
to be an ass, where did he come from, and what he was 
for ? Not being able to discover, he applied to his maker. 
Jupiter told him that he was made to be the slave of 
another animal to be called Man. He was to carry men on 
his back, drag loads for them, and be their drudge. He 
was to live on thistles and straw, and to be beaten continn* 
ally with sticks and ropes*-ends. The ass complained. He 
said that he had done nothing to deserve so hard a fate. 
He had not asked to be bom, and he would rather not have 
been born. He inquired how long this life, or whatever it 
was, had to continue. Jupiter said it had to last thirty 
years. The poor ass was in consternation. If Jupiter 
would reduce the thirty to ten he undertook to be patient, 
to be a good servant, and to do his work patiently. Jupiter 



A SPANISH FABLE 271 

reflected and consented, and the ass retired grateful and 
happy. 

The dog, who had been bom meanwhile, heard what 
had passed. He, too, went to Jupiter with the same ques- 
tion. He learnt that he also was a slave to men. In 
the day he was to catch their game for them, but was 
not to eat it himself. At night he was to be chained by a 
ring and to lie awake to guard their houses. His food was 
to be bones and refuse. Like the ass he was to have had 
thirty years of it, but on petition it was similarly ex- 
changed for ten. 

The monkey came next. His function, he was told, was 
to mimic humanity, to be led about by a string, and 
grimace and dance for men's amusement. He also remon- 
strated at the length of time, and obtained the same 
favour. 

Last came the man himself. Conscious of boundless 
-desires and, as he imagined, of boundless capabilities, he 
did not inquire what he was, or what he was to do. Those 
questions had been already answered by his vanity. He 
did not come to ask for anything, but to thank Jupiter for 
having created so glorious a being and to ascertain for how 
many ages he might expect to endure. The god replied 
ihat thirty years was the term aUotted to all personal 
•existences. 

* Only thirty years ! ' he exclaimed. * Only thirty 
years for such capacities as mine. Thirty years will be 
gone like a dream. Extend them! oh, extend them, 
gracious Jupiter, that I may have leisure to use the 
intellect which thou hast given me, search into the secrets 
of nature, do great and glorious actions, and serve and 
praise thee, my creator ! longer and more worthily.' 

The lip of the god curled Ughtly, and again he 
acquiesced. ' I have some spare years to dispose of,' he 
^d, ' of which others of my creatures have begged to be 



272 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

relieved. You shall have thirty years of your own. Prom 
thirty to fifty you shall have the ass's years, and labour 
and sweat for your support. From fifty to seventy you 
shall have the dog's years, and take care of the stuff, and 
snarl and growl at what younger men are doing. From 
seventy to ninety you shall have the monkey's years, and 
smirk and grin and make yourself ridiculous. After that 
you may depart.' 

I was going on to Cuba. The commodore had insisted 
on my spending my last days with him at Fort BoyaI» 
He undertook to see me on board the steamer as it passed 
out of the harbour. I have already described his quarters* 
The naval station has no colonial character except the 
climate, and it is English entirely. The officers are the 
servants of the Admiralty, not of the colonial government. 
Their interests are in their profession. They look to 
promotion in other parts of the world, and then* fanctions 
are on the ocean and not on the land. The commodore 
is captain of the guardship; but he has a commander 
under him and he resides on shore. Everyone employed 
in the dockyard, even down to his own household, \& 
rated on the ship*s books, consequently they are all men. 
There is not a woman servant about the place, save his 
lady's ladies' -maid. His daughters learn to take care of 
themselves, and are not brought up to find everything done 
for them. His boys are about the world in active service 
growing into useful and honourable manhood. 

Thus the whole Ufe tastes of the element to which it 
belongs, and is salt and healthy as the ocean itself. It 
was not without its entertainments. The officers of the 
garrison were to give a ball. The young ladies of Kingston 
are not afraid of the water, cross the harbour in the steam 
launches, dance till the small hours, return in the dark« 
drive their eight or ten miles home, and think nothing of 



AN AMERICAN YACHT 273 

it. In that climate, night is pleasanter to be abroad in 
than day. I could not stay to be present, but I was in the 
midst of the preparations, and one afternoon there was a 
prospect of a brilliant addition to the party. A yacht 
steamed inside the ^Foint — long, narrow, and swift as a 
torpedo boat. She carried American colours, and we heard 
that she was the famous vessel of the yet more famous 
Mr. Vanderbilt, who was on board with his family. Here 
was an excitement ! The commodore was ordered to call 
the instant that she was anchored. Invitations were pre- 
pared — all was eagerness. Alas! she did not anchor at 
aU. She learnt from the pilot that, the smallpox being 
in Jamaica, if any of her people landed there she would 
be quarantined in the other islands, and to the disap- 
pointment of everyone, even of myself, who would gladly 
have seen the great millionaire, she turned about and went 
off again to sea. 

I was very happy at the commodore's — low spirits not 
being allowed in that wholesome element. Decks were 
washed every morning as if at sea, i.e. every floor was 
scrubbed and scoured. It was an eternal washing day, 
lines of linen flying in the brisk sea breeze. The commodore 
was always busy making work if none had been found for 
him. He took me one day to see the rock spring where 
Bodney watered his fleet, as the great admiral describes in 
one of his letters, and from which Port Eoyal now draws its 
supply. The spring itself bursts full and clear out of the 
limestone rock close to the shore, four or five miles from 
Kingston. There is a natural basin, slightly improved by 
art, from which the old conduit pipes carry the stream to 
the sea. The tug eoi^s daily, fills its tanks, and returns. 
The commodore has tidied up the place, planted shrubs, 
and cleared away the bush ; but half the water at least, is 
still allowed to leak away, and turns the hollow below into 
an unwholesome swamp. It may be a necessity, but it is 

T 





THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

also a miafortime, that the officers at distant atations hold 
their appointments for so short a term. By the time that 
they have learnt what can or ought to be done, they are sent 
elsewhere, and their succeesor has to begin over again. 
The water in this spring, part of which is now worse than 
wasted and the rest carried laboriously in a vessel to Port 
Royal to be sold by measure to the people there, might be 
all conducted thither by pipes at small cost and trouble, 
were the commodore to remain a few years longer at Port 
Boyal. 

He is his own boatman, and we had some fine sails 
about the lagoon— the breeze always fresh and the surface 
always smooth. The shallow bays swarm with small fish, 
and it was a pretty thing to watch the pelicans devouring 
them. They gather in flocks, sweep and wheel in the air, 
and when they plunge they strike the water with a violence 
which one would expect would break their wings. They do 
not dive, but seize their prey with their long, broad bills, 
and seem never to miss. 

Between the ships and the barracks, there are many 
single men in Port Royal, for whom amusement has to be 
found if they are to be kept from drink. A canteen is pro- 
vided for them, with bowling alley, tennis court, beer in 
moderation, and a reading room, for such as like it, with 
reviews and magazines and newspapers. They can fish if 
they want sport, and there are sharks in plenty a cable's 
length from shore ; but the schoolmaster has been abroad, 
and tastes run in more refined directions. The blacks of 
Tobago acted ' The Merchant of Venice ' before Governor 

S . The ships' companies of the gunboats at Port 

Royal gave a concert while I was there. The officers took 
no part, and left the men to manage it as they pleased. 
The commodore brought his party ; the garrison, the crews 
of the other ships, and stray visitors came, and the large 
room at the canteen was completely full. The taste of the 



h 



A SAILORS CONCERT 275 

audience was curious. Dibdin was off the boards altogether, 
and favour was divided between the London popular comic 
song and the Hentimental — no longer with any flavour of 
salt about it, but the sentimental spoony and sickly. ' She 
wore a wreath of roses ' called out the highest enthusiasm. 
One of the performers recited a long poem of his own about 
Mary Stuart, ' the lovely and unfortunate.' Then followed 
the buffoonery ; and this was at least genuine rough and 
tumble if there was little wit in it, A lad capered about on 
a tournament horse which flung him every other moment. 
Various persons pretended to be drunk, and talked and 
staggered as drunken men do. Then there was a farce, 
how conceived and by what kind of author I was puzzled to 
make out. A connoisseur of art is looking for Greek an- 
tiques. He has heard that a statue has recently been dis- 
covered of ' Ajax quarrelling with his mother-in-law.' What 
Ajax was quarrelling about or who his mother-in-law might 
be does not appear. A couple of rogues, each unknown to 
the other, practise on the connoisseur's credulity. Each 
promises him the statue ; each dresses up a confederate on 
a pedestal with a modern soldier's helmet and a blanket to 
represent a Greek hero. The two figures are shown to him. 
One of them, I forget how, contrived to pass as Ajax ; the 
other had turned into Hercules doing something to the Stym- 
phalides. At last they get tired of standing to be looked 
at, jump down, and together knock over the connoisseur. 
Ajax then turns on Hercules, who, of course, is ready for a 
row. They £ght till they are tired, and then make it up 
over a whisky bottle. 

80 entirely new an asjiect of the British tar took me by 
surprise, and I speculated whether the inventors and per- 
formers of this astonishing drama were an advance on the 
Ben Bunting type. I was, of course, inclined to say no, 
hut my tendency is to dislike changes, and I allow for it. 
The commodore said that in certain respects there really 



^M 



276 TffE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

wa8 an advance. The seamen fell into few scrapes, and 
they did not get drunk so often. This was a hardy asser- 
tion of the commodore, as a good many of them were dnmk 
at that moment. I could see myself that they were better 
educated. If Ben Bantmg had been asked who Ajax and 
Hercules were, he would have taken them to be three- 
deckers which were so named, and his knowledge would 
have gone no farther. Whether they were better sailors 
and braver and truer men was another question. They 
understand their rights much better, if that does any good 
to them. The officers used to be treated with respect at 
all times and seasons. This is now qualified. When they 
are on duty, the men are as respectful as they used to be ; 
when they are off duty, the commodore himself is only old 
H- — . 

We returned to the dockyard in a boat under a fall 
moon, the guardship gleaming white in the blue midnight 
and the phosphorescent water flashing under the oars. 
The ' Dee,' which was to take me to Havana, was off Port 
Koyal on the following morning. The commodore put me 
on hoard in his gig, with the white ensign floating over the 
stern. I took leave of him with warm thanks for his own 
and his family's hospitable entertainment of me. The screw 
went round^we steamed away out of the harbour, and 
Jamaica and the kind friends whom I had found there 
faded out of sight. Jamaica was the last of the English 
West India Islands which I visited. I was to see it again, 
hut I will here set down the impressions which had been left 
upon me by what I had seen there and seen in the Antilles. 



to 



A PATRIOTIC JAMAICAN 



CHAPTER XVn. 

Present Btate ol Jamaica — Teat of progiess —BeBouioeB of the iaUnd — 
Political altemativeH — Black Bopremac; and probable consei]Ueiioe& — 
The West iDdian problem. 

As I waa stepping into the boat at Port Royal, a pamphlet 
waa thrust into my hand, which I was entreated to read 
at my leisure. It waa hy some discontented white of the 
island — no rare phenomenon, and the subject of it was the 
precipitate decline in the value of property there. The 
writer, unlike the planters, insisted that the people were taxed 
in proportion to their industry. There were taxes on mules, 
on cai-ts, on donkeys, all bearing on the small black pro- 
prietors, whose ability to cultivate was thus checked, and who 
were thus deliberately encouraged in idleness. He might 
have added, although he did not, that while both in Jamaica 
and Trinidad everyone is clamouring against the beetroot 
bounty which artificially lowers the price of sugar, the local 
councils in these two islands try to counteract the effect 
and artiUcially raise the price of sugar by an export duty 
on their own produce — a singular method of doing it which, 
I presume, admits of explanation. My pamphleteer waa 
persuaded that all the world were fools, and that he and 
his friends were the only wise ones : again a not uncommon 
occurrence in pamphleteers. He demanded the suppression 
of absenteeism ; he demanded free trade. In exchange for 
the customs duties, which were to be abohshed, he de- 
manded a land tax — the very jnention of wliich, I had been 
told by others, drove the black proprietors whom he wished 
to benetit into madness. He wanted Home Rule. He 



978 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

wanted fifty things besides which I have forgotten, but his 
grand want of all was a new currency. Mankind, he 
thought, had been very mad at all periods of their history. 
The most significant illustration of their mEtdnesB had been 
the selection of gold and silver as the medium of exchange. 
The true base of the currency was the land. The Govern- 
ment of Jamaica was to lend to every freeholder up to the 
mortgage value of his land in paper notes, at 5 per cent. 
interest, the current rate being at present 8 per cent. The 
notes so issued, having the land as their security, would be 
in no danger of depreciation, and they would flow over the 
sugar estates like an irrigating stream. On the produce of 
sugar the fate of the island depended. 

On the produce of sugar ? And why not on the produce 
of a fine race of men ? The prospects of Jamaica, the 
prospects of all countries, depend not on sugar or on Einy 
form or degree of material wealth, but on the characters 
of the men and women whom they are breeding and rear- 
ing. Where there are men and women of a noble nature, 
the rest will go well of itself ; where these are not, there 
will be no true prosperity though the sugar hogsheads be 
raised from thousands into miUions. The colonies are 
interesting only as offering homes where English people 
can increase and multiply ; English of the old type with 
simple habits, who do not need imported luxuries. There 
is room even in the West Indies for hundreds of thousands 
of them if they can be contented to lead human lives, and 
do not go there to make fortunes which they are to carry 
home with them. The time may not be far off when men 
will be sick of making fortimes, sick of being ground to 
pattern in the commonplace mill-wheel of modern society ; 
sick of a state of things which blights and kills simple and 
original feeling, which makes us think and speak and act 
under the tyranny of general opinion, which masqueradea 
as liberty and means only submission to the newspapers. 



1 



idea ■ 

H 



CAPABILITIES 

I can conceive some modern men may weary of all this, 
and retire from it like the old ascetics, not as they did into 
the wilderness, but behind their own walls and hedges, 
shutting out the world and its noises, to inquire whether 
after all they have really immortal soiils, and if thej have 
what ought to be done about them. The West India 
Islands, with their inimitable climate and soil and prickly 
pears ad libitum to make fences with, would be fine places 
for such recluses. Failing these ideal personages, there is 
work enough of the common sort to create wholesome pro- 
sperity. There are oranges to be grown, and pines and 
plantains, and coffee and cocoa, and rice and indigo and 
tobacco, not to speak of the dollars which my American 
friend found in the bamboos, and of the further dollars 
which other Americans will find in the yet untested 
quahtiea of thousands of other productions. Here are 
opportunities for innocent industrious families, where 
children can be brought up to be manly and simple and 
true and brave as their fathers were brought up, as their 
fathers expressed it * in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord,' while such neighbours as their dark brothers-in- 
law might have a chance of a rise in life, in the only sense 
in which a ' rise ' can be of real benefit to them. These 
are the objects which statesmen who have the care and 
conduct of a nation's welfare ought to set before them- 
selves, and unfortunately they are the last which are 
remembered in countries which are popularly governed. 
There is a clamour for education in such countries, bat 
education means to them only the sharpening of the facul- 
ties for the competitive race which is called progress. In 
democracies no one man is his brother's keeper. Each 
lives and struggles to make his own way and his own posi- 
tion. All that is insisted on is that there shall be a fair 
stage and that every lad shall learn the use of the weapons 
which will enable him to fight his own way. 'AperjJ, ' manli- 



28o THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

ness,' the moBt essential of all acquisitiooB and the hardest 
to cultivate, as Aristotle observed long ago, is assumed in 
democracies as a matter of course. Of a.psTr\ a moderate 
quantity {fiiroaovovv) would do, and in Aristotle's opinion 
this was the rock on which the Greek repubUca foundered. 
Their uper^ did not come as a matter of course, and they 
lost it, and the Macedonians and the Romans ate them up. 
From this point of view political problems, and the 
West Indian among them, present unusual aspects. Look- 
ing to the "West Indies only, we took possession of those 
islands when they were of supreme importance in our great 
wrestle with Spain and France. We were iighting_then 

1 for the liberties ^f the human race. The Spaniards had 
destroyed the original Carib and Indian inhabitants. We 
induced thousands of our own fellow-countrymen to venture 
hfe and fortune in the occupation of our then vital con- 
quests. For two centuries we furnished them with black 
servants whom we purchased on the African coast and 
carried over and sold there, making our own profits out 
of the trade, and the colonists prospered themselves and 
poured wealth and strength into the empire of which they 

i were then an integral part. A change passed over the 
spirit of the age. Liberty assumed a new dress. We 
found slavery to be a crime ; we released our bondmen ; 
we broke their chains as we proudly described it to our- 
selves ; we compensated the owners, so far as money could 
compensate, for the entire dislocation of a state of society 
which we had ourselves created ; and we trusted to the en- 
chantment of liberty to create a better in its place. We had 
delivered our own souls ; we had other colonies to take our 
emigrants. Other lands under our open trade would supply 
us with the commodities for which we had hitherto been de- 
pendent on the West Indies. They ceased to be of com- 
mercial, they ceased to be of political, moment to us, and we 
left them to their own resources. The modern English idea 



J 



THEORY OF COLONIAL MANAGEMENT, 281 

is that every one must take care of himself, Indiyidnala 
or aggregates of individuals have the world before them, to 
open the oyster or fail to open it according to their capa- 
bilities. The 8tate is not to help them ; the State is not to 
interfere with them unless for political or party reasons it 
happens to be convenient. As we treat ourselves we treat 
our colonies. Those who have gone thither have gone of 
their own &ee will, and must take the consequences of their 
own actions. "We allow them no exceptional privilegeB 
which we do not claim for ourselves. They must stand, if 
they are to stand, by their own strength. If they cannot 
stand they must fall. This is our notion of education 
in ' manliness,' and for immediate purposes answers well 
enough. Individual enterprise, unendowed but unfettered, 
built the main buttresses of the British colonial empire. 
Australians and New Zealanders are English and Scotch- 
men who have settled at the antipodes where there is more 
room for them than at home. They are the same people 
as we are, and they have the same privileges as we have. 
They are parts of one and the same organic body as 
branches from the original trunk. The branch does not 
part from the trunk, but it discharges its own vital func- 
tions by its own energy, and we no more desire to interfere 
than London desires to interfere with Manchester. 

80 it stands with us where the colonists are of our race, y 
■with the same character and the same objects ; and, as I 
8aid, the system answers. Under no other relations could 
we continue a united people. But it does not answer — it 
has failed wherever we have tried it — when the majority of 
the inhabitants of countries of which for one or other 
reason we have possessed ourselves, and of which we keep 
possession, are not united to us by any of these natural , 
bonds, where they have been annexed by violence or other- 
wise been forced under our flag. It has failed con- 
spicaoosly in Ireland. We know that it would fail in the 



J 



282 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

East Indies if we were rash enough to venture the experi-- 
ment. Self-government in connection with the British 
Empire implies a desire or a willingness in those who are 
so left to themselves that the connection shall continue. 
We have been so sanguine as to believe that the privilege 
of being British subjects is itself sufficient to secure their 
allegiance ; that the Uberties which we concede will not be 
used for purposes which we are unable to tolerate ; that, 
being left to govern themselves, they will govern in har- 
mony with English interests and according to English ! 
principles. The privilege is not estimated so highly. 
They go their own way and not our way, and therefore 
we must look facts in the face as they are, and not as we 
wish them to be. If we extend to Ireland the indepen- 
dence which only links us closer to Australia, Ireland will 
use it to break away from us. If we extend it to Bengal and 
Madras and Bombay, we shall fling them into anarchy and 
' bring our empire to an end. We cannot for our safety's 
sake part with Ireland. We do not mean to part with our 
Asiatic dominions. The reality of the relation in both cases 
is the superior force of England, and we must rely upon it 
^and need not try to conceal that we do, till by the excel- 
lence of our administration we have converted submission 
into respect and respect into willingness for union. This 
may be a long process and a difficult one. If we choose to 
n^t^ ou^'lpl™, however, we m^i pay the price for 
it, and it is wiser, better, safer, in all cases to admit the 
truth and act upon it. Yet Englishmen so love liberty 
that they struggle against confessing what is disagreeable 
to them. Many of us would give Ireland, would give India 
Home Bule, and run the risk of what would happen, and 
only a probability, which reaches certainty, of the conse- 
quences to be expected to follow prevents us from imani- 
mously agreeing. About the West Indies we do not care 
very earnestly. Nothing seriously alarming can happen 



THE WEST INDIAN PROBLEM 



aSj 



there. So mach, therefore, of the general policy of leaving 
them to help themselves out of then- difficulties we have 
adopted completely. The corollary that they must govern 
themselves also on their own reBponsibilities we hesitate as 
yet to admit completely ; but we do not recognise that any 
responsibiUty for their failing condition rests on us ; and 
the inclination certainly, and perhaps the purpose, is to 
throw them entirely upon themselves at the earUest 
moment. Cuba sends representatives to the Cortes at 
Madrid, Martinique and Guadaloupe to the Assembly at 
Paris. In the English islands, being unwiUing to govern 
without some semblance of a constitution, we try tentatively 
varieties of local Ijoards and local councils, admitting the 
elective principle but not daring to trust it fully ; creating 
hybrid constitutions, so contrived as to provoke ill feeling 
where none would exist without them, and to make im> 
possible any tolerable government which could actively 
benefit the people. We cannot intend that arrangements 
the effects of which are visible so plainly in the sinking 
fortunes of our own kindred there, are to continue for ever. 
We suppose that we cannot go back in these cases. It is 
to be presumed, therefore, that we mean to go forward, and 
in doing so I venture to think myself that we shall be doing 
equal mjustice both to our own race and to the blacks, and 
we shall bring the islands into a condition which will be a 
reproach and scandal to the empire of which they will re- 
main a dishonoured part. The slave tratle was an imperial 
monopoly, extorted by force, guaranteed by treaties, and our 
white West Indian interest was built up in connection 
with and in reliance upon it. We had a right to set the 
slaves free; but the payment of the indemnity was no \{ 
full acquittance of our obligations for the condition of i 
a society which we had ourselves created. We have no 
more right to make the emancipated slave his master's 
master in virtue of his numbers than we have a right to 



a84 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

lay under the heel of the CatholicB of Ireland the Protes- 
tant minority whom we planted there to assist ub in con- 
trolling them. 

It may be said that we have no intention of doing any- 
thing of the kind, that no one at present dreams of giving 
a full colonial constitution to the West IndiEin Islands. 
They are allowed such freedom as they are capable of 
using ; they can be allowed more as they are better edu- 
cated and more fit for it, &c. &c. 

One knows all that, and one knows what it ia worth in 
the half-elected, half-nominated councils. Either the no- 
minated members are introduced merely as a drag upon the 
wheel, and are instructed to yield in the end to the demands 
of the representative members, or they are themselves the 
representatives of the white minority. If the Erst, the 
majority rule already ; if the second, such constitutions are 
contrived ingeniously to create the largest amount of irri- 
tation, and to make impossible, as long as they last, any 
form of effective and useful government. Therefore they 
cannot last, and are not meant to last. A principle once 
conceded develops with the same certainty with which a seed 
grows when it ia sown. In the English world, as it now 
stands, there is no middle alternative between self-govern- 
ment and government by the Crown, and the cause of our 
reluctance to undertake direct chai-ge of the West Indies 
is because such undertaking carries responsibiUty along 
with it. If they are brought so close to us we shall be 
obliged to exert ourselves, and to rescue them from a 
condition which would be a reproach to us, 

|The English of those islands are melting away. 
That is a fact to which it is idle to try to shut our 
eyes. Families who have been for generations on the soil 
are selling their estates everywhere and are going off. 
Lands once under high cultivation are lapsing into jungle. 
Professional men of abihty and ambition carry their 



THE WEST INDIAN PROBLEM 

talents to countries where they are rnore sure of reward. 
Every year the census renews its warning. The rate may 
vary ; sometimes for a. year or two there may seem to be a 
pause in the movement, but it begins again and is always in 
the same direction. The white is relatively disappearing, the 
black is growing ; this is the fact with which we have to deal. 

We may say if we please, ' Be it so then ; we do not 
want those islands ; let the blacks have them, poor devils. 
They have had wrongs enough in this world ; let them 
take their turn and have a good time now.' This I 
imagine is the answer which will rise to the lips of i 
of us, yet it will be an answer which will not be for our 
honour, nor in the long run for our interest. Our stronger 
colonies will scarcely attach more value to their connection 
with us if they hear us declare impatiently that because 
part of our possessions have ceased to be of money value 
to UB, we will not or we cannot take the trouble to provide 
them with a decent government, and therefore cast them 
off. Nor in the long run will it benefit the blacks either. 
The islands will not be allowed to run wild again, and if 
we leave them some one else will take them who will be 
less tender of his coloured brother's sensibilities. We may 
think that it would not come to that. The islands will 
still be ours ; the English flag will still float over the 
forts ; the government, whatever it be, will be administered 
in the Queen's name. Were it worth while, one might 
draw a picture of the position of an English governor, with 
a black parliament and a black ministry, recommending 
by advice of his constitutional ministers some measure like 
the Haytian Land Law. 

No EngUshman, not even a bankrupt peer, would 
consent to occupy such a position ; the blacks themselves 
would despise him if he did ; and if the governor is to be 
one of their own race and colour, how long coold such a 
cooneetion endure ? 



386 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

No one I presume would advise that the whites of the 
islands should govern. The relations between the two 
populations are too embittered, and equality once esta- 
blished by law, the exclusive privilege of colour over colour 
cannot be restored. While slavery continued the whites 
ruled effectively and economically ; the blacks are now free 
as they; there are two classes in the community; their 
interests are opposite as they are now understood, and one 
cannot be trusted with control over the other. As little 
can the present order of things continue. The West (vx 
India Islands, once the pride of our empire, the scene of wT 
our most brilliant achievements, are passing away out of 
our hands ; the remnant of our own countrymen, weary of 
an unavailing struggle, are more and more eager to with- 
Idraw from it, because they find no sympathy and no 
encouragement from home, and are forbidden to accept 
nelp from America when help is offered them, while 
imder their eyes their quondam slaves are multiplying, 
thriving, occupying, growing strong, and every day more 
conscious of the changed order of things. One does not 
grudge the black man his prosperity, his freedom, . his 
opportunities of advancing himself; one would wish to 
see him as free and prosperous as the fates and his own 
exertions can make him, with more and more means of 
raising himself to the white man's level. But left to 
himself, and without the white man to lead him, he can 
never reach it, and if we are not to lose the islands 
altogether, or if they are not to remain with us to discredit 
our capacity to rule them, it is left to us only to take the 
same course which we have taken in the East Indies with 
such magnificent success, and to govern whites and blacks 
alike on the Indian system. The circumstances are pre- 
cisely analogous. We have a population to deal with, the 
enormous majority of whom are of an inferior race. 
Inferior, I am obliged to call them, because as yet, and as 



THE INDIAN ANALOGY 287 

a body, they have shown no capacity to rise above the \ j 
-condition of their anceatoTA -eseept-oipder European laws, ^ 
lluropean education, and European authority, to keep 
thenTltroin making ^war on one another. They are docile, ( 
good-tempered, excellent and faithful servants when they ; 
> are kindly treated ; but their notions of right and wrong 
iare scarcely even elementary ; their education, such as it 
I may be, is but skin deep, and the old African superstitions 
lie undisturbed at the bottom of their souls. Give them 
independence, and in a few generations they will peel oflf 
such civilisation as they have learnt as easily and as 
x^rillingly as their coats and trousers. 

Govern them as we govern India, with the same con- 
scientious care, with the same sense of responsibility, with 
the same impartiality, the same disinterested attention to 
the well-being of our subjects in its highest and most 
honourable sense, and we shall give the world one more 
evidence thaJL while Englishmen can cover the waste places 
of it with feee communities of their own blood, thfey can 
exert an influence no less beneficent as the guides and rulers ^ 
of those who need their assistance, and whom fate and cir- 
cumstances have assigned to their care. Our kindred far 
away will be more than ever proud to form part of a nation 
which has done more for freedom than any other nation 
ever did, yet is not a slave to formulas, and can adapt its 
actions to the demands of each community which belongs 
to it. The most timid among us may take courage, for it 
would cost us nothing save the sacrifice of a few official 
traditions, and an abstinence for the future from doubtful 
uses of colonial patronage. The blacks will be perfectly 
happy when they are satisfied that they have nothing to 
fear for their persons or their properties. To the whites it 
would be the opening of a new era of hope. Should they 
be rash enough to murmur, they might then be justly left 
to the consequences of their own folly. 



388 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTER XVin. 

Passage to Cuba — A Canadian commissioner — Havana — The Moro — The 
city and harbour — Cuban money — ^American visitors — The cathedral — 
Tomb of Columbus — New friends—The late rebellion — Slave emancipa- 
tion — Spain and progress — A bull fight. 

I HAD gone to the West Indies to see our own colonies, but 
I could not leave those famous seas which were the scene 
of our ocean duels with the Spaniards without a visit 
to the last of the great possessions of Philip II. which 
remained to his successors. I ought not to say the last, 
for Puerto Bico is Spanish also, but this small island is 
J insignificant and has [tu> I'mpnyfaTitf Hlftmo riPfl fi onn^Mjg^ 
with it. Puerto Bico I had no leisure to look at and did not 
care about, and to see Cuba as it ought to be seen required 
more time than I could afford ; but Havana was so interest- 
ing, both from its associations and its present condition, 
that I could not be within reach of it and pass it by. The 
body of Columbus lies there for one thing, unless a trick 
was played when the remains which were said to be hia 
were removed from St. Domingo, and I wished to pay my 
orisons at his tomb. I wished also to see the race of men 
who have shared the New World with the Anglo- Saxons^ 
and have given a language and a religion to half the Ame- 
rican continent, in the oldest and most celebrated of their 
Transatlantic cities. 

Cuba also had an immediate and present interest. 
Before the American civil war it was on the point of being 
absorbed into the United States. The Spanish Cubans had 
afterwards a civil war of their own, of which only confused 



THE SPANIARDS IN AMERICA 289 

accounts had reached us at home. We knew that it had 
lasted ten years, but who had been the parties and what 
their objects had been was very much a mystery. No 
sooner was it over than, without reservation or compensa- 
tion, the slaves had been emancipated. How a coimtry 
was prospering which had undergone such a succession of 
shocks, and how the Spaniards were dealing with the trials 
which were bearing so hard on our own islands, were in- 
quiries worth making. But beyond these it was the land 
of romance. Columbus and Las Gasas, Gortez and Pizarro, 
are the demigods and heroes of the New World. Their 
names will be familiar to the end of time as the founders 
of a new era, and although the modern Spaniards sink to 
the level of the modern Greeks, their illustrious men will 
hold their place for ever in imagination and memory. 

Our own Antilles had, as I have said, in their terror 
of smallpox, placed Jamaica under an interdict. The 
Spaniards at Guba were more generous or more careless. 
Havana is on the north side of the island, facing towards 
Florida ; thus, in going to it from Port Boyal, we had to 
round the westernmost cape, and had four days of sea 
before us. We slid along the coast of Jamaica in smooth 
water, the air, while day lasted, intensely hot, but the 
breeze after nightfall blowing cool from off the moim- 
tains. We had a poUte captain, polite officers, and agree- 
able fellow-passengers, two or three Gubans among them, 
swarthy, dark-eyed, thick-set men — Americanos ; Spaniards 
with a difference — with whom I cultivated a kind of inti- 
macy. In a cabin it was reported that there were again 
Spanish ladies on their way to the demonic gaieties at 
Darien, but they did not show. 

Among the rest of the party was a Canadian gentleman, 

a Mr. , exceptionally well-informed and intelligent. 

Their American treaty having been disallowed, the West 
Indies had proposed to negotiate a similar one with the 

u 



290 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Canadian Dominion. The authorities at Ottawa had sent 

Mr. M to see if anything could be done, and Mr. M 

was now on his way home, not in the best of humours with 
our poor relations. * The Jamaicans did not know what 
they wanted,' he said. ' They were without spirit to help 
themselves ; they cried out to others to help them, and if 
all they asked could not be granted they clamoured as if 
the whole world was combining to hurt them. There was 
not the least occasion for these passionate appeals to the 
universe; they could not at this moment perhaps "go 
ahead *' as fast as some countries, but there was no neces- 
sity to be always going ahead. They had a fine country, 
soil and climate all that could be desired, they had all that 
was required for a quiet and easy life, why could they not 
be contented and make the best of things ? ' Unfortunate \ 
Jamaicans ! The old mother at home acts like an unnatural / / 
parent, and will neitEerTieTp them nor let their Cousin j 
Jonathan help them. They turn for comfort to their big 
brother in the north, and the big brother being himself 
robust and healthy, gives them wholesome advice. 

Adventures do occasionally happen at sea even in this 
age of steam engines. Ships catch fire or run into each 
other, or go on rocks in fogs, or are caught in hurricanes, 
and Nature can still assume her old terrors if she pleases. 
Shelley describes a wreck on the coast of Cornwall, and 
the treacherous waters of the ocean in the English Channel, 
now wild in fury, now smiling 

As on the mom 
When the exulting elements in scorn 
Satiated with destroyed destruction lay 
Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, 
As panthers sleep. 

The wildest gale which ever blew on British shores was 
a mere summer breeze compared to a West Indian tornado. 
Behind all that beauty there lies the temper and caprice. 



HAVANA 291 

not of a panther, but of a woman. But no tornados fell in 
our way, nor anything else worth mentioning, not even a 
buccaneer or a pirate. We saw the islands which these 
gentry haunted, and the headlands made memorable by 
their desperate deeds, but they are gone, even to the re- 
membrance of them. What they were and what they did 
lies buried away in book mausoleums like Egyptian mum- 
mies, all as clean forgotten as if they had been honest men, 
they and all the wild scenes which these green estuaries 
had witnessed. 

Havana figures much in English naval history. Drake 
tried to take it and failed ; Penn and Yenables failed. We 
stormed the forts in 1760, and held them and held the city 
till the Seven Years' War was over. I had read descrip- 
tions of the place, but they had given me no clear concep- 
tion of what it would be like, certainly none at all of what 
it was like. Kingston is the best of our West Indian towns, 
and ILingston has not one fine building in it. Havana is a 
city of palaces, a city of streets and plazas, of colonnades, 
and towers and churches and monasteries. We English 
have built in those islands as if we were but passing visitors, 
wanting only tenements to be occupied for a time. The 
Spaniards built as they built in Castile ; built with the 
same material, the white limestone which]they found in the 
New World as in the Old. The palaces of the nobles in 
Havana, the residence of the governor, the convents, the 
cathedral, are a reproduction of Burgos or Valladolid, as if 
by some Aladdin's lamp a Gastilian city had been taken up 
and set down again unaltered on the shore of the Caribbean 
Sea. And they carried with them ]11ieir laws, their habits, 
their institutions and their creed, their religious orders, 
their bishops, and their Inquisition. Even now in her day 
of eclipse, when her genius is clouded by the modern spirit 
against which she fought so long and so desperately, the 
sons of Spain still build as they used to build, and the 

u 2 



I 



392 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

modern squares and market places, the castles and fortresBes, 
which have risen in and round the ancient Havana, are 
constructed on the old massive model, and on the same 
lines. However it may be with ue, and whatever the 
eventual fate of Cuba, the Spanish race has taken root 
there, and is visibly destined to remain. They have poured 
their own people into it. In Cuba alone there are ten times 
as many Spaniards as there Eire English and Scotch in all 
our West Indies together, and Havana is ten times the 
size of the largest of our West Indian cities. Refugees 
have flocked thither from the revolution in the Peninsula. 
The Canary Islands overflow into it. You know the people 
from Teneriffe by their stature ; they are the finest survi- 
ving specimens of the old conquering breed. The political 
future is dark ; the government is unimaginably eormpt 
— 80 corrupt that change is inevitable, though what change 
it would be idle tu prophesy. The Americans looked at the 
island which lay so temptingly near them, but they were 
wise in their generation. They reflected that to introduce 
into an Anglo-Saxon republic so insoluble an element as a 
million Spanish Roman Catholics alien in blood and creed, 
with half a million blacks to swell the dusky flood which 
rune too full among them already, would be to invite an 
indigestion of serious consequence. A few years since the 
Cubans bom were on the eve of achieving their indepen- 
dence like their brothers in Mexico and South America. 
Perhaps they will yet succeed. Spanish, at any rate, they 
are to the bone and marrow, and Spanish they will continue. 
The magnitude of Havana, and the fullness of life which 
was going on there, entirely surprised me. I had thought 
of Cuba as a decrepit state, bankrupt or finance-exhausted 
by civil wars, and on the edge of social dissolution, and 
I found Havana at least a grand imposing city — a ci^ 
which might compare for beauty with any in the world. ( 
The sanitary condition is as bad as negligence can make it J 




THE MORO 293 

— so bad that a Spanish gentleman told me that if it were 
not for the natural purity of the air they would have been 
all dead like flies long ago. The tideless harbour is fool 
with the accumulations of three hundred years. The ad* 
ministration is more good-for-nothing than in Spain itself. 
If, in spite of this, Havana still sits like a queen upon 
the waters, there are some qualities to be found among 
her people which belonged to the countrymen and subjects 
of Ferdinand the Catholic. 

The coast line from Cape Tiburon has none of the 
grand aspects of the Antilles or Jamaica. Instead of 
mountains and forests you see a series of undulating hills, 
cultivated with tolerable care, and sprinkled with farm- 
houses. All the more imposing, therefore, from the absenw 
of marked natural forms, are the walls and towers of the 
great Moro, the fortress which defends the entrance of the 
harbour. Ten miles off it was already a striking object. 
As we ran nearer it rose above us stern, proud, and defiant, 
upon a rock right above the water, with high frowning 
bastions, the lighthouse at an angle of it, and the Spanish 
banner floating proudly from a turret which overlooked the 
■whole. The Moro as a fortification is, I am told, indefen- 
sible against modern artillery, presenting too much surface 
as a target ; but it is all the grander to look at. It is a fine 
specimen of the Vauban period, and is probably equal to 
any demands which will be made upon it. The harl)our is 
something like Port Boyal, a deep lagoon with a narrow 
entrance and a long natural breakwater between the lagoon 
and the ocean ; but what at Port Royal is a sand spit eight 
miles long, is at Havana a rocky peninsula on which the 
city itself is built. The opening from the sea is half a 
mile wide. Cn the city side there are low semicircular 
batteries which sweep completely the approaches and the 
passage itself. The Moro rises opposite at the extreme 
point of the entrance, and next to it, briber in towarda 




294 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

the harbour on the aamt; Bide, on the crest and slopes of a 
range of hills, stands the old Moro, the original castle 
which beat off Drake and OHver'a sea-generals, and which 
was captured by the English in the last century. The 
lines were probably weaker than they are at present, and 
less adequately manned. A monument is erected there to 
the officers and men who fell in the defence. 

The city as we steamed by looked singularly beauti- 
ful, with its domes and steeples and marble palaces, and 
glimpses of long boulevards and trees and handsome man- 
sions and cool arcades. Inside we found ourselves in a 
basin, perhaps of three miles diameter, full of shipping ot 
all sorts and nationalities. The water, which outside is 
pure as sapphire, has become filthy with the pollutions of 
a dozen generations. The tide, which even at the springs 
has but a rise and fall of a couple of feet, is totally in- 
effective to clear it, and as long as they have the Virgin 
Mary to pray to, the pious Spaniards will not drive their 
sewage into the ocean. The hot san rays stream down 
into the thick black liquid. Horrible smells are let loose 
from it when it is set in motion by screw or paddle, and 
ships bring up at mooring buoya lest their anchors should 
disturb the compost which lies at the bottom. Yet one 
forgot the disagreeables in the novelty and striking character 
of the scene. A hundred boats were plying to and fro 
among the various vessels, with their white sails and white 
awnings. Flags of all countries were blowing out at stem 
or from masthead ; among them, of course, the stars and 
stripes flying jauntily on some splendid schooner which 
stood there like a cock upon a dunghill that might be his 
own if he chose to crow for it. 

As soon as we had brought up we were boarded by the 
inevitable hotel touters, custom-house officers, porters, and 
boatmen. Interpreters offered thefr services in the con- 
fusion of languages. Gradually there emerged out 



of the ^ 



LANDING EMBARRASSMENTS 295 

general noise two facts of importance. First, that I onght 
to have had a passport, and if I had not brought one that I 
was likely to be fined at the discretion of Spanish officials. 
Secondly, that if I trusted to my own powers of self-defence, 
I should be the victim of indefinite other extortions. Pass- 
port I had none — such things are not required any longer 
in Spain, and it had not occurred to me that they might 
still be in demand in a Spanish colony. As to being 
cheated, no one could or would tell me what I was to pay 
for anything, for there were American dollars, Spanish 
dollars, Mexican dollars, and Cuban dollars, all different 
and with fractions of each. And there were multiples of 
dollars in gold, and single dollars in silver, and last and 
most important of all there was the Cuban paper dollar, 
which was 280 per cent, below the value of the Cuban gold 
dollar. And in this last the smaller transactions of common 
life were carried on, the practical part of it to a stranger 
being that when you had to receive you received in paper, 
and when you had to pay you paid in specie. 

I escaped for the time the penalty which would have 
been inflicted on me about the passport. I had a letter of 
introduction to the Captain-General of the island, and the 
Captain-General — so the viceroy is called — was so formid- 
able a person that the officials did not venture to meddle 
with me. For the rest I was told that as soon as I had 
chosen my hotel, the agent, who was on board, would see 
me through all obstructions, and would not allow me to be 
plundered by anyone but himself. To this I had to sub- 
mit. I named an hotel at random ; a polite gentleman in 
a few moments had a boat alongside for me ; I had stept 
into it when the fair damsels bound for Darien, who had 
been concealed all this time in their cabin, slipped down 
the ladder and took their places at my side, to the no small 
entertainment of the friends whom I had left on board and 
who were watching us from the deck. 



296 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

At the wharf I was able to shake off my companions^ 
and I soon forgot the misadventure, for I found myself in 
Old Castile once more, amidst Spanish faces, Spanish voices, 
Spanish smells, and Spanish scenes. On the very wharf 
itself was a church grim and stem, and so massive that it 
would stand, barring earthquakes, for a thousand years. 
Church, indeed, it was no longer ; it had been turned into 
a custom-house. But this was because it had been dese- 
crated when we were in Havana by having an EngUsh 
service performed in it. They had churches enough with- 
out it, and they preferred to leave this one with a mark 
upon it of the anger of the Almighty. Of churches, indeed, 
there was no lack; churches thick as public-houses in a 
Welsh town. Church beyond church, palace beyond palace, 
the narrow streets where neighbours on either side mi^t 
shake hands out of the upper stories, the deep colonnades, 
the private houses with the windows grated towards the 
street, with glimpses through the street door into the court 
and garden within, with its cloisters, its palm trees, and its 
fountains ; the massiveness of the stonework, the curious 
old-fashioned bookstalls, the dirt, the smell, the carriages, 
the swearing drivers, the black-robed priest gUding along 
the footway — it was Toledo or YalladoUd again with the 
sign manual on it of Spain herself in friendly and familiar 
form. Every face that I saw was Spanish. In Kingston or 
Port of Spain you meet fifty blacks for one European ; all 
the manual work is done by them. In Havana the pro- 
portion is reversed, you hardly see a coloured man at alL 
Boatmen, porters, cab-drivers or cart-drivers, every one of 
whom are negroes in our islands, are there Spaniards, either 
Cuban bom or emigrants from home. A few black beg- 
gars there were — permitted, as objects of charity to pious 
Catholics and as a sign of their inferiority of race. Of 
poverty among the whites, real poverty that could be 
felt, I saw no sign at all. 



AMERICAN VISITORS 297 

After driving for about a mile we emerged out of the 
old town into a large square and thence into a wide Ala- 
meda or boulevard with double avenues of trees, statues, 
fountains, theatres, clubhouses, and all the various equip- 
ments of modem luxuriousness and so-called civiUsed life. 
Beyond the Alameda was another still larger square, one 
side of which was a railway station and terminus. In a 
colonnade at right angles was the hotel to which I had 
been recommended ; spacious, handsome, in style half 
Parisian half Spanish, like the Fondas in the Puerto del 
Sol at Madrid. 

Spanish was the language generally spoken ; but there 
were interpreters and waiters more or less accomplished in 
other tongues, especially in EngUsh, of which they heard 
enough, for I found Havana to be the winter resort of our 
American cousins, who go, generally, to Cuba as we go to 
the Biviera, to escape the ice and winds of the eastern and 
middle States. This particular hotel was a favourite resort, 
and was full to overflowing with them. It was large, with 
an interior quadrangular garden, into which looked tiers of 
windows ; and wings had been thrown out with terraced 
roofs, suites of rooms opening out upon them ; each floor 
being provided with airy sitting rooms and music rooms. 
Here were to be heard at least a hundred American voices 
discussing the experiences and plans of their owners. The 
men lounged in the hall or at the bar, or sat smoking on 
the rows of leather chairs under the colonnade, or were 
under the hands of barbers or haircutters in an airy open 
saloon devoted to these uses. When I retreated upstairs 
to collect myself, a lady was making the corridors ring 
close by as she screamed at a piano in the middle of an 
admiring and criticising crowd. Dear as the Americans 
are to me, and welcome in most places as is the sound of 
those same sweet voices, one had not come to Havana for 
this. It was necessary to escape somewhere, and promptly, 



298 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

from the discord of noises which 1 hoped might be due to 
some momentary accident. The mail company's agent,. 

Mr. R , lived in the hotel. He kindly found me out, 

initiated me in the myBteries of Cuban paper money, and 
giving me a tariff of the fores, found me a cab, and sent 
me out to look about me. 

My first object was the cathedral and the tomb of 
Columbus. In Catholic cities in Europe churches stand 
always open; the passer-by can enter when he pleases, 
fall on his knees and say his silent prayers to his Master 
whom he sees on the altar. In Havana I discovered after- 
ward that, except at special hours, and those as few as 
might be, the doors were kept locked and could only be 
opened by a golden key. It was carnival time, however; 
there were functions going on of various kinds, and I found 
the cathedral happily accessible. It was a vast building, 
little ornamented, but the general forms severe and impres- 
sive, in the style of the time of Philip 11., when Gothic art 
had gone out in Spain and there had come in the place of 
it the implacable sternness which expresses the very genius 
of the Inquisition. A broad flight of stone steps led up 
to the great door. The afternoon was extremely hot ; the 
curtains were thrown back to admit as much air as possible. 
There was some function proceeding of a peculiar kind. I 
know not what it was ; something certainly in which the 
public had no interest, for there was not a stranger present 
but myself. But the great cathedral officials were busy at 
work, and liked to be at their ease. On the wall as you 
entered a box invited contributions, as limosna por el Santo 
Padre, The service was I know not what. In the middle 
of the nave stood twelve large chairs arranged in a semi- 
circle; on these chairs sat twelve canons, like a row of 
mandarins, each with his little white patch like a silver 
dollar on the crown of his black head. Five or six. minor 
dignitaries, deacons, precentors, or something of that sort^ 



7VMB OF COLUMBUS 19^ 



v^ze droniiig oat inonotonong redtations like the boiiiQg 
of BO miuiT hmnble bees in the warm sommer air. The 
dean or provost sat in the central tnggest chair of alL His 
&ce was rosy, and he wiped it fircmi time to time with a red 
handkerchief; his chin was double or perhaps treble; he 
had evidently dined, and would or mi^t have slept bat for 
a pile of snuff on his chair arm, with continual refreshments 
from which he kept his faculties aliTe. I sat patiently till 
it was over, and the twelve holy men rose and went their 
way. I could then stroll about at leisure. The pictures 
were of the usual paltry kind. On the chancel arch stood 
the royal arms of Spain, as the Uon and the unicorn used 
to stand in our parish churches till the High Church 
clergy mistook them for Erastian wild beasts. At the right 
side of the altar was the monument which I had come in 
search of; a marble tablet fixed against the wall, and on 
it a poorly executed figure in high relief, with a ruff about 
its neck and features which might be meant for anj^oue 
and for no one in particular. Somewhere near me there 
were lying I believed and could hope the mortal remains of 
the discoverer of the New World. An inscription said so. 
There was vmtten : 

O Bestos y Imagen del grande Colon 
Mil sigloB durad gnardados en la Urna 
T en remembranza de nnesira Naoion. 

The court poet, or whoever wrote the lines, was as poor 
an artist in verse as the sculptor in stone. The image of 
the grande Colon is certainly not * guarded in the urn ' 
since you see it on the wall before your eyes. The urn if 
nm there be, with the * relics ' in it, must be under the 
floor. Columbus and his brother Diego were originally 
buried to the right and left of the altar in the cathedral of 
St. Domingo. When St. Domingo was abandoned, a com- 
mission was appointed to remove the body of Christophe to 
Havana. They did remove a body, but St. Domingo insists 



300 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

that it was Diego that was taken away, that Christophe 
remains where he was, and that if Spain wants him Spain 
must pay for him. I followed the canons into the sacristy 
where they were nnrobing. I did not venture to address 
either of themselves, but I asked an acolyte if he could 
throw any Ught upon the matter. He assured me that 
there neither was nor could have been any mistake. They 
had the right body and were in no doubt about it. In more 
pious ages disputes of this sort were settled by an appeal to 
miracles. Bival pretenders for the possession of the same 
bones came, however, at last to be able to produce authentic 
proofs of miracles which had been worked at more than one 
of the pretended shrines; so that it was concluded that 
saints' relics were like the loaves and fishes, capable of 
multiplication without losing their identity, and of having 
the property of being in several places at the same moment. 
The same thing has been alleged of the Holy Goat of Treves 
and of the wood of the true cross. Havana and St. Do- 
mingo may perhaps eventually find a similar solution of 
their disagreement over the resting place of Columbus. 

I walked back to my hotel up a narrow shady street like 
a long arcade. Here were the principal shops; several 
libraries among them, into which I strayed to gossip and to 
look over the shelves. That so many persons could get a 
Uving by bookselling implied a reading population, but the 
books themselves did not indicate any present literary 
productiveness. They were chiefly old, and from the Old 
World, and belonged probably to persons who had been 
concerned in the late rebellion and whose property had been 
confiscated. They were absurdly cheap ; I bought a copy 
of Guzman de Alfarache for a few pence. 

I had brought letters of introduction to several distin- 
guished people in Havana ; to one especially, Don G , 

a member of a noble Peninsular family, once an officer in 
the Spanish navy, now chairman of a railway company and 



CUBAN FRIENDS 301 

head of an important commercial house. His elder brother, 

the Marques de , called on me on the evening of the 

day of my arrival; a distinguished-looking man of forty 
or thereabouts, with courteous high-bred manners, rapid, 
prompt, and incisive, with the air of a soldier, which in 
early life he had been. He had travelled, spoke various 
languages, and spoke to me in admirable English. Don 

G , who might be a year or two younger, came later and 

stayed an hour and a half with me. Let me acknowledge 
here, and in as warm language as I can express it, the 
obligations under which I stand to him, not for the personal 
attentions only which he showed me during my stay in 
Havana, but for giving me an opportunity of becoming ac- 
quainted with a real specimen of Plato's superior men, who 
were now and then, so Plato said, to be met with in foreign 
travel. It is to him that I owe any knowledge which I 
brought away with me of the present state of Cuba. He 
had seen much, thought much, read much. He was on a 
level with the latest phases of philosophical and spiritual 
speculation, could talk of Darwin and Spencer, of Schopen- 
hauer, of Strauss, and of Benan, aware of what they had 
done, aware of the inconvenient truths which they had 
forced into light, but aware also that they had left the 
most important questions pretty much where they found 
them. He had taken no part in the political troubles of 
the late years in Cuba, but he had observed everything. 
No one knew better the defects of the present system of 
government; no one was less ready to rush into hasty 
schemes for violently mending it. 

The ten years' rebellion, of which I had heard so much 
and knew so little, he first made intelligible to me. Cuba 
had been governed as a province of Spain, and Spain, like 
other mother countries, had thought more of drawing a 
revenue out of it for herself than of the interests of the 
colony. Spanish officials had been avaricious, and Spanish 



302 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

fiscal policy oppressive and ruinous. The resources of the 
island in metals, in minerals, in agriculture were as yet 
hardly scratched, yet every attempt to develop them was 
paralysed by fresh taxation. The rebellion had been an 
effort of the Cuban Spaniards, precisely analogous to the 
revolt of our own North American colonies, to shake off the 
authority of the court of Madrid and to make themselves 
independent. They had fought desperately and had for 
several years been masters of half the island. They had 
counted on help from the United States, and at one time 
they seemed likely to get it. But the Americans could not 
see their way to admitting Cuba into the Union, and without 
such a prospect did not care to quarrel with Spain on their 
account. Finding that they were to be left to themselves, 
the insurgents came to terms and Spanish authority was 
re-established. Families had been divided, sons taking one 
side and fathers the other, as in our English Wars of the 
Boses, perhaps for the same reason, to save the family 
estates whichever side came out victorious. The blacks 
had been indifferent, the rebellion having no interest for 
them at all. They had remained by their masters, and 
they had been rewarded after the peace by complete eman- 
cipation. There was not a slave now in Cuba. No indem- 
nity had been granted to their owners, nor had any been 
asked for, and the business on the plantations had gone on 
without interruption. Those who had been slaves con- 
tinued to work at the same locaticms, receiving wages 
instead of food and maintenance ; all were satisfied at the 
change, and this remarkable revolution had been carried 
out with an ease and completeness which found no parallel 
in any other slave-owning country. 

In spite of rebellion, in spite of the breaking up and re- 
construction of the social system, in spite of the indifferent 
administration of justice, in spite of taxation, and the inex- 
plicable appropriations of the revenue, Cuba was still mode- 



POLITICAL TRIALS 303 

rately prosperous, and that it could flourish at all after 
trials so severe was the best evidence of the greatness of its 
natural wealth. The party of insurrection was dissolved, 
and would revive again only under the unlikely contingency 
of encouragement from the United States. There was a 
party, however, which desired for Cuba a constitution like 
the Canadian — Home Bule and the management of its own 
affairs — and as the black element was far outnumbered 
and under control, such a constitution would not be politi- 
cally dangerous. 

If the Spanish Government does not mend its ways, 
concessions of this kind may eventually have to be made, 
though the improvement to be expected from it is doubtful. 
Official corruption is engrained in the character and habits 
of the Spanish people. Judges allowed their decisions to 
be * influenced ' under Philip III. as much as to-day in the 
colonies of Queen Christina ; and when a fault is the habit 
of a people, it survives poUtical reforms and any number 
of turnings of the kaleidoscope. 

The encouraging feature is the success of emancipation. 
There is no jealousy, no race animosity, no supercilious 
contempt of whites for ' niggers.' The Spaniards have 
inherited a tinge of colour themselves from their African 
ancestors, and thus they are all friends together. The 
liberated slave can acquire and own land if he wishes for it, 
but as a rule he prefers to work for wages. These happy 
conditions arise in part from the Spanish temperament, 
but chiefly from the numerical preponderance of the white 
element, which, as in the United States, is too secure to be 
nneasy. The black is not encouraged in insubordination 
by a sense that he could win in a contest of strength, and 
the aspect of things is far more promising for the future 
than in our own islands. The Spaniards, however inferior 
we may think them to ourselves, have filled their colonies 
with their own people and are reaping the reward of it. 



304 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

We have so contrived that such English as had settled in 
the West Indies on their own account are leaving them. 

Spain, four centuries ago, was the greatest of European 
nations, the first in art, or second only to Italy, the first in 
arms, the first in the men whom she produced. She haA 
been swept along in the current of time. She fought 
against the stream of tendency, and the stream proved too 
strong for her, great as she was. The modern spirit, which 
she would not have when it came in the shape of the 
Reformation, has flowed over her borders as revolution, 
not to her benefit, for she is unable to assimilate the new 
ideas. The old Spain of the Inquisition is gone; the 
Spain of to-day is divided between Liberalism and CathcK 
lie belief. She is sick in the process of the change, and 
neither she nor her colonies stand any longer in the front 
lines in the race of civilisation ; yet the print of her foot is 
stamped on the New World in characters which will not be 
efiEaced, and may be found to be as enduring as our own. 

The colony is perhaps in advance of the mother country* 

The Catholic Church, Don G said, has little influence 

in Cuba; ' she has had no rival,' he explained, ' and so has 
grown lazy.' I judged the same from my own observations. 
The churches on Sundays were thinly attended, and men 
smiled when I asked them about ' confession.' I inquired 
about famous preachers. I was told that there was no 
preaching in Havana, famous or otherwise. I might if 
I was lucky and chose to go there in the early morning, 
hear a sermon in the church of the Jesuits ; that was all«. 
I went ; I heard my Jesuit, who was fluent, eloquent, and 
gesticulating, but he was pouring out his passionate rhe- 
toric to about fifty women with scarcely a man amongst 
them. It was piteous to look at him. The Catholic 
Church, whether it be for want of rivals, or merely from 
force of time, has fallen from its high estate. It can bum 
no more heretics, for it has lost the art to raise conviction 



THE CHURCH IN CUBA 



305 



to sufSeient intenaity. The power to l)urn was the measure 
of the real belief which people had in the Chiu'ch and its 
doctrines. The power has depai'ted with the waning of 
faith ; and religion in Havana, as in Madrid, is but ' ase 
and wont ; ' not ' belief ' but opinion, and opinion which is 
half insincere. Nothing else can take its place. The day 
IB too late for Protestantism, which has developed into 
wider forms, and in the matter of satisfied and complete 
religious conviction Protestants are hardly better ofl' than 
CatholicH. 

Don G had been much in Spain ; he was acquainted 

with many of the descendants of the old aristocracy, who 
linger there in faded grandeur. He had studied the history 
of his own country. He compared the Spain and England 
of the sixteenth century with the Spain and England of 
the present ; and, like most of us, he knew where the yoke 
galled his own neck. But economical and political pro- 
sperity ia no exhaustive measure of human progress. The 
Rome of Trajan was immeasurably more splendid than the 
Home of the Scipios ; yet the progress had been downwards 
nevertheless. If the object of our existence on this planet 
is the development of character, if the culminating point 
in any nation's history he that at which it produces its 
noblest and bravest men, fa«ts do not tend to assure us 
that the triumphant march of the last hundred years is 
accomplishing much in that direction. I found myself 

arguing with Don G that if Charles V. and Philip II. 

were to come ba«k to this world, and to see whither the 
movement had brought us of which they bad worked bo 
hard to suppress the beginning, they would still say that 
they had done right in trying to strangle it. The Refor- 
mation called itself a protest against lies, and the advo- 
cates of it imagined that when the hes, or what they called 
such, were cleared away, the pure metal of Christianity 
voold remain unsullied. The great men who fought 



^M 306 

^^ agai 



T/fE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 





against the movement, Charles V. in his cabinet and Eras- 
muH in his closet, had seen that it could not reat there ; 
that it was the cradle of a revolution in which the whole 
spiritual and political organisation of Europe would he 
flung into the crucible. Under that organisation human 
natiire had ascended to altitudes of chivalry, of self-sacri- 
fice, which it had never before reached. The sixteenth 
century was the blossominf; time of the Old "World, and no 
such men had appeared since as then came to the &ont, 
either in Spain or Italy, or Germany or Prance or England. 
The actual leaders of the Reformation had heen bred in 
the system which they destroyed. Puritanism and Cal- 
vinism produced men of powerful character, but they 
were limited and incapable of continuance ; and now the 
liberty which was demanded had become what their instinct 
bad told them from the first must be the final shape of it, 
a revolution which would tolerate no inequaUties of culture 
or position, which insisted that no man was better than 
another, which was to exalt the low and bring down the 
high till all mankind should stand upon a common level— 
a level, not of baseness or badness, but a level of good- 
humoured, smart, vulgar and vulgarising mediocrity, with 
melodrama for tragedy, farce for comedy, sounding speech 
for statesmanlike wisdom ; and for a creed, when our fathers 
thought that we had been made a little lower than the 
angels, the more modest knowledge that we were only a 
little higher than the apes. This was tlie aspect in which 
the world of the nineteenth century would appear to Sir 
Thomas More or the Duke of Alva. From the Grand 
Captain to Senor Castelar, from Lord Burghley to Mr. 
Gladstone, from Leonardo da Vinci or Velasquez to Guetave 
Dore, from Cervantes and Shakespeare to ' Pickwick ' and the ; 
' Innocents at Home ; ' from the faith which built the cathe- ' 
draJs to evolution and the surWval of the fittest ; from the ' 
carving and architecture of the Middle Ages to the workman- 



THOUGHTS ON PROGRESS 



307 



Bhip of the modern contractor; the change in the spiritual 
department of thijigs had been the same along the whole 
line. The great Emperor, after seeing all that has been 
achieved, the railways, the steam engines, the telegraphs, 
the Yankee and his United States, which are the embodi- 
ment of the highest aspirations of the modem era, after 
attending a session of the British Aasoeiation itself, and 
seeing the bishops holding out their hands to science which 
had done such great things for them, might fairly claim 
that it was a doubtful point whether the change had been 
really for the better. 

It may be answered, and answered truly, that the old 
thing was dead. The Catholic faith, where it was left 
standing and where it still stands, produces now nothing 
higher, nothing better than the Proteatant. Human sys- 
tems grow as trees grow. The seed shoots up, the trunk 
forms, the branches spread ; leaves and flowers and fruit 
come out year after year as if they were able to renew 
themselves for ever. But that which has a beginning has 
an end, that which has Hfe must die when the vital force 
is exhausted. The faith of More, as well as the faith of 
Ken or Wilson, were elevating and ennobling as long as 
they were sincerely believed, hut the time came when they 
became clouded with uncertainty; and confused, perplexed, 
and honestly anxious, humanity struggles on as well as 
it can, all things considered, respectably enough, in its 
chrysalis condition, the old wings gone, the new wings that 
are to be (if we are ever to have another set) as yet 
imprisoned in their sheath. 

The same Sunday morning when I went in search of 
my sermon, the hotel was alive as bees at swarming time. 
There was to he a bull fight in honour of the carnival, and 
such a bull fight as had never been seen in Havana. 
Placards on the wall announced that a lady from Spain, 
Gloriana they called her, was to meet and slay a bull in 



3o8 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

single combat, and everyone must go and see the wonderfal 
sight. I myself, having seen the real thing in Madrid many 
years ago, felt no more curiosity, and that a woman should 
be an actress in such a scene did not revive it. To those 
who went the performance was a disappointment. The 
buU provided turned out to be a calf of tender years. The 
spectators insisted that they would have a beast full of 
strength and ferocity, and Gloriana when brought to the 
point declined the adventure. 

There was a prettier scene in the evening. In the cool 
after nightfall the beauty and fashion of Havana turns ont^ 
to stroll in the illuminated Alameda. As it was now ahig|i 
festival the band was to play, and the crowd was as dense 
as on Exhibition nights at South Kensington. The musie 
was equally good, and the women as graceful and well 
dressed. I sat for an hour or two listening under the 
statue of poor Queen Isabella. The image of her still 
stands where it was placed, though revolution has long 
shaken her from her throne. All is forgotten now except 
that she was once a Spanish sovereign, and time and 
distance have deodorised her memory. 



AMERICANS IN CUBA 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Eotals in Havana — Bights in the citj — Cigar manufactorieB — Wet C Indian 
indnBtries— The Captain -General —The Jesoit ooUege — Father Vifiea — 
Olubs in Havana— Spanish aristocracy- Sea lodging honae. 

Thbbe was much to be Been in Havana, and Dinch to think 
about. I regretted only that I had not been better advised 
in my choice of an hotel. The dining saloon rang with 
American voices in their shrillest tones. Every table waa 
occupied by groups of them, nor waij there a sound in the 
room of any language but theirs. In the whole company 
I had not a single acquaintance. I have liked well 
almost every individual American that I have fallen in 
with and come to know. They are frank, friendly, open, 
and absolutely unaffected, and, like my friend at Miss 
Eoy'a in Jamaica, they take cheerful views of life, which 
IB the highest of all recommendations. The distinctness 
and sharpness of utterance is tolerable and even agree- 
able in conversation with a single person. When a large 
number of them are together, all talkiug in a high tone, it 
tries the nerves and seta the teeth on edge. Nor could I 
escape from them in any part of the building. The gen- 
tlemen were talking politics in the hall, or loimging under 
the colonnade. One of them, an absolute stranger, who 
perhaps knew who I was, asked me abruptly for my opinion 
of Cardinal Newman. The ladies Med the sitting rooma ; 
their pianos and their duets pierced the walls of my bed- 
room, and only ceased an hour after midnight. At five in 
the morning the engines began to scream at the adjoining 
railway station. The church bells woke at the same hoar 



^M 



310 TJI£ ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

with their superfluous summons to matins which no one 
attended. Sleep was next to an impossibility under these 
hard conditions, and I wanted more and not less of it when 
I had the duties upon me of sightseeing. Sleep or no sleep, 
however, I determined that I would see what I could as 
long as I could keep going. 

A few hundred yards off was one of the most famous 
of the Havana cigar manufactories. A courteous message 
from the manager, Seiior Bances, had informed me that 
he would be happy to show me over it on any morning 
before the sun was above the roofs of the houses. I found 
the sefior a handsome elderly gentleman, tall and leaji, 
with Castilian dignity of manner, free and frank in all 
his communications, with no reserve, concealments, or in- 
sincerities. I told him that in my experience cigars were 
not what they bad been, that the last good one which I 
had smoked I had bought twenty years ago from a can- 
trabandista at Madrid. I had come to Havana to see 
whether I could find another equally good at the fountain 
head. He said that he was not at all surprised. It was 
the same story as at Jamaica ; the consumption of cigars 
had increased with extreme rapidity, the area on which 
the finest tobacco had been grown was limited, and the 
expense of gi-owing it was very great. Only a small quantity 
of the best cigars was now made for the market. In general 
the plants were heavily manured, and the flavour suffered. 
Leaf of coarse fibre was used for the core of the cigars, 
with only a fold or two wrapped round it of more dehcate 
quaUty, He took me into the difi'erent rooms where the 
manufacture was going on. In the first were perhaps a 
hundred or a hundred and fifty sallow-faced yomig men 
engaged in rollhig. They were all Cubans or Spaniards with 
the exception of a single negro ; and all, I should think, 
under thirty. On each of the tables was one of the names 
with which we have grown familiar in modern cigar shops. 



CIGAR MANUFACTORIES 311 

Reynas, Eegalias, PrincipeH, and I know not how many 
else. The difference of material could not be great, but 
there was a real difference in the JinenesB of tlie make, 
and in the quality of the exterior leaf. The workmen were 
of unequal capacity and were unequally paid. The seflor 
employed in all about 1,400 ; at least so I understood him. 

The black held hands had eighteenpenee a day. The 
rollers were paid by quality and quantity ; a good workman 
doing his best could earn sixty dollarH a week, an idle and 
indifferent one about twelve. They smoked as they rolled, 
and there was no check upon the consumption, the loss in 
this way being estimated at 40,000 dollars a year. The 
pay was high ; but there was another side to it — the occu- 
pation was dangeronB. If there were no old men in the 
room, there were no boys. Those who undertook it died 
often in two or three years. Doubtless with precaution the 
mortality might be diminished ; but, like the needle and 
Bcissor grinders in England, the men themselves do not 
wish it to be diminished. The risk enters into the wages, 
and they prefer a short life and a merry one. 

The cigarettes, of which the varieties are as many as 
there are of cigars, were made exclusively by Chinese. The 
second room which we entered was full of them, their 
curious yellow faces mildly bending over their tobacco 
heaps. Of these there may have been a hundred. Of the 
general expenses of the estabhshment I do not venture to 
Bay anything, bewildered as I was in the labyrinthine com- 
pUcation of the currency, hut it must certainly be enor- 
mous, and this house, the Fartagas, was but one of many 
equally extensive in Havana alone. 

The seilor was most liberal. He filled my pockets 
with packets of excellent cigarettes ; he gave me a bundle 
of cigars, I cannot say whether they were equal to what I 
bought from my contrabandUta, for these may have been 
idealised by a grateful memory, but they were so incom- 



312 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

parably better than any which I have been able to get in 
London that I was tempted to deal with him, and bo far I 
have had no reason to repent. The boxes with which he 
provided me bettered the sample, and the price, duty at 
home included, was a third below what I should have paid 
in London for an article which I would rather leave uncon- 
Bumed. A broker whom I fell in with insisted to me that 
the best cigars all went to London, that my preference for 
what I got from my sefior was mere femcy and vanity, and 
that I could buy better in any shop in Kegent Street. I said 
that he might but I couldn't, and so we left it. 

I tell all this, not with the affectation of supposing that 
tobacco or my own taste about it can have any interest, 
but as an illustration of what can be done in the West 
Lidies, and to show how immense a form of industry waits 
to be developed in our own islands, if people with capital 
and knowledge choose to set about it. Tobacco as good as 
the best in Cuba has been grown and can be grown in 
Jamaica, in St. Domingo, and probably in every one of the 
Antilles. ' There are dollars in those islands,' as my 
Yankee said, and many a buried treasure will be brought 
to light there when capitalists can feel assured that they 
will not be at the mercy of black constitutional govern- 
ments. 

My letter of introduction to the Captain-General was 
still undelivered, and as I had made use of it on landing I 
thought it right at least to pay my respects to the great 

man. The Marques M kindly consented to go with me 

and help me through the interview, being of course ac- 
quainted with him. He was at his country house, a mile 
out of the town. The buildings are all good in Havana. 
It was what it called itself, not a palace but a handsome 
country residence in the middle of a large well-kept garden. 
The viceroyalty has a fair but not extravagant income 
attached to it. The Captain-General receives about 8,000i. 



THE CAPTAIN-GENERAL 313 

a year besides allowances. Were the balk and dinners 
expected of him which our poor govemors are obliged to 
entertain their subjects with, he would not be able to 
make much out of it. The large fortunes which used to 
be brought back by the fortunate Captains-General who 
could connive at the slave trade were no longer attainable ; 
those good days are gone. Public opinion therefore per- 
mits them to save their incomes. The Spaniards are not 
a hospitable people, or rather their notion of hospitahty 
differs in form from ours. They are ready to dine with 
you themselves as often as you will ask them. Nothing 
in the shape of dinners is looked for from the Captain- 
General, and when I as a stranger suggested the possibility 
of such a thing happening to me, my companion assured 
me that I need not be in the least alarmed. We were in- 
troduced into a well-proportioned hall, with a few marble 
busts in it and casts of Greek and Homan statues. Aides-de- 
camp and general officers were loimging about, with whom 
we exchanged distant civilities. After waiting for a quarter 
of an hour we were summoned by an ofUcial into an adjoin- 
ing room and found ourselves in his Excellency's presence. 
He was a small gentlemanlike-looking man, out of uniform, 
in plain morning dress with a silk saah. He received us 
with natural politeness ; cordiaHty was uncalled for, but he 
was perfectly gracious. He expressed his pleasure at seeing 
me in the island ; he hoped that I should enjoy myself, and 
on his part would do everything in his power to make my 
stay agreeable. He spoke of the emancipation of the 
Blaves and of the social state of the island with pardonable 
Batisfaction, inquired about our own West Indies he, and 
finally asked me to tell him in what way he could be of 
service to me. I told htm that I bad found such kind 
friends in Havana already, that I could think of little. 
One thing only he could do if he pleased. I had omitted 
to bring a passport with me, not knowing that it would be 



314 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

required. My position was irregular and might be ineon- 
venient. I wae indebted to my letter of introduction to 
his Excellency for admission into his dominions. Perhaps 
he would write a few words which would enable me to re- 
main in them and go out of them when my visit was over. 
His Excellency said that he would instruct the Gobierno 
Civil to see to it, an instruction the meaning of which 
I too sadly understood. I was not to be allowed to escape 
the fine. A fresh shower followed of polite words, and with 
these we took ourselves away. 

The afternoon was spent more instructively, perhaps 

more agreeably, in a different scene. The Marques M 

had been a pupil of the Jesuits. He had personal friends 
in the Jesuit college at Havana, especially one, Father. 
Vinez, whose name is familiar to students of meteorological 
science, and who has supplemented and corrected the 
accepted law of storms by careful observation of West 
Indian hurricanes. The Jesuits were as well sjioken of in 
Havana as the Moravians in Jamaica. Everyone had a 
good word for them. They alone, as I have said, took the 
trouble to provide the good people there with a sermon 
on Sundays. They alone among the Cathohc clergy, 
though they Hve poorly and have no endowment, exert 
themselves to provide a tolerable education for the middle 
and upper classes. The Mai'ques undertook that if we 
called we should be graciously received, and I was curioaa 
and interested. Their college had been an enormouB 
monastery. Wherever the Spaniards went they took an 
army of monks with them of all the orders. The monks 
contrived always to house themselves handsomely. While 
soldiers fought and settlers planted, the monks' duty was to 
pray. In process of time it came to be doubted whether 
the monks' prayers were worth what they cost, or whether, 
in fact, they had ever had much effect of any kind. They 
have been suppressed in Spain ; they have been clipped 




THE fESUIT COLLEGE 315 

short in all the Spanish dominions, and in Havana there 
are now left only a handful of DominicanB, a few nuns, 
and these Jesuits, who have taken possession of the largest 
of the convents, much as a soldier-crab becomes the vigo- 
rous tenant of the shell of some lazy sea-snail. They have 
a college there where there are four hundred lads and 
young men who pay for their education ; some hundreds 
more are taken out of charity. The Jesuits conduct the 
whole, and do it all unaided, on their own resources. And 
this is fai' from all that they do. They keep on a level 
with the age ; they are men of learning ; they are men of 
science ; they are the Boyal iSociety of Cuba, They have 
an observatory in the college, and the Father Vinez of 
whom I have spoken is in charge of it. Father Vinez was 
our particular object. The porter's lodge opened into a 
courtyard like the quadrangle of a college at Oxford. From 
the courtyard we turned into a narrow staircase, up which 
we chmbed till we reached the roof, on and under which 
the Father had his lodgings and his observing machi- 
nery. We entered a small room, plainly furnished with a 
table and a few uncushioned chairs ; table and chairs, all 
save the Father's, littered with books and papers. Cases 
etood round the wall, contaming self-registering instruments 
of the most advanced modem type, each with its paper 
barrel unrolling slowly under clockwork, while a pencil 
noted upon it the temperature of the air, the atmospheric 
pressure, the degree of moisture, the ozone, the electricity. 
In the middle, surrounded by his tools and his ticking 
clocks, sat the Father, middle-aged, lean and dry, with 
shrivelled skin and brown and threadbare frock. He re- 
ceived my companion with a warm affectionate smile. The 
Marques told him that I was an EngUshman who was 
curious about the work in which he was engaged, and he 
spoke to me at once with the politeness of a man of sense. 
After a few questions asked and answered, he took us out 



3i6 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

to a shed among the roof-tiles, where he kept bis large 
telescope, his equatorial, and his transit instruments — not 
on the great scale of State-supported observatories, but 
with everything which was really essential. He had a labo- 
ratory, too, and a work8hoi>, with all the recent appliances. 
He was a practical optician and mechanic. He managed 
and repaired his own machinery, observed, made his notes, 
and wrote his reports t6 the societies with which he was in 
correspondence, all by himself. The outfit of such an 
establishment, even on a moderate scale, is expensive. I 
said I supposed that the Government gave him a grant. 
' So far from it,' he said, ' that we have to pay a duty on 
every instrument which we import.' ' Who, then, pays for it 
all ? ' I asked. ' The order,' he answered, quite simply. 

The house, I believe, ifa% a gift, though it cost the State 
nothing, having been simply seized when the monks were 
expelled. The order now maintains it, and more than 
repays the Government for their single act of generosity. 
At my companion's suggestion Father Viiiez gave me a 
copy of his book on hurricanes. It contains a record of 
laborious journeys which he made to the scene of the 
devastations of the last ten years. The scientific value of 
the Father's work is recognised by the highest authorities, 
though I cannot venture even to attempt to explain what 
he has done. He then conducted us over the building, and 
showed us the hbraries, dormitories, playgi'ounds, and all 
the other arrangements which were made for the students. 
Of these we saw none. They were all out, but the long 
tables in the refectory were laid for afternoon tea. There 
was a cup of milk for each lad, with a plate of honey and 
a roll of bread ; and supper would follow in the evening. 
The sleeping gallery was divided into cells, open at the ' 
top for ventilation, with bed, table, chest of drawers, and 
washing apparatus — all scrupulously clean. So far as I i 
could judge, the Fathers cai"ed more for the boys' comfort 



CLUBS IN HAVANA 

tfaan for their own. Through an open door our conductor 
faintly indicated the apartment which belonged to himself. 
Four bare walls, a bare tiled floor, a plain pallet, with a 
cruciiix above the pillow, was all that it contained. There 
was no parade of ecclesiasticiBm. The libraries were well 
furnished, but the bookH were chiefly secular and scientific. 
The chapel was uiiornamented ; there were a few pictures, 
but they were simple and inoffensive. Everything was 
good of its kind, down to the gymnastic courts and swim- 
ming bath. The holiness was kept in the background. It 
was in the spirit and not in the liody. The cost of the 
whole establishment was defrayed out of the payments of 
the richer students managed economically for the benefit of 
the rest, with complete indifference on the part of the 
Fathers to mdulgence and pleasures of their own. As we 
took leave the Marques kissed his old master's brown liand. 
I rather envied him the privilege. 

Something I saw of Havana society in the received 
sense of the word. There are many clubs there, and high 
play in most of them, for the Cubans are given to the 
roulette tables. The Union Club, which is the most dis- 
tinguished among them, invites occasional strangers stay- 
ing in the city to temporary membership as we do at the 
Athenffium. Here you meet Spanish granilrs, who have 
come to Cuba to be out of reach of revolution, proud 
as ever and not as poor as you might expect ; and when 
yon ask who they are you hear the great famihar names of 
Spanish history, I was introduced to the president — 
young, handsome, and accomplished. I was startled to 
learn that he was the head of the old house of Sandoval. 
The house of Columbus ought to be there also, for there is 
Btill a Christophe Colon, the direct linear representative of 
the discoverer, disguised under the title of the Duque de 
Veragua, A perpetual pension of 20,000 dollars a year 
was granted to the great Christophe and his heirs for ever 





3i8 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



aa a charge on the Cuban revenue. It has been paid to 
the family through all changes of dynasty and forms of 
government, and is paid to them still. But the Duque 
resides in Spain, and the present occupation of him, I was 
informed, is the breeding and raising bulls for the Flaza de 
Toros at Seville. 

Thus, every way, my stay was made agreeable to me. 
There were breakfasts and dinners and introductions. 

Don G and hia brother were not fine gentlemen only, 

but were men of business and deeply engaged in the active 
life of the place. The American consul was a conspicuoos 
figure at these entertainments. America may not find it 
her interest to annex these islands, but since she ordered 
the French out of Mexico, and the French obeyed, she is 
universally felt on that side of the Atlantic to be the 
supreme arbiter of all their fates. Her consuls are thus 
persons of consequence. The Cubans like the Americans 
well. The commercial treaty which was offered to oar 
islands by the United States has been accepted eagerly by 
the Spaniards. Spanish sugar goes free into the American 
market. They say that they have hills of solid iron in the 
ialand and mountains of copper with 60 per cent, of virgin 
copper in them waiting for the Americans to develop, and 
hkely I suppose to wait a little longer. The present adminis- 
tration would swallow up in taxation the profits of the moat 
promising enterprise that ever was undertaken, but the 
metals are there, and will come one day into working. 
The consul was a swift peremptory man who knew his own 
mind at any rate. Between his ' Yes, sir,' and his 'No, 
sir,' you were at no loss for his meaning. He told me a 
story of a ' nigger ' officer with whom he had once got into 
conversation at Hayti. He had inquired why they let so 
fine an island run to waste ? Why did they not cultivate 
it ? The dusky soldier laid his hand upon his breast 
and waved his hand. 'Ah,' he said, 'that might do for 



VEDA DO 319 

English ov Germans or Franks ; we of the Latiu race liave 
higher things to occupy U8.' 

I liked the consul well. I could not say as much for 
his countrymen and countryT^-omen at my hotel. Indivi- 
dually I dare say they would have been charming ; collec- 
tively they drove me to distraction. Space and time had 
no existence for them ; they and their voicea were heard 
in ail places and at all hours. The midnipht bravuraa 
at the pianos mixed wildly in my broken dreams. The 

Marques M wished to take me with him to his 

country seat and show me his sugar plantations. Nothing 
could have been more delightful, but with want of sleep 
and the constant racket I found myself becoming unwell. 
In youth and strength one can defy the foul fiend aTid bid 
him do his worst ; in age one finds it wiser to get out of 
the way. 

On the sea, seven miles from Havana, and connected 
with it hy a convenient railway, at a place called Vedado, 
I found a lodging house kept by a Frenchman (the beet 
cook in Cuba) with a German wife. The situation was 
BO attractive, and the owners of it so attentive, that quiet 
people went often into ' retreat ' there. There were delicious 
rooms, airy and solitary as T could wish. The sea washed 
the coral rock under the windows. There were walks wild 
ae if there was no city within a thousand miles — up the 
banks of lonely rivers, over open moors, or among inclosurea 
where there were large farming establishments with cattle 
and horKes and extensive stables and sheds. There was a 
village and a harbour where fishing people kept their boats 
and went out daily with their nets and lines — blacks and 
whites living and working side by side. I could go where 
I pleased without fear of interference or question. Only 
I was warned to be careful of the dogs, large and dangerous, 
descendants of the famous Cuban bloodhounds, which are 
kept everywhere to guard the yards and bouses. They 





320 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

were really dangerous, and had to be avoided. The shore 
was of inexhaustible interent. It was a level Bhelf of coral 
roek extending for many miles and littered over with shells 
and coral branches which had been flung up by the surf. 
I had hoped for bathing. In the open water it is not to be 
thought of on account of the sharks, but baths have been 
cut in the rock all along that part of the coast at inter- 
vals of half a mile ; deep square basins with tunnels con- 
necting them with the sea, up which the waves run clear 
and foaming. They are within inelosures, roofed over to 
keep out the sun, and with attendants regularly present. 
Art and nature conabined never made more charming pools ; 
the water clear as sapphire, aerated by the constant inrush 
of the foaming breakers, and so warm that you could lie in 
it without a chill for hours. Alas ! that I could but look at 
them and execrate the precious Government which forbade 
me their use. So severe a tax is laid on these bathing 
establishments that the owners can only afford to keep 
them open during the three hottest months in the year, 
when the demand is greatest. 

In the evenings people from Havana would occasionally 
come down to dine as we go to Greenwich, being attracted 
partly by the air and partly by my host's reputation. 
There was a long verandah under which tables were laid 
out, and there were few nights on which one or more 
parties were not to be seen there. Thus I encountered 
several curious specimens of Cuban humanity, and on one 
of my runs up to Havana I met again the cigar broker who 
had so roughly challenged my judgment. He was an 
original and rather diverting man ; I should think a Jew. 
Whatever he was ho fell upon me again and asked me 
scornfully whether I supposed that the cigars which I had 
bought of SeiSor Bances were anything out of the way. I 
said that they suited my taste and that was enough. ' Ah,' 
he replied, 'Cada loco con su tema. Every fool had his 



VISITORS AT VEDADO 321 

opinion.' ' I am the loco (idiot), then,' said I, ' but that 
again is matter of opinion.' He spoke of Cuba and pro- 
fessed to know all about it. ' Can you tell me, then,' said 
I, * why the Cubans hate the Spaniards ? ' * Why do the 
Irish hate the English ? ' he answered. I said it was not an 
analogous case. Cubans and Spaniards were of the same 
breed and of the same creed. ' That is nothing,' he re- 
plied; 'the Americans will have them both before long.' 
I said I thought the Americans were too wise to meddle 
with either. If they did, however, I imagined that on our 
own side of the Atlantic we should have something to say on 
the subject before Ireland was taken from us. He laughed 
good-humouredly. ' Is it possible, sir,' he said, ' that you 
live in England and are so absolutely ignorant ? ' I laughed 
too. He was a strange creature, and would have made an 
excellent character in a novel. 

Don G or his brother came down occasionaDy to 

see how I was getting on and to talk philosophy and his- 
tory. Other gentlemen came, and the favourite subject of 
conversation was Spanish administration. One of them 
told me this story as an illustration of it. His father was 
the chief partner in a bank; a clerk absconded, taking 
50,000 dollars with him. He had been himself sent in 
pursuit of the man, overtook him with the money still in 
his possession, and recovered it. With this he ought to 
have been contented, but he tried to have the offender 
punished. The clerk replied to the criminal charge by a 
counter-charge against the house. It was absurd in itself, 
but he found that a suit would grow out of it which would 
swallow more than the 50,000 dollars, and finally he bribed 
the judge to allow him to drop the prosecution. Co%m de 
Espana ; it Ues in the breed. Guzman de Alfarache was 
robbed of his baggage by a friend. The facts were clear, 
the thief was caught with Guzman's clothes on his back ; 
but he had influential friends — he was acquitted. He pro-. 

Y 



322 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

secuted Guzman for a false accusation, got a judgment and 
ruined him. 

The question was, whether if the Cubans could make 
themselves independent there would be much improvement. 
The want in Cuba just now, as in a good many other 
places, is the want of some practical religion which insists 
on moral duty. A learned EngUsh judge was trying a case 
one day, when there seemed some doubt about the religious 
condition of one of the witnesses. The clerk of the conrt 
retired with him to ascertain what it really was, and 
returned radiant almost immediately, saying, 'All right, 
my lord. Knows he'll be damned — competent witness — 
knows he'll be damned.' That is really the whole of the 
matter. If a man is convinced that if he does wrong he 
will infalUbly be punished for it he has then ' a saving 
faith.' This, unfortunately, is precisely the conviction 
which modern forms of reUgion produce hardly anywhere. 
The Cubans are Catholics, and hear mass and go to confes- 
sion ; but confession and the mass between them are 
enough for the consciences of most of them, and those who 
think are under the influence of the modem spirit, to 
which all things are doubtful. Some And comfort in Mr. 
Herbert Spencer. Some regard Christianity as a myth or 
poem, which had passed in unconscious good faith into the 
mind of mankind, and there might have remained undis- 
turbed as a beneficent superstition had not Protestantism 
sprung up and insisted on flinging away everything which 
was not literal and historical fact. Historical fact had 
really no more to do with it than with the stories of 
Prometheus or the siege of Troy. The end was that no 
bottom of fact could be found, and we were all set drifting. 
Notably too I observed among serious people there^ what 
I have observed in other places, the visible relief with which 
they begin to look forward to extinction after death. When 
the authority is shaken on which the belief in a future lijfo 



THi: CEMETERY 323 

rests, the question inevitably recurs. Men used to pretend 
that the idea of annihilation was horrible to them ; now 
they regard the probabiUty of it with calmness, if not with 
actual satisfaction. One very interesting Cuban gentleman 
said to me that life would be very tolerable if one was cer- 
tain that death would be the end of it. The theological 
alternatives were equally unattractive; Tartarus was an 
eternity of misery, and the Elysian Fields an eternity of 
ennui. 

There is affectation in the talk of men, and one never 
knows from what they say exactly what is in their mind. 
I have often thought that the real character of a people 
shows itself nowhere with more unconscious completeness 
than iff their cemeteries. Philosophise as we may, few of 
us are deUberately insincere in the presence of death ; and 
in the arrangements which we make for the reception of 
those who have been dear to us, and in the lines which we 
inscribe upon their monuments, we show what we are in 
ourselves perhaps more than what they were whom we 
commemorate. The parish churchyard is an emblem and 
epitome of English country Ufe ; London reflects itself in 
Brompton and Eensal Green, and Paris in Pere la Chaise. 
One day as I was walking I found myself at the gate of the 
great suburban cemetery of Havana. It was inclosed 
within high walls ; the gateway was a vast arch of pink 
marble, beautiful and elaborately carved. Within there 
was a garden simply and gracefully laid out with trees and 
shrubs and flowers in borders. The whole space inclosed 
may have been ten acres, of which half was assigned to 
those who were contented with a mere mound of earth to 
mark where they lay; the rest was divided into fomily 
vaults covered with large white marble slabs, separate 
headstones marking individuals for whom a particular 
record was required, and each group bearing the name of 
the family the members of which were sleeping there. 



324 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

The peculiarity of the place was the absence of inscriptions. 
There was a name and date, with E. P. D. — * en paz 
descansa'^ — or E. G. E. — *en gracia estfi'* — and that 
seemed all that was needed. The virtues of the departed 
and the grief of the survivors were taken for granted in all 
but two instances. There may have been more, but I could 
find only these. 

One was in Latin : 

AD C(ELITES EVOCAT^ UXORI EXim^ IGNATIUS. 
Ignatius to hia admirable wife who has been called up to heaven. 

The other was in Spanish verse, and struck me as a 
graceful imitation of the old manner of Cervantes and 
Lope de Yega. The design on the monument was of a 
girl hanging an immortelle upon a cross. The tomb was 
of a Garidad del Monte, and the lines were : 

Bendita Caridad, las que piadosa 
Sn mano vierte en la fdn^rea losa 
Son flores recogidas en el saelo, 
Mas con en olor perfiimar&n el oielo. 

It is dangerous for anyone to whom a language is only 
moderately familiar to attempt an appreciation of elegiac 
poetry, the eflfect of which, like the fragrance of a violet, 
must rather be perceived than accounted for. He may 
imagine what is not there, for a single word ill placed or 
ill chosen may spoil the charm, and of this a foreigner can 
never entirely judge. He may know what each word means, 
but he cannot know the associations of it. Here, however, 
is a translation in which the sense is preserved, though the 
aroma is gone. 

The flowers which thon, oh blessed Charity, 
With pious hand hast twined in funeral wreath, 
Although on earthly soil they gathered be, 
Will sweeten heaven with their perfumed breath. 

' He rests in peaoe. * He is now in graoe* 



AN AMERICAN BISHOP 325 

The flowers, I suppose, were the actions of Garidad's 
own innocent life, which she was offering on the cross of 
Christ ; but one never can be sure that one has caught the 
exact sentiment of emotional verse in a foreign language. 
The beauty lies in an undeflnable sweetness which rises from 
the melody of the words, and in a translation disappears 
altogether. Who or what Caridad del Monte was, whether 
a young girl whom somebody had loved, or an allegoric and 
emblematic ligure, I had no one to tell me. 

I must not omit one acquaintance which I was fortu- 
nate enough to make while staying at my seaside lodging. 
There appeared there one day, driven out of Havana like 
myself by the noise, an American ecclesiastic with a friend 
who addressed him as ' My lord.' By the ring and purple, 
as well as by the title, I perceived that he was a bishop. 
His friend was his chaplain, and from their voices I 
gathered that they were both by extraction Irish. The 
bishop had what is called a ' clergyman's throat,' and had 
come from the States in search of a warmer climate. They 
kept entirely to themselves, but from the laughter and 
good-humour they were evidently excellent company for 
one another, and wanted no other. I rather wished than 
hoped that accident might introduce me to them. Even in 
Cuba the weather is uncertain. One day there came a 
high wind from the sea ; the waves roared superbly upon 
the rocks, flying over them in rolling cataracts. I never 
saw foam so purely white or waves so transparent. As 
a spectacle it was beautiful, and the shore became a 
museum of coralline curiosities. Indoors the effect was 
less agreeable. Windows rattled and shutters broke from 
their fastenings and flew to and fro. The weathercock on 
the house-top creaked as he was whirled about, and the 
verandahs had to be closed, and the noise was like a pro- 
longed thunder peal. The second day the wind became a 
cyclone, and chilly as if it came from the pole. None of 




THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



us could stir out. The liishop Buffered even more than I 
did ; he walked up and down on the sheltered side of the 
houEe wrapped in a huge episcopalian cloak. I think he 
saw that I was sorry for him, as I really was. He spoke 
to me ; he said he had felt the cold less in America when 
the thermometer marked 25° below zero. It was not much, 
but the silence was broken. Common suffering made a 
kind of link between ub. After this he dropped an occa- 
sional gi'aeious word as he passed, and one morning he 
came and sat by me and began to talk on subjects of ex- 
treme interest. Chiefly he insisted on the rights of con- 
science and the tenderness for liberty of thought which had 
always been shown by the Church of Rome. He had been 
led to speak of it by the education question which has now 
become a burning one in the American Union. The Church, 
he said, never had interfered, and never could or would 
interfere, with any man's conscientious scruples. Its own 
scruples, therefore, ought to be respected. The American 
State schools were irreligious, and Catholic parents were 
unwilling to allow their children to attend them. They had 
established schools of their own, and they supported them 
by subscriptions among themselves. In these schools the 
boys and girls learnt everything which they could learn in the 
State scljools, and they learnt to be virtuous besides. They 
were thus discharging to the full every duty which the State 
could claim of them, and the State had no right to tax them 
in addition for the maintenance of institutions of which 
they made no use, and of the principles of which they dis- 
approved. There were now eight millions of Catholics in 
the Union. In more than one state they had an actual 
majority ; and they intended to insist that as long as their 
children came up to the present educational standard, they 
should no longer be compelled to pay a second education 
tax to the Government. The struggle, he admitted, would 



ation ^1 
rould ^H 



AN AMERICAN BISHOP 



317 



te a severe one, but the Catholics had justice on their side, 
and would fight on till they won. 

In democracies the naajority is to prevail, and if the 
control of education falls within the province of each sepa- 
rate state government, it is not easy to see on what ground 
the Americans will he able to resist, or how there can be a 
struggle at all where the Catholic vote is really the largest. 
The presence of the CathoUc Church in a democracy is the 
real anomaly. The principle of the Church is authority 
resting on a divine commission ; the principle of demo- 
cracy is the will of the people ; and the Church in the long 
run wUl have as hard a battle to fight with the divine right 
of the majority of numbers as she had with the divine right 
of the Hohenstauffens and the Pfantagenets. She is adroit 
in adapting herself to circumstances, and, Uke her emblem 
the fish, she changes her colour with that of the element 
in which she swims. No doubt she has a strong position in 
this demand and will know how to use it. 

But I was surprised to hear even a Cathohc bishop 
insist that his Church had always i)aid so much respect to 
the rights of conscience. I had been taught to believe 
that in the days of its power the Church had not been 
particularly tender towards differences of opinion. Fire 
and sword had been used freely enough as long as fire and 
Bword were available. I hinted my astonishment. The 
bishop said the Church had been slandered ; the Church 
had never in a single instance punished any man merely 
for conscientious error. Protestants had falsified history. 
Protestants read their histories. Catholics read theirs, and 
the Catholic version was the true one. The separate govern- 
ments of Europe had no doubt been cruel. In France, 
Spain, the Low Countries, even in England, heretics had 
been harshly dealt with, but it was the governments that 
had burnt and massacred all those people, not the Church. 



328 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

The governmentB were afraid of heresy becauBe it led 
to revolntion. The Church had never shed any blood 
at all ; the Church could not, for she waa forbidden to 
do BO by her own canons. If she found a man obsti- 
nate in unbelief, she cut hi in off from the communion and 
handed him over to the secular arm. If the secular arm 
thought fit to kill him, the Church's hands were clear 
of it. 

So i'ilate washed his hands ; so the judge might say he 
never hanged a murderer ; the execution was the work of the 
hangman. The bishop defied me to produce an instance in 
which in Borne, when the temporal power was with the pope 
and the civil magistrates were churchmen, there had ever 
been an execution for heresy. I mentioned Giordano Bruno, 
whom the bishop had forgotten ; but we agreed not to 
quarrel, and I could not admire sufficiently the hardihood 
and the ingenuity of his argument. The English bishops 
and abbots passed through parliament the Act de hteretico 
comhurendo, but they were acting as politicians, not as 
churchmen. The Spanish Inquisition burnt freely and 
successfully. The inquisitors were archbishops and bishops, 
but the Holy Office was a function of the State. When 
Gregory XIII. struck his medal in commemoration of the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew he was then only the secular 
ruler of Rome, and therefore fallible and subject to sin like 
other mortals. 

The Church has many parts to play ; her stage ward- 
robe is well furnished, and her actors so well instructed 
in their parts that they believe themselves in all that they 
say. The bishop was speaking no more than his exact 
conviction. He told me that in the Middle Ages secular 
princes were bound by their coronation oath to accept 
the pope aa the arbiter of all quarrels between them. I 
asked where this oath was, or what were the terms of it? 
The words, he said, were unimportant. The fact was 



1 



AN AMERICAN BISHOP 329 

certain, and down to the fatal schism of the sixteenth 
century the pope had always been allowed to arbitrate, 
and quarrels had been prevented. I could but Usten 
and wonder. He admitted that he had read one set of 
books and I another, as it was clear that he must have 
done. 

In the midst of our differences we found we had many 
points of agreement. We agreed that the breaking down 
of Church authority at the Reformation had been a fatal 
disaster ; that without a sense of responsibility to a super- 
natural power, human beings would sink into ingenious 
apes, that human society would become no more than a 
congregation of apes, and that with differences of opinion 
and beUef, that sense was becoming more and more ob- 
scured. So long as all serious men held the same con- 
victions, and those convictions were embodied in the law, 
reUgion could speak with authority. The authority being 
denied or shaken, the fact itself became uncertain. The 
notion that everybody had a right to think as he pleased 
was felt to be absurd in common things. The ignorant 
submitted to be guided by those who were better instructed 
than themselves ; why should they be left to their private 
judgment on subjects where to go wrong was the more 
dangerous? All this was plain sailing. The corollary 
that if it is to retain its influence the Church must not teach 
doctrines which outrage the common sense of mankind as 
Luther led half Europe to beUeve that the Church was doing 
in the sixteenth century, we agreed that we would not dispute 
about. But I was interested to see that the leopard had 
not changed its spots, that it merely readjusted its attitudes 
to suit the modern taste, and that if it ever recovered its 
power it would claw and scratch in the old way. Rome, 
like Pilate, may protest its innocence of the blood which 
was spilt in its name and in its interests. Did that tender 
and merciful court ever suggest to those prelates who 



339 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

passed the Act in England for the boming of heretics that 
they were transgressing the sacred rights of conscience ? 
Did it reprove the Inquisition or send a mild remonstrance 
to Philip U. ? The eyes of those who are willing to be 
blinded will see only what they desire to see. 



SPAIN AND CUBA 331 



CHAPTER XX. 

Betarn to Havana — The SpaniaroU in Caba — ProqieotB — ^American infla- 
enoe — Fatnre of the West Indies — Kngiiah romoars — Leave Caba— 
The harboar at night — The Bahama Channel— Hayti— Port an Prince— 
The black republic— West Indian history. 

Thb air and quiet of Yedado (so my retreat was called) soon 
set me up agfun, and I was able to face once more my hotel 
and its Americans. I did not attempt to travel in Cuba, 
nor was it necessary for my purpose. I stayed a few days 
longer at Havana. I went to operas and churches; I sailed 
about the harbour in boats, the boatmen, all of them, not 
negroes, as in the Antilles, but emigrants from the old 
country, chiefly Galicians. I met people of all sorts, 
among the rest a Spanish ofl&cer — a major of engineers — 

who, if he lives, may come to something. Major D took 

me over the fortifications, showed me the interior lines of the 
Moro, and their latest specimens of modern artillery. The 
garrison are, of course, Spanish regiments made of home- 
bred Gastilians, as I could not fail to recognise when I 
heard any of them speak. There are certain words of 
common use in Spain powerful as the magic formulas of 
enchanters over the souls of men. You hear them every- 
where in the Peninsula ; at cafes, at tables d'hote, and in 
private conversation. They are a part of the national 
intellectual equipment. Either from prudery or because 
they are superior to old-world superstitions, the Cubans 
have washed these expressions out of their language ; but 
the national characteristics are preserved in the army, and 
the spell does not lose its efEicacy because the islanders dis- 



332 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

believe in it. I have known a cloeed post ofEice in Madrid, 
where the clerk was deaf to polite entreaty, blown open by 
an oath as by a bomb shell. A squad of recruits in the 
Moro, who were lying in the shade under a tree, neglected 

to rise as an ofl&cer went by. * Saludad, C o ! ' he 

thundered out, and they bounded to their feet as if elec- 
trified. 

On the whole Havana was something to have seen. It 
is the focus and epitome of Spanish dominion in those seas, 
and I was forced to conclude that it was well for Cuba that 
the EngUsh attempts to take possession of it had failed. 
Be the faults of their administration as heavy as they 
are alleged to be, the Spaniards have done more to Euro- 
peanise their islands than we have done with ours. They 
have made Cuba Spanish — Trinidad, Dominica, St. Lucia, 
Grenada have never been EngUsh at all, and Jamaica and 
Barbadoes are ceasing to be EngUsh. Cuba is a second 
home to the Spaniards, a permanent addition to their soil. 
We are as birds of passage, temporary residents for transient 
purposes, with no home in our islands at aU. Once we 
thought them worth fighting for, and as long as it was a 
question of ships and cannon we made ourselves supreme 
rulers of the Caribbean Sea ; yet the French and Spaniards 
wiU probably outlive us there ; they wiU remain perhaps 
as satelUtes of the United States, or in some other con- 
federacy, or in recovered strength of their own. We, in a 
generation or two, if the causes now in operation continue 
to work as they are now working, shall have disappeared 
from the scene. In Cuba there is a great Spanish popu- 
lation ; Martinique and Guadaloupe are parts of France. 
To us it seems a matter of indifference whether we keep 
our islands or abandon them, and we leave the remnants 
of our once precious settlements to float or drown as they 
can. AustraUa and Canada take care of themselves ; we 
expect our West Indies to do the same, careless of the 



IVEST INDIAN PROSPECTS 333 

difference of circumstance. We no longer talk of cutting 
our colonies adrift ; the tone of public opinion is changed, 
and no one dares to advocate openly the desertion of the 
least important of them. But the neglect and indifference 
continue. We will not govern them effectively ourselves : 
our policy, so far as we have anypolicy, is to extend among 
them the principles of self-government, and self-government 
can only precipitate our extinction there as completely as 
we know that it would do in India if we were rash enough 
to venture the plunge. There is no enchantment in self- 
government which will make people love each other when 
they are indifferent or estranged. It can only force them 
into sharper collision. 

The opinion in Cuba was, and is, that America is 
the residuary legatee of all the islands, Spanish and 
English equally, and that she will be forced to take charge 
of them in the end whether she likes it or not. Spain 
governs unjustly and corruptly ; the Cubans will not rest 
till they are free from her, and if once independent they 
will throw themselves on American protection. 

We will not govern our islands at all, but leave them to 
drift. Jamaica and the Antilles, given over to the negro 
majorities, can only become like Hayti and St. Domingo ; 
and the nature of things will hardly permit so fair a part 
of the earth which has been once civilised and under white 
control to fall back into barbarism. 

r To England the loss of the West Indies would not itself ] 
I be serious ; but in the Ufe of nations discreditable failures 
\ are not measured by their immediate material consequences. ' 

I 

To allow a group of colonies to slide out of our hands 
' because we could not or would not provide them with a 
tolerable government would be nothing less than a public 
disgrace. It would be an intimation to all the world that 
we were unable to maintain any longer the position which 
our fathers had made for us ; and when the unravelling 



334 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

of the knitted fabric of the Empire has once begun the pro- 
cess will be a rapid one. 

*But what would you do?' I am asked impatiently. 
*• We send out peers or gentlemen against whose character 
no direct objection can be raised ; we assist them with local 
councils partly chosen by the people themselves. We send 
out bishops, we send out missionaries, we open schools. 
What can we do more ? We cannot alter the climate, we 
cannot make planters prosper when sugar will not pay, we 
cannot convert black men into whites, we cannot force the 
blacks to work for the whites when they do not wish to 
work for them. ** Governing," as you call it, will not change 
the natural conditions of things. You can suggest no 
remedy, and mere fault-finding is foolish and mischievous.' 

I might answer a good many things. Government can- 
not do everything, but it can do something, and there is 
a difference between governors against whom there is no- 
thing to object, and men of special and marked capacity. 
There is a difference between governors whose hands are 
tied by local councils and whose feet are tied by instruc- 
tions from home, and a governor with a free hand and a 
wise head left to take his own measures on the spot. I 
presume that no one can seriously expect that an orderly 
organised nation can be made out of the blacks, when, in 
spite of your schools and missionaries, seventy per cent, 
of the children now born among them are illegitimate. 
You can do for the West Indies, I repeat over and over 
again, what you do for the East ; you can establish a firm 
authoritative government which will protect the blacks in 
their civil rights and protect the whites in theirs. You can- 
not alter the climate, it is true, or make the soil more fertile. 
Already it is fertile as any in the earth, and the climate is 
admirable for the purposes for which it is needed. But 
you can restore confidence in the stability of your tenure, 
you can give courage to the whites who are on the spot to 



WEST INDIAN PROSPECTS 335 

remain there, and you can tempt capital and enterprise to 
venture there which now seek investments elsewhere. By 
keeping the rule in your own hands you will restore the 
white population to their legitimate influence ; the blacks 
will again look up to them and respect them as they ought 
to do. This you can do, and it will cost you nothing save 
a little more pains in the selection of the persons whom 
you are to trust with powers analogous to those which you 
grant to your provincial governors in the Indian peninsula. 
A preliminary condition of this, as of all other real im- 
provements, is one, however, which will hardly be fulfilled. 
Before a beginning can be made, a conviction is wanted that 
life has other objects besides interest and convenience ; and 
very few of us indeed have at the bottom of our hearts 
any such conviction at all. We can talk about it in fine 
language — no age ever talked more or better — but we don't 
believe in it; we believe only in professing to believe, 
which soothes our vanity and does not interfere with our 
actions. From fine words no harvests grow. The negroes are 
well disposed to follow and obey any white who will be kind 
and just to them, and in such following and obedience their 
only hope of improvement lies. The problem is to create 
a state of things under which Enghshmen of vigour and 
<5haracter will make their homes among them. Annexation 
to the United States would lead probably to their exter- 
mination at no very distant time. The Antilles are small, 
and the fate of the negroes there might be no better than 
the fate of the Caribs. The Americans are not a people 
who can be trifled with ; no one knows it better than the 
negroes. They fear them. They prefer infinitely the mild 
rule of England, and under such a government as we 
might provide if we cared to try, the whole of our islands 
might become like the Moravian settlement in Jamaica, and 
the black nature, which has rather degenerated than im- 
proved in these late days of licence, might be put again in 



t 



336 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

the way of regeneration. The process would be slow — ^your 
seedlings in a plantation hang stationary year after year, 
but they do move at last. We cannot disown our respon- 
sibility for these poor adopted brothers of ours. We send 
missionaries into Africa to convert them to a better form 
of religion; why should the attempt seem chimerical to 
convert them practicaUy to a higher purpose in our own 
colonies 2^ 



The reader will be weary of a sermon the points of which 
have been reiterated so often. I might say that he requires 
to have the lesson impressed upon him — ^that it is for his 
I good that I insist upon it, and not for my own J But this 
is the common language of all preacliefs/ and^is not found 
to make the hearers more attentive. I will not promise to 
say no more upon the subject, for it was forced upon me 
at every moment and point of my journey. I am arriving 
near the end, however, and if he has followed so far, he will 
perhaps go on with me to the conclusion. I had three weeks 
to give to Havana ; they were fast running out, and it was 
time for me to be going. Strange stories, too, came from 
England, which made me uneasy till I knew how they were 
set in circulation. One day Mr. Gladstone was said to have 
gone mad, and the Queen the next. The Bussians werelabout 
to annex Afghanistan. Our troops had been cut to pieces 
in Burmah. Something was going wrong with us every 
day in one corner of the world or another. I found at last 
that the telegraphic intelligence was supplied to the Cuban 
newspapers from New York, that the telegraph clerks there 
were generally Irish, and their facts were the creation of 
their wishes. I was to return to Jamaica in the same 
vessel which had brought me from it. She had been down 
to the isthmus, and was to call at Havana on her way back. 
The captain's most English face was a welcome sight to me 
when he appeared one evening at dinner. He had come to 
tell me that he was to sail early on the following morning. 



THE HARBOUR AT NIGHT 337 

and I arranged to go on board with him the same night. 
The Captain-General had not forgotten to instruct the 
Gobiemo Civil to grant me an exeat regno. I do not know 
that I gained much by his intercession, for without it I 
should hardly have been detained indefinitely, and as it was 
I had to pay more dollars than I liked to part with. The 
necessary documents, however, had been sent through the 
British consul, and I was free to leave when I pleased. I 
paid my bill at the hotel, which was not after all an extra- 
vagant one, cleared my pocket-book of the remainder of the 
soiled and tattered paper which is called money, and does 
duty for it down to a halfpenny, and with my distinguished 

friend Don G , the real acquisition which I had made in 

coming to his country, and who would not leave me till I 
was in the boat, I drove away to the wharf. 

It was a still, lovely, starlight night. The moon had 
risen over the hills, and was shining brightly on the roofs 
and towers of the city, and on the masts and spars of the 
vessels which were riding in the harbour. There was not 
a ripple on the water, and stars and city, towers and ships, 
stood inverted on the surface pointing downward as into a 
second infinity. The charm was unfortunately interfered 
with by odours worse than Coleridge fbund at Cologne and 
cursed in rhyme. The drains of Havana, like orange blossom, 
give off their most fragrant vapours in the dark hours. I 

could well believe Don G 's saying, that but for the 

natural healthiness of the place, they would all die of it 
like poisoned flies. We had to cut our adieus short, for the 
mouth of some horrid sewer was close to us. In the boat 
I did not escape ; the water smelt horribly as it was stirred 
by the oars, charged as it was with three centuries of pol- 
lution, and the phosphorescent light shone with a sickly, 
Bulphur-like brilliance. One could have fancied that one 
was in Charon's boat and was crossing Acheron. When I 
reached the steamer I watched from the deck the same ghost- 

z 



338 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

like phenomenon which is deBcribed by Tom Cringle. A. 
fathom deep, in the ship's Bhadow, some shark or other 
monster sailed slowly by in an envelope of spectral lustre. 
"When he stopped his figure disappeared, when he moved 
on again it was like the movement of a streak of blue Bame. 
Such a creature did not seem as if it could belong to our 
familiar sunlit ocean. 

The state of the harbour is not creditable to the Spanish 
Government, and I suppose will not be improved till there is 
some change of dynasty. All that can be said for it is that it 
is not the worst in these seas. Our ship had just come from 
the Canal, and had brought the latest news from thence. 
Fever and pestilence, deaths by revolver and deaths by 
stiletto, robbery and waste, piles of costly machinery, sole 
representative of the squandered milhons of francs, rusting 
in the swamps. Drink shops and gambling hells, women 
plying their vile profession there, sohing the question of 
the Schoolmen whether the devils were of both sexes or 
only one. Money still flowing in rivers, and the human 
vultures flocking to the spoil. No law, no police. Murder, 
and no inquiry into it ; bodies lying about unburied, and 
wild dogs and Johnny crows holding carnival over them. 
Beautiful last creation of the progress and enterprise of 
the nineteenth century. 

At dawn we swept out under the Moro, and away once 
more into the free fresh open sea. We had come down on 
the south side of the island, we returned by the north up 
the old Bahama Channel where Drake died on his way 
home from his last unsuccessful expedition — Lope de Vega 
singing a piean over the end of the gi-eat ' dragon.' Fresh 
passengers brought fresh talk. There was a clever young 
Jamaican on board returning from a holiday ; he had the 
spirits of youth about him, and would have pleased my 
American who never knew good come of despondency. He 
had hopes for his country, but they rested, like those of 



ENGLISH TRADE IN HA VANA 339 

every sensible man that I met, on an inability to believe that 
there would be further advances in the direction of political 
liberty. A revised constitution, he said, could issue only 
in fresh Gordon riots and fresh calamities. He had been 
travelling in the Southern States. He had seen the state of 
Mississippi deserted by the whites, and falling back into a 
black wilderness. He had seen South Carolina, which had 
narrowly escaped ruin under a black and carpet-bagger 
legislature, and had recovered itself under the steady de- 
termination of the Americans that the civil war was not to 
mean the domination of negro over white. The danger was 
greater in the English islands than in either of these states, 
from the enormous disproportion of numbers. The experi- 
ment could be ventured only under a high census and a 
restricted franchise, but the experience of all countries 
showed that these limited franchises were invidious and could 
not be maintained. The end was involved in the beginning, 
and he trusted that prudent counsels would prevail. We 
had gone too far already. 

On board also there was a traveller from a Manchester 
house of business, who gave me a more flourishing account 
than I expected of the state of our trade, not so much with 
the English islands as with the Spaniards in Cuba and on the 
mainland. His own house, he said, had a large business with 
Havana ; twenty firms in the north of England were com- 
peting there, and all were doing well. The Spanish Ameri- 
cans on the west side of the continent were good customers, 
with the exception of the Mexicans, who were energetic and 
industrious, and manufactured for their own consumption. 
These modern Aztecs were skilful workmen, nimble-fingered 
and inventive. Wages were low, but they were contented 
with them. Mexico, I was surprised to hear from him, was 
rising fast into prosperity. Whether human life was any 
safer then than it was a few years ago, he did not tell me. 

Amidst talk and chess and occasional whist after 

z 2 



340 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

nightfall when readmg became difficult, we ran along with 
smooth seas, land sometimes in sight, with shoals on 
either side of us. 

We were to have one more glimpse at Hayti ; we were 
to touch at Port au Prince, the seat of government of 
the successors of Toussaint. If beauty of situation could 
mould human character, the inhabitants of Port au Prince 
might claim to be the first of mankind. St. Domingo 
or Espanola, of which Hayti is the largest division, was 
the earliest island discovered by Columbus and the finest 
in the Caribbean Ocean. It remained Spanish, as I have 
already said, for 200 years, when Hayti was taken by the 
French buccaneers, and made over by them to Louis XIV. 
The French kept it till the Kevolution. They built towns ; 
they laid out farms and sugar fields ; they planted coffee 
all over the island, where it now grows wild. Vast herds 
of cattle roamed over the mountain ; splendid houses rose 
over the rich savannah. The French Church put out 
its strength ; there were churches and priests in every 
parish ; there were monasteries and nunneries for the 
religious orders. So firm was the hold that they had 
gained that Hayti, like Cuba, seemed to have been made a 
part of the old world, and as civilised as France itself. 
But French civilisation became itself electric. The Re- 
volution came, and the reign of Liberty. The blacks 
took arms ; they surprised the plantations ; they made a 
clean sweep of the whole French population. Yellow fever 
swept away the armies which were sent to avenge the 
massacre, and France being engaged in annexing Europe 
had no leisure to despatch more. The island being thus 
derelict, Spain and England both tried their hand to 
recover it, but foiled from the same cause, and a black 
nation, with a republican constitution and a population 
perhaps of about a million and a half of pure-blood 
negroes, has since been in unchallenged possession, and 



PORT AU PRINCE 341 

has arrived at the condition which has been described 
to us by Sir Spencer St. John. Republics which begin 
with murder and plunder do not come to much good in 
this world. Hayti has passed through many revolutions, 
and is no nearer than at first to stability. The present 
president, M. Salomon, who was long a refugee in Jamaica, 
came into power a few years back by a turn of the wheel. 
He was described to me as a peremptory gentleman who 
made quick work with his poUtical opponents. His term 
of office having nearly expired, he had re-elected himself 
shortly before for another seven years and was prepared to 
maintain his right by any measures which he might think 
expedient. He had a few regiments of soldiers, who, I 
was told, were devoted to him, and a fleet consisting of two 
gunboats commanded by an American officer to whom he 
chiefly owed his security. 

We had steamed along the Hayti coast all one after- 
noon, underneath a high range of hills which used to be 
the hunting ground of the buccaneers. We had passed 
their famous Tortugas' without seeing them. Towards 
evening we entered the long channel between Gk)naive 
island and the mainland, going slowly that we might not 
arrive at Port au Prince before dayUght. It was six in the 
morning when the anchor rattled down, and I went on 
deck to look about me. We were at the head of a fiord 
rather broader than those in Norway, but very like them — 
wooded mountains rising on either side of us, an open 
valley in front, and on the rich level soil washed down 
by the rains and deposited along the shore, the old 
French and now President Salomon's capital. Palms 
and oranges and other trees were growing everywhere 
among the houses, giving the impression of graceful 
civilisation. Directly before us were three or four wooded 
islets which form a natural breakwater, and above them 

* Tortoise Islands ; the bncoaneers* head quarters. 



:^ 



342 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

were Been the masts of the vessels which were lying in the 
harbour behind. Close to where we were brought up lay 
the ' Canada,' an English frigate, and about a quarter of a 
mile from her an American frigate of about the same size, 
with the stars and stripes conspicuously flying. We have 
had some differences of late with the Hayti authorities, 
and the satisfaction which we asked for having been 
refused or delayed, a man-of-war had been sent to ask 
redress in more peremptory terms. The town lay under 
her guns ; the president's ships, which she might per- 
haps have seized as a security, had been taken out of 
sight into shallow water, where she could not follow them. 
The Americans have no particular rights in Hayti, and are 
as little liked as we are. but they are feared, and they do 
not allow any business of a serious kind to go on in those 
waters without knowing what it is about. Perhaps the 
president's admiral of the station being an American may 
have had something to do with their presence. Anyway, 
there the two ships were lying when I came up from below, 
their hulks and spars outlined picturesquely against the 
eteep wooded shores. The air was hot and steamy ; fish- 
ing vessels with white Rails were drifting slowly about 
the glassy water. Except for the heat and a black officer 
of the customs in uniform, and hie boat and black crew 
alongside, I could have believed myself off Molde or some 
similar Norwegian town, so hke everything seemed, even to 
the colour of the houses. 

We were to stay some hours. After breakfast we 
landed. I had seen Jacmel, and therefore thought myself 
prepared for the worst which I should find. Jacmel was 
an outlying symptom ; Port au Prince was the central 
ulcer. Long before we came to shore there came off whiffs, 
not of drains as at Havana, but of active dirt fermenting in 
the sunlight. Calling our handkerchiefs to our help and 
looking to our feet carefully, we stepped up upon the quay 



I 
I 



PORT AU PRINCE 343 

and walked forward as judiciously as we could. With the 
help of stones we crossed a ehallow ditch, where rotten fish, 
vegetables, and other articles were lying about promiscu- 
oualy, and we came on what did duty for a grand parade. 

We were_in a Paris j)f the gutter, with boulevards and I 
places, Jiacres and crimson parasols. The boulevards were 
littered with the refuse of the houses and were foul as pig- 
Istiea, and the ladies under the parasols were picking their 
[way along them in Parisian boots and silk dresses. I saw 
pjiacre broken down in a black pool out of which a blacker 
ladyship was scrambling. Fever breeds ao prodigally in 
that pestilential squalor that 40,000 people were estimated 
to have died of it in a single year. There were shops and 
stores and streets, men and women in tawdry European 
costume, and officers on horseback with a tatter of lace 
and gilding. We passed up the principal avenue, which 
opened on the market place. Above the market was the 
cathedral, more hideous than even the Mormon temple at 
Salt Lake. It was full of ladies ; the rank, beauty, and 
fashion of Port au Prince were at their morning mass, 
for they are Catholics with African beliefs underneath. 
They have a French clergy, an archbishop and bishop, paid 
miserably but still subsisting ; subsisting not as objects of 
reverence at all, as they are at Dominica, but as the humble 
servants and ministers of black society. We Enghsh are 
in bad favour just now; no wonder, with the guns of the 
' Canada ' pointed at the city ; but the chief complaint 
is on account of Sir Spencer St. John's book, which they 
cry out against with a degree of anger which is the surest 
evidence of its truth. It would be unfair even to hint at 
the names or stations of various persons who gave me infor- 
mation about the condition of the place and people. Enough 
that those who knew well what they were speaking about 
assured me that Hayti was the most ridiculous caricature 
of civihsation in the whole world. Doubtless the wintee 



344 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

{here are not disinterested witnesses ; for they are treated 
as they once treated the blacks. They can own no freehold 
property, and exist only on tolerance. They are called, 
'white trash.' Black dukes and marquises drive overj 
them in the street and swear at them, and they consider it 
an invasion of the natural order of things. If this was the 
worst, or even if the dirt and the disease was the worst, it 
might be borne with, for the whites might go away if they 
pleased, and they pay the penalty themselves for choosing 
to be there. But this is not the worst. Immorality is 
so universal that it almost ceases to be a fault, for a fault 
implies an exception, and in Hayti it is the rule. Young 
people make experiment of one another before they will 
enter into any closer connection. So far they are no worse 
than in our own English islands, where the custom is 
equally general; but behind the immorality, behind the 
religiosity, there lies active and alive the horrible revival^ 
of the West African superstitions ; the serpent worship, \ 
and the child sacrifice, and the cannibalism. There isy 
no room to doubt it. A missionary assured me that an 
instance of it occurred only a year ago within his own 
personal knowledge. The facts are notorious ; a full 
account was published in one of the local newspapers, 
and the only result was that the president imprisoned 
the editor for exposing his country. A few years ago 
persons guilty of these infamies were tried and punished; 
now they are left alone, because to prosecute and con- 
vict them would be to acknowledge the truth of the 
indictment. 

In this, as in all other communities, there is a better 
side as well as a worse. The better part is ashamed of the 
condition into which the country has fallen ; rational and 
well-disposed Haytians would welcome back the French but 
for an impression, whether well founded or ill I know not, 
that the Americans would not suffer any European nation 



THE BLACKS IN HAYTI 345 

to reacquire or recover any new territory on their side of 
the Atlantic. They make the most they can of their French 
connection. They send their children to Paris to be edu- 
catedy and many of them go thither themselves. There is 
money among them, though industry there is none. The 
Hayti coffee which bears so high a reputation is simply 
gathered under the bushes which the French planters 
left behind them, and is half as excellent as it ought to be 
because it is so carelessly cleaned, yet so rich is the island 
in these and its natural productions that they cannot 
entirely ruin it. They have a revenue from their customs 
of 5,000,000 dollars to be the prey of political schemers. 
They have a constitution, of course, with a legislature 
— two houses of a legislature— universal suffrage, &c., but 
it does not save them from revolutions, which recurred 
every two or three years till the time of the present pre- 
sident. He being of stronger metal than the rest, takes 
care that the votes are given as he pleases, shoots down 
recusants, and knows how to make himself feared. He is a 
giant, they say — I did not see him — six feet some inches in 
height and broad in proportion. When in Jamaica he was 
a friend of Gordon, and the intimacy between them is worth 
noting, as throwing Ught on Gordon's poUtical aspirations. 

I stayed no longer than the ship's business detained the - 
captain, and I breathed more freely when I had left that 
miserable crofls-birthofferocity and philant^^^ , 

No one can foretell theluture fate of the black republic, 
but the present order of things cannot last in an island so 
close under the American shores. If the Americans forbid 
any other power to interfere, they will have to interfere 
themselves. If they find Mormonism an intolerable blot 
upon their escutcheon, they will have to put a stop in some 
way or other to cannibaUsm and devil-worship. Meanwhile, 
the ninety years of negro self-government have had their Jy 
use in showing what it really means, and if English states- 



n 




346 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

men, either to save themselves trouble or to please the 
prevailing uninstructed sentiment, insist on extending it, 
they will be found when the aeconnts are made up to have 
been no better friends to the unlucky negro than their 
slave -trading forefathers. 

From the head of the bay on which Port au Prince 
stands there reaches out on the west the long arm or penin- 
sula which is 80 peculiar a feature in the geography of the 
island. The arm bone is a continuous ridge of mountains 
rising to a height of 8,000 feet and stretching for 160 
miles. At the back towards the ocean is Jacmel, on the 
other side is the bight of Leogane, over which and along 
the land our course lay after leaving President Salomon's 
city. The day was unusually hot, and we sat under an 
awning on deck watching the changes in the landscape as 
ravines opened and closed again, and tall peaks changed 
their shapes and angles. Clouds came down upon the moun- 
tain tops and passed off again, whole galleries of pictures 
swept by, and nature never made more lovely ones. The 
peculiarity of tropical mountain scenery is that the high 
summits are clothed with trees. The outlines are thus 
softened and rounded, save where the rock ia broken into 
precipices. Along the sea and for several miles inland are 
the Basses Terres as they used to be called, level alluvial 
plains, cut and watered at intervals by rivers, once covered 
with thriving plantations and now a jungle. There are no 
wild beasts there save an occasional man, few snakes, and 
those not dangerous. The acres of richest soil which are 
waiting there till rea.sonable beings can return and cultivate 
them, must be hundreds of thousands. In the valleys and 
on the slopes there are all gradations of climate, abundant 
water, grass lands that might be black with cattle, or on 
th^ loftier ranges white with sheep. 
^A^t is strange to think how chequered a history 
islands have had. how far they are even yet from 



I 



i these ^| 
m any ^| 



fVESr INDIAN HISTOR Y 347 

eondiiion which promises permanence. Not one of them 
has arrived at any stable independence. Spaniards, 
English and French, Dutch and Danes scrambled for 
them, fought for them, occupied them more or less with 
their own people, but it was not to found new nations, but 
to get gold or get something which could be changed for 
gold. Only occasionally, and as it were by accident, they 
became the theatre of any grander game. The war of the 
Eeformation was carried thither, and heroic deeds were 
done there, but it was by adventurers who were in search 
of plunder for themselves. France and England fought 
among the Antilles, and their names are connected with 
many a gallant action ; but they fought for the sovereignty 
of the seas, not for the rights and liberties of the French 
or English inhabitants of the islands. Instead of occupying 
them witli free inhabitants, the European nations filled 
them with slave gangs. They were valued only for the 
wealth which they yielded, and society there has never 
assumed any pai^ticularly noble aspect. There has been 
splendour and luxurious living, and there have been 
crimes and horrors, and revolts and massacres. There 
has been romance, but it has been the romance of 
pirates and outlaws. The natural graces of human life do 
not show themselves under such conditions. There has 
been no samt in the West Indies since Las Casaa, no hero 
unless philonegro enthusiasm can make one out of Toub- 
saint. There are no people there in the true sense of the 
word, with a character and purpose of their own, unless to 
some extent in Cuba, and therefore when the wind has 
changed and the wealth for which the islands were alone 
valued is no longer to be made among them, and slavery is 
no longer possible and would not pay if it were, there is 
nothing to fall back upon. The palaces of the English 
planters and merchants fall to decay ; their wines and 
their furniture, their books and then: pictures, are sold or . 




I 
I 



I 



Their existence ib a atruggle to keep afioat, and 
one by one they go under in the waves. 

The hlacka as long as they were slaves were docile and 
partially civilised. They have behaved on the whole well 
in oiu- islands since their emancipation, for though they 
were personally free the whites were still their rulers, and 
they looked up to them with respect. They have acquired 
land and notions of property, some of them can read, 
many of them are tolerable workmen and some excellent, 
but in charafiter the movement is backwards, not forwards. 
Even in Hayti, after the tirst outburst of ferocity, a 
tolerable government was possible for a generation or two. 
Orderly habits are not immediately lost, but the effect of 
("leaving the negro nature to itself is apparent at last. Iut 
the English islands they are innocently happy in the un-^ 
consciousnesa of the obhgations of morahty. They eat, \ 
drink, sleep, and smoke, and do the least in the way of work i \ 
that they can. They have no ideas of duty, and therefore ' 
are not made uneasy by neglecting it. One or other of 
them occasionally rises in the legal or other profession, but 
there is no sign, not the slightest, that the generality of the 
race are improving either in inteUigence or moral ha bits ; 
all the evidence is the other way. No Uncle Tom, no Aunt 
Chloe need be looked for in a negro's cabin in the West 
Indies, If such specimens of black humanity are to be 
found anywhere, it will be where they have continued under 
the old influences as servants in white men's houses. The 
generality are mere good-natured animals, who in service 
had learnt certain accomplishments, and had developed 
certain <jualities of a higher kind. Left to themselves they 

-' fall back upon the superstitions and habits of their ancestors. 
The key to the character of any people is to be found in the 
local customs which have spontaneously grown or are grow- 
ing among them. The customs of Dahomey have not yet 

* shown themselves in the Enghsh West Indies and never can 



I 



LAST IMPRESSIONS 349 

while the English authority is maintained, but no custom of 
any kind will be found in a negro hut or village from which 
his most sangume friend can derive a hope that he is on the 
way to mending himself. 

Boses do not grow on thorns, nor figs on thistles. A 
healthy human civilisation was not perhaps to be looked for 
in countries which have been alternately the prey of avarice, 
ambition, and sentimentalism. We visit foreign countries 
to see varieties of life and character, to learn languages 
that we may gain an insight into various Uteratures, to 
see manners unlike our own springing naturally out of 
different soils and climates, to see beautiful works of art, to 
see places associated with great men and great actions, and 
subsidiary to these, to see lakes and mountains, and strange 
skies and seas. But the localities of great events and the 
homes of the actors in them are only saddening when the 
spiritual results are disappointing, and scenery loses its 
charm imless the grace of humanity is in the heart of it. To 
the man of science the West Indies may be delightful and 
instructive. Bocks and trees and flowers remain as they 
always were, and Nature is constant to herself; but the 
traveller whose heart is with his kind, and cares only to 
Bee his brother mortals making their corner of this planet 
into an orderly and rational home, had better choose some 
other object for his pilgrimage. 



350 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Betom to Jamaica — Cherry Garden again — Black servants— Social condi- 
tions—Sir Henry Norman — King's House once more —Negro suffrage — 
The will of the people — The Irish python — Conditions of colonial union 
— Oratory and statesmanship. 

I HAD to return to Jamaica from Cuba to meet the mail to 
England. My second stay could be but brief. For the 
short time that was allowed me I went back to my hos- 
pitable friends at Cherry Garden, which is an oasis in the 
wilderness. In the heads of the family there was cultiva- 
tion and simplicity and sense. There was a home life with 
its quiet occupations and enjoyments — serious when serious- 
ness was needed, light and bright in the ordinary routine 
of existence. The black domestics, far unlike the children 
of liberty whom I had left at Port au Prince, had caught 
their tone from their master and mistress, and were low- 
voiced, humorous, and pleasant to talk with. So perfect 
were they in their several capacities, that, like the girls at 
Government House at Dominica, I would have liked to 
pack them in my portmanteau and carry them home. The 
black butler received me on my arrival as an old friend. 
He brought me a pair of boots which I had left behind me 
on my first visit ; he told me * the female ' had foimd them. 
The lady of the house took me out for a drive with her. 
The coachman upset us into a ditch, and we narrowly escaped 
being pitched into a ravine. The dusky creature insisted 
pathetically that it was not his fault, nor the horse's fault. 
His ebony wife had left him for a week's visit to a friend, 
and his wits had gone after her. Of course he was for- 



CHERR Y GARDEN A GAIN 35 1 

given. Cherry Garden was a genuine homestead, a very 
menagerie of domestic animals of all sorts and breeds 
Horses loitered under the shade of the mangoes; cows, 
asses, dogs, turkeys, cocks and hens, geese, guinea fowl and 
pea fowl lounged and strutted about the paddocks. In the 
grey of the morning they held their concerts ; the asses 
brayed, the dogs barked, the turkeys gobbled, and the pea- 
fowl screamed. It was enough to waken the seven sleepers, 
but the noises seemed so home-like and natural that they 
mixed pleasantly in one's dreams. One morning, after 
they had been holding a special jubilee, the butler apolo- 
gised for them when he came to call me, and laughed as at 
the best of jokes when I said they did not mean any harm. 
The great feature of the day was five cats, with blue eyes 
and spotlessly white, who walked in regularly at breakfast, 
ranged themselves on their tails roimd their mistress's 
chair, and ate their porridge and nulk like reasonable crea- 
tures. Within and without all was orderly. The gardens 
were in perfect condition ; fields were being inclosed and 
planted ; the work of the place went on of itself, with the 
eye of the mistress on it, and her voice, if necessary, heard 
in command ; but black and white were all friends together. 
What could man ask for, more than to live all his days in 
such a climate and with such surroundings ? Why should 
a realised ideal like this pass away ? Why may it not ex- 
tend itself till it has transformed the features of all our 
West Indian possessions ? Thousands of English families 
might be living in similai* scenes, happy in themselves 
and spreading round them a happy, wholesome English 
atmosphere. Why not indeed ? Only because we are 
enchanted. Because in Jamaica and Barbadoes the white 
planters had a constitution granted them two himdred 
years ago, therefore their emancipated slaves must now 
have a constitution also. Wonderful logic of formulas, 
powerful as a witches' cauldron for mischief as long as 



352 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

it is believed in. The colonies and the Empire ! If the 
colonies were part indeed of the Empire, if they were 
taken into partnership as the Americans take theirs^ and 
were members of an organised body, if an injury to each 
single limb would be felt as an injury to the whole, we 
should not be playing with their vital interests to catch votes 
at home. Alas ! at home we are split in two, and party is 
more than the nation, and famous statesmen, thinly dis- 
guising their motives under a mask of poKcy, condemn to- 
day what they approved of yesterday, and catch at power by 
projects which they would be the first to denounce if sug- 
gested by their adversaries. Till this tyranny be overpast, 
to bring into one the scattered portions of the Empire is the 
idlest of dreams, and the most that is to be hoped for is to 
arrest any active mischief. Happy Americans, who have a 
Supreme Court with a code of fundamental laws to control 
the vagaries of politicians and check the passions of fluctua- 
ting electoral majorities ! What the Supreme Court is to 
them, the Crown ought to be for us ; but the Crown is power- 
less and must remain powerless, and therefore we are as we 
are, and our national existence is made the shuttlecock of 
party contention. 

Time passed so pleasantly with me in these concluding 
days that I could have wished it to be the nothing which 
metaphysicians say that it is, and that when one was happy 
it would leave one alone. We wandered in the shade in the 
mornings, we made expeditions in the evenings, called at 
friends* houses, and listened to the gossip of the island. It 
turned usually on the one absorbing subject — black servants 
and the difficulty of dealing with them. An American lady 
from Pennsylvania declared emphatically as her opinion 
that emancipation had been a piece of folly, and that things 
would never mend till they were slaves again. 

One of my own chief hopes in going originally to Jamaica 
had been to see and learn the views of the distinguished 



SIJ^ HENRY NORMAN 353 

Governor there. Sir Henry Norman had been one of the 
most eminent of the soldier civiUans in India. He had 
brought with him a brilliant reputation ; he had won the 
confidence in the West Indies of all classes and all colours. 
He, if anyone, would understand the problem, and from 
the high vantage ground of experience would know what 
could or could not be done to restore the influence of 
England and the prosperity of the colonies. Unfortunately, 
Sir Henry had been called to London, as I mentioned before, 
on a question of the conduct of some official, and I was 
afraid that I should miss him altogether. He returned, 
however, the day before I was to sail. He was kind enough 
to ask me to spend an evening with him, and I was again 
on my last night a guest at King's House. 

A dinner party offers small opportunity for serious con- 
versation, nor, indeed, could I expect a great person in Sir 
Henry's position to enter upon subjects of consequence with 
a stranger like myself. I could see, however, that I had 
nothing to correct in the impression of his character which 
his reputation had led me to form about him, and I wished 
more than ever that the system of government of which he 
had been so admirable a servant in India could be appUed 
to his present position, and that he or such as he could 
have the administration of it. We had common friends in 
the Indian service to talk about; one especially, Reynell 
Taylor, now dead, who had been the earliest of my boy 
companions. Taylor had been one of the handful of English 
who held the Punjaub in the first revolt of the Sikhs. With 
a woman's modesty he had the spirit of a knight-errant. 
Sir Henry described him as the * very soul of chivalry,' and 
seemed himself to be a man of the same pure and noble nature, 
perhaps Uable, from the generosity of his temperament, to be- 
lieve more than I could do in modern notions and in modern 
political heroes, but certainly not inclining of his own will 
to recommend any rash innovations. I perceived that like 

A A 



354 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

myself he felt no regret that so much of the soil of Jamaica 
was passing to peasant black proprietors. He thought well 
of their natural disposition ; he believed them capable of 
improvement. He thought that the possession of land of 
their own would bring them into voluntary industry, and 
lead them gradually to the adoption of civilised habits. He 
spoke with reserve, and perhaps I may not have understood 
him fully, but he did not seem to me to think much of their 
political capacity. The local boards which have been esta- 
bUshed as an education for higher functions have not been 
a success. They had been described to me in all parts of 
the island as inflamed centres of peculation and mismanage- 
ment. Sir Henry said nothing from which I could gather 
his own opinion. I inferred, however (he will pardon me 
if I misrepresent him), that he had no great belief in a 
federation of the islands, in * responsible government,' and 
such like, as within the bounds of present possibilities. 
Nor did he think that responsible statesmen at home had 
any such arrangement in view. 

That such an arrangement was in contemplation a few 
years ago, I knew from competent authority. Perhaps the 
unexpected interest which the English people have lately 
shown in the colonies has modified opinion in those high 
circles, and has taught politicians that they must advance 
more cautiously. But the wind still sits in the old quarter. 
Three years ago, the self-suppressed constitution in Jamaica 
was partially re-established. A franchise was conceded both 
there and in Barbadoes which gave every black householder 
a vote. Even in poor Dominica, an extended suflErage was 
hung out as a remedy for its wretchedness. If nothing 
further is intended, these concessions have been gratuitously 
mischievous. It has roused the hopes of political agitators, 
not in Jamaica only, but all over the Antilles. It has 
taught the people, who have no grievances at all, who in their 
present state are better protected than any peasantry in the 



NEGRO SUFFRAGE 355 

world except the Irish, to look to political changes as a road 
to an impossible millennium. It has rekindled hopes which 
had been long extinguished, that, like their brothers in Hayti, 
they were on the way to have the islands to themselves. It has 
alienated the English colonists, filled them with the worst ap- 
prehensions, and taught them to look wistfully from their own 
country to a union with America. A few elected members 
in a council where they may be counterbalanced by an equal 
number of official members seems a small thing in itself. 
80 long as the equality was maintained, my Yankee friend 
was still willing to risk his capital in Jamaican enterprises. 
But the principle has been allowed. The existing arrange- 
ment is a half-measure which satisfies none and irritates 
all, and collisions between the representatives of the people 
and the nominees of the Government are only avoided by 
leaving a sufficient number of official seats unfilled. To 
have re-entered upon a road where you cannot stand still, 
where retreat is impossible, and where to go forward can 
only be recommended on the hypothesis that to give a man 
a vote will itself qualify him for the use of it, has been one 
of the minor achievements of the last Government of Mr. 
Gladstone, and is likely to be as successful as his larger 
exploits nearer home have as yet proved to be. A supreme 
court, were we happy enough to possess such a thing, would 
forbid these venturous experiments of sanguine statesmen 
who may happen, for a moment, to command a trifling 
majority in the House of Commons. 

I could not say what I felt completely to Sir Henry, 
who, perhaps, had been in personal relations with Mr. 
Gladstone's Government. Perhaps, too, he was one of 
those numerous persons of tried abihty and inteUigence 
who have only a faint beUef that the connection between 
Great Britain and the colonies can be of long continuance. 
I inferred that it might be so, because when I mentioned 
the irritation which I had observed in Melbourne about the 

A A 2 



356 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

German annexation in New Guinea he seemed to think that 
we might have left the Victorians and the Germans to fight 
out the quarrel among themselves. The injury — if it was 
one — was to the Australians, not to us. The Australians 
might have borne their own responsibilities, and we could 
have been merely spectators. That such a view could be 
entertained and expressed by the governor of a considerable 
colony is an evidence how little below the surface the idea 
of Imperial federation has as yet penetrated. The Austra- 
lians are either British subjects or they are not. If they 
are not, the connection is a shadow, and it is as well to have 
done with illusions. If they are British subjects, the nation 
with whom they quarrel will acknowledge no fine distinctions, 
and will fix the responsibility where it rightly belongs. To 
leave a colony to go to war on its own account is to leave 
the peace of the Empire at the mercy of any one of its de- 
pendencies. So obvious is this, that Sir Henry's observation 
was perhaps no more than gentle irony. The public may 
amuse themselves with the vision of an Imperial union ; 
practical statesmen believe that they know it to be im- 
possible. 

As to the West Indies there are but two genuine alter- 
natives : one to leave them to themselves to shape their own 
destinies, as we leave Australia; the other to govern them as 
if they were a part of Great Britain with the same scrupulous 
care of the people and their interests with which we govern 
Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. England is responsible for 
the social condition of those islands. She filled them with 
negroes when it was her interest to maintain slavery, she 
emancipated those negroes when popular opinion at home 
demanded that slavery should end. It appears to me that 
England ought to bear the consequences of her own actions, 
and assume to herself the responsibilities of a state of 
things which she has herself created. We are partly un- 
willing^to take the trouble, partly we cling to the popular 



ALTERNATIVE COURSES 357 

belief that to trust all countries with the care of their own 
concerns is the way to raise the character of the |inhabi- 
tants and to make them happy and contented. We dimly 
perceive that the population of the West Indies is not a 
natural growth of internal tendencies and circumstances, 
and we therefore hesitate before we plunge completely and 
entirely into the downward course ; but we play with it, we 
drift towards it, we advance as far as we dare, giving them 
the evils of both systems and the advantages of neither. 
At the same moment we extend the suifrage to the blacks 
with one hand, while with the other we refuse to our own 
people the benefit of a treaty which would have rescued them 
from imminent ruin and brought them into relations with 
their powerful kindred close at hand — relations which might 
save them from the most dangerous consequences of a negro 
poUtical supremacy — and the result is that the English in 
those islands are melting away and will soon be crowded 
out, or will have departed of themselves in disgust. A 
poUcy so far-reaching, and affecting so seriously the condi- 
tion of the oldest of our colonial possessions, ought not to 
have been adopted on their own authority, by doctrinaire 
statesmen in a cabinet, without fully and frankly consulting 
the EngUsh nation ; and no further step ought to be taken 
in that direction until the nation has had the circumstances 
of the islands laid before it, and has pronounced one way 
or the other its own sovereign pleasure. Does or does not 
England desire that her own people shall be enabled to live 
and thrive in the West Indies? If she decides that her 
hands are too full, that she is over-empired and cannot 
attend to them — cadit qu^estio — there is no more to be said. 
But if this is her resolution the hands of the West Indiana 
ought to be untied. They ought to be allowed to make 
their sugar treaties, to make any treaties, to enter into the 
closest relations with America which the Americans will 
accept, as the only chance which will be left them. 



358 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

Such abandonment, however, will bring us no honour. 
It will not further that federation of the British Empire 
which so many of us now profess to desire. If we wish 
Australia and Canada to draw into closer union with us, it 
will not be by showing that we are unable to manage a 
group of colonies which are almost at our doors. English- 
men all round the globe have rejoiced together in this year 
which is passing by us over the greatness of their inherit- 
ance, and have celebrated with enthusiasm the half-century 
during which our lady-mistress has reigned over the Em- 
pire. Unity and federation are on our lips, and we have our 
leagues and our institutes, and in the eagerness of our wishes 
we dream that we see the fulfilment of them. Neither the 
kingdom of heaven nor any other kingdom ' comes with 
observation.' It comes not with after-dinner speeches 
however eloquent, or with flowing sentiments however for 
the moment sincere. The spirit which made the Empire 
can alone hold it together. The American Union was not 
saved by oratory. It was saved by the determination of 
the bravest of the people ; it was cemented by the blood 
which dyed the slopes of Gettysburg. The union of the 
British Empire, if it is to be more than a dream, can 
continue only while the attracting force of the primary 
commands the willing attendance of the distant satellites. 
Let the magnet lose its power, let the confidence of the 
colonies in the strength and resolution of their central orb 
be once shaken, and the centrifugal force will sweep them 
away into orbits of their own. 

The race of men who now inhabit this island of oura^ 
show no signs of degeneracy. The bow of Ulysses is soundS 
as ever ; moths and worms have not injured either cord or^ 
s horn ; but it is unstrung, and the arrows which are shot< 
^ from it drop feebly to the ground. The Irish python rises * 
again out of its swamp, and Phoebus Apollo launches no 
shaft against the scaly sides of it. Phoebus Apollo at- 



CONCILIATION 359 

tempts the milder methods of concession and persuasion. 
* Python,' he says, * in days when I was ignorant and unjust 
I struck you down and bound you. I left officers and men 
with you of my own race to watch you, to teach you, to 
rule you ; to force you, if your own nature could not be 
changed, to leave your venomous ways. You have refused 
to be taught, you twist in your chains, you bite and 
tear, and when you can you steal and murder. I see that 
I was wrong from the first. Every creature has a right 
to Uve according to its own disposition. I was a tyrant, 
and you did well to resist ; I ask you to forgive and forget. 
I set you free ; I hand you over my own representa- 
tives as a pledge of my goodwill, that you may devour 
them at your leisure. They have been the instruments 
of my oppression ; consume them, destroy them, do what 
you will with them ; and henceforward I hope that we shall 
live together as friends, and that you will show yourself 
worthy of my generosity and of the freedom which you 
have so gloriously won.' 

A sun-god who thus addressed a disobedient satellite 
might have the eloquence of a Demosthenes and the finest 
of the fine intentions which pave the road to the wrong 
place, but he would not be a divinity who would command 
the willing confidence of a high-spirited kindred. Great 
Britain will make the tie which holds the colonies to her a 
real one when she shows them and shows the world that 
she is still equal to her great place, that her arm is not 
shortened and her heart has not grown faint. 

Men speak of the sacredness of Uberty. They talk as 
if the will of everyone ought to be his only guide, that alle- 
giance is due only to majorities, that allegiance of any other 
kind is base and a reUc of servitude. The Americans are the 
freest people in the world ; but in their freedom they have 
to obey the fundamental laws of the Union. Again and 
again in the West Indies Mr. Motley's words came back to 



36o THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

me. To be taken into the American Union is to be 
adopted into a partnership. To belong as a Grown colony 
to the British Empire, as things stand, is no partner- 
ship at all. It is to belong to a power which sacrifices, as 
it has always sacrificed, the interest of its dependencies to 
its own. The blood runs freely through every vein and 
artery of the American body corporate. Every single 
citizen feels his share in the life of his nation. Great 
Britain leaves her Crown colonies to take care of them-, 
selves, refuses what they ask, and forces on them what 
they had rather be without. If I were a West Indian I 
should feel that under the stars and stripes I should be 
safer than I was at present from poUtical experimenting. 
I should have a market in which to sell my produce where 
I should be treated as a friend ; I should have a power 
behind me and protecting me, and I should have a future 
to which I could look forward with confidence. America 
would restore me to hope and Hfe ; Great Britain allows 
me to sink, contenting herself with advismg me to be 
patient. Why should I continue loyal when my loyalty 
was so contemptuously valued ? 

But I will not believe that it will come to this. An 
EngUshman may be heavily tempted, but in evil fortune 
as in good his heart is in the old place. The administra- 
tion of our affairs is taken for the present from prudent 
statesmen, and is made over to those who know how best 
to flatter the people with fine-sounding sentiments and idle 
adulation. All sovereigns have been undone by flatterers. 
The people are sovereign now, and, being new to power, 
Usten to those who feed their vanity. The popular orator 
has been the ruin of every country which has trusted 
to him. He never speaks an imwelcome truth, for his 
existence depends on pleasing, and he cares only to tickle 
the ears of his audience. His element is anarchy; his 
function is to undo what better men have done. In wind 



ORATORICAL STATESMEN 361 

he lives and moves and has his being. When the gods are 
angry, he can raise it to a hurricane and lay waste whole 
nations in ruin and revolution. It was said long ago, a 
man full of words shall not prosper upon the earth. Times 
have changed, for in these days no one prospers so well. 
Can he make a speech ? is the first question which the con- 
stituencies ask when a candidate is offered to their suffrages. 
When the Boman commonwealth developed from an aristo- 
cratic repubUc into a democracy, and, as now with us, the 
sovereignty was in the mass of the people, the oratorical 
faculty came to the front in the same way. The finest 
speaker was esteemed the fittest man to be made a consul 
or a praetor of, and there were schools of rhetoric where 
aspirants for office had to go to learn gesture and intona- 
tion before they could present themselves at the hustings. 
The sovereign people and their orators could do much, but 
they could not alter facts, or make that which was not, to 
be, or that which was, not to be. The orators could pero- 
rate and the people could decree, but facts remained and 
facts proved the strongest, and the end of that was that 
after a short supremacy the empire which they had brought 
to the edge of ruin was saved at the last extremity; the 
sovereign people lost their liberties, and the tongues of 
political orators were silenced for centuries. Illusion at 
last takes the form of broken heads, and the most obstinate 
credulity is not proof against that form of argument. 



362 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Going home — Retrospect — Alternative courses — ^Future of the Empire- 
Sovereignty of the sea — The Greeks— The rights of man — Plato— The 
voice of the people — Imperial federation — Hereditary colonial policy — 
New Irelands— Effects of party government. 

Oncb more upon the sea on our homeward way, carrying, as 
Emerson said, ' the bag of iBolus in the boiler of our boat/ 
careless whether there be wind or calm. Our old naval 
heroes passed and repassed upon the same waters under 
harder conditions. They had to struggle against tempests, 
to fight with enemy's cruisers, to battle for their lives with 
nature as with man — ^and they were victorious over them all. 
They won for Britannia the sceptre of the sea, and built up 
the Empire on which the sun never sets. To us, their 
successors, they handed down the splendid inheritance, 
and we in turn have mvented steam ships and telegraphs, 
and thrown bridges over the ocean, and made our far-off 
possessions as easy of access as the next parish. The 
attractive force of the primary ought to have increased in 
the same ratio, but we do not find that it has, and the centri- 
fugal and the centripetal tendencies of our satellites are year 
by year becoming more nicely balanced. These beautiful West 
Indian islands were intended to be homes for the overflowing 
numbers of our own race, and the few that have gone there 
are being crowded out by the blacks from Jamaica and the 
Antilles. Our poor helots at home drag on their lives in 
the lanes and alleys of our choking cities, and of those who 
gather heart to break off on their own account and seek 
elsewhere for a land of promise, the large majority are 



TO BE OR NOT TO BE 363 

weary of the flag under which they have only known Buffer- 
ing, and prefer America to the English colonies. They 
are waking now to understand the opportunities which are 
slipping through their hands. Has the awakening come 
too late ? We have ourselves mixed the cup ; must we now 
drink it to the dregs ? 

It is too late to enable us to make homes in the West 
Indies for the swarms who are thrown off by our own towns 
and villages. We might have done it. Englishmen would 
have thriven as well in Jamaica and the Antilles as the 
Spaniards have thriven in Cuba. But the islands are now 
peopled by men of another colour. The whites there are as 
units among himdreds, and the proportion cannot be altered. 
But it is not too late to redeem our own responsibilities. 
We brought the blacks there; we have as yet not done 
much for their improvement, when then- notions of moraUty 
are still so elementary that more than half of their children 
are born out of marriage. The English planters were en- 
couraged to settle there when it suited our convenience to 
maintain the islands for Imperial purposes ; like the land- 
lords in Ireland, they were our EngUsh garrison; and as 
with the landlords in Ireland, when we imagine that they 
have served their purpose and can be no longer of use to 
us, we calmly change the conditions of society. We disclaim 
obligations to help them in the confusion which we have 
introduced ; we tell them to help themselves, and they can- 
not help themselves in such an element as that in which 
they are now struggling, unless they know that they may 
count on the sympathy and the support of their countrymen 
at home. Nothing is demanded of the EngUsh exchequer ; 
the resources of the islands are practically boundless; 
there is a robust population conscious at the bottom of 
their nature of their own inferiority, and docile and will- 
ing to work if any one will direct them and set them to it. 
There will be capital enough forthcoming, and energetic men 



364 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

enough and intelligence enough, if we on our part will provide 
one thing, the easiest of all if we really set our minds to it — 
an effective and authoritative government. It is not safe 
even for ourselves to leave a wound unattended to, though 
it be in the least significant part of our bodies. The 
West Indies are a small limb in the great body corporate of 
the British Empire, but there is no great and no small in the 
life of nations. The avoidable decay of the smallest member 
4s an injury to the whole. Let it be once known and felt that 
England regards the West Indies as essentially one with 
herself, and the English in the isl ands will res ume t heir 

\ natural position, and respect and ord^ wilTcome back, 
a£d~those once thriving colonies will again advance with 
Uhe rest on the high road of civihsation and prosperity* 
Let it be known that England considers only her immediate ^ 
interests and will not exert herself, and the other colonies 
will know what they have to count upon, and the British 
Empire will dwindle down before long into a single insigni- 
ficant island in the North Sea. 

So end the reflections which I formed there from what 
I saw and what I heard. I have written as an outside 
observer unconnected with practical politics, with no motive 
V exc ept ft l o yal pr idf ^ in t h e gr^^atn o ss o f saay^ewa-cogntryj andfl!^ 

^ a conviction, which I will not believe to be a dream, that 
the destinies have still in store for her a yet grander future. 
The units of us come and go ; the British Empire, the globe 
itself and all that it i^erits, will pass away as a vision. 

cflrorcrai ^\iap orav iror* oXaikjj "tkios Iprfy 
Koi Hpiofios Koi Xaos ivfifuXiu nputfiou). 

The day will be when Ilium's towers may faU, 
And large-limbed ^ Priam, and his people alL 

But that day cannot be yet. Out of the now half-organic 
fragments will yet be formed one living Imperial power, 

* I believe this to be the tme meaning of iv/i/itKi-ns, It is nsoally ren- 
dered, ' armed with a stoat spear.' 



GOING HOME 365 

with a new era of beneficence and usefalness to man- 
kind. The English people are spread far and wide. 
The sea is their dominion, and their land is the finest 
portion of the globe. It is theirs now, it will be theirs 
for ages to come if they remain themselves unchanged and 
keep the heart and temper of their forefathers. 

Naught shall make ns nie, 
If England to herself do rest but true. 

The days pass, and our ship flies fast upon her way. 

ykaoKhv vircp o?)fui ¥vav6\ifioa rt KVfJLorcap 
p66ia rrokih SaKdcrcras, 

How perfect the description ! How exactly in those eight 
words Euripides draws the picture of the ocean ; the long 
grey heaving swell, the darker steel-grey on the shadowed 
slope of the surface waves, and the foam on their breaking 
crests. Our thoughts flow back as we gaze to the times 
long ago, when the earth belonged to other races as it now 
belongs to us. The ocean is the same as it was. Their 
eyes saw it as we see it : 

Time writes no wrinkle on that azure brow. 

Nor is the ocean alone the same. Human nature is still 
vexed with the same problems, mocked with the same 
hopes, wandering after the same illusions. The sea affected 
the Greeks as it afifects us, and was equally dear to them. 
It was a Greek who said, ' The sea washes oflf all the ills of 
men ; ' the * stainless one ' as iEschylus called it — the eter- 
nally pure. On long voyages I take Greeks as my best com- 
panions. I had Plato with me on my way home from the 
West Indies. He lived and wrote in an age like ours, when 
religion had become a debatable subject on which everyone 
had his opinion, and democracy was master of the civilised 
world, and the Mediterranean states were running wild 
after liberty, preparatory to the bursting of the bubble. 
Looking out on such a world Plato left thoughts behind 



366 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

him the very language of which is as full of application 
to our own larger world as if it was written yesterday. It 
throws light on small things as well as large, and inter- 
prets alike the condition of the islands which I had left, the 
condition of England, the condition of all civilised countries 
in this modem epoch. 

The chief characteristic of this age, as it was the chief 
characteristic of Plato's, is the struggle for what we call the 
'rights of man.' In other times the thing insisted on was 
that men should do what was * right ' as something due to 
a higher authority. Now the demand is for what is called 
their * rights ' as something due to themselves, and among 
these rights is a right to liberty ; liberty meaning the utmost 
possible freedom of every man consistent with the freedom 
of others, and the abolition of every kind of authority of 
one man over another. It is with this view that we have 
introduced popular suffrage, that we give every one a vote, 
or aim at giving it, as the highest political perfection. 

We turn to Plato and we find : * In a healthy community 
there ought to be some authority over every single man and 
woman. No person — not one — ought to act on his or her 
judgment alone even in the smallest trifle. The soldier 
on a campaign obeys his commander in little things as 
well as great. The safety of the army requires it. But it 
is in peace as it is in war, and there is no difference. Every 
person should be trained from childhood to rule and to be 
ruled. So only can the life of man, and the life of all 
creatures dependent on him, be delivered from anarchy.' 

It is worth while to observe how diametrically opposite 
to our notions on this subject were the notions of a man of 
the finest intellect, with the fullest opportunities of observa- 
tion, and every one of whose estimates of things was con- 
firmed by the event. Such a discipline as he recommends 
never existed in any community of men except perhaps 
among the religious orders in the enthusiasm of their first 



THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE 367 

institution, nor would a society be long tolerable in which 
it was tried. Communities, however, have existed where 
people have thought more of their obligations than of their 
* rights/ more of the welfare of their country, or of the 
success of a cause to which they have devoted themselves, 
than of their personal pleasure or interest — have preferred 
the wise leading of superior men to their own wills or 
wishes. Nay, perhaps no community has ever continued 
long, or has made a mark in the world of serious signifi- 
cance, where society has not been graduated in degrees, 
and there have not been deeper and stronger bands of co- 
herence than the fluctuating votes of majorities. 

Times are changed we are told. We Uve in a new era, 
when public opmion is king, and no other rule is possible ; 
public opinion, as expressed in the press and on the plat- 
form, and by the deliberately chosen representatives of 
the people. Every question can be discussed and argued, 
all sides of it can be heard, and the nation makes up its 
mind. The collective judgment of all is wiser than the 
wisest single man — securus judicat orbis. 

Give the public time, and I believe this to be true ; 
general opinion does in the long run form a right estimate 
of most persons and of most things. As surely its imme- 
diate impulses are almost invariably in directions which it 
Afterwards regrets and repudiates, and therefore constitu- 
tions which have no surer basis than the popular judgment, 
as it shifts from year to year or parliament to parUament, 
are built on foundations looser than sand. 

In concluding this book I have a few more words to say 
on the subject, so ardently canvassed, of Imperial federation. 
It seems so easy. You have only to form a new parlia- 
ment in which the colonies shall be represented according 
to numbers, while each colony will retain its own for its own 
local purposes. Local administration is demanded every- 
where ; England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, can each have 



368 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

theirs, and the vexed question of Home Bule can be disposed 
of in the reconstruction of the whole. A central parlia- 
ment can then be formed in which the parts can all be 
represented in proportion to their number ; and a cabinet 
can be selected out of this for the management of Imperial 
concerns. Nothing more is necessary; the thing will be 
done. 

So in a hundred forms, but all on the same principle, 
schemes of Imperial union have fallen under my eye. I 
should myself judge from experience of what democratically 
elected parliaments are growing into, that at the first 
session of such a body the satellites would fly off into 
space, shattered perhaps themselves in the process. We 
have parliaments enough already, and if no better device can 
be found than by adding another to the number, the rash 
spirit of innovation has not yet gone far enough to fling our 
ancient constitution into the crucible on so wild a chance. 

Imperial federation, as it is called, is far away, if ever it 
is to be realised at all. If it is to come it will come of 
itself, brought about by circumstances and silent impulses 
working continuously through many years unseen and un- 
spoken of. It is conceivable that Great Britain and her 
scattered offspring, under the pressure of danger from 
without, or impelled by some general purpose, might agree 
to place themselves for a time under a single administra« 
tive head. It is conceivable that out of a combination so 
formed, if it led to a successful immediate result, some 
union of a closer kind might eventually emerge. It is not 
only conceivable, but it is entirely certain, that attempts 
made when no such occasion has arisen, by politicians 
ambitious of distinguishing themselves, will fail, and in 
failing will make the object that is aimed at more con* 
fessedly unattainable than it is now. 

The present relation between the mother country and 
her self-governed colonies is partly that of parent and 



IMPERIAL FEDERATION 369 

children who have grown to maturity and are taking care 
of themselves, partly of independent nations in friendly 
alliance, partly as common subjects of the same sovereign, 
whose authority is exercised in each by ministers of its 
own. Neither of these analogies is exact, for the position 
alters from year to year. So much the better. The re- 
lation which now exists cannot be more than provisional ; 
let us not try to shape it artificially, after a closet-made 
pattern. The threads of interest and kindred must be left 
to spin themselves in their own way. Meanwhile we can 
work together heartily and with good will where we need each 
other's co-operation. Difficulties will rise, perhaps, from 
time to time, but we can meet them as they come, and we 
need not anticipate them. If we are to be politically one, the 
organic fibres which connect us are as yet too immature to 
bear a strain. All that we can do, and all that at present 
we ought to try, is to act generously whenever our assist- 
ance can be of use. The disposition of English statesmen 
to draw closer to the colonies is of recent growth. They 
cannot tell, and we cannot tell, how far it indicates a real 
change of attitude or is merely a passing mood. One 
thing, however, we ought to bear in mind, that the colonies 
sympathise one with another, and that wrong or neglect in 
any part of the Empire does not escape notice. The larger 
colonies desire to know what the recent professions of in- 
terest are worth, and they look keenly at our treatment of 
their younger brothers who are still in our power. They 
are practical, they attend to results, they guard jealously 
their own privileges, but they are not so enamoured of con- 
stitutional theory that they will patiently see their fellow- 
countrymen in less favoured situations swamped under the 
votes of the coloured races. Australians, Canadians, New 
Zealanders, will not be found enthusiastic for the extension 
of self-government in the West Indies, when they know 
that it means the extinction of their own white brothers 

B B 



370 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

who have settled there. The placing English colonists at 
the mercy of coloured majorities they will resent as an 
injury to themselves; they will not look upon it as an 
extension of a generous principle, but as an act of airy 
virtue which costs us nothing, and at the bottom is but 
carelessness and indifference. 

We imagine that we have seen the errors of our old 
colonial policy, and that we are in no danger of repeating 
them. Yet in the West Indies we are treading over again 
the too familiar road. The Anglo-Irish colonists in 1705 
petitioned for a union with Great Britain. A union would 
have involved a share in British trade ; it was refused there- 
fore, and we gave them the penal laws instead. They set 
up manufactures, built ships, and tried to raise a com- 
merce of their own. We laid them under disabilities which 
ruined their enterprises, and when they were resentful and 
became troublesome we turned round to the native Irish 
and made a virtue of protecting them against our own 
people whom we had injured. When the penal laws ceased 
to be useful to us, we did not allow them to be executed. 
We played off Catholic against Protestant while we were 
sacrificing both to our own jealousy. Having made the 
government of the island impossible for those whom we 
had planted there to govern it, we emancipate the governed, 
and to conciliate them we allow them to appropriate the 
possessions of their late masters. And we have not con- 
ciliated the native Irish ; it was impossible that we should ; 
we have simply armed them with the only weapons which 
enable them.to revenge their wrongs upon us. 

The history of the West Indies is a precise parallel. 
The islands were necessary to our safety in our struggle with 
France and Spain. The colonists held them chiefly for us 
as a garrison, and we in turn gave the colonists their slaves. 
The white settlers ruled as in Ireland, the slaves obeyed, 
and all went swimmingly. Times changed at home. 



NEW IRE LANDS 371 

Slavery became unpopular ; it was abolished ; and, with a 
generosity for which we never ceased to applaud ourselves, 
we voted an indemnity of twenty millions to the owners. 
We imagined that we had acquitted our consciences, but 
such debts are not to be got rid of by payments of money. 
We had introduced the slaves into the islands for our 
own advantage; in setting them free we revolutionised 
society. We remained still responsible for the social con- 
sequences, and we did not choose to remember it. The 
planters were guilty only, like the Irish landlords, of having 
ceased to be necessary to us. We practised our virtues 
vicariously at their expense ; we had the praise and honour, 
they had the suffering. They begged that the emancipation 
might be gradual ; our impatience to clear our reputation 
refused to wait. Their system of cultivation being deranged, 
they petitioned for protection against the competition of 
countries where slavery continued. The request was 
natural, but could not be listened to because to grant it 
might raise infinitesimally the cost of the British work- 
man's breakfast. They struggled on, and even when a 
new rival rose in the beetroot sugar they refused to be 
beaten. The European powers, to save their beetroot, 
went on to support it with a bounty. Against the purse of 
foreign governments the sturdiest individuals cannot com- 
pete. Defeated in a fight which had become unfair, the 
planters looked, and looked in vain, to their own govern- 
ment for help. Finding none, they turned to their kindred 
in the United States ; there, at last, they found a hand held 
out to them. The Americans were willing, though at a 
loss of two milUons and a half of revenue, to admit the 
poor West Indians to their own market. But a commercial 
treaty was necessary; and a treaty could not be made 
without the sanction of the English Government. The 
EngUsh Government, on some fine-drawn crotchet, refused 
to colonies which were weak and helpless what they would 



( 



372 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

have granted without a word if demanded by Victoria or 
New South Wales, whose resentment they feared. And 
when the West Indians, harassed, desperate, and half ruined, 
cried out against the enormous injustice, in the fear that 
their indignation might affect their allegiance and lead 
them to seek admission into the American Union, we extend 
the franchise among the blacks, on whose hostihty to such 
a measure we know that we can rely. 
^ There is no occasion to suspect responsible EngUsh 
politicians of any sinister purpose in what they have done 
or not done, or suspect them, indeed, of any purpose at all. 
They act from day to day under the pressure of each 
exigency as it rises, and they choose the course which is 
least directly inccmvenient. But the result is to have 
created in the Antilles and Jamaica so many fresh Irelands, 
and I believe that British colonists the world over will feel 
together in these questions. They will not approve ; rather 
they will combine to condemn the betrayal of their own 
fellow-countrymen. If England desires her colonies to rally 
round her, she must deserve their affection and deserve 
their respect. She will find neither one nor the other if 
she carelessly sacrifices her own people in any part of the 
world to fear or convenience. The magnetism which will 
bind them to her must be found in herself or nowhere. 

Perhaps nowhere! Perhaps if we look to the real 
origin of all that has gone wrong with us, of the poUcy 
which has flung Ireland back into anarchy, which has 
weakened our influence abroad, which has ruined the oldest 
of our colonies, and has made the continuance under our 
flag of the great communities of our countrymen who are 
forming new nations in the Pacific a question of doubt and 
uncertainty, we shall find it in our own distractions, in the 
form of government which is fast developing into a civil 
war under the semblance of peace, where party is more 
than country, and a victory at the hustings over a candi- 



EFFECTS OF PARTY 373 

date of opposite principles more glorious than a victory in 
the field over a foreign foe. Society in republican Borne 
was so much interested in the faction fights of Glodius and 
Milo that it could hear with apathy of the destruction of 
Grassus and a Boman army. The senate would have sold 
GsBsar to the Geltic chiefs in Gaul, and the modern English 
enthusiast would disintegrate the British Islands to pur- 
chase the Irish vote. Till we can rise into some nobler 
sphere of thought and conduct we may lay aside the vision 
of a confederated empire. 

Oh, England, model to thy inward greatness, 
Like little body with a mighty heart, 
What might*st thou do that honour would thee do 
Were all thy children kind and natural ! 



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Bourne. — Works by John 

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Bowen. — Harrow Songs and 
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[ Continued on next page. 



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Burrows. — The Family of Brocas 
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Cox. — The First Century of 
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CuUey. — Handbook of Practical 
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Dante. — The Divine Comedy of 
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Catalogue of General and Scientific Books 



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and Colleges, and suited to the Require- 
ments of Students preparing for the Ex- 
aminations in Hygiene of the Science 
and Art Department, &c. By Andrew 
Wilson, F.R.S.E. F.L.S. &c With 
74 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. ax. M 

Witt — Works by Prof. Witt. 

Translated from the German by Frances 
Younghusband. 

The Trojan War. With a Preface 
by the Rev. W. G. Rutherford, M.A. 
Head-Master of Westminster SchooL 
Crown 8vo. 2j. 

Myths of Hellas; or, Greek Tales. 

Crown 8vo. y. 6J. 

The Wanderings of Ulysses. 

Crown 8vo. y. 6d, 



BY 



Rev. J. G. 



Wood. — Works 
Wood, 

Homes Without Hands ; a De- 
scription of the Habitations of Anim a ls , 
classed according to the Principle of Con- 
struction. With 140 Illustrations. 8vo. 
lar. 6d. 

Insects at Home; a Popular 

Account of British Insects, their Struc- 
ture, Habits, and Transformations. With 
700 Illustrations. 8vo. los. 6d. 

LvsECTs Abroad; a Popubr Account 

of Foreign Insects, their Structure, 
Habits, and Transformations. With 
600 Illustrations. 8vo. I Of. 6d, 

Bible Animals; a Description of 

every Living Creature mentioned in the 
Scriptures. W^ith 112 Illustrations. 8vo. 
I Of. 6d. 

Strange Dwellings ; a Description 

of the Habitations of Animals, abridged 
from < Homes without Hands.' With 
60 lUustrations. Crown 8vo. 5; . Popular 
Edition, 4to. 6</. 

{Continued OH nexl pagt. 



22 



Catalogue of General and Scientific Books 



Wood. — Works by Rev. J, G. 

Wood — continued. 

Horse and Man: their Mutual 

Dependence and Duties. With 49 Illus- 
trations. 8vo. 14J. 

Illustrated Stable Maxims, To 

be hung in Stables for the use of Grooms, 
Stablemen, and others who ore in charge 
of Horses. On Sheet, 4r. 

Out of Doors; a Selection of 

Original Articles on Practical Natural 
History. With 11 Illustrations. Crown 
8vo. 5j. 

Petland Revisited, With 33 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. *J5, 6d, 

The following books are extracted from other 
works by the Rev. J. G. Wood {see p. 21) : 

The Branch Builders. W^ith 28 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s, (xi. cloth 
extra, gilt edges. 

Wild Animals of the Bible, 

With 29 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 35. 6^. 
cloth extra, gilt edges. 

Domestic Animals of the Bible, 

W^ith 23 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6^. 
cloth extra, gilt edges. 

Bird-Life of the Bible, With 32 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 31. (yd, cloth 
extra, gilt edges. 

Wonderful Nests, With 30 Illus- 
trations. Crown 8vo. y, 6d, cloth extra, 
gilt edges. 

Homes Under the Ground, W^ith 

28 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3r. 6d. cloth 
extra, gilt edges. 

Wood-Martin. — The Lake 
Dwellings of Ireland: or Ancient 
Lacustrine Habitations of Erin, common- 
ly called Crannogs. By W. G. Wood- 
Martin, M.R.I.A. Lieut. -Colonel 8th 
Brigade North Irish Division, R.A. 
With 50 Plates. Royal 8vo. 2$/. 

Wright. — Hip Disease in Child- 

hood, with Special Reference to its Treat- 
ment by Excision. By G. A. Wright, 
B.A. M.B.Oxon. F.R.C.S.Eng. With 
48 Original Woodcuts. 8vo. loj. 6^. 



Wylie. — History of England 
under Henry the Fourth, By James 
Hamilton Wylie, M.A. one A Her 
Majesty's Inspectors of Schools. (2 yols. ) 
Vol. I, crown 8vo. los, 6d, 

Wylie. — Labour, Leisure, and 
Luxury; a Contribution to Present 
Practical Political Economy. By 
Alexander Wylie, of Glasgow. Crown 
8vo. IS, 

Youatt. — Works by William 

You ATT, 

The Horse, Revised and enlarged 
by W. Watson, M.R.C.V.S. 8vo. 
Woodcuts, 'js, 6d, 

The Dog, Revised and enlarged. 

8vo. Woodcuts. 6x. 

Younghusband. — The Story of 
Our Lord, told in Simple Language 
FOR Children, By Frances Yojjng- 
H USBAND. With 25 Illustrations on Wood 
from Pictures by the Old Masters, and 
numerous Ornamental Borders, Initial 
Letters, &c. from Longmans* Illustrated 
New Testament. Crown 8vo. 2s, 6d, cloth 
plain ; 3^. dd, cloth extra, gilt edges. 

Zeller. — Works by Dr, E, 
Zeller, 

History OF Eclecticism in Greek 
Philosophy, Translated by Sarah 
F. Alleyne. Crown 8vo. ioj. td. 

The Stoics, Epicureans, and 

Sceptics. Translated by the Rev. O. 
J. Reichel, M.A. Crown 8vo. 15J. 

Socrates and the Socratic 
Schools, Translated by the Rev. O. J. 
Reichel, M.A. Crown 8vo. los, 6d, 

Plato and the Older Academy, 
Translated by Sarah F. Alleyne and 
Alfred Goodwin, B.A. Crown 8vo. 
iSs, 

The Fre-Socra tic Schools ; a His- 
tory of Greek Philosophy from the Earliest 
Period to the time of Socrates. Trans- 
lated l^ Sarah F. Alleyne. 2 vols, 
crown 8vo. 30J. 

Outlines of the History of 
Greek Philosophy, Translated by 
Sarah F. Alleyne and Evelyn 
Abbott. Crown 8va lor. 6d,