A small, low island, nearly every acre of which has been reduced to cultivation, cannot offer very much of picturesque beauty; nevertheless the first peep of the tropics did not fail to present abundant matter of interest. In this part of the world the dry season, now coming to an end, is the winter of vegetation, and, of course, there was not very much to be seen of the herbaceous flora; but the beauty of the trees and the rich hues of their foliage quite surpassed my anticipations. The majority of these are plants introduced either from the larger islands or from more distant tropical countries, that have been planted in the neighbourhood of houses.
One of the first that strikes a new-comer in the tropics is the mango tree, which, though introduced by man from its original home in tropical Asia, is now common throughout the hotter parts of America. Its widespreading branches, bearing dense tufts of large leathery leaves, make it as welcome for the sake of protection from the sun as for its fruit, which is a luxury that some persons never learn to appreciate. The cinnamon tree (Canella alba), common in most of the West Indian Islands, is another of the plants that serve for ornament and shade while ministering products useful to man. Of the smaller shade-trees, the pimento (probably Pimenta acris) was also conspicuous, and very many others which I failed to recognize, might be added to the new impressions of the first day in the tropics. One of the most curious is that known to the English residents as the sand-box tree, the Hura crepitans of botanists. It belongs to the Euphorbiaceæ, or Spurge family, but is strangely unlike any of the Old-World forms of that order. Here the fruit is in form rather like a small melon, of hard woody texture, divided into numerous – ten to twenty – cells. If, when taken from the tree, the top is sawn off and the seeds scooped out, no farther change occurs, and it may be, and often is, as the name implies, used as a sand-box. But if left until the seeds are mature, the whole capsule bursts open with a loud report, scattering the seeds to a distance. Thinking that a small young fruit, if dried very gradually, might escape this result, I carried one away, which, after my return to Europe, I placed in a small wooden box in my herbarium. Some nine months after it had been collected it must have exploded in my absence, for, unlocking the room one day, I found the box broken to pieces, and the valves of the fruit and the seeds scattered in all directions about the room.
POPULATION OF BARBADOES.
Next to the vegetable inhabitants, I was interested in the black population of the island. The first impression on finding one’s self amid fellow-creatures so markedly different in physical characters is one of strangeness, and one is tempted to ask whether, after all, there can be any pith in the arguments once confidently urged to establish a specific difference between the negro and the white man. But this very quickly wears away, and a contrary impression arises. The second thought is that, considering what we know of the conditions under which the native races of Equatorial Africa have been developed during an unrecorded series of ages, and of the subsequent conditions during several generations of slavery, the surprising thing is that the differences should not be far greater than they are.
It would be very rash to draw positive conclusions from what could be seen in a visit of a few hours, but, undoubtedly, the general effect was pleasing, and tended to confirm the assertion that the difficult problem of converting a population of black slaves into useful members of a free community has been better solved in Barbadoes than in any other European colony. So far as the elementary wants are concerned, there was a complete absence of the painful suspicion so commonly felt as regards the poor in Europe and the East, that their food is either insufficient or unwholesome. With very few exceptions they all seemed sleek and well fed, and their clothing showed no symptoms of poverty. In the town their dress was generally neat, and most of the women made a display of bright colour in handkerchiefs and parasols. What struck me most was a general air of good humour and enjoyment. One may be misled in this respect by the facial characteristics of the black race, which, in the absence of disturbing causes, readily turn to a smile or a grin. But, whether in the streets of Bridgetown or botanizing among the fields in the country, and using the few opportunities of speaking to the people, the same impression was retained.
Their manner in speaking to whites seemed to imply neither servility nor yet the independence which characterizes the Arab or the Moor. A latent sense of inferiority seemed to be combined with a complete absence of shyness or apprehension, as in children used to kind treatment, and not too carefully drilled. We happened to halt near a spot where there was a cluster of labourers’ cabins, and a school well filled with small children. There had been a wedding in Bridgetown that morning, and as we halted two carriages passed, carrying the bridal party to some house in the country. All the inhabitants rushed out at once, and contended, young and old, in the most boisterous cheering. Perhaps this meant little more than the mere love of noise, as when boys cheer a passing railway train, but it argued, at least, the absence of any feeling of race animosity.
The houses of the labouring population, whether in town or country, are mere sheds, seemingly of the frailest materials, the walls of thin upright boards, and roofed with small imbricated wooden shingles, such as one sometimes sees in Tyrol; but there must be a very substantial framework, or they would be annually carried away by the August hurricanes. The interiors appeared to be fairly clean, and in a country where cold is unknown good houses are luxuries, not necessaries of life.
CAUSES OF PROSPERITY.
One need not go far to seek the explanation of the superior condition of Barbadoes as compared with the other West Indian Islands. Unlike these, there was here no waste land; every acre was occupied, and the emancipated negro could not follow the very natural but unfortunate instinct which elsewhere led him to squat in idleness, supporting life on a few bananas and other produce that cost but a few days’ labour in the year. Apart from this, it is said that the Barbadoes, unlike the Jamaica, planters showed practical intelligence in at once recognizing the new conditions created by the Act of Emancipation, and, by offering fair wages and giving their personal influence and supervision, helping to convert the slave into an industrious freeman. Whatever poets may have fancied of the delights of lotus-eating, it seems to be true in the tropics, as well as in temperate climates, that there is more contentment and real enjoyment of life among people who are held to regular daily work – not excessive or exhausting – than among those who have little or nothing to do.
The house at which we were hospitably entertained, with no architectural pretensions, struck us as admirably suited to the climate. On the ground floor, several spacious and airy sitting-rooms opened on a broad verandah that ran round the building, and a number of fine trees close at hand, with the dense impervious foliage characteristic of the tropics, offered the alternative of sitting in the open air. One of the natural advantages of Barbadoes is the almost complete absence of noxious and venomous insects and reptiles. The frequency of poisonous snakes in some of the islands, especially Martinique and Sta. Lucia, must seriously interfere with the pleasures of a country life.
The voyage from Barbadoes to Jacmel, which occupied the greater part of three nights and two days, was highly enjoyable, but uneventful. With a temperature of about 80° in the shade, and a pleasant breeze from the north-east, life on deck was much more attractive than any occupation in the cabins, and nothing more laborious than reading an interesting book, such as Tschudi’s “Travels in Peru,” or at the utmost some brushing up of nearly forgotten Spanish, could be undertaken. In the early morning, the rising of the coveys of flying-fish as the steamer disturbed them from their rest on the surface, with their great silvery fins glancing in the level rays of the sun, was always an attractive sight. They certainly often change the direction of their flight as they momentarily touch the surface, but I could not satisfy myself whether this depended on a muscular effort of the animal, or merely on the angle at which it happened to strike the irregular surface of the little dancing waves that surrounded