THE DOCTOR: I wonder if they'd miss one of those red things? They've got
a good number. I believe they're medicinal. Should you think----?
(_Jefferson picks two of the flowers in question. The Doctor takes
heart._)
[Illustration: "'MIGHT WE HAVE THAT?'"]
THE MOTHER OF THE ENCHANTRESS: Dear me! Here's a singularly fine
specimen of the Somethingiensis. I wonder if you----?
(_Jefferson picks it._)
THE DOCTOR: We might have that big affair there, hidden away behind
those orange trees. Nobody will miss it. I should rather like it for my
own.
(_Jefferson wrestles with this concern, and the Doctor lends him a
knife._)
THE ENCHANTRESS: Oh, there's a sweet, sweet blossom! Might we have that,
and that bud, and that bunch of leaves next to them, Monsieur Jefferson?
(_Jefferson, evidently feeling he is in for a hard morning's work, makes
further onslaught upon the flora, and drags down three parts of an
entire tree._)
THE MOTHER OF THE ENCHANTRESS: When you're done there, I will ask you to
go into this fountain for one of those blue water-lilies.
(_Jefferson, getting rather sick of it, pretends he does not hear._)
THE DOCTOR (_speaking in loud tones which Jefferson cannot ignore_):
Pick that, please, and that, and those things half-way up that tree.
(_Jefferson begins to grow very hot and uneasy. He peeps about
nervously, probably with a view to dodging his old friend, the head
gardener._)
THE CHRONICLER (_feeling that his party is disgracing itself, and
desiring to reprove them in a parable_): I say, Jefferson, could you cut
down that palm--the biggest of those two--and have it sent along to the
ship? If the head gardener is here, he might help you.
JEFFERSON (_losing his temper, missing the parable, and turning upon the
Chronicler_): No, sar! You no hab no more. I'se dam near pulled off
ebb'ryting in de 'tanical Garns, an' I'se goin' right away now 'fore
anyfing's said!
(_Exit Jefferson rapidly, trying to conceal a mass of foliage under his
ragged coat. The party follows him in single file._)
[_Curtain._]
[Illustration: "'I'SE PULLED OFF EBB'RYTING IN THE 'TANICAL GARNS.'"]
I doubt not that, had we met the head gardener just then, our guide
would have lost a friend.
Henceforth, evidently feeling we were not wholly responsible in this
foreign atmosphere of wonders, Jefferson stuck to the streets, and took
us to churches and shops and other places where we had to control
ourselves and leave things alone.
On the way to a photographer's he cooled down and became instructive
again. He told us the name and address and bad actions of every white
person we met. Society at St. Kitts, from his point of view, appeared to
be in an utterly rotten condition. The most reputable clique was his
own. We met several of his personal friends. They were generally brown
or yellow, and he assured us that he had white blood in him too--a fact
we could not possibly have guessed. Presently he grew confidential, and
told us that his eldest son was a source of great discomfort to him. At
the age of fifteen Jefferson Junior had run away from home and left St.
Kitts to better himself at Barbados. Five years afterwards, however,
when he had almost passed out of his parents' memory, so Jefferson
declared, the young man returned, sick and penniless, to the home of his
birth. I said here:
"This is the Prodigal Son story over again, Jefferson. Did you kill the
fatted calf, I wonder, and make much of the lad?"
"No, sar," he answered; "didn't kill no fatted nuffing, but I precious
near kill de podigal son."
Concerning St. Christopher, we have direct authority, from the immortal
and ubiquitous Columbus himself, that it is an island of exceptional
advantages; for, delighted with its aspect in 1493, he bestowed his own
name upon it. Indeed, the place has a beautiful and imposing appearance.
Dark green forests and emerald tracts of sugar-cane now clothe its
plains and hills; and Mount Misery, the loftiest peak, rises to a height
of over four thousand feet. Caribs were the original inhabitants and
possessors of St. Kitts, but when England and France agreed to divide
this island between them in 1627, we find the local anthropophagi left
out in the cold as usual. After bickering for about sixty years, the
French enjoyed a temporary success, and slew their British brother
colonists pretty generally. Then Fortune's wheel took a turn, and under
the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, St. Kitts became our property from strand
to mountain-top.
[Illustration: "VOLCANIC INDICATIONS."]
There is only one road in this island, I am told, but that is thirty
miles long, and extends all round the place. Volcanic indications occur
freely on Mount Misery, and, as at Nevis, so here, the entire community
may, some day, find itself very uncomfortably situated. A feature of St.
Kitts is said to be monkeys, which occur in the woods. These, however,
like the deer at Tobago, are more frequently heard of than seen. People
were rather alarmed here, during our flying visit, by a form of
influenza which settled upon the town of Basseterre; but we, who had
only lately come from England, and were familiar with the revolting
lengths to which this malady will go in cold climes, reassured them, and
laughed their puny tropical species to scorn. Finally, of St. Kitts, I
would say: From information received in the first case, and from
personal experience in the second, that there you shall find sugar
culture in most approved and advanced perfection, and purchase
walking-sticks of bewildering variety and beauty.
[Illustration: "THE DOCTOR GREW DELIGHTED."]
The ladies of our party decreed they had no wish to visit the gaol--a
decision on their part which annoyed Jefferson considerably. He
explained that the St. Kitts prison-house was, perhaps, better worth
seeing than anything on the island; he also added that a book was kept
there in which we should be invited to write our names and make remarks.
They were proof, however, against even this inducement; and, having seen
the church--a very English building, with homely little square tower--we
left our Enchantress and her parent at the photographer's, to make such
purchases as seemed good to them, and await our return.
In this picture-shop, by the way, the Doctor grew almost boisterously
delighted over a deplorable representation of negro lepers. Young and
old, male and female, halt and maimed, the poor sufferers had been
photographed in a long row; and my brother secured the entire panorama
of them and whined for more. These lamentable representations of lepers
gave him keener pleasure than anything he had seen since we left the
Trinidad Hospital. In future, when we reached a new port, he would
always hurry off to photographers' shops, where they existed, and simply
clamour for lepers.
I asked Jefferson, as we proceeded to the prison, whether he thought we
should be allowed to peer about among the inner secrets of the place,
and he answered: "You see ebb'ryting, sar; de head p'liceman great ole
fren' of mine."
My brother said:
"You seem to know all the best people in St. Kitts, Jefferson."
And he admitted that it was so. He replied:
"Jefferson 'quainted wid ebb'rybody, an' ebb'rybody 'quainted wid
Jefferson."
Which put his position in a nutshell.
The prison was not very impressive viewed from outside, being but a mere
mean black and white building, with outer walls which experienced
criminals at home would have smiled at. We rang a noisy bell, and were
allowed to enter upon the demand of Jefferson.
Four sinners immediately met our gaze. They sat pensively breaking
stones in a wide courtyard. A building, with barred windows, threw black
shade upon the blazing white ground of this open space; and here,
shielded from the sun, the convicts reclined and made a show of work.
Jefferson, with rather a lack of delicate feeling, drew up before this
little stone-breaking party and beamed upon it. The Doctor and I walked
past and tried to look as though we saw nobody, but our guide did not
choose that we should miss the most interesting thing in the place thus.
"Look har, gem'men; see dese prisoners breakin' stones."
"All right, all right," answered my brother; "push on; don't stand
staring there. We haven't come to gloat over those poor devils."
But I really think the culprits were as disappointed as Jefferson. They
evidently felt that they were the most important part of the entire
spectacle, and rather resented being passed over.
"You won't see no more prisoners, if you don't look at dese, sar,"
answered Jefferson. "Dar's only terrible few convics in de gaol jus'
now."
"So much the better," answered the unsympathetic Doctor.
It certainly appeared to be a most lonely and languishing place of
incarceration. We inspected the cells, and observed in one of them a
peculiar handle fastened against the wall. This proved to be a West
Indian substitute for the treadmill. The turning of the handle can be
made easy or difficult by an arrangement of screws without the cell. The
affair is set for a certain number of revolutions, and a warder
explained to us that where hard labour has been meted to a prisoner, he
spends long, weary hours struggling with this apparatus and earning his
meals. When the necessary number of turns are completed, a bell rings,
and one can easily picture the relief in many an erring black man's
heart upon the sound of it. At another corner of the courtyard was piled
a great heap of cannon-balls. These were used for shot-drill--an arduous
form of exercise calculated to tame the wildest spirit and break the
strongest back. The whitewashed cells were wonderfully clean and
wholesome--more so, in fact, than most public apartments I saw elsewhere
in the West Indies. This effect may be produced in some measure by the
absolute lack of household goods and utensils, pictures or
_bric-a-brac_. In fact, the only piece of furniture I could find
anywhere was a massive wooden tripod, used for flogging prisoners upon.
[Illustration: "A CHAT WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT."]
Then we went in to have a chat with the Superintendent. He was rather
nervous and downcast, and apparently feared that we had formed a poor
opinion of his gaol. He apologised quite humbly for the paucity of
prisoners, and explained that times were bad, and there was little or
nothing doing in the criminal world of St. Kitts. He really did not know
what had come to the place lately. He perfectly remembered, in the good
old days, having had above fifty prisoners at a time in his hands. Why,
blacks had been hung there before now. But of late days business grew to
be a mere farce. If anybody did do anything of a capitally criminal
nature at St. Kitts, during the next twenty years or so, he very much
doubted if the authorities would permit him to carry the affair
through. His opinion was that an assassin would be taken away altogether
and bestowed upon Antigua. I asked him how he accounted for such a
stagnation in crime, and he answered, rather bitterly, that the churches
and chapels and Moravian missions had to be thanked for it. There were
far too many of them. Ordinary human instincts were frustrated at every
turn. Little paltry sects of nobodies filled their tin meeting-houses
Sunday after Sunday, and yet an important Government institution, like
the gaol, remained practically empty. He could not understand it. At the
rate things were going, it would be necessary to shut his prison up
altogether in a year's time. Certainly, one of his present charges--a
man he felt proud of in every way--was sentenced to penal servitude for
life, and had only lately made a determined attempt to escape. But he
could hardly expect the Government to keep up an entire gaol, with
warders and a Superintendent and everything, for one man, however wicked
he might be. I tried to cheer him up, and spoke hopefully about the
natural depravity of everything human. I said:
[Illustration: "FILLED HALF A PAGE WITH COMPLIMENTARY CRITICISM."]
"You must look forward. The Powers of Evil are by no means played out
yet. Black sheep occur in every fold. After periods of drought, seasons
of great plenty frequently ensue. There should be magnificent raw
material in this island, which will presently mature and keep you as
busy as a bee."
"Dar's my son, too," said Jefferson, encouragingly; "I'se pretty sure
you hab him 'fore long."
Then the man grew slightly more sanguine, and asked if we should care to
sign his book, and make a few remarks in it before departing.
"Of course I know it's only a small prison at best," he said,
deferentially.
"As to that," answered the Doctor, speaking for himself, "I have
certainly been in a great many bigger ones, but never in any house of
detention better conducted and cleaner kept than yours. You deserve
more ample recognition. I should judge you to be a man second to none in
your management of malefactors. For my part, I will assuredly write this
much in your book."
The volume was produced, and my brother sat down and expatiated about
the charms and advantages of St. Kitts prison-house. He filled half a
page with complimentary and irresponsible criticism; then he handed the
book to me. The Superintendent said that he should take it as
particularly kind if, in my remarks, I would insert a good word for the
drainage system. Advised by the Doctor that I might do so with truth and
justice, I wrote as follows:
[Illustration: "SALUTING HIS MANY FRIENDS."]
"A remarkably clean, ably-managed, and well-ordered establishment, with
an admirable staff of officials, a gratifying scarcity of evil-doers,
and particularly happy sanitary arrangements."
Then we went off to rejoin the Enchantress and her mother, and see
further sights during the brief time which now remained at our disposal.
The ladies had completed their purchases, and with them we now traversed
extended portions of the town, and visited a negro colony, where
thatched roofs peeped out from among tattered plantain leaves, and
rustic cottages hid in the shade of tamarind and orange, lime and
cocoanut. The lazy folks lounged about, chewing sugar-cane and munching
bananas, according to their pleasant custom. The men chattered, and the
women prattled and played with their yellow and ebony babies. One saw no
ambition, no proper pride, no obtrusive morality anywhere. Jefferson
appeared to be a personage in these parts. He marched along saluting his
many friends and smoking a cigar which the Doctor had given him. He
stopped occasionally to crack a joke or offer advice; and when we came
to any negro or negress whose history embraced a matter of interest,
Jefferson would stop and lecture upon the subject, while he or she stood
and grinned and admitted his remarks were unquestionably true. As a
rule, instead of grinning, they ought to have wept, for Jefferson's
anecdotes and scraps of private scandals led me to fear that about
ninety-nine in a hundred of his cronies ought to be under lock and key,
in spite of what the prison authorities had told us.
Then we came down through a slum and found ourselves by the sea, upon a
long, level beach of dark sand. The pier stood half-a-mile ahead, and we
now determined to proceed without further delay to the boats, return to
the "Rhine," and safely bestow our curiosities before she sailed.
Apprised of this intention, Jefferson prepared to take leave of our
party. He assured me that it had given him very considerable pleasure to
thus devote his morning hours to our service. He trusted that we were
satisfied with his efforts, and hinted that, though he should not dream
of levying any formal charge, yet some trifling and negotiable memento
of us would not be misunderstood or give him the least offence. We
rewarded him adequately, thanked him much for all his trouble, and hoped
that, when next we visited St. Kitts, his cheerful face might be the
first to meet us. He answered:
"Please God, gem'men, I be at de pier-head when next you come 'long.
Anyhow, you ask for Jefferson." Then, blessing us without stint, he
departed.
And here I am reluctantly compelled to reprove the white and
tawny-coloured inhabitants of St. Kitts for a breach of good manners.
Boat-loads of gentlemen from shore crowded the "Rhine," like locusts,
during her short stay at this island. They inundated the saloon bar,
scrambled for seats at the luncheon-table, and showed a wild eagerness
to eat and drink for nothing, which was most unseemly. One would have
imagined that these worthy folks only enjoyed a hearty meal upon the
occasional visits of a steamer; for after they had done with us they all
rowed off to a neighbouring vessel, and boarded her in like manner,
swarming up her sides to see what they could devour. That the
intelligent male population of an island should come off to the ships,
and chat with acquaintances and hear the latest news and enlarge its
mind, is rational enough; but that it should organise greedy raids upon
the provisions, and get in the way of the crew and passengers, and eat
up refreshments which it is not justified in even approaching, appears
to me unrefined, if not absolutely vulgar.
Leprosy and gluttony are the prevailing disorders at St. Kitts. The
first is, unfortunately, incurable, but the second might easily be
remedied, and should be. All that the white inhabitants need is a shade
more self-control in the matter of other people's food, then they will
be equal to the best of their brothers at home or abroad.
That afternoon the subject of influenza formed a principal theme in the
smoking-room of the "Rhine." Our Fourth Officer said:
"Probably I am better qualified to discuss it than any of you men; for,
two years ago, I had a most violent attack of Russian influenza _in_
Russia. Mere English, suburban influenza is child's-play by comparison.
I suffered at Odessa on the Black Sea, and my temperature went up to
just under two hundred, and I singed the bed-clothes. A friend of mine,
an old shipmate, had it at the same place; and his temperature went
considerably over two hundred, and he set his bed-clothes on fire and
was burnt to death, being too weak to escape."
This reminiscence would seem to show that our Fourth Officer has at last
exhausted his supplies of facts, and will now no doubt fall back on
reserves of fiction; which, judged from this sample, are probably very
extensive. Though few mariners turn novelists, yet it is significant, as
showing the great bond of union between seafaring life and pure
imagination, that those who have done so can point to most gratifying
results.
[Illustration: "'PROBABLY I AM BETTER QUALIFIED TO DISCUSS IT THAN ANY
OF YOU.'"]
[Illustration: I. ZANGWILL.]
_My First Book._