palace,” was the remark made to me several times a day by one of our
numerous—shall I say globe-trotting?—guests, who certainly ought
to have been a judge of palaces. And there was some truth in the
criticism as applied to the present Government House at Trinidad.
Because the popular idea of a palace is that it is not a very
comfortable dwelling, and chiefly constructed with a view to first
impressions. This “palace,” however, is really a beautiful house,
and stands in the large Botanical Gardens of Port of Spain. It has a
charming view over the wide savannah in front, and is sheltered from
the cold north winds by the low, beautifully wooded hills behind. The
natives say of this same wind, which is so alluringly fresh and cool,
“vent de nord, vent de mort,” and the chill it brings to the unwary,
especially at night, is doubtless accountable for many of the local
colds and fevers. Nothing can be much more beautiful than the first
effect of the entrance hall to this Government House, and the long
vista through the large saloon and ballroom beyond ends with a glimpse
of that magnificent Saman tree on whose wide-spreading branches grows
what Kingsley so aptly calls—speaking of this same tree—“an air-garden.”
To my mind that tree was quite one of the sights of those beautiful
gardens. Beneath it flourishes a small grove of nutmeg-trees, and tall,
spreading palms, all of which seem mere shrubs and bushes compared
to its lofty splendour. When it is loaded with its pink feathery
blossoms, it attracts every bird and insect in the island, but our
winter visitors never really saw that tree in its full beauty, for
the wondrous air-garden growth did not develop until after the first
heavy rains. Then it is indeed wonderful to see the sudden spikes of
brilliant blossom, the fantastic orchid growth, and the marvellous
wealth of ferns clustering and drooping all along the massive branches.
I endured great anxiety lest the weight of the wet verdure should break
down these giant limbs, for the wood is rather soft and unsubstantial.
However, no such calamity has yet occurred.
But to come back to the tropical palace. It was certainly an ideal
house for entertaining. I always declared that the balls gave
themselves, and there never was the slightest trouble in arranging
any sort of party in the large rooms, which were always as cool as
possible after sunset. The ballroom was lofty, open “to all the airts
that blow,” and possessed a perfect floor. Then when you have Kew
Gardens for decorative purposes growing outside your windows, there is
not much difficulty in producing a pretty effect. Indeed, the entire
house was arranged for coolness, from the great hall which went up the
whole height of the building, to the wide verandahs which surrounded
it on three sides. But in the bedroom accommodation there is a woeful
falling-off, and I was often at my wits’ end to know how to house the
numerous guests who flock to these “Summer Isles of Eden” every winter.
There is no place in the house for English servants, and your own and
your visitors’ servants can only be put up in some of the guest-rooms.
There is one magnificent bedroom which is called “the Prince’s Room,”
as H.R.H. the present Prince of Wales inhabited it during his last
visit, in 1891. But it is a very hot room, and if you are to coax any
cool air into it you must resign yourself to keeping your doors wide
open. The suite of rooms generally used by the Governor are at the end
of another long corridor, and, though good, comfortable, and certainly
the coolest in the house, are so close to the stables that one hears
the horses stamping and fidgetting all night, especially when the
vampire bats are tormenting them. The only back staircase in the house
also passes close to these rooms, so they can hardly be described as
quiet or private. Still, it was a very pretty house, and I took great
pride and delight in hearing it admired.
It is not until one lives in a place oneself that one realises in what
degree it is accessible. Certainly I never thought I should welcome
many English friends coming out to Trinidad just for a little change
after influenza! But that constantly happened, and beautiful yachts
often looked in there for a few days, to say nothing of training ships
of all nationalities. The attraction to them was the placid nature
of the Gulf of Paria, which made it an ideal playground, or rather
schoolroom, for them, and many intricate evolutions on its smooth
surface have I been invited to witness. There I beheld with interest as
well as amusement the young idea being taught how to shoot torpedoes as
well as to lay or find mines and other fiendish contrivances.
It always amused me, especially with the foreign vessels, to watch the
degree of ardour with which the naval cadets pursued their deep-sea
studies. But the most ardent and promising pupil who ever visited our
shores was a young Japanese prince, who, if his proficiency of those
ten-year-old days is any guide, ought certainly to have played a very
distinguished part in the present struggle with Russia. Anything like
that boy’s thirst for knowledge and anxiety to do every other cadet’s
work I never beheld. He was studying at that time on board a German
training ship, but he told me he hoped to go for a second course of
instruction to an English one. His captain said he had never seen any
cadet work so hard or so conscientiously, and his one waking thought
was to make himself acquainted with every detail of his profession.
The naval cadets of every nation were always free to spend their shore
leave at Government House, and play tennis or amuse themselves in the
beautiful gardens in any way they liked, for the thought of my own boys
made me anxious to provide a safe and pleasant play-place for them,
and it delighted me to see how much they liked coming up to us. The
huge fresh-water swimming-bath in the grounds counted for a great deal
in their simple amusements, as did the iced “lime-squash” afterwards.
The little prince came but seldom, and if I asked after him, I was
always told, “Oh, he is doing so and so’s work.”
One beautiful evening we were going to take tea on board this same
German man-of-war, and I noticed in the launch which was sent to tow
our own barge a grimy little figure working away at the miniature
stoke-hole. “Who is that?” I asked. “That? oh, that’s the Prince, of
course. He begged to be allowed to come and stoke for you. He wanted to
learn just how that furnace went.”
Prince K. did not seem to know how to play tennis, nor could he dance,
and I do not believe his idea of amusement extended beyond his ship’s
side. At his Captain’s request we gave him a formal dinner-party,
receiving and treating him just as we would our own royalty. Poor boy,
he went through it all courageously, but it must have been a terrible
infliction, for he could not speak one word of English, and even his
knowledge of German was scanty. He brought two gentlemen of his suite
with him, and depended on them for translation. They both spoke French
as well as English tolerably well, but as far as appearance went the
little Prince had decidedly the advantage, and looked very high-bred
in his plain and correct evening dress, but it was the only time I
ever saw him out of uniform. He maintained a true Oriental gravity all
through dinner, and it was quite a revelation of his real expression of
face when the Governor, after the usual toast of the Queen’s health,
proposed that of the Emperor of Japan, and one of his gentlemen, whom
I had taken the precaution of putting near him, told him of the terms
of the toast. The lad sprang to his feet at once, and with really
a beaming countenance bowed low, first to the Governor and then to
the rest of the company. He looked absolutely delighted, and it did
not need his Secretary’s whispered comment of “His Highness ver much
please” to tell me how gratified he was.
But after dinner things became terribly dull for him, poor boy. He did
not dance, nor seem to care about music or anything else which was
going on, so it fell to my share to walk him about the large _salon_,
and show him whatever I thought might possibly interest him. Of course,
his two gentlemen were in close attendance, or we should indeed have
suffered conversational shipwreck. When I arrived at an enormous
elephant’s foot, I thought we had now certainly reached a turning-point
in the tide of boredom which had evidently set in for the poor youth.
But in spite of my explanation of how the big beast had fallen to my
eldest son’s rifle and various exciting details of the said fall, all
duly passed on by the other gentlemen, I could not see the faintest
trace of interest or even of comprehension in that immovable ivory
countenance. At last the Secretary murmured: “Highness not know
elephant ver well.” This was indeed despairing, but my eye was caught
by a clumsy little ebony model of an elephant, which I seized as an
object-lesson, handing it to the Secretary, and saying, “Please explain
to his Highness that _this_ is an elephant.” The Prince murmured some
words in reply which were translated to me as: “Ah, I see! a large sort
of pig.”
After this I felt I must let things take their course, and I have no
doubt the polite adieux which soon followed were as great a relief to
the guest as they were to me.
The greatest daytime treat I could ever give my guests was to send
them round the Botanical Gardens under the escort of the gifted
superintendent. They always returned hot and thirsty, but with their
hands full of treasures. I think a freshly-gathered nutmeg, with its
camellia-green leaves and its apricot-like fruit, enlaced with the
crimson network we know later as mace, procured them the greatest joy
of all. Then came breathless accounts of the soap-nut with which they
had washed their hands, of the ink galls with which they had written
their names, of orchids growing beneath long arcades—“Out of doors
you know!”—of palms of every size and sort and description, each more
lovely than its neighbour, of strange _lianes_ which, dropping down
from lofty trees and swinging in the breeze, are caught and twisted by
Nature’s charming caprice into the most fantastic shapes imaginable.
There are many advantages connected with the Government House standing
in these beautiful gardens, but it cannot be said to conduce to its
privacy. I always pined for “three acres and a cow” to myself, but I
never got it! A tiny iron fence, six inches from the ground, marked
out the tennis-courts, and certain narrow limits beyond, which were
supposed to be private, and little iron notice-plates repeated the
idea. But if any enterprising tourist wished to enlarge his sphere of
observation, none of these trifles stood in his or her way, and I have
sometimes been awakened at daylight by vociferous demands, just outside
my bedroom window, to know “where the electric eel lived.” Poor thing,
it did not live anywhere latterly, for it had died; but there was no
persuading the energetic visitor, who only had a couple of hours in
which to “do” the Botanical Gardens, that I had not secreted it in my
bathroom.
I must hasten to add, however, that it was only the tourist who
sometimes harried us, for it seemed well understood by the people of
the island that a certain small space round Government House was
private ground, and we never had the least difficulty with even the
numerous nurses and babies who flocked, for whatever fresh air was
going, to these charming gardens where the capital police band plays
twice a week. We often strolled about this public part of the gardens
on Sunday afternoons, when many people were about, and I enjoyed it
thoroughly, until it came to the final “God save the Queen,” and then
I confess I always felt surprised and indignant to see how few hats
were taken off. Every white man, from the Governor downwards, stood
bare-headed of course, from the first note to the last, so did the
ever-courteous foreign visitor; but hardly a well-clad, well-fed young
coloured man followed their example. I was always deeply ashamed at
visitors seeing this lack of loyalty or manners (I don’t know which).
I observed the elder black men nearly always uncovered, but the dark,
gilded youth of Port of Spain certainly did not.
One does not realise how close Trinidad is to Venezuela until one goes
there. My very first drive showed me a fine mountain range blending
beautifully with the fair and extensive landscape.
“I thought there were no really high mountains in Trinidad!” I
exclaimed in surprise.
“But those are not in Trinidad,” was the crushing answer; “they are on
the mainland, which is only twenty miles off, just there.”
I little thought, that day, how anxiously I should watch the political
horizon of Venezuela! But as the supply of beef depended on the
numerous revolutions or threatenings of revolutions, I grew to take the
liveliest interest in those social convulsions, and I became an ardent
advocate of peace at almost any price—of beef.
I always longed yet never made time, I am sorry to say, to go up one of
the numerous mouths of the Orinoco which run into _our_ Gulf, the Gulf
of Paria; many of our guests made the excursion, getting up as far as
Bolivar in one of the comfortable, almost flat-bottomed river steamers
which provide an excellent service. The accounts brought back were
always so glowing that I longed to go, but home duties and home ties
pinned me firmly down.
Venezuela seems to be a perfect land of Goshen compared to even our
tropical luxuriance, and the cocoa-pods, bananas, and plantains brought
back from the mainland were, without the least exaggeration, quite
twice as large as those grown on the island. “But, then, what would you
have?” I was asked. “Trinidad is only a little bit of South America
which the Orinoco has washed off from the mainland.” If this be so,
then the mighty stream dropped several of the pieces on the way, for
there are many islets, some five miles or more away from Trinidad, and
towards the Bocas or mouths of the great river. These little islands
are a great feature of Trinidad, and splendid places for change of
air or excursions. They all have houses on them, and one tiny islet
may, I think, claim to be the smallest spot of earth which holds a
dwelling. It is just a rock, on the top of which is perched a small but
comfortable and compact house. Beyond its outer wall is, on one side,
a minute plateau about ten or twelve feet in length, and that is all
the exercise-ground on the island. I was assured it was the favourite
honeymoon resort, which certainly seemed putting the capabilities of
companionship of the newly-married couple to a rather severe test!
Fishing, boating, and bathing are the resources at the command of the
islet visitors, and the air is wonderfully fresh and cool on these
little fragments of the earth’s surface. Whenever I could make time
it was my great delight to take the Government launch with tea and a
party of young friends to one of these islets, and it was certainly a
delightful way of spending a hot afternoon.
Trinidad is a great place for cricket, and boasts a beautiful ground
belonging to a private club. First-class teams often go out there
to play matches, and I used to see incessant cricket practice going
on on the savannah in front of Government House. Certainly that
savannah is a splendid “lung” to the low-lying town, and the people
of Trinidad may well be proud of it. On its south-western side is a
small walled enclosure; it is the graveyard of the original Spanish
owners of the soil, and a large sugar estate once stood where races
are run and cricket played nowadays. The living owners have all,
long ago, disappeared; only the dead remain in their peaceful little
resting-place under the shade of the spreading trees which grow inside
the low wall.
To return for a moment to the Botanical Gardens. Within the limits
of the so-called private part is a small plot of ground planted with
vegetables for the Governor’s use. In my eyes it was chiefly remarkable
for the three large, coarse sort of bean-vines which grew at its
entrance, and which were further decorated at the top of the stick
round which they clung (in very tipsy fashion) by an empty bottle and
some tufts of shabby feathers. These aids to horticulture being quite
new to me, I inquired their use, and was assured they constituted the
Obeah police of the garden, and that so long as those vines grew there,
no young lettuce or tomato or yam would be stolen from that garden;
and certainly theft was never assigned as the reason for the scanty
contents of the gardener’s daily basket. It was always the time of year
or the weather.
I used to feel very envious when some of the older residents would
speak of these gardens as having been the home of the humming-bird.
Alas! the lovely little creatures are seldom to be seen there now,
in spite of the protective legislation of many years past. But the
ruthless tourist will always buy a humming-bird’s nest, especially
with its two sugar-plum-like eggs in it, so the enterprising black boy
keeps a sharp look-out for these articles of commerce. Soon after we
first went there, I found a wee nest on a low branch of a tree close to
Government House, with a darling little bird sitting in it. I peeped
cautiously very often during the next few days, and the young mother
grew so accustomed to my visits that she would let me stand within
a yard of the bough. At last some microscopic fragments of eggshell
appeared on the moss beneath, and on my next visit, when the little hen
was away getting food, I beheld a thing very like a bee with a beak.
This object seemed to grow amazingly every few hours, so that in a week
it looked quite like a respectable bird. Imagine my rage and despair
when I found one morning the branch broken off and the baby bird dead
on the ground. My sweet little nest had been taken for the sake of the
sixpence it would fetch next time a tourist-laden yacht came in!
A much happier fate attended a humming-bird which built its nest in
a small palm growing in a friend’s drawing-room. I paid many visits
to that drawing-room during the bird’s occupancy, and anything so
interesting as its manners and customs cannot be imagined. Instead
of bringing material from outside for the nest, the tiny builder
requisitioned the floss silk from an embroidered cushion and the wool
from a ball-fringe. The nest, unusually gay in colour, hung down a
couple of inches from one of the serrated points of the palm leaf;
but when I was first invited to come and look on, it was not quite
completed to the feathered lady’s satisfaction, for she still darted in
and out of the open windows and about the room.
The master of the house, at my request, seated himself in his usual
arm-chair and opened his newspaper, and I made myself as small as I
could in a distant corner. Our patience was soon rewarded, for there
was the little bird balancing itself with its vibrating wings just
above the newspaper. However, as no building material was forthcoming
from that source, she flashed over to my corner, and, quicker than the
eye could follow, had snatched a thread of silk from a work-table and
was off to her work again. The little creature got quite tame, and
her confidence was well placed, for nothing could exceed the charming
kindness of her host and hostess. The eggs were laid and hatched in
due time, and the master of the house told me he used to get up at the
day-dawn and open his drawing-room window to let the little mother out
to get food for her babies. This necessitated his remaining the rest
of the morning in the drawing-room, as he said it would not have been
safe to have left it. I naturally thought he feared for the safety of
his wife’s pretty things, but oh, no—what he guarded was the nest, lest
it should meet the fate of mine and be stolen.
It was on this occasion I found out what humming-birds feed on. The
popular idea is that they live on honey, and attempts have often been
made to keep them in captivity on honey, or sugar and water, with the
result that the poor little birds died of starvation in a day or two.
The honey theory has sprung from seeing the birds darting their long
bills and still longer tongues into the cups of honey-bearing flowers.
What they are getting, however, is not honey, but the minute insect
which is attracted and caught by the honey.
I never saw any but the commonest sort of humming-bird during my stay
in Trinidad, and very few of those, and I was told that even in the
high woods it was rare now to behold them. In spite of the stringent
ordinance against killing _colibris_, I fear many skins are taken
away every year by the tourist, especially by the scientific tourist.
Never can I forget my feelings when, on bidding adieu to a delightful
foreign _savant_, he informed me that he had enjoyed his trips into the
interior of the island immensely, and had collected many interesting
specimens of flora and fauna, including a _hundred humming-bird
skins_! I nearly fainted with horror, but my one effort then was to
prevent this dreadful boast reaching the Governor’s ears, for I felt
sure that international complications of a very grave character would
have followed.
Pages might be written on the scientific value of the beautiful gardens
which surround this tropical palace, as well as of the opportunity they
afford of studying insect life. At first it is disappointing to see so
few flowers in them, but in the summer the large trees are covered with
blossom, and, in fact, the flowers may be said to have taken refuge up
the trees from the all-devouring ants. But the serious business of the
gardens is really to make experiments in the growth and cultivation
of the various economic products of the island—raising seedling
canes, coffee, and cocoa, and determining which variety would most
successfully repay culture. It is a mistake to regard them only from
the ornamental point of view, though their beauty is very striking, for
they are chiefly valuable for their practical results.
XII
TRINIDAD—_Continued_
Besides the humming-birds there were many less welcome denizens of
the Gardens. There were ants of every species known to even Sir John
Lubbock. Parasol ants, who occasionally took a fancy to my dinner-table
decorations, especially if the beautiful and brilliant _Amherstia_
were used. I have often been requested to say what was to be done with
long lines of myriad ants ascending by one leg of the dinner-table
and descending by another, each carrying a good-sized bit of scarlet
petal tossed airily over his shoulder! Anything so quaint as these
processions of gay colour marching across the white cloth cannot be
imagined. It was a case of “Tiger in station, please arrange,” and
there was just as little to be done except to give up the _Amherstia_.
These ants occasionally took a fancy to the flowers on my writing-table
also, but we never seriously interfered with each other. I naturally
thought that the ants ate these leaves and petals, but they only chew
them up and spread them out like manure on the feeding-grounds near
the nests. From this sort of cultivation a minute fungus-like growth
springs, and on _that_ they feed. So destructive are their operations
that a functionary is specially retained in the Botanical Gardens to
follow them up and discover and destroy the nests, which are generally
at a very great distance from the scene of their labours, and I often
watched with interest a lantern apparently creeping along the ground of
a dark night.
What I really wanted to see was a raid of Hunter ants. I had read a
fascinating description in a book of early days in Trinidad, of a
domiciliary visit paid to the author’s house in the country, which she
and her children had hastily to vacate at earliest dawn, taking with
them their pet birds and a kitten, which the slave-women, who warned
them to “turn out sharp,” declared would be devoured if left behind.
The Hunter ants spent the whole of that day inside the house, clearing
it of every lizard, mouse, cockroach, beetle, and such small deer. The
writer describes the ants as having wings when they first appeared;
but when their day of gorging was over they emerged wingless, and
rested in vast dark masses in her garden. They had not touched anything
except the small reptile and insect colonies, which, we must remember,
were likely to flourish under the deep thatched roof of those days,
long before galvanised iron or shingles from America were known. The
writer goes on to say that at dawn next day she heard strange and weird
screams from numerous small sea-gulls, who, in their turn, were making
an excellent breakfast off the fat Hunter ants. Such scenes as this
are hardly ever to be met with in these days, for the houses are so
different, and more of the high woods are cleared every year.