At last we were homeward bound. We had been seven weeks in the
island. We had promised to be back in England, if possible, within
the three months; and we had a certain pride in keeping our promise,
not only for its own sake, but for the sake of the dear West Indies.
We wished to show those at home how easy it was to get there; how
easy to get home again. Moreover, though going to sea in the
Shannon was not quite the same 'as going to sea in a sieve,' our
stay-at-home friends were of the same mind as those of the dear
little Jumblies, whom Mr. Lear has made immortal in his New Book of
Nonsense; and we were bound to come back as soon as possible, and
not 'in twenty years or more,' if we wished them to say--
'If we live,
We too will go to sea in a sieve,
To the Hills of the Chankly bore.'
So we left. But it was sore leaving. People had been very kind;
and were ready to be kinder still; while we, busy--perhaps too busy-
-over our Natural History collections, had seen very little of our
neighbours; had been able to accept very few of the invitations
which were showered on us, and which would, I doubt not, have given
us opportunities for liking the islanders still more than we liked
them already.
Another cause made our leaving sore to us. The hunger for travel
had been aroused--above all for travel westward--and would not be
satisfied. Up the Orinoco we longed to go: but could not. To La
Guayra and Caraccas we longed to go: but dared not. Thanks to
Spanish Republican barbarism, the only regular communication with
that once magnificent capital of Northern Venezuela was by a filthy
steamer, the Regos Ferreos, which had become, from her very looks, a
byword in the port. On board of her some friends of ours had lately
been glad to sleep in a dog-hutch on deck, to escape the filth and
vermin of the berths; and went hungry for want of decent food.
Caraccas itself was going through one of its periodic revolutions--
it has not got through the fever fit yet--and neither life nor
property was safe.
But the longing to go westward was on us nevertheless. It seemed
hard to turn back after getting so far along the great path of the
human race; and one had to reason with oneself--Foolish soul,
whither would you go? You cannot go westward for ever. If you go
up the Orinoco, you will long to go up the Meta. If you get to Sta.
Fe de Bogota, you will not be content till you cross the Andes and
see Cotopaxi and Chimborazo. When you look down on the Pacific, you
will be craving to go to the Gallapagos, after Darwin; and then to
the Marquesas, after Herman Melville; and then to the Fijis, after
Seeman; and then to Borneo, after Brooke; and then to the
Archipelago, after Wallace; and then to Hindostan, and round the
world. And when you get home, the westward fever will be stronger
on you than ever, and you will crave to start again. Go home at
once, like a reasonable man, and do your duty, and thank God for
what you have been allowed to see; and try to become of the same
mind as that most brilliant of old ladies, who boasted that she had
not been abroad since she saw the Apotheosis of Voltaire, before the
French Revolution; and did not care to go, as long as all manner of
clever people were kind enough to go instead, and write charming
books about what they had seen for her.
But the westward fever was slow to cool: and with wistful eyes we
watched the sun by day, and Venus and the moon by night, sink down
into the gulf, to lighten lands which we should never see. A few
days more, and we were steaming out to the Bocas--which we had begun
to love as the gates of a new home--heaped with presents to the last
minute, some of them from persons we hardly knew. Behind us Port of
Spain sank into haze: before us Monos rose, tall, dark, and grim--
if Monos could be grim--in moonless night. We ran on, and past the
island; this time we were going, not through the Boca de Monos, but
through the next, the Umbrella Bocas. It was too dark to see
houses, palm-trees, aught but the ragged outline of the hills
against the northern sky, and beneath, sparks of light in sheltered
coves, some of which were already, to one of us, well-beloved nooks.
There was the great gulf of the Boca de Monos. There was
Morrison's--our good Scotch host of seven weeks since; and the
glasses were turned on it, to see, if possible, through the dusk,
the almond-tree and the coco-grove for the last time. Ah, well--
When we next meet, what will he be, and where? And where the
handsome Creole wife, and the little brown. Cupid who danced all
naked in the log canoe, till the white gentlemen, swimming round,
upset him; and canoe, and boy, and men rolled and splashed about
like a shoal of seals at play, beneath the cliff with the Seguines
and Cereuses; while the ripple lapped the Moriche-nuts about the
roots of the Manchineel bush, and the skippers leaped and flashed
outside, like silver splinters? And here, where we steamed along,
was the very spot where we had seen the shark's back-fin when we
rowed back from the first Guacharo cave. And it was all over.
We are such stuff as dreams are made of. And as in a dream, or
rather as part of a dream, and myself a phantom and a play-actor, I
looked out over the side, and saw on the right the black Avails of
Monos, on the left the black walls of Huevos--a gate even grander,
though not as narrow, as that of Monos; and the Umbrella Rock,
capped with Matapalo and Cactus, and night-blowing Cereus, dim in
the dusk. And now we were outside. The roar of the surf, the
tumble of the sea, the rush of the trade-wind, told us that at once.
Out in the great sea, with Grenada, and kind friends in it, ahead;
not to be seen or reached till morning light. But we looked astern
and not ahead. We could see into and through the gap in Huevos,
through which we had tried to reach the Guacharo cave. Inside that
notch in the cliffs must be the wooded bay, whence we picked up the
shells among the fallen leaves and flowers. From under that dark
wall beyond it the Guacharos must be just trooping out for their
nightly forage, as they had trooped out since--He alone who made
them knows how long. The outline of Huevos, the outline of Monos,
were growing lower and grayer astern. A long ragged haze, far
loftier than that on the starboard quarter, signified the Northern
Mountains; and far off on the port quarter lay a flat bank of cloud,
amid which rose, or seemed to rise, the Cordillera of the Main, and
the hills where jaguars lie. Canopus blazed high astern, and
Fomalhaut below him to the west, as if bidding us a kind farewell.
Orion and Aldebaran spangled the zenith. The young moon lay on her
back in the far west, thin and pale, over Cumana and the Cordillera,
with Venus, ragged and red with earth mist, just beneath. And low
ahead, with the pointers horizontal, glimmered the cold pole-star,
for which we were steering, out of the summer into the winter once
more. We grew chill as we looked at him; and shuddered, it may be,
cowered for a moment, at the thought of 'Niflheim,' the home of
frosts and fogs, towards which we were bound.
However, we were not yet out of the Tropics. We had still nearly a
fortnight before us in which to feel sure there was a sun in heaven;
a fortnight more of the 'warm champagne' atmosphere which was giving
fresh life and health to us both. And up the islands we went,
wiser, but not sadder, than when we went down them; casting wistful
eyes, though, to windward, for there away--and scarcely out of
sight--lay Tobago, to which we had a most kind invitation; and
gladly would we have looked at that beautiful and fertile little
spot, and have pictured to ourselves Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday
pacing along the coral beach in one of its little southern coves.
More wistfully still did we look to windward when we thought of
Barbadoes, and of the kind people who were ready to welcome us into
that prosperous and civilised little cane-garden, which deserves--
and has deserved for now two hundred years, far more than poor old
Ireland--the name of 'The Emerald Gem of the Western World.'
But it could not be. A few hours at Grenada, and a few hours at St.
Lucia, were all the stoppages possible to us. The steamer only
passes once a fortnight, and it is necessary to spend that time on
each island which is visited, unless the traveller commits himself--
which he cannot well do if he has a lady with him--to the chances
and changes of coasting schooners. More frequent and easy
intercommunication is needed throughout the Antilles. The good
people, whether white or coloured, need to see more of each other,
and more of visitors from home. Whether a small weekly steamer
between the islands would pay in money, I know not. That it would
pay morally and socially, I am sure. Perhaps, when the telegraph is
laid down along the islands, the need of more steamers will be felt
and supplied.
Very pleasant was the run up to St. Thomas's, not merely on account
of the scenery, but because we had once more--contrary to our
expectation--the most agreeable of captains. His French
cultivation--he had been brought up in Provence--joined to brilliant
natural talents, had made him as good a talker as he doubtless is a
sailor; and the charm of his conversation, about all matters on
earth, and some above the earth, will not be soon forgotten by those
who went up with him to St. Thomas's, and left him there with
regret.
We transhipped to the Neva, Captain Woolward--to whom I must tender
my thanks, as I do to Captain Bax, of the Shannon, for all kinds of
civility. We slept a night in the harbour, the town having just
then a clean bill of health; and were very glad to find ourselves,
during the next few days, none the worse for having done so. On
remarking, the first evening, that I did not smell the harbour after
all, I was comforted by the answer that--'When a man did, he had
better go below and make his will.' It is a pity that the most
important harbour in the Caribbean Sea should be so unhealthy. No
doubt it offers advantages for traffic which can be found nowhere
else: and there the steamers must continue to assemble, yellow
fever or none. But why should not an hotel be built for the
passengers in some healthy and airy spot outside the basin--on the
south slope of Water Island, for instance, or on Buck Island--where
they might land at once, and sleep in pure fresh air and sea-breeze?
The establishment of such an hotel would surely, when once known,
attract to the West Indies many travellers to whom St. Thomas's is
now as much a name of fear as Colon or the Panama.
We left St. Thomas's by a different track from that by which we came
to it. We ran northward up the magnificent land-locked channel
between Tortola and Virgin Gorda, to pass to leeward of Virgin Gorda
and Anegada, and so northward toward the Gulf Stream.
This channel has borne the name of Drake, I presume, ever since the
year 1575. For in the account of that fatal, though successful
voyage, which cost the lives both of Sir John Hawkins, who died off
Porto Rico, and Sir Francis Drake, who died off Porto Bello, where
Hosier and the greater part of the crews of a noble British fleet
perished a hundred and fifty years afterward, it is written in
Hakluyt how--after running up N. and N.W. past Saba--the fleet
'stood away S.W., and on the 8th of November, being a Saturday, we
came to an anker some 7 or 8 leagues off among certain broken Ilands
called Las Virgines, which have bene accounted dangerous: but we
found there a very good rode, had it bene for a thousand sails of
ships in 7 & 8 fadomes, fine sand, good ankorage, high Ilands on
either side, but no fresh water that we could find: here is much
fish to be taken with nets and hookes: also we stayed on shore and
fowled. Here Sir John Hawkins was extreme sick' (he died within ten
days), 'which his sickness began upon newes of the taking of the
Francis' (his stern-most vessel). 'The 18th day wee weied and stood
north and by east into a lesser sound, which Sir Francis in his
barge discovered the night before; and ankored in 13 fadomes, having
hie steepe hiles on either side, some league distant from our first
riding.
'The 12 in the morning we weied and set sayle into the Sea due south
through a small streit but without danger'--possibly the very gap in
which the Rhone's wreck now lies--'and then stode west and by north
for S. Juan de Puerto Rico.'
This northerly course is, plainly, the most advantageous for a
homeward-bound ship, as it strikes the Gulf Stream soonest, and
keeps in it longest. Conversely, the southerly route by the Azores
is best for outward-bound ships; as it escapes most of the Gulf
Stream, and traverses the still Sargasso Sea, and even the extremity
of the westward equatorial current.
Strange as these Virgin Isles had looked when seen from the south,
outside, and at the distance of a few miles, they looked still more
strange when we were fairly threading our way between them,
sometimes not a rifle-shot from the cliffs, with the white coral
banks gleaming under our keel. Had they ever carried a tropic
vegetation? Had the hills of Tortola and Virgin Gorda, in shape and
size much like those which surround a sea-loch in the Western
Islands, ever been furred with forests like those of Guadaloupe or
St. Lucia? The loftier were now mere mounds of almost barren earth;
the lower were often, like 'Fallen Jerusalem,' mere long earthless
moles, as of minute Cyclopean masonry. But what had destroyed their
vegetation, if it ever existed? Were they not, too, the mere
remnants of a submerged and destroyed land, connected now only by
the coral shoals? So it seemed to us, as we ran out past the
magnificent harbour at the back of Virgin Gorda, where, in the old
war times, the merchantmen of all the West Indies used to collect,
to be conveyed homeward by the naval squadron, and across a shallow
sea white with coral beds. We passed to leeward of the island, or
rather reef, of Anegada, so low that it could only be discerned, at
a few miles' distance, by the breaking surf and a few bushes; and
then plunged, as it were, suddenly out of shallow white water into
deep azure ocean. An upheaval of only forty fathoms would, I
believe, join all these islands to each other, and to the great
mountain island of Porto Rico to the west. The same upheaval would
connect with each other Anguilla, St. Martin, and St. Bartholomew,
to the east. But Santa Cruz, though so near St. Thomas's, and the
Virgin Gordas to the south, would still be parted from them by a
gulf nearly two thousand fathoms deep--a gulf which marks still,
probably, the separation of two ancient continents, or at least two
archipelagoes.
Much light has been thrown on this curious problem since our return,
by an American naturalist, Mr. Bland, in a paper read before the
American Philosophical Society, on 'The Geology and Physical
Geography of the West Indies, with reference to the distribution of
Mollusca.' It is plain that of all animals, land-shells and
reptiles give the surest tokens of any former connection of islands,
being neither able to swim nor fly from one to another, and very
unlikely to be carried by birds or currents. Judging, therefore, as
he has a right to do, by the similarity of the land-shells, Mr.
Bland is of opinion that Porto Rico, the Virgins, and the Anguilla
group once formed continuous dry land, connected with Cuba, the
Bahamas, and Hayti; and that their shell-fauna is of a Mexican and
Central American type. The shell-fauna of the islands to the south,
on the contrary, from Barbuda and St. Kitts down to Trinidad, is
South American: but of two types, one Venezuelan, the other
Guianan. It seems, from Mr. Bland's researches, that there must
have existed once not merely an extension of the North American
Continent south-eastward, but that very extension of the South
American Continent northward, at which I have hinted more than once
in these pages. Moreover--a fact which I certainly did not expect--
the western side of this supposed land, namely, Trinidad, Tobago,
Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia, have, as far as
land-shells are concerned, a Venezuelan fauna; while the eastern
side of it, namely, Barbadoes, Martinique, Dominica, Guadaloupe,
Antigua, etc., have, most strangely, the fauna of Guiana.
If this be so, a glance at the map will show the vast destruction of
tropic land during almost the very latest geological epoch; and
show, too, how little, in the present imperfect state of our
knowledge, we ought to dare any speculations as to the absence of
man, as well as of other creatures, on those great lands now
destroyed. For, to supply the dry land which Mr. Bland's theory
needs, we shall have to conceive a junction, reaching over at least
five degrees of latitude, between the north of British Guiana and
Barbadoes; and may freely indulge in the dream that the waters of
the Orinoco, when they ran over the lowlands of Trinidad, passed
east of Tobago; then northward between Barbadoes and St. Lucia; then
turned westward between the latter island and Martinique; and that
the mighty estuary formed--for a great part at least of that line--
the original barrier which kept the land-shells of Venezuela apart
from those of Guiana. A 'stretch of the imagination,' doubtless:
but no greater stretch than will be required by any explanation of
the facts whatsoever.
And so, thanking Mr. Bland heartily for his valuable contribution to
the infant science of Bio-Geology--I take leave, in these pages at
least, of the Earthly Paradise.
Our run homeward was quite as successful as our run out. The
magnificent Neva, her captain and her officers, were what these
Royal Mail steamers and their crews are--without, I believe, an
exception--all that we could wish. Our passengers, certainly, were
neither so numerous nor so agreeable as when going out; and the most
notable personage among them was a keen-eyed, strong-jawed little
Corsican, who had been lately hired--so ran his story--by the
coloured insurgents of Hayti, to put down the President--alias (as
usual in such Republics) Tyrant--Salnave.
He seemed, by his own account, to have done his work effectually.
Seven thousand lives were lost in the attack on Salnave's quarters
in Port au Prince. Whole families were bayonetted, to save the
trouble of judging and shooting them. Women were not spared: and--
if all that I have heard of Hayti be true--some of them did not
deserve to be spared. The noble old French buildings of the city
were ruined--the Corsican said, not by his artillery, but by
Salnave's. He had slain Salnave himself; and was now going back to
France to claim his rights as a French citizen, carrying with him
Salnave's sword, which was wrapped in a newspaper, save when taken
out to be brandished on the main deck. One could not but be
interested in the valiant adventurer. He seemed a man such as Red
Republics and Revolutions breed, and need; very capable of doing
rough work, and not likely to be hampered by scruples as to the
manner of doing it. If he is, as I take for granted, busy in France
just now, he will leave his mark behind.
The voyage, however, seemed likely to be a dull one; and to relieve
the monotony, a wild-beast show was determined on, ere the weather
grew too cold. So one day all the new curiosities were brought on
deck at noon; and if some great zoologist had been on board, he
would have found materials in our show for more than one interesting
lecture. The doctor contributed an Alligator, some two feet six
inches long; another officer, a curiously-marked Ant-eater--of a
species unknown to me. It was common, he said, in the Isthmus of
Panama; and seemed the most foolish and helpless of beasts. As no
ants were procurable, it was fed on raw yolk of egg, which it
contrived to suck in with its long tongue--not enough, however, to
keep it alive during the voyage.
The chief engineer exhibited a live 'Tarantula,' or bird-catching
spider, who was very safely barred into its box with strips of iron,
as a bite from it is rather worse than that of an English adder.
We showed a Vulturine Parrot and a Kinkajou. The Kinkajou, by the
by, got loose one night, and displayed his natural inclination by
instantly catching a rat, and dancing between decks with it in his
mouth: but was so tame withal, that he let the stewardess stroke
him in passing. The good lady mistook him for a cat; and when she
discovered next morning that she had been handling a 'loose wild
beast,' her horror was as great as her thankfulness for the supposed
escape. In curious contrast to the natural tameness of the Kinkajou
was the natural untameness of a beautiful little Night-Monkey,
belonging to the purser. Its great owl's eyes were instinct with
nothing but abject terror of everybody and everything; and it was a
miracle that ere the voyage was over it did not die of mere fright.
How is it, en passant, that some animals are naturally fearless and
tamable, others not; and that even in the same family? Among the
South American monkeys the Howlers are untamable; the Sapajous less
so; while the Spider Monkeys are instinctively gentle and fond of
man: as may be seen in the case of the very fine Marimonda (Ateles
Beelzebub) now dying, I fear, in the Zoological Gardens at Bristol.
As we got into colder latitudes, we began to lose our pets. The
Ant-eater departed first: then the doctor, who kept his alligator
in a tub on his cabin floor, was awoke by doleful wails, as of a
babe. Being pretty sure that there was not likely to be one on
board, and certainly not in his cabin, he naturally struck a light,
and discovered the alligator, who had never uttered a sound before,
outside his tub on the floor, bewailing bitterly his fate. Whether
he 'wept crocodile tears' besides, the doctor could not discover;
but it was at least clear, that if swans sing before they die,
alligators do so likewise: for the poor thing was dead next
morning.
It was time, after this, to stow the pets warm between decks, and as
near the galley-fires as they could be put. For now, as we neared
the 'roaring forties,' there fell on us a gale from the north-west,
and would not cease.
The wind was, of course, right abeam; the sea soon ran very high.
The Neva, being a long screw, was lively enough, and too lively; for
she soon showed a chronic inclination to roll, and that suddenly, by
fits and starts. The fiddles were on the tables for nearly a week:
but they did not prevent more than one of us finding his dinner
suddenly in his lap instead of his stomach. However, no one was
hurt, nor even frightened: save two poor ladies--not from Trinidad-
-who spent their doleful days and nights in screaming, telling their
beads, drinking weak brandy-and-water, and informing the hunted
stewardess that if they had known what horrors they were about to
endure, they would have gone to Europe in--a sailing vessel. The
foreigners--who are usually, I know not why, bad sailors--soon
vanished to their berths: so did the ladies: even those who were
not ill jammed themselves into their berths, and lay there, for fear
of falls and bruises; while the Englishmen and a coloured man or
two--the coloured men usually stand the sea well--had the deck all
to themselves; and slopped about, holding on, and longing for a
monkey's tail; but on the whole rather liking it.
For, after all, it is a glorious pastime to find oneself in a real
gale of wind, in a big ship, with not a rock to run against within a
thousand miles. One seems in such danger; and one is so safe. And
gradually the sense of security grows, and grows into a sense of
victory, as with the boy who fears his first fence, plucks up heart
for the second, is rather pleased at the third, and craves for the
triumph of the fourth and of all the rest, sorry at last when the
run is over. And when a man--not being sea-sick--has once
discovered that the apparent heel of the ship in rolling is at least
four times less than it looks, and that she will jump upright again
in a quarter of a minute like a fisher's float; has learnt to get
his trunk out from under his berth, and put it back again, by
jamming his forehead against the berth-side and his heels against
the ship's wall; has learnt--if he sleep aft--to sleep through the
firing of the screw, though it does shake all the marrow in his
backbone; and has, above all, made a solemn vow to shave and bathe
every morning, let the ship be as lively as she will: then he will
find a full gale a finer tonic, and a finer stirrer of wholesome
appetite, than all the drugs of Apothecaries' Hall.
This particular gale, however, began to get a little too strong. We
had a sail or two set to steady the ship: on the second night one
split with a crack like a cannon; and was tied up in an instant,
cordage and strips, into inextricable knots.
The next night I was woke by a slap which shook the Neva from stem
to stern, and made her stagger and writhe like a live thing struck
across the loins. Then a dull rush of water which there was no
mistaking. We had shipped a green sea. Well, I could not bale it
out again; and there was plenty of room for it on board. So, after
ascertaining that R--- was not frightened, I went back to my berth
and slept again, somewhat wondering that the roll of the screw was
all but silent.
Next morning we found that a sea had walked in over the bridge,
breaking it, and washing off it the first officer and the look-out
man--luckily they fell into a sail and not overboard; put out the
galley-fires, so that we got a cold breakfast; and eased the ship;
for the shock turned the indicator in the engine-room to 'Ease her.'
The engineer, thinking that the captain had given the order, obeyed
it. The captain turned out into the wet to know who had eased his
ship, and then returned to bed, wisely remarking, that the ship knew
her own business best; and as she had chosen to ease the engines
herself, eased she should be, his orders being 'not to prosecute a
voyage so as to endanger the lives of the passengers or the property
of the Company.'
So we went on easily for sixteen hours, the wise captain judging--
and his judgment proved true--that the centre of the storm was
crossing our course ahead; and that if we waited, it would pass us.
So, as he expected, we came after a day or two into an almost
windless sea, where smooth mountainous waves, the relics of the
storm, were weltering aimlessly up and down under a dark sad sky.
Soon we began to sight ship after ship, and found ourselves on the
great south-western high-road of the Atlantic; and found ourselves,
too, nearing Niflheim day by day. Colder and colder grew the wind,
lower the sun, darker the cloud-world overhead; and we went on deck
each morning, with some additional garment on, sorely against our
wills. Only on the very day on which we sighted land, we had one of
those treacherously beautiful days which occur, now and then, in an
English February, mild, still, and shining, if not with keen joyful
blaze, at least with a cheerful and tender gleam from sea and sky.
The Land's End was visible at a great distance; and as we neared the
Lizard, we could see not only the lighthouses on the Cliff, and
every well-known cove and rock from Mullion and Kynance round to St.
Keverne, but far inland likewise. Breage Church, and the great tin-
works of Wheal Vor, stood out hard against the sky. We could see up
the Looe Pool to Helston Church, and away beyond it, till we fancied
that we could almost discern, across the isthmus, the sacred hill of
Carnbrea.
Along the Cornish shore we ran, through a sea swarming with sails:
an exciting contrast to the loneliness of the wide ocean which we
had left--and so on to Plymouth Sound.
The last time I had been on that water, I was looking up in awe at
Sir Edward Codrington's fleet just home from the battle of Navarino.
Even then, as a mere boy, I was struck by the grand symmetry of that
ample basin: the break water--then unfinished--lying across the
centre; the heights of Bovisand and Cawsand, and those again of
Mount Batten and Mount Edgecumbe, left and right; the citadel and
the Hoe across the bottom of the Sound, the southern sun full on
their walls, with the twin harbours and their forests of masts,
winding away into dim distance on each side; and behind all and
above all, the purple range of Dartmoor, with the black rain-clouds
crawling along its top. And now, after nearly forty years, the
place looked to me even more grand than my recollections had
pictured it. The newer fortifications have added to the moral
effect of the scene, without taking away from its physical beauty:
and I heard without surprise--though not without pride--the
foreigners express their admiration of this, their first specimen of
an English port.
We steamed away again, after landing our letters, close past the
dear old Mewstone. The warrener's hut stood on it still: and I
wondered whether the old he-goat, who used to terrify me as a boy,
had left any long-bearded descendants. Then under the Revelstoke
and Bolt Head cliffs, with just one flying glance up into the hidden
nooks of delicious little Salcombe, and away south-west into the
night, bound for Cherbourg, and a very different scene.
We were awakened soon after midnight by the stopping of the steamer.
Then a gun. After awhile another; and presently a third: but there
was no reply, though our coming had been telegraphed from England;
and for nearly six hours we lay in the heart of the most important
French arsenal, with all our mails and passengers waiting to get
ashore; and nobody deigning to notice us. True, we could do no harm
there: but our delay, and other things which happened, were proofs-
-and I was told not uncommon ones--of that carelessness,
unreadiness, and general indiscipline of French arrangements, which
has helped to bring about, since then, an utter ruin.
As the day dawned through fog, we went on deck to find the ship
lying inside a long breakwater bristling with cannon, which looked
formidable enough: but the whole thing, I was told, was useless
against modern artillery and ironclads: and there was more than one
jest on board as to the possibility of running the Channel Squadron
across, and smashing Cherbourg in a single night, unless the French
learnt to keep a better look-out in time of war than they did in
time of peace.
Just inside us lay two or three ironclads; strong and ugly: untidy,
too, to a degree shocking to English eyes. All sorts of odds and
ends were hanging over the side, and about the rigging; the yards
were not properly squared, and so forth; till--as old sailors would
say--the ships had no more decency about them than so many collier-
brigs.
Beyond them were arsenals, docks, fortifications, of which of course
we could not judge; and backing all, a cliff, some two hundred feet
high, much quarried for building-stone. An ugly place it is to look
at; and, I should think, an ugly place to get into, with the wind
anywhere between N.W. and N.E.; an artificial and expensive luxury,
built originally as a mere menace to England, in days when France,
which has had too long a moral mission to right some one, thought of
fighting us, who only wished to live in peace with our neighbours.
Alas! alas! 'Tu l'a voulu, George Dandin.' She has fought at last:
but not us.
Out of Cherbourg we steamed again, sulky enough; for the delay would
cause us to get home on the Sunday evening instead of the Sunday
morning; and ran northward for the Needles. With what joy we saw at
last the white wall of the island glooming dim ahead. With what joy
we first discerned that huge outline of a visage on Freshwater
Cliff, so well known to sailors, which, as the eye catches it in one
direction, is a ridiculous caricature; in another, really noble, and
even beautiful. With what joy did we round the old Needles, and run
past Hurst Castle; and with what shivering, too. For the wind,
though dead south, came to us as a continental wind, harsh and keen
from off the frozen land of France, and chilled us to the very
marrow all the way up to Southampton.
But there were warm hearts and kind faces waiting us on the quay,
and good news too. The gentlemen at the Custom-house courteously
declined the least inspection of our luggage; and we were at once
away in the train home. At first, I must confess, an English winter
was a change for the worse. Fine old oaks and beeches looked to us,
fresh from ceibas and balatas, like leafless brooms stuck into the
ground by their handles; while the want of light was for some days
painful and depressing But we had done it; and within the three
months, as we promised. As the king in the old play says, 'What has
been, has been, and I've had my hour.' At last we had seen it; and
we could not unsee it. We could not not have been in the Tropics.
Footnotes:
{4} Raleigh's Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Iles of
Azores.
{8} Chiroteuthi and Onychoteuthi.
{15a} Cocoloba uvifera.
{15b} Plumieria.
{25a} Anona squamosa.
{25b} A. muricata.
{25c} A. chierimolia.
{25d} A. reticulata.
{26a} Persea gratissima.
{26b} Dioscorea.
{26c} Colocasia esculcuta.
{27a} Dr. Davy's West Indies.
{27b} An account of the Souffriere of Montserrat is given by Dr.
Nugent, Geological Society's Transactions, vol. i., 1811.
{28} For what is known of these, consult Dr. Nugent's 'Memoir on
the Geology of Antigua,' Transactions of Geological Society, vol.
v., 1821. See also Humboldt, Personal Narrative, book v. cap. 14.
{33} Acrocomia.
{36} Naval Chronicles, vol. xii. p. 206.
{38} Craspedocephalus lanceolatus.
{40} Coluber variabilis.
{43a} Breen's St. Lucia, p. 295.
{43b} Personal Narrative, book v. cap. 14.
{44} Dr. Davy.
{52a} Ipomaea Horsfallii.
{52b} Spondias lutea.
{58} Desmoncus.
{65} M. Joseph, History of Trinidad, from which most of these facts
are taken.
{74} Clitoria Ternatea; which should be in all our hothouses.
{77} Peperomia.
{78a} Sabal.
{78b} Poinziana.
{78c} Pandanus.
{78d} Tecoma (serratifolia?)
{78e} Panicum jumentorum.
{79a} Cecropia.
{79b} Andira inermis.
{79c} Acrocomia sclerocarpa.
{79d} Eriodendron anfractuosum.
{81a} Heliconia Caribaea.
{81b} Lygodium venustum.
{81c} Inga Saman; 'Caraccas tree.'
{81d} Hura crepitans.
{81e} Erythrina umbrosa.
{82a} Caryota.
{82b} Maximiliana.
{83a} Philodendron.
{83b} Calamus Rotangi, from the East Indies.
{83c} Garcinia Mangostana, from Malacca. The really luscious and
famous variety has not yet fruited in Trinidad.
{84} Thevetia nerriifolia.
{85a} Clusia.
{85b} Brownea.
{85c} Xylocopa.
{87a} Cathartes Urubu.
{87b} Crotophaga Ani.
{87c} Lanius Pitanga.
{87d} Troglodytes Eudon.
{88} Ateles (undescribed species).
{89} Alas for Spider! She came to the Zoological Gardens last
summer, only to die pitifully.
{90} Cebus.
{91a} Cercoleptes.
{91b} Myrmecophaga Didactyla. I owe to the pencil of a gifted lady
this sketch of the animal in repose, which is as perfect as it is, I
believe, unique.
{91c} Synetheres.
{93a} Helias Eurypyga.
{93b} Stedman's Surinam, vol. i. p. 118. What a genius was
Stedman. What an eye and what a pen he had for all natural objects.
His denunciations of the brutalities of old Dutch slavery are full
of genuine eloquence and of sound sense likewise; and the loves of
Stedman and his brown Joanna are one of the sweetest idylls in the
English tongue.
{93c} Penelope (?).
{93d} Crax.
{95a} Philodendron.
{95b} Bromelia.
{102} Alosa Bishopi.
{103a} Tetraodon.
{103b} Anthurium Huegelii?--Grisebach, Flora of the West Indies.
{104} Terminalia Catappa.
{106} Pitcairnia?
{107} Hippomane Mancinella.
{110} Thalassia testudinum
{111a} Cephaloptera.
{111b} Steatornis Caripensis.
{115a} Gynerium saccharoides.
{115b} Xanthosoma; a huge plant like our Arums, with an edible
root.
{115c} Costus.
{115d} Heliconia.
{115e} Bactris.
{116a} Mimusops Balala,
{116b} Probably Thrinax radiata (Grisebach, p. 515).
{117} Geological Survey of Trinidad.
{118a} Jacquinia armillaris.
{118b} Combretum (laxifolium?).
{120a} Eperua falcata.
{120b} Posoqueria.
{120c} Carolinea.
{122a} Ardea leucogaster.
{122b} Anableps tetropthalmus.
{124} Oreodoxa oleracea.
{126} Erythrina umbrosa.
{127} Spigelia anthelmia.
{129a} Carludovica.
{129b} Maximiliama Caribaea.
{129c} Schella excisa.
{131a} Mycetes.
{131b} Cebus.
{131c} Tillandsia
{131d} Philodendron, Anthurium, etc.
{132} It may be a true vine, Vitis Caribaea, or Cissus Sicyoides (I
owe the names of these water-vines, as I do numberless facts and
courtesies, to my friend Mr. Prestoe, of the Botanic Gardens, Port
of Spain); or, again, a Cinchonaceous plant, allied to the Quinine
trees, Uncaria, Guianensis; or possibly something else; for the
botanic treasures of these forests are yet unexhausted, in spite of
the labours of Krueger, Lockhart, Purdie, and De Schach.
{133a} Philodendron.
{133b} Philodendron lacerum. A noble plant.
{133c} Monstera pertusa; a still nobler one: which may be seen,
with Philodendrons, in great beauty at Kew.
{133d} Lygodium.
{133e} (-----------?).
{133f} To know more of them, the reader should consult Dr.
Krueger's list of woods sent from Trinidad to the Exhibition of
1862; or look at the collection itself (now at Kew), which was made
by that excellent forester--if he will allow me to name him--
Sylvester Devenish, Esquire, Crown Surveyor.
{133g} Vitex.
{133h} Carapa Guianensis.
{133i} Cedrela.
{133j} Machaerium.
{133k} Hymenaea Courbaril.
{133l} Tecoma serratifolia.
{133m} Lecythis.
{133n} Bucida.
{133o} Brosimum Aubletii.
{133p} Guaiacum.
{134a} Copaifera.
{134b} Eriodendron.
{134c} Hura crepitans.
{134d} Mimusops Balata.
{137a} Bactris.
{137b} Euterpe oleracea.
{137c} Croton gossypifolium.
{137d} Moronobea coccinea.
{137e} Norantea.
{137f} Spondias lutea (Hog-plum).
{138a} Desmoncus.
{138b} Heliconia.
{138c} Spathiphyllum canufolium.
{138d} Galbula.
{139a} Dieffenbachia, of which varieties are not now uncommon in
hothouses.
{139b} Xanthosoma.
{139c} Calathea.
{139d} Pentaclethra filamentosa.
{139e} Brownea.
{140a} Sabal.
{140b} Ficus salicifolia?
{145} Quoted from Codazzi, by Messrs. Wall and Sawkins, in an
Appendix on Asphalt Deposits, an excellent monograph which first
pointed out, as far as I am aware, the fact that asphalt, at least
at the surface, is found almost exclusively in the warmer parts of
the globe.
{148a} Blechnum serrulatum.
{148b} Geological Survey of Trinidad; Appendix G, on Asphaltic
Deposits.
{149} Mauritia flexuosa.
{150} American Journal of Science, Sept. 1855.
{152} Chrysobalanus Pellocarpus.
{154} Mauritia flexuosa.
{155} See Mr. Helps' Spanish Conquest in America, vol. ii. p. 10.
{157} Jambosa Malaccensis.
{158} Oiketicus.
{159} Phytelephas macrocarpa.
{160} Humboldt, Personal Narrative, vol. v. pp. 728, 729, of Helen
Maria Williams's Translation.
{161a} Costus.
{161b} Scleria latifolia.
{161c} Panicum divaricatum.
{162a} Scleria flagellum.
{162b} Echites symphytocarpa (?).
{164} Ochroma.
{170} Pronounced like the Spanish noun Daga.
{172} See Bryan Edwards on the character of the African Negroes;
also Chanvelon's Histoire de la Martinique.
{175} This man, who was a friend of Daaga's, owed his life to a
solitary act of humanity on the part of the chief of this wild
tragedy. A musket was levelled at him, when Daaga pushed it aside,
and said, 'Not this man.'
{176a} People will smile at the simplicity of those savages; but it
should be recollected that civilised convicts were lately in the
constant habit of attempting to escape from New South Wales in order
to walk to China.
{176b} I had this anecdote from one of his countrymen, an old
Paupau soldier, who said he did not join the mutiny.
{179} One of his countrymen explained to me what Daaga said on this
occasion--viz., 'The curse of Holloloo on white men. Do they think
that Daaga fears to fix his eyeballs on death?'
{184} Sabal.
{186} Panicum sp.
{187a} Inga.
{187b} Ficus.
{192} AEchmaea Augusta.
{194a} Dicoteles (Peccary hog).
{194b} Caelogenys paca.
{195} Dr. Davy (West Indies, art. 'Trinidad').
{202a} Maximiliana Caribaea.
{202b} M. regia.
{204} I quote mostly from a report of my friend Mr. Robert
Mitchell, who, almost alone, did this good work, and who has, since
my departure, been sent to Demerara to assist at the investigation
into the alleged ill-usage of the Coolie immigrants there. No more
just or experienced public servant could have been employed on such
an errand.
{209} Cassicus.
{216} Asclepias curassavica.
{218a} Hydrocyon.
{218b} Serrasalmo.
{218c} Spathiphyllum cannifolium.
{219a} Pothomorphe.
{219b} Enckea and Artanthe.
{221} Ischnosiphon.
{224} Pithecolobium (?).
{226} Paritium and Thespesia.
{227} Couroupita Guiainensis.
{228} Personal Narrative, vol. v. p. 537.
{229} Lecythis Ollaris, etc.
{230} Caryocar butyrosum.
{233} Manicaria.
{245} Pteris podophylla.
{246} Jessenia.
{247} Gulielma speciosa.
{248a} Aspects of Nature, vol. ii. p. 272.
{248b} Synetheres.
{249a} Carolinea insignis.
{249b} Montrichardia.
{256a} Manicaria.
{257a} Schleiden's Plant: a Biography. End of Lecture xi.
{259a} Curatella Americana.
{259b} Rhopala.
{259c} Utricularia.
{260a} Drosera longifolia.
{260b} Personal Narrative, vol. iv. p. 336 of H. M. Williams's
translation.
{262} Personal Narrative, vol. v. p. 725.
{265} Carapa Guianensis.
{266a} Feuillea cordifolia.
{266b} Nectandra Rodiaei.
{266c} Manna.
{268} Trigonocephalus Jararaca.
{270} Canavalia.
{274a} Trigonia.
{274b} Tellina rosea.
{274c} Xiphogorgia setacea (Milne-Edwards).
{274d} Cytherea Dione.
{274e} Mactrella alata.
{277a} Boa-constrictor.
{277b} Eunec urnus.
{278} Ardea Garzetta.
{282a} Mycetes ursinus.
{282b} Penelope.
{282c} Myrmecophaga tridactyla.
{282d} Priodonta gigas.
{288} In 1858 they were computed as--
Roman Catholics . . . 44,576
Church of England . . . 16,350
Presbyterians . . . 2,570
Baptists . . . 449
Independents, etc. . . 239
From Trinidad, its Geography, etc. by L. A. De Verteuil, M.D.P., a
very able and interesting book. I regret much that its accomplished
author resists the solicitations of his friends, and declines to
bring out a fresh edition of one of the most complete monographs of
a colony which I have yet seen.
{290} See Mr Keenan's Report, and other papers, printed by order of
the House of Commons, 10th August 1870.
{291} See Papers on the State of Education in Trinidad, p. 137 et
seq.
{297a} Mr. Keenan's Report, pp. 63-67.
{297b} Dr. De Verteuil's Trinidad.
{311a} Lucuma mammosa.
{311b} Chrysophyllum cainito.
{311c} Persea gratassima.
{311d} Sapota achras.
{311e} Jambosa malaccensis, and vulgaris.
{311f} Anona squamosa.
{311g} Psidium Guava.
{311h} Musa paradisiaca.
{312a} M. sapientum.
{312b} I owe these curious facts, and specimens of the seeds, to
the courtesy of Dr. King, of the Bengal Army. The seeds are now in
the hands of Dr. Hooker, at Kew.
{313a} Janipha Manihot.
{313b} Cajanus Indicus.
{313c} Dioscorea.
{313d} Maranta.
{313e} Coix lacryma.
{313f} Xanthosoma.
{313g} Ipomaea Batatas
{313h} Jatropha multifida.
{313i} Canna.
{314a} Arachis hypogaea.
{314b} Abelmoschus esculentus.
{314c} Passiflora.
{314d} Canavalia.
{314e} Libidibia coriacea, now largely imported into Liverpool for
tanning.
{314f} Erythrina corallodendron.
{314g} Abrus precatorius.
{314h} Dracaena terminalis.
{318a} Directions for preparing it may be found in the catalogue of
contributions from British Guiana to the International Exhibition of
1862. Preface, pp. lix. lxii.
{318b} 'How to Establish and Cultivate an Estate of One Square Mile
in Cacao:' a Paper read to the Scientific Association of Trinidad,
1865.