Curiosities in Dominica--Nights in the tropics--English and Catholic
churches--The market place at Roseau--Fishing extraordinary--A
storm--Dominican boatmen--Morning walks--Effects of the Leeward
Islands Confederation--An estate cultivated as it ought to be--A
mountain ride--Leave the island--Reflections.
There was much to be seen in Dominica of the sort which travellers go in
search of. There was the hot sulphur spring in the mountains; there was
the hot lake; there was another volcanic crater, a hollow in the centre
of the island now filled with water and surrounded with forest; there
were the Caribs, some thirty families of them living among thickets,
through which paths must be cut before we could reach them. We could
undertake nothing till Captain C. could ride again. Distant expeditions
can only be attempted on horses. They are bred to the work. They climb
like cats, and step out safely where a fall or a twisted ankle would be
the probable consequence of attempting to go on foot. Meanwhile, Roseau
itself was to be seen and the immediate neighbourhood, and this I could
manage for myself.
My first night was disturbed by unfamiliar noises and strange
imaginations. I escaped mosquitoes through the care of the black
fairies. But mosquito curtains will not keep out sounds, and when the
fireflies had put out their lights there began the singular chorus of
tropical midnight. Frogs, lizards, bats, croaked, sang, and whistled
with no intermission, careless whether they were in discord or harmony.
The palm branches outside my window swayed in the land breeze, and the
dry branches rustled crisply, as if they were plates of silver. At
intervals came cataracts of rain, and above all the rest the deep boom
of the cathedral bell tolling out the hours like a note of the Old
World. The Catholic clergy had brought the bells with them as they had
brought their faith into these new lands. It was pathetic, it was
ominous music; for what had we done and what were we doing to set beside
it in the century for which the island had been ours? Towards morning I
heard the tinkle of the bell of the convent adjoining the garden calling
the nuns to matins. Happily in the tropics hot nights do not imply an
early dawn. The darkness lingers late, sleep comes at last and drowns
our fancies in forgetfulness.
The swimming bath was immediately under my room. I ventured into it with
some trepidation. The basement story in most West Indian houses is open,
to allow the air free passage under them. The space thus left vacant is
used for lumber and rubbish, and, if scorpions or snakes are in the
neighbourhood, is the place where one would look for them. There the
bath was. I had been advised to be careful, and as it was dark this was
not easy. The fear, however, was worse than the reality. Awkward
encounters do happen if one is long in these countries; but they are
rare, and seldom befall the accidental visitor; and the plunge into
fresh water is so delicious that one is willing to risk the chance.
I wandered out as soon as the sun was over the horizon. The cool of the
morning is the time to see the people. The market girls were streaming
into the town with their baskets of vegetables on their heads. The
fishing boats were out again on the bay. Our Anglican church had its
bell too as well as the cathedral. The door was open, and I went in and
found a decent-looking clergyman preparing a flock of seven or eight
blacks and mulattoes for the Communion. He was taking them through their
catechism, explaining very properly, that religion meant doing one's
duty, and that it was not enough to profess particular opinions.
Dominica being Roman Catholic, and Roman Catholics not generally
appreciating or understanding the claims of Anglicans to the possession
of the sacraments, he pointed out where the difference lay. He insisted
that we had priests as well as they; we had confession; we had
absolution; only our priests did not claim, as the Catholics did, a
direct power in themselves to forgive sins. Their office was to tell
sinners that if they truly and sincerely repented and amended their
lives God would forgive them. What he said was absolutely true; but I
could not see in the dim faces of the catechumens that the distinction
was particularly intelligible to them. If they thought at all, they
probably reflected that no divinely constituted successor of the
Apostles was needed to communicate a truism which every sensible person
was equally able and entitled to tell them. Still the good earnest man
meant well, and I wished him more success in his missionary enterprise
than he was likely to find.
From the Church of England to the great rival establishment was but a
few minutes' walk. The cathedral was five times as large, at least, as
the building which I had just left--old in age, old in appearance, with
the usual indifferent pictures or coloured prints, with the usual
decorated altar, but otherwise simple and venerable. There was no
service going on, for it was a week-day; a few old men and women only
were silently saying their prayers. On Sundays I was told that it was
overflowing. The negro morals are as emancipated in Dominica as in the
rest of the West Indies. Obeah is not forgotten; and along with the
Catholic religion goes on an active belief in magic and witchcraft. But
their religion is not necessarily a sham to them; it was the same in
Europe in the ages of faith. Even in enlightened Protestant countries
people calling themselves Christians believe that the spirits of the
dead can be called up to amuse an evening party. The blacks in this
respect are no worse than their white kinsmen. The priests have a
genuine human hold upon them; they baptize the children; they commit the
dead to the cemetery with the promise of immortality; they are
personally loved and respected: and when a young couple marry, as they
seldom but occasionally do, it is to the priest that they apply to tie
them together.
From the cathedral I wandered through the streets of Roseau; they had
been well laid out; the streets themselves, and the roads leading to
them from the country, had been carefully paved, and spoke of a time
when the town had been full of life and vigour. But the grass was
growing between the stones, and the houses generally were dilapidated
and dirty. A few massive stone buildings there were, on which time and
rain had made no impression; but these probably were all French--built
long ago, perhaps in the days of Labat and Madame Ouvernard. The English
hand had struck the island with paralysis. The British flag was flying
over the fort, but for once I had no pride in looking at it. The fort
itself was falling to pieces, like the fort at Grenada. The stones on
the slope on which it stands had run with the blood which we spilt in
the winning of it. Dominica had then been regarded as the choicest jewel
in the necklace of the Antilles. For the last half-century we have left
it to desolation, as a child leaves a plaything that it is tired of.
In Roseau, as in most other towns, the most interesting spot is the
market. There you see the produce of the soil; there you see the people
that produce it; and you see them, not on show, as in church on Sundays,
but in their active working condition. The market place at Roseau is a
large square court close to the sea, well paved, surrounded, by
warehouses, and luxuriantly shaded by large overhanging trees. Under
these trees were hundreds of black women, young and old, with their fish
and fowls, and fruit and bread, their yams and sweet potatoes, their
oranges and limes and plantains. They had walked in from the country
five or ten miles before sunrise with their loaded baskets on their
heads. They would walk back at night with flour or salt fish, or oil, or
whatever they happened to want. I did not see a single sullen face among
them. Their figures were unconscious of lacing, and their feet of the
monstrosities which we call shoes. They moved with the lightness and
elasticity of leopards. I thought that I had never seen in any drawing
room in London so many perfectly graceful forms. They could not mend
their faces, but even in some of these there was a swarthy beauty. The
hair was hopeless, and they knew it, but they turn the defect into an
ornament by the coloured handkerchief which they twist about their
heads, leaving the ends flowing. They chattered like jackdaws about a
church tower. Two or three of the best looking, seeing that I admired
them a little, used their eyes and made some laughing remarks. They
spoke in their French _patois_, clipping off the first and last
syllables of the words. I but half understood them, and could not return
their bits of wit. I can only say that if their habits were as loose as
white people say they are, I did not see a single licentious expression
either in face or manner. They seemed to me light-hearted, merry,
innocent young women, as free from any thought of evil as the peasant
girls in Brittany.
Two middle-aged dames were in a state of violent excitement about some
subject on which they differed in opinion. A ring gathered about them,
and they declaimed at one another with fiery volubility. It did not go
beyond words; but both were natural orators, throwing their heads back,
waving their arms, limbs and chest quivering with emotion. There was no
personal abuse, or disposition to claw each other. On both sides it was
a rhetorical outpouring of emotional argument. One of them, a tall pure
blood negress, black as if she had just landed from Guinea, began at
last to get the best of it. Her gesticulations became more imposing. She
shook her finger. _Mandez_ this, she said, and _mandez_ that, till she
bore her antagonist down and sent her flying. The audience then melted
away, and I left the conqueror standing alone shooting a last volley
at the retreating enemy and making passionate appeals to the universe.
The subject of the discussion was a curious one. It was on the merits of
race. The defeated champion had a taint of white blood in her. The black
woman insisted that blacks were of pure breed, and whites were of pure
breed. Mulattoes were mongrels, not creatures of God at all, but
creatures of human wickedness. I do not suppose that the mulatto was
convinced, but she accepted her defeat. The conqueror, it was quite
clear, was satisfied that she had the best of the discussion, and that
the hearers were of the same opinion.
[Illustration: MORNING WALK, DOMINICA.]
From the market I stepped back upon the quay, where I had the luck to
witness a novel form of fishing, the most singular I have ever fallen in
with. I have mentioned the herring-sized white fish which come in upon
the shores of the island. They travel, as most small fish do, in
enormous shoals, and keep, I suppose, in the shallow waters to avoid the
kingfish and bonitos, who are good judges in their way, and find these
small creatures exceptionally excellent. The wooden pier ran out perhaps
a hundred and fifty feet into the sea. It was a platform standing on
piles, with openings in several places from which stairs led down to
landing stages. The depth at the extremity was about five fathoms. There
is little or no tide, the difference between high water and low being
not more than a couple of feet. Looking down the staircases, I saw among
the piles in the brilliantly clear water unnumbered thousands of the
fish which I have described. The fishermen had carried a long net round
the pier from shore to shore, completely inclosing it. The fish were
shut in, and had no means of escape except at the shore end, where boys
were busy driving them back with stones; but how the net was to be drawn
among the piles, or what was to be done next, I was curious to learn. I
was not left long to conjecture. A circular bag net was produced, made
of fine strong thread, coloured a light green, and almost invisible in
the sea. When it was spread, one side could be left open and could be
closed at will by a running line from above. This net was let carefully
down between the piles, and was immediately swollen out by the current
which runs along the coast into a deep bag. Two young blacks then dived;
one saw them swimming about under water like sharks, hunting the fish
before them as a dog would hunt a flock of sheep. Their companions, who
were watching from the platform, waited till they saw as many driven
into the purse of the inner net as they could trust the meshes to bear
the weight of. The cord was then drawn. The net was closed. Net and all
that it contained were hoisted into a boat, carried ashore and emptied.
The net itself was then brought back and spread again for a fresh haul.
In this way I saw as many fish caught as would have filled a large cart.
The contrivance, I believe, is one more inheritance from the Caribs,
whom Labat describes as doing something of a similar kind.
Another small incident happened a day or two after, which showed the
capital stuff of which the Dominican boatmen and fishermen are made.
They build their own vessels large and small, and sail them themselves,
not afraid of the wildest weather, and doing the local trade with
Martinique and Guadaloupe. Four of these smacks, cutter rigged, from ten
to twenty tons burden, I had seen lying at anchor one evening with an
American schooner under the gardens. In the night, the off-shore wind
rose into one of those short violent tropical storms which if they
lasted longer would be called hurricanes, but in these winter months are
soon over. It came on at midnight, and lasted for two hours. The noise
woke me, for the house shook, and the roar was like Niagara. It was too
dark, however, to see anything. The tempest died away at last, and I
slept till daybreak. My first thought on waking was for the smacks and
the schooner Had they sunk at their moorings? Had they broken loose, or
what had become of them? I got up and went down to the cliff to see. The
damage to the trees had been less than I expected. A few torn branches
lay on the lawn and the leaves were cast about, but the anchorage was
empty. Every vessel of every sort and size was gone. There was still a
moderate gale blowing. As the wind was off-shore the sea was tolerably
smooth for a mile or two, but outside the waves were breaking
violently, and the foam scuds were whirling off their crests. The
schooner was about four miles off, beating back under storm canvas,
making good weather of it and promising in a tack or two to recover the
moorings. The smacks, being less powerful vessels, had been driven
farther out to sea. Three of them I saw labouring heavily in the offing.
The fourth I thought at first had disappeared altogether, but finally I
made out a white speck on the horizon which I supposed to be the missing
cutter. One of the first three presently dropped away to leeward, and I
lost sight of her. The rest made their way back in good time. Towards
the afternoon when the wind had gone down the two that remained came in
after them, and before night they were all in their places again.
The gale had struck them at about midnight. Their cables had parted, and
they had been blown away to sea. The crews of the schooner and of three
of the cutters were all on board. They got their vessels under command,
and had been in no serious danger. In the fourth there was no one but a
small black boy of the island. He had been asleep, and woke to find
himself driving before the wind. In an hour or two he would have been
beyond the shelter of the land, and in the high seas which were then
running must have been inevitably swamped. The little fellow contrived
in the darkness--no one could tell how--to set a scrap of his mainsail,
get his staysail up, and in this condition to lie head to the wind. So
handled, small cutters, if they have a deck over them, can ride out an
ordinary gale in tolerable security. They drift, of course; in a
hurricane the only safety is in yielding to it; but they make fair
resistance, and the speed is checked. The most practical seaman could
have done no better than this boy. He had to wait for help in the
morning. He was not strong enough to set his canvas properly, and work
his boat home. He would have been driven out at last, and as he had
neither food nor water would have been starved had he escaped drowning.
But his three consorts saw him. They knew how it was, and one of them
went back to his assistance.
I have known the fishing boys of the English Channel all my life; they
are generally skilful, ready, and daring beyond their years; but I never
knew one lad not more than thirteen or fourteen years old who, if woke
out of his sleep by a hurricane in a dark night and alone, would have
understood so well what to do, or have it done so effectually. There are
plenty more of such black boys in Dominica, and they deserve a better
fate than to be sent drifting before constitutional whirlwinds back into
barbarism, because we, on whom their fate depends, are too ignorant or
too careless to provide them with a tolerable government.
The kind Captain Churchill, finding himself tied to his chair, and
wishing to give me every assistance towards seeing the island, had
invited a creole gentleman from the other side of it to stay a few days
with us. Mr. F----, a man about thirty, was one of the few survivors
from among the planters; he had never been out of the West Indies, but
was a man of honesty and intelligence, could use his eyes, and form
sound judgments on subjects which immediately concerned him. I had
studied Roseau for myself. With Mr. F---- for a companion, I made
acquaintance with the environs. We started for our walks at daybreak, in
the cool of the morning. We climbed cliffs, we rambled on the rich
levels about the river, once amply cultivated, and even now the soil is
luxuriant in neglect; a few canefields still survive, but most of them
are turned to other uses, and you pass wherever you go the ruins of old
mills, the massive foundations of ancient warehouses, huge hewn stones
built and mortared well together, telling what once had been; the mango
trees, which the owners had planted, waving green over the wrecks of
their forgotten industry. Such industry as is now to be found is, as
elsewhere in general, the industry of the black peasantry. It is the
same as in Grenada: the whites, or the English part of them, have lost
heart, and cease to struggle against the stream. A state of things more
helplessly provoking was never seen. Skill and capital and labour have
only to be brought to bear together, and the land might be a Garden of
Eden. All precious fruits, and precious spices, and gums, and plants of
rarest medicinal virtues will spring and grow and flourish for the
asking. The limes are as large as lemons, and in the markets of the
United States are considered the best in the world.
As to natural beauty, the West Indian Islands are like Scott's novels,
where we admire most the one which we have read the last. But Dominica
bears the palm away from all of them. One morning Mr. F---- took me a
walk up the Roseau river, an ample stream even in what is called the dry
season, with deep pools full of eels and mullet. We entered among the
hills which were rising steep above us. The valley grew deeper, or
rather there were a series of valleys, gorges dense with forest, which
had been torn out by the cataracts. The path was like the mule tracts of
the Alps, cut in other days along the sides of the precipices with
remnants of old conduits which supplied water to the mills below. Rich
odorous acacias bent over us. The flowers, the trees, the birds, the
insects, were a maze of perfume and loveliness. Occasionally some valley
opposite the sun would be spanned by a rainbow as the rays shone through
a morning shower out of the blue sky. We wandered on and on, wading
through tributary brooks, stopping every minute to examine some new fern
or plant, peasant women and children meeting us at intervals on their
way into the town. There were trees to take shelter under when
indispensable, which even the rain of Dominica could not penetrate. The
levels at the bottom of the valleys and the lower slopes, where the soil
was favourable, were carelessly planted with limes which were in full
bearing. Small black boys and girls went about under the trees,
gathering the large lemon-shaped fruit which lay on the ground thick as
apples in a West of England orchard. Here was all this profusion of
nature, lavish beyond example, and the enterprising youth of England
were neglecting a colony which might yield them wealth beyond the
treasures of the old sugar planters, going to Florida, to Texas, to
South America, taking their energy and their capital to the land of the
foreigner, leaving Dominica, which might be the garden of the world, a
precious emerald set in the ring of their own Antilles, enriched by the
sacred memories of glorious English achievements, as if such a place had
no existence. Dominica would surrender herself to-morrow with a light
heart to France, to America, to any country which would accept the
charge of her destinies. Why should she care any more for England, which
has so little care for her? Beauties conscious of their charms do not
like to be so thrown aside. There is no dislike to us among the blacks;
they are indifferent, but even their indifference would be changed into
loyalty if we made the slightest effort to recover it. The poor black
was a faithful servant as long as he was a slave. As a freeman he is
conscious of his inferiority at the bottom of his heart, and would
attach himself to a rational white employer with at least as much
fidelity as a spaniel. Like the spaniel, too, if he is denied the chance
of developing under guidance the better qualities which are in him, he
will drift back into a mangy cur.
In no country ought a government to exist for which respect is
impossible, and English rule as it exists in Dominica is a subject for a
comedy. The Governor-General of the Leeward Islands resides in Antigua,
and in theory ought to go on progress and visit in turn his subordinate
dominions. His visits are rare as those of angels. The eminent person,
who at present holds that high office, has been once in Nevis; and
thrice in Dominica, but only for the briefest stay there. Perhaps he has
held aloof in consequence of an adventure which befell a visiting
governor some time ago on one of these occasions. When there is a
constitution there is an opposition. If there are no grievances the
opposition manufacture them, and the inhabitants of Roseau were
persuaded that they were an oppressed people and required fuller
liberties. I was informed that His Excellency had no sooner landed and
taken possession of the Government House, than a mob of men and women
gathered in the market place under the leadership of their elected
representative. The girls that I had admired very likely made a part of
it. They swarmed up into the gardens, they demonstrated under the
windows, laughing, shouting, and petitioning. His Excellency first
barricaded the doors, then opened them and tried a speech, telling the
dear creatures how much he loved and respected them. Probably they did
not understand him, as few of them speak English. Producing no effect,
he retreated again, barred the door once more, slipped out at a back
entrance down a lane to the port, took refuge on board his steamer, and
disappeared. So the story was told me--not by the administrator, who was
not a man to turn English authority into ridicule--but by some one on
the spot, who repeated the current report of the adventure. It may be
exaggerated in some features, but it represents, at any rate, the
feeling of the place towards the head representative of the existing
government.
I will mention another incident, said to have occurred still more
recently to one of these great persons, very like what befell Sancho
Panza in Barataria. This, too, may have been wickedly turned, but it was
the subject of general talk and general amusement on board the steamers
which make the round of the Antilles. Universal belief is a fact of its
kind, and though it tends to shape itself in dramatic form more
completely than the facts justify, there is usually some truth at the
bottom of it. The telegrams to the West Indies pass through New York,
and often pick up something on the way. A warning message reached a
certain colony that a Yankee-Irish schooner with a Fenian crew was
coming down to annex the island, or at least to kidnap the governor.
This distinguished gentleman ought perhaps to have suspected that a joke
was being played upon his fears; but he was a landlord. A
governor-general had been threatened seriously in Canada, why not he in
the Antilles? He was as much agitated as Sancho himself. All these
islands were and are entirely undefended save by a police which cannot
be depended on to resist a serious invasion. They were called out.
Rumour said that in half the rifles the cartridges were found afterwards
inverted. The next day dispelled the alarm. The schooner was the
creation of some Irish telegraph clerk, and the scare ended in laughter.
But under the jest lies the wretched certainty that the Antilles have no
protection except in their own population, and so little to thank
England for that scarcely one of the inhabitants, except the officials,
would lift a finger to save the connection.
Once more, I tell these stories not as if they were authenticated facts,
but as evidence of the scornful feeling towards English authority. The
current belief in them is a fact of a kind and a very serious one.
The confederation of the Leeward Islands may have been a convenience to
the Colonial Office, and may have allowed a slight diminution in the
cost of administration. The whole West Indies might be placed under a
single governor with only good results if he were a real one like the
Governor-General at Calcutta. But each single island has lost from the
change, so far, more than it has gained. Each ship of war has a captain
of its own and officers of its own trained specially for the service. If
the Antilles are ever to thrive, each of them also should have some
trained and skilful man at its head, unembarrassed by local elected
assemblies. The whites have become so weak that they would welcome the
abolition of such assemblies. The blacks do not care for politics, and
would be pleased to see them swept away to-morrow if they were governed
wisely and fairly. Of course, in that case it would be necessary to
appoint governors who would command confidence and respect. But let
governors be sent who would be governors indeed, like those who
administer the Indian presidencies, and the white residents would gather
heart again, and English and American capitalists would bring their
money and their enterprise, and the blacks would grow upwards instead of
downwards. Let us persist in the other line, let us use the West Indian
governments as asylums for average worthy persons who have to be
provided for, and force on them black parliamentary institutions as a
remedy for such persons' inefficiency, and these beautiful countries
will become like Hayti, with Obeah triumphant, and children offered to
the devil and salted and eaten, till the conscience of mankind wakes
again and the Americans sweep them all away.
I had an opportunity of seeing what can really be done in Dominica by
an English gentleman who has gone the right way to work there. Dr.
Nicholls came out a few years ago to Roseau as a medical officer. He was
described to me as a man not only of high professional skill, but with
considerable scientific attainments. Either by purchase or legacy (I
think the latter) he had become possessed of a small estate on a
hillside a mile or two from the town. He had built a house upon it. He
was cultivating the soil on scientific principles, and had politely sent
me an invitation to call on him and see what he was about. I was
delighted to avail myself of such an opportunity.
I do not know the exact extent of the property which was under
cultivation; perhaps it was twenty-five or thirty acres. The chief part
of it was planted with lime trees, the limes which I saw growing being
as large as moderate-sized lemons; most of the rest was covered with
Liberian coffee, which does not object to the moist climate, and was
growing with profuse luxuriance. Each tree, each plant had been
personally attended to, pruned when it needed pruning, supported by
bamboos if it was overgrowing its strength, while the ground about the
house was consecrated to botanical experiments, and specimens were to be
seen there of every tropical flower, shrub, or tree, which was either
remarkable for its beauty or valuable for its chemical properties. His
limes and coffee went principally to New York, where they had won a
reputation, and were in special demand; but ingenuity tries other tracks
besides the beaten one. Dr. Nicholls had a manufactory of citric acid
which had been found equally excellent in Europe. Everything which he
produced was turning to gold, except donkeys, seven or eight of which
were feeding under his windows, and which multiplied so fast that he
could not tell what to do with them.
Industries so various and so active required labour, and I saw many of
the blacks at work on the grounds. In apparent contradiction to the
general West Indian experience, he told me that he had never found a
difficulty about it. He paid them fair wages, and paid them regularly
without the overseer's fines and drawbacks. He knew one from the other
personally could call each by his name, remembered where he came from,
where he lived, and how, and could joke with him about his wife or
mistress. They in consequence clung to him with an innocent affection,
stayed with him all the week without asking for holidays, and worked
with interest and goodwill. Four years only had elapsed since Dr.
Nicholls commenced his undertakings, and he already saw his way to
clearing a thousand pounds a year on that one small patch of acres. I
may mention that, being the only man in the island of really superior
attainments, he had tried in vain to win one of the seats in the
elective part of the legislature.
There was nothing particularly favourable in the situation of his land.
All parts of Dominica would respond as willingly to similar treatment.
What could be the reason, Dr. Nicholls asked me, why young Englishmen
went planting to so many other countries, went even to Ceylon and
Borneo, while comparatively at their own doors, within a fortnight's
sail of Plymouth, there was this island immeasurably more fertile than
either? The explanation, I suppose, is the misgiving that the West
Indies are consigned by the tendencies of English policy to the black
population, and that a local government created by representatives of
the negro vote would make a residence there for an energetic and
self-respecting European less tolerable than in any other part of the
globe. The republic of Hayti not only excludes a white man from any
share of the administration, but forbids his acquisition or possession
of real property in any form. Far short of such extreme provisions, the
most prosperous industry might be blighted by taxation. Self-government
is a beautiful subject for oratorical declamation. If the fact
corresponded to the theory and if the possession of a vote produced the
elevating effects upon the character which are so noisily insisted upon,
it would be the welcome panacea for political and social disorder.
Unfortunately the fact does not correspond to the theory. The possession
of a vote never improved the character of any human being and never
will.
There are many islands in the West Indies, and an experiment might be
ventured without any serious risk. Let the suffrage principle be applied
in its fullness where the condition of the people seems best to promise
success. In some one of them--Dominica would do as well as any
other--let a man of ability and character with an ambition to
distinguish himself be sent to govern with a free hand. Let him choose
his own advisers, let him be untrammelled, unless he falls into fatal
and inexcusable errors, with interference from home. Let him have time
to carry out any plans which he may form, without fear of recall at the
end of the normal period. After ten or fifteen years, let the results of
the two systems be compared side by side. I imagine the objection to
such a trial would be the same which was once made in my hearing by an
Irish friend of mine, who was urging on an English statesman the
conversion of Ireland into a Crown colony. 'You dare not try it,' he
said, 'for if you did, in twenty years we would be the most prosperous
island of the two, and you would be wanting to follow our example.'
We had exhausted the neighbourhood of Roseau. After a few days Captain
C. was again able to ride, and we could undertake more extended
expeditions. He provided me with a horse or pony or something between
both, a creature that would climb a stone staircase at an angle of
forty-five, or slide down a clay slope soaked by a tropical shower, with
the same indifference with which it would canter along a meadow. In the
slave times cultivation had been carried up into the mountains. There
were the old tracks through the forest engineered along the edges of
precipices, torrents roaring far down below, and tall green trees
standing in hollows underneath, whose top branches were on a level with
our eyes. We had to ride with mackintosh and umbrella, prepared at any
moment to have the floods descend upon us. The best costume would be
none at all. While the sun is above the horizon the island seems to lie
under the arches of perpetual rainbows. One gets wet and one dries
again, and one is none the worse for the adventure. I had heard that it
was dangerous. It did no harm to me. A very particular object was to
reach the crest of the mountain ridge which divides Dominica down the
middle. We saw the peaks high above us, but it was useless to try the
ascent if one could see nothing when one arrived, and mists and clouds
hung about so persistently that we had to put off our expedition day
after day.
A tolerable morning came at last. We started early. A faithful black
youth ran alongside of the horses to pick us up if we fell, and to carry
the indispensable luncheon basket. We rode through the town, over the
bridge and by the foot of Dr. Nicholls's plantations. We passed through
lime and banana gardens rising slowly along the side of a glen above the
river. The road had been made by the French long ago, and went right
across the island. It had once been carefully paved, but wet and neglect
had loosened the stones and tumbled them out of their places. Trees had
driven their roots through the middle of the track. Mountain streams had
taken advantage of convenient cuttings and scooped them into waterways.
The road commissioner on the official staff seemed a merely ornamental
functionary. We could only travel at a foot pace and in single file.
Happily our horses were used to it. Along this road in 1805 Sir George
Prevost retreated with the English garrison of Roseau, when attacked in
force from Martinique; saved his men and saved the other part of the
island till relief came and the invaders were driven out again. That was
the last of the fighting, and we have been left since in undisturbed
possession. Dominica was then sacred as the scene of Rodney's glories.
Now I suppose, if the French came again, we should calculate the
mercantile value of the place to us, and having found it to be nothing
at all, might conclude that it would be better to let them keep it.
We went up and up, winding round projecting spurs of mountain, here and
there coming on plateaus where pioneering blacks were clearing patches
of forest for their yams and coffee. We skirted the edge of a valley
several miles across, on the far side of which we saw the steaming of
the sulphur springs, and beyond and above it a mountain peak four
thousand feet high and clothed with timber to the summit. In most
countries the vegetation grows thin as you rise into the higher
altitudes. Here the bush only seems to grow denser, the trees grander
and more self-asserting, the orchids and parasites on the boughs more
variously brilliant. There were tree ferns less splendid than those in
New Zealand and Australia, but larger than any one can see in English
hot-houses, wild oranges bending under the weight of ripe fruit which
was glowing on their branches, wild pines, wild begonias scattered along
the banks, and a singularly brilliant plant which they call the wild
plantain, but it is not a plantain at all, with large broad pointed
leaves radiating out from a centre like an aloe's, and a crimson flower
stem rising up straight in the middle. It was startling to see such
insolent beauty displaying itself indifferently in the heart of the
wilderness with no human eye to look at it unless of some passing black
or wandering Carib.
The track had been carried across hot streams fresh from boiling
springs, and along the edge of chasms where there was scarcely foothold
for the horses. At length we found ourselves on what was apparently the
highest point of the pass. We could not see where we were for the trees
and bushes which surrounded us, but the path began to descend on the
other side. Near the summit was a lake formed in an old volcanic crater
which we had come specially to look at. We descended a few hundred feet
into a hollow among the hills where the lake was said to be. Where was
it, then? I asked the guide, for I could discover nothing that suggested
a lake or anything like one. He pointed into the bush where it was
thicker with tropical undergrowth than a wheatfield with ears of corn.
If I cared to creep below the branches for two hundred yards at the risk
of meeting snakes, scorpions, and other such charming creatures, I
should find myself on the water's edge.
To ride up a mountain three thousand feet high, to be near a wonder
which I could not see after all, was not what I had proposed to myself.
There was a traveller's rest at the point where we halted, a cool damp
grotto carved into the sand-stone. We picketed our horses, cutting leafy
boughs off the trees for them, and making cushions for ourselves out of
the ferns. We were told that if we walked on for half a mile we should
see the other side of the island, and if we were lucky we might catch a
glimpse of the lake. Meanwhile clouds rolled, down off the mountains,
filled the hollow where we stood, and so wrapped us in mist, that the
question seemed rather how we were to return than whether we should
venture farther.
While we were considering what to do, we heard steps approaching through
the fog, and a party of blacks came up on their way to Roseau with a
sick companion whom they were carrying in a palanquin. We were eating
our luncheon in the grotto, and they stopped to talk to our guide and
stare at us. Two of them, a lad and a girl, came up closer to me than
good manners would have allowed if they had possessed such things; the
'I am as good as you, and you will be good enough to know it,' sort of
tone which belongs to these democratic days showing itself rather
notably in the rising generation in parts of these islands. I defended
myself with producing a sketch book and proceeding to take their
likenesses, on which they fled precipitately.
Our sandwiches finished, we were pensively consuming our cigars, I
speculating on Sir George Prevost and his party of redcoats who must
have bivouacked on that very spot, when the clouds broke and the sun
came out. The interval was likely to be a short one, so we hurried to
our feet, walked rapidly on, and at a turn of the path where a hurricane
had torn a passage through the trees, we caught a sight of our lake as
we had been told that perhaps we might do. It lay a couple of hundred
feet beneath us deep and still, winding away round a promontory under
the crags and woods of the opposite hills: they call it a crater, and I
suppose it may have been one, for the whole island shows traces of
violent volcanic disturbance, but in general a crater is a bowl, and
this was like a reach of a river, which lost itself before one could see
where it ended. They told us that in old times, when troops were in the
fort, and the white men of the island went about and enjoyed
themselves, there were boats on this lake, and parties came up and
fished there. Now it was like the pool in the gardens of the palace of
the sleeping princess, guarded by impenetrable thickets, and whether
there are fish there, or enchanted princesses, or the huts of some tribe
of Caribs, hiding in those fastnesses from negroes whom they hate, or
from white men whom they do not love, no one knows or cares to know. I
made a hurried pencil sketch, and we went on.
A little farther and we were out of the bush, at a rocky terrace on the
rim of the great valley which carries the rainfall on the eastern side
of the mountains down into the Atlantic. We were 3,000 feet above the
sea. Far away the ocean stretched out before us, the horizon line where
sky met water so far distant that both had melted into mist at the point
where they touched. Mount Diablot, where Labat spent a night catching
the devil birds, soared up on our left hand. Below, above, around us, it
was forest everywhere; forest, and only forest, a land fertile as Adam's
paradise, still waiting for the day when 'the barren woman shall bear
children.' Of course it was beautiful, if that be of any
consequence--mountain peaks and crags and falling waters, and the dark
green of the trees in the foreground, dissolving from tint to tint to
grey, violet, and blue in the far-off distance. Even at the height where
we stood, the temperature must have been 70 deg.. But the steaming damp of
the woods was gone, the air was clear and exhilarating as champagne.
What a land! And what were we doing with it? This fair inheritance, won
by English hearts and hands for the use of the working men of England,
and the English working men lying squalid in the grimy alleys of crowded
towns, and the inheritance turned into a wilderness. Visions began to
rise of what might be, but visions which were taken from me before they
could shape themselves. The curtain of vapour fell down over us again,
and all was gone, and of that glorious picture nothing was left but our
own two selves and the few yards of red rock and soil on which we were
standing.
There was no need for haste now. We return slowly to our horses, and
our horses carried us home by the way that we had come. Captain C. went
carelessly in front through the fog, over boulders and watercourses and
roots of fallen trees. I followed as I could, expecting every moment to
find myself flying over my horse's head; stumbling, plunging, sliding,
but getting through with it somehow. The creature had never seen me
before, but was as careful of my safety as if I had been an old
acquaintance and friend. Only one misadventure befell me, if
misadventure it may be called. Shaken, and damp with heat, I was riding
under a wild orange tree, the fruit within reach of my hand. I picked an
orange and plunged my teeth into the skin, and I had to remember my
rashness for days. The oil in the rind, pungent as aromatic salts,
rushed on my palate, and spurted on my face and eyes. The smart for the
moment half blinded me. I bethought me, however, that oranges with such
a flavour would be worth something, and a box of them which was sent
home for me was converted into marmalade with a finer flavour than ever
came from Seville.
What more can I say of Dominica? I stayed with the hospitable C.'s for a
fortnight. At the appointed time the returning steamer called for me. I
left Capt. C. with a warm hope that he might not be consigned for ever
to a post which an English gentleman ought not to be condemned to
occupy; that if matters could not be mended for him where he stood, he
might find a situation where his courage and his understanding might be
turned to useful purpose. I can never forget the kindness both of
himself and his clever, good, graceful lady. I cannot forget either the
two dusky damsels who waited upon me like spirits in a fairy tale. It
was night when I left. The packet came alongside the wharf. We took
leave by the gleaming of her lights. The whistle screamed, and Dominica,
and all that I had seen, faded into a memory. All that I had seen, but
not all that I had thought. That island was the scene of the most
glorious of England's many famous actions. It had been won for us again
and again by the gallantry of our seamen and soldiers. It had been
secured at last to the Crown by the genius of the greatest of our
admirals. It was once prosperous. It might be prosperous again, for the
resources of the soil are untouched and inexhaustible. The black
population are exceptionally worthy. They are excellent boatmen,
excellent fishermen, excellent mechanics, ready to undertake any work if
treated with courtesy and kindness. Yet in our hands it is falling into
ruin. The influence of England there is gone. It is nothing.
Indifference has bred indifference in turn as a necessary consequence.
Something must be wrong when among 30,000 of our fellow-subjects not one
could be found to lift a hand for us if the island were invaded, when a
boat's crew from Martinique might take possession of it without a show
of resistance.
If I am asked the question, What use is Dominica to us? I decline to
measure it by present or possible marketable value; I answer simply that
it is part of the dominions of the Queen. If we pinch a finger, the
smart is felt in the brain. If we neglect a wound in the least important
part of our persons, it may poison the system. Unless the blood of an
organised body circulates freely through the extremities, the
extremities mortify and drop off, and the dropping off of any colony of
ours will not be to our honour and may be to our shame. Dominica seems
but a small thing, but our larger colonies are observing us, and the
world is observing us, and what we do or fail to do works beyond the
limits of its immediate operation. The mode of management which produces
the state of things which I have described cannot possibly be a right
one. We have thought it wise, with a perfectly honest intention, to
leave our dependencies generally to work out their own salvation. We
have excepted India, for with India we dare not run the risk. But we
have refused to consider that others among our possessions may be in a
condition analogous to India, and we have allowed them to drift on as
they could. It was certainly excusable, and it may have been prudent, to
try popular methods first, but we have no right to persist in the face
of a failure so complete. We are obliged to keep these islands, for it
seems that no one will relieve us of them; and if they are to remain
ours, we are bound so to govern them that our name shall be respected
and our sovereignty shall not be a mockery. Am I asked what shall be
done? I have answered already. Among the silent thousands whose quiet
work keeps the Empire alive, find a Rajah Brooke if you can, or a Mr.
Smith of Scilly. If none of these are attainable, even a Sancho Panza
would do. Send him out with no more instructions than the knight of La
Mancha gave Sancho--to fear God and do his duty. Put him on his mettle.
Promise him the respect and praise of all good men if he does well; and
if he calls to his help intelligent persons who understand the
cultivation of soils and the management of men, in half a score of years
Dominica would be the brightest gem of the Antilles. From America, from
England, from all parts of the world, admiring tourists would be
flocking there to see what Government could do, and curious politicians
with jealous eyes admitting reluctantly unwelcome conclusions.
Woman! no mortal o'er the widespread earth
Can find a fault in thee; thy good report
Doth reach the widespread heaven, as of some prince
Who, in the likeness of a god, doth rule
O'er subjects stout of heart and strong of hand;
And men speak greatly of him, and his land
Bears wheat and rye, his orchards bend with fruit,
His flocks breed surely, the sea yields her fish,
Because he guides his folk with wisdom.
In grace and manly virtue.[11]
Because 'He guides with wisdom.' That is the whole secret. The
leading of the wise few, the willing obedience of the many, is the
beginning and the end of all right action. Secure this, and you secure
everything. Fail to secure it, and be your liberties as wide as you can
make them, no success is possible.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] [Greek: o gynai ouk an tis se broton ep' apeirona gaian
neikeoi; e gar seu kleos ouranon euryn hikanei;
hoste teu e basileost amymonos, hoste theoudes
andrasin en polloisi kai iphthimoisin anasson,
eudikias anechesi; pheresi de gaia melaina
purous kai krithas, brithesi de dendrea karpoi
tiktei de empeda mela, thalassa de parechei ichthys,
ex euegesies; aretosi de laoi hupo autou.--_Odyssey_,
xix. 107.]