Because I have exhausted so much space on a description of Jamaica, and the people of Jamaica, it must not be imagined that the shadow of the Queen of the Antilles clouds all the other West Indian islands into insignificance. Trinidad, St. Lucia, Dominica, and the rest of the Caribbean group, have much to say in the history of the West Indies. The Jamaica I have described, the Jamaicans I have mentioned, may be taken as being typical of West India. The natives of the other islands are the brothers and sisters of Jamaicans; the roads, and plantations, and mountains of the other islands differ from those of Jamaica only in the matter of proper names. In the West Indies there are many Rio Cobra rivers, though only one of them is known by that name. The bamboos, the pine-trees, and the banana clumps are of the same species in all the different islands. So for the purposes of this book I thought it more convenient to describe Jamaica and mention the other places.

Barbadoes, the most windward of the group, is a densely populated island only twenty-one miles long. It is an important place and does a good trade in sugar. The West Indian Imperial Department of Agriculture has its headquarters in Bridgetown, the Barbadian capital, and the climate of the island is most salubrious. Barbadoes has been under the unbroken rule of the British for three centuries. Its history, in common with most West Indian histories, opens with long chapters containing the records of great prosperity, of a little island overflowing with riches; of millionaire planters, West Indian luxury, sumptuous mansions filled with gold and silver plate, rare carvings, European art treasures, and the choicest wines. Until very recently Barbadoes was the central market of all the West Indian islands. It was the shipping centre of the West. All the wealth of the Indies had to be landed on the Barbadian quays for transhipment to England, and much of the dust of the wealth remained. Sugar plantations flourished in the island; the planters had no grievances. Even when the decree of emancipation came, and all the slaves were freed, Barbadoes did not suffer. The country was too small to allow any of the freed negroes to cultivate food-plots on their own account; every acre of the island was tenanted and firmly held. So there was no industrial upheaval. The negro had to work or starve, and naturally he chose the former alternative. The prosperity of the planters continued, and the blacks easily settled down to their new condition of free labour. But the introduction of bounty-fed beet sugar completely altered the

story. Ruin swept over the island like a tainted wind. The planters, always improvident, fell one by one, and Barbadoes sank to the bankrupt condition of Jamaica.

Nowadays it has recovered somewhat; the introduction of efficient machinery and modern methods of cultivation have resuscitated the industry to some extent. But even to-day Barbadoes does not present the gilded appearance of sumptuous wealth that it must have had less than a century back.

Barbadoes is an island of coral formation, and its dusty roads are always of a blinding whiteness. Some of the buildings in and about Bridgetown are remarkably handsome, and, as in Kingston, Jamaica, a tramway system connects the capital with its suburbs.

Seen from the sea Barbadoes presents a remarkably flat appearance; there are no great mountains or wooded heights in this little isle of rest. One sees nothing but a flat stretch of luxuriant greenery dotted with white hamlets, and streaked with snow-white roads. The harbour of the capital is always crowded with shipping, the quays and dockyards are filled with merchandise, and among the wharf sheds a brilliant crowd of natives cheerfully assumes an air of indolent exertion.

St. Lucia is larger than Barbadoes, and its thickly-wooded hills and sugar-loaf mountains offer greater attraction to the artistic visitor. But commercially it has not the value of its smaller neighbour. Though much larger, the population of St. Lucia is only about one quarter that of Barbadoes. The revenue and the imports and exports are considerably less valuable. Castries, the capital, is the principal coaling station for the English in the West Indies. The island has a romantic history. More frequently than any other West Indian isle has its nationality been changed. First French, then British, French again, and then, finally won from France by Abercromby, it has remained British ever since. It was in the harbour of Castries that Rodney collected the scattered British Fleet before attacking De Grasse, and establishing the absolute supremacy of Britain in the Indies.

The island is of volcanic and not coral formation, and it is famous for its sulphur springs at Souffriere. The French King Louis XVI. caused several fine baths to be erected at these springs for the use of his troops when the island was part of his domain; though the baths are now in ruins, they remain as one of the showplaces of the island—one of the links of the romantic chain of West Indian history.

The French island of Martinique is mainly associated with its famous volcano, Mont Pelee, which gave fearful evidence of its activity two years ago by destroying the prosperous town of St. Pierre. Before the annihilation of this city, which was one of the largest and richest ports in the West Indies, Martinique was counted one of the fairest and richest islands in the West. Coffee, sugar, and the richest fruits were largely cultivated, and the colony was generally in a most prosperous condition. But the disaster has cast a gloom over the colony; many of the planters and merchants have left its

shores and found new homes in places less obviously treacherous. Probably many years will elapse before Martinique once more regains the prosperity which was buried beneath the lava streams of Mont Pelee.

The appearance of the place to-day is not attractive. The blackened ruin of a rich city lies on the surface of the land like an unwholesome scar. The people have not yet recovered from the shock of that terrible visitation. And at the summit of the dread volcano the gathering mists always suggest new disaster. The colonists have lost faith in a land in which life is held at the mercy of a live volcano. They seem to feel that they are sitting at the feet of a fearful death. Martinique is a land of high mountains; it is a rugged, picturesque, wild country, menacing rather than alluring—a fit resting-place for the giant Mont Pelee. So the island appears to-day, as you view it from the deck of an ocean liner. Two years ago the place was a laughing, wooded, sunlit isle; St. Pierre was the capital of West Indian gaiety. The French trained natives, gayer and more brilliant than the British blacks, laughed in the little shaded paths about the foot of Pelee. And the reflection of the twinkling lights of St. Pierre danced on the surface of the captive waters of the bay.

It should not be understood that I suggest that Pelee’s lava-cascade destroyed the whole of Martinique. Pierre was but a corner of the island. Fort de France and the other towns remain. The few thousand souls that perished left behind a population which still numbers over one hundred and fifty thousand people. The fruit trees and the plantations, the factories and nutmeg groves, remain. But the ashes of St. Pierre remain also, and above the ashes the giant crater of Mont Pelee still frowns beneath her crown of lowering mists.

Dominica is British. Though of volcanic formation the island is not possessed of a Mont Pelee. A marvellously productive country is Dominica, happy in the possession of plantations richly productive of limes, cocoa, sugar, and coffee.

It is another land of wood and water. Hundreds of tiny, rushing streams flow down from the mountains through the rich valleys into the sea. And all the mountain sides and deep ravines are clothed in verdant forest trees.

Roseau is the capital—a picturesque if somewhat dilapidated city bearing unmistakable evidence of its French foundation. The roofed market-place is near the sea-shore, and the cool sea breeze makes the place endurable even in the hottest hour of a crowded day. Among the bush-land of the interior a few Carib families still remain—shy, inoffensive people, who do not readily mix with the more vigorous negroes.

The climate of the island is rather humid but most salubrious. If there is one island in the rich West Indian group of fertile countries whose soil is worthy of the title richest, that isle is Dominica. As a fruit-producing country the little land of high mountains and hot springs is destined to become pre-eminent.

Even Barbadoes in its palmiest days was not richer than Dominica is certain some day to be. Acres of the most fertile country in the world lie fallow within the confines of this island, whose name is written large in Britain’s naval history. Virgin forests of wild fruit trees still cover vast tracts of a country which one day will be claimed by English husbandmen. Like Jamaica, Dominica cries out for men—new men, new energy, new enterprise. In England we associate our West Indian islands with only a dead prosperity. In the West Indies one encounters ample evidence of present wealth and great promise of future riches.

Antigua is a British sugar island—a hundred square miles of gently undulating country, which in appearance is more English than West Indian. From a tourist standpoint it is famous for the beauty of its white-sanded bays, and for the old naval dockyards at Elizabeth Harbour.

St. Kitts, or St. Christopher, to give the oldest West Indian Colony its full and dignified title, is an island of an area of only sixty-eight square miles. Almost every acre of the land is well planted with flourishing sugar cane. Adjoining St. Kitts is its sister colony, Nevis. Only a strait three miles in width separates the two islands. Nevis is chiefly interesting by reason of the fact that in a once-stately mansion known as Montpelier, Nelson was married to a rich widow of the island.

Trinidad, the most southernly and the second largest island of the British group is, in a way, the most remarkable of all. Port of Spain, the capital, ranks with Kingstown, Jamaica, as an extraordinary example of the actual wealth of the Indies. Only a few cities on the mainland, capitals of gigantic South American States, exceed Port of Spain in size and importance and wealth. Yet this chief town of Trinidad is the capital of an island only fifty-five miles in length—the capital of a sea-girt country which might easily be pocketed by many of the Southern republics. In many ways Port of Spain is vastly superior to all the towns of its neighbouring continent. Life there is safer; in Port of Spain there are no cut-throats—no quick-fingered rascals of the revolver-shooting fraternity. The climate of Trinidad is more salubrious than that of any of the inland countries; and in its towns more attention is paid to the comfort, health, and convenience of residents and visitors. Yet, for our purpose, Trinidad may be counted as a South America in miniature.

One notices, in the tangled undergrowth in the forests, in the ever-brilliant foliage of the wooded heights and green valleys, a something that one had not noticed in the other islands. The place is indescribably foreign. It is not like the countries we have already seen, yet it is not unlike them. Trinidad is a West Indian island, but in appearance it more closely resembles the South American mainland than any of its sister-lands in the Caribbean group. Naturally so, since the salt-water isthmus that separates the land from Venezuela at one point only measures seven miles. Save for that seven miles of blue sea, Trinidad would be a part of the romantic continent whose imprint and

nature is written in vivid colours throughout the island’s tangled forests and deep, still lakes.

The enchanting island has a history brimming with romance. Its story contains the names of Columbus, its discoverer; Raleigh, who visited the place in search of a gold mine, and many of our famous old British sea-dogs. Trinidad started of course by being annexed to Spain; then France took the place and held it until just over one hundred years ago, when England claimed it as her own. The white inhabitants to-day are members of these three European races. The coloured people are pure negroes, Indian coolies, and Spanish, French and English half-breeds. The latter element is particularly strong. Consequently, in Trinidad there are many political agitators.

Visitors will land from their mail steamer at Port of Spain and find themselves in a foreign-looking British West Indian capital, in an atmosphere of tramways, telephones, suffocating heat, negroes, and spasmodic bustle and noise. It is a town containing buildings reminiscent of its Spanish, French, and British periods of Government. Houses in all the styles of each nationality will be found on every side. Each particular style of architecture has of course been West-Indianised—altered for comfort’s sake, and so stage-managed, as it were, that it is converted into style suitable for a living place in the fearful heat of the hottest island in the Indies. The tourist will find the market-place and a few interesting churches. He will feel that he has been landed into a hothouse. The atmosphere of Trinidad is like that of an English hothouse on a scorching summer-day. The brilliant foliage and the constant banks of gaudy blossoms will help to support the illusion. He will pant for breath and speedily seek the cool shelter of a heavy verandah. It may be that at first he will wish that he had not landed. But after an hour or two he will have become accustomed to the curiously-suffocating heat, and the beauty of the place will evidence to him the wisdom of his coming.

He will remain for a day or two in Port of Spain, and then in the course of many excursions he will visit the chief places of interest. The pitch lake is an inexhaustible sea of most valuable asphalt. Nearly two hundred thousand tons of this asphalt were exported last year: it is a most valuable commercial commodity, and one of the wonders of the island. Though it cannot be described as being beautiful, or even picturesque, this hundred-and-ten acre patch of fathomless bitumen is worth seeing. Commercially it is of the utmost value to the island, since the annual value of the pitch exported is something like one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The waterfall at blue basin should be seen by all who land in Trinidad. Nothing could be more fascinating than the heavy fall of this mass of water, which, emerging from a wooded tunnel, tumbles into a pool filled with rocks and walled by the heavy foliage of the greenest trees. It is a fairy glen filled with the gorgeous beauty of wildest tropical loveliness, and always echoing the strong music of falling water. You find the place by way of winding slippery paths; you approach it through a light haze of tinted mists, and when you stand face to face with the broad white streak of falling water you are half stunned by the noise and the heavy splashing. The beauty of the place is overpowering. The heavy noise of falling water is so out of place in that brilliant valley of languorous silence that it produces something in the nature of a discord—an entrancing, intoxicating discord.

There are other towns beside Port of Spain to visit. San Fernando, Arima, and Princestown should be seen if one’s visit is likely to be a long one. True, they are typical of all other little West Indian towns, but each contains an individuality—a something not held in common with other towns, so, if you can spare the time, see them all. Then there are the Maraval Reservoirs and the Five Islands.

Tobago is a little island attached to the Government of Trinidad. It is a healthy West Indian colony supporting a population of 20,000 souls, only about one hundred of whom are white. The industries of Tobago are purely agricultural: coffee, cocoa, and india-rubber are extensively cultivated. From the tourist’s point of view the little place is chiefly famous for its beautiful birds and butterflies. The angler can find many varieties of fish in its rushing streams, and fruits and vegetables grow in the richest profusion all the year round.