“My own, dear pretty-eyed wife,—Here I be so safe as you could wish, with many a mile o’ salt water betwixt me and them as would harm me. A mighty lot of terrible strange things I’ve seed; but first I must say as I got to Plymouth all right and met a chap as wanted a sailor-man. He took me, because he couldn’t get a better, and we sailed out of Plymouth on the very next tide. My ship be called the Peabody. She’s a steamer—not much to look at and a poor one to go; but here we are anyway, and I be writing to you from Tobago—an island in the West Indies, where us get brown sugar and cocoanuts and such like foreign contrivances.

“I’ll begin at the beginning, well knowing how you like for things to be all in order and ship-shape as we say. Well, the food’s cruel bad and the ship’s under-manned and under-engined, but we’m just on the windy side of the law, I believe, which is all you can expect from a tramp like the Peabody. The old man (Skipper) is a very good sort and everybody likes him; also the mate; likewise the bosun. Everything’s all right, in fact, except the grub and the engines. I be the carpenter’s mate.

“Us seed a good few wonders coming out over, but it blowed a bit off the Azores (which you can find in father’s big map of the world), and we took it green. By which I mean this vessel shipped solid waves over her bows and we had to slow down, else we’d have gone down. The engines be good for nought in a head wind. But we got to Barbados at last, and I find ’tis called Bim for shortness. In the dimpsy light us fetched it, but out here twilight turns to night while the clock’s striking, and afore we cast anchor ’twas dark and the island lying like a sea monster with a red light on his nose and a white on his tail—lighthouses I mean. Bridgetown it was where us landed part of our cargo—a place with windmills ’pon it and tilled land and miles of stuff, as made me think of home, so green it was; but ’tis sugar-cane when you gets up to it. We didn’t bide in Carlisle Bay long, else I’d have wrote from there, but we was so terrible busy I hadn’t but one chance to land. The folks here be every colour you could name between white and black, through all manner of shades of snuff colour, and butter colour, and putty colour, and peat colour. Cheerful, lazy devils, as like to laugh and smoke and chew sugar-cane all day. But they properly hate work. Reckless mongrels, I should say they was; but in Bim a man don’t have any show unless he’ve got a touch of the tar-brush as they say. That means nigger blood. Such a way as they tell! I never heard English spoke so comic in all my born days. Their clothes be built for ventilation mostly, and I never seed such a show of rags. Barbados is made of coral, but t’other islands are volcanoes, and they’ve a nasty way of going off when you least count upon it. From Carlisle Bay you can see white houses under wooden tiles all scorched grey by the sun heat, and in the streets a great crowd goes up and down in the blazing air and shining dust. Such a noise and clatter I never did hear. Mules squealing, bells ringing, bands playing, niggers bawling. The women all wear white dresses and gay turbans. They’m amazing straight in the back, owing to carrying all their goods ’pon top their heads. They sell cocoanuts, cane, pineapples, oranges, limes, mangoes, yams, pickles, and Lord knows what beside. They stride out beautiful owing to their short petticoats, but their mouths be a caution. The children look like little chocolate dolls, and much you’d love ’em. The policemen all be dressed in white. They fancy themselves an awful lot. The pigs run about the streets and be for all the world like greyhounds (what we call long-dogs to home). The climate’s that fiery that you’ll never get no stock properly fatted in it. But you don’t feel no call for much red meat. We got fresh water and green stuff aboard here, and how I wish I could have sent you my dinner yesterday. I had flying-fish and sweet potatoes and green-skinned oranges, red as gold inside, and many other fine things as would make your little mouth water to hear tell about. But the mangoes is what I like best, though they do say out here they be no better than a bit of tow dipped in turps. Ban’t true, I assure ’e. I got off for two hour just afore we set sail, and went into the country, trapsing round to see what I could see. And if I didn’t come across a great mango tree as ’peared to me to be just a foreign, wild tree alongside the high road. Well, I seed the fruit in it, an’ thinks I, ‘’twill be a fine thing for the ship.’ So up I goes, hand over fist, but not before I made some niggers stop throwing stones up at the tree. Well, I shinned up aloft and began flinging down the mangoes, and the wretched niggers holloed out, ‘Good massa! Massa brave! Massa no frightened ob nobody!’ Then suddenly there was a mighty loud barking and up comed a yellow dog, so big as a calf, and the nigs went off for dear life. ‘Him coming, massa! Him running like de debbil, sar!’ they shouted out as they went; and then a big chap arrived at the bottom of the tree and began giving me all the law and the prophets, I do assure ’e. For it happened to be his tree.

“‘You tief, come down! come down and my dog he tear you. I catch you at last! It all ober wid you now!’

“‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I ban’t coming down to be tored by thicky hulking dog, John.’ (Us calls all niggers ‘John.’)

“‘You a tief and you take to gaol, sar. I no go till you come down,’ he says.

“And I knowed as my ship would sail in two hours or less!

“‘Now list to me, you black ass,’ I says. ‘I thought this here was a wild tree—as anybody would. You ought to stick your name on the tree. And I ban’t a thief, and if you call me one, I’ll break your fat head. Just take the dog and tie him up, then I’ll come down and us’ll have a bit of a tell about it.’

“‘You tief my mangoes! You lodge in de gaol!’ was all he could think of. So I told him not to be such a tarnation fool.

“‘There’s your mangoes on the ground,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you a bob for ’em, and if I hear any more about it, I’ll apply to the Governor to have your beast of a dog shot.’

“’Twas the money done it!

“‘A bob—a bob, massa!’ he says. ‘Dat’s diff’rent, sar! I’se too sorry I spoke so rude to massa. A bob! Go home, you damn dog!’

“So the dog cleared out and I comed down and gived the heathen his shilling, and took the mangoes and marched off to the Careenage and joined my ship. But I’d paid a lot too much money, of course.

“Next morn us got to St Vincent—an island that runs up into the sky, like a Dartmoor tor, only ’tis a lot larger and the sides of un be all covered with palms and savage trees. The town lies spread at sea level—all white and red—and the forest slopes behind with fine trees. Some of them was blazing with red flowers. A pride of the morning shower falled just as we got here, and the rain flashed like fire. There was a rainbow in it, and I never seed such a bright one afore. The caps of the mountains was hidden in clouds, but the sun touched ’em and made ’em all rosy; then it swallowed ’em up and drawed ’em into the blazing blue. There’s Carib Indians to St Vincent, and one Carib be worth five niggers when it comes to a bit of work. They’ve got a queer sort of religion, I’m told, though not so queer as the negroes. The niggers’ religion be called Obeah, and the Obi Men be awful rum customers. Missionaries try to stop ’em and their goings-on, but Obi mysteries still happen and all sorts of devilish deeds are done in secret.

“I never knowed a place what smelled worse than Kingstown, St Vincent. Farmer Chown’s muck-heap’s a fool to it. Niggers be the same here as everywhere—a poor, slack-witted lot. If you want to see work, you’ve got to go and look at the coolies in the sugar factories, or the Caribs. Among niggers only one in a hundred works. T’other ninety-nine look on and talk and give advice. But they be men and women all right, though our bosun, Jim Bradley, says ’tis generally thought they haven’t got no souls. St Vincent be the place where arrowroot comes from. After that we went down to next island, by name of Grenada, and seed a long row of rocks sticking out of the sea, which be called the Grenadines. They are scorched up places—just splashes of yellow rock against the blue sea; but folks dwell in some of ’em and on some live nought but the wild goats and pelicans. The fishes in these seas fight like hell, and be always a-lashing the surface with their fins and tails, seemingly. Can’t live and let live by the looks of it. A flying-fish do put me in mind of myself, for he’s always moving on. If he bides in the sea, barracudas and other chaps go for him, and when he comes out for a sail in the air, the birds are after him. Then the swordfish go for the porpoises, and the sharks go for everything.

“Grenada be a bigger place than St Vincent, and very wild up on the mountains by the look of it. All along the sea runs a strip of silvery sand, and cocoanut palms almost dip in the water. Our tub called here and there, and I seed wonderful fine goyles and coombs running inland, all full of blue air and forests and waterfalls a-tumbling down off great crags in the mountains. ’Tis an awful savage island as was throwed up by volcanoes out of the sea once ’pon a time, and will be throwed down again in like manner sooner or late—so Jim Bradley says.

“Grenada be a wonnerful brave place for nutmegs, which you might not know grow ’pon trees like almond trees. There be male and female trees, and one male goes to every ten females. A fine thing, even if you was a tree, to have ten wives—so Bradley says! But I only want one, and that’s my dinky Minnie, so brave and so lovely.

“St George, Grenada, we stopped at for a week, and I seed a great deal of the place. They’ve got a lunatic asylum and a klink there; and they want ’em both. Niggers often go mad, but it ban’t from over-work, that I will swear.

“The King of the Caribs lived here, but he was a poor fool and believed the French. They gived him a few bottles of brandy and he gived them his island on conditions. But of course they broke the conditions. And pretty well all the Caribs died fighting. The last of the King’s men jumped into the sea and was drowned rather than give in.

“The market would make you die of laughing, I’m sure. Never seed such a chatter of business even to Moreton on a Saturday. Such a row! You’d think the wealth of the nation was changing hands, but you could buy up the whole lot pretty near for thirty shilling. But a gay bit of coloured scenery, I promise you, with the women’s turbans all a-bobbing, like a million coloured parrots. ’Tis a very fine place for cocoanut palms also. The little young nuts look like giant acorns in long sprigs. I went to a nigger man on business and met with some mighty strange sights in his garden. There was land-crabs lived there and a tame tortoise, and a nursery of young cocoanut trees and a nursery of young niggers also, for the man was a family man and had a lot of little people.

“‘Dat my youngest darter,’ he said to me, and pointed to a little maid playing along with the lizards and things and dressed the same as them.

“‘A very nice darter, too,’ I said to him.

“‘Dat my son ober dar,’ he said, ‘and dat my next youngest son, and dem gals eating dat shaddock—dey twins.’

“I told him I never seed a braver lot o’ childer, and then he went in his house and fetched out his wife and his old father and his aunt. And I praised the lot and told him what a terrible lucky chap he was; and he got so pleased that he gived me half a barrow-load of fruit.

“There’s a lake inland by the name of Etang, and the niggers say how the Mother of the Rain lives in. But I told ’em that the Mother o’ Rain lives homealong with us in Cranmere Pool ’pon Dartymoor. But they wouldn’t believe that. Anyway, their Mother of Rain belongs to Obeah, and she’m an awful strong party. ’Tis a wisht, silent place she do live in, all hid in palms and ferns and wonderful trees blazing with flowers. They do say the witch comes out of the water of a moony night to sing; but I don’t know nought about that. I’d go and have a look and see if I could teel a trap here and there; but there ban’t no game worth naming in these parts, though Bradley tells me they’ve got deer in Tobago. If there be, I’ll bring some pairs of their horns home to ’e to stick over the doors to Hangman’s Hut. How I do wish I was there; but ban’t no good coming back yet awhile, and when I do, us will have to be awful spry. I wonder if you’ve found out aught—you or Titus? I daresay such a clever man as him have got wind of the truth afore now. I be bringing home some pink coral studs for him. You might let him know it, if you please. I suppose they’ve gived back my gun to you? They did ought to, since no doubt everybody thinks I be dead. If you be very pressed for money, sell the gun to Sim; but not if you can help it.

“Mister Henry Vivian be in Tobago, and I hope as he’ll suffer me to have speech with him some day soon. ’Twould be a tower of strength to get him ’pon our side. But such a stickler as him and so quick to take a side and hold to it—he may be against me, and, if so, the less I see of him the better.

“But I must tell about Trinidad while my paper holds out. We comed to it after Grenada, and a very fine place it is. And a very terrible sight I seed in the Court House there, namely, no less than a nigger tried for murder. The coolies be short-tempered people and often kill their wives. Then the vultures find ’em in the sugar-canes. But niggers, though they talk a lot, never kill one another as a rule. This chap had shot a tax-collector, and the black people in the court didn’t seem to take it very serious; but the jury fetched it in murder, and he was sentenced to be hanged, I’m sorry to say. My flesh did cream upon my bones to hear it, for it might have been me; and them words I should certainly have heard but for my own way of doing things after they took me. The nigger stood so steady as if he was cut out of coal. A good plucked man, and went to his doom like a hero. It took three judges to hang him. They sat under a great fan in court to keep ’em cool. But all three growed awful hot over the job. The people thought ’twas very hard on the man, and so did I.

“They’ve got a pitch lake here, and there’s a lot of business doing, and a racecourse and a railway.

“At Port o’ Spain I met the rummest human that ever I did meet. ’Twas in a drinking-place what me and Bradley went to one evening. This here chap was bar-keeper, and his father had been a Norwegian, and his mother had been a Spaniard from Hayti, and he was born in the Argentine Republic, and he said he was an Englishman! Swore it afore all-comers! Us told the man it couldn’t be so—according to the laws of nature; and he got his wool off something cruel, and cussed in five languages, and axed us who the blue, blazing hell we thought we were, to come teaching him. He said he was English to the marrow in his bones; and we proved he couldn’t be, in good sailor language. Then he said that such trash as us wasn’t going to be heard afore him; and then we got a bit short like (though not in liquor, that I promise you) and told the man he was no better than a something or other mongrel—like everybody else in foreign parts. After that glasses got flying about, and we slung our hook back to the ship. But it shows what fools men are, I reckon.

“The coolies put all their money on their wives. And I’d do the same, as well you know. But they don’t do it in a manner of speaking, but really and truly, for they hammer all their silver money into nose-rings, and bracelets, and armlets, and leglets, and their females go chinking about with the family fortune hanging to ’em, like fruit to a tree. I seed a lot at a sugar factory nigh Saint Joseph—a little place out over from Port o’ Spain. One estate there done very well, but others was all falling to pieces, and the machinery all rusting, and no business doing at all. The air in a busy factory smells of sugar, and the canes be smashed between steel rollers, and the juice comes out in a stream, like a moor brook. Then they set to work and, after a lot of things have been done to this here juice, including boiling, it turns into brown sugar. And the remains be treacle, and the crushed cane is used for firing. They also make rum out of sugar-cane, and very cheerful drinking ’tis. The coolie girls be awful purty—so brown as my Minnie, with dark eyes that flash. But they keep themselves to themselves. They wouldn’t keep company or go out walking with a sailor man for the world. And their men folks be very short and sharp with them. One gal was singing and scrubbing a floor when I catched sight of her. All in red she was, with silver bangles on her arms, and wonnerful glimmering eyes, and not a day more than thirteen years old. ‘That’s a purty child,’ I said to Jim Bradley. ‘Child be damned,’ he said in his short way. ‘She’s a growed woman and very like got a family.’ The truth is that they be grandmothers at thirty. But I’ve only seen one purtier girl in all my born days, and that’s my gal.

“All the machinery in Trinidad be worked with cocoanut oil. ’Tis a very funny smell, but you soon get used to it.

“Our next port was Tobago, and here we shall bide for a good while and let our fires out and have a go at the boilers. This letter will go off from there to you, and I do hope and trust as it will find you as it leaves me at present, my dear wife. Ban’t much good for me to ax you to write the news, because you wouldn’t know where to send it. But I hope afore next year be out that we’ll come together again, and your poor chap will be proved an innocent man.

“I’ll send you three pound from here presently, and another letter along with it. If there’s any good news and the charges don’t run too high, you might send a telegram on getting this letter, to ‘Bob Bates, Steamship Peabody, Bridgetown, Barbados.’ We go back there in three weeks, and shall be there afore you get this. I be ‘Bob Bates’ now, and shall remain so for the present till I can be Dan Sweetland again without running my neck in the rope.

“Lord save us, but how I do long to be squeezing my own true wife! Awful rough luck we’ve had, but there’s a better time coming. Tell mother and father all about me, but make ’em swear on father’s old Bible fust that they’ll name it to none else. They can hear bits of this letter, but not all. I’m sending you twenty thousand kisses. I wish to God I was bringing ’em. Last thing I done at Trinidad was to cut your name and mine on a great aloe leaf in the Botanical Garden when nobody was looking. And over ’em I scratched two hearts with a arrow skewered through. They aloe leaves live for ever, I’m told; so our names will be there for people to see long after we be dead and gone, I hope. But that won’t be for a mighty long time yet, please God.

“I may say that I’ve growed a bit religious since we parted. Ban’t nothing to name and won’t make any difference in my feelings to old friends, but you can’t see the Lord’s wonders in the Deep without growing a bit thoughtful like. And if by good chance I ever get back to you and stand afore the world clear of the killing of poor Adam Thorpe, then I shall be a church-member for ever more—or else a chapel member—which you like best. But one for sartain. So no more at present, from your faithful husband till death,

Daniel Sweetland.”