Chapter XVI: A Cooking Memory 240 (5)

The rumours of gold which had begun to fill the air during our day, necessitated first, telegraph stations, and then the establishment of outlying posts of civilisation; the nucleus of what are already turned or turning into flourishing towns. I have always declared that when there were three white men in any of these distant spots, the first thing they started was a race-meeting, with a Governor’s Cup or Purse (value about £5), and then next would come a Rifle Association, with a Literary Institute to follow, to all of which H.E. would be invited to subscribe. However, the outlying settlement I speak of had not attained to these luxuries, for it consisted of only one white man. He combined the offices of Warden and Magistrate and Doctor, and several other duties as well; but he must have led a truly Robinson Crusoe sort of life, poor man. I should mention that these settlements had always to be close to the sea-shore in order to keep in touch, by means of the little coasting steamers, with a base of supply. This gentleman—for he was a man of unblemished character as well as of education and refinement—had not a creature to speak to beyond a few half-tamed natives, except when the steamer touched—once a month, I believe—at his little port. He was a splendid shot and a keen sportsman, but there was not much scope for his “gunning” talents, and seagull shooting formed one of his few amusements.

One fine evening he was lazily floating in a light canoe about the bay, with a native to paddle, whilst he looked out for a difficult shot, when the man suddenly pointed to an object on a rock some fifty yards from the shore which he announced was a “big-fellow” gull. It did look rather large for a gull, but the sportsman thought it might be some other sort of strange sea-bird, and, after carefully adjusting the sight of the rifle and taking most accurate aim, he fired. To his horror the crouching object gave a sort of upward leap and then fell flat. Poor Mr. —— seized the oar and paddled with all speed to the spot, to find a white man lying dead with his bullet through his heart.

One can hardly realise the dismay of the involuntary murderer, for anything so unexpected as the presence of any human being in that lonely spot with darkness coming on, and a difficult path, from rock to rock, to be retraced to the shore, cannot be imagined. There was nothing for it but to take the body into the boat and return home. The most careful inquiries carried on for months failed to elicit the slightest information as to that lonely victim’s identity. He had not a mark of any sort on his clothing, nor a scrap of paper about him, which could throw the least light on his name or history. No one knew that another white man was in the district at all. If he had dropped from the sky on to that rock he could not have been more untraceable. It was all tragic enough, but what made me smile in the midst of my horror at the details of the story—of which I first saw the outline in a local newspaper—was to hear that Mr. —— had sat as coroner on the body, also fulfilled the duties of the jury, then became police magistrate, and finally brought himself down to Perth as the author of the “misadventure.” Of course, there was no question of a trial, for it was the purest and most unlucky accident, regretted by Mr. —— more than by any one else. No advertisements or amount of publicity given to the story ever threw the least light on the poor man’s name or antecedents. Of course, here and there letters came from individuals who thought they saw their way to _exploiter_ the Government and extract some sort of money compensation for the death of their hastily adopted relative, but as their story invariably broke down at the very outset—in which case they generally lowered their demands by next post from £1000 to 10s.—no ray of light was ever thrown on the mystery of how that white man came to be sitting quietly on those rocks at sunset that evening.

I fear these two stories have been rather of what an Irish servant of mine once called “a blood-curling” nature, so I must end with a less tragic note.

During one of the many war scares in which we have indulged any time these twenty years, a couple of her Majesty’s gunboats were watching the Australian coast, or rather watching any suspicious craft in those waters. As is often the case along that coast, they had met with dreadful weather, and had been buffeted about and their progress greatly delayed, so by the date the harbour I speak of was reached ample time had elapsed for war to be declared, and it had seemed imminent enough a week before, when the ships had left their last port of call. Now this great bay held a sort of inner harbour which would have been very convenient to an enemy for coaling, and where in fact large stores of coal were kept on board hulks. So it was quite on the cards that if war had broken out during those few blank days, the enemy might have made a pounce for the coal, more especially as in those days the harbour was absolutely undefended. Now, I am told, it bristles with big guns!

It was late of a full-moon night when these vessels crept quietly into the outer harbour. All looked peaceful enough, and the lamp in the lighthouse shone out as usual. It did not take long to decide that a small armed party had better pay a surprise visit to that lighthouse and learn what had taken place during the last week or so in its neighbourhood. The young officer who told me the story described most amusingly the precautions taken to avoid any noise, and to surround the lighthouse whilst he and some others went in to see what was to be found inside. Only one solitary man met them, however, who stood up and saluted stolidly, but offered no shadow of resistance, and all seemed _en règle_. The next thing, naturally, was to question this lighthouse-keeper, but to every demand he only shook his head. The stock of foreign languages which had accompanied that expedition was but small, however, and a shake of the head was the only answer to the same questions repeated in French and German. It was therefore decided to take the silent man back to the gunboat (leaving a couple of men in charge of the light), and see whether, as my informant said, they could “raise any other lingo” on board. But by the time the ship was reached the doctor and not the schoolmaster was required, for the poor man was found to be in an epileptic fit. Daylight brought a little shore-boat alongside with his wife in it, who gave them all a very disagreeable quarter of an hour, for the lighthouse-keeper was deaf and dumb, and could not imagine what crime he had committed to be taken prisoner in that summary fashion. He knew nothing of wars or rumours of wars, but tended his lamps carefully, and his wife had been allowed, under the circumstances, to share his solitude. She had only left him for a few hours, and when she returned at earliest dawn, and found her husband gone and a couple of sailors in charge of the lighthouse, it did not take her long to rush down the hill, get into her boat, and so on board H.M.S. ——. I believe she expected to find her spouse loaded with irons, and on the eve of execution, instead of being comfortably asleep in a bunk, with a good breakfast awaiting him.

When the story was finished I remarked to the teller: “Quite an illustration of Talleyrand’s ‘Surtout, point de zèle,’ isn’t it?” And the young officer shook his head sadly, as much as to say that it was indeed a wicked world. I fancy that “wiggings” had followed.

X

THE ENROLLED GUARD

The wheel of Time brought round many changes during our eight years stay in Western Australia, all making for progress and improvement. Under the latter head the disbandment of the old Enrolled Guard must be classed; but it was really a sad day for the poor old veterans, and the Governor determined to try and make the parting as little painful as possible. So, on the thirty-first anniversary of the battle of Alma, he invited all the non-commissioned officers and men to a mid-day dinner at Government House in Perth. Our best efforts could only collect fifty-three, and many of these were very decrepit, poor old dears. They were nearly all that were left of the soldiers who had been brought out to guard the convicts fifty years before, and who, when convicts were no longer sent out to Western Australia, were induced to remain, in what was then a very distant and unknown colony, by gifts of land and a small pension. Some were enrolled as a Guard for Government House and other public buildings, and it was the remains of this little force, gradually grown too infirm and decrepit for even their light duties, who had, on that bright spring morning, to give way to the smart up-to-date young policemen.

The step had been contemplated for some little time, and we had just returned in 1885 from a short visit to England, during which there had been an opportunity for my husband to mention the subject to his Royal Highness the late Duke of Cambridge, then Commander-in-Chief. It will not surprise those who remember the deep interest in the British soldier always shown by H.R.H. to hear that the Duke listened with great attention to all that was told him, asked many questions, and ended by saying, “Well, give them all my best wishes, and tell them how glad I was to hear about them.” It is needless to say that these kind and gracious words formed the text as it were of the little parting address made by the Governor after the parade which preceded the dinner, and it was touching to see how gratified the veterans were. In spite of the old habits of discipline which they were all doing their very best to remember and act upon, there was a movement and a murmur all down the ranks, and I strongly suspect there was something very like a tear.

It was, indeed, a pathetic sight, as all _last_ things must always be, to see these old men in their quaint, antiquated uniforms, shouldering their obsolete rifles, and to realise this was the very last time they would ever stand in rank as soldiers. On every breast gleamed medals, and there were two Victoria Crosses. Men stood there who had fought both in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny, as well as in China, Burmah and New Zealand, and now it was all over and done with, and they would never step out to the dear old familiar tunes any more.

Still we did our best to keep up their spirits, and not to allow the occasion to become at all a mournful one. Both the Governor and their own Commandant said kind and cheering words to them, and they were soon marching off to the big ball-room which had been given as military a character as possible.

If I had at all realised what the united ages of my guests would have amounted to, I think I should have had all the roast beef and turkey passed through a mincing-machine, for I soon foresaw difficulties in that way. We, _i.e._ my large band of girl-friends and I, waited on them, and the gentlemen carved. It was difficult to get the men to choose what they wanted to eat, for the general answer to their young waitresses was, “Bless your pretty heart, I’ll have just whatever you likes, and thinks I can bite!”

Of course, the repast ended with the one toast of the “Health of her Majesty the Queen,” with musical honours and equally, of course, it was cheered and shouted at to the echo, and one felt it was by no means a perfunctory and empty ceremony, for every man there had fought and bled for her. Then we gave them each a pipe (they called it either a “straw” or a “dhudeen” according to their nationality) and a stick of tobacco, and left them in charge of our house steward, who gave a most amusing account afterwards of how they had at once begun to fight their battles over again, for many of them had been brought from other parts of the Colony for this occasion and had not met for a long time. Their reminiscences were somewhat grisly it seems, for Pat would relate how he had “bayoneted a nagar” in Africa or New Zealand, capped by Mike’s announcement that he “took the shilling fifty years ago, served in six general engagements, was twice wounded, and three times nearly kilt.” Whereas Dick would only regret that he had served twenty years, eleven months and thirty days, and claimed sympathy on the ground that if he had served “tin days more, bad luck to me if I wouldn’t have had another pinny a day on me pintion.” But why he did not put in that ten days extra service never seems to have come into the story.

I do not know whether, unlike his comrades, Mickey’s teeth were still serviceable, but he boasted that, although he was sixty-six years old, he “hadn’t a grey hair in me head, and I can run, jump or leap with ’ere a man in barracks! There boys, hurroo!” Paddy was only a soldier for two years, but he had been badly wounded at Sebastopol and spent a long time in hospital; an experience which he would not have missed for the world however, for the Queen visited him there and gave him a silk handkerchief hemmed by herself. “D’ye hear what I say, boys? The Queen hemmed it with her own fingers and I’ve got it still, and it’s to be buried with me, so it is.”

Then there were reminiscences of the dinner on the Alma day. “We had raw pork served out with biscuit, and divil a stick of wood to cook the meat with.” The V.C. man who had ridden in the Charge of the Light Brigade could only remember a raw onion as having formed his rations on that day, but he spoke fondly of it.

If I had felt any doubts as to whether the entertainment had been a success they would have been dissipated by the question put to me whenever I came across an old Enrolled Guardsman afterwards. No matter what I spoke of he invariably brought the subject round to that dinner and ended it with, “I suppose you’d hardly be thinking of giving us another party like that, would you now, mum?” It rather went to my heart to say I was afraid not, but I really believe it was the meeting each other and talking over old times which they had so enjoyed. That is all nearly twenty years ago, and I sadly fear there are but few of our guests of that day still alive, and when I think of how many dear ones who stood by my side that day, not old and decrepit like the soldiers, but in the full flush of youth and health and strength, have, like them, gone into the Silent Land, I wonder at my own courage in writing at all of those happy days.

XI

TRINIDAD

Trinidad had nearly completed its first century of British rule when we went there in 1891, for it was in February 1797 that the British Fleet, eighteen vessels in all, under Admiral Harvey came through the Bocas, carrying a land force of nearly 8000 men under General Sir Ralph Abercromby. The Spanish Governor, Chacon, felt that no defence was possible, for he only had at his command a small, passing squadron of five ships and about 700 soldiers. So, with an amount of practical common-sense and humanity which might be borne in mind with advantage at the Hague Conference, he surrendered to the tremendous odds brought against him. Not a single life was lost in this change of flags; but the Spanish Admiral, Apodoca, burned his ships sooner than give them up. Chacon seems to have been an excellent Governor, and to have done much for his colony before he had to yield to _force majeure_. Indeed, it always struck me in looking over the history of Trinidad that it had been exceptionally fortunate in its Governors. Colonel Thomas Picton was its first English proconsul, and though, as might be expected, somewhat high-handed and hasty in his dealings, especially with the natives, the colony made great progress under his rule; but it only lasted six years, which was considered a short time to manage the affairs of a colony in those days. It is a fact, however, that when Sir Thomas Picton fell at Waterloo, he was practically under trial for the alleged murder of two slaves in Trinidad. The case was only standing over for further evidence. Certainly, things—justice among other things—seem to have been done in a loose and free-and-easy way in the early days of the last century!

The Governor _par excellence_ of Trinidad, however, is, and always will be, Sir Ralph Woodford, although Lord Harris and Sir Arthur Gordon run him very close in enduring popularity of the best sort. But Sir Ralph was truly a born empire-maker. He was so young, too—only twenty-nine—when he began (in 1813) his fifteen years of hard work in a tropical climate. It must have been extremely difficult to change the whole state of affairs, even the language—for it was not until his day that English was used in the Law Courts and that the minutes of the “Cabildo”—the precursor of our Legislative Council—were kept in the new tongue. Poor Sir Ralph died at sea on his way to England in 1828, and it is sad to think how completely his valuable life seems to have been thus early sacrificed to the ignorance of the commonest rules of health. But he would not leave his work in time, and so died in harness very shortly after he had been persuaded to leave his beautiful and beloved colony.

Lord Harris did not take up the reins of government until 1846, only eight years after slavery had been abolished, so he had to deal with as complex a state of affairs as Picton or Woodford. But he ruled splendidly and successfully until 1854, and it was delightful to hear, nearly half a century afterwards, how well the numerous reforms and systems he had started still worked.

All this time the various Governors had dwelt in many and different Government Houses, all more or less near the site of the present one. Don José Maria Chacon, captain in the Spanish Navy, and his predecessors seem to have lived on the side of a neighbouring hill, but it is difficult to trace even the foundations of that house, for when once “the jungle is let in” it soon covers up and does away with bricks and mortar. Then came a strange and ugly little dwelling where the pastures of the Government farm now spread, and that was succeeded by a house of sorts (of which I could find no pictured record) in the Botanical Gardens. That must have been near where the present beautiful dwelling stands, for whenever I said what a pity it was that the stables should be so near the house, I was always told that they were a survival of a former Government House in the same spot. But the jungle also seemed to have been let in on the minds of my informants, for I never could elicit any accurate information about that house. Sir Ralph Woodford lived in a large Government House in Port of Spain, used as Government Offices and burned in the late riots, but the really historical Government House in Trinidad will always be the Government Cottage about a quarter of a mile away, still in the Botanical Gardens, where Sir Arthur Gordon lived and Kingsley wrote his “At Last.” Nothing now remains of what must have been a picturesque and romantically pretty little dwelling but the swimming-bath and an outbuilding used as a cottage for the house carpenter. But I often used to go and look up the valley with “At Last” in my hand, and try to identify the trees described. The ravine or dell immortalised by Kingsley has, however, suffered many changes from the woodman’s axe and forest fires, for the only tree I could ever recognise is the big Saman outside the ballroom windows.

_A propos_ of the existing building, “I call this a tropical palace,” was the remark made to me several times a day by one of our numerous—shall I say globe-trotting?—guests, who certainly ought to have been a judge of palaces. And there was some truth in the criticism as applied to the present Government House at Trinidad. Because the popular idea of a palace is that it is not a very comfortable dwelling, and chiefly constructed with a view to first impressions. This “palace,” however, is really a beautiful house, and stands in the large Botanical Gardens of Port of Spain. It has a charming view over the wide savannah in front, and is sheltered from the cold north winds by the low, beautifully wooded hills behind. The natives say of this same wind, which is so alluringly fresh and cool, “vent de nord, vent de mort,” and the chill it brings to the unwary, especially at night, is doubtless accountable for many of the local colds and fevers. Nothing can be much more beautiful than the first effect of the entrance hall to this Government House, and the long vista through the large saloon and ballroom beyond ends with a glimpse of that magnificent Saman tree on whose wide-spreading branches grows what Kingsley so aptly calls—speaking of this same tree—“an air-garden.”

To my mind that tree was quite one of the sights of those beautiful gardens. Beneath it flourishes a small grove of nutmeg-trees, and tall, spreading palms, all of which seem mere shrubs and bushes compared to its lofty splendour. When it is loaded with its pink feathery blossoms, it attracts every bird and insect in the island, but our winter visitors never really saw that tree in its full beauty, for the wondrous air-garden growth did not develop until after the first heavy rains. Then it is indeed wonderful to see the sudden spikes of brilliant blossom, the fantastic orchid growth, and the marvellous wealth of ferns clustering and drooping all along the massive branches. I endured great anxiety lest the weight of the wet verdure should break down these giant limbs, for the wood is rather soft and unsubstantial. However, no such calamity has yet occurred.

But to come back to the tropical palace. It was certainly an ideal house for entertaining. I always declared that the balls gave themselves, and there never was the slightest trouble in arranging any sort of party in the large rooms, which were always as cool as possible after sunset. The ballroom was lofty, open “to all the airts that blow,” and possessed a perfect floor. Then when you have Kew Gardens for decorative purposes growing outside your windows, there is not much difficulty in producing a pretty effect. Indeed, the entire house was arranged for coolness, from the great hall which went up the whole height of the building, to the wide verandahs which surrounded it on three sides. But in the bedroom accommodation there is a woeful falling-off, and I was often at my wits’ end to know how to house the numerous guests who flock to these “Summer Isles of Eden” every winter. There is no place in the house for English servants, and your own and your visitors’ servants can only be put up in some of the guest-rooms. There is one magnificent bedroom which is called “the Prince’s Room,” as H.R.H. the present Prince of Wales inhabited it during his last visit, in 1891. But it is a very hot room, and if you are to coax any cool air into it you must resign yourself to keeping your doors wide open. The suite of rooms generally used by the Governor are at the end of another long corridor, and, though good, comfortable, and certainly the coolest in the house, are so close to the stables that one hears the horses stamping and fidgetting all night, especially when the vampire bats are tormenting them. The only back staircase in the house also passes close to these rooms, so they can hardly be described as quiet or private. Still, it was a very pretty house, and I took great pride and delight in hearing it admired.

It is not until one lives in a place oneself that one realises in what degree it is accessible. Certainly I never thought I should welcome many English friends coming out to Trinidad just for a little change after influenza! But that constantly happened, and beautiful yachts often looked in there for a few days, to say nothing of training ships of all nationalities. The attraction to them was the placid nature of the Gulf of Paria, which made it an ideal playground, or rather schoolroom, for them, and many intricate evolutions on its smooth surface have I been invited to witness. There I beheld with interest as well as amusement the young idea being taught how to shoot torpedoes as well as to lay or find mines and other fiendish contrivances.

It always amused me, especially with the foreign vessels, to watch the degree of ardour with which the naval cadets pursued their deep-sea studies. But the most ardent and promising pupil who ever visited our shores was a young Japanese prince, who, if his proficiency of those ten-year-old days is any guide, ought certainly to have played a very distinguished part in the present struggle with Russia. Anything like that boy’s thirst for knowledge and anxiety to do every other cadet’s work I never beheld. He was studying at that time on board a German training ship, but he told me he hoped to go for a second course of instruction to an English one. His captain said he had never seen any cadet work so hard or so conscientiously, and his one waking thought was to make himself acquainted with every detail of his profession.

The naval cadets of every nation were always free to spend their shore leave at Government House, and play tennis or amuse themselves in the beautiful gardens in any way they liked, for the thought of my own boys made me anxious to provide a safe and pleasant play-place for them, and it delighted me to see how much they liked coming up to us. The huge fresh-water swimming-bath in the grounds counted for a great deal in their simple amusements, as did the iced “lime-squash” afterwards. The little prince came but seldom, and if I asked after him, I was always told, “Oh, he is doing so and so’s work.”

One beautiful evening we were going to take tea on board this same German man-of-war, and I noticed in the launch which was sent to tow our own barge a grimy little figure working away at the miniature stoke-hole. “Who is that?” I asked. “That? oh, that’s the Prince, of course. He begged to be allowed to come and stoke for you. He wanted to learn just how that furnace went.”

Prince K. did not seem to know how to play tennis, nor could he dance, and I do not believe his idea of amusement extended beyond his ship’s side. At his Captain’s request we gave him a formal dinner-party, receiving and treating him just as we would our own royalty. Poor boy, he went through it all courageously, but it must have been a terrible infliction, for he could not speak one word of English, and even his knowledge of German was scanty. He brought two gentlemen of his suite with him, and depended on them for translation. They both spoke French as well as English tolerably well, but as far as appearance went the little Prince had decidedly the advantage, and looked very high-bred in his plain and correct evening dress, but it was the only time I ever saw him out of uniform. He maintained a true Oriental gravity all through dinner, and it was quite a revelation of his real expression of face when the Governor, after the usual toast of the Queen’s health, proposed that of the Emperor of Japan, and one of his gentlemen, whom I had taken the precaution of putting near him, told him of the terms of the toast. The lad sprang to his feet at once, and with really a beaming countenance bowed low, first to the Governor and then to the rest of the company. He looked absolutely delighted, and it did not need his Secretary’s whispered comment of “His Highness ver much please” to tell me how gratified he was.

But after dinner things became terribly dull for him, poor boy. He did not dance, nor seem to care about music or anything else which was going on, so it fell to my share to walk him about the large _salon_, and show him whatever I thought might possibly interest him. Of course, his two gentlemen were in close attendance, or we should indeed have suffered conversational shipwreck. When I arrived at an enormous elephant’s foot, I thought we had now certainly reached a turning-point in the tide of boredom which had evidently set in for the poor youth. But in spite of my explanation of how the big beast had fallen to my eldest son’s rifle and various exciting details of the said fall, all duly passed on by the other gentlemen, I could not see the faintest trace of interest or even of comprehension in that immovable ivory countenance. At last the Secretary murmured: “Highness not know elephant ver well.” This was indeed despairing, but my eye was caught by a clumsy little ebony model of an elephant, which I seized as an object-lesson, handing it to the Secretary, and saying, “Please explain to his Highness that _this_ is an elephant.” The Prince murmured some words in reply which were translated to me as: “Ah, I see! a large sort of pig.”

After this I felt I must let things take their course, and I have no doubt the polite adieux which soon followed were as great a relief to the guest as they were to me.

The greatest daytime treat I could ever give my guests was to send them round the Botanical Gardens under the escort of the gifted superintendent. They always returned hot and thirsty, but with their hands full of treasures. I think a freshly-gathered nutmeg, with its camellia-green leaves and its apricot-like fruit, enlaced with the crimson network we know later as mace, procured them the greatest joy of all. Then came breathless accounts of the soap-nut with which they had washed their hands, of the ink galls with which they had written their names, of orchids growing beneath long arcades—“Out of doors you know!”—of palms of every size and sort and description, each more lovely than its neighbour, of strange _lianes_ which, dropping down from lofty trees and swinging in the breeze, are caught and twisted by Nature’s charming caprice into the most fantastic shapes imaginable.

There are many advantages connected with the Government House standing in these beautiful gardens, but it cannot be said to conduce to its privacy. I always pined for “three acres and a cow” to myself, but I never got it! A tiny iron fence, six inches from the ground, marked out the tennis-courts, and certain narrow limits beyond, which were supposed to be private, and little iron notice-plates repeated the idea. But if any enterprising tourist wished to enlarge his sphere of observation, none of these trifles stood in his or her way, and I have sometimes been awakened at daylight by vociferous demands, just outside my bedroom window, to know “where the electric eel lived.” Poor thing, it did not live anywhere latterly, for it had died; but there was no persuading the energetic visitor, who only had a couple of hours in which to “do” the Botanical Gardens, that I had not secreted it in my bathroom.

I must hasten to add, however, that it was only the tourist who sometimes harried us, for it seemed well understood by the people of the island that a certain small space round Government House was private ground, and we never had the least difficulty with even the numerous nurses and babies who flocked, for whatever fresh air was going, to these charming gardens where the capital police band plays twice a week. We often strolled about this public part of the gardens on Sunday afternoons, when many people were about, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, until it came to the final “God save the Queen,” and then I confess I always felt surprised and indignant to see how few hats were taken off. Every white man, from the Governor downwards, stood bare-headed of course, from the first note to the last, so did the ever-courteous foreign visitor; but hardly a well-clad, well-fed young coloured man followed their example. I was always deeply ashamed at visitors seeing this lack of loyalty or manners (I don’t know which). I observed the elder black men nearly always uncovered, but the dark, gilded youth of Port of Spain certainly did not.

One does not realise how close Trinidad is to Venezuela until one goes there. My very first drive showed me a fine mountain range blending beautifully with the fair and extensive landscape.

“I thought there were no really high mountains in Trinidad!” I exclaimed in surprise.

“But those are not in Trinidad,” was the crushing answer; “they are on the mainland, which is only twenty miles off, just there.”

I little thought, that day, how anxiously I should watch the political horizon of Venezuela! But as the supply of beef depended on the numerous revolutions or threatenings of revolutions, I grew to take the liveliest interest in those social convulsions, and I became an ardent advocate of peace at almost any price—of beef.

I always longed yet never made time, I am sorry to say, to go up one of the numerous mouths of the Orinoco which run into _our_ Gulf, the Gulf of Paria; many of our guests made the excursion, getting up as far as Bolivar in one of the comfortable, almost flat-bottomed river steamers which provide an excellent service. The accounts brought back were always so glowing that I longed to go, but home duties and home ties pinned me firmly down.

Venezuela seems to be a perfect land of Goshen compared to even our tropical luxuriance, and the cocoa-pods, bananas, and plantains brought back from the mainland were, without the least exaggeration, quite twice as large as those grown on the island. “But, then, what would you have?” I was asked. “Trinidad is only a little bit of South America which the Orinoco has washed off from the mainland.” If this be so, then the mighty stream dropped several of the pieces on the way, for there are many islets, some five miles or more away from Trinidad, and towards the Bocas or mouths of the great river. These little islands are a great feature of Trinidad, and splendid places for change of air or excursions. They all have houses on them, and one tiny islet may, I think, claim to be the smallest spot of earth which holds a dwelling. It is just a rock, on the top of which is perched a small but comfortable and compact house. Beyond its outer wall is, on one side, a minute plateau about ten or twelve feet in length, and that is all the exercise-ground on the island. I was assured it was the favourite honeymoon resort, which certainly seemed putting the capabilities of companionship of the newly-married couple to a rather severe test! Fishing, boating, and bathing are the resources at the command of the islet visitors, and the air is wonderfully fresh and cool on these little fragments of the earth’s surface. Whenever I could make time it was my great delight to take the Government launch with tea and a party of young friends to one of these islets, and it was certainly a delightful way of spending a hot afternoon.

Trinidad is a great place for cricket, and boasts a beautiful ground belonging to a private club. First-class teams often go out there to play matches, and I used to see incessant cricket practice going on on the savannah in front of Government House. Certainly that savannah is a splendid “lung” to the low-lying town, and the people of Trinidad may well be proud of it. On its south-western side is a small walled enclosure; it is the graveyard of the original Spanish owners of the soil, and a large sugar estate once stood where races are run and cricket played nowadays. The living owners have all, long ago, disappeared; only the dead remain in their peaceful little resting-place under the shade of the spreading trees which grow inside the low wall.

To return for a moment to the Botanical Gardens. Within the limits of the so-called private part is a small plot of ground planted with vegetables for the Governor’s use. In my eyes it was chiefly remarkable for the three large, coarse sort of bean-vines which grew at its entrance, and which were further decorated at the top of the stick round which they clung (in very tipsy fashion) by an empty bottle and some tufts of shabby feathers. These aids to horticulture being quite new to me, I inquired their use, and was assured they constituted the Obeah police of the garden, and that so long as those vines grew there, no young lettuce or tomato or yam would be stolen from that garden; and certainly theft was never assigned as the reason for the scanty contents of the gardener’s daily basket. It was always the time of year or the weather.

I used to feel very envious when some of the older residents would speak of these gardens as having been the home of the humming-bird. Alas! the lovely little creatures are seldom to be seen there now, in spite of the protective legislation of many years past. But the ruthless tourist will always buy a humming-bird’s nest, especially with its two sugar-plum-like eggs in it, so the enterprising black boy keeps a sharp look-out for these articles of commerce. Soon after we first went there, I found a wee nest on a low branch of a tree close to Government House, with a darling little bird sitting in it. I peeped cautiously very often during the next few days, and the young mother grew so accustomed to my visits that she would let me stand within a yard of the bough. At last some microscopic fragments of eggshell appeared on the moss beneath, and on my next visit, when the little hen was away getting food, I beheld a thing very like a bee with a beak. This object seemed to grow amazingly every few hours, so that in a week it looked quite like a respectable bird. Imagine my rage and despair when I found one morning the branch broken off and the baby bird dead on the ground. My sweet little nest had been taken for the sake of the sixpence it would fetch next time a tourist-laden yacht came in!

A much happier fate attended a humming-bird which built its nest in a small palm growing in a friend’s drawing-room. I paid many visits to that drawing-room during the bird’s occupancy, and anything so interesting as its manners and customs cannot be imagined. Instead of bringing material from outside for the nest, the tiny builder requisitioned the floss silk from an embroidered cushion and the wool from a ball-fringe. The nest, unusually gay in colour, hung down a couple of inches from one of the serrated points of the palm leaf; but when I was first invited to come and look on, it was not quite completed to the feathered lady’s satisfaction, for she still darted in and out of the open windows and about the room.

The master of the house, at my request, seated himself in his usual arm-chair and opened his newspaper, and I made myself as small as I could in a distant corner. Our patience was soon rewarded, for there was the little bird balancing itself with its vibrating wings just above the newspaper. However, as no building material was forthcoming from that source, she flashed over to my corner, and, quicker than the eye could follow, had snatched a thread of silk from a work-table and was off to her work again. The little creature got quite tame, and her confidence was well placed, for nothing could exceed the charming kindness of her host and hostess. The eggs were laid and hatched in due time, and the master of the house told me he used to get up at the day-dawn and open his drawing-room window to let the little mother out to get food for her babies. This necessitated his remaining the rest of the morning in the drawing-room, as he said it would not have been safe to have left it. I naturally thought he feared for the safety of his wife’s pretty things, but oh, no—what he guarded was the nest, lest it should meet the fate of mine and be stolen.

It was on this occasion I found out what humming-birds feed on. The popular idea is that they live on honey, and attempts have often been made to keep them in captivity on honey, or sugar and water, with the result that the poor little birds died of starvation in a day or two. The honey theory has sprung from seeing the birds darting their long bills and still longer tongues into the cups of honey-bearing flowers. What they are getting, however, is not honey, but the minute insect which is attracted and caught by the honey.

I never saw any but the commonest sort of humming-bird during my stay in Trinidad, and very few of those, and I was told that even in the high woods it was rare now to behold them. In spite of the stringent ordinance against killing _colibris_, I fear many skins are taken away every year by the tourist, especially by the scientific tourist. Never can I forget my feelings when, on bidding adieu to a delightful foreign _savant_, he informed me that he had enjoyed his trips into the interior of the island immensely, and had collected many interesting specimens of flora and fauna, including a _hundred humming-bird skins_! I nearly fainted with horror, but my one effort then was to prevent this dreadful boast reaching the Governor’s ears, for I felt sure that international complications of a very grave character would have followed.

Pages might be written on the scientific value of the beautiful gardens which surround this tropical palace, as well as of the opportunity they afford of studying insect life. At first it is disappointing to see so few flowers in them, but in the summer the large trees are covered with blossom, and, in fact, the flowers may be said to have taken refuge up the trees from the all-devouring ants. But the serious business of the gardens is really to make experiments in the growth and cultivation of the various economic products of the island—raising seedling canes, coffee, and cocoa, and determining which variety would most successfully repay culture. It is a mistake to regard them only from the ornamental point of view, though their beauty is very striking, for they are chiefly valuable for their practical results.

XII

TRINIDAD—_Continued_

Besides the humming-birds there were many less welcome denizens of the Gardens. There were ants of every species known to even Sir John Lubbock. Parasol ants, who occasionally took a fancy to my dinner-table decorations, especially if the beautiful and brilliant _Amherstia_ were used. I have often been requested to say what was to be done with long lines of myriad ants ascending by one leg of the dinner-table and descending by another, each carrying a good-sized bit of scarlet petal tossed airily over his shoulder! Anything so quaint as these processions of gay colour marching across the white cloth cannot be imagined. It was a case of “Tiger in station, please arrange,” and there was just as little to be done except to give up the _Amherstia_. These ants occasionally took a fancy to the flowers on my writing-table also, but we never seriously interfered with each other. I naturally thought that the ants ate these leaves and petals, but they only chew them up and spread them out like manure on the feeding-grounds near the nests. From this sort of cultivation a minute fungus-like growth springs, and on _that_ they feed. So destructive are their operations that a functionary is specially retained in the Botanical Gardens to follow them up and discover and destroy the nests, which are generally at a very great distance from the scene of their labours, and I often watched with interest a lantern apparently creeping along the ground of a dark night.

What I really wanted to see was a raid of Hunter ants. I had read a fascinating description in a book of early days in Trinidad, of a domiciliary visit paid to the author’s house in the country, which she and her children had hastily to vacate at earliest dawn, taking with them their pet birds and a kitten, which the slave-women, who warned them to “turn out sharp,” declared would be devoured if left behind. The Hunter ants spent the whole of that day inside the house, clearing it of every lizard, mouse, cockroach, beetle, and such small deer. The writer describes the ants as having wings when they first appeared; but when their day of gorging was over they emerged wingless, and rested in vast dark masses in her garden. They had not touched anything except the small reptile and insect colonies, which, we must remember, were likely to flourish under the deep thatched roof of those days, long before galvanised iron or shingles from America were known. The writer goes on to say that at dawn next day she heard strange and weird screams from numerous small sea-gulls, who, in their turn, were making an excellent breakfast off the fat Hunter ants. Such scenes as this are hardly ever to be met with in these days, for the houses are so different, and more of the high woods are cleared every year.

On these hillsides cocoa is grown very successfully by the small cultivator. I have often, during our excursions up the lovely lonely valleys within an easy drive of Port of Spain, watched the process, which seemed very primitive. The clearing appeared to entail far the most labour, in spite of as much burning as was compatible with the lush-green foliage. Banana-suckers were the first things planted round the hole which held the young cocoa plant, to shade it; next came small trees of the _madre di cocoa_, or _bois immortel_, which are indispensable to a cocoa plantation. This tree is at all stages of its growth a very straggling one, and can give but little shade. I suspect it is chiefly valuable from its draining properties, for the fact remains that cocoa steadily declines to flourish anywhere without its _madre_.

Anything so beautiful as the hills towards San Fernando in the very earliest spring when the dense woods of _bois immortel_ are in full blossom cannot be imagined. At sunset the whole country-side glows with a radiance which looks like enchantment, and the green effect of this beautiful tropic island then merges over those low hills into a vivid scarlet, melting away into the indigo shadows of the quick-falling dusk. Cocoa is a most beautiful crop, for the broad glossy leaves do not at all conceal the large brilliant pod, which grows in an independent manner, in twos and threes, right out of the stem or the thickest branches. At no time of year are the trees quite bare of pods, which are of various colours. I have often seen a pale green pod, a scarlet one, and a rich dark crimson or brilliant yellow pod growing quite happily side by side; of course they were all in different stages of ripeness, but that did not seem to matter at all, and cocoa-picking appeared always going on.

Those drives up the valleys were always delightful, and we found that different patois seemed to be spoken in places half a mile apart and with only a low ridge between. Up one valley a sort of spurious Spanish would be heard, up another Creole French, whilst a hybrid Hindustani was the language of a third cleft in the hills. We made great friends, however, with the different races, and the children always rushed out to greet us.

An especial beauty of those valleys were the fire-flies and what are locally called the fire-beetles—large hard-backed creatures with eyes like gig lamps and a third light beneath, which only shows when they fly. My ardent desire all the time I was in Trinidad was to get a specimen of a rare fire-beetle, which is said to have a luminous proboscis. I did want that beetle dreadfully, and offered frantic rewards all up the valleys for a specimen. Needless to say I was regarded more or less as a lunatic, and the carriage was often stopped either by children waving an ordinary beetle snapping violently in its efforts to escape, or by a grinning policeman who saluted and tendered me a common fire-beetle tied up in a corner of his blue pocket-handkerchief. I once tracked with infinite pains and trouble a specimen to its owner, but, alas! it was dead and half-eaten by ants.

By the first week in January the fire-flies disappear, and are not to be seen again before the heavy May rains have fallen. Then they come forth in full beauty, and it certainly is a wonderful sight as one drives home in the short gloaming, for every blade of grass holds many tiny sparkles, winking in and out with a bewildering effect. The fire-beetles chiefly haunt the lower branches of the cocoa groves, where they look like small lamps swinging among the trees. Indeed the magnifying effect of the damp atmosphere beneath these bushes is so powerful that I often found it difficult to believe that some one carrying a lantern was not stepping down the bank towards us. I once kept some of these beetles, fed them with sugar-cane, and sprinkled them with water every day; but they soon lost their brilliancy, and I felt it so cruel to retain them in a dark prison, that I emptied them on the _Thunbergia_ outside the verandah railing. One of my prettiest girl-guests used often to wear a dagger in her hair made of these fire-beetles, ingeniously harnessed together with black thread, and they showed brilliantly amid her dark braids, even beneath the ballroom chandeliers.

Nor did any winter visitor ever see the wonderful mass and succession of flowering trees, for they do not cover themselves with sheets of brilliant blossom until after the rainy season begins. I was disappointed in the actual flowers to be found in the Gardens. Even the imported ones do not manage much of a blossom, and bulbs, &c., have to wage an incessant warfare against the all-devouring ant. It is for this reason I suspect that the flowers confine themselves to high trees, where they are safe from the ants, for they certainly make but a languid attempt to grow in the ground. In vain I steeped the seeds of my particular favourites in a strong solution of quassia. That was all very well for the actual seed, but the ants only deferred their meal until my poor little plants were a couple of inches high.

I will not dwell here on my private sentiments regarding the cockroaches, for I feel that I should pass the grounds of permissible invective if I attempted to describe my feelings towards the creatures who devoured or defaced the bindings of all my favourite books. Nothing daunts them or keeps them away; they seem to thrive and fatten on all the destructive powders of which I used to lay in large stores for their undoing. They would take the poison and the cover of my book as well, and ask for more! How can you deal with creatures who fly in at the window and run, literally, like “greased lightning”? Their fiendish cleverness must be seen to be believed; how they will dart to a knot of exactly their own colour in the polished wooden floor, and lie still as death under your eyes!