ST.
JOHN'S
CHURCH
115
letters cut in stone, half effaced by the feet of the genera tions who had trodden up the same aisles till they, too, lay down and rested there. And there was this, too, to be remembered—that these Barbadian churches, old as they might seem, had belonged always to the Anglican com munion. No mass had ever been said at that altar. It was a milestone on the high road of time, and was venerable to me at once for its antiquity and for the era at which it had begun to exist. At the porch was an ancient slab on which was a coat of arms, a crest with a hand and sword, and a motto, ‘ Sic nos, sic nostra t u e m u r . ’ The inscription said that it was in memory of Michael Mahon, ‘ of the kingdom of Ireland,’ erected by his children and grandchildren. Who was Michael Mahon ? Some expatriated, so-called rebel, I sup pose, whose sword could not defend him from being Barbados'd with so many other poor wretches who were sent the same road —victims of the tragi-comedy of the English government of Ireland. There were plenty of them wandering about in Labat's time, ready, as Labat observes, to lend a help to the French, should they take a fancy to land a force in the island. The churchyard was scarcely so home-like. The graves were planted with tropical shrubs and flowers. Palms waved over the square stone monuments — stephanotis and jessamine crept about the iron railings. The primroses and hyacinths and violets, with which we dress the mounds under which our friends are sleeping, will not grow in the tropics. In the place of them are the exotics of our hot houses. We too are, perhaps, exotics of another kind in these islands, and may not, after all, have a long abiding place in them. Colonel —, who with his secular duties combined serious and spiritual feeling, was a friend of the clergyman of St. John's, and hoped to introduce me to him. This I
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