The English in the West Indies or the bow of Ulysses

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THE

ENGLISH

IN

THE

WEST

INDIES

eyes. I found it hard to call up the scenes of riot, and con­ fusion, and wild excitement which are alleged to have been witnessed there. The story that it once covered a far larger area has been, perhaps, invented to account for the incon­ gruity. Old plans exist which seem to show that the end of the spit could never have been of any larger dimensions than it is at present. There is proof enough, however, that in the sand there lie the remains of many thousand English soldiers and seamen, who ended their lives there for one cause or other. The bones lie so close that they are turned up as in a country churchyard when a fresh grave is dug. The walls of the old church are inlaid thickly with monu­ ments and monumental tablets to the memory of officers of either service, young and old; some killed by fever, some by accidents of war or sea; some decorated with the honours which they had won in a hundred fights, some carried off before they had gathered the first flower of fame. The costliness of many of these memorials was an affecting indication how precious to their families those now rest­ ing there once had been. One in high relief struck me as a characteristic specimen of Rubillac's workmanship. It was to a young lieutenant who had been killed by the bursting of a gun. Flame and vapour were rushing out of the breech. The youth himself was falling backwards, with his arms spread out, and a vast preternatural face — death, judgment, eternity, or whatever it was meant to be—was glaring at him through the smoke. Bad art, though the execution was remarkable; but better, perhaps, than the weeping angels now grown common among ourselves. After luncheon the commodore showed us his curiosities, especially his garden, which, considering the state of his water supply, he had created under unfavourable condi­ tions. He had a very respectable collection of tropical ferns and flowers, with palms and plantains to shade and shelter them. He was an artist besides, within the lines of


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