The English in the West Indies or the bow of Ulysses

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THE

ENGLISH

IN

THE

WEST

INDIES

homilies to the black people on the treatment of their wives, not being the fashion in these parts. If there are no more Aaron Bangs in Jamaica, there are very charming people; as 1 found when I turned this new leaf in my West Indian experience. Mr. M — could not have taken more pains with me if I had been his earliest friend. The chief luxury which he allowed himself in his simple life was a good supply of excellent horses. His business took him every day to Kingston, but he left me in charge of his family, and I had ‘ a good time,’ as the Americans say. The house was large, with fine airy rooms, a draught so constantly blowing through it that the candles had to be covered with bell glasses; but the draughts in these coun­ tries are the very breath of life. It had been too dark when I arrived to see anything of the surroundings, and the next morning I strolled out to see what the place was like. It lies just at the foot of the Blue Mountains, where the gra­ dual slope from the sea begins to become steep. The plain of Kingston lay stretched before me, with its woods and cornfields and villas, the long straggling town, the ships at anchor in the harbour, the steamers passing in and out with their long trails of smoke, the sand-spit like a thin grey line lying upon the water, as the natural breakwater by which the harbour is formed, and beyond it the broad blue expanse of the Caribbean Sea. The foreground was like an English park, studded over with handsome forest trees and broken by the rains into picturesque ravines. Some acres were planted with oranges of the choicer sorts, as an experiment to show what Jamaica could do, but they were as yet young and had not come into bearing. Bound the houses were gardens where the treasures of our hot­ houses were carelessly and lavishly scattered. Stephanotis trailed along the railing or climbed over the trellis. Oleanders white and pink waved over marble basins, and were sprinkled by the spray from spouting fountains. Crotons stood about


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