CHARLES
KINGSLEY
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CHAPTER VI. Charles Kingsley at Trinidad—‘Layof the Last Buccaneer’ — A French forban —Adventure at Aves — Mass on board a pirate ship —Port of Spain— A house in the tropics—A political meeting — Government House —The Botanical Gardens — Kingsley's rooms — Sugar estates and coolies.
I MIGHT spare myself a description of Trinidad, for the natural features of the place, its forests and its gardens, its exquisite flora, the loveliness of its birds and insects, have been described already, with a grace of touch and a fullness of knowledge which I could not rival if I tried, by my dear friend Charles Kingsley. He was a naturalist by instinct, and the West Indies and all belonging to them had been the passion of his life. He had followed the logs and journals of the Elizabethan adventurers till he had made their genius part of himself. In Amyas Leigh, the hero of ‘ Westward Ho,’ he produced a figure more completely re presentative of that extraordinary set of men than any other novelist, except Sir Walter, has ever done for an age re mote from his own. He followed them down into their latest developments, and sang their swan song in his ‘ Lay of the Last Buccaneer.’ So characteristic is this poem of the transformation of the West Indies of romance and ad venture into the West Indies of sugar and legitimate trade, that I steal it to ornament my own prosaic pages. T H E LAY OP T H E LAST
BUCCANEER.
Oh ! England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high, But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I ; And such a port for mariners I'll never see again As the pleasant Isle of Aves beside the Spanish main.