78
THE
ENGLISH
IN
THE
WEST
INDIES
Trinidad, never having been disturbed. What form could human life assume more charming than that which we were now looking on ? Once more, the earth does not contain any peasantry so well off, so well cared for, so happy, so sleek and contented as the sons and daughters of the eman cipated slaves in the English West Indian Islands. Sugar may fail the planter, but cocoa, which each peasant can grow with small effort for himself, does not fail and will not. He may ‘better his condition,’ if he has any such ambition, without stirring beyond his own ground, and so far, perhaps, his ambition may extend, if it is not turned off upon politics. Even the necessary evils of the tropics are not many or serious. His skin is proof against mosquitoes. There are snakes in Trinidad as there were snakes in Eden. ‘ Plenty snakes,’ said one of them who was at work in his garden, ‘ plenty snakes, but no bitee.’ As to costume, he would prefer the costume of innocence if he was allowed. Clothes in such a climate are superfluous for warmth, and to the minds of the negroes, unconscious as they are of shame, superfluous for decency. European prejudice, however, still passes for something; the women have a love for finery, which would prevent a complete return to African simpli city ; and in the islands which are still French, and in those like Trinidad, which the French originally colonised, they dress themselves with real taste. They hide their wool in red or yellow handkerchiefs, gracefully twisted; or perhaps it is not only to conceal the wool. Columbus found the Carib women of the island dressing their hair in the same fashion. 1
The waterworks, when we reached them, were even more beautiful than we had been taught to expect. A dam has been driven across a perfectly limpid mountain stream; a wide open area has been cleared, levelled, strengthened with 1
Traen las cabezas atadas con unos panuelos labrados hermosos que parecen de lejos de seda y almazarrones.