CHAPTER III

English Island of Barbadoes. – Bridgetown the Capital. – The Manufacture of Rum. – A Geographical Expert. – Very English. – A Pest of Ants. – Exports. – The Ice House. – A Dense Population. – Educational. – Marine Hotel. – Habits of Gambling. – Hurricanes. – Curious Antiquities. – The Barbadoes Leg. – Wakeful Dreams. – Absence of Twilight. – Departure from the Island.

Bridgetown is the capital of Barbadoes, an English island which, unlike St. Thomas, is a highly cultivated sugar plantation from shore to shore. In natural beauty, however, it will not compare with Martinique. It is by no means picturesquely beautiful, like most of the West Indian islands, being quite devoid of their thick tropical verdure. Nature is here absolutely beaten out of the field by excessive cultivation. Thirty thousand acres of sugar-cane are cut annually, yielding, according to late statistics, about seventy thousand hogsheads of sugar. We are sorry to add that there are twenty-three rum distilleries on the island, which do pecuniarily a thriving business. "The poorest molasses makes the best rum," said an experienced manager to us. He might well have added that it is also the poorest use to which it could be put. This spirit, like all produced in the West Indies, is called Jamaica rum, and though a certain amount of it is still shipped to the coast of Africa, the return cargoes no longer consist of kidnapped negroes. The article known as New England rum, still manufactured in the neighborhood of Boston, has always disputed the African market, so to speak, with the product of these islands. Rum is the bane of Africa, just as opium is of China, the former thrust upon the native races by Americans, the latter upon the Chinese by English merchants, backed by the British government. Events follow each other so swiftly in modern times as to become half forgotten by contemporary people, but there are those among us who remember when China as a nation tried to stop the importation of the deadly drug yielded by the poppy fields of India, whereupon England forced the article upon her at the point of the bayonet.

Bridgetown is situated at the west end of the island on the open roadstead of Carlisle Bay, and has a population of over twenty-five thousand. Barbadoes lies about eighty miles to the windward of St. Vincent, its nearest neighbor, and is separated from Europe by four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean. It is comparatively removed from the chain formed by the Windward Isles, its situation being so isolated that it remained almost unnoticed until a century had passed after Columbus's first discovery in these waters. The area of the British possessions in the West Indies is about one seventh of the islands. It is often stated that Barbadoes is nearly as large as the Isle of Wight, but the fact is, it exceeds that island in superficial area, being a little over fifty-five miles in circumference. The reader will perhaps remember that it was here Addison laid the scene of his touching story of "Inkle and Yarico," published so many years ago in the "Spectator."

Though it is not particularly well laid out, Bridgetown makes a very pleasing picture, as a whole, when seen from the harbor. Here and there a busy windmill is mixed with tall and verdant tropical trees, backed by far-reaching fields of yellow sugar-cane, together with low, sloping hills. The buildings are mostly of stone, or coral rock, and the town follows the graceful curve of the bay. The streets are macadamized and lighted with gas, but are far too narrow for business purposes. The island is about twenty-one miles long and between fourteen and fifteen broad, the shores being nearly inclosed in a cordon of coral reefs, some of which extend for two or three miles seaward, demanding of navigators the greatest care on seeking a landing, though the course into the roads to a suitable anchorage is carefully buoyed.

Barbadoes was originally settled by the Portuguese, who here found the branches of a certain forest tree covered with hair-like hanging moss, from whence its somewhat peculiar name, Barbadoes, or the "bearded place," is supposed to have been derived. Probably this was the Indian fig-tree, still found here, and which lives for many centuries, growing to enormous proportions. In India, Ceylon, and elsewhere in Asia, it is held sacred. The author has seen one of these trees at Kandy, in the island of Ceylon, under which sacred rites have taken place constantly for a thousand years or more, and whose widespread branches could shelter five hundred people from the heat of the sun. It stands close by the famous old Buddhist temple wherein is preserved the tooth of the prophet, and before which devout Indians prostrate themselves daily, coming from long distances to do so. Indeed, Kandy is the Mecca of Ceylon.

A good share of even the reading public of England would be puzzled to tell an inquirer exactly where Barbadoes is situated, while most of those who have any idea about it have gained such knowledge as they possess from Captain Marryat's clever novel of "Peter Simple," where the account is, to be sure, meagre enough. Still later, those who have read Anthony Trollope's "West Indies and the Spanish Main" have got from the flippant pages of that book some idea of the island, though it is a very disagreeable example of Trollope's pedantic style.

"Barbadoes? Barbadoes?" said a society man to the writer of these pages, in all seriousness, just as he was about to sail from New York, "that's on the coast of Africa, is it not?" "Oh, no," was the reply, "it is one of the islands of the Lesser Antilles."

"Where are the Antilles, pray?" "You must surely know."

"But I do not, nevertheless; haven't the remotest idea. Fact is, geography never was one of my strong points."

With which remark we silently agreed, and yet our friend is reckoned to be a fairly educated, cultured person, as these expressions are commonly used. Probably he represents the average geographical knowledge of one half the people to be met with in miscellaneous society.

This is the first English possession where the sugarcane was planted, and is one of the most ancient colonies of Great Britain. It bears no resemblance to the other islands in these waters, that is, topographically, nor, indeed, in the character of its population, being entirely English. The place might be a bit taken out of any shire town of the British home island, were it only a little more cleanly and less unsavory; still it is more English than West Indian. The manners and customs are all similar to those of the people of that nationality; the negroes, and their descendants of mixed blood, speak the same tongue as the denizens of St. Giles, London. The island has often been called "Little England." There is no reliable history of Barbadoes before the period when Great Britain took possession of it, some two hundred and sixty years ago. Government House is a rather plain but pretentious dwelling, where the governor has his official and domestic residence. In its rear there is a garden, often spoken of by visitors, which is beautified by some of the choicest trees and shrubs of this latitude. It is really surprising how much a refined taste and skillful gardening can accomplish in so circumscribed a space.

Barbadoes is somewhat remarkable as producing a variety of minerals; among which are coal, manganese, iron, kaolin, and yellow ochre. There are also one or two localities on the island where a flow of petroleum is found, of which some use is made. It is called Barbadoes tar, and were the supply sufficient to warrant the use of refining machinery, it would undoubtedly produce a good burning fluid. There is a "burning well," situated in what is known as the Scotland District, where the water emerging from the earth forms a pool, which is kept in a state of ebullition from the inflammable air or gas which passes through it. This gas, when lighted by a match, burns freely until extinguished by artificial means, not rising in large enough quantities to make a great flame, but still sufficient to create the effect of burning water, and forming quite a curiosity.

There are no mountains on the island, but the land is undulating, and broken into hills and dales; one elevation, known as Mount Hillaby, reaches a thousand feet and more above the level of tide waters.

One of the most serious pests ever known at Barbadoes was the introduction of ants, by slave-ships from Africa. No expedient of human ingenuity served to rid the place of their destructive presence, and it was at one time seriously proposed to abandon the island on this account. After a certain period nature came to the rescue. She does all things royally, and the hurricane of 1780 completely annihilated the vermin. Verily, it was appropriate to call Barbadoes in those days the Antilles! It appears that there is no affliction quite unmixed with good, and that we must put a certain degree of faith in the law of compensation, however great the seeming evil under which we suffer. To our limited power of comprehension, a destructive hurricane does seem an extreme resort by which to crush out an insect pest. The query might even arise, with some minds, whether the cure was not worse than the disorder.

The exports from the island consist almost wholly of molasses, sugar, and rum, products of the cane, which grows all over the place, in every nook and corner, from hilltop to water's edge. The annual export, as already intimated, is considerably over sixty thousand hogsheads. Sugar cannot, however, be called king of any one section, since half of the amount manufactured in the whole world is the product of the beet root, the growth of which is liberally subsidized by more than one European government, in order to foster local industry. Like St. Thomas, this island has been almost denuded of its forest growth, and is occasionally liable, as we have seen, to destructive hurricanes.

Bridgetown is a place of considerable progress, having several benevolent and educational institutions; it also possesses railway, telephone, and telegraphic service. Its export trade aggregates over seven million dollars per annum, to accommodate which amount of commerce causes a busy scene nearly all the time in the harbor. The steam railway referred to connects the capital with the Parish of St. Andrews, twenty-one miles away on the other side of the island, its terminus being at the thrifty little town of Bathsheba, a popular resort, which is noted for its fine beach and excellent sea bathing.

The cathedral is consecrated to the established religion of the Church of England, and is a picturesque, time-worn building, surrounded, after the style of rural England, by a quaint old graveyard, the monuments and slabs of which are gray and moss-grown, some of them bearing dates of the earlier portion of the sixteenth century. This spot forms a very lovely, peaceful picture, where the graves are shaded by tree-ferns and stately palms. Somehow one cannot but miss the tall, slim cypress, which to the European and American eye seems so especially appropriate to such a spot. There were clusters of low-growing mignonette, which gave out a faint perfume exactly suited to the solemn shades which prevailed, and here and there bits of ground enameled with blue-eyed violets. The walls of the inside of the church are covered with memorial tablets, and there is an organ of great power and sweetness of tone.

The "Ice House," so called, at Bridgetown is a popular resort, which everybody visits who comes to Barbadoes. Here one can find files of all the latest American and European papers, an excellent café, with drinks and refreshments of every conceivable character, and can purchase almost any desired article from a toothpick to a set of parlor furniture. It is a public library, an exchange, a "Bon Marché," and an artificial ice manufactory, all combined. Strangers naturally make it a place of rendezvous. It seemed to command rather more of the average citizen's attention than did legitimate business, and one is forced to admit that although the drinks which were so generously dispensed were cool and appetizing, they were also very potent. It was observed that some individuals, who came into the hospitable doors rather sober and dejected in expression of features, were apt to go out just a little jolly.