IN SUGAR-
CANE LAND
BY EDEN ^
PHILLPOTTS
- ,,.,111
wmm^''- - â– â– â– â–
-i ;, V\ â– â– ;â– /
IN SUGAR-CANE LAND.
IN SUGAR-CANE LAND,
EDEN PHILLPOTTS,
AUTHOR OF " FOLLY AND FRESH AIR," " THE END OF A LIFE,
" SUMMER CLOUDS," ETC.
"And in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms."
Shakespeare.
LONDON :
McCLURE AND CO.,
33, BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT AND CO., Ld.
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
SAliT.
TO
MY MOTHER,
THIS LITTLE BOOK.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Excuse for the Entire Work — Advice — About Neptune — The
Doctor — Night in the Channel — My Frenchman ; his Dog ;
his Baby; his Bottle of Champagne. .... I
CHAPTER n.
Seafaring Birds — The Captain of the Tiber — Fiddles and Sea-
legs — The Ocean settles down — Concerning Lifebelts — The
' Whist Fiend ' — ' Captain Cuttle ' — ' Peckham Rye ' —
Sundry Ladies — Food — The Refrigerating Apparatus. . 10
CHAPTER HL
Divine Service and Fire Drill — The Baths — Nautical Mathematics
— Interesting Incident with the Purser's Cat — The First
Officer— The Second Officer— The Third Officer; his Feat
with a Haytian Man-of-war — Flying-fish — Unpleasant Inci-
dent involving My Nose and Another — The Concert. . 20
CHAPTER IV.
Conscience — A Yarn from the Captain — Another Yarn of Him—
Steam — Cloud Harmonies and an After-glow — A Man of
One Idea — Exciting Incident with a Barque — The Whist-
Fiend and the pretty Creole — Moonlight to Dawn — Carlisle
Bay 31
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
Barbados — Lighters and Watermen — Jane Ann Smith — Our New
Ship— The Careenage — 'Bimshire' — The Ice-house — A West
Indian Street Scene — Complication with a Mango Tree, a
Black Man and a Yellow Dog 39
CHAPTER VI.
The Dignity Ball Band — Diving-boys — A Trip to the 'Crane'
— Sugar-cane — Bananas — Bread-fruit — Calabash and Fran-
gipanni — A Weird Garment — I differ with Peckham Rye —
The Emancipation — At a Tropical Hotel — Green Cocoa-Nuts
— The Pig and the Parasol 51
CHAPTER VII.
The Cocktail Club — The Model Man — Twins for our Second
Officer — Newspapers — The True Story of Captain Cook —
Forest Harmonies — A Rosy Dawn — St. Vincent — Concern-
ing Yellow Caribs and Ethiopians — A Whale — Arrowroot —
Advice to the Traveller touching Kew Gardens. . . 64
CHAPTER VIII.
Rhoda and the Archbishop — The Panorama of the Grenadines,
Leviathan and Others^The Treasure's Gun — Early Glimpses
of Grenada — Nutmeg Culture — Our New Port — Richmond
Hill — A Lunatic Asylum and a Prison — We land.
CHAPTER IX.
The History of Grenada — Alas ! poor Caribs — A Busy Market-
place — The Fruit Garden — A Black Family Party — The
Doctor prescribes — Grand Etang — An Ethiopian Goddess —
West Indian Homes; their Dangers — Coolie Travellers —
The Death's Head's Theory of Sleep 92
CONTENTS. ix
CHAFTER X.
PAGE
Into the Gulf of Paria — A Veteran Vessel — Port of Spain — John
Crow — History of Trinidad— A Pitch Lake — Hint to the
Great Powers — ' Pepper-pot ' — A West Indian Barber —
Botanical Gardens — The Treasure's Shittim Tree — Flora —
Hornets — A Murder Trial — The Authoress and the Norwego-
Spaniard 104
CHAPTER XI.
The Wounded Leg — Off to the Interior. Peckhara Rye and the
Head Guard — The Cascaladoo — Among the Plantations — St.
Joseph — A Coolie Village — Adventure with two Asses and a
Horse — Peckham a Failure — A Visit to a Sugar Factory —
Peckham again in Jeopardy — Penelophon — The Man with
Medals on his Breast. ....... I2I
CHAPTER XII.
Tobago — A Morning Stroll — Curiosities — A Difference with the
Treasure — Queer Fish — West Indian Lawn-tennis— Har-
monies in Rose and Ebony — Whist — The Model Man falls —
An Order for Cotton — Jumping Crabs — Ammonites and
Coral — Pink Pearls — A Cocoa-nut — Facts from a Butcher —
Trouble on the Wharf. . . . . . . • 134
CHAPTER XIII.
A Day with Napoleon — The Start — The Body-guard — The Buying
of Cocoa-pods — A word on Lizards — By a West Indian
Waterfall — I find Female Friends — The Trouble begins — A
Policeman's Son — Harrowing Adventure involving my Life. 151
CHAPTER XIV.
Conversation — A West Indian Dinner — Jumbies — Loups-garon
— Obi — Sunday Morning — A Service Free to all — Originality
of Mendicants — Incident of Endeavour to obtain an Alle-
gorical Photograph — Sport — I destroy a Private Parrot, and
a Humming-bird — Washing — The Romance of a Cocoa-nut —
Turtles — Farewell to Tobago , 164
b
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.
PAGE
"Atlantis" — The Complete Letter-writer — Gros Piton and Petit
Piton — Snakes — Castries — St. Lucia — More about the Caribs
— A Ride up Morne Fortune — My Piebald — Fer-de-lance —
The Doctor's Familiarity with Short Cuts — A Pleasant
Luncheon— The Octopus. . . . . . . .178
CHAPTER XVI.
H.M.S. Diamond Rock — Trois Ilets — St. Pierre, Martinique —
A Black Carnival — The Doctor's False Nose — Brilliant
Negresses — The Prince of Darkness is not always a Gentle-
man — Quaint Masqueraders — French Babies — A Sham Obi
Man — Masks and Music — The Cathedral. . . .193
CHAPTER XVIL
A Man-eating Cockroach — I steal a March on the Fourth Officer —
Dominica — Loss of Self-control on the Doctor's Part — A
Busy Bishop — The River Roseau — Rum Punch at Podbury's
— Frogs and Beetles — An Old Friend — Rebels — The
Treasure's Enchantress and a Salt-water Cure. . . 206
CHAPTER XVUL
Pratique refuse at Guadeloupe — The Captain's Scheme for soften-
ing the Shore Authorities — Vanilla Beans — Basse Terre —
The Metal Drinking-fountain — Free Trade— At Plymouth,
Montserrat — Public Gardens — Limes and Lime-juice— I am
censured — Redonda — Antigua 221
CHAPTER XIX.
The Isle of Nevis — Montpelier — The Governor's own Clerk —
His Gigantic Importance — St. Christopher — In the Hands
of Jefferson — Dramatic Scene at a Public Garden — Sketch of
St. Kitts — The Prison-house — Jefferson's Friends — A Rebuke
— The Fourth Officer's Influenza. ..... 230
CONTENTS. xi
CHAPTER XX.
PAGE
St. Thomas — In Ladies' Hands — The Coal- women — Their Remark-
able Ways — Coral and Echini — Fantastic Metamorphosis —
The ' Styx ' — Chah-Chahs — A Curiosity — The ' Vigilant ' —
Shylock and Certain Walking-Sticks — The Man from
Venezuela — Some Quaint Smuggling Yarns. . . . 248
CHAPTER XXI.
An Ethiopian Cricket Match — The Team — The Pitch — Difficulties
with the Field — The Fourth Officer's Leg-break — Fiasco
involving the Doctor — The Wicket-keeper criticised — The
Treasure at ' Mid-on ' — A Hungry Umpire — My Innings —
' Leg-before ' for the Fourth Officer — His Rage — Victory. . 264
CHAPTER XXII.
A Long Walk — Experiments— About the Puma — Misery of our
Treasure and Unavailing Attempts by the Doctor and
Myself to dispel it — A Consignment of Cats — A Notable Cat
of 1884— Suicide— The Black Baker 281
CHAPTER XXIII.
Farewell to the Rhine — A Storm at Sea — The Barometer falls
Six Feet — From Bad to Worse — The French Pastors —
Our Captain sees Stormy Petrels — Random Notes in Pencil
— The Black Horse — Narrow Escape of the Scilly Isles —
Plymouth — Southampton — ' Home, Sweet Home.' . . 290
\
IN SUGAR-CANE LAND.
CHAPTER I.
Excuse for the Entire Work — Advice — About Neptune —
The Doctor — Night in the Channel — My Frenchman : his
Dog ; his Baby ; his Bottle of Champagne.
DOUBTLESS, my reader, you are familiar with
the fact that, four hundred years ago, one
Christopher Columbus discovered the West Indies.
Since that time all sorts and conditions of men, in-
cluding a fair sprinkling of literary people, have visited
them ; and these latter folks are responsible for hard
upon a hundred volumes of information — a complete
library of West Indian literature — extending from old
Pere Labat's quaint work, Nouveau Voyage mix lies
d'Ame'rique, to our new Oxford Regius Professor's
comparatively recent book ; which, by-the-bye, gave
more pleasure upon this side of the North Atlantic
than it did on the other.
The knowledge of all these extant volumes will not,
however, alarm me into silence, 1 hold that no two
men ever yet echoed each other at all points ; that no
I
2 IN SUGAR-CANE LAND.
two reasonably reflective beings have at any time
registered exactly similar conclusions about any con-
siderable subject. Therefore much that I shall say is
sure to be new to everybody — even the West Indians
themselves. Concerning them great ignorance still
prevails at home. I know fairly intelligent fellow-
creatures who persist in regarding the West Indian
as a being born in a Panama hat, nourished on rum,
green cigars, and salmagundi, swept away, after a
short, fiery life, by ' Yellow Jack.' For people with
these crude ideas the following sketches are particu-
larly designed. In order to produce them, I left my
fellow-countrymen struggling in the foul embraces of
Russian influenza ; I deserted my mother-land under
those lamentable climatic conditions which obtain with
her during the first three months of every year; and
I sped away over the ocean into a region of tropic
sunshine and blue v.'aters, of islands built by volcano
or raised by coral insects, there to see the sugar-cane
grow and study the people who grow it.
My friends threw themselves heart and soul into
the idea of my going abroad ; they told me to take any
amount of time and not hurry the trip ; they all rallied
round me and advised the same thing ; which was,
that I should not forget pyjamas. Everybody kept
harping on pyjamas until I became weary of the
subject, and more than ever convinced that some
popular elementary primer about the West Indies
ought to be published as soon as possible. Here were
my acquaintances — a typical crowd of men : lawyers,
soldiers, artists, members of the Stock Exchange,
authors, merchants, and even clergymen ; yet all they
NEPTUNE'S TERRORS. 3
appeared to know of the West Indies was that people
wore pyjamas there at night.
It happened that on the Royal Mail Steamship
Company's fast and commodious packet Tiber I had
a brother, officially engaged. He was surgeon to the
vessel, and, with a view to surprise and please him,
I secretly .took passage in the Tiber, and bustled off
to Southampton the day before she sailed.
During the journey from Waterloo I remembered,
not without some pride, how entirely my fellow-man
has mastered the treacherous deep. Nowadays these
great ocean excursions are attended with no more
inconvenience and danger than the act of putting up
at a hotel. Our marvellous skill reduces Neptune's
terrors to child's play. That poor old baffled sea-god
may bury his trident in the sand, doff his crown, and
go and live obscurely with the porpoises, for he rules
the waves no longer. After which conclusion I opened
the newspaper, to find, by a curious coincidence, that
the Daily Chronicle of that morning was devoted almost
entirely to wrecks. I never saw collected within the
pages of one journal such a mass of maritime disaster.
There were collisions and fires and loss of life all over
the navigable globe ; and when I reached Southampton
the harbour appeared to be literally full of ships that
had lost masts and encountered difficulties. Then, at
the hotel, where I put up until the morrow, a private
bed-chamber allotted me was decorated with gruesome
pictures of the wreck of the London and a burial in
mid-ocean. To hang up such things in an apartment
generally occupied by somebody who is just going to
sail struck me as being bad taste and poor judgment.
4 IJSr SUGAR-CANE LAND.
If I had a marine hostelry, I should cover the walls of
it with pictures of purely successful navigation, with
seas as flat as billiard-tables, with blue, cloudless
skies, with gigantic steamers puffing comfortably about
among lighthouses, and promenade piers, and so forth.
Southampton, however, is full of these alarming warn-
ings, and, taking all the evidence together, there is little
doubt I am mistaken about Neptune ; but instead of
depressing me, as might have been expected, this
accumulation of horrors awoke emotions of an entirely
nautical nature. I longed to feel myself on the great
sea, to hear the wild waves roar, and the stormy winds
blow. I questioned myself as to whether it would be
better to take the voyage in a rollicking, sailorlike
spirit from the outset, or simply appear as the lands-
man on board ship ; and I decided that I would be
marine to the backbone from the moment I set foot
on plank. Better still, I would begin at once. So
that night at Southampton I ordered grog, exchanged
experiences at a public bar with sundry other sea-dogs,
and then turned in, having let it be known I proposed
rising about six bells.
Next morning I was up sharp to time and saw
my goods conveyed aboard the steamer. She sailed at
half-past two, and, having inspected my cabin, I went
ashore once more to purchase a hat guard, a deck chair,
and other final necessaries. And then I suddenly
saw a young man clad in blue cloth, with a little flag
on his peaked cap, bright buttons all over him, and
gold braid and stripes of cherry-coloured stuff arranged
upon his arms. This was my brother ; and to see my
own flesh and blood attired thus in a public place
THE DOCTOR. 5
naturally gratified me not a little. Still keeping
up a nautical spirit, I steered alongside, slapped him
on the back, and said :
" What cheero, Doctor ? "
He jumped all across the road and exclaimed :
" Confound it, old chap, you know I hate horse-
play!"
I explained it was not horseplay, but merely a
marine, breezy sort of greeting.
Then he said :
" What do you want to be marine about ? and what
are you doing in Southampton anyway ? "
" I've come down to see somebody off," I told him.
" Oh, well, we sail presently. Stroll along and look
at the ship. Who are you seeing off? Anybody I
know ? "
" Yes," I said ; " I am seeing myself off."
" Going to sea ! Where ? "
"Just dashing over to the West Indies in the Tiber.
Do you know her at all ? "
Of course he had to look delighted and overjoyed.
But a gloomy expression stole across his face when he
grasped the nature of the thing I was going to do.
" Hang it all, old man, why didn't you let me hear
about this sooner ? No doubt you're starting utterly
unprovided. There are certain things you simply must
have in the West Indies. I'll wager now you never
even thought of pyjamas."
"In the matter of pyjamas," I said, "my outfit is
positively unique. I don't suppose that you yourself
come near me. You shall see the collection anon. My
pyjamas amount to a museum."
6 IN SUGAR-CANE LAND.
Then we grew friendly, and he said I had chosen a
good time of year. Presently, meeting other officers of
the ship, they too congratulated me and declared I was
wise to go ; and everybody agreed that my nautical
vocabulary was choice, and would be more effective
still when I had learned to use the different technical
phrases in their right places. But I may say at once
that people do not employ the expressions at sea we
find imputed to them in books. There is plenty of
undesirable language aboard ship, but it is just the
same undesirable language one hears on shore, or,
for that matter, right inland. As for me, I grew
disheartened, and resumed my ordinary, unleavened,
suburban methods of speech after I had been at sea
twenty-four hours.
Upon sailing-day the Royal Mail Steam Packet
Company throw their departing ship open to all re-
spectable people, and give a free luncheon in the dining-
saloon. This I attended, and was able to note without
difficulty, from the extent of the meal made in each
case, who, amongst the lunchers, were going to presently
sail in the Tiber and who were not. The shore
folks ate and drank as people usually do at a free
lunch ; the travellers (at any rate those who were
uncertain of their seafaring abilities) partook with an
eye to the future. And this they did the more gene-
rally because a strong westerly breeze was blowing,
and rumours were current that the English Channel
would be found in a very disordered condition.
Presently Her Majesty's mails arrived, with a final
batch of passengers from London. Then came last
farewells, half-hearted attempts at cheering, smiles
OFF! 7
througli great round tears not to be liidden; little squares
of cambric bravely fluttered one moment, hiding wet
eyes the next ; ropes splashing into the water, shout-
ings, hurryings to and fro, the docks and piers slipping
away, people growing small, flags being pulled down
on the ship. And so the long journey was really
begun.
Through the Solent steamed our great craft, past
the Isle of Wight, after which, dropping her pilot off
the Needles, she went ahead into a wild sea all tum-
bling, foam-capped, and spray-feathered. As to the
heavens above us, they were draped with flying cloud
harmonies in silver and grey, full of pearly light, lifting
and brightening towards the far West into gleaming
tangles of gold across a pale blue sky.
Soon we felt the roll of old ocean beneath us, and
people settled down, growing shipshape and comfort-
able, or seasick and miserable, as the case might be.
For myself, being by God's blessing a born sailor, I
went to dinner with a cheerful heart, and, upon the
conclusion of that meal, pottered about and investigated
and asked questions and made myself at home.
That night the Channel was black and troubled.
Under the dim glimmer of a young moon I looked forth
upon it and saw white foam dancing and flying round
us. Across the darkness gleamed stars and sparks
from the funnels that towered above me ; and below,
the round windows of the engine-room flashed out
into the night like great electric eyes. But forward in
the ship all was black, and neither streak nor splash
of light visible, for we were keeping double watches ;
the busy Channel is always dangerous, and no man
8 IN SUGAR-CANE LAND.
can note what lies ahead if there be illumination between
him and the sea. A great rushing wind filled the air ;
fingers invisible on unseen hands played strange music
upon the ropes and shrouds that, starting by my side,
shot upwards into gloom ; all the varied sounds of a big
steamer at sea beat upon my ears, with occasional clang
of bell to note other ships near at hand, with the harsh
grating of the steam steering gear, and the eternal throb,
throb, throbbing of the propeller.
We were off the Start just then, and the flashing
light upon that point shone a friendly farewell, trembling
brilliant through 'the dark night for a moment, then
waning and vanishing, only to sparkle out again.
Finally, feeling that no practical good could be gained
by prowling about the decks and falling up against
hard, unfamiliar things, I sought the seclusion of my
cabin, and found that this seclusion was to be shared,
or more properly speaking annihilated, by a little
Frenchman. We had scarcely packed ourselves away
in our bunks when there was a sad sound of mal-de-mer
by night, and the Gaul arose. From that moment I
had no further peace. He kept switching up the electric
light till morning. First he turned it on to be unwell ;
then he bounded out again because he had forgotten
to say his prayers ; then he heard his dog barking
overhead somewhere, and said it would starve if no-
body looked to it. The dog was a big boarhound,
and extremely valuable, he declared. After that I
reproved the man. I explained that sleep was not an
easy matter at best on board ship, that I had put up
with a good deal, and must beg him to control himself,
extinguish the light, and be quiet. I said :
MY FRENCHMAN. g
•' What you hear is not a dog at all ; it's a baby."
He assured me he heard a dog and a baby. They
were both his. His wife was with the baby in an
adjacent cabin, doing all that could be done for it ; but
there was nobody with the dog, though certainly the
ship's butcher had promised to look after him. Upon
hearing this I felt certain that his dog would be safe in
the butcher's hands, and comforted the man about it.
Just then he became too ill to argue, and when he
temporarily recovered a horrid thought struck him.
He turned on a perfect blaze of electric light again, and
rang an electric bell for the steward. His idea was a
bottle of champagne. He remembered to have heard
that champagne in sufficient quantities was a certain
cure. A steward duly arrived, brought the wine, and
popped it off all over the floor of the cabin ; then my
miserable travelling companion added insult to injury
by asking me to drink with him. This I refused to do,
and he imbibed the whole — which intemperate action,
under Providence, almost immediately reduced him to
a condition of inebriated silence.
CHAPTER II.
Seafaring Birds — Tlie Captain of the Tiber — Fiddles and Sea-
legs — The Ocean settles down — Concerning Lifebelts — The
'Whist Fiend' — 'Captain Cuttle' — ' Peckham Rye' —
Sundry Ladies — Food — The Refrigerating Apparatus.
NEXT morning I was up and about, watching a
dark, sulky-looking sea bursting away from the
ship's bows with angry confusion of foaming billows.
In our wake gleamed a beautiful opalescent ribbon of
pale blue light over the waters ; and hovering there,
on brown wings and grey, fluttered a great cloud of
seagulls. Bold and brave, with plaintive voices,
bright eyes, undimmed by wind or sun, and little feet
tucked away beneath them, the seafaring birds floated
along beside us, keeping their places by the ship
without an effort, and diving downwards in hurried
rivalry when fragments of broken meat were from time
to time thrown overboard.
The Captain of the Tiber approached me, and I
saluted him. He was a grey, weather-beaten mariner,
with a quaint, briny humour peculiarly his own. He
disliked literary people, because a gentleman who
recently visited the West Indies and wrote a book
upon them, described him afterwards in print as blind
of one eye, whereas the truth is he can see extremely
well with both.
ON SEA LEGS. ii
I said : " Good-morning, Captain — fine breeze."
He answered : ** Breeze ? Half a gale of wind, I
should call it ! "
If he considers it half a gale of wind, then no doubt
it is. Here am I, at the very outset of this ramble,
underrating the confines of the Bay of Biscay. I can
see I do not take the North Atlantic nearly seriously
enough. Some day we may be wrecked and on our
beam ends ; and I, probably under the delusion that
the affair is only a capful of wind, shall be found
smoking a cigar on the quarter-deck when I ought to
be green with dismay, sitting somewhere in a cork
jacket waiting for the lifeboat.
* Fiddles ' were out at breakfast, by which I do not
mean stringed music, but contrivances upon the tables
into which are firmly fitted the crockery and other
paraphernalia for a meal. But there was only a meagre
company assembled to eat of the luxuries provided.
I went into the question of sea-legs afterwards, and
practised to acquire them for some hours. It was just
the weather for learning to walk a ship, I started
up-hill, with bent knees, an anxious expression, and a
keen eye for different parts of the vessel a man might
cling to in case of need. But suddenly the acclivity
ahead became a declivity, and I found myself flying
down a precipice straight over the bulwarks. Then,
when I got under weigh once more, the Tiber rolled,
instead of pitching as I had foreseen, and I careered
into the scuppers and bruised some of my more
prominent limbs. Every way, of course, leads into the
sea, more or less, and one's centre of gravity simply
becomes a treasured myth.
12 IN SUGAR-CANE LAND.
The Doctor tells me very little is doing with him,
and that chiefly of a nocturnal nature. People appear
frightened of the Doctor by day, but send for him
under cover of the darkness — generally when he has
settled down to play whist, or gone to bed. He has
rather a strange remedy for seasickness : apples and