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"XT A X^ A T>^^ »» 
 
 THE YAKABOO. 
 
ALONE IN THE 
 CARIBBEAN 
 
 Being the Yarn of a Cruise 
 in the Lesser Antilles in the 
 Sailing Canoe "Yakaboo" 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERIC A. FENGER 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
PRESERVATION 
 
 COPY ADDED f %\ I 
 
 ORIGINAL TO BE -<r \k 
 
 RETAINED 
 
 JAN 2 1 1993 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 191 7, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
TO 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 AND THE MEMORY OF 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 £53143 
 
Item — I order that my executors purchase a 
 large stone, the best that they can find, and place 
 it upon my grave, and that they write round the 
 edge of it these words: — "Here lies the honourable 
 Chevalier Diego Mendez, who rendered great' 
 services to the royal crown of Spain, in the dis- 
 covery and conquest of the Indies, in company 
 with the discoverer of them, the Admiral Don 
 Christopher Columbus, of glorious memory, and 
 afterwards rendered other great services by him- 
 self, with his own ships, and at his own cost. 
 He died. ... He asks of your charity a Pater- 
 noster and an Ave Maria." 
 
 Item — In the middle of the said stone let there 
 be the representation of a canoe, which is a hol- 
 lowed tree, such as the Indians use for navigation; 
 for in such a vessel did I cross three hundred 
 leagues of sea; and let them engrave above it 
 this word: "CANOA." 
 From the will of Diego Mendez, drawn up June igth, 
 
PREFACE 
 
 T) most of us the West Indies comprise Cuba, Ja- 
 maica, Haiti or San Domingo (commonly thought 
 to be two separate islands), Porto Rico and the smaller 
 islands of the Bahamas, the Bermudas and Barbados, 
 somewhere adrift off the Florida coast like a second 
 Sargasso Sea. The lower Caribbees seem as mythical 
 as the lost Atlantis itself. I feel that I shall have ac- 
 complished much if by means of a simple explanation 
 and the use of a chart I can set the reader right for all 
 time. 
 
 In general the West Indies include the Bahamas 
 (a group of low-lying coral cays just across the Gulf 
 Stream where it sweeps northward past the east coast 
 of Florida) but more particularly they are those islands 
 which stretch to the eastward fom Yucatan to just be- 
 yond Porto Rico where they take a southward trend 
 forming an almost perfect arc from the Virgins to 
 Trinidad which is in reality the northeast corner of 
 South America. Thus they bound the Caribbean Sea, 
 on the north and east, which in the old days was also 
 called the Northern Ocean in contradistinction to the 
 Southern Ocean or Pacific which Balboa first saw di- 
 rectly to the south from the Isthmus of Panama. The 
 large islands, Jamaica, Cuba, San Domingo and Porto 
 Rico are known as the Greater Antilles while the small- 
 er islands which take up the march to Trinidad are 
 known as the Lesser Antilles. Of the Lesser Antilles, 
 
 ix 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 the Virgins, Anguilla, St. Martin, Barbuda, Saba, St. 
 Eustatius, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, Gua- 
 deloupe, Dominica and Martinique are known as the 
 Leeward Islands; St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grena- 
 dines, Grenada, Barbados and Tobago are known as 
 the Windward Islands. 
 
 The Bermudas form an entirely separate group quite 
 distinct from the West Indies — although their climate 
 is semi-tropic — and lie 750 miles ese of Hatteras and 
 some eight hundred miles from the nearest Bahamas. 
 
 The Lesser Antilles are apart from the rest of the 
 West Indies in that the Spaniards played very little 
 part in their colonisation or development. While it is 
 true that Columbus on his later voyages discovered the 
 Lesser Antilles, a few of which he actually set foot up- 
 on and most of which he merely named as he saw them 
 from a distance, the Spaniards made no attempts to 
 settle on these small islands * and they lay unmo- 
 lested for over a hundred years till early in the seven- 
 teenth century they were settled by the English, French 
 and Dutch and a little later by the Danes. Aside from 
 the patois of the Negro which varies more or less in 
 the different islands, there are now but two languages 
 spoken, English in the British, Dutch and Danish pos- 
 sessions and French in the French islands. For a time 
 the Swedes owned St. Bartholomew which was ceded 
 to France in 1878. 
 
 The history of these small islands should be of in- 
 terest to us on account of their early intimacy with our 
 own colonies and especially because of the part which 
 the Dutch island of St. Eustatius played in aiding us 
 at the time of the Revolutionary War. But our knowl- 
 
 * With the exception only of Tobago. 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 edge of their early days is meagre, hurricanes and the 
 depredations of the little wood ant (which literally 
 eats away the wooden houses from about their own- 
 ers) being the two chief destroyers of manuscripts and 
 their containers. What of the life of St. Eustatius — 
 scarcely eight miles in area — which had its beginnings 
 before our Plymouth colony and in 178 1 when at the 
 height of its prosperity it was destroyed by Rodney it 
 had a population of nearly 40,000 — more than either 
 Boston or New York at that time? Its printed history 
 does not cover much more than 20,000 words. But 
 with history we have little to do in this account. I have 
 limited myself to those incidents which might have a 
 direct interest for the reader and some of them, in 
 whole or in part, as far as I can ascertain, now appear 
 in print for the first time. Those who are familiar with 
 the literature of the Lesser Antilles will, I hope, be 
 agreeably disappointed in not finding in these pages 
 those hardy perennials of the guide books — the build- 
 ing of schooners at Bottom Town on Saba, eight hun- 
 dred feet above the sea, and the deadly snakes of the 
 Petit Piton that killed the members of a climbing party 
 one by one till the last man fell only a few feet from 
 his goal. 
 
 So I have attempted neither a history nor a guide 
 book but have spun out the yarn of a lone cruise in a 
 sailing canoe. I went to study the islands at first hand 
 and in the craft which I believed would be most suit- 
 able for the purpose — a deep-sea sailing canoe. The 
 main portion of the cruise has appeared serially in 
 abbreviated form in the "Outing' ' magazine. 
 
 I have made no attempt to discuss the problem of 
 the native — the more one studies it the less one has to 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 say — and my few explosions of choler will, I hope, be 
 forgiven. Throughout the islands from Grenada to 
 St. Thomas, I have made friends whom I count among 
 my best and it is their unexampled courtesy and gen- 
 erosity that go to make up some of the most pleasant 
 memories of the cruise. Those whom I would es- 
 pecially mention are C. V. C. Home and T. B. C. 
 Musgrave, who at once made me feel at home in St. 
 George's and who, when they could not dissuade me 
 from starting out in the Yakaboo, did everything in 
 their power to facilitate my preparations for the 
 cruise; Dr. William S. Mitchell, who loaned me his 
 cotton ginnery; "Jack" Wildman, who helped me to 
 much interesting material; "Steady" Glean, who res- 
 cued me from the mob at Sauteurs (but that is another 
 story) ; Whitfield Smith, now at Grand Turk and 
 whose place at Carriacou has been happily filled by 
 Musgrave ; McQueen, of pleasant memory of Top Hill 
 days; Noel Walker — I wonder if he has joined the 
 ranks of the many who have "gone west" ; Rupert Ot- 
 way, whose hospitality I enjoyed at Union; "Old Bill" 
 Wallace; V. J. Monplaisir, "Monty"; Captain Harry 
 Turner, then Harbour Master of Castries and now in 
 Mombasa; Pere Remaud, I was going to say Labat; 
 Monsieur Waddy and the whole of the "Union Spor- 
 tive" ; Mr. Frederick Woolworth, who took me in on 
 faith and for whom I acted as cook in times of stress; 
 Dr. John Morgan Griffith, enthusiast, of Statia; Cap- 
 tain "Ben" Hassel, "Freddie" Simmons, and Leslie 
 Jarvis, Commissioner of Tortola. 
 
 F. A. F. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I The Yakaboo is Born and the Cruise Begins 21 
 
 II Whaling at Ile-de-Caille 42 
 
 III Kick 'em Jinny 70 
 
 IV Carriacou — Mayero — Bequia 84 
 
 V Climbing the Soufriere of Saint Vincent . 1 10 
 
 VI Days with a Vanishing Race . . . . 135 
 
 VII Delights of Channel Running .... 155 
 
 VIII Martinique — Fort de France . . . . 188 
 
 IX St. Pierre — Pelee 208 
 
 X A Land Cruise — The Calm of Guadeloupe . 233 
 
 XI We Make Our Best Run 270 
 
 Statia — The Story of the Salute . . . 289 
 
 Saba 316 
 
 XIV Sir Francis Drake's Channel and — Yaka- 
 boo 327 
 
 xin 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 The "Yakaboo" Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Course of the "Yakaboo" xx 
 
 The "Carenage'^of St. George's — Grenada ... 24 
 
 "Moored stem-to along the quays was a fleet of small 
 trading sloops, shabby in rig and crude of build" . 28 
 
 The market place of St. George's — Grenada ... 34 
 
 The tall native whom I hit in the chest with the bag of 
 cranberries. On the beach at Duquesne Point . 38 
 
 Iron coal-pot of the West Indies 39 
 
 Jack's shack on Ile-de-Caille where I made my home 44 
 
 The "Ajoupa" — a reminder of Carib days .... 44 
 
 In this channel from January to May, the humpback 
 loafs on his way to the colder waters of the North 
 Atlantic 50 
 
 The "Humpbacker" under sail 58 
 
 Unshipping the rig 58 
 
 "Once more we had the weather berth and bore down 
 on them under full sail, Bynoe standing high up on 
 the 'box,' holding to the forestay" 66 
 
 Grenadine whaleboat showing bow and false-chock. 
 The harpoon is poised in the left hand and heaved 
 with the right arm 66 
 
 "The immense intestines and bladders that looked like 
 a fleet of balloons come to grief" 72 
 
 My Comstock tent 79 
 
 xv 
 
xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 My camp at Mabouya So 
 
 Loaded and ready to get off 80 
 
 On Carriacou — looking north 86 
 
 "There had been one house in which the owner had 
 lived on the top of the hill" 90 
 
 Cassava cakes drying on a roof at Mayero. Ruins of the 
 old estate house of the St. Hilaires in the background 96 
 
 Drying the Cassava, Isle de Ronde 96 
 
 Preparing to leave Union. Walker sitting on the rail 
 of his sloop and regarding the "Yakaboo" doubt- 
 fully 102 
 
 Coming back for repairs — six men doing the work of 
 two 102 
 
 The effect of the trade wind on the vegetation. Bequia 108 
 
 "Old Bill" and the skipper of the "Yakaboo" . . 108 
 
 "As I neared the shore I saw that the jetty was black 
 with black people" 114 
 
 The usual appearance of the jetty. Boat unloading 
 for the market 114 
 
 Along the lee coast of St. Vincent. Point near Layou 120 
 
 My surly guides. Taken above the line of vegetation 126 
 
 The Wallibu Dry River where we began the ascent. The . 
 Soufriere in the distance, its cone hidden in the mist. 126 
 
 How the Caribs rig a calabash for carrying water . .131 
 
 The rim of the crater 132 
 
 "A thousand feet below, held in the bowl of the crater 
 is a lake nearly a half mile in diameter" . . . . 132 
 
 Black Carib boy at Owia Bay. His catamaran is taxed 
 at three pence per foot 140 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "There is still a satisfying amount of Indian blood left 
 in these people" 140 
 
 Rig of a Carib canoe 141 
 
 The Carib boy of St. George's who had been brought to 
 Grenada after the eruption of the Soufriere . . . 150 
 
 Yellow Caribs at Point Espagnol 150 
 
 The camera got them just as they had slipped through 
 the high surf 166 
 
 The ruins of the church at Owia. The bell and the 
 ladder can be seen at the left 180 
 
 Native canoe — St. Lucia 212 
 
 Native canoe under sail 226 
 
 Sunset — St. Pierre 250 
 
 Ruins of the Cathedral 250 
 
 Hauling in the boat 280 
 
 The capstan 280 
 
 The bucket 280 
 
 The old guns at Fort Oranje, St. Eustatius. The date 
 1780 may be seen on the trunnion of the nearest gun 292 
 
 The tomb of Admiral Krull 292 
 
 "Here was a town walled in by Nature" .... 304 
 
 At the head of the Fort Ladder 318 
 
 "Here Freddie Simmons teaches embryo sailor-men, 
 still in their knee trousers, the use of the sextant 
 and chronometer" 318 
 
 The "dikes" of Bottom Town 324 
 
 A cozy Saba home 324 
 
 The jetty at Norman's Island 332 
 
 Christian the Ninth — St. Thomas . . . . ; • 7- 34° 
 
ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
ALONE 
 IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE "YAKABOO" IS BORN AND THE CRUISE BEGINS 
 
 "Crab pas mache, li pas gras; 
 li mache touop, et li tombe nans chodier" 
 
 "If a crab don't walk, he don't get fat; 
 If he walk too much, he gets in a pot." 
 
 — From the Creole. 
 
 IS it in the nature of all of us, or is it just my own 
 peculiar make-up which brings, when the wind 
 blows, that queer feeling, mingled longing and dread? 
 A thousand invisible fingers seem to be pulling me, 
 trying to draw me away from the four walls where I 
 have every comfort, into the open where I shall have 
 to use my wits and my strength to fool the sea in its 
 treacherous moods, to take advantage of fair winds 
 and to fight when I am fairly caught — for a man is a 
 fool to think he can conquer nature. 
 
 It had been a long time since I had felt the weather- 
 glow on my face, a feeling akin to the numb forehead 
 in the first touch of inebriety. The lure was coming 
 back to me. It was the lure of islands and my thoughts 
 
 21 
 
22 AJ.ONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 hacJ.Tgorie back to a certain room in school where as a 
 boy I used to muse over a huge relief map of the bot- 
 tom of the North Atlantic. No doubt my time had 
 been better spent on the recitation that was going on. 
 
 One learns little of the geography of the earth from 
 a school book. I found no mention of the vast At- 
 lantic shelf, that extended for hundreds of miles to 
 seaward of Hatteras, where the sperm whale comes to 
 feed in the spring and summer and where, even while 
 I was sitting there looking at that plaster cast, terrific 
 gales might be screaming through the rigging of New 
 Bedford whalers, hove-to and wallowing — laden with 
 fresh water or grease according to the luck or the 
 skill of the skipper. Nor was there scarcely any men- 
 tion of the Lesser Antilles, a chain of volcanic peaks 
 strung out like the notched back of a dinosaur, from 
 the corner of South America to the greater islands that 
 were still Spanish. Yet it was on these peaks that my 
 thoughts clung like dead grass on the teeth of a rake 
 and would not become disengaged. 
 
 Now, instead of looking at the relief map, I was 
 poring over a chart of those same islands and reading 
 off their names from Grenada to tiny Saba. At my 
 elbow was a New Bedford whaler who had cruised 
 over that Atlantic shelf at the very time I was contem- 
 plating it as a boy. And many years before that he 
 had been shipwrecked far below, on the coast of Bra- 
 zil. The crew had shipped home from the nearest 
 port, but the love of adventure was strong upon the 
 captain, his father,* who decided to build a boat from 
 
 ♦Captain Joshua Slocura, who sailed around the world alone in 
 the sloop Spray, 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 23 
 
 the wreckage of his vessel and sail in it with his wife 
 and two sons to New York. 
 
 With mahogany planks sawed by the natives they 
 constructed a large sea canoe. For fastenings they 
 used copper nails drawn from the wreck of their ship's 
 yawl, headed over burrs made from the copper pennies 
 of Brazil. Canvas, gear, clothes, and food they had 
 in plenty and on the thirteenth of May in 1888, it being 
 a fine day, they put to sea. The son traced their course 
 with his finger as they had sailed northward in the 
 strong trade winds and passed under the lee of the 
 Lesser Antilles. Later as a whaler, he had come to 
 know the islands more intimately. 
 
 "Here!" said he, pointing to the Grenadines, "you 
 will find the niggers chasing humpback whales." On 
 Saint Vincent I should find the Carib living in his own 
 way at Sandy Bay. Another island had known Joseph- 
 ine, the wife of Napoleon, and another had given us 
 our own Alexander Hamilton. And there were many 
 more things which I should come to know when I my- 
 self should cruise along the Lesser Antilles. 
 
 We talked it over. After the manner of the Carib, 
 I would sail from island to island alone in a canoe. 
 
 Next to the joy of making a cruise is that of the 
 planning and still greater to me was the joy of creat- 
 ing the Yakaboo which should carry me. I should ex- 
 plain that this is an expression used by Ellice islanders* 
 when they throw something overboard and it means 
 "Good-bye." " 'Good-bye' to civilisation for a while," 
 I thought, but later there were times when I feared the 
 name might have a more sinister meaning. So my 
 
 ♦In the Pacific Ocean just north of the Fiji group. 
 
84 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 craft was named before I put her down on paper. She 
 must be large enough to hold me and my outfit and yet 
 light enough so that alone I could drag her up any un- 
 inhabited beach where I might land. Most important 
 of all, she must be seaworthy in the real sense of the 
 word, for between the islands I should be at sea with 
 no lee for fifteen hundred miles. I got all this in a 
 length of seventeen feet and a width of thirty-nine 
 inches. From a plan of two dimensions on paper she 
 grew to a form of three dimensions in a little shop in 
 Boothbay and later, as you shall hear, exhibited a 
 fourth dimension as she gyrated in the seas off Kick 
 'em Jinny. The finished hull weighed less than her 
 skipper — one hundred and forty-seven pounds. 
 
 From a study of the pilot chart, I found that a pre- 
 vailing northeast trade-wind blows for nine months in 
 the year throughout the Lesser Antilles. According 
 to the "square rigger," this trade blows "fresh," which 
 means half a gale to the harbour-hunting yachtsman. 
 Instead of sailing down the wind from the north, I 
 decided to avoid the anxiety of following seas and to 
 beat into the wind from the lowest island which is 
 Grenada, just north of Trinidad. 
 
 My first plan was to ship on a whaler bound on a 
 long voyage. From Barbados, where she would touch 
 to pick up crew, I would sail the ninety miles to lee- 
 ward to Grenada. A wise Providence saw to it that 
 there was no whaler bound on a long voyage for 
 months. I did find a British trading steamer bound 
 out of New York for Grenada. She had no passenger 
 license, but it was my only chance, and I signed on 
 as A. B. 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 25 
 
 We left New York on one of those brilliant days of 
 January when the keen northwest wind has swept the 
 haze from the atmosphere leaving the air clear as 
 crystal. It was cold but I stood with a bravado air on 
 the grating over the engine room hatch from which 
 the warm air from the boilers rose through my clothes. 
 Below me on the dock and fast receding beyond yelling 
 distance stood a friend who had come to bid me good- 
 bye. By his side was a large leather bag containing 
 the heavy winter clothing I had sloughed only a few 
 minutes before. The warmth of my body would still 
 be in them, I thought, as the warmth clings to a hearth 
 of a winter's evening for a time after the fire has gone 
 out. In a day we should be in the Gulf Stream and 
 then for half a year I should wear just enough to pro- 
 tect me from the sun. Suddenly the tremble of the 
 steamer told me of an engine turning up more revolu- 
 tions and of a churning propeller. The dock was no 
 longer receding, we were leaving it behind. The mad 
 scramble of the last days in New York ; the hasty break- 
 fast of that morning; the antique musty-smelling cab 
 with its pitifully ambling horse, uncurried and furry in 
 the frosty air, driven by a whisky-smelling jehu; the 
 catching of the ferry by a narrow margin, were of a 
 past left far behind. Far out in the channel, that last 
 tentacle of civilisation, the pilot, bade us "good luck" 
 and then he also became of the Past. The Present was 
 the vibrating tramp beneath my feet and the Future 
 lay on our course to the South. 
 
 On the top of the cargo in the forehold was the 
 crated hull of the Yakaboo, the pretty little "mahogany 
 coffin," as they named her, that was going to carry me 
 
26 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 through five hundred miles of the most delightful deep 
 sea sailing one can imagine. I did not know that the 
 Pilot Book makes little mention of the "tricks of the 
 trades" as they strike the Caribbean, and that instead of 
 climbing up and sliding down the backs of Atlantic rol- 
 lers with an occasional smother of foam on top to 
 match the fleecy summer clouds, I would be pounded 
 and battered in short channel seas and that for only 
 thirty of the five hundred miles would my decks be 
 clear of water. It is the bliss of ignorance that tempts 
 the fool, but it is he who sees the wonders of the earth. 
 
 The next day we entered the Gulf Stream where we 
 were chased by a Northeaster which lifted the short 
 trader along with a wondrous corkscrew motion that 
 troubled no one but the real passengers — a load of 
 Missouri mules doomed to end their lives hauling pitch 
 in Trinidad. 
 
 On the eighth day, at noon, we spoke the lonely 
 island of Sombrero with its lighthouse and black keep- 
 ers whose only company is the passing steamer. The 
 man at the wheel ported his helm a spoke and we 
 steamed between Saba and Statia to lose sight of land 
 for another day — my first in the Caribbean. The 
 warm trade-wind, the skittering of flying-fish chased by 
 tuna or the swift dorade, and the rigging of awnings 
 proclaimed that we were now well within the tropics. 
 The next morning I awoke with the uneasy feeling that 
 all motion had ceased and that we were now lying in 
 smooth water. I stepped on deck in my pajamas to 
 feel for the first time the soft pressure of the tepid 
 morning breeze of the islands. 
 
 We lay under the lee of a high island whose green 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 27 
 
 mass rose, surf-fringed, from the deep blue of the Car- 
 ibbean to the deep blue of the morning sky with its 
 white clouds forever coming up from behind the moun- 
 tains and sailing away to the westward. Off our port 
 bow the grey buildings of a coast town spread out 
 along the shores and crept up the sides of a hill like 
 lichen on a rock. From the sonorous bell in a church 
 tower came seven deep notes which spread out over 
 the waters like a benediction. There was no sign of 
 a jetty or landing place, not even the usual small ship- 
 ping or even a steamer buoy, and I was wondering in 
 a sleepy way where we should land when a polite Eng- 
 lish voice broke in, "We are justly proud of the beau- 
 tiful harbour which you are to see for the first time I 
 take it." 
 
 I fetched up like a startled rabbit to behold a "West 
 Indie" gentleman standing behind me, "starched from 
 clew to earing" as Captain Slocum put it, and speaking 
 a better English than you or I. It was the harbour- 
 master. I was now sufficiently awake to recall from 
 my chart that the harbour of St. George's is almost 
 land-locked. As we stood and talked, the clanking 
 windlass lifted our stockless anchor with its load of 
 white coral sand and the steamer slowly headed for 
 shore. 
 
 The land under a rusty old fort seemed to melt away 
 before our bows and we slipped through into the 
 carenage of St. George's. We crept in till we filled the 
 basin like a toy ship in a miniature harbour. From the 
 bridge I was looking down upon a bit of the old world 
 in strange contrast, as my memory swung back across 
 two thousand miles of Atlantic, to the uncouth towns 
 
28 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 of our north. The houses, with their jalousied win- 
 dows, some of them white but more often washed with 
 a subdued orange or yellow, were of the French re- 
 gime, their weathered red tile roofs in pleasing con- 
 trast to the strong green of the surrounding hills. 
 
 Here in the old days, ships came to be careened in 
 order to rid their bottoms of the dread teredo. Under 
 our forefoot, in the innermost corner of the harbour, pi- 
 rate ships were wont to lie, completely hidden from the 
 view of the open sea. At one time this was a hornet's 
 nest, unmolested by the bravest, for who would run 
 into such a cul-de-sac protected as it was by the forts 
 and batteries on the hills above ? 
 
 Moored stern-to along the quays, was a fleet of small 
 trading sloops, shabby in rig and crude of build, wait- 
 ing for cargoes from our hold. Crawling slowly across 
 the harbour under the swinging impulse of long sweeps, 
 was a drogher piled high with bags of cocoa, a huge- 
 bodied bug with feeble legs. 
 
 Along the mole on the opposite side of the carenage 
 straggled an assortment of small wooden shacks, one 
 and two-storied, scarcely larger than play houses. 
 Among these my eyes came to rest on something which 
 was at once familiar. There stood a small cotton gin- 
 nery with shingled roof and open sides, an exact coun- 
 terpart of a corn-crib. I did not then know that in this 
 shed I should spend most of my days while in St. 
 George's. 
 
 The blast of our deep-throated whistle stirred the 
 town into activity as a careless kick swarms an ant-hill 
 with life, and the busy day of the quay began as we 
 were slowly warped-in to our dock. 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 29 
 
 A last breakfast with the Captain and Mate — and 
 I was ashore with my trunk and gear. The Yakaboo, 
 a mere toy in the clutch of the cargo boom, was yanked 
 swiftly out of the hold and lightly placed on the quay 
 where she was picked up and carried into the custom- 
 house by a horde of yelling blacks. Knowing no man, 
 I stood there for a moment feeling that I had suddenly 
 been dropped into a different world. But it was only 
 a different world because I did not know it and as for 
 knowing no man — I soon found that I had become a 
 member of a community of colonial Englishmen who 
 received me with open arms and put to shame any hos- 
 pitality I had hitherto experienced. As the nature of 
 my visit became known, I was given all possible aid in 
 preparing for my voyage. A place to tune up the 
 Yakaboo f A young doctor who owned the little gin- 
 nery on the far side of the carenage gave me the key 
 and told me to use it as long as I wished. 
 
 I now found that the cruise I had planned was not 
 altogether an easy one. According to the pilot chart 
 for the North Atlantic, by the little blue wind-rose in 
 the region of the lower Antilles, or Windward Islands 
 as they are called, I should find the trade blowing from 
 east to northeast with a force of four, which accord- 
 ing to Beaufort's scale means a moderate breeze of 
 twenty-three miles an hour. Imagine my surprise, 
 therefore, when I found that the wind seldom blew 
 less than twenty miles an hour and very often blew a 
 whole gale of sixty-five miles an hour. Moreover, at 
 this season of the year, I found that the "trade" would 
 be inclined to the northward and that my course 
 
30 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 through the Grenadines — the first seventy miles of my 
 cruise — would be directly into the wind's eye. 
 
 I had been counting on that magical figure (30) in 
 the circle of the wind-rose, which means that for every 
 thirty hours out of a hundred one may here expect 
 "calms, light airs, and variables." Not only this, but 
 I was informed that I should encounter a westerly tide 
 current which at times ran as high as six knots an 
 hour. To be sure, this tide current would change every 
 six hours to an easterly set which, though it would be 
 in my favour, would kick up a sea that would shake the 
 wind out of my sails and almost bring my canoe to a 
 stand-still. 
 
 Nor was this all. The sea was full of sharks and 
 I was told that if the seas did not get me the sharks 
 would. Seven inches of freeboard is a small obstacle 
 to a fifteen-foot shark. Had the argument stopped 
 with these three I would at this point gladly have pre- 
 sented my canoe to His Excellency the Governor, so 
 that he might plant it on his front lawn and grow 
 geraniums in the cockpit. Three is an evil number if 
 it is against you but a fourth argument came along and 
 the magic triad was broken. If seas, currents, and 
 sharks did not get me, I would be overcome by the 
 heat and be fever-stricken. 
 
 I slept but lightly that first night on shore. Instead 
 of being lulled to sleep by the squalls which blew 
 down from the mountains, I would find myself leaning 
 far out over the edge of the bed trying to keep from 
 being capsized by an impending comber. Finally my 
 imagination having reached the climax of its fiendish 
 trend, I reasoned calmly to myself. If I would sail 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 31 
 
 from island to island after the manner of the Carib, 
 why not seek out the native and learn the truth from 
 him? The next morning I found my man, with the 
 blood of the Yaribai tribe of Africa in him, who knew 
 the winds, currents, sharks, the heat, and the fever. 
 He brought to me the only Carib on the island, a boy 
 of sixteen who had fled to Grenada after the eruption 
 in Saint Vincent had destroyed his home and family. 
 
 From these two I learned the secret of the winds 
 which depend on the phases of the moon. They told 
 me to set sail on the slack of the lee tide and cover 
 my distance before the next lee tide ran strong. They 
 pointed out the fever beaches I should avoid and told 
 me not to bathe during the day, nor to uncover my 
 head — even to wipe my brow. I must never drink my 
 water cold and always put a little rum in it — and a 
 hundred other things which I did not forget. As for 
 the "shyark" — "You no troble him, he no bodder you." 
 "Troble" was used in the sense of tempt and I should 
 therefore never throw food scraps overboard or troll 
 a line astern. I also learned — this from an English- 
 man who had served in India — that if I wore a red 
 cloth, under my shirt, covering my spine, the actinic 
 rays of the sun would be stopped and I should not be 
 bothered by the heat. 
 
 It was with a lighter heart, then, that I set about to 
 rig my canoe — she was yet to be baptized — and to lick 
 my outfit into shape for the long cruise to the north- 
 ward. I could not have wished for a better place than 
 the cool ginnery which the doctor had put at my dis- 
 posal. Here with my Man Friday, I worked through 
 the heat of the day — we might have been out of doors 
 
m ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 for the soft winds from the hills filtered through the 
 open sides, bringing with them the dank odour of the 
 moist earth under shaded cocoa groves. Crowded 
 about the wide-open doors like a flock of strange sea 
 fowl, a group of black boatmen made innumerable com- 
 ments in their bubbling patois, while their eyes were 
 on my face in continual scrutiny. 
 
 And now, while I stop in the middle of the hot af- 
 ternoon to eat delicious sponge cakes and drink nu- 
 merous glasses of sorrel that have mysteriously found 
 their way from a little hut near by, it might not be amiss 
 to contemplate the Yakaboo through the sketchy haze 
 of a pipeful of tobacco. She did not look her length 
 of seventeen feet and with her overhangs would 
 scarcely be taken for a boat meant for serious cruis- 
 ing. Upon close examination, however, she showed a 
 powerful midship section that was deceiving and when 
 the natives lifted her off the horses — "O Lard! she 
 light !" — wherein lay the secret of her ability. Her 
 heaviest construction was in the middle third which 
 embodied fully half of her total weight. With her 
 crew and the heavier part of the outfit stowed in this 
 middle third she was surprisingly quick in a seaway. 
 With a breaking sea coming head on, her bow would 
 ride the foamy crest while her stern would drop into 
 the hollow behind, offering little resistance to the rising 
 bow. 
 
 She had no rudder, the steering being done entirely 
 by the handling of the main sheet. By a novel con- 
 struction of the center-board and the well in which the 
 board rolled forward and aft on sets of sheaves, I could 
 place the center of lateral resistance of the canoe's un- 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 33 
 
 derbody exactly below the center of effort of the sails 
 with the result that on a given course she would sail 
 herself. Small deviations such as those caused by waves 
 throwing her bow to leeward or sudden puffs that 
 tended to make her luff were compensated for by eas- 
 ing off or trimming in the mainsheet. In the absence 
 of the rudder-plane aft, which at times is a consider- 
 able drag to a swinging stern, this type of canoe eats 
 her way to windward in every squall, executing a "pi- 
 lot's luff" without loss of headway, and in puffy weather 
 will actually fetch slightly to windward of her course, 
 having more than overcome her drift. 
 
 She was no new or untried freak for I had already 
 cruised more than a thousand miles in her predecessor, 
 the only difference being that the newer boat was nine 
 inches greater in beam. On account of the increased 
 beam it was necessary to use oars instead of the custo- 
 mary double paddle. I made her wider in order to 
 have a stiffer boat and thus lessen the bodily fatigue 
 in sailing the long channel runs. 
 
 She was divided into three compartments of nearly 
 equal length — the forward hold, the cockpit, and the 
 afterhold. The two end compartments were acces- 
 sible through watertight hatches within easy reach of 
 the cockpit. The volume of the cockpit was diminished 
 by one half by means of a watertight floor raised above 
 the waterline — like the main-deck of a ship. This floor 
 was fitted with circular metal hatches through which 
 I could stow the heavier parts of my outfit in the hold 
 underneath. The cockpit proper extended for a length 
 of a little over six feet between bulkheads so that when 
 occasion demanded I could sleep in the canoe. 
 
34 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 Her rig consisted of two fore and aft sails of the 
 canoe type and a small jib. 
 
 An increasing impatience to open the Pandora's Box 
 which was waiting for me, hurried the work of prepa- 
 ration and in two weeks I was ready to start. The 
 Colonial Treasurer gave me a Bill of Health for the 
 Yakaboo as for any ship and one night I laid out my 
 sea clothes and packed my trunk to follow me as best 
 it could. 
 
 On the morning of February ninth I carried my out- 
 fit down to the quay in a drizzle. An inauspicious day 
 for starting on a cruise I thought. My Man Friday, 
 who had evidently read my thoughts, hastened to tell 
 me that this was only a little "cocoa shower." Even 
 as I got the canoe alongside the quay the sun broke 
 through the cloud bank on the hill tops and as the rain 
 ceased the small crowd which had assembled to see 
 me off came out from the protection of doorways as 
 I proceeded to stow the various parts of my nomadic 
 home. Into the forward compartment went the tent 
 like a reluctant green caterpillar, followed by the pegs, 
 sixteen pounds of tropical bacon, my cooking pails and 
 the "butterfly," a powerful little gasoline stove. Into 
 the after compartment disappeared more food, clothes, 
 two cans of fresh water, fuel for the "butterfly," films 
 in sealed tins, developing outfit and chemicals, ammu- 
 nition, and that most sacred of all things — the ditty 
 bag. 
 
 Under the cockpit floor I stowed paint, varnish, and 
 a limited supply of tinned food, all of it heavy and 
 excellent ballast in the right place. My blankets, in 
 a double oiled bag, were used in the cockpit as a seat 
 
.'< • " c 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 35 
 
 when rowing. Here I also carried two compasses, an 
 axe, my camera, and a chart-case with my portfolio 
 and log. I had also a high-powered rifle and a Colt's 
 thirty-eight-forty. 
 
 With all her load, the Yakaboo sat on the water as 
 jaunty as ever. The golden brown of her varnished 
 topsides and deck, her green boot-top and white sails 
 made her as inviting a craft as I had ever stepped into. 
 
 I bade good-bye to the men I had come to know as 
 friends and with a shove the canoe and I were clear of 
 the quay. The new clean sails hung from their spars 
 for a moment like the unprinted leaves of a book and 
 then a gentle puff came down from the hills, rippled 
 the glassy waters of the carenage and grew into a 
 breeze which caught the canoe and we were sailing 
 northward on the weather tide. I have come into the 
 habit of saying "we," for next to a dog or a horse 
 there is no companionship like that of a small boat. 
 The smaller a boat the more animation she has and 
 as for a canoe, she is not only a thing of life but is a 
 being of whims and has a sense of humour. Have you 
 ever seen a cranky canoe unburden itself of an awk- 
 ward novice and then roll from side to side in uncon- 
 trollable mirth, having shipped only a bare teacupful 
 of water? Even after one has become the master of 
 his craft there is no dogged servility and she will balk 
 and kick up her heels like a skittish colt. I have often 
 "scended" on the face of a mountainous following sea 
 with an exhilaration that made me whoop for joy, 
 only to have the canoe whisk about in the trough and 
 look me in the face as if to say, "You fool, did you 
 want me to go through the next one?" Let a canoe 
 
36 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 feel that you are afraid of her and she will become your 
 master with the same intuition that leads a thorough- 
 bred to take advantage of the tremor he feels through 
 the reins. At every puff she will forget to sail and 
 will heel till her decks are under. Hold her down 
 firmly, speak encouragingly, stroke her smooth sides 
 and she will fly through a squall without giving an inch. 
 We were already acquainted for I had twice had her 
 out on trial spins and we agreed upon friendship as our 
 future status. 
 
 It has always been my custom to go slow for the first 
 few days of a cruise, a policy especially advisable in 
 the tropics. After a morning of delightful coasting 
 past the green hills of Grenada, touched here and there 
 with the crimson flamboyant like wanton splashes from 
 the brush of an impressionist, and occasional flights 
 over shoals that shone white, brown, yellow and copper 
 through the clear bluish waters, I hauled the Yakaboo 
 up on the jetty of the picturesque little coast town of 
 Goyave and here I loafed through the heat of the day 
 in the cool barracks of the native constabulary. I 
 spent the night on the hard canvas cot in the Rest 
 Room. 
 
 It was on the second day that the lid of Pandora's 
 Box sprang open and the imps came out. My log 
 reads: "After beating for two hours into a stiff wind 
 that came directly down the shore, I found that the 
 canoe was sinking by the head and evidently leaking 
 badly in the forward compartment. Distance from 
 shore one mile. The water was pouring in through the 
 centerboard well and I discovered that the bailing 
 plugs in the cockpit floor were useless so that she re- 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 37 
 
 tained every drop that she shipped. I decided not to 
 attempt bailing and made for shore with all speed. 
 Made Duquesne Point at n A. M., where the canoe 
 sank in the small surf." 
 
 She lay there wallowing like a contented pig while 
 I stepped out on the beach. "Well!" she seemed to 
 say, "I brought you ashore — do you want me to walk 
 up the beach ?" A loaded canoe, full of water and 
 with her decks awash, is as obstinate as a mother-in- 
 law who has come for the summer — and I swore. 
 
 My outfit, for the most part, was well protected in 
 the oiled bags which I had made. It was not shaken 
 down to a working basis, however, and I found a 
 quantity of dried cranberries in a cotton bag — a sod- 
 den mass of red. With a yank of disgust, I heaved 
 them over my shoulder and they landed with a grunt. 
 Turning around I saw a six-foot black with a round 
 red pattern on the bosom of his faded cotton shirt, 
 wondering what it was all about. I smiled and he 
 laughed while the loud guffaws of a crowd of natives 
 broke the tension of their long silence. The West 
 Indian native has an uncomfortable habit of appearing 
 suddenly from nowhere and he is especially fond of 
 following a few paces behind one on a lonely road. 
 As for being able to talk to these people, I might as 
 well have been wrecked on the coast of Africa and 
 tried to hold discourse with their ancestors. But the 
 men understood my trouble and carried my canoe 
 ashore where I could rub beeswax into a seam which 
 had opened wickedly along her forefoot. 
 
 Picturing a speedy luncheon over the buzzing little 
 "butterfly" I lifted it off its cleats in the forward com- 
 
38 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 partment, only to find that its arms were broken. The 
 shifting of the outfit in the seaway off shore had put 
 the stove out of commission. I was now in a land 
 where only woodworking tools were known so that any 
 repairs were out of the question. I was also in a land 
 where the sale of gasoline was prohibited.* 
 
 My one gallon of gasoline would in time have been 
 exhausted, a philosophical thought which somewhat 
 lessened the sense of my disappointment. And let this 
 be a lesson to all travellers in strange countries — follow 
 the custom of the country in regard to fires and cook- 
 ing. The breaking of the "butterfly*' only hastened my 
 acquaintance with the delightful mysteries of the "coal- 
 pot." Wood fires are but little used in these islands 
 for drift-wood is scarce and the green wood is so full 
 of moisture that it can with difficulty be made to burn. 
 Up in the hills the carbonari make an excellent char- 
 coal from the hard woods of the tropical forests and 
 this is burned in an iron or earthen-ware brazier known 
 as the coal-pot. 
 
 By means of the sign language, which consisted 
 chiefly in rubbing my stomach with one hand while 
 with the other I put imaginary food into my mouth, 
 the natives understood my need and I soon had one of 
 my little pails bubbling over a glowing coal-pot. 
 
 The promise of rain warned me to put up my tent 
 although I could have been no wetter than I was. 
 Food, a change of dry clothes and a pipe of tobacco 
 will work wonders at a time like this and as I sat in 
 my tent watching the drizzle pock-mark the sands 
 
 * On account of the danger of its use in the hands of careless 
 natives. 
 
—, «*».«. 
 
• * 
 
 • I 
 « t 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 39 
 
 outside, I began to feel that things might not be so bad 
 after all. This, however, was one of those nasty 
 fever beaches against which my Man Friday had 
 warned me, so that with the smiling of the sun at three 
 o'clock, I was afloat again. The Yakaboo had been 
 bullied into some semblance of tightness. By rowing 
 close along shore we reached Tangalanga Point with- 
 out taking up much water. 
 
 -■ — n-T.-i -»-»-> -it 
 
 t=F^ 
 
 -i'-JJ,'-'. i^. ^J-i.^.. 
 
 1 
 1 
 r 
 
 J 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 i 
 • 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 Iron Coal-Pot of the West Indies 
 
 I was now at the extreme northern end of Grenada 
 and could see the Grenadines that I should come to 
 know so well stretching away to windward.* They 
 rose, mountain peaks out of the intense blue of the sea, 
 picturesque but not inviting. As I looked across the 
 channel, whitened by the trade-wind which was blow- 
 ing a gale, I wondered whether after all I had under- 
 estimated the Caribbean. Sauteurs lay some two miles 
 
 ♦In these parts northeast and windward are synonymous, also 
 southwest and leeward. 
 
40 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 around the point and I now set sail for the first time 
 in the open sea. 
 
 In my anxiety lest the canoe should fill again I ran 
 too close to the weather side of the point and was caught 
 in a combing sea which made the Yakaboo gasp for 
 breath. She must have heard the roar of the wicked 
 surf under her lee for she shouldered the green seas 
 from her deck and staggered along with her cockpit full 
 of water till we were at last safe, bobbing up and down 
 in the heavy swell behind the reef off Sauteurs. The 
 surf was breaking five feet high on the beach and I 
 dared not land even at the jetty for fear of smashing 
 the canoe. 
 
 A figure on the jetty motioned to a sloop which I 
 ran alongside. The outfit was quickly transferred to 
 the larger boat and the canoe tailed off with a long 
 scope of line. In the meantime a whaleboat was bob- 
 bing alongside and I jumped aboard. As we rose 
 close to the jetty on a big sea, a dozen arms reached 
 out like the tentacles of an octopus and pulled me up 
 into their mass while the whaleboat dropped from 
 under me into the hollow of the sea. 
 
 Whatever my misfortunes may be, there is always 
 a law of compensation which is as infallible as that of 
 Gravity. One of those arms which pulled me up be- 
 longed to Jack Wildman, a Scotch cocoa buyer who 
 owned a whaling station on lle-de-Caille, the first of 
 the Grenadines. By the time we reached the cocoa 
 shop near the end of the jetty the matter was already 
 arranged. Jack would send for his whalers to convoy 
 me to his island and there I could stay as long as I 
 wished. The island, he told me, was healthy and I 
 
THE YAKABOO IS BORN— CRUISE BEGINS 41 
 
 could live apart from the whalers undisturbed in the 
 second story of his little whaling shack. Here I could 
 overhaul my outfit when I did not care to go chasing 
 humpbacks, and under the thatched roof of the try- 
 works I could prepare my canoe in dead earnest for 
 the fight I should have through the rest of the islands. 
 That night I slept on the stiff canvas cot in the Rest 
 Room of the police station — a room which is reserved 
 by the Government for the use of travelling officials, 
 for there are no hotels or lodging houses in these parts. 
 From where I lay, I could look out upon the channel 
 bathed in the strong tropical moonlight. The trade 
 which is supposed to drop at sunset blew fresh through- 
 out the night and by raising my head I could see the 
 gleam of white caps. For the first time I heard that 
 peculiar swish of palm tops which sounds like the pat- 
 tering of rain. Palmer, a member of the revenue ser- 
 vice, who had come into my room in his pajamas, ex- 
 plained to me that the low driving mist which I thought 
 was fog was in reality spindrift carried into the air 
 from the tops of the seas. My thoughts went to the 
 Yakaboo bobbing easily at the end of her long line 
 in the open roadstead. All the philosophy of small 
 boat sailing came back to me and I fell asleep with 
 the feeling that she would carry me safely through 
 the boisterous seas of the Grenadine channel. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 
 
 THERE were thirteen of them when I landed on 
 lle-de-Caille — the twelve black whalemen who 
 manned the boats and the negress who did the cook- 
 ing — and they looked upon me with not a little sus- 
 picion. 
 
 What manner of man was this who sailed alone in a 
 canoe he could almost carry on his back, fearing neither 
 sea nor jumbie, the hobgoblin of the native, and who 
 now chose to live with them a while just to chase 
 "humpbacks"? Jack Wildman was talking to them 
 in their unintelligible patois, a hopeless stew of early 
 French and English mixed with Portuguese, when I 
 turned to Jose Olivier and explained that now with 
 fourteen on the island the spell of bad luck which had 
 been with them from the beginning of the season would 
 end. The tone of my voice rather than what I said re- 
 assured him. 
 
 "Aal roit," he said, "you go stroke in de A active 
 to-morrow.* ' 
 
 Between Grenada and Saint Vincent, the next large 
 island to the north, lie the Grenadines in that seventy 
 miles of channel where "de lee an' wedder toid" alter- 
 nately bucks and pulls the northeast trades and the 
 equatorial current, kicking up a sea that is known all 
 
 42 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 43 
 
 over the world for its deviltry. lle-de-Caille is the first 
 of these. 
 
 In this channel from January to May, the humpback 
 whale, megaptera versabilis, as he is named from the 
 contour of his back, loafs on his way to the colder 
 waters of the North Atlantic. For years the New 
 Bedford whaler has been lying-in among these islands 
 to pick up crews, and it is from him that the negro has 
 learned the art of catching the humpback. 
 
 While the humpback is seldom known to attack a 
 boat, shore whaling from these islands under the tick- 
 lish conditions of wind and current, with the crude 
 ballasted boats that go down when they fill and the 
 yellow streak of the native which is likely to crop out 
 at just the wrong moment, is extremely dangerous and 
 the thought of it brings the perspiration to the ends 
 of my fingers as I write this story. One often sees a 
 notice like this: u May ist, 1909. — A whaleboat with 
 a crew of five men left Sauteurs for Union Island; 
 not since heard of." 
 
 The men were not drunk, neither was the weather 
 out of the ordinary. During the short year since I 
 was with them* four of the men I whaled with have 
 been lost at sea. With the negro carelessness is always 
 a great factor, but here the wind and current are a still 
 greater one. Here the trade always seems to blow 
 strongly and at times assumes gale force "w'en de 
 moon chyange." 
 
 This wind, together with the equatorial current, 
 augments the tide which twice a day combs through 
 the islands in some places as fast as six knots an hour. 
 
 *This was written in 1913. 
 
44 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 During the intervals of weather tide the current is 
 stopped somewhat, but a sea is piled up which shakes 
 the boat as an angry terrier does a rat. It is always 
 a fight for every inch to windward, and God help the 
 unfortunate boat that is disabled and carried away 
 from the islands into the blazing calm fifteen hundred 
 miles to leeward. For this reason the Lesser Antilles 
 from Trinidad to Martinique are known as the Wind- 
 ward Islands. 
 
 And so these fellows have developed a wonderful 
 ability to eat their way to windward and gain the help 
 of wind and tide in towing their huge catches ashore. 
 Even a small steamer could not tow a dead cow against 
 the current, as I found out afterward. While the 
 humpback is a "shore whale," the more valuable 
 deep-water sperm whale is also seen and occasionally 
 caught. True to his deep-water instinct he usually 
 passes along the lee of the islands in the deeper waters 
 entirely out of reach of the shore whaler who may see 
 his spout day after day only a few tantalising miles 
 away. A sperm whale which by chance got off the 
 track was actually taken by the men at Bequia, who in 
 their ignorance threw away that diseased portion, the 
 ambergris, which might have brought them thousands 
 of dollars and kept them in rum till the crack of doom. 
 
 As we stood and talked with Jose, my eyes wandered 
 over the little whaling cove where we had landed, al- 
 most landlocked by the walls of fudge-like lava that 
 bowled up around it. The ruined walls of the cabaret, 
 where in the days of Napoleon rich stores of cotton 
 and sugar were kept as a foil for the far richer de- 
 posit of rum and tobacco hidden in the cave on the 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 45 
 
 windward side, had their story which might come out 
 later with the persuasion of a little tobacco. 
 
 The tryworks, like vaults above ground with the 
 old iron pots sunk into their tops, gave off the musty 
 rancid smell of whale oil that told of whales that had 
 been caught, while a line drying on the rocks, one end 
 of it frayed out like the tail of a horse, told of a wild 
 ride that had come to a sudden stop. But most inter- 
 esting of all were the men — African — with here and 
 there a shade of Portuguese and Carib, or the pure 
 Yaribai, superstitious in this lazy atmosphere where 
 the mind has much time to dwell on tales of jumbie and 
 lajoblesse* moody and sullen from the effects of a 
 disappointing season. So far they had not killed a 
 whale and it was now the twelfth of February. 
 
 But even the natives were becoming uneasy in the 
 heat of the noon and at a word from Jose two of them 
 picked up the canoe and laid her under the tryworks 
 roof while the rest of us formed a caravan with the 
 outfit and picked our way up the sharp, rocky path to 
 the level above where the trade always blows cool. 
 
 Here Jack had built a little two-storied shack, the 
 upper floor of which he reserved for his own use when 
 he visited the island. This was to be my home. The 
 lower part was divided into two rooms by a curtain 
 behind which Jose, as befitting the captain of the sta- 
 tion, slept in a high bed of the early French days. In 
 the other room was a rough table where I could eat 
 and write my log after a day in the whaleboats, with 
 
 * The spirits of negro women who have died in illegitimate child- 
 birth. 
 
46 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 the wonderful sunset of the tropics before me framed 
 in the open doorway. 
 
 I later discovered that the fractional member of the 
 station, a small male offshoot of the Olivier family, 
 made his bed on a pile of rags under the table. We 
 were really fourteen and a half. In another sense he 
 reminded me of the fraction, for his little stomach — 
 distended from much banana and plantain eating — 
 protruded like the half of a calabash. A steep stair 
 led through a trap door to my abode above. This I 
 turned into a veritable conjurer's shop. From the 
 spare line which I ran back and forth along the cross 
 beams under the roof, I hung clothes, bacon, food 
 bags, camera, guns and pots, out of the reach of the 
 enormous rats which overrun the island. On each 
 side, under the low roof, were two small square win- 
 dows through which, by stooping, I could, see the 
 Caribbean. By one of these I shoved the canvas cot 
 with its net to keep out the mosquitoes and tarantulas — 
 I scarcely know which I dreaded most. Bars on the 
 inside of the shutters and a lock on the trap door 
 served to keep out those Ethiopian eyes which feel and 
 handle as well as look. 
 
 Near the shack was a cabin with two rooms, one 
 with a bunk for the cook. The other room was ut- 
 terly bare except for wide shelves around the sides 
 where the whalemen slept, their bed clothing con- 
 sisting for the most part of worn out cocoa bags. 
 
 Almost on a line between the cabin and the shack 
 stood the ajoupa, a small hut made of woven withes, 
 only partially roofed over, where the cook prepared 
 the food over the native coal-pots. As I looked at it, 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 47 
 
 I thought of the similar huts in which Columbus found 
 the grewsome cannibal cookery of the Caribs when 
 he landed on Guadeloupe. A strange place to be in, I 
 thought, with only the Scotch face of Jack and the 
 familiar look of my own duffle to remind me of the 
 civilisation whence I had come. And even stranger if 
 I had known that later in one of these very islands I 
 should find a descendant of the famous St. Hilaire 
 family still ruling under a feudal system the land where 
 her ancestors lived like princes in the days when one 
 of them was a companion of the Empress Josephine. 
 
 Even our meal was strange as we sat by the open 
 doorway and watched the swift currents eddy around 
 the island, cutting their way past the smoother water 
 under the rocks. The jack-fish, not unlike the perch 
 caught in colder waters, was garnished with the hot 
 little "West Indie" peppers that burn the tongue like 
 live coals. Then there was the fat little manicou or 
 'possum, which tasted like a sweet little suckling pig. I 
 wondered at the skill of the cook, whose magic was 
 performed over a handful of coals from the charred 
 logwood, in an iron kettle or two. Nearly everything 
 is boiled or simmered; there is little frying and hardly 
 any baking. 
 
 With the manicou we drank the coarse native choco- 
 late sweetened with the brown syrupy sugar* of the 
 islands. I did not like it at first, there was a by-taste 
 that was new to me. But I soon grew fond of it and 
 found that it gave me a wonderful strength for rowing 
 in the heavy whale-boats, cutting blubber and the ter- 
 rific sweating in the tropical heat. As early as 1695 
 
 * Muscovado. 
 
48 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 Pere Labat in his enthusiasm truly said, "As for me, I 
 stand by the advice of the Spanish doctors who agree 
 that there is more nourishment in one ounce of choco- 
 late than in half a pound of beef." 
 
 At sunset Jack left for Grenada in one of the whale* 
 boats, and I made myself snug in the upper floor of the 
 shack. Late that night I awoke and looking out over 
 the Caribbean, blue in the strong clear moonlight, I 
 saw the white sail of the returning whaleboat glide into 
 the cove and was lulled to sleep again by the plaintive 
 chanty of the whalemen as they sang to dispel the 
 imaginary terrors that lurk in the shadows of the cove. 
 
 u Blo-o-ows I" came with the sun the next morning, 
 followed by a fierce pounding on the underside of the 
 trap door. Bynoe, the harpooner, had scarcely reached 
 the lookout on the top of the hill when he saw a spout 
 only two miles to windward near Les Tantes. The 
 men were already by the boats as I ran half naked 
 down the path and dumped my camera in the stern of 
 the Active by "de bum (bomb) box," as Jose directed. 
 With a string of grunts, curses and "oh-hee's" we got 
 the heavy boats into the water and I finished dressing 
 while the crews put in "de rock-stone" for ballast. As 
 we left the cove we rowed around the north end of 
 the island, our oars almost touching the steep rocky 
 shore in order to avoid the strong current that swept 
 between Caille and Ronde. 
 
 When Jose said, "You go stroke in de A active" I 
 little knew what was in store for me. The twenty- 
 foot oak oar, carried high above the thwart and almost 
 on a line with the hip, seemed the very inbeing of un- 
 wieldiness. The blade was scarcely in the water before 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 49 
 
 the oar came well up to the chest and the best part of 
 the stroke was made with the body stretched out in a 
 straight line — we nearly left our thwarts at every 
 stroke — the finish being made with the hands close up 
 under our chins. In the recovery we pulled our bodies 
 up against the weight of the oar, feathering at the 
 same time — a needless torture, for the long narrow 
 blade was almost as thick as it was wide. Why the 
 rowlock should be placed so high and so near the 
 thwart I do not know; the Yankee whaler places the 
 rowlock about a foot farther aft. 
 
 While the humpbacker has not departed widely from 
 the ways of his teacher a brief description of his out- 
 fit may not be amiss. His boat is the same large 
 double-ended sea-canoe of the Yankee but it has lost 
 the graceful ends and the easy lines of the New Bed- 
 ford craft. Almost uncouth in its roughness, the well 
 painted topsides, usually a light grey with the black of 
 the tarred bottom and boot-top showing, give it a 
 ship-shape appearance; while the orderly confusion of 
 the worn gear and the tarry smell coming up from 
 under the floors lend an air of adventure in harmony 
 with the men who make up its crew. 
 
 The crew of six take their positions beginning with 
 the harpooner in the bow in the following order : bow- 
 oar, mid-oar, tub-oar, stroke and boatsteerer. For 
 the purpose of making fast to the whale the harpooner 
 uses two "irons" thrown by hand. The "iron" is a 
 sharp wrought iron barb, having a shank about two 
 feet long to which the shaft is fastened. The "first" 
 iron is made fast to the end of the whale line, the first 
 few fathoms of which are coiled on the small foredeck 
 
50 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 or "box." This is the heaving coil and is known as 
 the "box line." The line then passes aft through the 
 bow chocks to the loggerhead, a smooth round oak bitt 
 stepped through the short deck in the stern, around 
 which a turn or two are thrown to give a braking ac- 
 tion as the whale takes the line in its first rush. 
 
 From the loggerhead, the line goes forward to the 
 tub amidships in which 150 fathoms are coiled down. 
 The "second" iron is fastened to a short warp, the 
 end of which is passed around the main line in a bow- 
 line so that it will run freely. In case of accident to 
 the first, the second iron may hold and the bowline 
 will then toggle on the first. Immediately after the 
 whale is struck, the line is checked in such a manner 
 that the heavy boat can gather headway, usually against 
 the short, steep seas of the "trades," without produc- 
 ing too great a strain on the gear. The humpbacker 
 loses many whales through the parting of his line, for 
 his boat is not only heavily constructed but carries a 
 considerable weight of stone ballast — "rock-stone" — 
 to steady it when sailing. The Yankee, in a boat 
 scarcely heavier than his crew, holds the line immedi- 
 ately after the strike and makes a quick killing. He 
 only gives out line when a whale sounds or shows 
 fight. He makes his kill by cutting into the vitals of 
 the whale with a long pole lance, reserving the less 
 sportsmanlike but more expeditious bomb gun for a 
 last resort, while the humpbacker invariably uses the 
 latter. 
 
 A jib and sprit-sail are carried, the latter having a 
 gaff and boom, becketed for quick hoisting and lower- 
 ing. Instead of using the convenient "tabernacle" by 
 
< . « • • c 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 51 
 
 which the Yankee can drop his rig by the loosening of 
 a pin, the humpbacker awkwardly steps his mast 
 through a thwart into a block on the keel. 
 
 The strike may be made while rowing or under full 
 sail, according to the position of the boat when a whale 
 is "raised." Because of the position of its eyes, the 
 whale cannot see directly fore and aft, his range of 
 vision being, limited like that of a person standing in 
 the cabin of a steamer and looking out through the 
 port. The whaler takes advantage of this, making his 
 approach along the path in which the whale is travel- 
 ling. The early whalemen called the bow of the boat 
 the "head," whence the expression, "taking them head- 
 and-head," when the boat is sailing down on a school 
 of whales. 
 
 "Ease-de-oar I" yelled Jose, for we were now out of 
 the current, bobbing in the open sea to windward of 
 Caille where the "trade" was blowing half a gale. 
 We shipped our oars, banking them over the gunwale 
 with the blades aft. The other boat had pulled up 
 and it was a scramble to see who would get the wind- 
 ward berth. 
 
 "You stan' af an' clar de boom," he said to me, as 
 the men ran the heavy mast up with a rush while the 
 harpooner aimed the foot as it dropped through, the 
 hole in the thwart and into its step — a shifty trick 
 with the dripping nose of the boat pointed skyward one 
 instant and the next buried deep in the blue of the At- 
 lantic. 
 
 "Becket de gyaf — run ou' de boom — look shyarp !" 
 With a mighty sweep of his steering oar, Jose pried 
 our stern around and we got the windward berth on the 
 
52 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 starboard tack. One set of commands had sufficed for 
 both boats; we were close together, and they seemed 
 to follow up the scent like a couple of joyous Orchas. 
 Now I began to understand the philosophy of u de 
 rock-stone 1 ' for we slid along over the steep breaking 
 seas scarcely taking a drop of spray into the boat. As 
 I sat on the weather rail, I had an opportunity to study 
 the men in their element. The excitement of the start 
 had been edged off by the work at the oars. We 
 might have been on a pleasure sail instead of a whale 
 hunt. In fact, there was no whale to be seen for "de 
 balen* soun'," as Jose said in explanation of the ab- 
 sence of the little cloud of steam for which we were 
 looking. Daniel-Joe, our harpooner, had already bent 
 on his "first" iron and was lazily throwing the end of 
 the short warp of his "second" to the main line while 
 keeping an indefinite lookout over the starboard bow. 
 He might have been coiling a clothesline in the back 
 yard and thinking of the next Policeman's Ball. 
 
 The bow-oar, swaying on the loose stay to weather, 
 took up the range of vision while we of the weather 
 rail completed the broadside. Jose, who had taken in 
 his long steering oar and dropped the rudder in its 
 pintles, was "feeling" the boat through the long tiller 
 in that absent way of the man born to the sea. With 
 a sort of dual vision he watched the sails and the sea 
 to windward at the same time. "Wet de leach!" and 
 "Cippie," the tub-oar, let himself down carefully to 
 the lee rail where he scooped up water in a large cala- 
 bash, swinging his arm aft in a quick motion, and then 
 
 [ *From the French balein, meaning whale. 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 53 
 
 threw it up into the leach to shrink the sail where it 
 was flapping. 
 
 Time after time I was on the point of giving the 
 yell only to find that my eye had been fooled by a 
 distant white cap. But finally it did come, that little 
 perpendicular jet dissipated into a cloud of steam as 
 the wind caught it, distinct from the white caps as the 
 sound of a rattle-snake from the rustle of dry leaves. 
 It was a young bull, loafing down the lee tide not far 
 from where Bynoe had first sighted him. 
 
 Again he sounded but only for a short time and 
 again we saw his spout half a mile under our lee. We 
 had oversailed him. As we swung off the wind he 
 sounded. In a time too short to have covered the 
 distance, I thought, Jose gave the word to the crew 
 who unshipped the rig, moving about soft-footed like 
 a lot of big black cats without making the slightest 
 knock against the planking of the boat. 
 
 We got our oars out and waited. Captain Caesar 
 held the other boat hove-to a little to windward of us. 
 Then I remembered the lee tide and knew that we must 
 be somewhere over the bull. Suddenly Jose whispered, 
 u De wale sing!" I thought he was fooling at first, 
 the low humming coming perhaps from one of the 
 men, but there was no mistaking the sound. I placed 
 my ear against the planking from which it came in a 
 distinct note like the low tone of a 'cello. While I 
 was on my hands and knees listening to him the sound 
 suddenly ceased. "Look!" yelled Jose, as the bull 
 came up tail first, breaking water less than a hundred 
 yards from us, his immense flukes fully twenty feet 
 out of the water. 
 
54 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 Time seemed to stop while my excited brain took in 
 the cupid's bow curve of the flukes dotted with large 
 white barnacles like snowballs plastered on a black 
 wall, while in reality it was all over in a flash — a sight 
 too unexpected for the camera. Righting himself, he 
 turned to windward, passing close to the other boat. 
 It was a long chance but Bynoe took it, sending his 
 harpoon high into the air, followed by the snaky line. 
 
 A perfect eye was behind the strong arm that had 
 thrown it and the iron fell from its height to sink deep 
 into the flesh aft of the fin. As the line became taut, 
 the boat with its rig still standing gathered headway, 
 following the whale in a smother of foam, the sails 
 cracking in the wind like revolver shots while a thin 
 line of smoke came from the loggerhead. Caesar 
 must have been snubbing his line too much, however, 
 for in another moment it parted, leaving a boatload 
 of cursing, jabbering negroes a hundred yards or more 
 from their starting point. The bull left for more 
 friendly waters. The tension of the excitement hav- 
 ing snapped with the line, a volley of excuses came 
 down the wind to us which finally subsided into a 
 philosophical, "It wuz de will ob de Lard." 
 
 Whaling was over for that day and we sailed back 
 to the cove to climb the rocks to the ajoupa where we 
 filled our complaining stomachs with manicou and 
 chocolate. While we ate the sun dropped behind the 
 ragged fringe of clouds on the horizon and the day 
 suddenly ended changing into the brilliant starlit night 
 of the tropics. Even if we had lost our whale, the spell 
 was at last broken for we had made a strike. Bynoe's 
 pipe sizzled and bubbled with my good tobacco as he 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 55 
 
 told of the dangers of Kick 'em Jinny or Diamond 
 Rock on the other side of Ronde. 
 
 The men drew close to the log where we were sit- 
 ting as I told of another Diamond Rock off Martinique 
 of which you shall hear in due time. Bynoe in turn 
 told of how he had helped in the rescue of an unfortu- 
 nate from a third Diamond Rock off the coast of Cayan 
 (French Guiana) where the criminal punishment used 
 to be that of putting a man on the rock at low tide and 
 leaving him a prey to the sharks when the sea should 
 rise. But there was something else on Bynoe's mind. 
 The same thing seemed to occur to Caesar, who ad- 
 dressed him in patois. Then the harpooner asked me : 
 
 "An' you not in thees ilan' before?" 
 
 I lighted my candle lamp and spread my charts out 
 on the ground before the whalers. As I showed them 
 their own Grenadines their wonder knew no bounds. 
 Charts were unknown to them. Now they understood 
 the magic by which I knew what land I might be ap- 
 proaching — even if I had never been there before. 
 
 Most of the names of the islands are French or 
 Carib; even the few English names were unknown to 
 the men, who used the names given to the islands be- 
 fore they were finally taken over by the British. One 
 which interested me was Bird Island, which they called 
 Mouchicarri, a corruption of Mouchoir Carre or 
 Square Handkerchief. This must have been a favour- 
 ite expression in the old days for a whitened shoal or a 
 low lying island where the surf beats high and white, 
 for there is a Mouchoir Carre off Guadeloupe, another 
 in the Bahamas and we have our own Handkerchief 
 Shoals. From the lack of English names it is not at 
 
56 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 all unreasonable to suppose that it was a Frenchman 
 who first explored the Grenadines. Columbus, on his 
 hunt for the gold of Veragua, saw the larger islands 
 of Grenada and Saint Vincent from a distance and 
 named them without having set foot on them. Mar- 
 tinique was the first well established colony in the Les- 
 ser Antilles and from that island a boatload of ad- 
 venturers may have sailed down the islands, naming 
 one of the Grenadines Petit Martinique, from their 
 own island, because of its striking similarity of con- 
 tour, rising into a small counterpart of Pelee. Also, 
 it was more feasible to sail down from Martinique 
 than to buck the wind and current in the long channel 
 from Trinidad. 
 
 As the fire in the ajoupa died down, the men drew 
 closer and closer to the friendly light of my candle, 
 away from the spooky shadows, and when I bade them 
 good night they were behind the tightly closed door 
 and shutters of their cabin by the time I had reached 
 my roost in the top of the shack. 
 
 For several days after our first strike the cry of 
 "blows" would bring us "all standing" and we would 
 put to sea only to find that the whale had made off to 
 windward or had loafed into those tantalising currents 
 to leeward where we could see it but dared not follow. 
 Finally our chance came again — and almost slipped 
 away under our very noses. 
 
 We had been following a bull and a cow and calf 
 since sunrise. At last they sounded an hour before 
 sunset. We had eaten no food since the night before 
 and all day long the brown-black almost hairless calves 
 of the men had been reminding me in an agonising way 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 57 
 
 of the breast of roasted duck. The constant tacking 
 back and forth, the work of stepping and unshipping 
 the rig, the two or three rain squalls which washed the 
 salt spray out of our clothes and made us cold, had 
 tired us and dulled our senses. Suddenly the keen 
 Bynoe, with the eyes of a pelican, gave the yell. There 
 they were, scarcely a hundred yards from us. The bull 
 had gone his way. I was in Caesar's boat this time and 
 as Bynoe was considered the better of the two har- 
 pooners we made for the calf and were soon fast. 
 
 If ever a prayer were answered through fervency 
 our line would have parted and spared this baby — al- 
 though it seems a travesty to call a creature twenty- 
 eight feet long a baby. But it was a baby compared 
 to its mother, who was sixty-eight feet long. As the 
 calf was welling up its life blood, giving the sea a tinge 
 that matched the colour of the dying sun, the devoted 
 mother circled around us, so close that we could have 
 put our second iron into her. 
 
 It is always this way with a cow and her calf. The 
 first or more skillful boat's crew secures the calf while 
 the mother's devotion makes the rest easy for the 
 other boat. There was no slip this time and the pro- 
 gramme was carried out without a hitch. Jose bore 
 down in the Active and Daniel- Joe sent his iron home 
 with a yell. We stopped our work of killing for the mo- 
 ment to watch them as they melted away in the fading 
 light, a white speck that buried itself in the darkness of 
 the horizon. It was an all-night row for us, now in 
 the lee tide, now in the weather tide, towing this 
 baby — a task that seemed almost as hopeless as towing 
 
58 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 a continent. But we made progress and by morning 
 were back in the cove. 
 
 Having eaten three times and cut up the calf, we 
 sailed for Sauteurs late in the afternoon for news of 
 Jose and the cow. Jose's flight from Mouchicarri, 
 where we had struck the whales, had been down the 
 windward coast of Grenada. We were met on the 
 jetty by Jack, who told us that the cow had been killed 
 at the other end of Grenada and would not start till 
 the next noon. He had made arrangements for the 
 little coasting steamer, Taw, to tow the carcass up 
 from St. George's. 
 
 And so the cow would make the circuit of the island, 
 the first part very much alive, towing a crew of ne- 
 groes half dead from fright and the last of the way 
 being towed very much dead. While we had been 
 rowing our hearts out, Jose and his crew had been 
 streaking it behind the whale, not daring to pull up in 
 the darkness for the "kill." 
 
 At dawn they despatched the weakened animal more 
 than thirty miles from their starting point. We learned 
 later that, although the wind and tide had been in their 
 favour and as they neared shore other boats had put 
 out to reach them, they did not reach St. George's till 
 eleven the following night. They had made half a 
 mile an hour. 
 
 As we turned in on the floor of Jack's cocoa shop, I 
 began to have visions of something "high" in the line 
 of whale on the morrow. I knew the Taw. She could 
 not possibly tow the whale any faster than three miles 
 an hour and would not leave St. George's till one 
 o'clock the next day. The distance was twenty-one 
 
r- 
 
 M 
 
 
 UNSHIPPING THE RIG. 
 
c t t < < 
 
 , < £ t C < 
 
 ' c I * ' 
 
 < < , ( t * 
 
 t , * J I c < • « 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 59 
 
 miles, so that by the time she could be cut-in the whale 
 would have been dead three nights and two days. I 
 no longer regretted the wild night ride I had missed. 
 
 The next afternoon we were again in the whaleboat, 
 Jack with us. Our plan was to wait near London 
 Bridge, a natural arch of rocks half way between Sau- 
 teurs and Caille and a little to windward. We did 
 this to entice the captain of the Taw as far to wind- 
 ward as possible for we were not at all certain that 
 he would tow the whale all the way to lle-de-Caille. 
 If he brought the whale as far as London Bridge, the 
 two boats might be able to tow the carcass during the 
 night through the remaining three miles to the island 
 so that we could begin to cut-in in the morning. 
 
 So we sailed back and forth till at last, as the sun 
 was sinking, we made out the tiny drift of steamer 
 smoke eight miles away. They were not even making 
 the three miles an hour and Bynoe said that the tongue 
 must have swollen and burst the lines, allowing the 
 mouth to open. We began to wonder why they did not 
 cut off the ventral flukes and tow the whale tail first. 
 But the reason came out later. 
 
 The moon would be late, and we continued sailing 
 in the darkness without a light, lest the captain should 
 pick us up too soon and cast off the whale in mid- 
 channel where ten whaleboats could not drag her 
 against the current which was now lee. We lost sight 
 of the steamer for an hour or so but finally decided 
 that what we had taken for a low evening star was her 
 masthead light. In another hour we could make out 
 the red and green of her running lights. She was in 
 the clutches of the tide directly to leeward. She was 
 
60 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 also two miles off her course and we began to wonder 
 why the captain did not give up in disgust and cast the 
 whale adrift. We sailed down to find out. 
 
 First the hull of the steamer began to take shape in 
 the velvety darkness; then as we swung up into the 
 wind we made out the whaleboat some distance astern. 
 As the bow of the steamer rose on a long sea, her after 
 deck lights threw their rays on a low black object upon 
 which the waves were shoaling as on a reef. At the 
 same instant a stray whiff from the trade wind brought 
 us the message. We were doubly informed of the 
 presence of the cow. 
 
 But it was not the cow that drew our attention. On 
 the aft deck, leaning far out, stood the captain. His 
 features were distinct in the beams of the range light. 
 Suddenly he started as though he had seen something. 
 Then he bellowed, "Where in hell did you come 
 from?'' 
 
 "We've been waiting to windward for you; what's 
 the trouble?" 
 
 "Trouble?" he shrieked, "trouble? — your damned 
 old whale is fast and I can't get her off." 
 
 We guessed the rest. As Bynoe had predicted, the 
 tongue had swollen and burst the lashing that had held 
 the mouth closed. Next the towline had parted. This 
 had happened shortly after the steamer left St. 
 George's and the men who were towing behind in their 
 boat had begged the captain to pass out his steel 
 cable. He didn't know it but it was here that he erred. 
 The whalemen ran the cable through the jaw, bending 
 the end into a couple of hitches. When they started 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 61 
 
 up again, the hitches slipped back and jammed, making 
 it impossible to untie the cable. 
 
 Progress had been slow enough under the lee of 
 Grenada but when the steamer got clear of the land 
 she felt the clutches of the current and progress to 
 the northward was impossible. He announced to the 
 pleading whalemen that he was sick of the job and was 
 going to cut loose. But he couldn't. There was not 
 a tool aboard except the engine room wrenches. Not 
 even a file or a cold-chisel. 
 
 Jack asked him, "What are you going to do?" 
 
 "Me? — it's your whale." 
 
 "Yes, but youVe got it. I don't want it, it's too old 
 now." 
 
 And old it was. The smell even seemed to go to 
 windward. But there was only one course left and 
 twelve o'clock found us at Sauteurs, the whale still 
 in possession of the Taw, 
 
 The scene of our midnight supper in the cocoa shop 
 that night will long remain in my memory as one of 
 those pictures so strange and far off that one often 
 wonders whether it was a real experience or a fantasy 
 suggested by some illustration or story long since for- 
 gotten. We cooked in Jack's little sanctum, railed off 
 at one end of the shop, where the negress brings his 
 tea in the morning and afternoon. At the other end 
 was the small counter with the ledger and scales that 
 brought out the very idea of barter. On the floor 
 space between were bags of cocoa and the tubs in 
 which the beans are "tramped" with red clay for the 
 market. Two coils of new whale line and a bundle 
 
62 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 of spare irons lay near the door waiting for our re- 
 turn to the island. 
 
 Strewn about between the bags and tubs were the 
 humpbackers like blackened driftwood, their clothes 
 giving the appearance of kelp. Jose and his crew were 
 already fast sleep, while the others sat up against the 
 bags, watching us like hungry dogs for the food we 
 should give them. As we ate the tinned beef of the 
 jungle that shook hands across the sea with the tea 
 of the sporting Baronet, we talked of things of the 
 sea, and Bynoe, unlettered but sage, shrewd and sharp, 
 put in a word now and then till his own crew, sent 
 to sleep by the monotone of our voices, slid one by one 
 to the floor. 
 
 At last the chorus of snores reminded us that we 
 too ought to turn in and we drifted off to smooth cur- 
 rentless seas filled with whales. 
 
 In the morning Bynoe announced : 
 
 "Balen not too bad, we cut up she." But she was 
 bad enough as the morning breeze bore testimony 
 through the open door of the shop. 
 
 Jack said, "We'll be Yankees this morning," so we 
 ate our breakfast early, procured a cold-chisel and cut 
 the steamer loose. As she left the roadstead she gave 
 a joyous toot, while the captain sent us a parting volley 
 of his choicest morning oaths. We anchored the car- 
 cass in the smoother waters behind the reef where we 
 began the work of cutting-in. 
 
 Cutting-in a freshly killed whale with long-handled 
 spades from the staging of a whaler at sea is a greasy 
 job at best, but we, who had no masthead tackle for 
 stripping the blubber like the spiral peel of an orange, 
 
A 
 
 WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 63 
 
 were not simply greasy — we were filthy. As we 
 swarmed over the slippery sides of the whale, remov- 
 ing chunks of blubber like cakes of ice, I thought of 
 one of my New Bedford friends who used to boast of 
 how he revelled in crawling into the "innards" of a 
 whale for the choice oil of the immense liver and the 
 possible chance of finding a piece of ambergris. This 
 job would have put a stop to his boast forever. But 
 it did not last long for we could only remove the blub- 
 ber from the top side. The sharks had taken care of 
 the underbody. We had the assistance of other boats 
 which carried the blubber to the tryworks at ile-de- 
 Caille as fast as we could load them. 
 
 This was only the first stage, however, for it is 
 really the flesh that the native is after. He cares little 
 for the oil which he burns in the trying and which com- 
 mands but a small price. Strange to say, in this hot 
 country the negro is extremely fond of whale-meat, 
 which brings a price of three cents a pound in the 
 markets. Next to rum they love whale-meat. 
 
 I lasted through the blubber stage and retired grace- 
 fully, making the following note in my log: "The 
 whaleman has only four senses, sight, taste, hearing 
 and touch." 
 
 But the sense of smell of the shore natives was not 
 underdeveloped. When I landed on the jetty I found 
 the whole town holding its nose. All afternoon Jack 
 and I watched the men from the hill in back of the 
 town as they dug at that putrid mountain of flesh which 
 was being carried away in boatloads till there was little 
 left above water but the immense intestines and blad- 
 ders that looked like a fleet of balloons come to grief. 
 
64 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 I am firmly convinced that the next morning the 
 odour from that carcass opened the door, walked in and 
 shook me by the shoulders. No one else had done it 
 and I sat up with a start. Shortly after, a courier from 
 the district board brought the following message: (I 
 use the word "courier" for it is the only time I ever 
 saw a native run.) 
 
 St. Patrick's District Board, 
 Secretary's Office, 24th, February, 191 1. 
 John S. Wildman, Esq., 
 
 Sir: — In the interest of sanitation, I am instructed 
 to request that the whale's carcass be removed from 
 the harbour within three hours after the service of this 
 notice. 
 
 I have the honour to be, sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 R. L. B. A., Warden. 
 
 We were not unwilling and had what was left of 
 the cow towed out into the current which would carry 
 it far into the Caribbean where for days the gulls 
 could gorge themselves and scream over it in a white 
 cloud. At least that was our intention, but by a pretty 
 piece of miscalculation on the part of Bynoe the car- 
 cass fetched up under Point Tangalanga where the 
 last pieces of flesh were removed on the eighth day 
 after the whale's death. 
 
 Our work done at Sauteurs, we sailed back to Caille, 
 where we scrubbed out the boats with white coral sand 
 to remove the grease, dried out the lines and coiled 
 them down in the tubs for the next whale. 
 
 My real ride behind a humpback came at last in that 
 unexpected way that ushers in the unusual. We were 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 65 
 
 loafing one day near Mouchicarri, lying-to for the 
 moment in a heavy rain squall, when it suddenly 
 cleared, disclosing three whales under our lee. They 
 were a bull, a cow and a yawlin (yearling), with Jose 
 close on their track. Bynoe hastily backed the jib so 
 that we could "haal aff" and we made a short tack. 
 
 Just as we were ready to come about again in order 
 to get a close weather berth of the bull, the upper rud- 
 der pintle broke and our chance slipped by. Why 
 Caesar did not keep on, using the steering oar, I do 
 not know. Perhaps it was that yellow streak that is so 
 dangerous when one is depending on the native in a 
 tight place, for we should have had that bull. He 
 was immense. 
 
 The rudder was quickly tied up to the stern post, but 
 it was only after two hours of tedious sailing and row- 
 ing that we were again upon them. Once more we had 
 the weather berth and bore down on them under full 
 sail, Bynoe standing high up on the "box," holding to 
 the forestay. Except for the occasional hiss of a sea 
 breaking under us, there was not a sound and we 
 swooped down on them with the soft flight of an owl. 
 
 As I stood up close to Caesar, I could see the whole 
 of the action. The three whales were swimming 
 abreast, blowing now and then as they rose from a 
 shallow dive. The tense crew, all looking forward 
 like ebony carvings covered with the nondescript rags 
 of a warehouse, seemed frozen to their thwarts. Only 
 one of us moved and he was Caesar, and I noticed that 
 he swung the oar a little to port in order to avoid the 
 bull and take the yawlin. I had guessed right about 
 the yellow streak. 
 
66 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 But even the yawlin was no plaything and as he rose 
 right under the bow the sea slid off his mountainous 
 back as from a ledge of black rock, a light green in 
 contrast to the deep blue into which it poured. The 
 cavernous rush of air and water from his snout sprayed 
 Bynoe in the face as he drove the iron down into him. 
 He passed under us, our bow dropping into the swirl 
 left by his tail and I could feel the bump of his back 
 through Caesar's oar. 
 
 I wondered for the moment if the boat would trip. 
 There seemed to be no turning, for the next instant the 
 flying spray drove the lashes back into my eyes and I 
 knew we were fast. Blinded for the moment I could 
 feel the boat going over and through the seas, skitter- 
 ing after the whale like a spoon being reeled in from a 
 cast. When I finally succeeded in wiping the lashes out 
 of my eyes there was nothing to be seen ahead but 
 two walls of spray which rose from the very bows of 
 the boat, with Bynoe still clinging to the stay with his 
 head and shoulders clear of the flying water. There 
 was no need to wet the line; the tub oar was bailing 
 instead. 
 
 How the rig came down I do not know and I marvel 
 at the skill or the luck of the men who unshipped the 
 heavy mast in that confusion of motions, for my whole 
 attention was called by the yelling Caesar to the logger- 
 head, which somehow had one too many turns around 
 it. Caesar was busy with the steering oar, and the 
 men had settled down a little forward of midships 
 to keep the boat from yawing. So I committed the 
 foolhardy trick of jumping over the line as it whizzed 
 past me in a yellow streak and, bracing myself on the 
 
ONCE MORE WE HAD THE WEATHER BERTH AND BORE DOWN 
 ON THEM UNDER FULL SAIL, BYNOE STANDING HIGH UP ON 
 THE "BOX," HOLDING TO THE FORESTAY." 
 
 GRENADINE WHALEBOAT SHOWING BOW AND FALSE-CHOCK. 
 THE HARPOON IS POISED IN THE LEFT HAND AND HEAVED WITH 
 THE RIGHT ARM. 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 67 
 
 port side, I passed my hand aft along the rope with 
 a quick motion and threw off a turn, also a considerable 
 area of skin, of which the salt water gave sharp notice 
 later. 
 
 The line was eased and held through this first rush. 
 As the whale settled down to steady flight we threw 
 back that turn and then another, till the tub emptied 
 slower and slower and the line finally came to a stop. 
 We were holding. But we were still going; it only 
 meant that the yawlin, having gone through his first 
 spurt, had struck his gait; it was like a continuous ride 
 in the surf. By this time the boat was well trimmed 
 and bailed dry. 
 
 "Haal een, now," came from Caesar, and I was 
 again reminded of the missing skin. By the inch first, 
 then by the foot it came, till we had hauled back most 
 of our thousand feet of line. The walls of spray had 
 dropped lower and lower, till we could see the whale 
 ahead of us, his dorsal Rn cutting through the tops of 
 the waves. We were now close behind his propelling 
 flukes that came out of the water at times like the 
 screw of a freighter in ballast. Caesar told me to 
 load "de bum lance," and I passed the gun forward 
 to Bynoe. He held it for a moment in pensive inde- 
 cision — and then placed it carefully under the box. 
 
 He now removed the small wooden pin that keeps 
 the line from bobbing out of the bow chocks, and 
 with the blunt end of a paddle he carefully pried the 
 line out of the chock so that it slid back along the 
 rail, coming to rest against the false chock ab.out three 
 feet abaft the stem. We now swerved off to one side 
 and were racing parallel to the whale opposite his 
 
68 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 flukes. The bow four surged on the line while I took 
 in the slack at the loggerhead, Caesar wrestling franti- 
 cally with his steering oar that was cutting through the 
 maelstrom astern. 
 
 We were now fairly opposite the yawlin, which 
 measured nearly two of our boat's length. It was one 
 of those ticklish moments so dear to the Anglo-Saxon 
 lust for adventure — even the negroes were excited 
 beyond the feeling of fear. But at the sight of the 
 bomb gun, as Bynoe took it out from under the box, 
 a feeling of revulsion swept over me and if it were 
 not for the fatal "rock-stone," or the sharks that 
 might get us, I would have wished the gun overboard 
 and a fighting sperm off Hatteras on our line. 
 
 The yawlin continued his flight in dumb fear. 
 Fitting his left leg into the half-round of the box, the 
 harpooner raised his gun and took aim. Following 
 the report came the metallic explosion of the bomb 
 inside the whale. Our ride came to an end almost as 
 suddenly as it had begun; the yawlin was rolling 
 inert at our side, having scarcely made a move after 
 the shot. The bomb had pierced the arterial reservoir, 
 causing death so quickly that we missed the blood and 
 gore which usually come from the blow-hole in a 
 crimson fountain with the dying gasps of the whale. 
 Bynoe explained that one could always tell if the vital 
 spot had been reached : 
 
 "If he go bam! he no good. Wen he go cling! 
 de balen mus' stop." His way of expressing it was 
 perfect, for the "cling" was not unlike the ringing 
 hammer of trapped air in a steam pipe, but fainter. 
 
 Luck was with us this time, for we were well to 
 
WHALING AT ILE-DE-CAILLE 69 
 
 windward of Caille, with a tide that was lee to help 
 us home. 
 
 But it was my last whale at ile-de-Caille, and after 
 we had cut him in and set his oily entrails adrift I 
 turned once more to the Yakaboo. I had had enough 
 of humpbacking and one night I packed my outfit and 
 smoked for the last time with the men. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 KICK *EM JINNY 
 
 I FIRMLY believe that it was my lucky bug that 
 did the trick, although under ordinary circum- 
 stances I would not carry a tarantula for a mascot. 
 It was on my last night at lle-de-Caille, and as I 
 crawled up through the hatch of my upper story abode, 
 something black stood out in the candle flicker against 
 the wall. Before I knew what it was, instinct told 
 me that it was something to look out for and then I 
 noticed the huge hairy legs that proclaimed the taran- 
 tula. Of course, I could not have him running around 
 as he pleased so I took the under half of a sixteen 
 gauge cartridge box and covered him before he had 
 time to think of jumping. The box, which measured 
 four and a half inches square, was not too large for I 
 nipped his toes as I pressed the pasteboard against 
 the wall. Then I slid a sheet of paper between him 
 and the wall. It was no trick at all to superimpose the 
 upper half of the pasteboard box, slip out the paper 
 and push the cover down. He was mine. And a 
 good mascot he proved to be although I gave him a 
 rough time of it in the jumble of sea off Kick 'em 
 Jinny. 
 
 Kick 'em Jinny is the sea-mule of the Grenadines. 
 In a prosaic way the cartographer has marked it 
 
 70 
 
KICK 'EM JINNY 71 
 
 "Diamond Rock," and then, as if ashamed of himself, 
 has put the real name in small letters underneath. So 
 "steep-to" that a vessel would strike her bowsprit on 
 its sides before her keel touched bottom, Kick 'em 
 Jinny rises from a diameter of a quarter of a mile to 
 a height of nearly seven hundred feet. Cactus-grown, 
 with no natural resources, one would scarcely expect 
 to find on it any animal life other than a few sea fowl. 
 Yet, besides myriads of screaming gulls, boobies, peli- 
 cans and wild pigeons, here are goats, the wild 
 descendants of those left by the Spanish pirates, who 
 used to plant them as a reserve food supply that would 
 take care of itself. 
 
 The rock lies a third of a mile to the northward of 
 Isle de Ronde, with the jagged Les Tantes a scant two 
 miles to the eastward. With the trades blowing fresh 
 from the northeast the lee tide runs through the pas- 
 sage between Isle de Ronde and Les Tantes at a 
 rate of three knots an hour, whirling past Kick 'em 
 Jinny in a northwesterly direction — at right angles to 
 the wind and sea. The weather tide in returning runs 
 in almost the opposite direction at the rate of a knot 
 and a half. It must be remembered that the constant 
 northeasterly winds move a surface current of water 
 toward the southwest so that this confluence of wind 
 and current makes a tide rip on the weather side of 
 Kick 'em Jinny, from which its name is derived. 
 
 Now you may ask, as I did when I discussed the 
 matter with my friends of St. George's over tall, cool 
 glasses of lime squash — Why not sail under the lee of 
 Kick 'em Jinny? If I sailed under the lee of the rock I 
 should lose much valuable ground to windward while 
 
7£ ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 if I fought it out along the back or weather side of 
 Ronde and Kick 'em Jinny and then made a port tack 
 to Les Tantes I should be in the best possible position 
 for my jump to Carriacou. That point settled, it was 
 a question of tides. With the lee tide running to the 
 north-north-west I might not be able to clear the 
 rocky windward shore on my starboard tack, and it 
 would be very difficult to claw off on the port tack, the 
 latter being to eastward and away from shore. 
 
 With the weather tide, however, I could work my 
 way off shore in case of necessity, but I should be 
 fighting the current as I advanced on the starboard 
 tack. With the weather tide I should encounter the 
 rougher sea, and it was here that the Yakaboo would 
 meet her pons asinorum, to carry out the idea of the 
 seaMnule. 
 
 Many bets had been offered and some had been 
 taken at St. George's that I would not reach Carriacou, 
 which implied that the cruise would come to an end 
 off Kick 'em Jinny. But I put my faith in one — my 
 Man Friday, who had instructed me in the mysteries of 
 "de lee an' wedder toid," and he had shown me how to 
 watch the weather in regard to the changes of the 
 moon. During my stay on lle-de-Caille, I watched the 
 quarters come and go and kept track of the moon in 
 order to note the changing of the tides. I finally 
 selected a day when the second quarter had promised 
 steady winds, with the weather tide beginning to run 
 at nine o'clock in the morning. If there should be 
 any doubt as to the weather for that day, that doubt 
 would be settled by the time the weather tide had 
 
KICK 'EM JINNY 73 
 
 started. With everything as much in my favour as 
 possible I would make the attempt. 
 
 I slept that morning till the sun had climbed well 
 up the back of Caille, for when I awoke the warm 
 day breezes were filtering over me through the mos- 
 quito bar. I must have eaten breakfast, but later in 
 the day I was puzzled to remember whether I had or 
 not. My mind was not in the present, nor anywhere 
 near my earthly body — it was living in the next few 
 hours and hovering over that stretch of water to the 
 eastward of Kick 'em Jinny. Bynoe and his crew were 
 also going to sail northward to Cannouan in the 
 Baltimore, and I remember standing among the rocks 
 of the whale cove bidding good-bye to the rest of the 
 people. The few shillings I gave them seemed a 
 princely gift and tears of gratitude streamed down the 
 black shiny face of the cook when I presented her 
 with a bottle of rheumatism cure. 
 
 The tide would turn at seven minutes after the 
 hour and three minutes later the Yakaboo was in the 
 water. By the feel of her as she bobbed in the heave 
 of the sea I knew that the fight was on. With long 
 rhythmic strokes the whaleboat swung out of the cove, 
 the canoe moving easily alongside like a remora. 
 Cautiously we rowed around the north end of Caille, 
 seeking the currentless waters close to shore. When 
 we reached the windward side of the island we made 
 sail. It did not take many minutes to see that the 
 canoe would be left alone in her fight with Kick 'em 
 Jinny for the whaleboat, with her ballast of "rock- 
 stone" and her twelve hundred pounds of live 
 weight to steady her, caught the wind high .above the 
 
74 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 seas with her tall rig and worried her way through the 
 jumble in a way that made me forget, in a moment of 
 admiration, my own sailing. 
 
 But I had other business than that of watching the 
 whaleboat. As I hauled in the sheet to lay the canoe 
 on the starboard tack, a sea seemed to come from 
 nowhere and with scant invitation dropped aboard and 
 filled the cockpit. It was like starting up a sleeping 
 horse with an inconsiderate whip lash. The Yakaboo 
 shook herself and gathered herself for that first essay 
 of windward work. Try as she would, she could find 
 no ease in the nasty, steep sea, and instead of working 
 well along the shore of Ronde in the wake of the 
 whaleboat, she barely crossed the channel from Caille 
 and fetched up at the southern tip of the island. 
 
 On the port tack to sea she did better, although the 
 weather tide running abeam carried us back off Caille. 
 We made perhaps a mile to the eastward and then 
 I decided to try the starboard tack again. The canoe 
 did still better this time — for a while — and then we 
 found ourselves in the toils of Kick 'em Jinny. The 
 tide was now running with full force directly against 
 us and at right angles to the wind. There seemed 
 to be no lateral motion to the seas, they rose and fell 
 as though countless imps were pushing up the surface 
 from below in delirious random. One moment the 
 canoe would be poised on the top of a miniature water 
 column to be dropped the next in a hollow, walled 
 about on all sides by masses of translucent green and 
 blue over which I could see nothing but sky. The stiff 
 wind might not have been blowing at all, it seemed, for 
 the sails were constantly ashake, while the centerboard 
 
KICK 'EM JINNY 75 
 
 rattled in its casing like the clapper of a bell. It was 
 not sailing — it was riding a bronco at sea. 
 
 Bynoe, who was carrying my extra food supply in 
 the whaleboat, was now making frantic motions for me 
 to turn back. I had already decided, however, that 
 the canoe would worry her way through and I 
 motioned to the whalers to come alongside. With the 
 two boats rising and falling beside one another, as 
 though on some foreshortened see-saw, the stuff was 
 transferred from the whaleboat to the canoe. As the 
 whaleboat rose over me the men dropped my bags 
 into the cockpit with an accuracy and ease of aim 
 acquired from years of life in just such jumping water 
 as this. The canoe sailor must at times not only be 
 ambidextrous, but must also use feet and teeth; in 
 fact, he must be an all around marine acrobat. What 
 wonders we could perform had we but retained the 
 prehensile tail of our animal ancestors! So with the 
 mainsheet in my teeth and my legs braced in the cock- 
 pit, I caught the bags with one hand and with the 
 other stowed them in the forward end of the well 
 under the deck. A large tin of sea biscuit, a cubical 
 piece of eight-cornered wickedness, which would 
 neither stow under deck nor pass through the hatches, 
 required two hands for catching and stowing and a 
 spare line to lash it in place just forward of my blanket 
 bag. Then they screamed "Good-bye" at me across 
 the waves, while I yelled "Yakaboo," and we parted 
 company. Of that row of six black faces, two I shall 
 never see again for they have since been lost in the 
 very waters where we said "Good-bye. " 
 
 Taking quick cross-bearings by eye I could detect 
 
76 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 from time to time changes in the position of the canoe 
 and I knew that there was some advance to the north- 
 ward. Finally we were so close to Kick 'em Jinny that 
 I could see the chamois-like goats stuck on its sides like 
 blotched rocks. All progress seemed to cease and for 
 three-quarters of an hour I could detect no change of 
 position. No stage racehorse ever made a gamer 
 fight than did the Yakaboo against her ocean treadmill. 
 The whaleboat was now a vanishing speck to the north- 
 ward like a fixed whitecap. I began to wonder whether 
 I should stick in this position till the coming of the lee 
 tide. I remember contemplating a small strip of beach 
 on Les Tantes where, in a pinch, I might land through 
 the breast-high surf with enough food to last till the 
 whalers might see some sign that I could put up on 
 the rocks. 
 
 Suddenly a blinding flash brought my attention from 
 Les Tantes to my cockpit. It was the tin of sea biscuit. 
 The water sloshing in the cockpit had softened the 
 glue of the paper covering. Finally, an extra large 
 wave, a grandfather, swept the paper entirely off, leav- 
 ing the shiny tin exposed to the brilliant sun. With a 
 sweep I cut the line, and the next instant I was mourn- 
 ing the loss of a week's supply of sea biscuit. 
 
 The forward compartment now proved to be leaking, 
 through the deck as I discovered later, at just the time, 
 when, if the canoe had any soul at all, she would keep 
 tight for my sake. I shifted my outfit as far aft as 
 possible and sponged the water out by the cupful with 
 one hand ready to slam down the hatch in advance of a 
 boarding sea. It was done — somehow — and as a 
 reward I found the canoe was working her way into 
 
KICK 'EM JINNY 77 
 
 easier seas. Then she began to sail and I realised that 
 Kick 'em Jinny was a thing of the past. I lay-to off 
 Les Tantes, having travelled three miles in two hours. 
 We had not conquered Kick 'em Jinny, we had merely 
 slipped by her in one of her lighter moods. But the 
 canoe had stood the test and by this I knew that she 
 would carry me through the rest of the channel to Saint 
 Vincent. What her story would be for the larger 
 openings of from twenty-five to nearly forty miles yet 
 remained to be seen. 
 
 With her heels clear of Kick 'em Jinny the Yakaboo 
 travelled easily in the freer waters and before the tide 
 could draw me out into the Caribbean I was well under 
 the lee of Carriacou. Another half hour and I should 
 have had to fight for si* hours till the next weather 
 tide would help me back to land. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, I stepped out of the canoe on 
 the uninhabited island of Mabouya, which lies off Car- 
 riacou. The beach where I landed was typical of the 
 few low-lying cays of the Grenadines. The sand strip, 
 backed by a cheval de frise of cactus, curved crescent- 
 like, the horns running into sharp, rocky points which 
 confined the beach. The only break in the cactus was 
 a clump of the dreaded manchioneel trees and here I 
 decided to pitch my tent. 
 
 Barbot, in relating the second voyage of Columbus, 
 says: "On the shore grow abundance of mansanilla 
 trees, not tall, but the wood of them fine, the leaves 
 like those of the pear tree, the fruit a sort of small 
 apples, whence the Spaniards gave them the name; of 
 so fine a colour and pleasant a scent, as will easily invite 
 such as are unacquainted to eat them; but containing a 
 
78 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 mortal poison, against which no antidote has any force. 
 The very leaf of it causes an ulcer, where it touches 
 the flesh, and the dew on it frets off the skin; nay the 
 very shadow of the tree is pernicious, and will cause 
 a man to swell, if he sleeps under it." I thought I 
 would take a chance — perhaps the manchioneel had 
 become softer and more civilised since the time of 
 Columbus. 
 
 If there were any joy in the feeling of relief as I 
 walked up that lonely beach, I knew it not. Tired as 
 I was, I could only think of the hard work that I had 
 to do before I could lie down to rest. The Yakaboo 
 had been leaking steadily all day long and she now 
 lay where I had left her in a foot of water, with my 
 whole outfit except my camera submerged. This did 
 not mean that everything was wet, for my own muslin 
 bags, honestly oiled and dried, would keep their con- 
 tents dry, but there was the canoe to unload, bail 
 out and drag ashore. There was firewood to collect 
 before dark, and I should have to work sharp before 
 sundown, for there were also the tent to pitch, the 
 supper to cook, and the log to write. 
 
 For a moment I stopped to look at the glorious sun 
 racing to cool himself in the Caribbean, and I gave 
 thanks for a strong body and a hopeful heart. In two 
 hours I was sitting under the peak of my tent on my 
 blanket roll, watching my supper boil in a little pail 
 over a lively fire of hard charcoals. The Yakaboo, 
 bailed out, high and dry on the beach, skulked in the 
 darkness as though ashamed to come near the fire. 
 
 It is always easy to say "in two hours I was doing 
 so and so," but to the man who lives out of doors and 
 
KICK 'EM JINNY 
 
 79 
 
 is constantly using his wits to overcome the little 
 obstacles of nature those "two hours" are often very 
 interesting. As a rule, one is tired from the clay's work 
 and if accidents are going to happen they are apt to 
 happen at just this time. The early stages of fatigue 
 bring on carelessness, and to the experienced man the 
 advanced stages of fatigue call for extreme caution. 
 Before unloading the canoe, I should have decided just 
 
 FRONT 
 
 BACK 
 
 TOP 
 
 My Comstock Tent 
 
 where I would place my tent and then I should have 
 beached the canoe immediately below the tent if pos- 
 sible. As it was, the Yakaboo was sixty yards down 
 the beach and upon returning from one of my trips 
 to her I found that a spark from the fire had ignited 
 my oiled dish bag which was burning with a fierce heat. 
 This had started the bag next to it which contained 
 my ammunition. With one leap I landed on the pre- 
 cious high-power cartridges and began to roll over 
 and over in the sand with the burning bag in my 
 
80 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 arms. What would have happened had one of my 
 nine-millimeter shells exploded? I had been careless 
 in arranging my outfit upon the sands when I built 
 the fire. 
 
 Troubles never come singly — neither do they travel 
 in pairs — they flock. I remember the difficulty I had 
 in starting the fire. The tin in which I carried my 
 matches was absolutely water-tight — I have proved 
 that since by submerging it in a bucket of water for 
 two days and nights. And yet when I came to open the 
 tin I found that the tips of the matches were deliques- 
 cent. It was my first experience in tropical cruising 
 and I had not learned that the heat of the sun could 
 draw the moisture out of the wood of the matches, con- 
 dense this moisture on the inside of the tin, and melt 
 the tips. I found some safety matches tucked away in 
 the middle of my clothes bags and they were dry. This 
 became my method of carrying matches in the future. 
 The natives carry matches in a bamboo joint with a 
 cork for a stopper. 
 
 And now that I have taken you into my first camp 
 in the islands I shall tell you briefly of the various parts 
 of my outfit as it was finally shaken down for the 
 cruise. 
 
 My tent was of the pyramidal form invented by 
 Comstock, seven feet high with a base seven feet 
 square and having the peak directly over the centre of 
 the forward edge. In back was a two foot wall. It 
 was made of a waterproof mixture of silk and cotton, 
 tinted green, and weighed eight pounds. My mainmast 
 served as a tent pole, and for holding down I used 
 seventeen pegs made of the native cedar, which is a 
 
MY CAMP AT MABOUYA. 
 
 f^ti 
 
 LOADED AND READY TO GET OFF. 
 
c t 
 
 • a* * t * « * 
 ','/'« t « • • • I 
 
 5. 
 
KICK 'EM JINNY 81 
 
 tough, hard wood and not heavy. For my purposes 
 I have found this the most satisfactory tent for varied 
 cruising, as I could use it equally well ashore or rigged 
 over the cockpit of the Yakaboo when I slept aboard. 
 Let me here offer a little prayer of thanks to Comstock. 
 You will find some "improvement" upon his idea in 
 almost any outfitter's catalogue and given any name 
 but his — one might as well try to improve it as to alter 
 a Crosby cat. 
 
 For sleeping I had two single German blankets, 
 weighing four pounds each. In place of the usual 
 rubber blanket, I used an oiled muslin ground cloth. 
 My blankets were folded in the ground cloth in such a 
 manner that upon drawing them from the blanket 
 bag, I could roll them out on the ground ready for 
 turning in. The blanket bag was made of heavy oiled 
 canvas with the end turned in and strapped so that even 
 when it lay in a cockpit half full of water its contents 
 would still remain dry. One blanket used with pa- 
 jamas of light duck would have been ample, so far as 
 warmth goes, but for sleeping in the cockpit the second 
 blanket served as a padding for the hard floor. 
 
 As for clothes, I started out with a heterogeneous 
 collection of old trousers, shirts and socks, which, ac- 
 cording to the law of the survival of favourites, 
 petered out to two pairs of light woollen trousers, two 
 light flannel shirts, and two pairs of thin woollen socks. 
 I indulged myself in half a dozen new sleeveless 
 cotton running shirts, dyed red, B. V. D.'s to corre- 
 spond, and a dozen red cotton bandana handkerchiefs. 
 For footgear, I carried a pair of heavy oiled tan shoes 
 and pig-skin moccasins. A light Swedish dog-skin coat 
 
82 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 and a brown felt hat with a fairly wide brim, com- 
 pleted my wardrobe. 
 
 For cooking I had the "Ouinnetka" kit, of my own 
 design, consisting of three pails, a frypan, two covers, 
 a cup, and two spoons, all of aluminum, which nested 
 and held a dish cloth and soap. There were no 
 handles, a pair of light tongs serving in their stead. 
 This kit, which was designed for two-man use, weighed 
 a trifle under three pounds. 
 
 The rest of my working outfit consisted of a two 
 pound axe, a canoe knife, a small aluminum folding 
 candle lantern, two one-gallon water cans, and a ditty 
 bag, containing a sight compass, parallel rule, dividers, 
 hypodermic outfit, beeswax, and the usual odds and 
 ends which one carries. For sailing I used a two-inch 
 liquid compass. This working outfit totalled forty- 
 three pounds. Had the "butterfly" continued in 
 service, its weight would have added a pound and a 
 half. 
 
 My food at the outset brought this weight up to 
 eighty pounds, but as I later on got down to chocolate, 
 erbswurst and the native foods, there was a reduction 
 of from twenty to thirty pounds. 
 
 The heaviest single unit of my whole outfit was a 
 quarter-plate Graflex, which, with its developing tank 
 and six tins of films, added twenty-six pounds. A nine 
 millimeter Mannlicher, .22 B.S.A., 38-40 Colt, a deep 
 sea rod and reel, shells, and tackle brought the total 
 up to 120 pounds. I might as well have left out my 
 armament and tackle for when cruising I find little 
 time for shooting or fishing — I would rather travel. 
 
 My charts, twelve in number, had first been trimmed 
 
KICK 'EM JINNY 83 
 
 to their smallest working size and then cut into eight- 
 inch by ten-inch panels and mounted on muslin with 
 half an inch separating the edges so that they could be 
 folded to show uppermost whatever panel I happened 
 to be sailing on. The charts with my portfolio I kept 
 in a double bag in the aft end of the cockpit. 
 
 The various parts of my outfit were in bags having 
 long necks which could be doubled over and securely 
 tied. These were made of unbleached muslin, oiled 
 with a mixture of raw and boiled linseed oil and turpen- 
 tine. After a wet bit of sailing, when the canoe had at 
 times literally gone through the seas and there was 
 water in every compartment, it was a great comfort 
 to find the entire outfit quite dry. 
 
 The weight of the Yakaboo, with her rig and outfit 
 aboard, varied from 260 to 290 pounds — not much 
 more than that of an ordinary rowboat. 
 
 Nothing is so unalloyed as the joy of pottering over 
 a hot, little fire when the stomach cries out and the 
 body tingles with the healthy fatigue of work in the 
 open. My spirit was at ease, for the canoe had proven 
 herself and even if she did leak, I was getting used to 
 that — as one becomes used to a boil on the neck. To 
 lie on my blankets — no bed was ever so welcome — and 
 to eat and watch the last light fade from the hills of 
 Carriacou made me glad that I had been put on this 
 earth to live. After supper the companionable purr of 
 my faithful pipe made just the conversation to suit my 
 mood. The night was soft and balmy, and as I lay 
 and watched the brilliant constellations of the tropical 
 night the lap-lap of the water on the smooth sands 
 lulled me off to sleep. 
 
CHAPTER IVi 
 
 CARRIACOU — MAYERO — BEQUIA 
 
 THE next moment I was sitting up, blinking into 
 the fiery face of the sun that had slipped around 
 the earth and was bobbing up again in the east. 
 
 It was not the sandy beach, the blue stretch of wind- 
 livened water nor the picturesque hills of Carriacou, 
 rising up before me, that alone brought happiness, for, 
 as my eye wandered down the beach, I saw the buoyant, 
 jaunty Yakaboo, and there came over me the happy 
 satisfaction that the cruise was mine. My eye beheld 
 her with the fondness of a parent for its child — if 
 only she did not leak. 
 
 Not until I had cooked and eaten breakfast and 
 was stowing my outfit into the canoe did I think of the 
 mascot I had brought with me from Caille. I found 
 his house in the forward end of the cockpit, unglued 
 by the wash of the day before and empty. I am not 
 sentimental by nature and I did not mourn his black 
 hairy little body, which no doubt, by this time, was 
 being carried far out into the Caribbean. I did thank 
 him, or rather her, for I found out afterwards that it 
 was a female, for the service she had rendered as a 
 mascot in my sail around Kick 'em Jinny. I did not 
 know, in fact, that she was still with the ship and 
 would be my mascot for some time to come. 
 
 8 4 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 85 
 
 When I ran alongside the jetty of the pretty little 
 town of Hillsboro, on the shores of Carriacou, a blue- 
 jacketed sailor pointed to where I might beach the 
 canoe, and said, "Mr. Smith is expecting you in his 
 office," a prosaic remark, more fitting to the tenth 
 floor above Broadway than to the beach of a West 
 Indian island. I had scarcely beached the canoe and 
 was walking across the hot stretch, curling my toes un- 
 der me to ease my soles on the blistering sands, when 
 Mr. Smith met me, a tall, spare figure, accentuated in 
 its leanness by the bulky helmet of the tropics. I liked 
 him instantly. He was a man of about fifty, strong, 
 energetic and young for his age. There was a bit of 
 a brogue in his speech — he was an Irishman — with a 
 university training and cultured as such men usually 
 are, but still with an Irishman's fondness for the world. 
 Perhaps my liking was part of a mutual feeling for he 
 immediately asked me to spend a few days with him at 
 Top Hill. A cosy berth was found for the Yakaboo 
 in a boatshed near by, built, for the sake of coolness, 
 like the cotton ginnery of St. George's, with open 
 sides. 
 
 Carriacou might be called the Utopia of the Grena- 
 dines. It is here that the work of one man stands out 
 and is not lost. Officially Whitfield Smith is known 
 as the Commissioner,* in reality he is a potentate, while 
 among his people he is known as "Papa." Paternal 
 is the rule of this man, which, after all, is the way all 
 governing should be done. And still with his paternal 
 feeling and his kindness, there is no undermining 
 
 * Whitfield Smith has been Commissioner at Grand Turk since 
 1915. 
 
86 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 familiarity. Justice, one feels, holds out her delicately- 
 balanced scales and there is no chance for her eye to 
 pierce the blindfold. As in all the West Indies, there 
 is very little crime, petty theft and small squabbles 
 being the principal offences. Swearing is a punishable 
 offence and one hears but little profanity. The detec- 
 tion of crime is no disgrace and one does not lose caste 
 upon being haled into court. Let the prisoner be con- 
 victed and imprisoned and he is forever disgraced. 
 
 The curse of the black man is laziness and the curse 
 of the islands is the ease with which life may be sus- 
 tained. To these may be added a warped idea regard- 
 ing the tilling of the soil. There is deep rooted from 
 the times of the old planters the West Indian notion 
 that no gentleman dare use his hands in manual labour. 
 The West Indian negro who has received a small 
 smattering of an education spurns hard work and goes 
 to the towns, where he can obtain a position as a 
 clerk in a store. In this way the fields come to be 
 neglected and labour is actually imported for the tilling 
 of the soil. The black man wants to attain his estate 
 by revolution — not physical but mental — while this 
 can only come by a long process of evolution. In his 
 period of transition he should be guided by the highest 
 type of white man, broad minded, virile, keen and 
 human. Given authority to govern a small community, 
 such as that of Carriacou, and the right man's influence 
 for good among the people is infinite. The ease with 
 which he can accomplish reforms is astonishing. For 
 instance, on my first day at Carriacou I remarked to 
 Smith that there seemed to be scarcely any mosquitoes, 
 indeed, I had not seen any, a remarkable circumstance 
 
: :;».:; 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 87 
 
 in view of the fact that the land immediately to the 
 southeast of the town was low and swampy. 
 
 "You will have a hard time finding any on the island 
 now, although we have a few in the rainy season." 
 
 "Kerosene and mosquito bar?" I asked. 
 
 "No, million-fish. In Barbados," continued Smith, 
 "it was noticed that on certain fresh-water ponds there 
 seemed to be no mosquitoes. Upon investigation it 
 was found that these ponds were the habitat of the 
 'tap minnow' (Girardinus poeciloides) or 'million- 
 fish,' as it is called, and that these small fellows ate 
 the larvae of the mosquito as they rose to the surface 
 of the water. The fish were introduced to other ponds, 
 water tanks and rain barrels, with the result that there 
 was a considerable reduction of the pest. I sent for 
 some of the fish,* and put them on exhibition in a large 
 glass jar in my office. Then I asked the people to 
 bring in all the larvae they could find floating on the 
 top of the water in rain barrels, tanks and so on. As 
 soon as the larvae were put in the jar, the million-fish 
 swam to the surface and gobbled them up. Then I told 
 the people that if they put million-fish in all the places 
 where mosquitoes breed, the eggs would be eaten up 
 and there would be no more malaria, filaria, and so 
 forth. It was the best kind of an object lesson. The 
 fish were put in all the small ponds, tanks and barrels 
 and they multiplied till there were enough to distribute 
 all over the island." 
 
 In a similarly easy manner he disposed of a trouble- 
 some labour problem. The British government allows 
 
 * The males are an inch long, silvey-grey in color and with a red 
 spot on each side near the head. The females are about an inch and 
 a quarter long but have no red spot 
 
88 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 six hundred pounds to be spent yearly for the mainte- 
 nance and building of roads in Carriacou. The work is 
 done by native women who receive nine pence a day 
 or eighteen cents in our money. Smith found that 
 there were more women dependent upon the road work 
 for their livelihood than he could employ at one time 
 and the solution was suggested by the so-called 'pater- 
 nal system* used in St. Thomas. He secured a list of 
 all the road workers on the island. Of this list he 
 works forty each week, by rote, and in this way the 
 government road money is fairly distributed. He is 
 more like the owner of a large estate than an employe 
 of the British government ruling a small island for a 
 salary. I decided that there might be worse places to 
 live in than Carriacou and that with a man like Smith 
 on the island one's mind would not go altogether 
 fallow. Perhaps my liking for the island was strength- 
 ened when I walked into a neat little store, not unlike 
 the kind one finds in a new suburb of a progressive city. 
 Here I could buy small cans of white lead and paint, 
 commodities I could not find in St. George's, and I 
 found sandpaper that had not lain in mouldy disuse 
 since the times of the pirates. 
 
 As the day cooled into evening, I walked out to the 
 end of the jetty to contemplate the sunset and smoke a 
 quiet pipe. To the west Mabouya, where I had 
 camped the night before, hung a persistent little patch 
 which resisted the efforts of the trade to wash it away 
 towards the horizon of ragged clouds. To the north 
 jagged Union rose, the highest of all the Grenadines — - 
 but here my peace came to an end. 
 
 "What is your reputation?" broke upon my ears. I 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 89 
 
 faced about to find an officious native in a white linen 
 suit, cane and panama hat standing by me. While I 
 was groping feverishly in my mind for a suitable reply, 
 a native policeman stepped up and hustled off his com- 
 patriot before I should forever disgrace myself in this 
 island of soft language. I was no longer in the mood 
 for sunsets and I turned shorewards to find Smith pre- 
 paring for the drive to his home at Top Hill. The 
 twilight merged into the pale light of the new moon 
 and as we slowly climbed the hills Smith talked about 
 his island. 
 
 "That is our botanical garden," he said, pointing out 
 an acre or two of planted land that looked like a truck 
 garden, "limes, water lemons, and a flower garden so 
 that we can make up a bouquet when we have a 
 wedding, you know." 
 
 On our way we met a Yellow Carib from Demerara. 
 He was the second Carib that I had seen and joy came 
 with the thought that in Saint Vincent I should find 
 more of them, the last remnant of the Yellow Carib in 
 the Lesser Antilles. 
 
 We had no sooner alighted in the courtyard at Top 
 Hill than Smith bounded ahead of me and, standing 
 on the top step of his verandah waited for me with 
 outstretched hand, and said, "Welcome to Top Hill." 
 There was a warmth about it that I shall never forget. 
 
 With us was MacQueen, an engineer, who might 
 have been taken out of one of Kipling's Indian stories. 
 The two were in a mood for stories that night, stories, 
 for the most part, of the natives, showing their craze 
 for the spectacular, their excitability, and the ease with 
 which they can be fooled. 
 
90 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 "Did you ever," — there was a slight burr in the 
 "ever," — "did you everr hear the one about New 
 Year's Eve at Goyave, Mac?" 
 
 "Not in recent years," said Mac — and we have the 
 story. 
 
 "Times had been prosperous and the priest was 
 looking forward to a large contribution at the mass 
 which was to see the Old Year out and the New Year 
 in. He had arranged an impressive ceremony, not the 
 least part of which was the shooting of fireworks on the 
 precise stroke of twelve. Rockets were planted in the 
 churchyard behind the gravestones, and a boy was sta- 
 tioned to touch off the fuses at the given time. The 
 church was packed and in the dim candle light the priest 
 struck awe into the souls of his congregation as he told 
 them what a hell they were surely going to if they did 
 not repent. He spoke with the fervour of a man 
 working for that which was nearest his heart — money. 
 
 "The emotional natives became conscience-stricken 
 as they thought, childlike, of their many misdeeds and 
 there was the terror of hell in that blubbering crowd. 
 But there was a chance — a very small one, in truth — 
 and the priest pointed to that heaven for which they 
 could make a fresh start with the coming of the New 
 Year. As he raised his hand aloft, the boy thought it 
 was the signal for the fireworks. In the dramatic 
 pause that followed the priest's warning, the awesome 
 silence was intensified by the spasmodic snivelling of 
 the people. 
 
 "Suddenly there was a blinding flash, and a hissing 
 rocket spurned its way heavenward. Another rocket, 
 and then a bomb exploded. The boy was doing his 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 91 
 
 part well. To the frightened congregation the end of 
 the world must be at hand. With a roar of terror, they 
 rushed from the church taking their pennies with 
 them." 
 
 u O Lord," said Smith, the tears rolling down his 
 cheeks, "the poor priest was out the price of the fire- 
 works and lost his contribution." 
 
 "No doubt," said Mac, "he more than made up for 
 it in confession fees for he knew that his people were 
 uneasy of conscience." 
 
 "And talking about graveyards reminds me of a 
 burial we once had during the rainy season," continued 
 Smith. "A man had died of fever one hot afternoon 
 and I decided to have him buried that night. He was 
 laid out and I ordered a carpenter to make a box for 
 him. By ten o'clock the box was ready and we started 
 down the hill. There was no moon and the clouds shut 
 out the starlight. It was black as pitch and before the 
 days when we had a good road up from town. There 
 were three of us carrying the corpse, myself, the doc- 
 tor and my man, while the priest walked on ahead 
 chanting the Resurrection. We had no sooner started 
 than it began to rain. Not an ordinary rain or a 
 shower, but the torrential downpour of the tropics. In 
 a short time the roadway was a slippery downward 
 surface over which we were fighting to keep the box 
 with its contents from getting away from us. All this 
 time that lazy beggar was walking ahead of us chanting 
 in a loud voice for us to follow. The doctor, who was 
 a crusty old Scotchman, slipped and fell, pulling the box 
 down with him. Then, before we could take it up 
 again, he gave it a push and it coasted down the hill, 
 
92 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 catching up the priest on its way. As the black-robed 
 priest disappeared astride the coffin, the doctor yelled, 
 'Gae 'lang wid ye and yeer Resurrection.' " 
 
 The next day was the fifth of the moon. In these 
 latitudes where the moon seems to have a decided 
 influence upon the weather, there is a strong tendency 
 towards squalls on or about the fifth day of the new 
 moon. Captain Woolworth, in his book "Nigh onto 
 Sixty Years at Sea," mentions the fact that whenever 
 he ran into trouble it was almost invariably on the fifth 
 day of the new moon. Most of his voyages were made 
 in the tropics. Smith called my attention to the weather 
 on this day and I was careful to note every fifth day 
 during the rest of my six months in the tropics. Almost 
 without fail, from the third to the sixth day and gen- 
 erally on the fifth- day of the first quarter there was 
 trouble at sea. Conditions generally were unsettled. 
 Heavy squalls would blow down like the beginnings of 
 small hurricanes. Often I could count four or five 
 squalls at one time whipping up as many spots on the 
 sea to a fury of white caps and spindrift. There is 
 something uncanny in the way in which the moon seems 
 to affect the weather in these parts and I have often 
 thought that the superstition of the negro is not to 
 be wondered or sneered at. 
 
 The next day the weather was settled and continued 
 so for the rest of that quarter. 
 
 While overhauling my outfit which I had dumped 
 in a corner of Smith's office I again came upon my little 
 mascot. I was untying a bag containing a few small 
 bits of Carib pottery, which I had dug up near 
 Sauteurs in Grenada, when a black fuzzy object 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 93 
 
 jumped from the heap of duffle before me and 
 scampered across the floor. 
 
 "Hello! Who's your friend ?" asked Smith. 
 
 "Oh, that's my mascot," I answered, as I dashed 
 after her on all fours. 
 
 "Devil a fine mascot! Why don't you get a nice 
 loving snake? Here! Take this!" said Smith, as he 
 handed me a paper box cover. Having recaptured the 
 tarantula I told the story of the luck she had brought 
 me on my sail around Kick 'em Jinny. I was afraid that 
 she might get into my blanket some time and bite me, 
 so I took her life and carried her hairy carcass in a 
 cotton-padded pasteboard box. I believe that after 
 death her spirit hovered over the masts of the Yakaboo 
 and that she bore me no ill will, for luck stayed with 
 me for the rest of the cruise. 
 
 Having remained over the fifth day, I sailed for new 
 islands and landed on picturesque Frigate, which lies 
 off Union. Here I found an abundance of wood and 
 was soon enjoying the crackle of a little blaze. It was 
 good to be a Robinson Crusoe again, if only for a few 
 hours. Before me on the beach lay the Yakaboo, her 
 porpoise-like body suggesting more of the fish than the 
 boat. Across a shallow bay, floored with white coral 
 sand that gave it the appearance of a marble floored 
 pool, Union rose a thousand feet. 
 
 I could make out the houses of a village, climbing 
 above the shores of the bay, the most remarkable of 
 its kind in the whole range of the Lesser Antilles, for 
 I found that here one may see a thousand natives, 
 living in small huts clustered close together, in exactly 
 the way their ancestors lived two hundred years ago, 
 
94 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 when they were first brought over from Africa. One 
 change only from the early days — that of clothing. 
 The men wear trousers and shirts and the women wear 
 skirts. Remove their civilised rags and you have them 
 as they were in Africa. I have heard that in some of 
 the smaller and even more out of the way cays of the 
 Grenadines the natives live among themselves with 
 no clothing but the breech cloth. May the eye of my 
 camera see them thus in their natural state on some 
 future cruise. 
 
 While I was cooking my chocolate, a little open boat 
 had been sailing down the wind from the eastward. As 
 she beached close to the Yakaboo, two black men 
 jumped out of her while something in the stern 
 unfolded its attenuated length and I recognised 
 Walker, famous as the tallest man throughout these 
 islands. I knew him before I saw him — that is all of 
 him — for it takes two looks to get in his full height. 
 My eye wandered up and down his length as one views 
 a tall waterfall close by. 
 
 The British government had but lately taken over 
 Union Island from private owners and it had been 
 Walker's duty to survey and divide up the land so that 
 it can be sold in small parcels to the natives. With 
 the strength and perseverance of one charmed, 
 Walker has carried his transit in the fierce noon heat 
 and cut his lines through the brush. The soft tissue of 
 his body has long since run off in perspiration so that 
 there is little left for the sun to work upon. He goes 
 about his work unmindful, wearing a flannel shirt with 
 a double thickness over his spine and a large hat, which 
 gives him the appearance of an animated umbrella. 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 95 
 
 He has other dimensions besides height I found, one of 
 them being breadth of heart. 
 
 No introduction was necessary for I had long since 
 heard of the tall Walker, and he had expected my 
 coming long before he made out the butterfly rig of 
 the Yakaboo zig-zag its way up to the beach on Frigate. 
 
 During our conversation I admitted some knowledge 
 of drafting, upon which Walker said, "Come over to 
 Union and help me finish a map of the island and then 
 we can take off a few days for a little loaf." And so 
 it came to pass that my little green tent remained in 
 its bag in the forehold of the canoe and I became for 
 a time an inhabitant of Union. 
 
 A span of not much more than three nautical miles 
 separates the islands of Carriacou and Union and yet 
 the natives of Union differ from those of her neighbour 
 by nearly as many hundred years. Up to a short time 
 before I landed on the island, Union had been owned 
 by one man or one family from the time of its dis- 
 covery. There had been one house in which the owner 
 lived — on the top of a hill. It was now occupied by 
 Rupert Otway, who represented the British govern- 
 ment. Another house stood "down de bay," in which 
 the overseer had lived while the rest of the population 
 — slaves — had lived huddled together in the towns of 
 Ashton and Clifton. 
 
 In 1838 the slaves were freed and from that time 
 the prosperity of the island began to wane. But the 
 blacks continued to live there, holding no property, a 
 few of them working half-heartedly for the white man 
 and the rest dragging out a mere existence from the 
 fish of the sea. Now the government has bought the 
 
96 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 island and the ideal thing is being done — that is, the 
 island is being divided into small plots, which are held 
 out with every inducement for the native to buy. The 
 cash price is cheap, from four to eight pounds per 
 acre. There is also a system of payments arranged so 
 that the most impoverished native can take up a small 
 piece of land and from it work out the price to pay 
 for it. 
 
 Not the least charm of these islands are the small 
 private forts which one finds hidden in the bush which 
 has overgrown the top of some hill of vantage, leaving 
 scant evidence to the casual eye of some small pile of 
 heavy masonry, the name and origin of which may have 
 been long since forgotten. At the time of the 
 Napoleonic Wars, when these islands were immensely 
 rich in sugar, the estate owners were forced to defend 
 themselves from the depredations of the privateers 
 who infested these waters like the sharks that swim in 
 them. For this purpose the old estate owners built 
 private forts, one of which I found on Union, undis- 
 turbed in its state of dilapidation, four hundred feet 
 above the sea, on the top of an isolated hill so over- 
 grown with cactus that we had to cut our way to it. 
 
 Otway gave me a temporary Man Friday and after 
 an hour's work with our cutlasses we had cleared away 
 enough of the cactus so that we could walk about on 
 the rampart. The top was five-sided, not an exact 
 pentagon, about fifty feet in diameter. Here were four 
 old cannon, lying as they had long ago sunk through 
 their rotting carriages to rest, still pointing in the direc- 
 tion of their old enemies. One aimed at Mayero, two 
 miles away, another covered the channel to the east, 
 
) > > > 5 
 
 CASSAVA CAKES DRYING ON A ROOF AT MAYERO. RUINS OF THE 
 OLD ESTATE HOUSE OF THE ST. HILAIRES IN THE BACKGROUND. 
 
 DRYING THE CASSAVA, ISLE DE RONDE. 
 
r • ••; 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 97 
 
 a third at one time dropped its death on Prune, while 
 the fourth guarded the little bay where the ruins of 
 the old storehouse or cabaret still stands. The romance 
 of it all seemed intensified in the fierce noonday sun 
 and it required little imagination to picture the days 
 when fighting was an earnest sport. In the center stood 
 the stepping for the flagstaff, the staff itself doubtless 
 long since appropriated for the mast of some native 
 sloop that may even now be resting deep down at the 
 foot of Kick 'em Jinny. As the negro uses his horse 
 till it drops, so he uses his sloop till at last a fierce 
 squall gets him — "all standing" and she sinks with her 
 fear-paralysed crew, leaving no sign, but a hatch or a 
 broken bit of spar which drifts away towards the 
 setting sun.* 
 
 Under the steps, which descend from the rampart, 
 was the powder magazine, still intact, resembling an 
 old-fashioned bake oven — and this reminded me that 
 I was due at Government house for luncheon. 
 
 The next day as I tried to leave Union, faulty navi- 
 gation on the part of the skipper caused the center- 
 board of the Yakaboo to run afoul of a reef. The 
 Yakaboo got the worst of it and I had to put back for 
 repairs. I was on my way to Mayero. Both Walker 
 and Otway were glad to see me back in Union and no 
 sooner had I landed than they ordered their man to 
 carry the canoe up the hill to a shady place, where a 
 native carpenter could relieve me of the work of repair- 
 ing her. This done, Otway seemed to remember that 
 
 * In nearly all cases of loss at sea in these waters, there remains 
 not the slightest trace of the missing boat or crew and the relatives 
 blubber for a day or two, murmur, "It wuz de will ob de Lard" and 
 the tale becomes history. 
 
98 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 he owed Mayero a visit in his official capacity, Walker 
 decided to take a day off, and the three of us sailed 
 across in the little government sloop. 
 
 Our landing on Mayero was a strange performance. 
 The beach was steep-to with a fathom of water less 
 than a boat's length from dry sand. We threw out 
 an anchor astern and then ran the sloop inshore till 
 her bowsprit hung over the surf. Taking off our 
 clothes, we tied them together with our belts and threw 
 them high up on the beach. Three splashes followed 
 and we crawled ashore and dressed. After a climb of 
 about fifteen minutes we gained the top of the island, 
 where "Miss Jane-Rose" rules her little domain. 
 
 Mayero is one of those romance islands where in 
 its stagnation one can trace a past once beautiful, now 
 pathetic. At the time of the unrest in France, a cadet 
 branch of the Saint-Hilaire family came to this island, 
 thrived, and finally died with the ebbing fortunes of 
 sugar cane. The last descendant of this famous old 
 family, one of which was a lady-in-waiting to the 
 Empress Josephine at Malmaison, still governs the 
 island under a sort of feudal system. Her name is 
 Jane-Rose de Saint-Hilaire,* and she is a bright, keen 
 woman of about fifty, who rules her subjects with a 
 firm hand and who talks well. The two hundred 
 inhabitants, more or less, representing eighty families, 
 on the island, are, for the most part, descendants of 
 the slaves of the old Saint-Hilaires, and one can still 
 see in their faces the vanishing trace of the French 
 aristocracy like a thin outcropping of gold in the baser 
 rock. 
 
 ♦Miss Jane-Rose died in Feb., 1915. 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 99 
 
 Each family is allowed to erect a hut free of charge 
 of any kind. This hut is roofed with Guinea grass 
 straw and sided with wattles, cut on the island, and 
 plastered with mud. Most of the huts are floored with 
 American lumber. Each able-bodied inhabitant is 
 allowed as many acres as he or she cares to cultivate, 
 on the metayer or share system. By this arrangement 
 of land tenure, at the time of harvest the produce of 
 the land, cotton and cocoa, is divided equally between 
 the proprietress and the tenants. The people used 
 formerly to give their share of the cotton to Miss 
 Jane-Rose to dispose of for them, but they now sell it 
 direct to the British government at better prices. The 
 fisherman reserve for the proprietress a portion of 
 each day's catch. 
 
 The people are essentially French and no religion 
 other than the Roman Catholic is tolerated. Miss 
 Jane-Rose officiates as priestess and occasionally a 
 priest from Carriacou comes to celebrate mass. She 
 also acts the part of mediator or judge in many dis- 
 putes where no grave issues are involved. The peo- 
 ple, generally, are a law-abiding lot and in eight years 
 only two cases of importance have come within the 
 jurisdiction of Whitfield Smith at Carriacou. 
 
 The little church, close to her house, was opened 
 for our benefit, and it was with great pride that she 
 exhibited the altar and the painted inscriptions on the 
 walls. The building was nothing better than a wooden 
 shed, an ant-eaten sanctuary into which small birds 
 fly to nest through the holes in the roof. As we talked, 
 a pathetic figure stole in to have a glimpse of "de mon 
 in de boat," and to furtively touch his clothes to feel 
 
100 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 of what strange stuff they might be made. She was a 
 little woman of sixty or more, not shrunken, for that 
 would imply wrinkles, but lessened in size, as though 
 she were slowly evaporating. Her face was still the 
 face of youth, the sepia etching of a French beauty of 
 the old days, the skin dark, somewhat transparent and 
 of fine texture. It was a face beautiful and shapely in 
 every line, the only negro feature that I could detect 
 being the darkness of her skin. She seemed like some 
 incautious mortal, under the spell of a Circe, with an 
 appeal in her eyes to a deliverer who would never come. 
 
 With a parting gift of cassava cakes, taken from 
 their drying place on the roof of one of the near-by 
 huts, we scrambled down to the beach where we 
 undressed and swam to the sloop, holding our clothes 
 clear of the water. The wind had dropped with the 
 setting of the sun, and we drifted back to Union in 
 the moonlight before a soft, balmy air that carried 
 no chill. 
 
 The next day I was more successful in leaving the 
 island. Walker insisted upon accompanying me in his 
 sloop to pilot me, as he said, through the intricate 
 reefs. It afterwards turned out that he doubted the 
 ability of the Yakaboo to make the passage to Bequia 
 in safety. After three hours of cautious sailing, we 
 ran ashore on Cannouan to cook our luncheon. Here 
 it was that Walker taught me a new trick. The natives 
 of the island had come down to have a close scrutiny of 
 the strange man who was sailing about the islands in 
 "de canoe," and I had come to the conclusion that 
 their presence was far more picturesque than desirable. 
 They handled everything, examined my dishes, and one 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 10,1 
 
 of them even started to open my food bags. 3 . T swore 
 at them, but they did not seem to undtrsta id. To niy, 
 "What the devil shall I do with these people ?" 
 
 "Oh, I'll fix 'em," said Walker, at which he swept 
 one arm toward them and then pointing at me yelled: 
 
 "Get out! or *de mon' will put a curse on you." 
 
 The words were magic. Profanity had made no 
 impression, but the putting on of a curse by one who 
 bordered on the supernatural — that was something 
 different! With one bound they cleared the place of 
 our nooning and with another they were in the brush 
 where for the rest of our stay I could see the tops of 
 their woolly heads and the gleam of white eyeballs, 
 curiosity and fear holding them balanced, as it were, 
 at the nearest point of safety. After that, whenever 
 I was troubled by curious natives I repeated Walker's 
 magic formula, "Get out! Or Til put a curse on you." 
 
 Six o'clock found the canoe and the sloop three and 
 one half miles from West Cape on Bequia with a 
 strong lee tide, that is, off shore, and the wind 
 dropping. The sloop, being heavier with her rock 
 ballast and her crew of three, had outsailed the much 
 lighter canoe in the choppy seas and was leading some- 
 what to windward. Just as the sun was setting, I saw 
 a number of fins coming down towards the canoe. I 
 now got the greatest fright of my whole cruise. All 
 my past experience as to the cowardice of the shark 
 vanished, leaving a void into which fear rushed as into 
 a vacuum. My imaginative brain could only attach 
 those fins to a school of huge sharks, some of them 
 probably larger than the canoe I was sailing in. 
 
 Of what avail would my seven inches of freeboard be 
 
.102 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ^to one. of those fellows should he choose to slide his 
 ugly head ever the gunwale? Of what avail my arma- 
 ment of two rifles, one revolver, and one axe? At a 
 maximum I had a bullet each for nineteen sharks and 
 perhaps my trusty axe would finish up one or two, but 
 here was a horde descending upon me. I remembered 
 how sharks were in the habit of jumping clear of the 
 water and tearing out the blubber on a whale's back; 
 at any rate, I thought, I would finish one or two of 
 them before they dragged my mangled form into the 
 sea and so forth — oh, happy moment! 
 
 There was not the slightest use in altering my course 
 to avoid them, so I held on and the next moment was 
 in the midst of a school of snorting, playing porpoises. 
 I could have jumped overboard and hugged them. I 
 swore that the fun of graining them from the swaying 
 footropes would never again be mine, nor would I 
 even use their oil on my boots. To me the porpoise is 
 henceforth a sacred animal. There were hundreds of 
 them in the school and among them were blackfish of 
 a considerable size. Playful and curious, they would 
 make a dash with torpedo speed and then dive under 
 the canoe or swerve around the ends, fascinating me 
 with their wonderful grace and ease. One of them, 
 making a slight miscalculation, bumped the centerboard 
 and nearly upset the canoe. This made me think it 
 safer to run off the wind and travel with them, present- 
 ing the edge of the board rather than the side. And 
 so I kept them company till they had had their fun and 
 resumed their travels. 
 
 Some of them would jump clear of the water and 
 with a half turn in the air would land on their backs 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 103 
 
 with a resounding splash. It was their way of scratch- 
 ing their backs and I could almost see a grin of delight 
 on their mouths. As they left me, twilight gave way, 
 and I was alone in the starry night. Walker in the 
 sloop was somewhere to windward — out of sight. I 
 had taken in sail and was now rowing, using for a 
 guide Orion's Belt, suspended above the swaying top 
 of the stubby little mizzen mast. As the moon rose, I 
 could read the compass. 
 
 After an hour or so I must have fallen asleep, still 
 rowing, for I awoke at nine o'clock, the oars still in 
 my hands, to find that I was off my course and about 
 a mile from West Cape, which now loomed up black 
 in the distance. The current had swung the canoe 
 around little by little as I had ceased to take notice of 
 the compass till I was rowing northward instead of 
 nearly due east. In another hour I was headed into 
 Admiralty Bay in the lee of Bequia. 
 
 By that same law of compensation which I have 
 already mentioned, I was now rewarded for a hard 
 day of travel at sea. I shall never forget the beauty 
 of that night as I slipped into the easier waters under 
 the long arm of West Cape, which reaches from 
 Bequia three miles out to sea. The moon was high 
 in a brilliant sky across which the trade clouds rolled 
 like a curtain, on their never-ending march to the 
 Spanish Main. The Cape stood lofty and dark and 
 bold and I could see the surf rise from the rocks, high 
 into the air, white and forbidding like a living thing. 
 
 As the moon swung over its zenith, I could make 
 out the little huts and trees on the island as in daytime 
 and finally I saw a small fire on the beach, near where I 
 
104 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 judged the village to be. It was half-past eleven when 
 I rowed up to the jetty, which stood out into the water 
 like an immense centipede. The squeak of my row- 
 locks betrayed my presence and the natives, who were 
 lying on the beach by the fire, rushed out onto the 
 jetty. They had been waiting for me. Then came the 
 usual babble of voices and torrent of questions. 
 
 Their curiosity was unappeased for I tied my 
 painter to a sloop at anchor near the jetty and even 
 as I was preparing to turn in, a native policeman drove 
 the crowd inshore. 
 
 The Yakaboo was indeed a real "live-aboard-ship" 
 and had my stove been in commission I could have 
 cooked my supper in the cockpit. In fact, I could have 
 lived aboard indefinitely as long as food and water 
 held out, for I could % rig up my tent over the cockpit 
 in the event of rain. Cold meat, crackers, and cool 
 fresh water made an excellent repast for a starved 
 and healthy stomach. 
 
 One who has never done this sort of thing can 
 scarcely appreciate my sense of complete luxury as I 
 lay in my blankets in the snug cockpit of the Yakaboo, 
 And always at the mention of the Yakaboo I think of 
 her as a thing of life. There was scarcely any motion 
 in the quiet waters of the bay, yet I could feel her 
 buoying me up, as though I were resting on a small 
 cloud suspended in mid-air, a Mahomet's coffin. Then 
 as I rolled over to lie on my side she would give grace- 
 fully — she was always there under me, holding me up 
 out of the sea — my water cradle. A great contentment 
 came over me as I lay contemplating the magical 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 105 
 
 harbour into which I had found my way like a tired 
 gull. 
 
 I had hardly fallen asleep when Walker sailed along- 
 side and awoke me. He had lost track of me in the 
 darkness and had been looking for me till the moon- 
 light had shown the Yakaboo crawling into Admiralty 
 harbour. He sent his two men ashore and I passed 
 him some food and one of my blankets. He left again 
 at five in the morning with some food which I insisted 
 upon his taking and a better opinion of the ability of 
 the Yakaboo. There are few men I should care to 
 have with me in the open. Walker is one of them. 
 
 With the sun came the incessant babble of an increas- 
 ing crowd on shore. Sleep was impossible and I landed 
 at nine o'clock. Before I had turned in the night 
 before, I asked the crowd whether u 01d Bill" Wallace, 
 the Nestor of whalemen in the Grenadines, was still 
 alive. Yes, they told me, he lived in the hills beyond 
 'Tony Gibbon's." 
 
 "Old Bill" came down as I was cooking breakfast 
 over a coal-pot in the parsonage. (When I end this 
 life I shall go with an infinite debt to lighthouse keep- 
 ers, Scotchmen and English parsons.) I gave him a 
 letter I had carried from Boston in my portfolio. It 
 was from a shipmate of his son, who had been lost at 
 sea. In it were two photographs of young Wallace on 
 the next but last of his voyages, showing his active 
 young figure at the "mincing" board and in the cross 
 trees. As the old man opened the letter a look of sur- 
 prise came over him and he held the photographs in 
 trembling hands. It was like a message from the dead, 
 almost, to see his son at work on the whaler, and a 
 
106 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 far-off look came into his eyes as he stood there, 
 brought back so suddenly to the vague tragedy that had 
 been the hardest burden of a hard life. 
 
 "I am old and broken down now, and not much use," 
 he said, "but as long as these old hands can work I'll 
 keep on going till I slip my moorings and get off on my 
 last cruise." Hard work and a rough life had been 
 the lot of this relic of a fast vanishing type of deep- 
 water sailor. In that romance age of fifteen he had 
 spewed the silver spoon from his mouth and left it 
 on the hearth of his Scotland home to taste his first 
 sting of bitterness under the care of a Yankee skipper. 
 
 He finally drifted to Bequia with his earnings and 
 bought a large sugar plantation. But the seafaring 
 man rarely prospers on land. The failure of sugar 
 cane in the islands, followed by a disastrous hurricane, 
 brought an end to his few years of ease, and he had to 
 turn to the humpbacking that he had taught the 
 natives, "jumbie crabs," he called them. Now, too old 
 to go whaling, he is rusting away like the ships he used 
 to sail, waiting to a slip his moorings." 
 
 In the afternoon, I climbed the hill to his house, 
 rebuilt in a corner of the ruins of his former home, as 
 if backed off in a corner by fate. There I met his 
 blue-eyed little wife and drank with them the bitter 
 tea that had simmered on the coals since morning. It 
 was many years since he had talked to one from the 
 States and as the afternoon grew old his enthusiasm 
 over the adventures of his life rose to the fitting climax 
 of a hurricane off Delos in Africa. 
 
 The rickety chair would no longer hold him and he 
 stood in the doorway, dark against the levelled rays of 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 107 
 
 the setting sun, a fiery, Quixotic figure, brandishing his 
 cutlass to illustrate how, as a mate on the almost 
 doomed ship, he had stood years ago in that tense 
 moment with uplifted axe ready to cut the weather 
 shrouds. She was "six points higher than Jordan," 
 he had thought, as she lay with her lee rail under water, 
 not a rag up, held by the force of the wind against her 
 spars. Then — "be th' powers o' Malkenny's cat," 
 she had righted herself and the ship was saved without 
 losing a stick. I can feel his enthusiasm now and I 
 wonder if, in the eternal fitness of things, the good 
 saint will promote him to captaincy on the ghost of 
 that ship on the seas of the world to come. 
 
 There was a pathetic touch in his farewell to me, 
 for I had brought back to him the sweet memories of a 
 gallant son. I left him still standing in the doorway, 
 the cutlass hanging forgotten from one arm, the other 
 around the shoulder of his mild little wife. 
 
 One hears a great deal of the tropical sunset, but 
 to me there is nothing to compare with the moon- 
 light of these islands, and it was a continual source of 
 pleasure to wander about in the hills in the light of the 
 full moon. There is a colour effect that I have found 
 in no other place. The blue sky as in daytime, but soft- 
 ened, with the motion of the large, white, fleecy clouds 
 in contrast. The sea a darker blue with the pattern 
 of the coral reefs showing up yellow and brown. The 
 island itself a subdued blue framed in the thin line 
 of white foam on the rocks. Distance was here and as 
 I stood high above the bay I could see the islands I 
 had left, Cannouan, Mayero, Union, high and dark, 
 and even Carriacou, thirty miles away. 
 
108 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 On my way down to the bay, I passed a group of 
 little native huts, where a more or less heated discussion 
 was in progress. 
 
 "He no sail in de da' — he floy in de noight! You 
 tink dat li'le boat go in de water? Oh, my!" and I 
 realised that I was the topic of conversation. As 
 I neared them, one said, "O Lard, he come now." 
 
 I now understood why I had been so quickly discov- 
 ered when I rowed into the harbour the night before. 
 One of the natives, with a powerful ship's telescope 
 "obtained" from some Yankee whaler, had picked 
 up my queer rig, late in the afternoon, as I was 
 approaching Bequia and had seen my sails go down 
 shortly after sunset. They knew that the wind was 
 dropping and they believed that I had spread out my 
 sails parallel to the water and flown. In fact, the 
 common belief in Bequia was that the sailing was only 
 a bluff and that I really covered my distances by flying 
 at night. 
 
 So they had built a bonfire and were waiting for 
 me on the beach, where they knew I would land. Sure 
 enough, I did land there, but before they had had a 
 chance to see me fly, I had folded the wings of the 
 Yakaboo and was rowing. They could not understand 
 how such a small boat could live in their seas. The 
 cut of the sails suggested wings and the natural deduc- 
 tion was, "He no sail, he floy." 
 
 I was a man apart and I found out later that the 
 natives regarded me with a great deal of awe and 
 thought that I carried some sort of imp or fetish with 
 me in the canoe. Perhaps I did. Was there not a 
 gru-gru nut the postmaster at Goyave had given me, 
 
iJt4oLl 
 
 "old bill" and the skipper of the "yakaboo." 
 
CARRIACOU— MAYERO— BEQUIA 109 
 
 and how about my little dead mascot? Except for 
 the more intelligent men, they were afraid of me, but 
 curiosity would get the better of their fear and as I 
 talked to them I would now and then feel the furtive 
 fingers of some of the bolder ones touching my clothes 
 as one would a priest's robe. 
 
 It was one afternoon, while I was visiting a "try- 
 works" on the south shore, where they were boiling 
 oil from my friend the porpoise, that I espied a little 
 boat with a peculiar rig coming down from the East. 
 The natives confirmed my guess, it was a Carib canoe. 
 By a lucky chance the canoe beached almost at my feet. 
 There were four Indians in her and I immediately 
 questioned them as to the settlement at Sandy Point, 
 on the north end of Saint Vincent. Yes, they were 
 from the Carib Country and would be glad to have 
 me come up and live with them as long as I wished. 
 What a joy it was to see the lighter colour of their 
 skins, their straight black hair, and thin lips. They 
 reminded me of the Japanese and my eye did not miss 
 the ease with which they carried themselves and 
 handled their canoe. 
 
 The next morning I said, "Yakaboo," to the Grena- 
 dines and laid my course for Saint Vincent and the 
 Carib Country. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CLIMBING THE SOUFRIERE OF SAINT VINCENT 
 
 MY entry into the port of Kingstown was spectacu- 
 lar, but hardly to my liking. The mail sloop 
 from Bequia had spread the news of my coming and 
 as I neared the shore, I saw that the jetty and the 
 beach were black with black people. A rain squall 
 came down from the hills, but it did not seem to 
 dampen the interest of the people nor dim the eye of 
 my camera. I had scarcely stepped out of the canoe 
 when the crowd rushed into the water, lifted her on 
 their shoulders and she continued on her way through 
 a sea of bobbing heads. Direct was her course for 
 the gate of the building which contains the govern- 
 ment offices and she at last came to rest in a shaded 
 corner of the patio, where the police are drilled. As 
 I followed in her wake, I said to myself, "She may 
 be without rudder and without skipper and still find 
 her way to a quiet berth." We were in a land-locked 
 harbour, the crowd as a sea outside, beating against 
 the walls. 
 
 My own procedure was as strange a performance as 
 that of the Yakaboo. Among the officials in the patio 
 was one who pushed himself forward and gave me 
 a package of mail. He was His Majesty's Postmaster, 
 Mr. Monplaisir. 
 
 110 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 111 
 
 "Is there anything I can do for you?" asked H. M. 
 P. M., addressing me by my first name. 
 
 "Yes, Monty," — he was pleased at this — "you can 
 lead me to a fresh-water shower." 
 
 "Come along, then," and the sergeant opened the 
 gate for us. As we walked through the streets, the 
 crowd streaked out behind us like the tail of a comet. 
 We soon gained the house of one Mr. Crichton, where 
 a number of government clerks lived as in a boarding 
 house and where a transient guest might also find 
 lodging. There happened that time to be such a guest, 
 by name, Dr. Theodorini — optometrist. His mission 
 in life, it seemed, was to relieve the eye strain of suffer- 
 ing natives throughout the West Indies. His most 
 popular prescriptions called for gold-rimmed glasses — 
 not always a necessity, but undeniably a distinct social 
 asset. We became good friends. 
 
 My comet's tail, like any well behaved appendage, 
 tried to follow me into Mr. Crichton's house but the 
 landlord was too quick for it and, as I stepped over the 
 threshold, he bounded against the flimsy door, thus 
 performing a very adroit piece of astronomic surgery. 
 Divested of my tail, I was led to the bath, which 
 proved to be a small separate building erected over 
 a spacious tank with sides waist high. Over the center 
 of the tank drooped a nozzle with a cord hanging 
 down beside it. What an excellent chance to wash the 
 sea water out of my clothes! I pulled the cord and 
 stood under the shower. Monty handed me a cigar- 
 ette which I puffed under my hat brim. 
 
 In the meantime, Dr. Theodorini, whom I had not 
 yet met, began throwing pennies to the baffled crowd 
 
112 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 from the second story window. It must have been a 
 queer sight could one have viewed it in section. The 
 swearing of the landlord, accompanied by the orches- 
 tration of the voices outside and the staccato "Hur- 
 rah's" of Theodorini reminded me in a silly way of 
 Tschaikowsky's 1812 overture. 
 
 Having washed my clothes, I bathed au naturel and 
 then found to my chagrin that I had brought nothing 
 with me from the canoe. Through the partly opened 
 door I ordered one of the servants to go to my canoe 
 and bring the little yellow bag which contained my 
 spare wardrobe. Dried and unsalted, I emerged from 
 the bath to sit down to a West Indian breakfast at 
 the table of mine host. 
 
 My days in Kingstown were mainly occupied in 
 developing the more recent exposures I had made in 
 the Grenadines and in rewashing the films I had de- 
 veloped en route. In the tropics I found that as soon 
 as I had opened a tin of films, it was imperative to 
 expose and develop them as quickly as possible in order 
 to avoid fogging in the excessive heat. Whenever I 
 came to a place like Kingstown where ice was ob- 
 tainable ,this was a simple matter, for by the use of 
 the film tank and the changing bag I was independent 
 of a dark room. 
 
 On the beaches, however, my chief difficulty was 
 in lowering the temperature of the water, which usu- 
 ally stood at 8o° F. — the "frilling" point for films. 
 Having mixed the developing solution in the tank, I 
 would close it and wrap it carefully in a wet flannel 
 shirt. Then with a line tied to it — my mizzen hal- 
 yard served admirably with its three-inch mast ring 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 113 
 
 to hold in my hand — I would step clear of my tent and 
 whirl the tank around my head at the end of the line. 
 In this way I could bring down the temperature of 
 the liquid to about 75 ° — a safe temperature for de- 
 veloping. Often I did not have enough fresh water 
 for washing the developed films and would have to use 
 sea water — which meant a thorough rewashing such 
 as at Kingstown. Even under these adverse condi- 
 tions my failures were only ten per cent of the total. 
 
 Ice, in these parts, is used mainly in the making of 
 swizzles, as the West Indian cocktails are called, and 
 when, as at Crichton's, I would send for enough ice 
 to chill gallons of swizzles and withdraw silently to 
 my room after dinner, another topic would be added 
 in the speculation which summed me up as "queer 
 chap that." 
 
 On the 22nd of March, I sailed out of the road- 
 stead of Kingstown before a stiff breeze which the 
 trade sent around the southern hills like a helping 
 hand. It was only natural that the wind should be- 
 come contrary off Old Woman Point where it hauled 
 around to the North. Then it changed its mind, 
 crawled up and down the mast a couple of times, and 
 died out in a hot gasp. 
 
 The shift from sails to oars in the Yakaboo was 
 quickly made. With a tug and a turn the mizzen was 
 hauled taut and made fast. I worked my lines on 
 "Butler" cleats, a combination of hook and jam cleat 
 that was quick and effective. 
 
 A semicircular motion of the hand cleared the line, 
 the same motion reversed made the line fast again. 
 My mizzen boom amidships, I then let go the main 
 
114 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 halyard and the sail dropped into its lazy jacks like 
 a loose-jointed fan. With three turns of the hal- 
 yard the furled sail was secured and by making the 
 line fast to its cleat on the port coaming the sail was 
 kept to one side, clear of the cockpit. The lazy 
 jacks held the sail up so that the oar could pass under 
 it without interference. By letting go the mizzen 
 halyard, it likewise fell into its lazy jacks. To furl 
 the mizzen, I pulled taut on a down-haul, the standing 
 parts of which passed around each side of the sail and 
 over the gaff. Thus the gaff was drawn down close to 
 the boom, the line snugly holding the intermediate 
 sail and battens. 
 
 These five operations were done in the time it takes 
 a man to remove a case from his pocket and light a 
 cigarette. Then I loosed the light seven-foot oars 
 tied in the cockpit with their blades under the forward 
 decking. With a shove my blanket bag was in the 
 forward end of the cockpit, where it served as my 
 seat when rowing. The rowlock chocks with their 
 sockets and rowlocks were quickly secured in their 
 places on deck, by means of winged nuts that screwed 
 into flush sockets. By the time the man with the cig- 
 arette has taken three puffs the Yakaboo is off at a 
 three and a half knot gait. 
 
 So far, I had done but little rowing in smooth waters 
 and the sense of stealing quietly along the lee coast 
 to enjoy its intimacy was a new pleasure. All these 
 islands, especially the lower ones, have more or less 
 the same formation — Grenada, Saint Vincent, Saint 
 Lucia, and Dominica. This formation consists of a 
 backbone which rises to a height of from two to three 
 
AS I NEARED THE SHORE I SAW THAT THE JETTY WAS BLACK 
 WITH BLACK PEOPLE." 
 
 fiiti i rjJL !li!i 
 
 THE USUAL APPEARANCE OF THE JETTY. 
 FOR THE MARKET. 
 
 ^LOADING 
 

CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 115 
 
 thousand feet and is the main axis of the island with 
 spurs which run down to the Atlantic and the Carib- 
 bean, east and west, like the veins of a leaf. The 
 coast is a fascinating succession of points, bays, cliffs, 
 and coves. One may range along shore and find a 
 spot to suit any whim one's fancy may dictate. 
 
 I chanced to look around — to locate my position 
 on the chart — when I found that I was rowing into 
 a fleet of canoes calmly resting on the heave of the 
 sea like a flock of ducks. They were apparently wait- 
 ing for me. There was not the usual babble of the 
 native and if I had not turned just then another stroke 
 or two would have shot the Yakaboo into their friendly 
 ambuscade. The canoes were filled with "Black Ca- 
 ribs" — hence the absence of the babble — that sub-race 
 which sprang from Bequia nearly two and a half cen- 
 turies ago. 
 
 In 1675, a slave ship from the West Coast of 
 Africa foundered in a gale on the shores of Bequia 
 which at that time was a Carib stronghold. The 
 negroes were good water people and as the ship went 
 down they swam ashore, men, women, and children, 
 where they were well received by the Caribs. What 
 became of the white skipper and his crew one does 
 not hear — they were presumably murdered. 
 
 The Caribs were quick to realise that fortune had 
 sent them a new ally in these negroes whose love for 
 the white man was at a low ebb. The blacks were 
 adopted by the Caribs and a new sub-race was formed. 
 The result was a tribe in which the fighting qualities 
 of both races were distilled to a double strength (an 
 expression which comes naturally enough when one 
 
116 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 is writing in a rum country). These Black Caribs 
 successfully held the English at bay for a number of 
 years. Nearly a quarter of a century before, the 
 Caribs in Grenada had been completely exterminated 
 by the French and they were now being rapidly driven 
 out of Saint Vincent by the English. 
 
 The negro blood very quickly gained ascendency, 
 as it invariably does, and as far as I could ascertain 
 the traces of the Carib were almost completely oblit- 
 erated among the Black Caribs whom I saw. The 
 hair is one of the most obvious indices of admixture, 
 varying from the close curly wool of the pure African 
 through diverse shades of dark tow to the straight 
 black of the Indian. Where racial colour is well mixed, 
 the hair is often like the frayed end of a hemp rope. 
 
 I stopped to talk with them and they begged me to 
 come ashore to see their village of which they v/ere 
 evidently proud. It is called Layou and lies in the 
 bight of a bay by the same name. We landed on a 
 beach furnace of hot black sand. The sand reminded 
 me of iron, and iron reminded me of tetanus. This 
 reminded me that the lockjaw germ is not a rare 
 animal on these inhabited beaches so I put on my 
 moccasins. 
 
 As I have implied there was heat. Not alone the 
 stifling heat of a beach where the still air, like a spongy 
 mass, seems to accumulate caloric units but also the 
 heat of a vertical tropic sun, pouring down like rain. 
 My felt hat, stuffed with a red handkerchief, made a 
 small circle of shade which protected my neck when 
 I held my head up but left the tips of my shoul- 
 ders scorching. My forearms hung gorilla-like from 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 117 
 
 my rolled up sleeves, not bare but covered by a deep 
 tan from which sprang a forest of bleached hairs — 
 the result of weather. Heaven preserve me from a 
 nooning on a beach like that! 
 
 The village consisted of a single row of one-room 
 huts, thatch-roofed and wattle-sided, each standing 
 on four posts as if to hold its body off the blistering 
 sands. The people conducted me along this row of 
 huts on stilts in exactly the way a provincial will take 
 you for a walk down the main street of his town. In- 
 stead of turning into the drug store, we fetched up by 
 a large dugout where a quantity of water-nuts (jelly 
 coconuts) were opened. It was the nectar of the Gods. 
 
 I felt like an explorer on the coast of Africa being 
 entertained by the people of a friendly tribe. I was 
 touched by their kindly hospitality and shall tell you 
 later of other friendly acts by these coast natives. I 
 do not believe it was curiosity alone that tempted them 
 to beg me to visit their village. True, they crowded 
 around the Yakaboo, but they had the delicacy not to 
 touch it, a trait which usually obtains among rural 
 or coastal natives whether in these islands or civilisa- 
 tion. They seemed deeply interested in me and I felt 
 that they were constantly devouring me with their eyes. 
 When I left them, they filled the cockpit of the Yaka- 
 boo with bananas and water-nuts trimmed ready to 
 open at a slice from my knife. 
 
 As I rowed out into the bay, I nearly ran down a 
 diminutive craft sailing across my bows. There was 
 something about that double rig — the Yakaboo turned 
 around to look at it as we slid by — and sure enough 
 it was Yakaboo* s miniature ! Not far off a small grin- 
 
118 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ning boy sat on a small bobbing catamaran. He had 
 seen the Yakaboo in Kingstown and had made a small 
 model of her — and so she was known to a place before 
 she herself got there. I left a shilling on the deck of 
 the Little Yakaboo, but she was not long burdened 
 with her precious cargo. 
 
 I was again dreaming along shore. Instead of fac- 
 ing the north, as I had while sailing, and looking at 
 new country, I was now looking toward the south and 
 could still see the outlines of the Grenadines and even 
 distant Grenada, a haunting tongue of misty blue that 
 faded into the uncertain southern horizon. The idea 
 seemed to possess me that I should never get out of 
 sight of that outline. Now I saw it with my own 
 eyes, eaten up by the last point astern that had de- 
 voured the Grenadines one by one. I looked around 
 me and could see only shores that were new to me 
 within the hour. There was a strange joy in it. I 
 had made a tangible step northward. 
 
 The sun was getting low, and as the reflection came 
 from the broken water, miles to leeward, I felt that 
 I was travelling along the edge of the world. No 
 horizon line to denote finality, the sense was of in- 
 finity and I fancied the trade wind, which blew high 
 overhead and met the sea offshore, a siren trying to 
 draw me away from land to the unknown of ragged 
 clouds. It was the effect upon my mind of the cease- 
 less trade and the westerly current. 
 
 With the setting of the sun my row came to an 
 end. I was in the little bay of Chateau Belaire, at the 
 foot of the Soufriere volcano. 
 
 There was a fierce joy of deception in my heart as 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 119 
 
 I sneaked up to the jetty in the dusk and quietly tied 
 my painter to the landing stage. For once I had 
 cheated the native of the small spectacular scene of 
 which he is so fond. As I stepped ashore, dusk gave 
 way to a darkness relieved only by the glow of coal- 
 pots through open doors and the smell of frying fish. 
 The stars were not yet in their full glow. I could 
 move about in the murk observing but not observed. 
 I could walk among the fishermen and their garboarded 
 dugouts without the ever-recurrent "Look! de mon!" 
 But I did not walk about for long and for two very 
 good reasons. A lynx-eyed policeman who had dis- 
 covered the Yakaboo was one, a foot full of sea eggs 
 was the other. 
 
 One morning in Kingstown, I went for a sea bath 
 with Monty. It was then I learned that sharks are 
 not the greatest pest of the sea for while incautiously 
 poking among the rocks I managed to fill my foot 
 full of the sharp spines of a sea egg, spines as brittle 
 as glass that break off in the flesh. I had tried to 
 cut them out with my scalpel, but that only tended to 
 increase the damage. Monty had told me the only 
 thing for me to do was to wait till the points worked 
 out of their own accord. 
 
 So I hobbled back to the jetty to take possession 
 of my canoe. My plan was to leave the Yakaboo at 
 Chateau Belaire while I made the ascent of the Sou- 
 friere and while I visited the Caribs on the windward 
 side where the surf was high and the rocky beaches 
 more friendly to the thick bottom of a log dugout than 
 a quarter inch skin. So the Yakaboo — she was becom- 
 ing an habitue of the police courts — was unloaded and 
 
120 ALONE IX THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 carried to the station. While I was in the Carib 
 country, the local court was in session and she served 
 as a bench for the witnesses. I hope that her honest 
 spirit permeated upwards through those witnesses so 
 that in the day of judgment they may say, "Once, 
 O Peter, did I speak the truth." 
 
 Information regarding the approach and the ascent 
 of the Soufriere was untrustworthy and difficult to 
 obtain. Any number of the natives seemed to have 
 climbed the volcano, but none of them could tell me 
 how to do it — a little subtlety on their part to force 
 me to hire guides. I engaged my men, brewed a cup 
 of tea, chatted with the police sergeant, and turned 
 in, on the stiff canvas cot in the rest-room, with a sheet 
 over me. I now know how a corpse feels when it is 
 laid out. 
 
 My guides awoke me at five in the morning, I cooked 
 a hasty breakfast and was with them in their boat 
 half an hour later. There were two of them and as 
 surly as any raw Swede deck hands I have ever had 
 to do with. For an hour we rowed in silence and then 
 we landed at the mouth of the Wallibu Dry River. 
 With some of these natives, although you may have 
 hired them at their own price to serve you, the feeling 
 seems to be not to serve you and do what you wish 
 them to do but to grudge their effort on your behalf 
 and to make you do what they want you to do. It 
 requires continual insistence on the part of the white 
 man to have, at times, the simplest services performed 
 — an insistence that makes one nerve-weary and ir- 
 ritable. 
 
 As soon as we stepped ashore, I sat down on a con- 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 121 
 
 venient rock to grease and bandage my sore foot. 
 They seemed to have forgotten my presence entirely 
 and started up the bed of the river without even look- 
 ing around to see whether I was coming or not. I let 
 them walk till they were almost out of hearing and 
 then I called them back. When they came to me, not 
 without some little show of temper, I told them in 
 unmistakable words of one syllable and most of them 
 connected by hyphens — that we had as yet not started 
 to climb the mountain and that at the end of the day's 
 work I should pay them for being guides and not re- 
 trievers to nose out the bush ahead of me. 
 
 We proceeded up the bed of the Wallibu River 
 which had been made dry in the last eruption (1902) 
 by a deep deposit of volcanic rocks and dust which 
 had forced the water to seek another channel. As we 
 walked between the canon-like sides, I was reminded 
 of our own Bad Lands and for the first time I felt a 
 bit homesick. These islands have very little in com- 
 mon with our northern country; even the nature of 
 the people is different. It seemed queer to me to be 
 walking in this miniature canon with a couple of West 
 Indian natives instead of riding a patient pony and 
 exchanging a monosyllable or two with a Westerner. 
 I longed for the sight of a few bleached cattle bones 
 and perhaps a gopher hole or a friendly rattlesnake. 
 
 A small spur broke the perpendicular face of the 
 northern wall and here we climbed to the upper sur- 
 face. We were now in bush, most of which was a 
 sort of cane grass, over our heads in height, through 
 which we followed a narrow trail. This upper sur- 
 face on which we now travelled was in reality the 
 
122 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 lowest slope of the volcano, a gentle incline where 
 the catenary curve from the crater melts into the 
 horizontal line of the earth's surface. Soon I could 
 see over the top of the grass and found that we were 
 following the ridge of a spur which radiated in a south- 
 westerly direction from the volcano. The ridge itself 
 was not one continuous curve upward but festooned 
 along a series of small peaks between which we dropped 
 down into the bush from time to time. The vegeta- 
 tion between these peaks consisted of the same heavy 
 cane grass we had passed through on the lower slope. 
 
 To offset the lack of wind in these valley-like de- 
 pressions the grass again rose above our heads, keep- 
 ing the trail well shaded. Thank fortune, the dreaded 
 fer-de-lance does not exist on this island. At about 
 1,500 feet the vegetation ceased altogether except for 
 a few stray clumps of grass and the greenish fungus 
 that gave the ground a mouldy, coppery appearance. 
 There was no sign of the flow of lava on this side 
 of the volcano, merely the rocks and dust which had 
 been thrown up in immense quantities. As we neared 
 the top the wind blew strongly and was cold with 
 the mist torn from the bellies of low-hanging trade 
 clouds. I was fortunate in choosing a day when the 
 crater was at times entirely free of clouds, for only 
 once during the next ten days did I see the top again 
 uncovered, and then for only a few minutes. 
 
 Contrary to my wishes, my sullen guides had again 
 taken the bit in their teeth and they started the ascent 
 at a brisk pace which killed them before we were half 
 way up the mountain. My sore foot demanded a steady 
 ground eating pace with no rests. Up till this time they 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 123 
 
 had walked a considerable space ahead of me, this lead 
 gradually decreasing as they tired. I could lose no 
 time and dared not rest, and since I could now find my 
 way perfectly well alone, I went on ahead of them. As 
 I neared the top, the force of the wind became more 
 and more violent till I found it impossible to stand 
 up and I finished the last hundred yards on my hands 
 and knees. 
 
 The sight that greeted my eyes as I peered over 
 the rim of the crater literally took my breath away — 
 that is, what breath the wind had not shoved down to 
 my stomach, for it was blowing a hurricane. I could 
 not at once quite grasp the immensity of the crater — 
 for its proportions are so perfect that I would not 
 have believed the distance across to the opposite rim 
 to be more than a few hundred yards, — it is nearly 
 a mile. A thousand feet below me — held in the bowl 
 of the crater — was a lake almost half a mile in diame- 
 ter. During the last splutters of the eruption of 1902 
 the ejecta had fallen back and this together with the 
 subsiding of the inner slopes of the crater had effectu- 
 ally sealed up the chimney of the volcano. 
 
 The enormous precipitation which is nearly always 
 going on, due to the striking of the clouds against the 
 crater, has collected in the bottom to form this lake. 
 I hardly knew my old friend the trade wind. He 
 rushed up the windward side of the mountain, boarded 
 the crater, and pounced upon the lake like a demon, 
 spreading squalls in all directions. The surface of the 
 water looked like the blushing surface of a yellow 
 molten metal. Then up the leeward side and over the 
 rim where I hung, he came with the scream of a thou- 
 
124 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 sand furies. It was as though the spirits of the un- 
 funeraled dead had come back to haunt the place, 
 day and night. As I pulled the slide out of my 
 camera, to make an exposure, the wind bent it nearly 
 to the breaking point. My hat had long since been a 
 tight roll in my pocket and I lay, head on, my toes 
 dug into the slimy surface of the slope, with my face 
 buried in the hood of my camera and the empty case 
 streaming out behind me. 
 
 I spent an hour in scrambling along the rim and 
 then returned to the guides who were resting some 
 distance below. It was still early for I had reached 
 the rim at 8 130 after a climb of an hour and thirty-two 
 minutes. My barometer registered a height of three 
 thousand and twenty feet and while the climb had been 
 an easy one, the time was not bad for a foot full of sea 
 eggs. 
 
 Higher mountains to the north cut off all possibility 
 of seeing Saint Lucia or Martinique, but as I looked to 
 the south, Grenada showed herself and the Grenadines 
 stretched out like stepping stones. Below lay all the 
 vast area that had been laid waste by the eruption. 
 In place of the forests, now buried deep in the volcanic 
 dust and scoria, was a green blanket of grass, bush 
 and small trees that would belie an eruption that had 
 obliterated every sign of green nine years ago. Scru- 
 tiny with the field glasses, however, showed innumer- 
 able canons cut through laminae of volcanic deposit 
 with thin layers of soil between. I could almost throw 
 a stone, I thought, into the little village of Chateau 
 Belaire four miles away, that by some miracle had es- 
 caped destruction by a few hundred yards. But my 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 125 
 
 eyes always came to rest on the Caribbean. The rays 
 of the sun, reflected back from myriad waves, too 
 distant to be seen, gave the sea the appearance of a 
 vast sheet of molten metal with here and there a blush 
 where some trade cloud trailed its shadow. The 
 clouds dissolved away into the horizon, sustaining the 
 feeling that there was nothing beyond but infinity. 
 
 The sea eggs were now giving sharp notice of their 
 presence and I decided to rush the descent. I had ex- 
 changed but few words with my guides. If there had 
 been discontent during the ascent, there was more 
 cause for it now. The customary grog had not been 
 forthcoming, for I never carry spirits on an expedi- 
 tion like this. In case of accident or exposure there 
 are better things that give no after effects of let down. 
 My guides followed me in my downward rush with 
 hardly breath enough for the proper amount of curs- 
 ing which the occasion demanded. If they said any- 
 thing about "de dyam Yonkee" I heard it not, for the 
 trade wind would have carried it high over my head. 
 The enjoyment of the chase kept my mind off the pain 
 in my foot. I reached the boat in forty minutes. 
 
 When we arrived at Chateau Belaire I found the 
 Government doctor on his round of the Leeward coast. 
 What a blessed relief it would be to have him inject 
 some cocaine into my foot and then cut out the miser- 
 able sea egg points. But he was as effective as a Chris- 
 tian Scientist — I should have to wait till I reached 
 Saint Lucia where there was an excellent hospital in 
 Castries and then have the points removed. 
 
 Batiste promised better. He was a Yellow Carib 
 whom I had found in Kingstown and whom I had en- 
 
126 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 gaged to take me into the Carib country the next day. 
 One of the first books I read on the West Indies was 
 by Frederic Ober and what better boatman could I 
 have than the son of his old Batiste with whom he 
 spent months on the slopes of the volcano camping and 
 hunting the Soufriere bird. "Wen we reach up Carib 
 countrie you see de sea egg come out." 
 
 That night I was far away from the Caribbean and 
 I dreamed it was Saturday morning in the city. Out- 
 side I could hear the familiar sound of the steps being 
 scrubbed with rotten stone. I could feel the glare of 
 the morning sun that had just risen over the roofs of 
 the houses and was shining on the asphalted street — 
 "avenue" it was called. Then came the toot-toot of 
 the toy-balloon man, a persistent sound — too persis- 
 tent — and I finally awoke with the sun in my eyes and 
 the noise of Batiste's conch in my ears. With a feeling 
 that my youth was forever a thing of the past and that 
 I had assumed some overwhelming burden, I bounded 
 off the high cot and landed on the sea egg foot. There 
 had been no sea eggs and no overwhelming burden in 
 my young life on that city street. For the sake of com- 
 pany I yelled to Batiste to come and have some tea 
 with me. 
 
 At last we were off, I comfortably seated in the after 
 end of the canoe with my family of yellow bags around 
 and under me; Batiste behind me, steering while we 
 were rowed by two Caribs with Christian names. The 
 canoe was as all canoes of the Lesser Antilles — in real- 
 ity a row-boat. The hull proper is a dug-out made of 
 the log of the gommier tree. To this has been added 
 a sheer streak to give the craft more freeboard. In 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 127 
 
 adding the sheer streak a wedge is put into the after 
 end so that above water the boat has the appearance of 
 having a dory stern. Oars have long since taken the 
 place of the primitive paddle and because the boat is 
 deep and narrow, having no real bilge at all, she is 
 ballasted with stones. They are ticklish craft, slow- 
 moving and not particularly seaworthy. 
 
 We were passing the point between Richmond River 
 and the Wallibu Dry River where I had begun the as- 
 cent of the mountain the day before when Batiste said, 
 u You see w'ere de railin' is?" He pointed to a broad 
 tongue of land about two or three acres in extent which 
 for some reason was fenced in. "De boat walk dere 
 before de erupshun." 
 
 Not far from this place we came upon a curious phe- 
 nomenon which Batiste called "de spinning tide." In 
 the clay-coloured water, that surrounded it, was a cir- 
 cular area of blue, sharply defined, about thirty feet in 
 diameter, set in rotary motion by the coastwise current. 
 The coolness of the water suggested the outflow of 
 some submarine spring, probably from under the bed 
 of the Dry River. 
 
 One hears but little of the eruption of the Soufriere 
 of Saint Vincent. It was only because there was no 
 large town near the crater of the Soufriere that only 
 sixteen hundred were killed — a mere handful compared 
 with the twenty-five thousand in the French island. It 
 seems that all these islands, along the arc from Gre- 
 nada to Saba, lie along a seam where the earth's outer 
 crust is thin. Had the Soufriere of Saint Lucia (which 
 lies between Saint Vincent and Martinique) not been in 
 a semi-active state there would in all probability have 
 
128 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 been a triple eruption. I found that Pelee and the 
 Soufriere of Saint Vincent have a habit of celebrating 
 together at intervals of approximately ninety years — 
 1902, 1 8 12, 1 71 8, and there is some mention of dis- 
 turbances in 1625. 
 
 Our chief interest in the eruption of the Soufriere of 
 Saint Vincent is on account of its effect upon the Yellow 
 Carib. This island was the last stronghold of the 
 Caribs in the West Indies and when they were finally 
 subdued and almost exterminated the majority of the 
 few remaining ones were transported by the English to 
 the island of Ruatan near Honduras. The rest were 
 eventually pardoned by the Government and were al- 
 lowed to settle in various places in the island. 
 
 There was for a time a considerable admixture of 
 negro blood, but little by little this was eliminated as 
 the Caribs (Yellow) drew closer and closer together 
 among themselves and began to settle on the windward 
 side of the island at Sandy Bay. Here the Government 
 gave them a considerable grant of land which became 
 known as the "Carib Country." The spread of the 
 Black Carib seems to have stopped shortly after their 
 first union at Bequia. But the Black Carib, more or 
 less a race apart, was more agriculturally inclined than 
 the Yellow Carib, yet possessed the Indian's fondness 
 for the sea. 
 
 We find then, before the eruption of 1902, the Yel- 
 low Carib to the northeast of the volcano, living more 
 or less in his former state on the windward side of 
 the island; the Black Carib to the southwest, along the 
 leeward coast, while the negro was more or less evenly 
 distributed throughout the rest of the island. The 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 129 
 
 eruption of the Soufriere differed from that of Pelee in 
 that the volcano of Saint Vincent laid waste a consid- 
 erable area to windward, devastating most of the Carib 
 Country and killing a goodly number of the Indians. 
 This seems always to have been their favourite spot 
 for as early as 1720 Churchill mentions the fact, and 
 says, "The other side (windward) is peopled by two 
 or three thousand Indians who trade with those about 
 the river Oronoque, on the continent. . . ." 
 
 Immediately after the eruption, the Government 
 gave the Yellow Caribs land among the Black Caribs 
 along the leeward coast and even went so far as to erect 
 small houses for them — houses that were far better 
 than their former huts. But the Yellow Caribs were 
 too much Indian to settle down to the tame life of 
 farming among the Black Caribs and little by little 
 they left their comfortable English-made homes and 
 began to steal back to their former haunts ; one by one 
 at first — then in numbers till there was a well-defined 
 migration. When I visited them — nine years after the 
 eruption — all the Yellow Caribs of Saint Vincent were 
 back at Sandy Bay, there being but two individuals out- 
 side the island — one in Carriacou and the other in 
 Grenada. 
 
 At one place, where the high cliffs drop sheer into 
 the sea, grudging even a beach, we came upon some 
 Black Caribs fishing from their boats in the deep water. 
 Their method is peculiar and is known as "bulling," 
 probably a corruption of "balling." A single hook on 
 the end of a line is weighted and lowered till it touches 
 bottom. Then the line is hauled in a few feet and a 
 knot is tied so that when the baited hook is lowered it 
 
130 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 will hang just above the bottom. The line is taken 
 into the boat and the sinker removed from the hook 
 which is now baited with a piece of sardine or smelt. 
 Around this baited hook a ball is formed of meal made 
 of the same small fish. The hook is then gently low- 
 ered till the knot indicates that the double bait has 
 reached the haunts of the fish which feeds close to the 
 bottom. With a quick upward jerk the ball is broken 
 away from the hook. The scattered fish-meal draws 
 the attention of the fish which investigates the floating 
 food and presently goes for the large piece hanging in 
 the center. And so like the rest of us who get into 
 trouble when we reach out for the big piece the fish 
 finds that there is a string tied to this food and that 
 the line is too strong for him. The wrist and finger 
 that hold the other end of the line are sensitive to the 
 slightest nibble. 
 
 We rounded De Volet Point, which corresponds to 
 Tangalanga on Grenada, and I once more felt the roll 
 of the trades. A sea slopped over the gunwale and 
 wet my leg which I drew into the canoe. We were now 
 all island savages together holding up our ticklish craft 
 by the play of our bodies. I looked across the channel 
 to Saint Lucia with her twin Pitons rising distinct, 
 thirty miles away. Batiste pulled himself together and 
 told me that on very clear days he could see the glint of 
 the sun on the cutlasses in the cane fields on the moun- 
 tain slopes near Vieux Fort. 
 
 "You like some sweet water?" he asked, and at the 
 question my throat went too dry for speech. We 
 turned into a little cove — you will find it called "Petit 
 Baleine" on the chart, although if a whale swam into it 
 
PREPARING TO LEAVE UNION. WALKER SITTING ON THE RAIL 
 OF HIS SLOOP AND REGARDING THE "YAKABOO" DOUBTFULLY. 
 
 COMING BACK FOR REPAIRS — SIX MEN DOING THE WORK OF 
 TWO. 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 131 
 
 he could never get out unless he could crawl backwards. 
 While the men held the boat off the rocks, Batiste and 
 I jumped ashore with four empty calabashes. A tiny 
 stream which came from high up on the slope of the 
 Soufriere Mountains, with the chill of the mists still in 
 it, poured out from the dense foliage above us, spread 
 itself into a veil of spray, gathered itself together again 
 on a rocky face, and fell into a deep shaded basin into 
 which we put our faces and drank till our paunches 
 
 How the Caribs Rig a Calabash for Carrying Water 
 
 gurgled. At times it is hard not to be a pig. Then, as 
 if not satisfied with what Nature intended us to carry 
 away, we filled our calabashes. These were as they 
 have always been with the Carib — left whole with 
 merely a small hole about an inch and a half in dia- 
 meter in the top. They are carried by means of a wisp 
 of grass with a loop for the fingers in one end and with 
 the other end braided around a small piece of wood 
 that is inserted into the hole to act as a toggle. It is 
 easy to carry water in this way without spilling it for 
 when the calabash is full there is but a small surface 
 for the water to vibrate on. Pere Labat mentions a 
 
132 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 curious use of the calabash in his day. In order to 
 make a receptacle in which valuable papers could be 
 hidden without fear of destruction by moisture a cala- 
 bash was cut across at a point a quarter or a fifth of 
 its length from the stem end. To cover the opening, 
 another calabash was cut with a mouth somewhat larg- 
 er than the first one and they were bound together with 
 thongs of the mahaut. This calabash safe was then 
 hidden in the branches of trees that had large leaves 
 for the sake of obscurity. They were called coyembouc 
 by the Caribs who invented them. 
 
 We put off again, passing the ruined estate of 
 "Fancy," a mute reminder of that smiling day when 
 destruction had come over the top of the mountains to 
 the south — one of Nature's back-hand blows. A little 
 beyond, our row of twelve miles came to an end and 
 we beached through the heavy surf at Owia Bay where 
 I found myself in the midst of a group of Yellow 
 Caribs and negroes. I was a bit disappointed till Ba- 
 tiste told me that this was not Point Espagiiol. We 
 should have to go the rest of the way by land for the 
 surf at Sandy Bay, he said, was too high to run with 
 the loaded canoe. I wondered at this till I actually saw 
 the surf two days later. 
 
 Batiste and his crew packed my family of yellow 
 bags on their heads and marched off on their way to 
 Point Espagnol while I waited for a pony hospitably 
 offered by the manager of an arrowroot estate on the 
 slopes above the bay. 
 
 The pony was a heavenly loan but there was a cun- 
 ning in his eye that did not belong to the realm above. 
 His eye took me in as I mounted him, somewhat stiffly, 
 
^ 
 
 THE RIM OF THE CRATER. 
 
 A THOUSAND FEET BELOW, HELD IN THE BOWL OF THE CRATER 
 IS A LAKE NEARLY A HALF MILE IN DIAMETER/' 
 
CLIMBING SOUFRIERE OF ST. VINCENT 133 
 
 for the pain of the sea eggs was getting beyond my 
 foot. That eye made careful note that I wore no 
 spurs, neither did I carry a whip nor even a switch. 
 He started off at a brisk pace which he kept up till we 
 were well along the main road. Then he stopped. I 
 clucked and chirruped and whistled and swore. I also 
 beat his leathery sides with my heels. No perceptible 
 inclination to go forward. I talked to him but he did 
 not understand my language. There was something, 
 however, that I knew he would understand and I pulled 
 off my belt. If you must subject by force or punish- 
 ment, let it be swift, sure and effective. The brute had 
 carelessly neglected to take note of a suspicious lump 
 under my coat which hid a 38-40 Colt. First I circled 
 my legs around his barrel body after the manner of a 
 lead cavalry soldier "Made in Germany." Then with 
 my gun in my left hand and my belt in my right, buckle- 
 end being synoymous with business-end, I gave a warn- 
 ing yell and let him have the buckle in his ribs while 
 the revolver went off close to his left ear. We rapidly 
 caught up with Batiste — in fact, my steed was even re- 
 luctant in slowing down when I pulled him up behind 
 the last Indian. 
 
 While my little caravan shuffled along ahead of me, 
 I leisurely enjoyed the scenery of this level bit of road 
 which skirts the slope of the Soufriere Mountains at 
 the very edge where it breaks down to the sea. Some 
 two hundred feet below me an intensely blue sea broke 
 against the rocks into a white foam that washed out 
 into a tracery of fine lace at every lull; the rocks, the 
 blue, and the foam like that of the Mediterranean 
 along a bit of Italian coast. Landwards the slope rose 
 
134 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 in a powerful curve, heavily wooded, bearing numer- 
 ous small peaks, to the Soufriere range which hides 
 the volcano from view till one has reached the ex- 
 tremity of Point Espagnol. 
 
 The point is a peninsular-like promontory, the top of 
 which rises into two hills. Each of these hills is the 
 site of a small Carib village of about forty-five inhabi- 
 tants, the last of the Yellow Caribs of the Antilles. 
 After a quick survey I decided upon the farther vil- 
 lage which is a bit more to seaward and here I dis- 
 mounted in the cool shade of the grove which gives the 
 huts a pleasant sense of seclusion. After circling 
 around, much as a dog that is preparing to lie down 
 in the tall grass, I selected a spot on the edge of the 
 little group of huts and set up my tent looking out over 
 the Atlantic which lay some three hundred feet below. 
 Since I could not see the setting of the sun, I faced the 
 tent toward his rising. Here the cool trade wind be- 
 lied the terrific heat of Sandy Bay below with its in- 
 cessant roar of surf. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 
 
 1 NEEDED no introduction to the Caribs, for they 
 had known that I would come since my first meet- 
 ing with the men in Bequia. They had also learned of 
 my arrival at Chateau Belaire and that in another day 
 I should be with them. One poor old woman had been 
 watching all day to see me come flying over the Sou- 
 friere Mountains Batiste told her of the Yakaboo 
 and that if it did not fly it was at least rudderless. She 
 consoled herself with, "He sail widout rudder 1" 
 
 There was some satisfaction in watching me and as 
 I pitched my tent and put my house in order, I had an 
 interested crowd about me that did not use their fin- 
 gers as well as their eyes with which to see. About a 
 third of the village was there when I arrived. Besides 
 Batiste and his men, those who gathered around my 
 tent were the younger women who were spending the 
 day in baking cassava cakes for the market, the chil- 
 dren, and the old women who could do no other work 
 than tend a coal-pot or sweep out the huts. The men 
 were either fishing or were down the coast at George- 
 town to sell fish and the produce which the women had 
 raised. The women are the farmers and we could see 
 their patient forms moving goat-like along the furrows 
 high up on the mountain slopes where they cultivate 
 cassava, tanniers, and arrowroot. 
 
 135 
 
136 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 One of the old women noticed that I was limping 
 and as soon as I had everything ship-shape in my house, 
 she went to her hut and returned with some soft tallow 
 and a coal-pot. Batiste said, "You goin' lose sea egg 
 dis night." First she smeared the sole of my foot with 
 the tallow and then lighting a splinter of dry wood 
 from her coal-pot she passed the blaze close to the skin, 
 almost blistering the sole of my foot. Then she told 
 me to bandage the foot and not to walk on it — an 
 unnecessary caution. 
 
 With Indian tact, they left me to loaf away the 
 waning afternoon on my old companion, the blanket 
 bag. I had begun the day in an idle way — let it end 
 that way. There had been many places where I had 
 loafed away the end of an afternoon on my blanket in 
 just this way, but none of them will hold its place in 
 my memory with this camp of mine on the edge of 
 the Carib village. The huts were behind me and in the 
 vista of my tent door there was no form of the ubi- 
 quitous native to distract, for there is no depth of 
 character to romance upon when one sees a silent form 
 shuffle along some bush path. Behind me the Caribs 
 were quiet — I would not have known there were chil- 
 dren or dogs in the village. Peace was there with just 
 the rustle of the leaves above me as an accompani- 
 ment; the song of a bird would have been thrilling. 
 Below me the Atlantic rolled under the trade wind 
 through the channel and became the Caribbean. A 
 school of porpoise rounded the point and headed for 
 the Spanish Main, mischief-bent like a fleet of corsairs. 
 Well out in the channel my eye caught a little puff of 
 steam and I knew that it came from a "humpback." 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 187 
 
 Finally as the sun sent his last long slant across the 
 water whence we had come in the morning, it caught 
 the smoke of the coasting steamer entering the bay of 
 Vieux Fort in Saint Lucia — a hint of industry to specu- 
 late upon. With the shutting down of darkness one of 
 the old women brought me a coal-pot and I cooked my 
 supper while the stars came out in an inquisitive way 
 to see what I was doing. 
 
 By this time the village had assembled and fed it- 
 self. When the people found that I was not unwilling, 
 they flocked around the door of my tent and I chatted 
 with those who could talk English, these in turn inter- 
 preted our conversation to the others. After a while, 
 my old sea egg woman of the afternoon — I could hard- 
 ly tell one old woman from another, they were like old 
 hickory nuts with the bark on — said, "Now de sea egg 
 come out." I took off the bandage and she put my 
 foot in her lap. Some one brought a gommier flam- 
 beau with its pungent odour that somehow reminded 
 me of a vacant-lot bonfire into which a rubber shoe had 
 found its way. 
 
 It would have been one of the best photographs of 
 my whole cruise could I have caught those faces around 
 that burning flambeau. Now for the first time I could 
 really observe them in unconscious pose. Notwith- 
 standing a considerable amount of admixture that must 
 have undergone with the blacks, there was still a satis- 
 fying amount of Indian blood left in these people. I 
 said Indian purposely for I do not care to use the ex- 
 pression Carib in this sentence. I believe these people 
 to be more of the peaceful Arawauk than the fierce 
 Carib, although time and environment and subjuga- 
 
138 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 tion may have had this softening effect upon them. 
 How much truth there may be in it I do not know, 
 but the impression seems to be that in these islands the 
 Caribs originally came from the north, advancing from 
 island to island and conquering as they went the peace- 
 ful islander, the Arawauk, who was the real native of 
 the Lesser Antilles. Upon raiding an Arawauk settle- 
 ment the Caribs would kill most of the men and what 
 women and children they did not eat they took to them- 
 selves as wives and slaves. Through their offspring 
 by their Carib masters the Arawauk women introduced 
 their language and their softening influence into the 
 tribes so that little by little the nature of the Carib 
 was perceptibly changed. Thus the Arawauks became 
 ultimately the race conquerors. In 1 600 Herrera says, 
 "It has been observed that the Caribbees in Dominica 
 and those of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent scarce un- 
 derstand one another's language," which tends to show 
 that the lingual change was then going on throughout 
 the islands. When I questioned the Caribs of Point 
 Espagnol in regard to the Indians of Dominica they 
 expressed entire ignorance of their fellow savages. 
 These people whom I saw in the light of the flambeau 
 had the softened features of a race dying for the same 
 reason that our pure American is dying — his country 
 is changing and he cannot change with it. I thought 
 of what Pere Labat said of them three hundred years 
 ago — "Their faces seemed melancholie, they are said 
 to be good people." 
 
 Holding my foot close to the light, the old woman 
 pinched the sole on either side of one of the purple 
 marks which indicated the lair of a sea egg point. At 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 139 
 
 the pressure the point launched forth, with scarcely any 
 pain, eased on its way by a small drop of matter. The 
 blistering with the hot grease had caused each minute 
 wound to fester. In the next minute or two the largest 
 of the points, about fourteen in number, were squeezed 
 out. Some of the smaller points along the edge of the 
 sole had not yet festered, but they came out the next 
 morning. 
 
 The fun was over, we had had our preliminary chat, 
 the flambeau had burned down, and the village turned 
 in. So did I. 
 
 On "calm" mornings, that is, when the wind is not 
 blowing more than ten or twelve miles an hour, a stiff 
 squall bustles ahead of the sun as if to say, "Get up! 
 By the time you have cooked breakfast the sun will be 
 having a peep to see how you have begun the day. You 
 must take advantage of the cool morning hours, you 
 know," and in a moment is rushing away toward 
 Honduras. And so it was this morning. Confound 
 Nature and her alarm clock that sprinkled in through 
 my open door! — but after all she was right. 
 
 Fishing was the order of the day and after the sun 
 is up it takes but a short time to warm the black sands 
 of the bay below to a hellish heat. My old woman 
 produced her coal-pot — it seemed to be kindled with 
 the everlasting flame of the Roman Vestals — and I 
 soon had my chocolate cooking and my bacon frying 
 while I bade a not reluctant adieu to the last few sea 
 egg points. My foot was free of pain and when I 
 walked I could have sworn that there had been noth- 
 ing like sea egg points in it the day or even the week 
 before. I stuffed a few biscuits in a clothes bag, dressed 
 
140 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 my camera in its sea togs, and was off with the fish- 
 ermen to the beach. There were twelve besides my- 
 self, four to a boat, two to row and tw# to fish — I 
 should be the fifth in Batiste's boat. 
 
 The morning was still fresh from the cool night air 
 as we filed down the cliff road to the beach. The sur- 
 face of the sand was still dew damp. There were three 
 dug-outs waiting for us under the protection of a 
 thatched roof supported by poles, as if some queer 
 four-legged shore bird had just laid them. There was 
 no end of puttering before we could start, a bit of gear 
 to be overhauled, a stitch or two to be taken in a sail so 
 patched that I doubt whether there was a thread of 
 the original cloth in it, and a rudder pintle to be tink- 
 ered with. I counted fifty-six patches in our mainsail, 
 although its area was not more than six square yards. 
 
 When we dragged the three boats down to the edge 
 of the water the sun was just crawling up through the 
 fringe of horizon clouds. The surf was not running 
 so high as on the day before, and yet I could see that 
 we should have to use care in launching the canoes. 
 We dragged the first boat down till its bow was in the 
 foam and with the crew seated at their oars we waited. 
 There was a lull and as a wave broke smaller than the 
 rest we launched the boat on its outgoing tide. The 
 men caught the water and lifted their boat clear of the 
 surf line as a sea curled and broke under their stern. 
 We got off the beach with equal success. Contrary to 
 the lucky rule of three the last boat was swamped and 
 had to try over again. 
 
 Once off shore, we stopped rowing and stepped our 
 rig, which consisted of two masts with sprit sails, one 
 
BLACK CARIB BOY AT OWIA BAY. HIS CATAMARAN IS TAXED 
 AT THREE PENCE PER FOOT. 
 
 'THERE IS STILL A SATISFYING AMOUNT OF INDIAN BLOOD LEFT 
 IN THESE PEOPLE/' 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 141 
 
 smaller than the other, the smaller sail being stepped 
 forward so that we looked like a Mackinaw rig re- 
 versed. While these boats have no keel or center- 
 board, they somehow manage to hang onto the wind 
 fairly well due to their depth of hold. They cannot, 
 of course, beat to any purpose, still they can manage 
 to sail about seven points off the wind which is good 
 
 • Rig of the Carib Canoe 
 
 enough in the Carib waters where there is always a 
 shore to leeward. With free sheets we ran for a bank 
 to the southeastward where the "black fin" abounds 
 and here we took down our sails and proceeded to 
 fish. The other boats ran to similar banks to the south 
 of us. 
 
 The black fin is a small fish, about the size of a large 
 perch, its scales etched in a delicate red against a 
 white skin. The name comes from a black spot at the 
 
142 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 hinge of the pectoral fin. Instead of anchoring, the 
 two bow men rowed slowly while the rest of us fished. 
 In this way we could skirt the edge of the reef till we 
 found good fishing and then follow the school as it 
 drifted with the tide while feeding. 
 
 We used the ordinary hand line, weighted with a 
 stone about the size of one's fist. Above the stone, a 
 gang of from four to six small hooks is baited with 
 pieces of this same black fin. Like bulling this too is 
 deep-water fishing for we lowered fully two hundred 
 feet of line before the stone reached bottom. The 
 line is then pulled up a few feet and held there to await 
 the nibble of the fish. As soon as a bite is felt (one 
 must develop a delicate touch to feel the nibble of a 
 one pound fish at the end of a weighted line two hun- 
 dred feet long) , the line is given a lightning yank and 
 pulled in as fast as possible. Hand over hand, as 
 quickly as one forearm can pass the other, the line 
 is hauled in over the gunwale while it saws its way into 
 the wood. 
 
 Sometimes there are two or even three fish on the 
 end of the line when it is hauled into the canoe. I man- 
 aged, however, to reduce the average considerably at 
 first for I usually found that I had lost both fish and 
 bait. Finally to the joy of Batiste, who considered me 
 his protege, I began to bring in my share. In the mid- 
 dle of the day we ate our scanty luncheon and then took 
 to hauling in black fins again. 
 
 Early in the afternoon a fierce squall came down, 
 dragging half a square mile of breaking seas with it. 
 The Indians began to undress and I did the same, fold- 
 ing my shirt and trousers and stowing them in one of 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 143 
 
 my oiled bags, much to the admiration of the others. 
 We got overboard just as the squall struck and I 
 slipped into the water between Batiste and one Rabat 
 — they were used to fighting sharks in the water. With 
 three of us on one side and two on the other, we held 
 the boat, bow on to the seas, depressing the stern to 
 help the bow take the larger combers and then easing 
 up as the foam swept over our heads. In a jiffy the 
 squall was past, like a small hurricane, and as we 
 crawled into the boat again I watched it race up the 
 mountain slopes and sweep the mists off the Soufriere. 
 In the break that followed, the top of the volcano was 
 exposed for a few minutes, my second and last view of 
 the crater. 
 
 We again pulled up black fins till the fish covered 
 the bottom of the canoe and we ran for home toward 
 the end of the afternoon. 
 
 I now found out why the puttering of preparation 
 was done in the morning. No sane man would do more 
 than the absolutely necessary work of dragging his 
 boat under the shade of the thatched roof and seeing 
 that his gear was stowed under the roof poles in the 
 heat of that beach. We made all haste for the cliff 
 road and were soon in' the breezy shade of our village 
 grove. My share of the black fins went to the old sea 
 egg doctor who selected one of the largest and fried it 
 for me with all sorts of queer herbs and peppers. This 
 with tanniers, tea, and cassava cakes made my supper. 
 It was an easy existence, this with the Caribs, for I 
 did but little cooking. I merely had to indicate what 
 I wanted and some one or other would start a coal- 
 pot before my tent and the meal was soon cooking. 
 
144 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 I have hinted at the flexibility of the Indian's lan- 
 guage and that night I found a similar flexibility in 
 savage custom. No doubt these Caribs had quickly 
 lost most of their ancient rites and customs with the ad- 
 vance of civilisation. I found that in like manner they 
 easily adopted new customs, one of them being the 
 "wake." In the day's fishing I had caught fully thirty 
 black fins and had hauled in my line half again as many 
 times, say forty-five. Forty-five times two hundred 
 means nine thousand feet of line hauled in hand over 
 hand as quickly as possible. This kind of fishing was 
 exercise and I was tired. I went to bed early, but I 
 slept not. It was that truly heathen rite, the "wake," 
 which I believe comes from the Emerald Isle. May 
 all Hibernian priests in the West Indies take note — it 
 is the savage side of their religion that takes its hold 
 upon the negro and the Indian. May these same Hi- 
 bernians know that it was simply the "wake" that the 
 Indians took from their faith for they are in religion 
 Anglicans. Adapted would have been a better word 
 for the wake of the Caribs is a combination of what we 
 know as wake and the similar African custom called 
 saracca. A tremendous feast of rice, peas, chickens, 
 and any other food that may be at hand is cooked for 
 the spirits who come in the night and eat. But the poor 
 spirits are not left to enjoy this repast in peace for 
 the living sit around the food with lighted candles and 
 song. In the morning the food is gone and usually 
 there is evidence that spirits have entered into the 
 stomachs if not the ceremony of the mourners. 
 
 There is one pleasing feature in this mourning cere- 
 mony; while it is usually begun with a truly sorrowful 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 145 
 
 mien it often ends with all concerned in a happier mood 
 to take up their worldly burdens again. The Caribs 
 of Point Espagfiol were content merely with singing. 
 When one of their number dies they pray on the third 
 night after death and on the ninth they sing during 
 the entire night. This happened to be the ninth. In 
 the evening, then, they all assembled in one of the 
 larger huts, not far from my tent. 
 
 At first I thought it was only a sort of prayer meet- 
 ing and I managed to doze off with a familiar hymn 
 ringing in my ears. They would sing one hymn till 
 their interest in the tune began to flag and their voices 
 lower. Then they would attack another hymn with 
 renewed vigour. At each attack I would awaken and 
 could only doze off again when the process of vocal 
 mastication was nearly completed. They were still 
 singing when the sun rose. 
 
 Sunday came, as it always should, a beautiful day 
 and I lay on my blankets till the sun was well above 
 the horizon, watching my breakfast cook on the coal- 
 pot as a lazy, well-fed dog lies in his kennel meditating 
 a bone. There seemed to be more than the usual morn- 
 ing bustle in the huts behind me and I found that the 
 whole village was preparing to go to church. I must 
 go with them, so I took off my shirt, washed it, and 
 hung it up to dry. Then I carefully washed my face 
 in warm water and proceeded to shave, using the 
 scalpel from my instrument case for a razor. The 
 polished inside cover of my watch made a very good 
 mirror. A varnish brush, if it be carefully washed out 
 with soap and hot water immediately after it has been 
 used will be just as soft and clean as when new. I had 
 
146 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 such a brush which I used for painting and varnishing 
 the Yakaboo, — it was not a bad distributer of lather. 
 It is remarkable how a shave will bolster one's self- 
 respect; I actually walked straighter afterwards. I 
 donned the trousers that I had washed in the shower 
 bath in Kingstown and with my clean shirt, which had 
 quickly dried in the sun and wind, I made a fairly 
 decent appearance — that is, in comparison with my 
 usual dress. A clean bandana handkerchief completed 
 the toilet. 
 
 With church-going came the insufferable torture of 
 shoes — that is, for the aristocrats who owned them. 
 My own I was saving for climbs like the Soufriere and 
 I used moccasins. Shoes, however, are the correct 
 things to wear in these parts at weddings, funerals, and 
 church. Aside from these occasions they are never 
 worn. 
 
 The exodus began a little after ten o'clock and in 
 five minutes there was not a soul left in the village. 
 The goodly piece of road to Owia was, I thought, a 
 measure in a certain way of the faith of these people. 
 One is apt to be biased in their favour but still I cannot 
 think that it was merely a desire for a bit of diversion 
 to break the monotony of their lives that they all went 
 to church as they did on this Sunday. 
 
 I believed as I walked with them that they were 
 obeying a true call to worship. The call to worship 
 became a tangible one as soon as we had circumvented 
 the ravine and were on the road to Owia. It was the 
 clang of a bell, incessant and regular — irritating to 
 me — not a call but a command — the Sunday morning 
 chore of a negro sexton. The church proper had been 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 147 
 
 destroyed by the earthquakes attendant upon the erup- 
 tion of the Soufriere — the ruins being another mute 
 piece of evidence of the former splendour of these is- 
 lands, for it had been built of grey stone and granite 
 brought from oversea, a small copy of an English 
 country church. 
 
 The bell was rescued after the earthquake from 
 the pile of debris which had once been its home and 
 mounted where it now hangs, on a cross piece between 
 two uprights. On Sunday mornings the sexton places 
 a ladder against this gallows and climbs up where he 
 pounds the bell as if with every stroke he would 
 drive some lagging Christian to worship. Sheep-like, 
 we obeyed its call till the last of our flock was in the 
 schoolhouse, where the service is held — when the 
 clanging ceased. 
 
 The congregation was part negro, but we Indians 
 sat on our own side of the building, where we could 
 look out of the windows, across the little patches of 
 cultivation to the blue Atlantic. We were as much out 
 of doors as in, where, in truth, we are apt to find the 
 greater part of our religion — if we look for it. 
 
 When I said schoolhouse, I meant a frame shed, 
 about thirty feet by fifty, with unpainted benches for 
 the pupils and a deal table at the far end for the 
 schoolmaster. Letters of the alphabet and numerals 
 wandered about on the unpainted walls and shutters in 
 chalky array like warring tribes on tapestry, doing 
 their utmost to make a lasting impression in the little 
 brown and ebony heads of the school children. 
 
 The service was Anglican, read by a negro reader, 
 for the parson is stationed in Georgetown and makes 
 
148 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 his visit only once a month. We shall let him pass in 
 favour of the woman who led the choir. I knew her as 
 she arose ; I had seen that expression from my earliest 
 days, the adamant Christian whom one finds the world 
 over in any congregation. This woman's voice was 
 as metallic as the bell outside and in her whole manner 
 and bearing was that zeal which expresses the most 
 selfish one of us all, the Christian more by force of 
 will than by meekness of heart. She sang. The choir 
 and the miserable congregation merely kept up a feeble 
 murmur of accompaniment. 
 
 I said miserable, for did we not feel that there was 
 no chance for God to hear our weak voices above that 
 clarion clang? Between hymns my mind was free 
 to wander out through the windows, where it found 
 peace and rest. 
 
 The offending shoes had come off after the first 
 hymn and now furtive movements here and there pro- 
 claimed the resuming of that civilised instrument of 
 torture. The last hymn was about to be sung. 
 
 After the heat of the day I wandered back to the 
 village alone. My old sea egg woman was sitting on 
 the grassy slope just below my tent and I took up my 
 note -book and sat down beside her. She was in a 
 reminiscent mood and I soon got her to talk about 
 her natal language. She and two other old women 
 were the only ones who knew the Caribbean tongue 
 in this village — there was an equal number in 
 the other village. When these old people go, with 
 them will go the living tongue of the native of the 
 Antilles — the words that Columbus heard when he 
 discovered these islands. She was intensely pleased 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 149 
 
 at the interest I showed in her language and I had 
 no trouble in getting her to talk. 
 
 Most of the words were unchanged from the time 
 of Bryan Edwards in 1790, when the conquest of the 
 Arawauks must have been more or less complete. 
 Some words such an Sun — Vehu, now Wey-u; fire — 
 what-ho, now wah-tiih — were merely softened. Other 
 words showed a slight change such as water — tona, 
 now doonab; fish — oto, now oodu. There were some 
 words that had been changed completely, such as moon 
 — m6ne, now haat or hatf. 
 
 Most interesting perhaps to the lay mind are the 
 onomatopoetic words that seem to take their meaning 
 from their sound. A word common to many savage 
 languages all over the world was Weh-wey for tree, 
 suggesting the waving of the tree's branches, he-wey 
 for snake (pronounced with a soft breath), suggesting 
 the noise of the snake in dry grass, and ah-tugah to 
 chop. I watched her wrinkled old face with its far- 
 off look and could see the memory of a word come to 
 the surface and the feeling of satisfaction that came 
 into her mind as she recalled the language of her 
 youth. 
 
 I sat there with my note-book open and after I had 
 covered three or four pages I went back to words here 
 and there to test her accuracy — I found that she really 
 knew and was not trying to please. There were some 
 words that would be good for successors to the 
 Yakaboo — Mahouretch — Man o' War Bird; Hourali 
 — surf; and Toulouma — pretty girl. At last she 
 turned to me and said, "Ruh bai dahfedi?" — "Give me 
 a penny ?" — whereupon I produced a shilling. Her joy 
 
150 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 knew no bounds; it would keep her in tobacco for a 
 month. 
 
 That night we gathered in one of the huts and 
 swapped yarns to the best of our abilities. I had been 
 with the Caribs for some days and yet there was no 
 hint at that familiarity that would be apt to come with 
 a similar visit to a similar settlement of the natives 
 of these islands. One is very apt to idealise in regard 
 to the Indian, but I can say with absolute certainty 
 that these people lived clean lives and kept themselves 
 and their huts clean. 
 
 The huts were all of about the same size, approxi- 
 mately twelve by fifteen feet, of one story, and divided 
 by a partition into two rooms with a door between, 
 each room having a door opening outside. One of the 
 rooms was for sleeping solely, while the other was 
 both a sleeping and living room. While at first the 
 houses seem very small, it must be remembered that 
 the cooking was all done in separate ajoupas, and that 
 most of the time these people live out of doors. They 
 merely use their houses at night for sleeping purposes 
 and as a shelter from rain. 
 
 The beds were for the most part rough wooden 
 settees, some with a tick filled with grass and leaves for 
 a mattress. The floors were usually the native soil, 
 tamped hard by the pressure of countless bare feet. A 
 few of the more prosperous families had wooden floors 
 in their huts. The walls were of wattles, woven and 
 plastered with a clay that resembled cement, and the 
 roofs were thatched with Guinea grass. There were 
 usually two small square windows for each room. An 
 attempt was made to conceal the bareness of the 
 
THE CARIB BOY OF ST. GEORGE S WHO HAD BEEN BROUGHT TO 
 GRENADA AFTER THE ERUPTION OF THE SOUFRIERE. 
 
 YELLOW CARDS AT POINT ESPAGNOL. 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 151 
 
 walls inside by covering them with old newspapers 
 plastered on like wall paper. 
 
 It was in such a newspapered room that we sat 
 and smoked — that is, as many of us as could comfort- 
 ably squeeze on the settee or squat on haunches on the 
 floor, the overflow crowding about the open door. In 
 this particular room there was one decoration, a piece 
 de resistance that brought the hut and its owner to 
 even a higher level of grandeur than newspapered wall 
 or floor of American lumber. It hung from the central 
 beam just above headroom and yet low enough so that 
 one might reach up and reverentially touch its smooth 
 surface. 
 
 From the darkened look of the inner surface I could 
 see that it was a burned-out sixteen-candle power elec- 
 tric light bulb. When far out to sea in his canoe, the 
 owner had one day picked it up thinking that it was 
 some sort of bottle. When he saw the trembling fila- 
 ment inside and could find no cork or opening he knew 
 that it was for no utilitarian purpose and must be a 
 valuable piece of bric-a-brac. It had probably been 
 thrown overboard from some steamer passing to wind- 
 ward bound for Barbados. 
 
 Did I know what it was ? Our conversation hung on 
 it for a long time. Yes, I knew, but to make them 
 understand it was a source of light — that was the 
 trouble. Sometimes it is disastrous to know too much. 
 I explained it as simply as I could and the Caribs 
 nodded their heads, but there was a doubt in their 
 eyes that was not to be mistaken. The fact that the 
 tiny black thread inside that globe should be the source 
 
152 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 of light equal to sixteen candles was utterly beyond 
 their comprehension. 
 
 I was turning over the leaves of my portfolio when 
 a photograph of my sister dropped out. The old 
 doctor picked it up and as she passed it to me her eyes 
 fell upon it. She gave a start. Might she look at it 
 closely, she asked? It was one of those ultra modern 
 prints, on a rough mat paper, shadowy and sketchy, 
 showing depth and life. The Caribs all crowded 
 around to look. Such a natural picture they had never 
 seen before. When the old woman at last gave it to 
 me she said of my sister who was looking right at us, 
 "We see she, she no see we," which struck me as a bit 
 uncanny. 
 
 I was loafing through my last afternoon in the 
 village. Wandering around the huts in the grove, I 
 stopped at an ajoupa, where one of the women was 
 baking something on the hot surface of a sheet of 
 iron. It somehow reminded me of the thin pancake 
 bread that the people of Cairo bake on the surface of 
 a kettle upturned over a hot dung fire. I sat down to 
 watch her bake and lit my pipe. I was a queer man, 
 she said, to sit down in this humble ajoupa just to 
 watch her bake cassava cakes. "No Englis do dat," 
 she added. I had, of course, eaten the cassava before 
 and on my way up through the Grenadines I had seen 
 the negro women raking the coarse flour back and forth 
 in a shallow dish over a bed of hot coals, but I waited 
 till I was in the Carib country before I should see the 
 mysteries, if there were any, of the making of cassava 
 cakes. 
 
 The cassava is a root, Manihot utilissima, which 
 
DAYS WITH A VANISHING RACE 153 
 
 grows very much like our potato and may weigh as 
 much as twenty-five or thirty pounds. Ordinarily, it is 
 dug up when it is about the size of a large beet. In 
 the raw state it is highly poisonous, the juice contain- 
 ing hydrocyanic acid. The root is cleaned by scraping 
 it with a knife, then it is sliced and grated. The grating 
 is done on a board with pieces of tin nailed to it. The 
 tin has previously been perforated so that the upper 
 surface is roughened like the outside of a nutmeg 
 grater. This coarse flour is then heated over a hot 
 charcoal fire. In this way the hydrocyanic acid is 
 dissipated by the heat — a sort of wooden hoe or rake 
 being used to keep the flour from burning. 
 
 The woman in the ajoupa had built a hot fire 
 between three stones on which was placed a flat iron 
 plate about two feet in diameter. In the old days a flat 
 stone was used. She prepared the flour by adding 
 just enough water to make it slightly moist. On the 
 hot plate she laid a circular iron band about eighteen 
 inches in diameter — the hoop off some old water cask — 
 and inside this she spread the cassava meal to the 
 thickness of a quarter of an inch. She then removed 
 the hoop and levelled the cassava with the straight 
 edge of a flat stick. 
 
 The cake baked very quickly and when it was done 
 enough to hang together she turned it with a flat 
 wooden paddle three inches wide in the blade and 
 about eighteen inches long. As soon as a cake was 
 done she carried it outside and hung it to cool and 
 dry on a light pole supported by two forked uprights. 
 From a distance the cassava cakes looked like a lot 
 of large doilies drying in the sun. 
 
154 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 In the evening, when Batiste came from his fishing, 
 I told him that I was ready to go back to Chateau 
 Belaire. There may have been much more for me to 
 observe among these people — the life was easy and I 
 had never before had a more fascinating view from 
 the door of my tent. But there was the call of the 
 channel, I must have my try at it and it had been many 
 days since I had sailed the Yakaboo. So we had our 
 last palaver that evening around the glow of the coal- 
 pot and the gommier flambeau. 
 
 The old wrinkled sea egg doctor insisted upon 
 hovering over my coal-pot the next morning, while I 
 broke camp and packed my duffle. Her presence had 
 given my parting food a genuine Carib blessing. By 
 sun-up I bade them all good-bye and with Batiste 
 and his men before me — my house and its goods bal- 
 anced on their heads — I left the village. At a sharp 
 bend, where the road curves in by "Bloody Bridge," I 
 turned and had my last peep at the Carib huts. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING JOSEPHINE IN 
 
 SAINT LUCIA 
 
 THE next morning, March 30th, found me once 
 more in the Yakaboo rowing out of the bay of 
 Chateau Belaire half an hour after sunrise. The 
 night had been an anxious one on the morgue-suggesting 
 cot of the rest room in the police station — for the 
 devilish impish gusts had swept down one after the 
 other from the Soufriere and shaken that house till I 
 thought it would blow over like a paper box and go 
 sailing out into the bay. If those fellows caught us 
 in the channel what would the poor Yakaboo do? 
 
 I argued that the wind coming down the smooth 
 plane of the mountain slope and shooting out across 
 the water had developed a velocity far greater than 
 anything I should meet in the channel. Perhaps so — 
 but I should learn a bit about it later. I somehow 
 bamboozled my mind into quiescence and at last fell 
 asleep. Almost immediately the big, burly Barbadian 
 awoke me. In an hour and a half I had rowed the 
 six and a half miles to Point DeVolet, where I set sail. 
 
 I was now started on my first long channel run and 
 it was with considerable interest if not anxiety that I 
 watched the canoe and the seas. I had a lurking 
 suspicion that I had made a grievous error when I 
 
 155 
 
156 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 had designed the Yakaboo; I had perhaps erred on the 
 side of safety and had given her a too powerful mid- 
 ship section in proportion to her ends. That was the 
 feeling I had while sailing in the channels of the 
 Grenadines. I was still travelling eastward as well as 
 northward, and I knew that it would only be by the 
 most careful windward work that I should be able to 
 fetch the Pitons, thirty-one miles away. The wind 
 on this day was the same trade that I had met with 
 lower down, but the seas were longer than those of the 
 Grenadines, and, if not so choppy, were more vicious 
 when they broke; there would be less current to carry 
 me to leeward. 
 
 I had scarcely got her under way and was still under 
 the lee of the land when the first sea came, like the 
 hoary hand of Neptune himself and we turned to meet 
 it. Aft I slid, she lifted her bow — just enough — and 
 the sea broke under us — and we dropped down its 
 steep back, with lighter hearts. In with the mainsheet 
 and we were off again, the canoe tearing along like a 
 scared cotton-tail — a little white bunch under her 
 stern. There was something worth while in this and 
 I kept my eyes to weather for the next sea. Again we 
 met it and came through triumphant. Perhaps I had 
 not erred after all. Another sprint and so on. 
 
 After a while the Yakaboo seemed to lag a little 
 and hang her head like a tired pony. It was the 
 forward compartment that was leaking again and I ran 
 her into the wind, dropping the jib and mainsail. The 
 little mizzen aft, flat as a board, held her directly 
 into the wind's eye (which I believe is the best position 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 157 
 
 for a very small craft hove-to), and I could go about 
 sponging out the compartment. 
 
 I had, of course, to keep a sharp lookout ahead for 
 breaking seas. If a sea threatened, I would hastily 
 clap on the forehatch and give the screws a couple of 
 turns and then roll back on my haunches into the after 
 end of the cockpit. My precious camera was lashed 
 half way up the mizzen mast. Lightened of the water 
 in her forehold I would hoist the mainsail and jib 
 and give her rein, that is, trim her sheets for another 
 scamper to windward. She was the spirited pony again. 
 
 That we were travelling, well there could be no 
 doubt. The wind was blowing at least twenty miles 
 an hour and the canoe was covering her length with 
 the smooth action of a thoroughbred. Yet when I 
 looked astern after the first hour it seemed as though 
 we were still under the shadow of Saint Vincent. 
 I knew later that we had made five miles. It was 
 discouraging to look backwards, and I did very little 
 of it in my runs afterwards. I would wait till the 
 greyish blue of the island ahead had turned to blue and 
 was shading into green and then I would look back to 
 the island that I had just left and I would estimate 
 that I was perhaps half way across the channel. Having 
 assured myself that I really was half way across, I 
 kept my eyes over the bow, noting the minute changes 
 of the land ahead. But I am not yet half way across 
 this channel. 
 
 Soon my eye began to focus on a persistent whitecap 
 that my brain refused to believe was a sail. But the 
 eye insisted and the brain had to give in when the 
 speck refused to move — it was always there, just to lee- 
 
158 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ward of the Pitons — and it grew into a definite shape. 
 Its course must almost cross mine, for as it grew 
 larger and larger, it edged to windward closing in on 
 the Pitons and was at last directly on my course. 
 Nearer it came till I could make out the figure of a 
 man poised erect out over the water. Another second 
 and I could see the line to which he was holding and 
 which ran to the top of the mast. His feet were on 
 the gunwale. Then I distinguished several forms aft 
 of him in the canoe, all leaning far out to windward 
 to see what strange bird the Yakaboo might be, coming 
 up out of the south. 
 
 The news of my coming had not jumped the channel 
 ahead of me, but these fellows had recognised my 
 rig from afar as a rarity — something to investigate. I 
 shall never forget the picture of them rushing by. 
 They might have been Caribs of old descending, like 
 the Vikings that they were, on some island to be con- 
 quered. They came down the wind with terrific speed, 
 the water foaming white under them, a third of the 
 keel showing, the glistening forefoot leaving a train 
 of drops like a porpoise clearing the water. 
 
 For an instant my eye held it; the man poised over 
 the sea ; the figures in the boat, bronze and ebony, tense 
 with excitement; the white, sun-bleached sails, now 
 outlined against a blue sky and now thrown against 
 an indigo sea, rivalling the brilliant snowy clbuds above. 
 As they shot by, close abeam, their arms shot up and 
 they gave me a mighty yell while I waved my hat and 
 shouted back at them. If this sight of a single canoe 
 coming down the wind thrilled the hairs along my 
 spine into an upright position, what would my feeling 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 159 
 
 have been to see a whole fleet of them as in the old 
 days? I would not look back — I wanted the memory 
 of that passing to remain as it was and I sailed on, 
 thinking for some time of each detail as it was indel- 
 ibly impressed upon my mind. 
 
 Like most of us, who are blessed with a lean body, 
 I also have that blessing which usually goes with it — 
 an appetite which is entirely out of all proportion to 
 the size of that lean body. Nervous energy as well as 
 manual labour requires food and when I made my 
 channel runs there was an expenditure of both — and I 
 needed feeding. I always had food handy in my 
 cockpit. 
 
 My mainstay was the jelly coconut or water-nut 
 as they call it. This is the coconut that has not yet 
 reached the stage where the meat is the hard, white 
 substance which we meet in the kitchen pantry in the 
 shredded form, but is still in the baby stage when 
 the meat is soft and jelly-like. In this stage the milk 
 is not so rich as later on, but is a sort of sweet coco- 
 tasting water. I never wanted for a supply of coco- 
 nuts. 
 
 The natives along shore invariably saw to it that 
 there were four or five of them in my cockpit, prepared 
 for instant use in the following manner: the native 
 balances the nut on the palm of the left hand, while 
 with a cutlass (not called machete in these islands 
 that have not known the Spaniard, except as a pirate), 
 he cuts through the hard, smooth surface of the husk 
 and trims the pulpy mass, where the stem joins the 
 nut, into a point. At any time, then, with a single 
 slice of my knife, I could lop off this pulpy point and 
 
160 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 cut through the soft stem end of the inner shell, making 
 a small hole through which I could drink the water. 
 
 When first it passes over your tongue, jaded by the 
 civilised drinks which have a tang to them, your judg- 
 ment will be, "Insipid!" Go out into the open and 
 leave ice water a week behind you and your tongue will 
 recover some of its precivilised sensitiveness. You will 
 swear that there is nothing so cool nor delicious as the 
 water of the jelly coconut. After the water has been 
 drunk there is yet the jelly to be eaten. First a slice 
 of the husk is cut off to be used as a spoon. Then, 
 using my knife as a wedge and my axe as a driver, I 
 split open the nut and scooped out the jelly from the 
 halves. 
 
 When my supply of pilot bread ran out I carried 
 soda crackers and sometimes the unleavened bread of 
 the natives. Raw peameal sausage helped out at times 
 and there was, of course, the chocolate of which I 
 have spoken before. I also carried other tropical 
 fruits besides coconuts, mangoes, bananas, pineapples, 
 but I never ate more than one sort on a run. The coco- 
 nut was my mainstay, however, and that with a little 
 bread and a piece of chocolate would make an excellent 
 stop-gap till I could reach shore and cook a substantial 
 evening meal. 
 
 I was now half way across the channel, I judged, for 
 neither island had the advantage of nearness nor 
 distance. After a while Vieux Fort began to work 
 its way to windward of me and the canoe was still 
 hanging bravely on to the Pitons. She was doing 
 excellent work to windward, creeping up the long 
 hollows in pilot's luffs as is the habit of this rudderless 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 161 
 
 craft. The sum total of these small distances eaten to 
 windward a little more than made up for what we lost 
 when we lay-to for a combing sea. Saint Lucia had 
 long since changed from a misty grey to blue grey, and 
 then slowly the green of the vegetation began to assert 
 itself in varying shades as patches of cultivation became 
 defined. Dun-coloured spots on the hillsides took the 
 shapes of native huts. It was like the very slow devel- 
 opment of a huge photographic plate. 
 
 When within a few miles of the island the wind 
 began to draw to the south'ard, and as I eased the 
 sheets of the canoe, she quickened her pace like a 
 horse headed for home. The plate was developing 
 rapidly — I could make out the trees on the mountain 
 ridges and the beaches along shore. Vieux Fort was 
 on our beam, the Pitons towered over us; then with 
 the hum of tarred rigging in a gale, the center-board 
 of the Yakaboo crooned its parting song to the channel 
 and we lost our motion in the glassy calm of Soufriere 
 Bay. We had completed our first long jump. 
 
 High above me the projectile form of the Petit Piton 
 tore an occasional wraith from the low-flying trade 
 clouds. Inset in its steep side, some twenty feet above 
 where I was now rowing, was a niched shrine to the 
 Virgin Mary, to whom many a hasty prayer had been 
 uttered during the fervour of bare deliverance from 
 the rafales (squalls) of the channel, prayers probably 
 quickly forgotten in these calm waters under the ritons 
 and the memory of them soon washed away in the little 
 rum shops of the coast town, which gets its name from 
 the Soufriere in the hills above it and gives that name 
 to the bay before it. By this sign of the Virgin Mary, 
 
162 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 I was leaving for a time the Protestant faith of the 
 outer Antilles and entering the Catholic. In a measure, 
 I was leaving the English for the French, for although 
 Saint Lucia has been in the possession of the English 
 since 1803, there still remains the old Creole atmos- 
 phere of the French regime. 
 
 As I swung around the base of the smaller Piton, 
 the levelling rays of the late afternoon sun caught the 
 distant walls of wooden houses weatherworn to a 
 silky sheen. The dull red of a tiled roof here and 
 there, the sharp white of what I soon learned were the 
 police buildings, broke the drab monotone of the town. 
 A little coasting steamer backed out, crab-like, from 
 a cane-laden jetty and as we passed in the bay, three 
 white cotton tufts from her whistle tooted my first 
 welcome to Saint Lucia. 
 
 I had planned to show my papers to the police at 
 Soufriere and then to pitch my tent on some sandy 
 beach beyond a point that interested me just north of 
 the town. I should then have a good start for my row 
 along the lee coast on the next day and I should soon be 
 channel running again — to Martinique and the Empress 
 Josephine — I had an especial interest in her. 
 
 But one never knows. It happened at Carriacou 
 and it is apt to happen at any time. The perverse imp, 
 whatever his name may be, thrives on the upsetting 
 of plans. I had no sooner crawled up on the jetty 
 of Soufriere and stretched my legs when a black limb 
 of the law confronted me. 
 
 "Dis no port ob entry," he said; "you mus' go to 
 Castries. ,, 
 
 Castries was sixteen miles farther along the coast 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 163 
 
 and I had already travelled forty-two miles since sun- 
 up. I looked at my watch and the hands showed four- 
 thirty. I looked out over the sea and saw the sun, 
 like an impatient boy rushing through his chores, racing 
 for his bath in the horizon, a huge molten drop, trick- 
 ling down the inverted bowl of the firmament. If I 
 now took to my canoe again and slept on the beach 
 somewhere up the shore, I should get into trouble at 
 Castries for I had already put my foot on shore. 
 
 I finally decided that it was two of one and half a 
 dozen of another — two being the trouble I should get 
 into by staying here and six being the trouble I might 
 get into in the proportionately larger town of Cas- 
 tries. Confound a government that spends thirty cents 
 for red tape to wrap up a package worth ten ! 
 
 Up to this time, my coming had not been detected, 
 but with the increasing agitation of the policeman, it 
 dawned upon the jetty stragglers that something 
 unusual was on foot. Some one noticed the strange 
 canoe tethered like a patient animal to one of the 
 legs of the jetty. Some one else noticed that there was 
 a strange person talking with the policeman. I was 
 rapidly being discovered by a horde of babbling, ragged 
 beach-loafers and fishermen, who followed like swarm- 
 ing bees as we made our way to the police buildings. 
 The swarm was effectually barricaded outside as we 
 entered the building, where I showed my papers to 
 Sergeant Prout. 
 
 In these islands when precedent lacks, complexity 
 arises. And here was something complex — a man 
 who travelled alone, voyaging in the daytime and 
 sleeping at night on whatever beach he happened to 
 
164 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 land. The sergeant must needs have advice, so he 
 sent for the leading merchant of the town and the 
 lawyer. The merchant, being a man of business, said, 
 "Ask your superior," and the lawyer, being a man 
 of caution, said, "Place the responsibility on some one 
 else," at which the sergeant telephoned to His 
 Majesty's Treasurer at Castries. The reply I did not 
 hear. My canoe was carried into the cobbled court- 
 yard of the police buildings and my outfit was locked 
 up in a cell next to that of a thief. 
 
 "And now," said I, "if you will lend me a coal-pot 
 and lock me up with my outfit I shall cook my supper 
 and go to bed." Not a smile on the faces around me. 
 
 "But there is an hotel in thee town," came from a 
 voice at my side, and not much higher than my belt, 
 "I will conduc' you there." He pronounced "hotel" 
 with a lisp that made it more like "hostel," and called 
 the article "thee." I looked down and beheld him 
 who was to be my henchman during my stay in 
 Soufriere. He was a little fellow, black as the record 
 of a trust magnate and with a face that went with 
 the name of Joseph Innocent. 
 
 I would take Sergeant Prout's word for anything 
 and his nod in answer to my questioning look was a 
 good voucher for Joseph. And so we walked out, 
 Joseph parting the crowd before me, proudly carrying 
 my camera and portfolio while I followed, a pace or 
 two behind, to observe the quaint old town. Laid out 
 in regular squares, the houses toed the line of the 
 sidewalks in one continuous wall from street to street. 
 For the most part, the walls were bare of paint, or if 
 paint had ever been used, it had long since been 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 165 
 
 crumbled by the sun and washed away by the rain. 
 To relieve the dead geometric regularity, picturesque 
 grilled balconies overhung the sidewalks, giving proof 
 that at some time there had been life in the streets 
 worth observing. 
 
 We passed the open square of the market with the 
 bare, sun-heated church at the far end, facing the west, 
 as though its memories lay forever behind it. Joseph 
 stopped at one of the myriad doors in the walls of 
 houses. Would I ever be able to find this door again? 
 — and I stepped from the street into the cool dark 
 salle a manger of this West Indian hotel. The mula- 
 tresse, who received me, was of a better looking type, 
 I thought, than the Creole negress of the English islands. 
 "Could I have food and room for the night ?" 
 
 "Mais oui," for in spite of my shifty appearance my 
 camera and portfolio were badges of respectability 
 and vouched for me. I despatched Joseph for some 
 cigarettes and while awaiting his return I noticed that 
 the mulatresse was setting places for two. I was to 
 have company — a comforting thought when I could 
 not be alone on the beach. I am never so lonesome as 
 when eating alone, where there are people about. On 
 the beach I should have had the company of the 
 setting sun, the tropical starlit night, and the murmur 
 of the little rippling surf on the smooth sands — but 
 here! the shuffling of the silent negress as she placed 
 the food before me would have been loneliness itself. 
 
 When Joseph came with the tin of cigarettes, I 
 offered him a "thrupence," for he had served me well. 
 But he was a diplomat from his wide-spreading toes 
 to his apish face. There is a patois saying, "Zo quite 
 
166 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 yone boude plein fait zo sote," — "Don't let a bellyful 
 fool you." 
 
 u No! You give me de two copper," indicating the 
 coins in my hand, "for you need de silver for other 
 person." He was an artist, I learned later, and cared 
 little for money — but would I get him some paints 
 and brushes when I reached Castries? 
 
 The mulatresse had scarcely announced, "Monsieur 
 est servi," when the other guest entered. He was an 
 Englishman — of the island — spare and well-groomed, 
 as one generally finds them, a government engineer on 
 his monthly tour inspecting the telephone system, which 
 girdles the island. While we ate our thon (tuna) our 
 conversation turned on the tuna fisheries of Martinique 
 and I mentioned Josephine and Trois-Ilets. 
 
 "Josephine! Martinique! Why man alive! Jo- 
 sephine spent part of her childhood days right here in 
 Soufriere and I don't know but what she was born 
 on this island — in the northern part — at Morne Paix- 
 Bouche." 
 
 And so it happened that I was to be denied the beach 
 to stumble upon a page or two of that life of contrasts 
 — pathetic and romantic — of the Empress Josephine. 
 Over our coffee and cigarettes my friend told me of 
 Pere Remaud of the parish of Gros-Islet in the north 
 of Saint Lucia — the man who knew more about 
 Josephine's life in this island than any one else. I 
 decided, then, to spend some time in Saint Lucia and 
 I learned many things about her — but who wants to 
 read dry history sandwiched in between salty channel 
 runs? Our conversation turned to other things and 
 
I 
 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 167 
 
 then died out even as the glow of our cigarettes. We 
 were both tired and mutually glad to turn in. 
 
 But the wakening effect of the coffee and the cold 
 funereal sheets of the high antique four-poster onto 
 which I had climbed to rest, kept off slumber for a 
 while. What a cruise of contrasts it was — from the 
 primitive life of the Carib living on fish and cassava, 
 I had sailed in a day from the fifteenth century into 
 the eighteenth. From my roll of blankets on the 
 high ground of Point Espagnol I had come to the more 
 civilised, but not more comfortable, husk mattress of 
 the French regime. I was not long in deciding that 
 the husk mattress was no less aged than the four- 
 poster. Perhaps the friends of Josephine had slept 
 in this bed, on this very mattress — whatever their 
 sins may have been may this have shriven them ! Sad- 
 ness entered my mood and I fell asleep. 
 
 Can the lover of small indulgences begin the day 
 better than I began my first morning in Saint Lucia? 
 At six there was a knock at my door, followed by the 
 entrance of the mulatresse bearing a huge basin of 
 cold water with a calabash floating on its surface, the 
 simplest and yet the most delightful bath I have known. 
 Scarcely had I slipped on my clothes — the mulatresse 
 must have known by the sounds the progress of my 
 toilet — when another knock ushered in a small pot of 
 steaming Liberian coffee such as only they of the 
 French islands can grow and brew. There is but 
 one sequence to this — a cigarette. This, then, was 
 my formula, after which I stepped out onto the street 
 where Joseph was waiting for me. 
 
 Not far from the town, up in the hills, lies Ventine, 
 
168 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 the beauty spot of Saint Lucia. This is the safety valve, 
 a sort of Hell's Half Acre, that saved Saint Lucia 
 during the eruptions of Saint Vincent and Martinique. 
 As the well-kept road wound upward, lined with 
 orderly fields and occasional clumps of trees, I could 
 easily imagine myself to be in southern Europe, for 
 the morning was still cool and the road free except for 
 an infrequent figure shuffling along at its ease with 
 its burden balanced on top. It was pleasant to hear 
 the prattle of Joseph with its French construction of 
 the English and that soft inflection, which we lack so 
 much in our own harsh language. 
 
 "Look! you see that bird there? Eet ees call the 
 cuckoo mayoque by the Creole. They say that God, 
 w'en he was building the world (but I don' beleeve it) , 
 ask the cuckoo to carry stone to the stream. But the 
 cuckoo would not do it because it would soil his beauti- 
 ful fethaire. Then God say, 'For that you shall never 
 drink from the stream an' eef you do you will drown.' 
 An' now the cuckoo can only get water from the flowers 
 and leaves." 
 
 A little farther on, he darted to the side of the road 
 and brought back a leaf of the silver fern. He told me 
 to hold out my hand — "no, wiz zee back upwards." 
 Placing the leaf on the brown skin he gave it a slap and 
 the leaf slipped off leaving the delicate tracery of its 
 form in a silver powder. And so it was on that delight- 
 ful walk, I came to like the little native, bright and full 
 of spirit. Some day he may, as a regular duty, open 
 my door in the morning and say, "Will you have your 
 coffee now, sir, or w'en you arize?" 
 
 We finally arrived at the Ventine, which is the thin- 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 169 
 
 crusted floor of an ancient crater. The sulphur smell 
 that greeted me brought back memories of Yellowstone 
 Park. From Southern Europe I had been whisked back 
 to the States. And to carry the illusion still further 
 I found there three Americans, Foster, Green and 
 Smith (good plain Yankee names of no pretension), 
 who were working the sulphur of the crater. We fell 
 on each other's necks, so to speak. 
 
 One needed a guide and Foster took me about on 
 the hot floor to see the boiling mud pools and the 
 steam jets. On our way up to the cottage where the 
 men lived with their families Foster showed me the 
 natural advantages of living in a place like this. The 
 region of the Ventine would be a wonderful place of 
 retirement for the rheumatic cripple. Here were hot 
 springs of temperatures from tepid to boiling, cold 
 mountain streams that made natural shower baths, as 
 they tumbled down the rocks, and pools of curative 
 mineral water. 
 
 As we walked along the path Foster dug his hands 
 into the bank. "When you want to wash your hands 
 just reach into the side, of the hill — here — and haul 
 out a lump of this soft clay stuff. Rub your hands to- 
 gether and a little farther on — here — you have the 
 choice of either hot or cold water to wash it off in. 
 You see, my hands are as soft as a baby's skin." 
 
 He talked like an advertisement. They are planning 
 to build a hotel at the Ventine some day. If they do it 
 will be a new Soufriere come to life and I can imagine 
 no more delightful resort. 
 
 We left the Ventine in the cool of the afternoon 
 and passing the town walked out along the broad 
 
170 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 east road to the ruins of the old French baths, where 
 the aristocracy of France, some of them exiles, and 
 some come to the island to recoup their fortunes, were 
 wont to take the cure. There is but little now remain- 
 ing, a few walls, a tank into which the sulphur water 
 flows from the mountain stream, and a massive stone 
 arch set in a thick woods that takes two hours from 
 each end of the day and holds a gloom like a shroud 
 for the dead past. A cow was grazing where grace 
 once trod and where perhaps the little "Yeyette"* came 
 with her elders. That evening I chatted with a man, 
 Monsieur Devaux, whose grandaunt, Mademoiselle 
 Petit L'fitang, had often spoken of having played with 
 the little Josephine, at the estate of Malmaison in the 
 hills to the north of Soufriere. 
 
 But there was little else to be learned and the next 
 morning I left for Castries. 
 
 Offshore, trying to claw into the wind against the 
 tide, was a little sloop which somehow looked familiar. 
 It was calm alongshore and I rowed for an hour. Then 
 a breeze came directly from the north and I made 
 sail for beating. As I neared the sloop on the out- 
 tack she ran up a signal. I dropped my mainsail for 
 an instant to let them know that I understood, and ran 
 in again on the other tack. She was the Glen Nevis 
 from Grenada and had called at Kingstown on her 
 way to Saint Lucia with ice. 
 
 When she followed me into port an hour later, 
 I found that my Man Friday of St. George's was in 
 command. They had left Kingstown the day before I 
 had left Chateau Belaire, and although I had stopped 
 
 ♦Childhood name of the Empress Josephine. 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 171 
 
 off a day at Soufriere, I beat them into Castries by an 
 hour. In other words, it had taken them seventy-two 
 hours to cover the sixty miles from Kingstown to 
 Castries. My time for travelling the same distance 
 was twenty hours. This showed the advantage of the 
 canoe as a vehicle in these waters, for I could not 
 only sail the rough channels but also slip along under 
 the lee of the islands where the larger boats would be 
 helplessly becalmed. As these fellows sail they must, 
 of necessity, lose valuable ground to windward by 
 dropping away from the island they are leaving to 
 avoid calms and then they must beat their way up to 
 the next island. 
 
 Compared with Grenada and Saint Vincent, the lee 
 coast of Saint Lucia is low and uninteresting except for 
 two wonderful harbours, close together, near the 
 northern end; Cul-de-Sac, the location of the Usine- 
 Central for the manufacture of sugar, and Castries, 
 the coaling station of the English islands, with its 
 Vigie, the lately abandoned Gibraltar of the British 
 West Indies.* It was in the hills between these almost 
 landlocked harbours that Sir John Moore fought with 
 the French and the Caribs and learned the real art 
 of warfare that made possible his marvellous retreat 
 at Corufia. 
 
 As we approached Castries, a large, white yacht 
 came up from over the horizon and slipped into the 
 harbour. She proved to be the Atmah — belonging to 
 Edouard Rothschild and flying the French flag. She 
 had bumped on a reef south of Cuba and came here 
 
 * Shortly after the outbreak of the present war in Europe the Vigie 
 was fortified with guns brought over from Martinique and gar- 
 risoned in 191 5 by a company of Canadian soldiers. 
 
172 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 to coal before going home to dock. A Norwegian 
 tramp, probably owned by an American company, stole 
 around the south of the island and came up behind me, 
 a huge mass of ocean-going utility, and swung into 
 port after the yacht. 
 
 An Englishman came out, relieved of coals she had 
 brought from Cardiff, her rusty sides high out of water, 
 the tips of her propeller making a white haystack under 
 her counter. The little coasting steamer, which had 
 saluted me two days before, bustled out of her home 
 on her daily run to Vieux Fort. 
 
 There was commerce in this port — I had not been 
 near a steamer for two months. Before sailing into 
 the harbour, we made an inquisitive tack offshore in 
 order to have a peep at Martinique. There she lay — 
 a little to the westward of Saint Lucia; the arc was 
 swinging back and I should soon be in the Leeward 
 islands. Distinct against the haze of Martinique stood 
 the famous Diamond Rock and here, only six miles 
 off, lay Pigeon Island, lifting its head, a lion couchant 
 with Fort Rodney in its mane. 
 
 On the other tack we ran into the busy harbour. 
 French, English, and Norwegian flags were there. 
 My little ensign, no larger than a bandana handker- 
 chief, was all that represented the United States in this 
 large company. But the Yakaboo flitted past her over- 
 grown children — for after all the canoe is the mother 
 of them all — to a quiet corner that showed no change 
 since the advent of steam. 
 
 I had decided to spend some time in Castries — look- 
 ing into the past of a certain lady. I ought to make 
 the type appear shamefaced as I write this, but you 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 173 
 
 already know who the lady is, or was, and that she 
 has been dead nearly a century and her past was a 
 romance. There comes an indefinable sense of peace 
 and quiet when one sails into a secure and almost 
 landlocked harbour such as the carenage of Castries, 
 but I did not know that I was only sailing from the 
 vicissitudes of the Caribbean to the uncertainties of a 
 veritable sea of hearsay concerning Josephine. 
 
 For instance, there was an old negro who had seen 
 the Empress in Castries when a little child. Whether 
 he was the little child, or she was the little child, I do 
 not know — perhaps it was Castries that was the little 
 child. He was brought to me one day as I stood in the 
 street chatting with one of the merchants of the town. 
 
 "Undoubtedly old," I said to my friend, as one 
 would comment upon a piece of furniture. He seemed 
 a youth compared with some of our old Southern 
 darkies, shrivelled and cotton-tufted. 
 
 "Quel age?" I yelled at him, for he was somewhat 
 deaf. 
 
 "Cent onze e } sep' s'mains," came the answer. One 
 hundred and eleven years and seven weeks ! If I had 
 not caught him unawares he might have given the 
 days and hours. 
 
 But his age was not so remarkable as his memory. 
 He remembered having seen Josephine on the streets 
 and especially at the time when she left Saint Lucia for 
 Martinique on her way to France to marry Beauhar- 
 nais. There was no doubting that honest old face and 
 there was nothing but admiration for a memory that 
 reached back not only to youth and childhood, but 
 even to prenatal existence. He was born two years 
 
174 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 after Josephine had paid her last visit to these islands ! 
 I took his photograph and paid him a shilling, which 
 shows that a wonderful memory is nothing if not a 
 commercial asset. 
 
 My papers from St. George's, which had been 
 vised from port to port would serve me no longer 
 since I was now leaving for Martinique, which was 
 French. One morning I walked into the office of the 
 French consul, who, it seemed to me, was suspiciously 
 suave and gracious. The idea of travelling about in a 
 boat of less than a quarter of a ton was very amusing. 
 He filled in the blanks of an impressive document, 
 which I stuck in my pocket. When I asked the amount 
 of the fee he said, "Twenty francs." "Whew!" I 
 muttered to myself, "no wonder he was so blasted 
 polite." 
 
 Out past the Vigie and I was happy again. One is 
 always glad to run into port, but the voyager is doubly 
 glad to leave it again. There are countless petty annoy- 
 ances on shore that one never meets on the broad seas. 
 I often worry about the weather, but most of that 
 worry is done when I am ashore. As soon as I stepped 
 into the canoe that morning I felt that I was leaving 
 my small troubles on the stone quay, whimpering like 
 a pack of forlorn dogs. I should lose sight of them 
 and the quay as soon as I rounded the Vigie. 
 
 After sailing through two rain squalls and making 
 an investigating tack under Pigeon Island, I headed 
 for the beach of the village of Gros-Islet, for I had 
 business there. I wanted to see Pere Remaud and 
 examine some of the parish signatures. As I beached 
 the canoe, Henry Belmar, a fine young colonial Eng- 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 175 
 
 lishman, came through the crowd of natives to meet 
 me. He was riding through Gros-Islet on govern- 
 mental duties, had seen me in the bay, and had ordered 
 food at one of the houses in the town. The thoughtful 
 hospitality of the colonial Englishman has often made 
 me think upon the manner in which we too often treat 
 the stranger who comes to our shores. If he is outre, 
 we lionize him and the women make a freak of him. 
 If he is of our own kind, we let him shift for himself. 
 We drank our febrifuge with the usual "chin-chin," 
 and after luncheon set out for the house of Pere 
 Remaud. 
 
 The priest was a young man, full of strength and 
 vigour, much, I thought, as Pere Labat would have been 
 had we known him in our age. Pere Remaud was 
 interested in the things of the world. He lived for 
 his parish, read, shot ramiers (pigeons), and could 
 talk intimately on the politics of my own country. 
 While I had been eating with Belmar, the priest had 
 been down to the beach to see my canoe and at the 
 moment when we arrived he was hastily turning the 
 leaves of a French sporting catalogue to see whether 
 he might discover to just what species the Yakaboo 
 belonged — much as he would attempt to classify a 
 strange flower which he had found in the hills of his 
 parish. 
 
 I spent the afternoon with him, looking over the 
 old parish records. But for the faded paper on which 
 they stood out in bold lines, the letters and signatures 
 might have been written yesterday. There was the 
 signature of Louis Raphael Martin, a planter of Saint 
 Lucia, who had known Josephine here and had been 
 
176 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 received by her at Malmaison in France. There was 
 that of Auguste Hosten under the date of 1810, who, 
 Frederic Masson says, loaned a large sum of money to 
 Josephine at the time of the Revolution, when the 
 guillotine had taken her first husband and before she 
 met Napoleon. 
 
 We talked, and I made many notes during the long 
 afternoon till at last the yellow sunshine gave warning 
 that I must leave. Pere Remaud came down to the 
 beach with me and as we heeled to the evening breeze 
 I heard his last "Bon voyage" above the babble of the 
 natives. 
 
 The same puff that carried the last adieux of Pere 
 Remaud helped us across the white sandy floor of the 
 bay and left us, close to the shores of Pigeon Island. 
 Three whaleboats were lying on the beach and as I 
 stepped ashore their crews came straggling down to 
 meet me. I found that the man in command of the sta- 
 tion was Napoleon Olivier of Bequia, a brother of Jose 
 at Caille, and I was again in my whaling days of the 
 Grenadines. I was soon as far from Josephine and 
 Pere Remaud as the twentieth century is from the 
 eighteenth — but not for long. Accompanied by the 
 two sons of Olivier, I climbed to the famous old fort, 
 now called "Rodney," where that admiral, second only 
 to Nelson, watched for the French fleet to come out 
 of their hiding in the bay of Fort Royal (now Fort de 
 France) , thirty miles to the north, in Martinique. His 
 own fleet lay below him in the Saint Croix roads, like 
 impatient hounds tugging at their leashes, eager to be 
 in chase of their quarry. 
 
 The French at last slipped out on the night of April 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 177 
 
 8th, 1782, the news of their departure being signalled 
 to Rodney by means of a chain of English lookout 
 ships. Rodney was immediately on their heels and 
 on the 1 2th met the French in the Dominica channel, 
 where he fought the battle of "The Saints." 
 
 The fort itself is scarcely more than a rampart with 
 a powder magazine on the east side and a flag-staff 
 stepping in the center. There were no guns left and the 
 trees, growing out of the pavement, told of long years 
 of disuse. The sun had dropped below the ridge of the 
 island as we scrambled down again through long rank 
 grass, waist-high, and through a small dark grove of 
 trees, among which there were several tombs of officers, 
 their inscriptions still decipherable, the last narrow 
 earthly homes of men who had died while stationed 
 here, not from the bullets of the French, but from 
 the insidious attack of that enemy which they knew not 
 — the mosquito. 
 
 I cooked my supper with the whalemen in the ruins 
 of the old barracks. A rain tank, still intact from the 
 time of the occupation, furnished water and I was soon 
 yarning with Olivier over the bubbling pots. The 
 .season had been a bad one, only one small whale had 
 'been caught. One of the best harpooners was lying 
 jsick with fever in Gros-Islet, and the whole outfit was 
 |in a state of black dejection. 
 
 Poor Olivier ! He was not only doomed to lose his 
 
 arpooner, for three years later when I sailed my 
 
 schooner into the quiet haven of Bequia he came aboard 
 
 nd, sitting on the top step of the companionway, he 
 
 old me with tears in his eyes that one of his sons, who 
 
 had taken me up to the fort, had died of fever shortly 
 
 * 
 
178 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 after I had left Pigeon Island. He had no photograph 
 to remember his son by, but he remembered that I had 
 taken a snap-shot on the rampart — would I give him 
 a print? 
 
 Supper over, we put up impromptu tents in the long, 
 soft grass above the beach where the boats lay, for 
 the ruins, they said, were full of fleas. It may have 
 been fleas or it may have been superstition that 
 inhabited the barracks with jumbies. The tents were 
 impromptu, old sloop sails thrown over the masts of 
 the whaleboats. One end of the masts rested on the 
 ground while the other was supported by crossed oars 
 lashed together about seven feet above ground. Had 
 these shelters not been put up after sunset and 
 taken down before sunrise I might have had an interest- 
 ing photograph of shipwrecked mariners. I crawled in 
 with Olivier, for it would save me the work of pitching 
 my own tent. I was awakened by the chilly drizzle of 
 a morning squall. 
 
 As I got up and shook myself at sunrise — that is 
 5:51 on that particular day — (the sun did not rise for 
 us until sometime later, when he edged above the 
 Morne du Cap on Saint Lucia), the weather did not 
 look promising. Had it been the fifth day of the first 
 quarter I would not have started for Martinique, but 
 it was the fifth of the second, which had shown a 
 lamb-like disposition, and there were two days of it 
 left — I was on the safe side. The indications werej 
 for rain rather than wind and I decided to take the 
 chance. Olivier was a bit doubtful. 
 
 I cooked my breakfast with the men in the barracks, 
 dragged my canoe down to the water's edge and* 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 179 
 
 watched the weather. At eight o'clock, the rain having 
 ceased, I bade good-bye to the whalers, who had 
 decided not to try for humpbacks that day, and was off. 
 As we sailed out through the reefs by Burgot Rocks 
 the heavy surf gave warning that there would be 
 plenty of wind outside. Once clear of Saint Lucia I 
 laid my course for Diamond Rock, a good six points 
 off the wind. 
 
 What a comfort it was to ease my sheets a bit and 
 to know that if the current began to take me to leeward 
 I could make it up by working closer to windward. 
 Those extra points were like a separate bank account 
 laid up for a rainy day. 
 
 The canoe enjoyed this work. She fairly flew, slid- 
 ing into the deep troughs and climbing the tall seas 
 in long diagonals. In half an hour Saint Lucia behind 
 me was completely hidden by rain clouds and so was 
 Martinique ahead. The two islands seemed to have 
 wrapped themselves in their vaporous blankets in high 
 dudgeon, like a couple of Indian bucks who have failed 
 to wheedle whisky out of a passing tourist. Fearful 
 lest the weather might break and come up from the 
 southwest, I kept a constant watch on the procession of 
 the trade clouds in the northeast, ready to come about 
 with the first weakening of the wind. 
 
 Afraid? not exactly — but cautious. The Yakaboo 
 drove on like the sturdy little animal that she was. We 
 now knew each other so well that we did not even 
 bother to head into the breaking seas, except the very 
 large ones. Some of them we could roll under and 
 slip by. Others came aboard and at times I was waist 
 deep in water and foam, sitting on the deck to wind- 
 
180 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ward, my feet braced in the cockpit under the opposite 
 coaming. If there had not been the danger of filling 
 her sails with water, I could have made the main- 
 sheet fast for she practically sailed herself. Between 
 deluges, I bailed out the cockpit with a calabash. 
 
 Once in a while she would hang her head and then 
 I hove-to to bail out the forward compartment with a 
 sponge. The exhilaration of the Saint Vincent channel 
 was nothing compared to this. The water was warm 
 and my constant ducking was not unpleasant. I thought 
 I could feel a tingle in the region of my pre-evolute 
 gills. 
 
 It may seem strange that in these channel runs 
 where the trade blew strong, the force of the wind 
 never seemed to bother the canoe. Although it was 
 usually blowing fully twenty miles an hour and often 
 twenty-five, I was obliged to reef my sails but four 
 times on the whole cruise; on the run to Dominica, 
 when the wind was very strong; again, under the lee 
 of Dominica ; in the run to Guadeloupe, when the canoe 
 was going too fast in a following sea, and, for the same 
 reason, on my run to Saba. I have often carried full 
 sail when a large sloop has been obliged to reef. 
 
 The reason for this is that the wind close to the 
 surface of water, broken up into ridges from three to 
 eight feet in height, is considerably retarded and the 
 stratum through which the low rig of the Yakaboo 
 moved was not travelling at a rate of more than 
 three-fourths the actual velocity of the free wind. 
 Upon approaching land, where the seas began to 
 diminish in size and before I had reached the influence 
 of the down draft from the mountains, I could always 
 
c c c < 
 
 <>•<•• 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 181 
 
 feel a slight but definite increase in the force of the 
 wind. 
 
 Sailing as I did — seated only a few inches above 
 the water — I had an excellent opportunity to observe 
 the flying fish which rose almost continually from under 
 the bow of the canoe. Although they were smaller 
 than those I have seen in the channels off the California 
 coast — they were seldom more than about nine inches 
 long — their flight did not seem to be appreciably 
 shorter. Their speed in the water immediately before 
 they emerge must be terrific for they come out as 
 though shot from a submarine catapult; their gossamer 
 wings, vibrating from the translated motion of the 
 powerful tail, make the deception of flight most real. 
 
 The flight is in effect the act of soaring with thfe 
 body at an angle of from ten to fifteen degrees with the 
 horizontal. The wings are close to the head and the 
 lower part of the body often passes through the crest 
 of a wave from time to time when the tail seems to give 
 an impetus to the decreasing speed of the flight. This, 
 however, may be an illusion, due to the dropping away 
 of the wave, which might thus give the fish the appear- 
 ance of rising up from the water. I have spent many 
 hours watching these singular fish and, while there 
 can be no doubt that they do not actually fly, it seems 
 almost incredible that a fish can hurl itself from the 
 water with sufficient force to rise to a height of twenty 
 or more feet and soar for a distance of from three to 
 four hundred feet— perhaps farther. 
 
 The land ahead had shaken off its cloud blanket and 
 was now rapidly defining itself, for this channel was 
 shorter than the last one and my old enemy, the lee 
 
182 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 tide, had been scarcely perceptible. As I held the 
 canoe up for "Diamond Rock," I again noticed the 
 decided veering of the wind to the south'ard, and from 
 time to time I had to ease off my sheets till the canoe 
 was running well off in a beam sea that moderated as 
 I approached land. The sky, which had been well 
 clouded during most of the run, opened at a fortunate 
 moment while I hove-to, stood up in the cockpit, and 
 took a photograph of the famous Rock. There was 
 no hope of landing in that run of sea and I had to 
 be content with a hasty survey of the Rock as the 
 canoe bobbed up and down, her nose into the wind. 
 
 Were I writing this narrative true to events, I should 
 have no time to describe the Rock and relate a bit of 
 its history for I had scarcely time to stow my camera 
 when a squall came chasing down on my heels. I 
 hastily raised the mainsail and ran "brad aff," as the 
 harpooner Bynoe would say, to get plenty of sea room. 
 When the squall did catch us, we hove-to with the jib 
 safely stowed and the mainsail securely lashed so that 
 the wind could not get its lingers into it, and with 
 the sturdy little mizzen dutifully holding the canoe into 
 the wind. 
 
 You shall have the story now while I am sitting in 
 the cockpit — doing nothing but watch the Rock dis- 
 appear in the mist to windward, while the Yakaboo 
 is backing off gracefully at a rate of four miles an 
 hour. 
 
 Diamond Rock rises in the shape of a dome to a 
 height of five hundred and seventy feet, a mile distant 
 from the Martinique shore. In 1804, when the Eng- 
 lish and French were making their last fight for the 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 183 
 
 supremacy of the Caribbean, Admiral Hood laid the 
 H. M. S. Centaur close under the lee of the Rock, put 
 kedges out to sea, and ran lines to the shore. Fortu- 
 nately, calm weather aided the Admiral in his opera- 
 tions and he was able to hoist three long 24s and two 
 1 8s to the top of the Rock where hasty fortifications 
 were built. Here Lieutenant Maurice, with one 
 hundred and twenty men, harassed the French fleet. 
 
 The Rock was named H. M. S. Diamond Rock and 
 for sixteen months this stationary man-of-war held out 
 against the French, who had two 74s, a corvette, a 
 schooner, and eleven gunboats. Lack of food finally 
 caused these gallant men to surrender and so great 
 was the admiration of the French governor, the Mar- 
 quise de Bouille, that he treated them as his guests at 
 Fort Royal (Fort de France), till the proper 
 exchanges could be made. By a strange coincidence, 
 this same Maurice, who had become a captain, in 181 1 
 captured the island of Anholt and successfully held it 
 against the Danes. 
 
 While I have been yarning to you about Diamond 
 Rock, I have also partaken of my frugal sea-luncheon 
 of coconut, pilot bread, and chocolate. I believe, just 
 to make up for the nastiness of the weather, I raided 
 my larder under the cockpit floor to the extent of a 
 small can of potted meat, and I remember saving the 
 empty tin till I was well in shore, for I did not care 
 to excite the curiosity of a chance shark that might 
 be passing by. 
 
 The squall was a mixture of wind and spiteful rain 
 and I thought of the Yakaboo as akin to the chimney 
 sweep's donkey in "Water Babies." For an hour it 
 
184. ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 blew hard and then let up as quickly as it had come, the 
 sea subsiding as if by magic. I found that we were well 
 off shore nearly due west of Cape Solomon, four miles 
 from the point where the squall had picked me up. 
 Shaping our course past the cape, we soon ran. into the 
 calm of the picturesque bay of Fort de France. 
 
 Tucked well back from the sea, on the northern 
 shore of the bay, lay the capital of the island. The 
 afternoon was in its decline and the level rays of the 
 sun striking into the low rain clouds that hung over the 
 land threw a golden light on the town and hills, making 
 it a yellow-skied picture by an old Dutch master. The 
 effect of days gone by was heightened by the presence 
 of a large square-rigger that lay in the anchorage with 
 her sails brailed up to dry after the rain. No steamer 
 was there to mar the illusion — the picture was not 
 modern. 
 
 As I rowed closer to the town I turned from time 
 to time to see what changes were going on behind my 
 back. On a bluff close aboard were the pretty homes 
 of a villa quarter and over one the tricolour of France 
 proclaimed the governor's house. Beyond was a row 
 of warehouses fronting the sea and beyond these, as 
 though behind a bulwark, rose the cathedral steeple. 
 At the far end of the row of warehouses a long landing 
 jetty ran out at right angles to the water front. Still 
 farther to the eastward Fort St. Louis lay out into the 
 harbour jealously guarding the carenage behind it. At 
 the water's edge and not far from the shore end of the 
 jetty was a building with the revenue flag over it and 
 for this I shaped my course. 
 
 As I neared the government landing the harbour- 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 185 
 
 master's boat came out with its dusky crew of duanes 
 (customs officers), wearing blue and white-banded 
 jerseys and the French helmet of the tropics, with its 
 brim drooped in back to protect the nape of the 
 neck. I passed my papers to them and started to 
 follow. The man in the stern, who now held my 
 expensive bill of health, waved me back. 
 
 "Jettez votre ancre!" 
 
 I answered that I carried no anchor and they pulled 
 away as from a pest. 
 
 "Restez la!" he yelled, pointing indefinitely out into 
 the middle of the bay. The crew landed their officer 
 and then rowed out again, placing themselves between 
 me and the shore. Half an hour passed; I could see 
 the people of the town trickle down through the streets 
 and gather along the water front. Then I began to 
 notice that there was something wrong with the 
 Yakaboo. She was tired and woman-like she gave way 
 — not to tears, but the reverse. She leaked. She had 
 had a hard day of it and wanted to sit down some- 
 where; the bottom of the harbour being the nearest 
 place, she started for that. A seam must have opened 
 on the run across and I had to bail. 
 
 But what on earth were those fellows doing with my 
 bill of health and why on earth did they not allow 
 me to come ashore ? Between spells of bailing I took up 
 my oars and started to circumnavigate the duanes, but 
 they were inshore of me and had the advantage. The 
 sun sank lower and the crowd along shore became 
 denser. Finally it dawned upon me. My expensive bill 
 of health was dated the day before and the customs 
 officers were trying to guess what I had been doing the 
 
186 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 day before and where I had been the previous night. 
 Why they did not ask me directly I do not know, and 
 what they actually thought and said to each other I 
 never heard. That they took me for some sort of spy 
 I am certain. 
 
 Two weeks in quarantine began to loom up as a vivid 
 possibility. I then remembered that "Monty" at Kings- 
 town had given me a letter to his brother-in-law, a 
 merchant by the name of Richaud, who lived in Fort 
 de France. The next move was to get the letter to 
 Richaud — he might be standing in that crowd on the 
 jetty. So I took the letter out of my portfolio and 
 put it in my pocket where it would be handy. Then 
 I gave the Yakaboo a final sponge -out and started to 
 pull at a smart pace away from the jetty. The crew in 
 the harbour-master's boat swallowed the bait and 
 quickly headed me off. 
 
 In a flash I yanked the canoe about and rowed for 
 the jetty, under full steam, at the same time yelling 
 over my shoulder for Monsieur Richaud. Luck was 
 with me. There was a movement in the crowd and a 
 little man was pushed to the outer edge like the stone 
 out of a prune. In a jiffy I was alongside and the 
 letter was in his hands. The baffled duanes, who had 
 turned by this time and were after me full tilt, nosed 
 me away from the jetty, while I lay off, softly whistling 
 "Yankee Doodle." This seemed to take with the 
 crowd and they applauded. They were not in sym- 
 pathy with duanes — few West Indians are, for they 
 are all fond of smuggling. 
 
 Whether it was Monty's letter backed by the pull 
 of Monsieur Richaud, who seemed to be a man of 
 
DELIGHTS OF CHANNEL RUNNING 187 
 
 some importance, or whether the officials decided to 
 call it a day and to go home, I don't know, but I 
 was at last beckoned to come ashore and just in time, 
 for the Yakaboo sank with a gurgle of relief in the soft 
 ooze on the beach. Before I knew what was going on, 
 my whole outfit was bundled into the customs office to 
 undergo the inspection of the officials. Even the canoe 
 was bailed out and carried into the barracks, where she 
 rested on the floor by the side of a gunrack filled with 
 cumbersome St. fitienne rifles. There being no Bible 
 handy I placed my hand on the next most holy thing, 
 the bosom of my shirt, and swore that after this I 
 would cruise in seas more homogeneous as to the na- 
 tionality of their islands. While this silent ceremony 
 was going on, the duanes looked at me in an awed way 
 and one of them muttered "Fou" (crazy). He was 
 probably right. 
 
 But Monsieur Richaud was there and he introduced 
 himself to me. He had been expecting me for some 
 time, he said, and I explained as best I could — it was 
 mental agony to try to recall from a musty memory 
 words that I had not used for ten years or more — that 
 I had spent some time with the Caribs in Saint Vincent 
 and some time in Saint Lucia, since I had left "Monty." 
 Monsieur was a little, jolly round-faced Frenchman 
 with the prosperous air of a business man of some 
 consequence. He was reputed to be one of the rich 
 men of Fort de France. Would I bestow upon him 
 the honour of dining with him at his house? I would 
 bestow that honour. We said "au revoir" to the duanes 
 and stepped out into the street. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MARTINIQUE FORT DE FRANCE 
 
 IT was dark and it was raining. My clothes were 
 already wet and I sloshed along the narrow side- 
 walks behind the little man like a dripping Newfound- 
 land dog. His wife was ill, he said, but he wished to 
 at least give me a dinner, a change of clothes and 
 then find me a lodging place. I had become so used 
 to wet clothing that I forgot to bring my dry duds. I 
 could see little of the town as we walked along the 
 dark streets, but the impression was that of a small city 
 — larger than any I had yet seen in these islands. At 
 our elbows was a monotonous unbroken wall of house 
 fronts with closed doors and jalousied windows, which 
 occasionally gave a faint gleam of light. Presently 
 my friend stopped in front of one of the doors and 
 pushed it in. We stepped into a sort of wide corridor 
 at the farther end of which was another door through 
 which we passed into my friend's house. The house in 
 reality had two fronts, one on the street and this which 
 faced on a sort of patio which separated it from the 
 kitchen and servants' quarters. I made this hasty 
 survey as the master gave some orders in patois to a 
 large negress, whose attention was fixed on my be- 
 draggled figure, which gave the impression of having 
 but lately been fished out of the sea. 
 
 188 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 189 
 
 First of all there was that enjoyable little liquid 
 ceremony, "a votre sante," in which I rose in the esti- 
 mation of mine host upon denying allegiance to "wisky- 
 ansoda." This should be further proof that I was no 
 English spy at least. Then I was led upstairs to the 
 guest room which Monsieur was now occupying. 
 Monsieur was short and beamy, while my build was of 
 the reverse order, and the result of the change of 
 dry clothes which I put on was ludicrous — but I was 
 dry and comfortable, which was the main thing. It 
 was pleasant to know that I could now sit down in a 
 comfortable chair without leaving a lasting salt stain 
 behind me, pink-dyed from the colour which was con- 
 tinually running, from the lining of my coat. What 
 little dignity to which I may lay claim, took wing at the 
 sight of a foot of brown paw and forearm dangling 
 from the sleeve of the coat. In like manner the 
 trousers withdrew to a discreet distance from my feet 
 and hung in desperate puckers around my middle. 
 
 Thus arrayed I was ushered into the presence of 
 Madame Richaud, who lay recovering from an attack 
 of fever in an immense four-poster. I paid my respects, 
 assured her of the good health and well-being of her 
 brother, and bowing with as much grace as possible, 
 I followed my host to the drawing room. 
 
 The door through which we had passed from the 
 street to the house of Monsieur Richaud was what 
 one might call a general utility door, used by the master 
 of the house on all ordinary occasions and by the 
 servants and tradespeople. This door, as I have said, 
 opened into a sort of corridor or antechamber through 
 which one had to pass before gaining access to the 
 
190 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 house proper. There was, however, another street 
 door, which opened from the sidewalk directly into 
 the parlour or living room, where I now sat with my 
 friend. This gives an uncomfortable feeling of inti- 
 macy with the street — in a step one moves from the 
 living room to the sidewalk. It made me think of one 
 of the smaller canals of Venice, where I had seen an 
 urchin dive from a front window into the street. On 
 either side of this door were two windows, lacking 
 glass, with jalousies between the interstices of which 
 I could now and then see the whites of peeking eyes. 
 
 It is in the nature of these people to be fond of street 
 life and during my stay in Fort de France I noticed that 
 the little balconies, with long French windows opening 
 upon them, which projected from the second stories, 
 were occupied most of the time. The aspect of the 
 glaring white and yellow houses, monotonous as the 
 sheer walls of the Wallibu Dry River, could never be so 
 pleasing as the green courtyards in the rear, viewed 
 from large airy galleries. It was just the drift of 
 the street, a casual word now and then and a few 
 exchanges with neighbours similarly occupied. 
 
 As we talked, the thought came to me that there 
 was at least one advantage to this parlour street door 
 — it was handy for funerals. Strange to say, I saw 
 such a room put to just this use the very next day. 
 The corpse was laid in state in the parlour and the 
 doors were wide open so that any one, who wished, 
 might enter in and look. There is, of course, some de- 
 gree of common sense in this, for the rest of the house 
 being practically cut off, the family need not be dis- 
 turbed by the entrance of numerous friends, some of 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 191 
 
 whom may not alone be satisfied in viewing the corpse, 
 but take a morbid delight in viewing the grief of 
 others. 
 
 But all this had little to do with the dinner which 
 was announced from the door of the adjoining 
 dining room. Monsieur Richaud's two children, a 
 boy and a girl in that nondescript age which precedes 
 the backfisch, now put in their appearance, the girl 
 proudly taking the place of her mother at the head of 
 the table. The dinner was excellent, but what I ate 
 I did not remember even long enough to write in my 
 note-book the next day, for while I was mechanically 
 eating a soup that was delicious, I could give no specific 
 thought to it, but must concentrate my entire attention 
 to fetching up those few French words which were 
 resting in the misty depths of my mind as in the muddy 
 bottom of a well. Having "dove up" those words, I 
 used them in a conversation which, while it was under- 
 stood by Monsieur Richaud, afforded considerable 
 amusement to the children. But the little Frenchman 
 fared no better. Wishing to impress me with his 
 familiarity with the English language he described the 
 beauties of the northern coast of Martinique. He came 
 to a fitting climax when he told of a river — "w'ich 
 arrive at zee sea by casharettes." 
 
 When the substantial part of the meal was over, a 
 wash basin, soap and towel were passed around — 
 satisfactory if not aesthetic — the three articles remind- 
 ing me of their relations on the back stoop of a western 
 farmhouse. After this, the fruit, which in this case was 
 mango. I will not repeat the ponderous witticism 
 regarding the mango and the bath-tub. I have often 
 
192 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 speculated on this joke, however, and have almost come 
 to the conclusion that it was invented first and the fruit 
 discovered afterward. I can imagine Captain Cook 
 suddenly starting up and slapping his thigh. "What 
 ho!" he shouts, "I have thought up a most excellent 
 joke, but I must find a fruit to fit it." And so he 
 sets forth, discovers the mango and circumnavigates 
 the globe. 
 
 However, we ate mangoes and our fingers became 
 messy. As I was looking for some place to rest my 
 hands where they would do the least damage to table 
 linen, the negress, who had been serving us, brought in 
 four plates with large finger bowls on them. There 
 was tepid water in the bowls and by their sides were 
 small beakers about the size of bird-baths. First we 
 took up the beakers, filled them with water from the 
 bowls and set them aside. Then we washed our finger 
 tips in the bowls and finally dipped them in the clean 
 water in the beakers and wiped our lips, an aesthetic 
 proceeding which averaged the use of the wash basin 
 and the soap. This rite concluded, the beaker was 
 upset in the bowl — a signal that the dinner was over. 
 
 Thus dried, fed and doubly cleansed, my sum of con- 
 tent lacked only tobacco and a bed. They raise their 
 own tobacco in Martinique — Tabac de Martinique — 
 and that it is pure is where praise halts and turns her 
 back. As for strength — I called it Tabac de Diable. I 
 have shaved the festive plug and smoked the black 
 twist that resembled a smoked herring from the time 
 of the Salem witches, but these are as corn silk to 
 the Tabac de Martinique. I had finished my supply 
 of tobacco from home and now, forced to use the 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 193 
 
 weed of Martinique, I "learned to love it." There 
 was nothing else to do. It reminded me of the tender- 
 foot who leaned up against a white pine bar in the 
 Far West and asked for a mint julep — "Well 
 frapped." As the barkeeper produced a tumbler and 
 a bottle he said, "You'll have three fingers of this bug 
 juice and you'll love it." But the Tabac de Dia- 
 ble served me a good turn. Half a year later, in 
 the cosy tap room of the Fitzwilliam Tavern, I incau- 
 tiously left a partly smoked cigar within the reach of 
 a practical joker, who, taking advantage of my pre- 
 occupation in a book, watched the cigar go out and 
 then with the aid of a pin inserted a piece of elastic 
 band into the end of the cigar. I did not notice the 
 anticipation of a bit of fun on the faces of the men 
 who had come from an uninteresting game of bridge 
 in another room. I relit the cigar and resumed the 
 smoking of it, still deeply engrossed in my book. I 
 remembered later that one by one the jokers had left 
 the room with silent tread as if in the presence of the 
 dead. For once I was alone in the room and I had the 
 fireplace to myself. I finished the cigar and threw 
 the stump into the fire. It was the Tabac de Diable 
 that had inoculated me and for some time after I 
 left Martinique I found that I could smoke almost 
 anything that was at all porous and would burn if an 
 indraft was applied to it. But I did not enjoy it that 
 first time when Monsieur Richaud handed me a Marti- 
 nique cigar. 
 
 There now remained the last want — a bed — and 
 my friend guessed this for I nearly fell asleep over 
 his cigar. 
 
194 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 He led me out into the deserted streets lighted by 
 a faint starlight and still shining from the rain which 
 had let up. We turned into one of the main thorough- 
 fares at the end of which blazed an electric light, 
 yellow, like the moon rising through a mist. Here 
 flourished the "Grand Hotel de l'Europe," a name, I 
 believe, as legion as Smith. I fully expect, after cross- 
 ing my last channel, the Styx, to find a sign on the other 
 shore thus: — "Grand Hotel de l'Europe — Coolest Spot 
 in Hades — Asbestos Linen — Sight Seeing Auto Hell- 
 speed leaves at 10 A. M. — Choice New Consignment 
 of Magnates seen at Hard Labour." 
 
 My tired senses made scant note of the marble- 
 floored room, the click of the billiard balls, and the 
 questioning glances of the wasp-betrousered French 
 officers, and I bade good night to my host, who had 
 vouched for my harmlessness and left me in charge of 
 the clerk. 
 
 The kaleidoscope day came to an end as I crawled 
 under the mosquito bar of an immense four-poster, in 
 a room on the premier Stage, and dove between the 
 sheets with a grunt of satisfaction. 
 
 At first I thought it was the love song of a mosquito, 
 but as I began to awaken the sound resolved itself in- 
 to the thin blare of a trumpet-call and I wondered 
 where I was. My eyes, directed at the ceiling when I 
 opened them, caught the rays of the morning sun, sifted 
 through the jalousies and striking the gauze canopy 
 over me in bands of moted light. The trumpet sound- 
 ed again — this time almost under my window — and 
 stretching out of bed like a snail from its shell, I 
 peeked through the vanes of the jalousie and saw a com- 
 
MARTINIQUE—FORT DE FRANCE 195 
 
 pany of soldiers returning from their morning drill. 
 
 There was a delicious novelty about it all that made 
 me feel absolutely carefree, and, as I thought of the 
 Yakaboo and her precious outfit, I hoped that they, as 
 well as I, had rested in the customs station with its anti- 
 quated St. fitienne rifles for company. I hoped that 
 there had been no quarrel between my Austrian gun 
 and the Frenchmen and that my little British rifle had 
 not flaunted the Union Jack in their faces. I was in 
 that coma of carelessness when if an earthquake had 
 come to crush out my life with the falling of the pond- 
 erous walls about me, I would have reproved it with 
 the dying words, "Oh, pshaw, why didn't you wait till 
 I had finished my cruise ?" This feeling is worth 
 travelling to the ends of the earth to experience. 
 
 A knock on the door brought forth a hasty "Entrez" 
 as I slid back between the sheets. An aged negress 
 brought in a small pot of coffee and a pitcher of hot 
 milk which I found to my horror would have to stay 
 my hunger until the hour of dejeuner at eleven. 
 
 Later, another knock ushered in my clothes from 
 Monsieur Richaud, already washed and dried. My 
 precious shirt looked like a miserable piece of bunting 
 after a rainy Fourth of July, faded and colour-run. I 
 dressed and sallied forth to investigate the town. 
 
 Fort de France was as new and strange to me as St. 
 George's had been and far more interesting. An im- 
 pending week of rainy weather decided for me and I 
 made up my mind to spend that week here. Until I 
 was ready to put to sea again and sail for Dominica I 
 could not take my outfi; away from the customs office. 
 Camping along shore, then, was out of the question. 
 
196 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 There was no alternative for me than to become for 
 the time a part of the life of the town. Curiously 
 enough, I find that one passes through various phases 
 during the first few days in a new town or country. At 
 first there is the novelty of the place which appeals to 
 one. This is followed by a period of restlessness — the 
 first blush of novelty has worn off and one comes al- 
 most to the point of hating the place. It is like the 
 European tourist who rushes upon a town, gorges him- 
 self with what pictures and sights are easily accessible 
 and then in a fit of surfeit hates the thought of the rich 
 optical food before him. But then comes the third 
 stage, which lasts indefinitely, when the spirit of the 
 town makes itself felt and one begins to see through 
 the thin veneer of first impressions and to make 
 friends. Those first impressions — unless they are very 
 striking — vanish little by little till one comes to regard 
 the place more or less with the eyes of the native. 
 After all, this whole process is both natural and human. 
 It is during the last stage (granting always that the 
 town or country has any interest for one at all) that 
 the residence in all out of the way places is brought 
 about of stray Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen and 
 in more recent years Americans. One commonly hears 
 the admission, "I didn't care for the place at all at 
 first but somehow I became fond of it and here I am — 
 let's see, it's blank years now . . ." 
 
 My first care was for my outfit which I was allowed 
 to overhaul and put in order in the barracks room. 
 My portfolio and camera I could take with me to the 
 hotel, but the latter was of no use for my films be- 
 came fogged from the excessive moisture of a rainy 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 197 
 
 week and when I did try to make an exposure it was 
 only of some conventional subject. I could not wander 
 at random from the confines of the town nor edge near 
 the picturesque carenage in back of Fort St. Louis 
 where there is an important coaling station and repair 
 shop without being shadowed by some private ap- 
 parently detailed for the purpose. While overhauling 
 my outfit I could see that every bag had been care- 
 fully searched — nothing, of course, was missing. 
 Through some sort of feigned misunderstanding I was 
 unable to get back my expensive bill of health — per- 
 haps they thought I might alter the date and use it in 
 Guadeloupe (above Dominica), the next French island. 
 I had hoped to bluff the harbour-master at Dominica, 
 but with my French bill of health gone, I could not do 
 otherwise than obtain a new paper for Dominica — the 
 officials saw to that — and it was just as well in the end 
 for I met with the same officiousness that greeted Cap- 
 tain Slocum when I arrived at Roseau. 
 
 It had been raining and the deep, old-world gutters 
 were full, miniature canals in which the broken shell 
 of a coconut might be seen sailing down to the sea like 
 the egg shell of Hans Christian Andersen. Apparent- 
 ly most of the refuse of the town is carried off in these 
 gutters. But the canal gutters serve another purpose — 
 they wash the feet of the country people. One sees a 
 woman whose muddy or dusty feet proclaim her to 
 be from the country, walking into town with a mon- 
 strous burden on her head. She will suddenly stop 
 on the edge of the sidewalk and balance on one foot 
 while she carefully lowers the other into the running 
 water of the gutter. She may at the same time be pass- 
 
198 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ing the time o' day with some approaching acquaintance 
 half a block away. Their conversation seems to have 
 a universal focus for any distance under a quarter of 
 a mile — the intensity is the same for three feet or a 
 block. 
 
 Having washed her right foot with the nonchalance 
 of a tightrope walker, she goes on her way till she 
 makes such a turning as will bring her left foot along- 
 side the gutter, and she proceeds as before. 
 
 It was usually in the afternoon that I saw that most 
 picturesque sang mele, the Creole of Martinique, unaf- 
 fected by the so-called advance of civilisation, wearing 
 the dress of watered silk and the heavy gold ornaments, 
 with just that faint trace of interesting barbarity that 
 goes with the generous features, the wide-spread eyes 
 and the blue-black hair. She is a reminder of Creole 
 days of French Louisiana — the coarser progenitor of 
 our so-called "creole." I could see that most of these 
 women were married, by the sign of the madras qua- 
 landi which is in reality a silk bandana tied on the head 
 turban-wise, one corner knotted and stuck upright above 
 the forehead like a feather. The unmarried women 
 wear the madras in the usual manner, that is, without 
 the knotted corner upright. 
 
 That these women are beautiful there is no denying; 
 the skin though it may be dark is very clear and the eyes 
 give a frank open expression and by reason of their 
 position seem to diminish what African coarseness may 
 have been left in the nose. The nose may be flattish 
 and a bit heavy but the broad, even high forehead, 
 wide-spread eyes and perfect teeth counteract this ef- 
 fect so that it is hardly noticeable. One finds these 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 199 
 
 people a delightful contrast to the rawboned Creole of 
 the English colonies with her male-like figure and ec- 
 centricities of hair, nose, lips, hands and feet. 
 
 There was a refreshing spirit of enterprise — we get 
 the word from the French — and of varied interests that 
 were a relief after having seen the "live and bear it*? 
 spirit of the English islands. The people of Marti- 
 nique are industrious and they are happy — the one 
 naturally follows the other. In the market I found near- 
 ly all the vegetables of the temperate climate besides 
 those of the tropics. They are now extensively grow- 
 ing the vanilla bean and the Liberian coffee is excellent. 
 The wines which they import from France are inex- 
 pensive. In drinking the claret they dilute it with water 
 which is the French custom and is as it should be. One 
 might live very comfortably in Fort de France. There 
 were electric lights and book stores where one could 
 buy the current French magazines — illustrated, humor- 
 ous and naughty. I bought several. There was just 
 one step in their enterprise which I did not appreciate 
 and that was the cultivating of home-grown tobacco — 
 Tabac de Diable. 
 
 My walks about town were for the most part sallies 
 from the hotel during intermissions between showers — 
 for it rained almost continually for the entire week. 
 These sallies I alternated with periods of writing in 
 the quiet little cabaret where an occasional acquaintance 
 would sit down for a chat, my French taking courage 
 from day to day like an incipient moustache. I usually 
 occupied a marble-topped table under an open window 
 by which bobbed the heads of passers-by. 
 
 What front the Hotel de l'Europe boasts, faces to- 
 
200 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ward the savanna in the middle of which stands the 
 statue of the Empress Josephine. Here she stands, 
 guarded by a high iron fence and surrounded by seven 
 tall palms, their tops, towering to a lofty coronet, above 
 her head, seemed to claim her after all as a child of 
 the West Indies. She is looking pensively across the 
 bay towards Trois f lets where she may or may not have 
 been born and where so many sentimental steamer-deck 
 authorities on the West Indies may or may not have 
 made pilgrimages to the parish church and perhaps to 
 the ruins of the La Pagerie estate. That she spent a 
 considerable part of her West Indian days in Saint 
 Lucia there can be no doubt and I will say for the bene- 
 fit of the steamer-deck authorities that there is a very 
 strong likelihood that she was born in that island. Was 
 it some ironical whim that tempted the sculptor to im- 
 part a wistfulness in her face which seemed to carry her 
 thoughts far beyond Trois ilets and across the channel 
 to the little plantation on the Morne Paix-Bouche and 
 perhaps still farther, along that half mythical chemin 
 de la Longue Chasse, which I discovered some time 
 later on an old map of Saint Lucia, leading from the 
 Dauphin quarter down to Soufriere? I have often 
 wondered whether it was mere chance that impelled 
 the sculptor to express that sign of parturient woman- 
 hood for which Napoleon longed and the lack of which 
 caused one of the most pathetic partings in history. 
 
 One morning I was honoured by a call from the clerk 
 of the hotel. A delegation from the Union Sportive 
 Martiniquaise et Touring Club Antillais wished to 
 wait upon me at four o'clock in the afternoon — would 
 I receive them? At four, then, while I was sitting at 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 201 
 
 my table in the cabaret, the delegation of four came, 
 headed by a fiery little man of dark hue — but a 
 thorough Frenchman. His name was Waddy and I 
 came to like him very much. The committee was very 
 much embarrassed as a whole and individually like 
 timid schoolgirls, but if they blushed it was like the 
 desert violet — unseen. 
 
 Would I do them the honour to be entertained for 
 the rest of the afternoon? I said that I should be de- 
 lighted — and felt like a cheap edition of Dr. Cook. 
 Waddy explained to me that the club was very much 
 interested in my cruise and that it was their intention to 
 become familiar with the other islands of the Antilles. 
 The members of the club were for the most part eager 
 to visit the neighbouring islands but they were too timid 
 to trust themselves to anything smaller than a steamer 
 and while there was more or less frequent communica- 
 tion by steamer with Europe there was no inter-island 
 service except by sloop. My coming in a canoe had set 
 them a wonderful example, he told me. 
 
 We then walked to the jetty and were rowed out into 
 the harbour to visit a West Indian schooner of the type 
 that sailed from Martinique to Cayenne and upon 
 which Waddy hoped the Club as a whole could some 
 day be induced to cruise. She was an old Gloucester 
 fisherman of about eighty tons and perfectly safe (I 
 assured Waddy) for the use of the Touring Club An- 
 tillais. Having surveyed the schooner we were rowed 
 ashore where a carriage awaited us. We then drove 
 by a circuitous route, carefully planned out beforehand 
 to include the various sights of note in the town, to 
 
ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 the rented house in the Rue Amiral de Gueydon where 
 the Union Sportive Martiniquaise et Touring Club 
 Antillais thrived. 
 
 I was escorted to a room on the upper floor where 
 the Union Sportive Martiniquaise et Touring Club was 
 already gathered. To my intense embarrassment, the 
 President of the Union Sportive Martiniquaise et 
 Touring proceeded to read off a long speech from a 
 paper in his hand. What he said I managed to under- 
 stand for the most part but it concerns us little here. I 
 replied to the members of the Union Sportive Martini- 
 quaise to the best of my ability — in French — and what 
 I said I know but they did not understand — neither 
 does that concern us in this writing. After a pleasant 
 stramash of verbal bouquets we were served with re- 
 freshments which consisted of champagne and lady 
 fingers. Champagne is not a rare beverage in the 
 French islands, but I did not imagine that I should 
 see it used with the familiarity with which the German 
 treats his morning coffee; I mean the habit of dipping 
 his toast in it. But dipping seemed the custom and 
 into the champagne went the lady fingers of the Union 
 Sportive, and mine. To me these people were warm- 
 hearted and impulsive and as I got to know them, 
 thoroughly likeable. 
 
 According to my almanac, it was Easter Sunday and 
 I almost felt ashamed of my morning cigarette as I 
 left the hotel for a little stroll before I should sit 
 down to my notes at the marble-topped table. But 
 somehow or other I thought I must be mistaken in the 
 day. While there were few people on the streets, 
 to be sure, all the small shops were open. I walked 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 203 
 
 over to the covered market and to my surprise I found 
 that open also but most of the business had already 
 been transacted. But the large stores, emporiums and 
 magasins as they were called, were closed. Then I 
 passed a church and saw that it was packed. Another 
 church was packed. The priests were doing a thriving 
 business and I realised that perhaps after all it was 
 Easter Sunday. I did not know that with the ending 
 of Lent the people were having a last injection of the 
 antitoxin of religion to inoculate themselves from the 
 influence of Satan which was sure to follow on Monday. 
 And it was on account of Monday that the small shops 
 and the market were open, for everybody went to the 
 country for the Easter holidays, that is everybody who 
 was anybody, and they left the town to the proletariat. 
 Those who were fortunate enough to be able to spend 
 the week in the country must need get their last fresh 
 supplies at the market and the little necessities such as 
 sweets, tobacco and so on which were apt to be forgot- 
 ten in the press of Saturday could yet be bought on 
 the way home from church. 
 
 The next morning I found that the market was not 
 open and that all the shops were closed. So were the 
 houses for that matter — everybody had made an early 
 departure, the devil was having his due and the town 
 was left to the rest. Various members of the Union 
 Sportive played soccer football beneath the unheeding 
 eyes of the Empress, in costumes that would have 
 brought a smile to those marble lips, I believe, could 
 she have looked down at them. With utter disregard 
 for the likes or dislikes of one colour for another these 
 members of the Union Sportive wore jerseys of banded 
 
204 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 red, green and purple and with an equal disregard for 
 the fierce tropical heat, they raced over the savanna, 
 most of them with knickerbockers but some with trous- 
 ers, brailed up, if one might use the seagoing term. But 
 all the trousers did not calmly submit to this seagoing 
 treatment and generally slipped down as to the left 
 leg. (After some consideration I have come to the 
 conclusion that this phenomenon was on account of 
 the left leg usually being smaller than the right; hence 
 the left trouser leg would be more prone to come 
 down.) One would see an energetic member of the 
 Union being carried rapidly after the ball by a pair 
 of legs, one decorously covered and the other exposed 
 in all its masculine shamelessness of pink underwear, 
 livid "Y" of garter, violent hose of Ethiopian choice 
 and shoe of generous dimension with long French toe, 
 cutting arcs in advance and bootstrap waving bravely 
 behind. Even to stand perfectly still in the shade of 
 a tree to watch this performance was heating and I 
 moved on. 
 
 The unearthly squeal of a flute brought me across 
 the savanna to a shady grove where something was 
 holding the attention of a large crowd. The flute, I 
 found, was only one of four instruments held captive in 
 a ring of prancing wooden horses that circled on an 
 iron track like fish in a well. Each horse was mounted 
 on an iron wheel with pedals and those who could af- 
 ford the necessary five sous were allowed to circle 
 for a time on this merry-go-round, in mad delight, the 
 power coming from their own mahogany limbs which 
 showed a like absence of stockings in both sexes. The 
 riders wore shoes and the impression when they were 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 205 
 
 in motion was that they also wore stockings but when 
 the ride came to an end the illusion vanished. There 
 was no central pivot, merely this bracelet of horses fas- 
 tened to each other and kept from cavorting away over 
 the savanna by the U-shaped track wherein ran the 
 wheels under their bellies. It was a piece of engineer- 
 ing skill — the evident pride of the owner — and being 
 machinery it must needs be oiled. For this purpose 
 a boy wandered about in the confines of this equine 
 circle with a long-spouted oilcan in his hand. The 
 shrieking axles, while in motion, were guarded by the 
 pumping legs of the riders and therefore could not be 
 Diled; there remained only one other part for lubrica- 
 tion and that was the track. So the boy very adroitly 
 followed the wheel of some favourite steed with the 
 lose of the oilcan. But, you ask, why not oil the axles 
 at the end of the ride? Ah, but everybody is resting 
 then, the horses and the orchestra; besides the axles 
 ire no longer squeaking. 
 
 But let's have that delicious tid-bit — the orchestra. 
 After the flute-player, I name them in the order of their 
 effective strength; there was the man who played on 
 the fiddle, which ages ago. in these parts had slipped 
 from its customary place under the chin to the hollow 
 of the left shoulder. Then came the man who shook 
 a gourd filled with small pebbles and the drummer 
 who beat on a huge section of bamboo with two pieces 
 of wood like chop sticks. These last two instruments 
 were extremely effective, mainly because they were of 
 African origin and played upon by African experts. 
 They were artists of rhythm — a metronome could have 
 done no better. In the hands of the drummer the bam- 
 
206 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 boo echoed the jungle from the light patter of rain 
 drops on palm fronds to the oncoming thunder-roll of 
 an impending storm. From the complacent beating of 
 time this master lashed himself into a fury as the or- 
 chestra periodically rose to a climax under the spur 
 of the flute-player. But it was the gourd which held 
 my eye longest. The hard surface of the gourd, a 
 calabash about eighteen inches long, was banded with 
 deep grooves across which the performer rubbed his 
 thumbnail, producing a noise that reminded me of the 
 dry grass of the prairies where the rattle-snake sounds 
 his note of warning. For an instant the gourd would 
 be poised above the head of the player to suddenly 
 swoop, twirling and whistling, through a fathom of 
 orbit to fetch up for a moment hugged in the curving 
 form of its master where it gurgled and hissed under 
 the tickle of a thumbnail of hideous power. 
 
 In the evening, after dinner, I would walk out across 
 the savanna to the still waters of the carenage — I was 
 living in such a civilised state that canoe cruise, whal- 
 ers, and Caribs seemed to have slipped back into the 
 remote haze of memory — where an aged steamer, clip- 
 per-stemmed and with a ship's counter, lay rusting at 
 her mooring, her square ports and rail with ginger- 
 bread white-painted life-net, a delight to one who revels 
 in a past that is just near enough to be intimate. 
 From the carenage my walk would continue along the 
 quay, past the barracks of the naval station across the 
 street from which a tribe of cosy little cabarets blinked 
 cheerfully into the night through open doors and win- 
 dows. 
 
 Before long a quartet of French sailors, wearing 
 
MARTINIQUE— FORT DE FRANCE 207 
 
 Peter Thompson caps with red or blue fuzzy tassels 
 set atop like butter-balls, would come singing up the 
 street and swing into one or another of the cabarets 
 as though drawn by some invisible current, the song 
 being continued to its end. 
 
 If the singing were good — and it usually was — the 
 little room would gradually fill, to the joy of the beam- 
 ing landlord. The song finished, there would be re- 
 freshments and then one of the audience would get 
 up and sing some catchy little Parisian tune and if there 
 were sufficient talent among those present, the enter- 
 tainment might last long after the goodwife had with- 
 drawn with her knitting and her children and until the 
 landlord himself had closed the shutters outside and 
 was making furtive attempts to put his place in order. 
 With the stroke of ten, the guests would pour out and 
 the door would close behind them to cut off its rec- 
 tangular beam of light and leave the street in dark- 
 ness. 
 
 But this life in Fort de France was becoming too 
 demoralising and I should soon be too lazy to cook 
 another meal. The rainy week was over and I bade 
 adieu to the statue of Josephine, extracted my outfit 
 from the jealous care of the duanes, and sailed for 
 the ruined city of St. Pierre. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ST. PIERRE — PELEE 
 
 DURING my week of idleness I had found time 
 to coax the Yakaboo into an amiable mood of 
 tightness — not by the aid of cabarets, however, but 
 with white lead and varnish and paint for which she 
 seemed to have an insatiable thirst. I was always glad 
 to be sailing again and, to show the fickleheartedness 
 of the sailor, I had no sooner rounded Negro Point in 
 a stiff breeze than Fort de France — now out of sight — 
 took her place among other memories I had left be- 
 hind. 
 
 The thread of my cruise was once more taken up 
 and I was back into the canoe, enjoying the lee coast 
 panorama with my folded chart in my lap for a guide 
 book. It was early in the afternoon when I made out 
 the little beacon on Sainte Marthe Point beyond which 
 lay the roadstead of St. Pierre. A heavy, misty rain 
 squall — a whisk of dirty lint — was rolling down the 
 side of Pelee and I was wondering whether or no I 
 should have to reef when something else drew my at- 
 tention.* Pulling out from a little fishing village beyond 
 Carbet was a boatload of my old friends the duanes, 
 a different lot, to be sure, but of the same species as 
 those of Fort de France. They were evidently making 
 
 208 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 209 
 
 desperate efforts to head me off and as long as they 
 were inshore and to windward of me they had the ad- 
 vantage. Little by little I trimmed my sheets till I 
 was sailing close-hauled. 
 
 There were eight or ten of the dusky fellows and 
 they fetched their boat directly on my course and a hun- 
 dred feet away. This was some more of their con- 
 founded nonsense and I decided to give them the slip. 
 I motioned to them to head into the wind so that I 
 might run alongside, and while they were swinging the 
 bow of their heavy boat, I slipped by their stern, so 
 close that I could have touched their rudder, eased off 
 my sheets, and the Yakaboo, spinning on her belly, 
 showed them as elusive a stern as they had ever tried 
 to follow. It took them a few seconds to realise that 
 they had been fooled and they then proceeded to 
 straighten out their boat in my wake and follow in hot 
 pursuit. They hoisted their sail but it only hindered 
 their rowing, for the heeling of the boat put the port 
 bank out of work altogether while the men to wind- 
 ward could scarcely reach the water with the blades of 
 their oars. It would only be truthful to say that I 
 laughed immoderately and applied my fingers to my 
 nose in the same manner that midshipman Green salut- 
 ed his superior officer. 
 
 I was soon lost to their sight in the squall which had 
 now spread over the roadstead. Rain and mist were 
 ushered along by a stiff breeze. Under this friendly 
 cover I held on for a bit and then came about on the 
 inshore tack, thinking that the duanes would little sus- 
 pect that I would come ashore under their very noses. 
 It was not a bad guess for I afterwards learned that 
 
210 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 they had sent word to the next station to the north to 
 watch for me. 
 
 Although I could not see more than a hundred feet 
 ahead of me, I knew by the floating pumice that I must 
 be well into the roadstead of St. Pierre. I snatched up 
 a piece out of the sea and put it in my pocket as a sou- 
 venir. Then we passed out of the mist as from a wall 
 and I saw the ruins of St. Pierre before me, not a quar- 
 ter of a mile away. A heavy mist on the morne above 
 hung like a pall over the ruined city cutting it off from 
 the country behind. 
 
 It was truly a city of the dead, the oily lifeless waters 
 of the bay lapping at its broken edges and the mist 
 holding it as in a frame, no land, no sky — just the 
 broken walls of houses. The mist above me began to 
 thin out and the vapours about the ruins rolled away till 
 only those on the morne remained and the sun shining 
 through arched a rainbow over St. Pierre, one end 
 planted by the tumbled statue of Our Lady and the 
 other in the bed of the Roxelane. It was like a promise 
 of a better life to come, to those who had perished. At 
 first glance, the extent of the ruins did not seem great, 
 but as I ran closer to shore I saw that for a mile and 
 a half to the northward broken walls were covered by 
 an inundation of green foliage which had been stead- 
 ily advancing for nearly ten years. 
 
 You may but vaguely recall the startling news that 
 St. Pierre, a town hitherto but little known, on a West 
 Indian island equally little known, was destroyed in 
 one fiery gasp by a volcano which sprang to fame for 
 having killed some twenty-five thousand people in the 
 space of a minute or two. 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 211 
 
 For nearly a month the volcano had been grumbling, 
 but who coujd suspect that from a crater nearly five 
 miles away a destruction should come so swift that no 
 one could escape to tell the tale? When I was in Fort 
 de France, I found a copy of Les Colonaries, of 
 Wednesday, May the 7th, 1902, the day before the 
 explosion of Pelee. Under the heading, "Une Inter- 
 view de M. Landes," it says: — "M. Landes, the dis- 
 tinguished professor of the Lyceum, very willingly al- 
 lowed us to interview him yesterday in regard to the 
 volcanic eruption of Mount Pelee . . . Vesuvius, adds 
 M. Landes, only had rare victims (this is a literal 
 translation). Pompeii was evacuated in time and they 
 have found but few bodies in the buried cities. Mount 
 Pelee does not offer more danger to the inhabitants of 
 St. Pierre than Vesuvius to those of Naples." 
 
 The next morning, a few minutes before eight 
 o'clock, that awful holocaust occurred, a bare descrip- 
 tion of which we get from the survivors of the Rod- 
 dam, the only vessel to escape of sixteen that were lying 
 in the roadstead. Even the Roddam which had steam 
 up and backed out, leaving her ground tackle behind, 
 paid her toll and when she limped into Fort de France 
 two hours later, a phantom ship, her decks were cov- 
 ered with ashes still hot and her woodwork was still 
 smoking from the fire. 
 
 The story of the survivors was quickly told. The 
 volcano had been rumbling, according to its custom of 
 late, when about a quarter before eight there was an ex- 
 plosion in which the whole top of the mountain seemed 
 blown away. A thick black cloud rose up and from 
 under it a sheet of flame rolled down the mountainside, 
 
212 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 across the city, and out over the roadstead. There had 
 been barely time to give the signal to go astern and 
 the few passengers of ready wit had hardly covered 
 their heads with blankets when the ship was momen- 
 tarily engulfed in flame. It was all over in a few sec- 
 onds and those who had not been caught on deck or in 
 their cabins with their ports open, came up to the blis- 
 tering deck to behold the city which they had looked at 
 carelessly enough a few minutes before, now a burning 
 mass of ruins. 
 
 Fortunately some one had been near the capstan and 
 had tripped the pawls so that the chain had run out 
 freely. Otherwise the Roddam would have met the 
 fate of the cable ship Grappler and the Roraima and 
 the sailing vessels that were unable to leave their moor- 
 ings. After she had backed out, the Roddam steamed 
 into the roadstead again and followed the shore to 
 discover, if possible, some sign of life. But the heat 
 from the smouldering city was so great that there could 
 be no hope of finding a living being there. The 
 steamer then turned southward to seek aid for her own 
 dying victims. 
 
 It was the suddenness of the catastrophe that made it 
 the more awful. One man whom I met in Fort de 
 France told me that he was talking at the telephone to 
 a friend in St. Pierre when the conversation was in- 
 terrupted by a shriek followed by a silence which 
 brought no answer to his question. Rushing from his 
 office, he found others who had had the same experi- 
 ence. There was no word to be had from St. Pierre 
 and the noise of the explosion which came from over 
 the hills confirmed the fear that some terrible disaster 
 
m i 
 
< c c 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 213 
 
 had befallen the sister city. It was not until the Rod- 
 dam steamed into port that the people of Fort de 
 France learned just what had happened. 
 
 I have said that there was no survivor of St. Pierre 
 to tell the tale thereof, but I may be in error. They 
 tell a fanciful tale of a lone prisoner who was rescued 
 from a cell, deep down in the ground, some days after 
 the first explosion and before subsequent explosions 
 destroyed even this retreat. His name is variously 
 given as Auguste Ciparis and Joseph Surtout, and in a 
 magazine story "full of human interest and passion," 
 which could not have been written by the man himself, 
 as Ludger Sylbaris. I was told in confidence, how- 
 ever, by a reputable citizen of Fort de France, that the 
 story was in all probability gotten up for the benefit 
 of our yellow journals. 
 
 Reviewing these things in my mind, I ran alongside 
 the new jetty built since the eruption and hauled up 
 the Yakaboo under the roofing that covers the shore 
 end. There were about ten people there, nearly the 
 entire population of what was once a city of forty 
 thousand. 
 
 These people, I found, lived in a few rooms recon- 
 structed among the ruins, not with any hope of re- 
 building but because at this point there is a natural 
 outlet for the produce of the rich valleys behind St. 
 Pierre which is sent in droghers to Fort de France. 
 Among them I found a guide, a huge Martinique sac- 
 catra, who knew Pelee well, he said, and we arranged 
 to make the ascent in the morning. 
 
 I have always been fond of moonlight walks in 
 strange places and as I cooked my supper I said to my- 
 
214 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 self, "That is how I shall first see the dead city — by- 
 moonlight." As I struck in from the jetty I knew that 
 no negro dared venture forth in such a place at night 
 and that I was alone in a stillness made all the more 
 desolate by the regular boom of the surf followed by 
 the rumble as it rolled back over the massive pavement 
 of the water front. There was no human sound and 
 yet I felt the ghost of it as I heard the noise of the 
 sea and knew that that same sound had mingled for 
 over a century with the sounds of the cafes of the Rue 
 Victor Hugo where I was now walking, and had been 
 a roar of second nature to the ears of the thousands 
 who had lived in the cubes of space before my eyes, 
 now unconfined by the walls and roofs which had made 
 them rooms. 
 
 The moon rode. high, giving a ghostly daylight by 
 which I could distinguish the smallest objects with 
 startling ease. The streets were nearly all of them 
 cleared, the rubbish having been thrown back over the 
 walls that stood only breast high. Here and there a 
 doorway would be partly cleared so that I could step 
 into the first floor of a house and then mounting the 
 debris, travel like a nocturnal chamois from pile to 
 pile, and from house to house. There was not the 
 slightest sign of even a splinter of wood. A marble 
 floor, a bit of coloured wall, the sign of a cafe painted 
 over a doorway and the narrow sidewalks reminded 
 me of Pompeii and had there been the familiar chariot 
 ruts in the roadways the illusion would have been com- 
 plete. There was a kinship between the two ; they had 
 alike been wicked cities and it seemed that the wrath of 
 God had descended upon them through the agency of 
 
r 
 
 ST. PIERRE— PELEE 215 
 
 a natural phenomenon which had hung over them and 
 to which they had paid no heed. 
 
 I wondered how many of the dead were under these 
 piles of debris. At one place I came to a spot where 
 some native had been digging tiles from a fallen roof. 
 There was a neat pile of whole tiles ready to be taken 
 away while scattered about were the broken pieces 
 which would be of no use. Where the spade had last 
 struck protruded the cranium of one of the victims of 
 that fateful May morning. 
 
 I picked my way to the cimitiere where I loafed in 
 the high noon of the moon which cast short shadows 
 that hugged the bases of the tombs and gravestones. 
 There was a feeling of comfort in that moonlight loaf 
 in the cimitiere of St. Pierre and had I thought of it in 
 time I might have brought my blankets and slept there. 
 In comparison with the ruined town about it, there 
 was the very opposite feeling to the spookiness which 
 one is supposed to have in a graveyard. 
 
 I sat on the steps of an imposing mausoleum and 
 loaded my pipe with the Tabac de Martinique which I 
 smoked in blissful revery. Here would I be disturbed 
 by no mortal soul and as for the dead about and be- 
 neath me were they not the legitimate inhabitants of 
 this place? Those poor fellows over whom I had un- 
 wittingly scrambled might have some reason to haunt 
 the places of their demise, but these of the cimitiere 
 had no call to play pranks on a visitor who chanced 
 in of a moonlight night. I was not in a joking mood 
 — neither did I feel serious. 
 
 A sort of moon dreaminess came over me — I felt 
 detached. I saw my form hunched against the face of 
 
216 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 the mausoleum with my long legs stretched out before 
 it, but it did not seem to be I. I was a sort of spirit 
 floating in the air about and wondering what the real 
 life of the dead city before me had been. I should 
 have liked to have the company of the one whose 
 bones rested (comfortably, I hoped) in the tomb be- 
 hind me and to have questioned him about the St. 
 Pierre that he had known. But I could only romance 
 to myself. 
 
 The mere bringing down of my pipe from my mouth 
 so that my glance happened to fall on its faithful out- 
 line with its modest silver band with my mark on it 
 brought me to myself. The pipe seemed more a part 
 of my person than my hands and knees and I knew 
 that I was merely living through an incident of a canoe 
 cruise. I sat there and smoked and idled till the moon 
 began to shimmer the sea before me and with her light 
 in my face I found my way back to the jetty and the 
 Yakaboo. 
 
 I was awakened at five by my guide who had with 
 him a young boy. It was always a case of Greek 
 against Greek with these fellows and I reiterated our 
 contract of the night before. His first price was ex- 
 orbitant and I had beaten him down as far as I dared 
 — to fifteen francs. I find that it is a mistake to 
 pull the native down too far for he is apt to feel that 
 you have taken advantage of him and will become sul- 
 len and grudging in his efforts. 
 
 While I ate my scanty breakfast I impressed upon 
 him the fact that I was paying for his services only 
 and that if the boy wished to follow that was his 
 affair. He prided himself on a very sparse knowledge 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 217 
 
 of English which he insisted upon using. When I 
 had finished he turned to his boy and said, "E-eh? 
 il est bon g argon!" To which I replied, "Mais oulT 
 which means a lot in Martinique. The boy came with 
 us and proved to be a blessing later on. 
 
 The moon had long since gone and we started along 
 the canal-like Rue Victor Hugo with the pale dawn 
 dimming the stars over us one by one. We crossed 
 the Roxelane on the bridge, which is still intact, and 
 then descended a flight of steps between broken walls 
 to the beach and left the town behind us. Another 
 mile brought us to the Seche (dry) Riviere just as the 
 rose of dawn shot through the notches of the moun- 
 tains to windward. When we came to the Blanche 
 Riviere, along the bed of which we began the ascent 
 of the volcano as in Saint Vincent, the sun stood up 
 boldly from the mountain tops and gave promise of a 
 terrific heat which I hoped would burn up the mist 
 that had been hanging over the crater of Pelee ever 
 since I had come to Martinique. I did not then know 
 of the prophetic line which I discovered later under 
 an old outline of Martinique from John Barbot's ac- 
 count of the voyage of Columbus — "the Mount Pelee 
 in a mist and always so." • 
 
 Were I to go into the detail of our ascent of Pelee 
 you would find it a monotonous repetition for the most 
 part of the Soufriere climb. Pelee was a higher moun- 
 tain and the climb was harder. There was scarcely 
 any vegetation even on the lower slopes, much to my 
 relief, for Martinique is the home of the fer-de-lance. 
 I had with me a little tube of white crystals which I 
 could inject into my abdomen in case I were bitten by 
 
218 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 one of these fellows but I cannot say that even for 
 the novelty of using it did I relish having my body a 
 battle ground for the myriad agents of Pasteur against 
 the poison of one of these vipers. 
 
 The sun did not burn up the mist and at a height of 
 3600 feet we entered the chilly fog, leaving our food 
 and camera behind us. The remaining eight hundred 
 feet made up the most arduous climbing I have ever 
 experienced. We were now going up the steep sides 
 of the crater cone made of volcanic dust, slippery from 
 a constant contact with mist and covered with a hair- 
 like moss, like the slime that grows on rocks in the sea 
 near human habitations. I took to falling down so 
 many times that it finally dawned upon me that I would 
 do much better if I crawled and in this way I finished 
 the last four hundred feet. At times I dug my toes 
 well into the side of the crater and rested half-lying, 
 half-standing, my body at an angle of forty-five de- 
 grees. 
 
 Although I could scarcely see three yards ahead of 
 me there was no need of the guides to show the way — 
 there was only one way and that was up. The negroes 
 were a little ahead of me and I remember admiring 
 the work of their great toes which they stuck into the 
 side of the mountain as a wireman jabs his spikes into 
 a telegraph pole. When I had entered the cloud cap 
 I had come out of the hot sun dripping with perspira- 
 tion and I put on my leather jacket to prevent the 
 direct contact of the chilly mist upon my body. I was 
 chilled to the bone and could not have been wetter. 
 I could feel the sweat of my exertions streaming down 
 under my shirt and could see the moisture of the con- 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 219 
 
 • 
 
 densed mist trickling down the outside of my coat. No 
 film would have lived through this. 
 
 As an intermittent accompaniment to the grunts of 
 the negroes I could hear the chatter of their teeth. 
 Suddenly they gave a shout and looking upward I 
 saw the edge of the rim a body length away. Another 
 effort and I was lying beside them, the three of us 
 panting like dogs, our heads hanging over the sul- 
 phurous pit. What was below was unknown to us — 
 we could scarcely see ten feet down the inside of the 
 crater, while around us swirled a chilly mist freezing 
 the very strength out of us. A few minutes were 
 enough and we slid down the side of the crater again 
 to sunlight and food. 
 
 Looking up at Pelee from the streets of St. Pierre, 
 one felt that surely no destruction from a crater so far 
 off could reach the city before safety might be sought; 
 but as I sat upon the very slope of the crater I could 
 easily imagine a burst of flaming gas that could roll 
 down that mountainside and engulf the city below it in 
 a minute or two of time. 
 
 It was half way down the mountain that the boy 
 proved a blessing for we lost our way and suddenly 
 found ourselves at the end of a butte whose precipitous 
 sides fell a sheer five hundred feet in all directions 
 around us, except that by which we had come. For an 
 hour we retraced our steps and cruised back and forth 
 till at last the boy discovered a crevasse into which 
 we lowered ourselves by means of the strong lianes 
 which hung down the sides till we reached the bottom 
 where we found a cool stream trickling through giant 
 ferns. We lapped the delicious water like thirsty 
 
ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 dogs. Again we were in the dry river bottom of the 
 Blanche and we took to the beach for St. Pierre in the 
 heat of the middle afternoon. 
 
 The climb had been a disappointment for I had par- 
 ticularly wished to find if there were any trace left of 
 the immense monolith which had been forced above the 
 edge of the crater at the time of the eruption and had 
 subsided again. I also wanted a photograph of the 
 crater which is less than a fourth the size of the Souf- 
 riere of Saint Vincent. But, as you may know, this 
 is distinctly a part of the game and there is no need 
 of casting glooms here and there over a cruise for the 
 want of a picture or two. 
 
 So I forgot the photograph which I did not get of 
 PeleVs crater and thought of the refreshing glass or 
 two of that most excellent febrifuge "Quinquina des 
 Princes" which I might find at the little inn that had 
 been erected over the ashes of its former self. This 
 inn had been one of the meaner hotels of St. Pierre, 
 close to the water front and facing the Rue Victor 
 Hugo. When Pelee began to rumble, the proprietor 
 had sent his wife and son to a place of safety, but he 
 himself had remained, not that he did not fear the 
 volcano but to guard his little all from the marauding 
 that was sure to follow a more or less complete evacu- 
 ation of the city. It had cost him his life and now 
 the widow and her son were eking out an existence by 
 supplying the wants of the few who chance to pass that 
 way. 
 
 It was three o'clock in the afternoon when we 
 reached the inn and it was still very hot. I stood for 
 a few minutes, quite still, in the sun in order to cool 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 221 
 
 off slowly and to dry my skin before I entered the grate- 
 ful shade of the roof that partly overhung the road. 
 In doing this I won great respect from my saccatra 
 guide and the boy, both of whom did likewise, for they 
 feared the effect of the exertions of the climb and the 
 subsequent walk along the hot beach quite as much as 
 I did. 
 
 It was here that I received my most forlorn impres- 
 sion of St. Pierre. The widow's son, a likeable young 
 fellow of about eighteen, had stepped out into the 
 road to talk to me when a pathetic form in a colourless 
 wrapper slunk from out the shadows of the walls and 
 spoke to him. It was evidently me about whom she 
 was curious, and he answered her questions in the 
 patois which he knew I could not understand. 
 
 She was a woman of perhaps forty, partly demented 
 by the loss of her entire family and all her friends in 
 the terrible calamity of nine years before. Her wan- 
 dering eye bore the most hopeless expression I have 
 ever seen and her grey, almost white hair, hung, un- 
 combed for many a day, over her shoulders. Her feet 
 were bare, she wore no hat and for all that I could see 
 the faded wrapper was her only covering. Her ques- 
 tions answered, she stood regarding me silently for a 
 moment and then passing one hand over the other 
 palms upward so that the fingers slipped over each 
 other, she said, "II est fou — few." 
 
 That night I read myself to sleep in the cockpit of 
 the Yakaboo with my candle lamp hung over my head 
 from the stumpy mizzen mast. But between the pages 
 of the wanderings of Ulysses, which Whitfield Smith 
 had given me at Carriacou, slunk the figure of the 
 
ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 woman who had called me "crazy" — utterly forlorn. 
 
 Remove the whole of Mount Pelee and you take 
 away the northern end of Martinique whose shores 
 from St. Pierre to the Lorain River describe an arc of 
 225 ° with the crater of the volcano for its center. 
 When I left St. Pierre the next morning, then, I was 
 in reality encircling the base of Pelee along 135 ° of 
 that arc to Grande Riviere. There lived Monsieur 
 Waddy of the Union Sportive who had made me 
 promise that I would spend at least one night with him 
 before I sailed for the next island. 
 
 "You can make the depart for Dominique from 
 Grande Riviere," he told me. "J will keep a lookout 
 for you." This would be entirely unnecessary, I told 
 him. Could I get the canoe ashore all right? "Oh, 
 yes! I shall watch for you." There was some reser- 
 vation in that "Oh, yes!" For his own good reasons 
 he did not tell me of the terrific surf that boomed con- 
 tinually on the beach where he lived — but it did not 
 matter after all. 
 
 The trade in the guise of a land breeze lifted us out 
 of the roadstead of St. Pierre and we soon doubled 
 Point La Mare. A mile or so up the coast the white 
 walls of Precheur gleamed in the morning sunlight. 
 One cannot read far concerning these islands without 
 making the friendship of Pere Labat through the pages 
 of his five little rusty old volumes. They are written 
 in the French of his day — not at all difficult to under- 
 stand — and the reading of them compelled me to form 
 a personal regard for this Jesuit priest from his 
 straightforward manner of writing. 
 
 We were now in the country of Pere Labat and Pre- 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 
 
 heur, before us, was where in 1693 ne nac * spent the 
 irst few months of his twelve years in the West Indies. 
 Du Parquet, who owned Martinique at that time, gave 
 his parish to the Jesuit order of u Le Precheur" in 
 [654 and it was only natural that here Labat should 
 become acquainted with the manners and customs of 
 die people before he took up his duties in the parish 
 of Macouba near Grande Riviere. But here the wind 
 failed me, it was Pere Labat having his little joke, 
 doubtless, and the lack of it nearly got me into trouble. 
 I had been rowing along the shore for some time, fol- 
 lowing with my eyes the beach road that the priest had 
 known so well, and had come to Pearl Rock. There 
 is a channel between the rock and the shore and as I 
 looked at my chart, folded with that particular part 
 of the island faced upwards, it seemed to me that the 
 name was somehow familiar. 
 
 Then I began to recollect some tale about an Ameri- 
 can privateer that had dodged an English frigate by 
 slipping through this very place at night. I was try- 
 ing to recall the details when a premonition made me 
 00k around. There, silently waiting for me not four 
 trokes away, was a boatload of those accursed 
 Inane s! They had been watching for me since, two 
 lays before, they had received a message from their 
 confreres down the coast that I had either been lost 
 n the squall off St. Pierre or was hiding somewhere 
 tlong the north coast. With an instinct that needed 
 10 telegram from my brain, my right arm dug its oar 
 leep into the water while my left swung the canoe 
 iround like a skater who turns on one foot while the 
 
224* ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 other indolently floats over its mate. The left oar 
 seemed to complete the simile. 
 
 While the duanes were recovering from their sur- 
 prise at this unexpected movement of the canoe which 
 had been on the point of boarding them, I pulled with 
 the desperation of a fly trying to crawl off the sticky 
 field of a piece of tanglefoot — but with considerably 
 more success as to speed. With a few yanks — one 
 could not call them strokes — I was clear of the duanes 
 and I knew they could not catch me. But they tried 
 hard while I innocently asked if they wished to com- 
 municate with me. "Diable!" they wanted to see my 
 papers and passport. I did not feel inclined to stop 
 just then, I told them — they were easing up now — and 
 if they wished to see my papers they could do so when 
 I landed at Grande Riviere. And so the second batch 
 of duanes was left in the lurch. 
 
 Along the four miles of coast from Pearl Rock to 
 Grande Riviere there is no road, and the slopes of 
 Pelee, which break down at the sea, forming some of 
 the most wonderful cliffs and gorges I have ever seen, 
 are as wild as the day when Columbus first saw the 
 island. But if you would care to see these cliffs you 
 must go by water as I did, for were you to penetrate 
 the thickets of the mountain slopes you would not go 
 far — for this is the haunt of the fer-de-lance. In start- 
 ing the cultivation of a small patch of vanilla, which 
 grows in a nearly wild state, Waddy killed a hundred! 
 of these vipers in the space of three months. But I 
 gave no thought to the snakes — it was the cliffs thatj 
 held me. 
 
 Imagine a perpendicular wall ranging from two 
 
 . 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 225 
 
 four hundred feet in height and covered with a hang- 
 ing of vegetation seemingly suspended from the very 
 top. No bare face of rock or soil, just the deep green 
 that seemed to pour from the mountain slope down the 
 face of the cliff and to the bright yellow sandy beaches 
 stretching between the promontories. A surf, that 
 made my hands tingle, pounded inshore and I watched 
 with fascinated gaze the wicked curl of the blue cylinder 
 as it stood for an instant and then tumbled and crashed 
 up the beach. I was wondering how Waddy would 
 get me through this when the measured shots from a 
 single-loading carbine made themselves heard above 
 the noise of the surf. 
 
 I turned the Yakaboo around that I might view the 
 shore more easily and found that we were lying off 
 a long beach terminating in Grande Riviere Point a 
 few hundred yards beyond. A group of huts flocked 
 together under the headland as if seeking shelter from 
 the trades that were wont to blow over the high bluff 
 above them. Where the beach rounded the point, the 
 usual fringe of coco palms in dispirited angles stood 
 out in bold relief. A line of dugouts drawn far up 
 the beach vouched for Waddy's statement that here 
 the natives caught the "thon." 
 
 Off the point a series of reefs broke the heavy swell 
 into a fringe of white smother — inside was my salva- 
 tion of deep blue quiet water. The blue of the sea 
 and sky, the white of the clouds and broken water, the 
 yellow of the deeper shoals and the beaches, the dark 
 yreen background of vegetation lightened by the 
 ; touches of red roofs and painted canoes, the sketchy 
 
226 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 outline of the point and the palms made a picture, 
 ideally typical, of this north coast village. 
 
 A crowd of natives were dragging down a huge dug- 
 out which proved to be fully thirty feet long and made 
 of a single log while a detached unit, which I recognised 
 as the figure of Waddy, stood firing his carbine into 
 the air. s It was a signal, he explained later, to attract 
 my attention and to call the people together to launch 
 the dugout. When Waddy saw that I had turned the 
 canoe he waved his large black felt hat frantically at 
 the dugout and I waved back in understanding and 
 waited. 
 
 But even under the protection of the barrier reef, 
 there was a goodly surf running on the beach — too 
 much for the Yakaboo — and I saw them wait, like all 
 good surf men, till there was a proper lull, and then 
 rush the dugout into the sea. For a moment she hung, 
 then, as the centipede paddles caught the water, she! 
 shot ahead, her bow cutting into the menacing top of, 
 a comber mounting up to break. Up she went, half 
 her length out of the water, her bow pointing skyward, 
 and then down again as the sea broke under her, her 
 bow men swung through a dizzy arc. If that were 
 close work in a lull what were the large seas like? 
 
 In a few minutes they were alongside. Clearing 
 away the thwarts half the natives — she was full oB 
 them — jumped overboard and swam ashore. I then 
 unstepped my rig and passed over my outfit bags with 
 which we made a soft bed in the dugout for the Yaka» 
 boo. I followed the outfit and we slid the empty canoe j 
 hull athwartships over the gunwale and then with a 
 man under her belly like an Atlas, we swung her fore- 
 
) < J ) J 
 
 > I .» J , . 
 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE JOT 
 
 md aft, lifted her up while the man crawled out and 
 hen set her down gently in her nest. She looked like 
 jome strange sea-fowl making a ludicrous effort to 
 latch out an assortment of yellow eggs of various 
 sizes and shapes. 
 
 In this way Waddy had solved the surf problem for 
 me. If the Carib Indians were good boatmen, the 
 Martinique tuna fishermen were better. First we pad- 
 dled up shore to regain our driftage, and then in 
 around the edge of the reef to a deep channel that ran 
 close to the beach. We followed the channel for a 
 hundred yards where we turned, hung for an instant — 
 the seas were breaking just ahead and astern of us — 
 and at a signal from the people on shore, paddled like 
 mad. With the roar of the surf under us we passed 
 from the salt sea into the sea of village people who 
 dragged the dugout and all high and dry on the beach. 
 It had been another strange ride for the Yakaboo and 
 she looked self-satisfied, as if she enjoyed it. 
 
 As I jumped to the sands, Waddy received me, 
 glowing and triumphant. It seemed that I was a hero ! 
 and great was his honour to be my host. 
 
 The Yakaboo and her yellow bags were carried to a 
 sort of public shed where the crowd assembled with 
 an air of expectancy which explained itself when I 
 was ceremoniously presented to His Honour the 
 Mayor. This dignitary then made a speech in which 
 the liberty of the town was given me, to which I re- 
 plied as best I could. Thus was I received into the 
 bosom of the little village of Grande Riviere. Then 
 up the hot dusty road to Waddy' s large rambling house 
 
ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 on the headland where a second reception was held — 
 only the elect being present. 
 
 It was at this point, however, that the liberty of the 
 town which had been presented me "paragorically 
 speaking," as "Judge" Warner used to say, was about 
 to be taken away from me. The street door was sud- 
 denly burst open and a band of hot dusty duanes came 
 in to arrest the man who had defied their compatriots 
 near Pearl Rock. But the Mayor, the priest, the pre- 
 fect of police, and my fiery little host — an Achilles as 
 to body if we may believe that the ancient Greeks were 
 not large men — stayed the anger of the duanes while 
 Waddy's servant — oh, the guile of these Frenchmen! 
 — poured out a fresh bottle of wine which effectually 
 extinguished the flame of their ire. My papers were 
 duly examined and all was well again. When the 
 duanes were at last on their way I told my protectors 
 how I had dodged them at St. Pierre and Pearl Rock. 
 This called for another bottle. 
 
 But I cannot keep you standing here in Waddy's 
 house, for the little man was as eager to show me the 
 sights of Grande Riviere as any schoolboy who races 
 ahead of his chum, of a Saturday morning, two steps 
 at a time, to the attic where some new "invention" is 
 about to be born. He waved the select committee of 
 the bottle very politely out of the front door and then 
 grabbing his big hat he raced me up the steep road 
 to the top of the cliff above the town. Time was pre- 
 cious. One could walk fast and talk at the same time. 
 
 In the first hundred yards I learned that he was 
 born in Martinique, educated in Paris, and had special- 
 ised in botany and medicine. Cut off from the world 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 229 
 
 as he had been for the better part of his life (I had 
 all this as we cleared the houses of the village) he had 
 developed the resourcefulness of a Robinson Crusoe. 
 He would have made an excellent Yankee. He could 
 make shoes, was a carpenter, something of a chemist, 
 a philosopher, an expert on tuna fishing, and a student 
 of literature. It seemed that his divertissement was 
 the growing of vanilla and the raising of a large 
 family. 
 
 He did not give out all this in a boastful way but 
 merely tore through the facts as if he were working 
 against time, so that we might understand each other 
 the sooner and interchange as much of our personal- 
 ity as possible in the few hours I was to stay at Grande 
 Riviere. By the time we reached the top of the cliff 
 I had the man pat while he had me out of breath. 
 He was the third I had met who would make life worth 
 while in these parts. 
 
 And here, looking up the valley of the Grande 
 Riviere, I saw one of the most beautiful bits of scenery 
 in all the islands. The river came down from Pelee 
 through a canon of green vegetation. On the opposite 
 wall from where we stood, a road zigzagged upwards 
 from the valley to disappear through a hole near the 
 top of the cliff. Some day I shall travel that road and 
 go through the hole in the wall to visit Macouba be- 
 yond where Pere Labat spent his first years in the par- 
 ish and where he practised those sly little economies of 
 which he was so proud. He tells of how he brought 
 home some little chicks, poules d'Inde he calls them, 
 and gave them out among his parishioners to be 
 brought up, in material payment for the spiritual com- 
 
230 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 fort and the blessings which he, Pere Labat, afforded 
 them. And how his children came back to him, grown 
 up and ready for his table. His sexton lived close 
 to the sea by the river (probably just such a stream 
 as this with a ford and the houses of the town close 
 to its banks) and this gave him the idea of buying ducks 
 and drakes and going in with the sexton on a half and 
 half basis. When the ducks matured, Pere Labat, 
 who was steadily increasing his worldly assets, bought 
 out the sexton at a low price. The sexton probably 
 shared in the eating of the ducks for he was a singer 
 and a good fellow, a Parisian, the son of an attorney 
 named Rollet, made famous by Boileau in a shady 
 passage of his "Satires." The son had changed his 
 name to Rallet, fled the scenes of his father's disgrace 
 and came to Martinique where he found peace and 
 happiness in the parish of Pere Labat. Although the 
 priest and poor Rallet have been a-mouldering these 
 two hundred years I could not help hoping that it 
 was a good cook who prepared their ducks and chick- 
 ens. 
 
 The shadow of evening had already crossed the 
 valley bottom and it followed a lone figure that was 
 slowly toiling up the road toward the hole in the wall. 
 We scrambled down again through the village, where 
 the odour of French cooking was on the evening air, 
 past a little wayside shrine to the beach where I had 
 landed. We had left the evening behind us for a 
 time and were back in the last hour of afternoon. It 
 was hot even now, although the dangerous heat of the 
 day was over. I had caught my breath on our com- 
 ing down and my long legs made good progress over 
 
ST. PIERRE— PELEE 231 
 
 the soft sands — there is a knack in beach walking, the 
 leg swings forward with a slight spring-halt motion, 
 the knee is never straightened and the foot is used flat 
 so that it will sink as little as possible in the sand. I 
 had my little Achilles in the toils and I talked while he 
 fought for breath. 
 
 For a quarter of a mile we trudged the sands till 
 the green wall closed in on us and met the sea. A 
 little spring trickled down through an opening in the 
 rocks and we drank its cool water from cups which 
 Waddy made of leaves. It was here that my friend 
 was wont to come when he wished to be alone and he 
 led me up through a crevasse to the top of a gigantic 
 rock that overhung the surf some thirty feet. He 
 could have paid me no greater compliment than to take 
 me to this place, sacred to his own moody thoughts, 
 where, like a sick animal or an Indian with a u bad 
 heart" he could fight his troubles alone. Below us the 
 surf curled over in a mighty roll that burst on the beach 
 with a deafening roar, sending up a fine mist of salty 
 vapour like the smoke of an explosion. This was Pere 
 Labat's country and as I watched the regular on- 
 slaught of several large seas I thought of a paragraph 
 he wrote some two hundred years ago. "The sea 
 always forms seven large billows, waves or surges, 
 whichever you would call them, that break on the shore 
 with an astonishing violence and which can be heard 
 along the windward side where the coast is usually very 
 high and where the wind blows continually on the sea. 
 The three last of these seven waves are the largest. 
 When they have subsided after breaking on shore there 
 is a little calm which is called Emblie and which lasts 
 
232 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 about the time it takes to say an Ave Maria, after 
 which the waves begin again, their size and force aug- 
 menting always till the seventh has broken on the 
 shore." 
 
 We watched the sun go down and then silently 
 crawled down to the beach. It was Waddy's wish that 
 we should walk back in the darkness. The advance 
 of night seemed to drive the last fitful twilight before it 
 — one can see the light fade away from a printed page 
 — and the stars came out. The moon would not rise 
 yet awhile. "Look!" said Waddy, and he turned me 
 toward the dark cliffs above us. Hanging over us 
 was a deep velvet darkness that I could almost reach 
 out and feel, and against this like the jewels of a 
 scarf, was the glimmer of thousands of fire-flies — mov- 
 ing, blinking spots of light as large and luminous as 
 Jupiter on the clearest night. They lived in the foliage 
 of the cliff and it was Waddy's delight to come here of 
 a night and watch them. "Chaque bete a feu claire pou 
 name yo!" he said. (Each firefly lights for his soul.) 
 
 Dinner was waiting for us and with it the proud 
 maman and two of the children. Some were away at 
 school and some were too young to come to the table 
 (at least when there were visitors) and we did justice 
 to that of which she was proud, the food. That night 
 we discussed till late the various means by which the 
 "Touring Club" could see more of the Antilles as I 
 was seeing them, but Nature finally had her way and I 
 fell asleep talking — so Waddy said. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A LAND CRUISE — THE CALM OF GUADELOUPE 
 
 1 AWOKE in the morning to find that I had care- 
 lessly slipped into the second day of a windy 
 quarter. There was no doubt about it ; the trade was 
 blowing strong at six o'clock. I was impatient to be 
 off shore before the surf would be running too high 
 even for the thirty-foot dugout. After gulping down 
 a hasty breakfast and bidding profuse adieux to Ma- 
 dame Waddy, I reached the beach with my friend just 
 in time to see one of the fishing boats capsize and to 
 watch the natives chase down the shore to pick up her 
 floating gear. 
 
 It took nearly the whole male population of the 
 village to turn the dugout and get her bow down to the 
 surf. With a shout and a laugh the people carried 
 the Yakaboo and placed her lightly in her nest. Ten 
 of the strongest paddlers were selected and they took 
 their places in the dugout forward and aft of the canoe 
 while I, like the Queen of the Carnival, sat perched 
 high above the rest, in the cockpit. For nearly half an 
 hour — by my watch — we sat and waited. There were 
 thirty men, on the sands, along each gunwale, ready for 
 the word from Waddy. There was little talking; we 
 all watched the seas that seemed to come in, one after 
 another, with vindictive force. 
 
 233 
 
234 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 I was beginning to swear that I was too late when a 
 "soft one" rolled in and we shot from the heave of a 
 hundred and twenty arms plunging our bow into the 
 first sea. Her heel was still on the sand and I feared 
 she wouldn't come up for we shipped two barrels of 
 brine as easily as the Yakaboo takes a teacupful. But 
 with the first stroke she was free and with the second 
 she cleared the next sea which broke under her stern. 
 We were in the roar of the reef and if Waddy yelled 
 good-bye it had been carried down the beach like the 
 gear of the fishing boat. But he waved his hat like a 
 madman and followed us along shore as we ran down 
 the channel and turned out to sea. 
 
 Once clear of all dangers, eight of the men fell to 
 bailing while the two bow men and the steersman kept 
 her head to it. Then we swung the Yakaboo athwart- 
 ships while I loaded and rigged her. We slid her over- 
 board and I jumped in. The men held her alongside 
 where she tugged like an impatient puppy while I low- 
 ered the centerboard. "Let 'er go!" I yelled — an ex- 
 pression that seems to be understood in all languages — 
 and I ran up the mizzen, sheeting it not quite home. 
 Then the jib. I shall never forget the sensation as 
 hauled in on that jib — it seems out of proportion to 
 use the word "haul" for a line scarcely an eighth of an 
 inch in diameter fastened to a sail hardly a yard in 
 area. The wind was strong and the seas were lively. 
 
 When that sheeted jib swung the canoe around she 
 did not have time to gather speed, she simply jumped 
 to it. I made fast the jib sheet and prepared to steer 
 by the mizzen when I discovered that the canoe was 
 sailing herself. I looked back toward shore and waved 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 235 
 
 both arms. Waddy was a crazy figure on the beach. 
 The day was delirious. A tuna dugout that had been 
 lying into the wind fell away as I started and raced 
 ahead of me, reefed down, her lee rail in the boil and 
 her wild crew to windward. My mainsail was already 
 reefed and I let the canoe have it. By the high-tuned 
 hum of her board I knew that the Yakaboo was travel- 
 ling and the crew of the tuna canoe knew it, too, for 
 we passed them and were off on our wild ride to 
 Dominica. 
 
 My channel runs were improving. The sea, the 
 sky, and the clouds were all the same as on the other 
 runs, but the wind was half a gale. What occupied 
 my mind above all, however, was the discovery that the 
 canoe would sail herself under jib and mizzen. I had 
 thought that no boat with so much curve to her bottom 
 could possibly do such a thing — it is not done on paper. 
 The fact remained, however, that the two small sails 
 low down and far apart kept the canoe on her course 
 as well as I could when handling the mainsheet. 
 
 I checked this observation by watching my compass 
 which has a two-inch card floating in liquid and is ex- 
 tremely steady. I also learned that I did not have to 
 waste time heading up for the breaking seas, except 
 the very large ones, of course. Sometimes I could 
 roll them under — at other times I let them come right 
 aboard and then I was up to my shoulders in foam. 
 The canoe was tighter than she had ever been and it 
 was only the cockpit that gave trouble. When she 
 began to stagger from weight of water, I would let go 
 the main halyard and she would continue on her course 
 while I bailed. In all the two thousand miles of cruis- 
 
236 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ing I had hitherto done, I learned more in this twenty- 
 five mile channel than all the rest put together. Some 
 day — I promised myself — I would build a hull abso- 
 lutely tight and so strong and of such a form that I 
 could force her through what seas she could not easily 
 ride under. Also, what a foolish notion I had clung 
 to in setting my sails only a few inches above deck; 
 they should be high up so that a foot of water could 
 pass over the deck and not get into the cloth. In this 
 run, if the Yakaboo had been absolutely tight and her 
 sails raised and if I had carried a small deck seat to 
 windward, I could have carried full sail and she would 
 have ridden to Dominica on a cloud of brine-smelling 
 steam. As it was, she was travelling much faster than 
 at any time before and I did not know that the most 
 glorious channel run was yet to come. 
 
 I laid my course for Cape Cachacrou (Scott's 
 Head) , a peculiar hook that runs out to westward of 
 the south end of Dominica. For the first two hours 
 I could not see the Head, then it popped up like an 
 island and began slowly to connect itself with the larger 
 land. The going was excellent and in short time the 
 head was right over our bow, with Dominica rising up 
 four thousand feet to weather. We were not more 
 than half a mile off shore when I took out my watch. 
 I figured out later that our rate had been six miles an 
 hour including slowing up to bail and occasionally com- 
 ing to a dead stop when riding out a big sea bow on. 
 I could ask no better of a small light craft sailing six 
 points off the wind, logy a part of the time and work- 
 ing in seas that were almost continually breaking. 
 
 Fate was indulgent, for she waited till I had stowed 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 237 
 
 my watch in its berth to starboard. Then she sent a 
 sea of extra size — it seemed to come right up from 
 below and mouth the Yakaboo like a terrier — and be- 
 fore we got over our surprise she gave us the tail end 
 of a squall, like a whip-lash, that broke the mizzen 
 goose-neck and sent the sail a-skying like a crazy kite. 
 I let go all my halyards and pounced after my sails 
 like a frantic washerwoman whose clothes have gone 
 adrift in a backyard gale. The mainsail came first and 
 then the jib. The truant mizzen which had dropped 
 into the sea when I slipped its halyard came out torn 
 and wet and I rolled it up and spanked it and stowed it 
 in the cockpit. 
 
 The sea had come up from the sudden shoaling 
 where in a third of a mile the bottom jumps from a 
 hundred and twenty fathoms to twelve, and as for the 
 squall, that was just a frisky bit of trade that was not 
 content with gathering speed around the end of the 
 island but must slide down the side of a mountain to 
 see how much of a rumpus it could raise on the water. 
 I had run unawares — it was my own stupid carelessness 
 that did it — on the shoals that extend to the southeast 
 of Cachacrou Head where the seas jumped with nasty 
 breaking heads that threatened to turn the Yakaboo 
 end for end any minute. 
 
 With the mizzen out of commission I might as well 
 have stood in pink tights on the back of a balky farm 
 horse and told him to cross his fingers as sail that 
 canoe. I might have hoisted my jib and slowly run 
 off the shoals to the westward, but that would have 
 meant a hard tedious beat back to shore again for a 
 good part of the night. I chose to work directly across 
 
238 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 the shoals with the oars. But it was no joking matter. 
 My course lay in the trough of the sea and it was a 
 question of keeping her stern to the seas so that I could 
 watch them and making as much as I could between 
 crests. 
 
 Most of my difficulty lay in checking her speed when 
 a comber would try to force her along in a mad tobog- 
 gan ride and from this the palms of my hands became 
 sore and developed a huge blister in each that finally 
 broke and let in the salt water which was about in 
 plenty. For an hour I worked at it, edging in crab- 
 wise across the shoals till the seas began to ease up 
 and I pulled around the Head to the quiet waters 
 under its hook. Have you walked about all day in a 
 stiff pair of new shoes and then come home to the ex- 
 quisite ease of an old pair of bed-room slippers? Then 
 you know how I felt when I could take a straight pull 
 with my fingers crooked on the oars and my raw palms 
 eased from their contact with the handles. 
 
 Cachacrou Head is a rock which stands some two 
 hundred and thirty-four feet up from the sea and is 
 connected with the coast of Dominica by a narrow 
 curved peninsula fifty yards across and half a mile in 
 length. There is a small fort on the top of the Head 
 and here on the night of September the seventh, in 
 1778, the French from Martinique, with a forty-nine 
 gun ship, three frigates and about thirty small sloops 
 filled with all kinds of piratical rabble, captured the 
 fort which was in those days supposed to be impreg- 
 nable. It was the same old story; there is always a 
 weak point in the armour of one's enemy — thirst being 
 the vulnerable point in this case. The night before the 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 239 
 
 capture some French soldiers who had insinuated them- 
 selves into the fort, muddled the heads of the English 
 garrison with wine from Martinique, and spiked the 
 guns. The capture then was easy. By this thin wedge, 
 the French gained control of Dominica and held the 
 island for five years. 
 
 Rowing close around the Head, I found a sandy bit 
 of beach just where the peninsula starts for the main- 
 land and with a feeling that here ended a good day's 
 work, hauled the Yakaboo up on the smooth hard 
 beach. The sun — it seems that I am continually talk- 
 ing about the sun which is either rising or setting or 
 passing through that ninety degree arc of deadly heat 
 the middle of which is noon (it was now four o'clock) 
 — was far enough on its down path so that the Head 
 above me cast a grateful shade over the beach while 
 the cool wind from the mountains insured the absence 
 of mosquitoes. 
 
 The lee coast of Dominica stretching away to the 
 north was in brilliant light. You have probably gath- 
 ered by this time that the Lesser Antilles are decidedly 
 unsuited for camping and cruising as we like to do it 
 in the North Woods. In a few isolated places on the 
 windward coasts one might live in a tent and be healthy 
 and happy, such as my camp with the Caribs; but to 
 cruise and camp, that is travel and then rest for a 
 day on the beach — this is impossible. In this respect 
 my cruise was a distinct failure. 
 
 When I did find a spot such as this, where I could 
 still enjoy a part of the afternoon in comparative com- 
 fort, I enjoyed it to the utmost. I did not unload the 
 Yakaboo immediately- — I merely took those things out 
 
240 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 of her that I wanted for my present use. Tabac de 
 Diable, for instance, and my pipe, and then a change of 
 clothes; but before I put on that change I shed my 
 stiff briny sea outfit and sat down in a little sandy- 
 floored pool in the rocks. There I smoked with my 
 back against a rock while the reflex from the Carib- 
 bean rose and fell with delightful intimacy from my 
 haunches to my shoulders. 
 
 For some time I rested there, with my hands be- 
 hind my head to keep the blood out of my throbbing 
 hands and the salt out of my burning palms. Across 
 the bay was the town of Soufriere, not unlike the Souf- 
 riere of Saint Lucia, from a distance, while a few miles 
 beyond was Point Michelle and another few miles : 
 along was Roseau, the capital town of the island. 
 Away to the north Diablotin rose nearly five thousand 
 feet, within a hundred feet of the Soufriere of Guade- 
 loupe, the highest mountain of the Lesser Antilles. 
 
 After a while I got up, like a lazy faun (let us not 
 examine the simile too closely for who would picture 
 a sea faun smoking a Three-B and with a four days' 
 stubble on his chin?). On a flat-topped rock near the 
 canoe I spread out my food bags. Near this I started 
 a fire of hardwood twigs that soon burned down to a 
 hot little bed of coals over which my pot of erbswurst 
 was soon boiling. This peameal soup, besides bacon 
 and potatoes, is one of the few foods of which one may 
 eat without tiring, three times a day, day in and day 
 out, when living in the open. It is an excellent cam- 
 paign food and can be made into a thin or thick soup 
 according to one's fancy. I have eaten it raw and 
 found it to be very sustaining. At home one would , 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE Ul 
 
 quickly tire of the eternal peameal and the salty bacon 
 taste — but I never eat it when I am at home nor do I 
 use in general the foods I take with me when cruising. 
 The two diets are quite distinct. 
 
 While the pot was boiling, I betook myself to a cosy 
 angle in the rocks which I softened with my blanket 
 bag, and fell to repairing my mizzen. My eye chanced 
 to wander down the beach — is it chance or instinct? — 
 and finally came to rest on a group of natives who 
 stood watching me. Modesty demanded something 
 in the way of clothes so I put on a clean shirt and 
 trousers and beckoned to them. They were a timid 
 lot and only two of them advanced to within fifty feet 
 of the canoe and then stopped. I talked to them, but 
 it was soon evident that they did not understand a 
 word I said, even the little patois I knew got no word 
 from them. Finally they summoned enough courage 
 to depart and I was left to my mending. 
 
 I had finished my sail and was enjoying my pea-soup 
 and biscuits when my eye detected a movement down 
 the beach and I saw a lone figure which advanced 
 without hesitation and walked right into my camp 
 where it smiled down at me from an altitude of three 
 inches over six feet. 
 
 "My name ess Pistole Titre, wat you name and 
 frum war you cum?" 
 
 I told him that my name was of little importance 
 and that I had just come from Martinique. 
 
 "Frum war before dat?" 
 
 "Saint Lucia." 
 
 "Frum war before dat?" 
 
 "Saint Vincent." 
 
242 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 "Frum war before dat?" 
 
 "Grenada." 
 
 "An' you not afraid ?" 
 
 "Why should I be afraid? The canoe sails well.' 
 
 "I no mean de sea, I mean jumbie. How you don' 
 know w'en you come to strange ilan de jumbie no tak< 
 you?" 
 
 There might be some truth in this but I answered 
 "I don't believe in jumbies." This he interpreted into 
 "I don't believe there are jumbies here." The fac 
 that I did not believe in jumbies, the evil spirits of th( 
 Africans, was utterly beyond his conception — of course 
 I believed in them, everybody did, but by some occuli 
 power I must know their haunts and could avoid then 
 though I had never visited the place before. 
 
 "I know jumbies no come here, but how you know! 
 You wonderful man," he concluded. 
 
 While this conversation was going on, I was secretl) 
 admiring his huge lithe body — such of it as could be 
 seen through an open shirt and by suggestive line ol 
 limb ; he might have been some bronze Apollo come tc 
 animation, except for his face. His face was an ex- 
 pression of good-will, intelligence, and energy thai 
 came to me as a refreshing relief from the shiny ful- 
 some visage of the common native. 
 
 The jumbies disposed of for the time being, Pistole 
 sat down on a rock and made rapid inroads on a few 
 soda biscuits and some pea-soup which I poured into a 
 calabash. The native can always eat, and the eating 
 of this salty soup with its bacon flavour seemed the very 
 quintessence of gastronomic delight. When he had 
 finished he pointed to a steep upland valley and told 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 243 
 
 me he must go there to milk his cows. He would bring 
 me a bottle of fresh milk, he said, when he came back 
 again, for he was going to fish that night from the 
 rocks under the Head. As he walked away along the 
 beach, the breeze brought back, "An' he no 'fraid 
 jumbies. O Lard!" 
 
 My supper over, I turned the canoe bow toward 
 the water and made up my bed in the cockpit. It 
 would be too fine a night for a tent and I tied my candle 
 light part way up the mizzen mast so that I could lie 
 in my bed and read. At sunset I lit my lamp for the 
 beach under the Head was in darkness. While the 
 short twilight moved up from the sea and hovered for 
 a moment on the highest mountain tops my candle grew 
 from a pale flame to a veritable beacon that cast a 
 sphere of light about the canoe, shutting out night from 
 the tiny rock-hedged beach on which we lay. But 
 Ulysses did not make me drowsy and I blew out my 
 light and lay under that wonderful blue ceiling in which 
 the stars blinked like live diamonds. The Dipper was 
 submerged with its handle sticking out of the sea before 
 me and Polaris hung low, a much easier guide than in 
 the North. Just overhead Orion's belt floated like 
 three lights dropped from a sky rocket. Through the 
 low brush over the peninsula the Southern Cross tilted 
 to westward. 
 
 As I lay there stargazing, the rattle of a displaced 
 stone told me of the coming of Pistole who laid down 
 a long bamboo pole and seated himself on his haunches 
 iby the canoe. I relit my lamp that I might observe 
 him better. Suspended from a tump line passing over 
 the top of his head was a curious basket-like woven 
 
244 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 matting. From its depths he drew forth a bottle, 
 known the world over, a four shouldered, high-sided 
 termini that proclaimed gin as its original contents, but 
 which was now filled with milk and corked with a wisp 
 of upland grass. 
 
 I stuck the bottle in the sand beside the canoe where 
 the morning sun would not strike it and then dug 
 around in my cosy little burrow and brought forth 
 a bag of tobacco. Pistole did not smoke. He was 
 supporting his mother and an aunt; it was hard work 
 and he could not afford luxuries. Here certainly was 
 a paradox, a native who forbore the use of tobacco ! 
 
 Pistole came here often, he said, when there was not 
 much moon, to fish at night from the rocks, using the 
 white squid that shines in the water for bait. Some- 
 times he filled his basket to the top with little rock 
 fish and at other times he got nothing at all. He 
 lighted his flambeau from my candle lamp and de- 
 parted, leaving the pleasant odour of the burning gom- 
 mier like an incense. I watched his progress as the 
 light bobbed up and down and was finally extinguished 
 far out on the rocks. 
 
 Tired as I was, my throbbing hands kept me awake 
 till Pistole returned some time later — the fish did not 
 seem to be biting — and he lay down in the sand by the 
 canoe. Had he seen a jumbie or was there a sign of 
 lajoblesse? The huge creature edged in as close to 
 the planking of the Yakaboo as he could get, like a 
 remora fastened to the belly of a shark. The mono- 
 tone of his snores brought on sleep and when I awoke 
 the sun was well up above the mountains of Dominica. 
 A lengthy impression in the sand was all that remained 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 245 
 
 of the native who had long since gone to tend his cat- 
 tle. 
 
 There is one morning when I feel that I have a right 
 to spread myself and that is on Sunday. It is from 
 long force of habit that began with my earliest school 
 days. There was no need for an early start and as 
 for my breakfast, I spared neither time nor trouble. 
 
 First I very slowly and very carefully reversed Pis- 
 tole's bottle so as not to disturb the cream and then 
 I let out the milk from under it. This was for the 
 chocolate. The cream which would hardly pour and 
 which I had to shake out of the bottle I set aside for 
 my oatmeal. This I had started the night before and 
 it only needed heating and stirring. I made the 
 chocolate with the native "stick" and sweetened it with 
 the Muscovado sugar and I even swizzled it and 
 sprinkled nutmeg on the heavy foam on top after the 
 old Spanish manner. That "head" would have put to 
 shame the "Largest Schooner in Town." I also made 
 a dish of scrambled eggs and smoked flying fish that 
 Waddy had given me. It was a breakfast fit for a 
 king and I felt proud of myself and congratulated my 
 stomach on its neat capacity as I stretched out by a 
 rock like a gorged reptile and lit my pipe. There was 
 nothing, just then, that could increase the sum of my 
 happiness. I should have been glad to have spent the 
 day there but I knew that the sun would soon make a 
 hell's furnace of this delightful spot so when my pipe 
 was finished I washed my dishes and loaded the canoe. 
 I was having my "last look around" when I saw a 
 crowd of natives coming up the beach with Pistole at 
 their head. They were probably coming to see the 
 
246 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 canoe and to say good-bye so I sat down on a rock and 
 waited for them. Pistole, who had apparently been 
 appointed spokesman, said that they all lived in a vil- 
 lage, not far off, but hidden from view by the bush. 
 They were very anxious to show me their village — 
 would I come with- them? 
 
 Pistole led the way along the peninsula to a cres- 
 cent of beach that might have been on the lagoon of 
 an atoll in the South Sea islands. Under the coco- 
 palms that hung out over the beach almost to the 
 water's edge were the canoes of the village. Behind 
 the scrubby growth that fringed the beach was a double 
 row of huts with a wide path between them parallel 
 to the shore. Down this path or avenue I was led in 
 review while the homes of the persons of distinction 
 were pointed out to me. These differed from the or- 
 dinary huts in that they were sided with unpainted 
 boards. One or two were built of American lumber, 
 painted and with shingled roofs. Half the village fol- 
 lowed us while the other half sat in its respective 
 doorways. Oh! the luxury of those door steps; to 
 those who sat there it was like beholding a Memorial 
 Day procession from the carpeted steps of a city house. 
 This world is merely one huge farce of comparison. 
 At the end of the avenue — let us give it as much dis- 
 tinction as possible — we retraced our steps and the 
 march came to an end at the house of Pistole's mother. 
 This, I might say, was one of the finest and contained 
 two rooms. The .big native was very proud of his 
 mother and aunt who received me with the graciousness 
 of women of royalty and brought out little cakes and 
 glasses of cocomilk and rum. The heat was growing 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 247 
 
 outside and I must get off the beach, so I said "Good- 
 bye" and went back to the canoe followed by a small 
 caravan bearing offerings of the village, waternuts and 
 pineapples. 
 
 The wind was roaring down the mountainsides, for 
 this quarter continued fresh, and I left the beach with 
 the reefed mainsail only. The sea was like a floor and 
 with a small gale for a beam wind the reefed sail lifted 
 the Yakaboo along like a toboggan. I held in for the 
 town of Soufriere in order to keep the smooth water 
 and when I was part way across the bay the lightish 
 water under me suddenly turned to a deep blue — the 
 colour of sea water off shore. There was a sharp well- 
 defined line which I crossed again and was once more 
 in lighter water. It was L'Abime, Dominica's subma- 
 rine crater. 
 
 In less than an hour I lowered sail off the main jetty 
 of Roseau. 
 
 It was not quite twelve. The whole town had begun 
 breakfast at eleven and was still eating. I may not 
 be absolutely correct in saying that the whole town was 
 eating for there was one individual who was on duty 
 and enjoying a nap in the shade of the custom-house 
 at the shore end of the jetty. There was another also 
 — but he did not belong to the town — the captain of 
 the coasting steamer Yare, a jolly little Irishman 
 whom I came to know better in St. Thomas. He was 
 not at breakfast and he yelled a welcome from the 
 bridge of his. steamer at her Sunday rest by the big 
 mooring buoy in the roadstead. I ran up my ensign 
 on the mizzen halyard and yelled at the man inshore. 
 
248 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 He rubbed his eyes but did not seem to know why he 
 should be disturbed. 
 
 "Where is the harbour-master?" 
 "At him breakfus' — w'at you want?" 
 "I want to land. Don't you see my ensign?" 
 "O Lard! I t'at it wuz de Umium Jack." 
 At this Wilson, of the Yare, sent out a great roar 
 across the water. "You don't think that ebony ass 
 knows the difference between one flag and another, do 
 you?" he inquired much to the offence of the e. a. 
 With some sheepishness, the revenue man came down 
 to the landing place where I prepared to tie up the 
 Yakaboo while awaiting the answer from the harbour- 
 master. But no, I could not even fasten my painter 
 to one of the iron piles, — I must lie off in the roads 
 till word came that my papers had been passed upon. 
 There might be the chance that I had yellow fever 
 aboard. In an hour the boatman returned with word 
 that I might come ashore. In view of what followed 
 I should add that when I handed my papers to the 
 boatman I told him that I had already landed at 
 Scott's Head under stress of weather and that he 
 should report this to the harbour-master. Some days 
 later while I was fitting a new goose-neck to the miz- 
 zen of the Yakaboo in the courtyard of the Colonial 
 Bank, word was brought that I was "wanted" by the 
 Acting Colonial Treasurer. I knew from the tone of 
 the demand that something was in the air. When I 
 was ushered into the presence of that august little per- 
 sonage, I was asked with considerable circumlocution 
 why I landed at Scott's Head before making official 
 entry at Roseau. 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 249 
 
 "Who told you?" I whispered, as if he were about 
 to disclose an interesting bit of gossip. 
 
 "The police officer of Soufriere telephoned this 
 morning that he saw your camp at Scott's Head on 
 Sunday morning. ,, (It was now Friday, five days la- 
 ter.) I said that I hoped the lazy officer at Soufriere 
 had been duly reprimanded for not having reported 
 me sooner. 
 
 "What!" the little man shouted. "You are the one 
 to be reprimanded for having landed and not having 
 mentioned the fact when you gave up your papers at 
 Roseau. Do you know that you are liable to two 
 weeks' quarantine?" By this time my ire should have 
 been goaded to the loud-talking point. I leaned for- 
 ward in a confidential way and whispered (he seemed 
 to dislike this whispering) , "Let's have in the boatman 
 who took my papers on Sunday morning." They 
 might have been the dying words of some unfortunate 
 victim of a street accident asking for his wife or his 
 mother. 
 
 The boatman came in due time accompanied by loud 
 tones of authority which issued from his thick-soled 
 boots. The weight of the Empire was in every step. 
 Then I stood up and looked hard into a pair of hazel 
 eyes while I asked the owner if I had not mentioned, 
 when I handed him my papers, the fact that I had 
 spent the night at Scott's Head under stress of weather. 
 I owned those eyes while he spoke the truth and said, 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Don't you know, Mr. S ," I asked, "that under 
 
 stress of weather — my mizzen having blown away — I 
 may land at any convenient beach and then proceed to 
 
250 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 the nearest port as soon as repairs are effected ?" One 
 would think that we were talking about some great 
 steamer instead of a sailing canoe. I did not, however, 
 mention my visit to the village on the peninsula. 
 
 When the Yakaboo was ready for sea again, I 
 chucked her into the basement of the Colonial Bank 
 and started on a land cruise through the hills of the 
 island. I would hire a small horse and circumnavigate 
 the island on its back, carrying with me a couple of 
 blankets, a pail and a frypan. But the idyl stops there. 
 
 Soon after I arrived at Roseau, word came to me 
 
 that a Mr. B of Chicago was visiting his uncle on 
 
 a plantation near the town. It turned out that I knew 
 this man and in the course of time we met. When he 
 heard of my plan to ride around the island, he em- 
 braced the idea with great warmth — as some would put 
 it — in fact he not only embraced it; he adopted it and 
 when it came back to me it was entirely changed. It 
 no longer belonged to me, it was a sad little stranger 
 whom I knew not. Instead of camping near the road- 
 side with a bully fire at night and the horses tethered 
 close-by, this was all done away with by means of 
 letters of introduction. Our blankets and our pots and 
 pans were whisked away by folded pieces of paper in- 
 side of other pieces of paper. Our food we need no 
 longer trouble about. I felt like asking, "Please, 
 ma'am, may I take a little eating chocolate and my 
 pipe and tobacco?" 
 
 It was on Friday then, oh, unlucky day for the skip- 
 per of the Yakaboo/ that I obtained a pony from the 
 harbour-master. I did not see the horse till the next 
 morning — a few minutes before the start which was 
 
UNSET ST. PIERRE. 
 
 RUINS OF THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
>:i 
 
 < »■ ' 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 251 
 
 scheduled for eight o'clock. I have inferred that there 
 
 is but little humour or the sense of it in the English 
 
 islands, at least, but this animal was a pun — the lowest 
 
 form of humour. To have called him a joke would 
 
 have put a burden on him that would eventually have 
 
 ! swayed his back till a fifth wheel would have been 
 
 necessary to keep his poor paunch off the ground. And 
 
 as for that poor paunch — there was the seat of all the 
 
 | trouble. It had not been filled often enough nor full 
 
 i| enough and as in nature we come to liken the things 
 
 |j we eat, this poor beast was becoming of necessity an 
 
 I ethereal being. I asked the man who brought it if they 
 
 \ taxed horses in the island by the head or by the pound. 
 
 j The coloured groom very politely informed me — for 
 
 j was I not travelling in the West Indies in search of 
 
 information? — that there was, of course, a tax on every 
 
 horse in the island, and as for the pound, there was 
 
 a small fee levied on every animal that got astray and 
 
 was brought there. If you were sitting with me in my 
 
 cosy little cabin and we were discussing that horse I 
 
 should say, "Poor brute, I felt damn sorry for him," 
 
 in that earnest tone which you would understand. 
 
 I am not heavy in build, however, neither did I 
 have any luggage to add weight, for a porter had been 
 engaged to carry our extra duffle on his head. With a 
 small cargo of chocolate to port and a supply of to- 
 bacco and matches to starboard, I adjusted the stir- 
 rups and mounted my poor animal. Even then I felt 
 him go down below his Plimsoll marks. I wore my 
 ordinary sea outfit which I had carefully washed. I 
 had one suit of "store clothes" but I was not going to 
 befoul them on any uncurried West Indian skate for 
 
252 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 any man, no matter how exalted his position might be. 
 
 B , rather chunky of build, arrived well mounted 
 
 at the stroke of the hour and at a brisk canter. If he 
 were not what one might call au fait, he bore some as- 
 pects of the gentleman-rider even if he wore his trous- 
 ers stuffed into leggings instead of "breeks." He had 
 apparently noticed that there was a figure mounted on 
 a horse by the roadside but until he was close upon 
 me he did not realise that this was to accompany him 
 on his ride around the island. When he recognised 
 me his face fell like a topsail taken aback and he in- 
 stinctively looked around to see if any one saw him 
 with me. 
 
 "Good God!" he muttered, "you're not going to 
 ride in that rig, are you?" 
 
 "You don't expect me to wear a hunting coat on 
 this caricature, do you? Let's be off." 
 
 "Yes, let's be off," he said, as he put spurs to his 
 horse and raced along the road toward Laudat. 
 
 "Let's be off," I whispered into the ear of my Rosi- 
 nante — for he was a she — and with a thwack I started 
 her clattering after my friend. 
 
 By careful husbanding the strength of my animal we 
 reached Laudat at ten o'clock. That is, I did. My 
 friend had arrived there several times and had gone 
 back occasionally to note my progress. 
 
 Laudat is a little settlement nearly half way across 
 the island where one takes the trail for a rather 
 arduous climb to the Boiling Lake in the Soufriere 
 mountains. Through the courtesy of a priest in Ros- 
 eau a rest house was put at our disposal. Here we 
 feasted on raspberries, coffee and bread, after which 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 253 
 
 we started for the Boiling Lake. I shall not weary 
 you with a laborious description of a laborious climb 
 along a narrow trail, muddy and slippery and root- 
 crossed, nor of the everlasting din of the anvil bird that 
 somehow makes a noise like the ringing of steel against 
 iron, nor of the Boiling Lake. The next day we fin- 
 ished our crossing and followed the road along the 
 windward side to the estate of Castle Bruce where we 
 stopped for the night. 
 
 The following day we rode to Melville Hall where 
 we were received by the Everingtons. It was along 
 this coast, somewhere between Crumpton and Pagoua 
 Points that Columbus tried to land on the morning of 
 November 3rd, when he gave Dominica its name and 
 then proceeded to the northward and set foot the same 
 day on the shores of Maria Galante which he named 
 after his ship. From Melville Hall we rode to Hamp- 
 stead and then across the northeast corner of the island 
 to Portsmouth. 
 
 Lying in the smooth waters of Prince Rupert Bay 
 were three American whalers, a remnant of a fleet of 
 sixteen that had gathered there to transship oil. As 
 you may remember from your early American history, 
 the English government has always been extremely 
 fond of gaining revenue through petty taxation. They 
 even tax rowboats in some of the islands and in Saint 
 Vincent the crude little catamaran on which the Black 
 Carib boy is seated (page 143) is taxed thrupence per 
 foot. Imbued with this idea, a petty official of Do- 
 minica once suggested to the skipper of an American 
 whaler that he should be made to pay a tax for the 
 use of the shelter of the island. To this the Yankee 
 
254 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 skipper replied, "Go ahead and make your law and 
 your tax, we'll tow one of our own damn islands down 
 here and use that." 
 
 I have said little about my Rosinante, who seemed, 
 somehow, to improve on the good food she was get- 
 ting. She bore up well; I rode her with a loose girth 
 and took the best possible care of her. If I could only 
 nurse her for a month or so I might make a present- 
 able beast of her. As it was, I felt that I was riding 
 a rather tough skin in which an old piece of machinery 
 was moving with considerable lost motion. I remem- 
 ber speculating as to what price the harbour-master 
 would charge me if the mare died while in my care and 
 wondering what return I might gain from her carcass. 
 There was this comfort, her skin was tough and should 
 she drop on some precipitous path her bones and eter- 
 nal economy would not burst out and go clattering 
 down into the valley below. I was sure of what might 
 be left of her and in a pinch I could skin her and sell 
 the flesh to the natives, break up the bones for fer- 
 tiliser and use her hoofs for gelatine. It was an ab- 
 sorbing bit of speculation but did not interest B , 
 
 whose mind was usually occupied with problems of 
 much higher finance. But there was no real cause for 
 worry. On the last day we covered fully twenty-five 
 miles of road that was mostly up and down hill. I 
 gained as much respect for her as most any West In- 
 dian I had met. 
 
 It was the loose girth which caused me to lose my 
 last shred of dignity. We were descending a steep 
 path down the side of a valley in the bed of which 
 flowed a small fordable stream. There was no mis- 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 255 
 
 hap until we reached the river bank which dropped 
 away steeply to the water's edge. For some unac- 
 countable reason I and Rosinante were ahead. Slowly 
 Rosinante felt her way down the bank and then stood, 
 bow down, like the Yakaboo scending a sea. In a de- 
 tailed description I should have said that she was built 
 for'ard somewhat like a cow — lacking shoulders. The 
 saddle of its own accord had begun to slide forward. I 
 reached for her tail and missed it. Her forefeet were 
 in ten inches of water while her after props were still 
 on dry land. Even then I might have saved myself 
 by taking to the after deck. Slowly she lowered her 
 muzzle to the stream. There was nothing for it, the 
 saddle slid down the sharp ridge of her neck and I 
 landed with my hands in the water as if I too would 
 drink. As I rolled off into the stream I thought I 
 caught Rosinante in the act of winking her eye — or 
 was it only a fly that bothered? 
 
 Our land cruise ended that evening and I bade good- 
 bye to my friend. Rosinante was returned to the har- 
 bour-master and I went back to the Yakaboo. 
 
 Travelling up the Dominica shore I had my first 
 taste of calm. It was not the blazing calm that I was 
 to experience a few days later but it was a good fore- 
 taste. In light weather there is usually a calm spot 
 along the northern half of the coast line up to Prince 
 Rupert Bay. Just around the bluff the trade strikes 
 the sea again and here I set sail and ran into Toucari 
 Bay where there is a little coast village. Here was 
 the last bit of beach whence I could make my departure 
 for Guadeloupe and I hauled the canoe out on the 
 sand at the far end from the village. 
 
256 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 The people came down to the beach and insisted 
 upon carrying my canoe well up from the water. They 
 asked me where I was going to sleep and I pointed 
 to the cockpit of the Yakaboo. At this one of the head 
 men said that I must sleep in the village. He would 
 see to it that a room in one of the houses was cleaned 
 out for me and that his wife would cook my evening 
 meal. I conceded this last point and taking up my 
 food bags walked with him to the village. 
 
 While my supper was cooking, a woman came to 
 me and asked if I would see her son. He was dying, 
 she thought (the native is always dying with each com- 
 plaint, however slight), and the coast doctor would 
 not reach the village for several days. I told her that 
 I was no medicine man, but she would not believe that 
 I could travel alone as I did without some mystic power 
 to cure all diseases. I found the boy, about eighteen 
 years old, in great distress, suffering possibly from 
 acute gastritis — a not uncommon ailment of the West 
 Indian negro. I muttered some Latin a la Bill Nye 
 and gave him a pill that could do no harm and might 
 do some good. I dare say my diagnosis and prescrip- 
 tion were not much wider of the mark than those of 
 many practitioners of high repute. I was playing safe, 
 for if the boy died subsequently I knew it not. I re- 
 turned to my supper of chocolate and jack fish and 
 then made up my bed in the canoe. 
 
 Long before the sun began to throw his light over 
 the mountains of Dominica I had folded my blankets 
 and was eating a scanty breakfast, for the day promised 
 well and I was anxious to be sailing. My channel 
 runs, so far, had been boisterous and exhilarating, like 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 25*7 
 
 a race from tree to tree in a game of blindman's buff, 
 the trees being distant conical patches of grey-blue 
 land; but this run of the Saints was a pleasant jaunt. 
 Seventeen miles to the northwest lay Les Saintes, a 
 group of picturesque islands that stood out fresh and 
 green even as I cleared Dominica. Ten miles farther 
 on my course was Guadeloupe. Nineteen miles to the 
 northeast lay the larger island of Marie Galante and 
 when I opened the Atlantic to the north of her I could 
 make out the hump of distant Desirade. 
 
 It was in these waters that Rodney caught up with 
 the French fleet under De Grasse on the morning of 
 April 1 2th, 1782. It is difficult for us to realise that 
 in these islands that now appear to us to be of such 
 little importance, a battle such as this — the Battle of 
 the Saints — should be one of the turning points which 
 led directly to the supremacy of Great Britain on the 
 sea. England stood alone against the world. The 
 American colonies had declared their independence 
 and Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown. France 
 and Spain were eager to end, once for all, the power 
 of England's navy. The Dutch had been defeated off 
 the Dogger Bank and the year before, Rodney had 
 captured their island of St. Eustatius and unroofed 
 Oranjetown, as you shall see when I take you there 
 in the Yakaboo, 
 
 The French fleet was considered a perfect fighting 
 machine and while De Grasse had thirty-three ships to 
 Rodney's thirty-five they were considered to have the 
 advantage on their side, due to greater tonnage and a 
 larger number of guns per ship. But the French were 
 weak in one point and that was sailing to windward — 
 
258 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 this was offset in a measure by their superior ability to 
 run off the wind and escape from their foes, should the 
 battle go against them. On the morning of April 12th, 
 Hood led the British fleet, which was apparently to 
 windward, while Rodney in the Formidable was in 
 the center. The French fleet was in a line parallel to 
 the English and a safe distance to leeward. The wind 
 was evidently light. Then, we are told, u a sudden gale 
 of wind gave the British admiral his chance — abruptly 
 turning his flagship to larboard he broke through the 
 French line." This "gale of wind" was probably the 
 usual freshening of the trade at about eight o'clock, 
 which Rodney's ships received first because he was to 
 windward of the French. By breaking into the line 
 as he did, the whole of Rodney's fleet was concentrated 
 on two-thirds of the French and the English could use 
 both broadsides at one time while the French could 
 only use one. In the cannonading which followed, a 
 rooster which had escaped from the coops on board 
 the Formidable stood on the bowsprit and crowed de- 
 fiantly. "It was a good omen to the sailors, who 
 worked their guns with redoubled vigour." Six of the 
 French ships were captured and the rest fled to lee- 
 ward, mostly in a crippled condition. 
 
 Rodney at this time was sixty-three years old, a 
 roue, a gambler, and crippled with gout. But he was 
 considered the best admiral whom the British had. 
 Some years before, he had fled to France to escape 
 debt and it was a Frenchman, Marshall Biron, who 
 paid his debts and made him return to England because 
 he did not want to have his country deprived of the 
 glory of beating the British with their best admiral at 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 259 
 
 their head. It had been too rash a gamble. Although 
 Rodney's tactics, in the Battle of the Saints, may have 
 been thought of on the spur of the moment, they were 
 first evolved by a Scottish minister, John Clark of 
 Eldin, and were a lesson to Nelson who embodied them 
 in the "Nelson touch" at Trafalgar. 
 
 I passed close to the Saints and looked with great 
 longing on a pretty little fishing village on the lee coast 
 of Terre d y en Bas. There were some white people 
 on the beach where several smart looking fishing boats 
 were drawn up on the sand. I would have given much 
 to have been allowed to land there, but I knew there 
 was no port of entry in the Saints and remembering 
 my Martinique experiences I held my course for Basse 
 Terre on Guadeloupe. Soon after, the wind left us 
 and I rowed into the roadstead of Basse Terre at the 
 very peak of the heat of a calm day, that is, three 
 o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 It was the eighth of May and getting on toward 
 June when the light winds and calm weather of the 
 hurricane season begin. There is no doubt as to the 
 degeneracy of the white man in the tropics due to the 
 heat. First comes the loss of temper. I noticed this 
 in my own case. I had become short tempered and 
 swore at the slightest provocation. 
 
 When I rowed in close to the seawall of the town 
 and located a small building where a duane boat was 
 , hung in davits under a roof to protect it from the sun 
 I and over which a customs flag hung limp from a 
 staff, I felt that I was reasonably correct in guessing 
 that this was the office of the harbour-master. There 
 were a few loafers on a jetty that stood half-heartedly 
 
260 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 just far enough out from shore to clear the surf. I 
 addressed these as best I could and asked for the 
 harbour-master. They did not seem to understand, 
 neither did they care. I asked again and louder, then 
 I flung my wretched French to the oily sea and used 
 the most concise and forcible English I could com- 
 mand — not that I thought it would do any good but 
 just to let off the steam of my ire. A miracle oc- 
 curred! A head and shoulders became visible in one 
 of the windows of the customs' office, for such it was, 
 and yelled: 
 
 "Keep your shirt on, old man, we're not fussy here. 
 Come right ashore and I'll take your papers after 
 we've said, 'How do you do.' " This was the great- 
 est shock I had yet received in the Caribbean. When 
 I recovered myself — I had been standing in order to 
 swear the better — I sat down to row ashore. Basse 
 Terre is built along an open roadstead somewhat like 
 St. Pierre but with a retaining wall built up from a 
 steep shelving beach to the level of the streets fifteen 
 feet above. I beached the Yakaboo under the sea wall 
 where a number of boatmen lifted her up and carried 
 her to a place of safety. The English-speaking har- 
 bour-master, who really was an American, came out, 
 grabbed my hand, and led me into his office. 
 
 "It's a darn small ensign you carry, but it does my 
 heart good to see it," he said, and then he began to 
 introduce me to some of his cronies who had been 
 helping him to pass away a hot calm afternoon with 
 a gossip and a smoke. There were Henri Jean-Louia 
 (Homme de Lettres, Charge de mission agricole par 
 la Chambre d' agriculture de Point-a-Pitre et le Conseil 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 261 
 
 general de la Guadeloupe), and Hubert Ancelin 
 {Negotiant-Commissionaire, Secret air e-Tresorier des 
 Chambres de Commerce et a" Agriculture, Agent de la 
 Compagnie "Quebec Line") — I am reading the titles 
 of these dignitaries from the cards they gave me — and 
 there was a small French-looking man with a great deal 
 of dignity who seemed very much interested in every- 
 thing we said. 
 
 Jean-Louia, the newspaper man, asked me if I would 
 care for a little refreshment. I replied that since I 
 was no longer in a whisky-and-soda country any liquid 
 refreshment he might choose would be very acceptable. 
 In a short time some cakes and a bottle of champagne 
 were brought in. My health was proposed (there 
 were certainly no outward signs of my immediate de- 
 cline) and we drank the delicious wine in delicate cham- 
 pagne glasses. Bum that I was, — you shall have an ac- 
 curate description later, — if I had been suddenly 
 dropped into the middle of a ball room I would not 
 have felt more incongruous than drinking champagne 
 and eating bits of French pastry less than a quarter of 
 an hour from the time I had left the Caribbean and 
 the Yakaboo. 
 
 But I must bring forward the little man who has 
 shown great interest in our conversation. He was 
 dressed in white duck, trousers loose and baggy, coat 
 with military cut, and he wore moustachios, — a typical 
 Frenchman. I had been doing my uttermost with the 
 meagre vocabulary that I could claim my own when 
 I bethought myself of the little man who had listened 
 but had not said a word. Neither had he been intro- 
 
262 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 duced to me as yet. I turned to Magras and said in 
 English, 
 
 "And who is this little Frenchman ?" at which the 
 "little Frenchman" piped up, "I'm no Frenchman, I'm 
 a Yankee but I suppose I've been down here so darn 
 long I look like one. My name is Flower," he con- 
 tinued, "and I came to ask if you would care to spend 
 the night with me at my house." 
 
 This certainly was a day of misjudgments and for a 
 second time I could have been floored by a mere 
 breath. I thanked Mr. Flower and told him that I 
 should be delighted to spend the night with him. 
 
 There were still two hours of daylight when I left 
 the harbour-master's office with Mr. Flower, who with 
 the energy characteristic of the small man in the tropics, 
 led me through unshaded deserted streets to the out- 
 skirts of the town to the half-ruined Fort Richepance 
 on the banks of the Galion River. Basse Terre can- 
 not be said to be picturesque; there is an arid barren 
 aspect about the town that would not appeal to the 
 tourist. That it has been a place of some importance 
 one can see from the military plan of the wide streets, 
 squares and substantial stone, brick and concrete houses. 
 It was evidently not laid out by a civil governor. One 
 might easily reconstruct a past full of romance and 
 stirring incidents, for Basse Terre was the West Indian 
 hotbed of revolution bred from the ferment in Paris. 
 It was here that Victor Hugues began his notorious 
 career. Born of mean parents in some part of old 
 France he was early placed out as an apprentice. What- 
 ever his character may have been, he was a man of 
 spirit for he soon became master of a small trading 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 263 
 
 vessel and was eventually made a lieutenant in the 
 French navy. Through the influence of Robespierre 
 he was deputed to the National Assembly. In 1794 
 he was appointed Commissioner at Guadeloupe. 
 Should his life history be written it would be a fas- 
 cinating tale of cupidity, intrigue, murder and riot — a 
 reflection of the reign of terror in the mother country. 
 Had he been less of a rogue France instead of Eng- 
 land might to-day have been the dominant power in 
 the Lesser Antilles. 
 
 The next day I experienced my first real calm in the 
 tropics. My log reads : — "Tuesday, May 9th, 191 1 — 
 Off at 8:30 (could not disturb my host's domestic 
 schedule in order to make an early start) and a long 
 weary row along the lee shore of Guadeloupe. Blister- 
 ing calm with shifting puffs at times. Deshaies at 6 
 p. M. Distance 27 miles. Beautiful harbour but un- 
 healthy — turned in at local jail." 
 
 I tried to sail in those shifting puffs but it was a 
 waste of time. The lee coast of Guadeloupe is noted 
 for its calms and on this May day when the trade to 
 windward must have been very light, there was at times 
 not a breath of air. I settled down for a long row. 
 The heat did not become intense till eleven when what 
 breeze there had been ceased and on all the visible 
 Caribbean I could detect no darkened ruffle of its sur- 
 face. The sun was well advanced into his danger arc. 
 I had on a thick pair of trousers, a red sleeveless 
 rowing shirt and a light flannel over-shirt open at the 
 collar to let in as much air as possible. I made a nest 
 of a bandana handkerchief and put it on my head. On 
 top of that I lightly rested my hat. To protect the 
 
264 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 back of my neck I wore a red bandana loosely tied 
 with the knot under my chin — just opposite to the fash- 
 ion of the stage cowboy who wears his handkerchief 
 like a napkin. 
 
 Then, with the least possible effort, I rowed the 
 canoe along shore, rarely turning my head but keep- 
 ing the corner of my eye along the shore which is nearly 
 straight in its general trend — a little west of north. 
 From time to time I would stop and hold both oars in 
 one hand while with the other I gently lifted the cloth 
 of my trousers clear of the burning skin beneath. For 
 a time I rowed with my sleeves down but the burn of 
 the salt sweat and the friction of the cloth more than 
 counteracted the benefit I might gain by shading my 
 forearms and I rolled up my sleeves again. 
 
 My forearms, one would suppose, had, after these 
 three months of continual exposure, all the tan possible, 
 but I found that after a while the skin was blushing a 
 deep red and somewhat swollen and painful. The glare 
 from the water was intense and to protect my eyes I 
 screwed my face into the grin of a Cheshire cat, to 
 elevate my cheeks and bring down my eyebrows. Try 
 it and half close your eyes and you will know just what 
 I mean. The sea heaved in long shallow ground- 
 swells as though labouring heavily for breath. 
 
 The dazzling beaches quivered in the heat waves 
 while the mountains stood up sharp and strong in the 
 fierce sunlight. There was not the slightest sign of fish 
 and it seemed as though the sun had driven them to 
 the coolest depths below. At twelve o'clock I stopped 
 for a few minutes to eat a "pine" the natives had given 
 me at Toucari Bay. This pineapple which, I believe, 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 265 
 
 was originally brought from Antigua where the best 
 pines of the West Indies are found, has a golden flesh, 
 sweeter than the white fibrous fruit which we of the 
 North know and yet with all of the tang. The core is 
 soft and partly edible and one can eat the whole of 
 one of these fruits with a pleasing absence of that 
 acrid taste which leaves the after effect of putting 
 one's teeth on edge. There are many fruits to which 
 we refer as "delicious" and "refreshing" in our paucity 
 of descriptive adjectives but these two words cannot 
 be applied in a better sense than in describing the pine- 
 apple of the Lesser Antilles. 
 
 Two o'clock came and then, thank the Lord, the 
 sun began to go appreciably to the westward so that 
 by slightly raising the mainsail I could get some pro- 
 tection. My long pull at last came to an end when at 
 six o'clock I rowed into a beautiful little bay and 
 beached the canoe at the very doorsteps of the village 
 of Deshaies. The bay was a deep pocket walled by 
 green hills on three sides and open to seaward where 
 the sun with a guilty red face was hurrying to get be- 
 low the horizon so that he could sneak around again 
 as fast as possible in order to have some more fun 
 scorching inoffensive canoe people. 
 
 The bay, a snug enough harbour for small coasters, 
 struck into the land like a tongue of the ocean mottled 
 with shoals and coral reefs while the green of the hills 
 was barred from the blue water by a narrow strip of 
 white sand. The charm of the place was strong and I 
 forgot the hot toil of the day while I stood on the beach 
 by the Yakaboo and looked about me. Scarcely two 
 canoe lengths from the water's edge stood the outposts 
 
266 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 of the village, those meaner houses of the fishermen, 
 the beachcombers, and the keepers of small rum shops. 
 
 The people, of the lighter shades of the mulatto, 
 were loafing as to the male portion on this common 
 back porch of beach, while the women were busy over 
 ovens and coal-pots, preparing the evening meal. With 
 the apathy of the island native they had watched me 
 row into their quiet harbour and had waited till I was 
 actually on the beach at their very door steps before 
 they got up from their haunches to flock around the 
 canoe. But now there was great excitement. They 
 looked at me and at the canoe and there was nothing 
 they saw about either of us that was at all familiar. 
 To give them a thrill I pulled on the mizzen halyard 
 and let it go again — the sail fanned out, crawled up 
 the mast, slid down again, and folded up. 
 
 Surprise and curiosity showed in all their features 
 but they made no move to touch my things, they merely 
 looked. Some one with an air of importance des- 
 patched a boy for some one else who had official au- 
 thority and soon after the acting mayor came down to 
 the beach. The mayor, it seemed, was laid up with 
 an attack of fever. The acting mayor was a dapper 
 little person, very civil, and not at all officious. Could 
 he do anything for me? I told him that from the 
 evening set I believed there was promise of a strong 
 wind on the morrow and that I was now preparing 
 my canoe for an early start in order to jump the thirty- 
 eight miles of open water to Montserrat before the 
 trade might grow into a gale. Therefore I did not 
 want to make a camp. I also said that I feared I had 
 come to a fever hole — at which he grinned assent — 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 267 
 
 and if he could find some place where I could sleep 
 without the company of mosquitoes I would be deeply 
 indebted to him. 
 
 He told me that he would place the town "hotel" at 
 my disposal and said that while he was attending to 
 my papers he would get the key. As for the Yakaboo, 
 she would be perfectly safe where she lay on the beach. 
 In the meantime I would stretch my legs and see a bit 
 of the town during the few remaining minutes of twi- 
 light. Deshaies was of a regime which had lasted un- 
 til recent years and the substantial houses of its main 
 street reminded me of those of our "before the war" 
 cities in the Southern states. Dilapidation was every- 
 where; there were no actual ruins. The old prosperity 
 was gone .and the town was waiting dormant till the 
 coming of that more stable inheritance, which is the 
 natural right of a soil wonderfully fertile. 
 
 There were iron grills and balconies and bits of 
 paved roadway and courtyard and there were faces 
 among those easy-going people that took my mind back 
 to Mayero and the descendants of the Saint-Hilaire 
 family. But the banded Anopheles were coming from 
 the Deshaies River bed in millions and I returned to 
 the beach where I found the acting mayor waiting for 
 me. He had borrowed a sheet of my note paper which 
 he now returned, a neatly written document to the 
 effect that I had landed that evening at Deshaies — 
 sans rien a" anormal — on my way to Montserrat. Then 
 he showed me a great iron key and led me across the 
 street to that "hotel" which is less sought after than 
 needed. 
 
 It was the town lock-up ! — consisting of a detached 
 
268 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 building of one story and having two rooms, perhaps 
 more properly cells, which were heavily barred and 
 shuttered. In the first room a deal table stood in the 
 middle of the floor. On this I put my food bags and 
 my candle lamp which I lit, for it was now dark out- 
 side. There was but one thought in my mind, to get 
 as much rest as possible, for the next day might prove 
 a hard one. 
 
 I borrowed a coal-pot and while I cooked my supper 
 I chatted with the acting mayor. He was to be mar- 
 ried, he said, and that night there was to be a dance 
 in honour of his betrothal. He would deem it a great 
 honour if I would come to the dance, but I declined, 
 saying that unless I was very much mistaken the mor- 
 row would be the last day for two weeks in which I 
 might safely cross the channel and that I feared to 
 remain in this fever hole any longer than I could pos- 
 sibly help. To avoid the possibility of being annoyed 
 by rats, I carried my food back to the canoe where I 
 stowed it safely under the hatches. 
 
 The acting mayor bade me good night and left me 
 to smoke my evening pipe on the doorstep of the jail. 
 After a while the preliminary scale of a flute and the 
 open fifths of a violin announced that the ball was 
 about to begin and I closed the ponderous door of the 
 jail on the strains of the first dance. I had long since 
 put out my light lest it attract mosquitoes and as I 
 made up my bed on the floor I heard the scampering 
 of rats in the darkness. I must confess to a childish 
 horror of rats that is even greater than that of snakes 
 and I finally put a new candle in my lamp so that it 
 might burn all night. 
 
LAND CRUISE— CALM OF GUADELOUPE 269 
 
 I was awakened at five o'clock in the morning by 
 the acting mayor who was returning from the dance. 
 The town did not awaken at five, it seemed, and there 
 was no glowing coal-pot to be had. To my disgust 
 there was not a stick in the canoe and on the beach 
 there were nothing but soggy coco-tree fronds. At last 
 a door creaked and from the woman who opened it I 
 bought some charcoal. In spite of my precautions of 
 the night before, it was an hour and twenty minutes 
 before I finally shoved off in the Yakaboo. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 
 
 WE left the beach in a dead calm. The sun was 
 nearly an hour above an horizon of trade 
 clouds and even as I rowed I could see the wind that 
 was coming begin to darken the water in patches to 
 the eastward. In half a-n hour the wind caught up to 
 us and soon after I set sail. We were scarcely free 
 of Guadeloupe when the canoe began to move with the 
 first light breaths, over a long easy swell. Montserrat 
 was a hazy blur on the horizon, and I should have to 
 look sharp lest I miss it. 
 
 For a while I held directly for the blur, but as the 
 wind freshened it began to work into the south'ard 
 and I shifted my course till I was running wing and 
 wing with the island two points to weather. I did this 
 so that later in the day I would not have a hard wind 
 and a heavy sea directly abaft — the most ticklish and 
 nerve-tiring condition for canoe sailing. The wind was 
 increasing steadily and I knew I was in for half a gale 
 — and a good run. I also knew that while it was 
 necessary to make as much speed as possible, I should 
 have to keep a sharp eye on my gear, for if anything 
 crippled my rig for windward work I was in for an 
 adventure on the Caribbean. This wind held for a 
 week and were I blown clear of Montserrat there 
 
 270 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 271 
 
 would be no choice but to keep on with some sort of 
 rig up till I struck Saint Croix, one hundred and seventy- 
 five miles away. 
 
 If ever at any time on this cruise, I was now sail- 
 ing along the thin edge of things. Although it was a 
 second quarter that had come in soft, it seemed that 
 a fifth day had slipped in somehow for the weather 
 was on a rampage. We were nearing the end of the 
 regular trade season and might expect our almost in- 
 fallible weather signs to break down. I found that 
 my barometer showed but little variation during the 
 time I was in the Lesser Antilles and only kept tabs 
 on it in order to note the decided drop which might 
 indicate the approach of any weather more severe than 
 the ordinary blow. 
 
 As far as I could see to windward, north and south, 
 squalls were now chasing down as though there were 
 two conditions of wind; one a stiff breeze and the 
 other a series of squalls moving independent of and 
 through the first. The canoe was travelling so fast — 
 we were making a good six knots — that I could easily 
 dodge most of the squalls by tacking down the wind 
 like a square rigger. Once I was actually running off 
 on the port tack wsw while the course from Deshaies 
 was nw%w. There was no harm in being thrown 
 off my course to the south and west for it ultimately 
 served to place Montserrat all the more to windward. 
 
 When the wind which was blowing from east-south- 
 east finally declared itself a young gale, I found to my 
 great relief that I had worked my way so far to the 
 westward that my course for the island was now a little 
 better than NwbN. Instead of having to run within 
 
n% ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 one point of being dead before the wind our course 
 was now two points farther to windward. Nearly 
 every sea was breaking and we were making a con- 
 tinual succession of toboggan rides, the breaking seas 
 at times carrying us up the back of the sea ahead so 
 that we were actually travelling a little faster than the 
 waves themselves. This surf-riding soon became a 
 regular habit and I was forced to reef the mainsail 
 and mizzen lest the Yakaboo turn end for end. We 
 now slowed down to a more reasonable speed. 
 
 One might imagine that at a time like this I would 
 have little chance for observation and yet with my 
 senses alert to their highest efficiency there was very 
 every sea was breaking and we were making a con- 
 tinual circuit from the compass in my cockpit into the 
 belly of my mainsail, up the mast and down again to 
 the seas about me. Then they swung on a quick cir- 
 cuit through a hundred and eighty degrees from the 
 seas under our bows to the squalls astern, taking in 
 the skies on their return. 
 
 It was on this mind panorama that I saw more dis- 
 tinctly than at any other time the manner in which these 
 islands gather moisture from the trade clouds. For a 
 time after we had left Deshaies, Montserrat moped 
 mist-wrapped on the horizon. Then slowly the heat 
 of the morning sun prevailed and the island became 
 more and more definite in outline till it at last showed 
 clear and distinct — a volcano on the horizon. The 
 island is made up of two peaks but from my position 
 they were almost directly in line so that I saw only 
 the outline of the southernmost and larger, the 
 Soufriere. 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 273 
 
 The wind was then blowing lightly and the sky was 
 clear of clouds except in the east where they were ad- 
 vancing in droves with the wind before the sun. The 
 trade overtook us first and then came the clouds, fleecy 
 and bulging, like ships before the wind, each with a 
 squall under it. I watched a small cloud, one of the 
 first of the van, approach the peak with unslackened 
 speed till it lodged against the mountainside two thou- 
 sand feet above the sea, where it came to a full stop. 
 It seemed almost to recoil a bit. Then it slowly em- 
 braced the peak and more slowly began to draw away 
 again to the westward. When it was finally clear of 
 the island I saw that it had lost half its bulk. Mont- 
 serrat had taken her toll in mountain showers. 
 
 For a space the peak was again clear in outline, two 
 volcanic curves that came out of the sea to meet three 
 thousand feet above. Next a large stately cloud, a 
 ship of the line among the others, enveloped the peak 
 and came to a stop. There it hung and diminished in 
 size till it was reinforced by another cloud and for the 
 rest of my run the upper third of the island was hidden 
 in a cloud cap, which diminished and increased in vol- 
 ume like slow breathing. 
 
 The wind seemed to be continually freshening and 
 I found that although I had reduced my sail area by 
 nearly one-half, I was again catching up to the seas 
 ahead and tobogganning. I had moved the duffle in 
 my cockpit as far aft as I could and sat on the deck 
 with my back against the mizzen mast. Just above 
 my head I lashed my camera — the most precious part 
 of my outfit. At the first indication of broaching-to 
 I would take hold of the mast and force her over on 
 
274 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 her weather bilge till she was almost before the wind. 
 Then I would let her come up to her course and hold 
 her there till she took the bit in her teeth again when 
 I would have to pry her back as before. 
 
 My blood was up and I told her that she could turn 
 end for end if she wanted and tear the rig out before 
 I would take in any more sail. A bit of anger is a 
 great help at times. Another time, when I go canoe, 
 cruising on the sea, I shall carry a small square-sail 
 and a sea anchor that I can readily trip. In spite of 
 all my efforts it seemed that we should be forced to 
 weather of Montserrat and that I should have to run 
 off for a while to the southeast. But we were sailing 
 faster than I suspected and at last fetched up abreast 
 of the southern end of the island and about a quarter 
 of a mile off shore. Then I brought her into the wind 
 and hove-to with the reefed mizzen and let the wind 
 carry us into the calm water under the lee of the 
 island. 
 
 I looked at my watch and found that it was just 
 eleven-thirty. We had made our last long jump, the 
 most exciting of all our channel runs in the Caribbean. 
 We had covered thirty-five miles in five hours and ten 
 minutes. We had sailed thirty-three miles in four 
 hours and forty minutes — our average speed had been 
 a little more than seven miles an hour. For some time, 
 however, after I had made sail our speed was not much 
 more than five miles, and I believe that the last nine 
 miles had been covered in an hour, with fifty square 
 feet of sail up ! Except in a racing canoe I had never 
 sailed faster in a small craft than on this run. 
 
 The wind, eddying around the end of the island, was 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 275 
 
 carrying us directly along shore and I lowered my 
 mizzen while I ate my luncheon. It was pleasant to 
 drift along without thought of course and to watch 
 the shore go by at a three-mile gait. I had just settled 
 myself comfortably in the cockpit when I noticed a 
 native who had come down to the beach waving his 
 arms frantically. That we drifted as fast as he could 
 walk along shore was good evidence that the wind was 
 blowing strongly. I learned afterwards that he thought 
 me to be the sole survivor of a fishing boat that had 
 been lost a week before from Nevis. She was never 
 heard from. After I landed at Plymouth I was told 
 that a sloop had been dismasted that morning in the 
 roadstead. 
 
 At the time it was a genuine source of satisfaction, 
 not that I was happy in the ill luck of the sloop, but 
 I regarded this as proof of the sturdy qualities of the 
 Yakaboo. One must, however, always be fair in such 
 matters and it is only right for me to say that after 
 further acquaintance with the sloops of the Lesser 
 Antilles it is a marvel to me that they stand up as well 
 as they do. The credit does not rest with the Yakaboo 
 but rather with the freak luck of the West Indian 
 skipper. God, it seems, has greater patience with these 
 fellows than with any other people who have to do 
 with the sea — I have purposely avoided calling the 
 natives of the Lesser Antilles sailormen. 
 
 There was not much in Montserrat for me. Thirty 
 miles to the northwest lay Nevis and St. Kitts — step- 
 ping stones to St. Eustatius and Saba. A nearer in- 
 vitation than these was Redonda, a rounded rock like 
 Diamond off Martinique which rose almost sheer to a 
 
276 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 height of a thousand feet out of deep water with no 
 contiguous shoals, a detached peak like those of the 
 Grenadines — a lone blot with Montserrat the nearest 
 land, eight miles away. On the ioth of November in 
 1493 Columbus coasted along Guadeloupe and discov- 
 ered Monserratte, which he named after the mountain 
 in Spain where Ignatius Loyola conceived the project of 
 founding the Society of Jesus. "Next," says Barbot, 
 "he found a very round island, every way perpendicu- 
 lar so that there seemed to be no getting up into it with- 
 out ladders, and therefore he called it Santa Maria la 
 Redonda." The Indian name was Ocamaniro. 
 
 It was on the morning, when I was loading the 
 Yakaboo for the run to Redonda, that I came as near 
 as at any time to having a passenger. As I was stow- 
 ing my duffle, there was the usual circumcurious audi- 
 ence, beach loafers mostly, with a transient friend or 
 two who had come down early to see me off. The fore- 
 hatch was still open when the parting of the crowd pro- 
 claimed the coming of a person of superior will, not 
 unaccompanied by a height of figure, six feet two — 
 strong and raw-boned, the masculine negress of the 
 English islands. She carried a large bottle of honey 
 and a jar of preserved fruits. 
 
 "My name is Rebecca Cooper," she said by way of 
 introduction, "an' I cum to ask if you take a passenger 
 to Nevis wid you." 
 
 I looked at the cockpit of the Yakaboo and at her 
 tall figure. 
 
 "Oh, me seafarin' woman, me no 'fraid. Oh, yas, I 
 been Trinidad — been aal 'roun' !" 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 277 
 
 "I'm sorry," I said, "if you're to be the passenger 
 the skipper will have to stay ashore." 
 
 "Das too bad. Annyway I bring you a bottle of 
 honey an' some Jamaica plums an' cashews." 
 
 I stowed the bottle and the jar in exchange for which 
 she very reluctantly took a shilling. She lived some- 
 where up in the hills and having heard fantastic tales 
 of the Yakaboo she had come down to see the canoe 
 and its skipper with her offering of mountain honey 
 and preserves. It was unselfish kindness on her part 
 and she only took the shilling that she might buy u some 
 little thing" by which to remember me. There are 
 many like these in the islands, but they are scarcely 
 known to the tourist — sad to relate. 
 
 While Rebecca Cooper was silently examining the 
 (inoe, I took out the clearance paper which the Col- 
 i lector oi Customs had given me the day before. It 
 read as follows: 
 
 MONTSERRAT 
 
 Port of PLYMOUTH. 
 THESE are to certify all whom it doth concern, 
 that F. A. Fenger 
 
 master or commander of the Yakaboo 
 
 burthen % tons, mounted with 
 
 guns, navigated with men 
 
 Am. built and bound for Nevis 
 
 having on board 
 
 Ballast 
 
 & . 
 
 Captain 
 
 hath here entered and cleared his vessel according to 
 
 law. Given under my hand at the Treasury, at the 
 
 Port of Plymouth, in the Presidency of Montserrat, 
 
278 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 this 18th day of May, one thousand nine hun- 
 dred and eleven. 
 
 EDWARD F.DYETT, 
 
 ist Treasury Officer. 
 
 It was the "Ballast and Captain" that made me 
 think. My outfit — not perfect as yet, but still the apple 
 of my eye — was put down as "Ballast" and to add 
 ignominy to slight I was put down under that as "Cap- 
 tain." I dislike very much this honorary frill — Cap- 
 tain — it is worse than "Colonel." 
 
 The wind was light from the southeast and we — the 
 Yakaboo and I, for we left Rebecca on the beach with 
 the crowd — slipped off with eased sheets at a gentle 
 gait of three miles an hour. 
 
 The early settlers of Montserrat and Nevis were 
 largely Irish. Strange to say, among the first Euro- 
 peans to see the West Indies were an Englishman, 
 Arthur Laws or Larkins, and an Irishman, William 
 Harris of Galway, who sailed with Columbus. We 
 are inclined to think that the crews of the Admiral's 
 fleet were made up wholly of swarthy Portuguese, 
 Spaniards, and Italians. Churchill, in speaking of 
 Redonda, says that most of the inhabitants were Irish 
 — but what they could find for existence on this almost 
 barren rock with its difficult ascent it is hard to under- 
 stand. It is true that Redonda proved to have a con- 
 siderable commercial value, but not till 1865 when it 
 was found that the rock bore a rich covering of phos- 
 phate of alumina. The rock is now nearly exhausted 
 of its rich deposit, but I was told in Montserrat that I 
 should find a crew of negroes in charge of the com- 
 pany's buildings. 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 279 
 
 One must always take the words of early explorers 
 — as well as modern ones — with a grain of salt in 
 regard to the wonders of nature, but when Barbot 
 called Redonda a "very round island, every way per- 
 pendicular so that there seemed to be no getting up 
 into it without ladders," he did not exaggerate. When 
 I lowered the sails of the Yakaboo under the lee of 
 Redonda, I saw that the sides of the rock rose sheer 
 out of the water like the Pitons of Saint Lucia, except 
 for one place where a submerged ledge supported a 
 few tons of broken rock which had tumbled down from 
 the heights above. This could hardly be called a 
 beach and it was no landing place for a boat. 
 
 Built up from this ledge of debris was a concrete 
 pier which stood some ten feet above the water and 
 was surmounted by a wooden cargo boom. Anchored 
 in the rock near the pier was a steel cable that ran up 
 like the thread of a gigantic spider to a point some 
 four hundred feet above, where I made out a sort of 
 staging. I rowed close to shore and shouted, but there 
 was no answer. Then, thinking that I was too far 
 under the cliff, I rowed off a bit and began to fire my 
 thirty-eight-forty. A voice from somewhere up there 
 shouted down to me but what it said I could not under- 
 stand. I located two figures busy on the staging and 
 presently a miner's bucket began to slowly slide down 
 the cable. There was something novel in this; sailing 
 up to an immense rock in the sea, firing off a revolver 
 as a signal to natives I had never seen before, and 
 having a bucket lowered for me from a height of four 
 hundred feet. 
 
 While I was watching the descending bucket a boat 
 
280 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 with four men in it came from around the end of thfe 
 rock. The sea being smooth they were fishing on the 
 weather side of Redonda and when they saw me they 
 came post haste for they had been expecting me. They 
 rowed alongside and I put aboard the duffle I should 
 require for the night. Then we fastened the painter 
 of the Yakaboo to a large mooring buoy used by steam- 
 ers when taking on their cargo from lighters towed 
 up from Montserrat when the occasion requires. I 
 very carefully examined the buoy with its seven-eighths 
 chain and asked the men if it would hold the canoe in 
 case of a blow. 
 
 "Shur ! an' it's th' same moorm' we use f er th' oilan' 
 whin a hurricane is blowinV said one with a brogue as 
 broad as any just over from the Isle. The speaker 
 was Frederick Payne, as pleasant a native as I had 
 found in the islands, who if you put him in another 
 room and heard him talk you would wager the soul 
 of your maternal grandmother against a thrupenny bit 
 was no other than a red-whiskered Irishman. 
 
 The canoe made fast, we rowed ashore and clamb- 
 ered up the iron ladder on the face of the pier. The 
 boom was swung out, tackle lowered and the boat 
 hoisted inboard like a piece of cargo. The bucket, 
 which had come down with a load of phosphate, we 
 emptied and climbed aboard for our aerial ride. The 
 winch was started and we were slowly hauled up the 
 cable which follows a ravine-like cleft in the rock. On 
 either side was a scanty growth of scrub brush and 
 cactus which seemed to grow for the sole purpose of 
 giving perches to the noddies and gulls that eyed us 
 
THE CAPSTAN 
 
 THE BUCKET 
 
c e i c 
 
 c « c <■ ' 
 
 * t • ••» 1 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 281 
 
 from a fathom's length or two with the all-seeing idle 
 curiosity of a cash girl of a dull afternoon. 
 
 Little by little the Yakaboo diminished in size till 
 she looked like the weak dash of an exclamation point 
 with the buoy for an overgrown period. The sea was 
 sinking away from us. I took out my barometer and 
 we watched the needle while it swung from "Fair" to 
 "Change." Finally the needle stopped and we were 
 hauled on the staging by the two sweating natives who 
 had wound us up. By an easy path, we climbed three 
 hundred feet more to the company's buildings. 
 
 What an eagle's nest from which to look down upon 
 a world of sea! Montserrat was a near neighbour, 
 high Nevis not much farther off brought out of the 
 place queer thoughts of school days when Hamilton 
 was a mere bewigged effigy on the glossy page of a 
 history book. What right had he to be born down 
 here in the Caribbean? There was Antigua to wind- 
 ward of the arc of our cruise; what right had she and 
 Nevis to know Nelson whom our young minds in- 
 ferred spent his entire life at Trafalgar and the battle 
 of the Nile? Edging out from the weather shoulder 
 of Montserrat lay Guadeloupe in a shroud of mist as 
 though keeping to herself some ferment of a modern 
 Victor Hugues. But the redundant thought was al- 
 ways of the riches that have been in these islands and 
 the extraordinary selfishness and sordidness that have 
 been the motives of nearly every act since the discovery 
 of the West Indies by Columbus. 
 
 We were too high for the glare of the sea and I 
 wandered about through the whole delightful after- 
 noon on the top of the rock to descend at sunset to the 
 
282 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 enclosed verandah of the manager's house where I 
 satisfied a righteous appetite with a roasted chicken of 
 Ethiopian-Irish up-bringing. 
 
 In the morning I was lowered from this giant's 
 stepping stone and was once more cockpit sailing, in a 
 light breeze, for Nevis. Except for the distant sight 
 of a goodly "gyaff topsail" on the first day when I 
 skirted the Grenada shores, I had seen no indications 
 of large sharks. What had at first been a haunting 
 bugaboo had now become a forgotten possibility. We 
 were approaching the banks which lie to the southward 
 of Nevis and I sat on my blanket bag, bent up behind 
 me like a cushioned easy-chair with a lazy-back. 
 
 There was just enough breeze to allow me to lean 
 with my elbow on the weather deck. Sharks were as 
 far removed from my thoughts as the discussion of the 
 Immaculate Conception — I believe I was actually de- 
 ciding that my first venture upon escaping the clutches 
 of the chosen few who guard our national customs 
 would be a large dish of ice cream which I would eat 
 so rapidly that it would chill the top of my head and 
 drive from it forever the memory of the calms of 
 Dominica and Guadeloupe. My mind was fondling 
 this chilly thought when suddenly the flash of a yard 
 of rainbow under my bows announced the arrival of a 
 Dauphin, or, as they called them in the days of Labat, 
 a Cock Dorade. By the shape of its square-nosed head 
 I could see that it was the male of the species. I have 
 often wondered whether this was not the dolphin of 
 the dying colours — it surpasses even the bonito in the 
 marvellous changes in its hues when expiring. 
 
 These fish are common near the northern coast of 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 283 
 
 Martinique. Pere Labat says that in order to catch 
 the dorade without bait one must troll with a fly made 
 of two pigeon feathers on each side of a hook and 
 smeared with dog grease. I watched him leisurely cruise 
 for a while back and forth under the bow when sudden- 
 ly there was a mighty swirl under the nose of the canoe 
 and I saw the greyish white torpedo form of a huge 
 shark heave after him. The dauphin was not to be 
 caught unawares — the Lord knows how long Mr. 
 Shark had been watching him from under the shadow 
 of the Yakaboo — and the pair tore away through the 
 sea, the shark a lagging second. After a hopeless dash 
 the shark gave up the chase. 
 
 I watched the dorsal fin make a wide circle to wind- 
 ward and then coming up from astern he settled down 
 for a comfortable loaf under the canoe where he could 
 again lie in wait for a careless dauphin that might hap- 
 pen along. I leaned o/er and watched him as he hung, 
 indolently, just to leeward of the tip of my centerboard. 
 Fie seemed almost as long as the Yakaboo — once when 
 he drifted a little off-side, I got his measure, his length 
 reaching from the forward point of the canoe's shadow 
 to the upright line of the mizzen; by this he must have 
 been a little over twelve feet in length. If he were not 
 as "big 'roun' as a barril" he certainly would have been 
 a good armful had I jumped overboard to embrace 
 him, — but I had no such intention. He must have been 
 too slow and ponderous to feed on such swift fish as 
 the dauphin unless he caught one by surprise as he had 
 tried to get this one from the shadow of the canoe. 
 
 No wonder these fellows become desperate at times 
 and go in packs like hungry wolves to some whale pas- 
 
284 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 turage where they can drag down their cattle by sheer 
 force of numbers after the manner of their land rela- 
 tions. I had no reason to believe he would trouble me 
 unless I was foolish enough to throw something over- 
 board or otherwise attract his attention by leaning too 
 far out to look at him. A sly peak over the edge of 
 the gunwale was enough and I made that with my 
 arsenal ready. What he thought this could be sailing 
 so slowly above him with a belly like a fish and a fin 
 that did not scull and two white wings sticking up into 
 the air from its back, I don't know, for I am as yet 
 unfamiliar with the working of a shark's mind. Had 
 he known there was a tasty scrap (pardon this subtle 
 bit of self-flattery) only three feet away should he 
 choose to butt that stiff fin, his actions might have been 
 different. 
 
 I watched his wicked pig eyes but he did not seem to 
 look up or take notice of the canoe. He merely hung 
 there in its shadow, an almost imperceptible flexation 
 of his body and a sculling of his tail being sufficient to 
 move him along at three knots an hour. We were 
 scarcely two miles from Redonda when he had come 
 back from his dash after the dauphin and from that 
 time for over ten miles, till we were well within the 
 Nevis bank, he hardly varied his position a foot. I 
 have somehow or other always associated the presence 
 of sharks with calm weather and oily seas. The story 
 books always have it so. In the West Indies the shark 
 is more in evidence during the calms of the hurricane 
 months than at any other time. On this account the 
 French call him requien which is a corruption of 
 requiem, Rocheford says, "Les Frangois & les Portu- 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 285 
 
 gais luy donnent ordinairement ce nom de Requiem, 
 c'est a dire Repose, peutetre par ce qu'il a accoutume 
 de paroitre lors que le terns est serain & tranquille 
 . . ." (The French and the Portuguese usually call it 
 Requiem, that is to say Repose, perhaps because it 
 usually appears when the weather is serene and tran- 
 quil.) At last he slipped away, a gruesome shape, to 
 cruise about ghostlike on the shoals. I almost felt 
 lonely after his departure — his absence was like that of 
 a sore tooth which has been pulled out. 
 
 The shark took with him what little wind there was 
 and I rowed around the corner of Nevis to its port of 
 entry, Charlestown. Nevis runs up into a single peak, 
 the lower slopes sweeping down to the sea like a train 
 checkered with sugar-cane plantations. * The island 
 seems more wind-swept than Montserrat ; it has a fresh 
 atmosphere quite different from all the rest of the 
 Lesser Antilles — still it is one of the oldest and was 
 settled in 1608 by Englishmen from St. Kitts. To me 
 there is a singular fascination in going ashore in a 
 place like this and coming upon some old connection 
 with the history of our own republic. I had pur- 
 posely loafed on my way from Redonda so that I could 
 land in the cooler part of the afternoon. As soon as 
 I had shown my papers to the harbour-master, he said, 
 u Can I do anything for you?" 
 
 "Yes. Show me the birthplace of Alexander Hamil- 
 ton." It was like asking for the village post-office in 
 some New England seacoast town. A walk of two 
 minutes along the main road brought us to the place 
 where I took a photograph of a few ruined walls. 
 Here I could gape and wonder like any passing tourist 
 
286 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 and reap what I could from my own imagination. They 
 tell me that a famous writer of historical romance once 
 spent a day here to absorb a "touch of local colour." 
 An admirable book and written in a style which will 
 bring a bit of history to many who would otherwise be 
 more ignorant of the heroes of our young Republic. 
 It is history with a sugar coating but the "touch," I am 
 afraid, is like that artificial colouring which the tobac- 
 conist gives to a meerschaum that is to become a pet. 
 In all these islands there is no end of "atmosphere" to 
 be easily gotten, but what of the innermost history of 
 these places? 
 
 Nevis has always been a land of sugar, open coun- 
 try and fertile and in its time wondrously rich — the 
 ruins of olcf estates like that of the Hamiltons show 
 that — and in secluded places such as the little village 
 of Newcastle on the windward side with its top bay, 
 extremely picturesque. But in these places one must 
 of necessity scratch around a bit and get under the top 
 soil of things. What about the camels that were 
 brought here from the East to carry cane to the mills? 
 Who brought them here and when? Did the young 
 Alexander know the sleepy-eyed, soft-footed beasts? 
 There were one or two on the island as late as 1875 
 and I talked with a lady who as a small child used to 
 be frightened at their groanings as they rose, toggle- 
 jointed, from the roadway beneath her window. To 
 learn the intimate history of these islands one must first 
 visit them for acquaintance sake and then go to Europe 
 and dig up stray bits from letters and manuscripts sent 
 from the islands to the old country. Of papers and 
 correspondence there is very little to be found here 
 
WE MAKE OUR BEST RUN 287 
 
 and it is at the other end of the old trade routes that 
 one must search. 
 
 I left Nevis on a hot calm Sunday morning for Basse 
 Terre, the port of St. Kitts. The row was twelve miles 
 and the calm hotter than that of Guadeloupe. There 
 was no perceptible breeze, just a slow movement of 
 air from the northeast — not enough to be felt — a slug- 
 gish current that stranded a ponderous cloud on the 
 peak of Monkey Hill, its head leaning far out over the 
 Caribbean where I rowed into its shadow. When I 
 was still half a mile from the town I stood up in the 
 cockpit and took off my clothes. After I was thor- 
 oughly cooled I enjoyed a shower bath by the simple 
 expedient of holding one of my water cans over my 
 head and letting the water pour down over my body. 
 Then I put on my "extra" clothes. They were extra 
 in that they were clean. The shirt was still a shirt, 
 for there is no alternate name for that which had de- 
 generated into a mere covering for one's upper half, 
 but the trousers were pants. They were clean; I had 
 done it myself on the deck of the Yakaboo. Some day 
 when I build another canoe I shall corrugate a part of 
 the forward deck so that I can cling the better to it 
 when I am trying to get into the hatch in a seaway and 
 also so that I can use it as a rubbing board when there 
 lis washing to be done. 
 
 The shade of this cloud was something extraordi- 
 nary. At first I thought there would be a heavy down- 
 pour of rain but the air was too inert and the cloud 
 hung undecided like most other things West Indian. 
 | For the first time in four months I could take off my 
 hat in the daytime ! I enioyed this shade while I could 
 
288 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 and I ate my luncheon, the canoe drifting slowly north- 
 ward on the tide. It was just the time and the place 
 for another shark and I thought of my friend of the 
 Nevis bank. I saw no fish and threw out no invita- 
 tions and when I had had my fill I rowed into Basse 
 Terre where I was received by the fourth unofiicious 
 harbour-master I had yet encountered. 
 
 But we shall not be long in St. Kitts, or Sinkitts 
 as the authoress puts it by way of a little impressionist 
 dab of "colour." I found some interesting old news- 
 papers in the cool library of Basse Terre where I spent 
 several days reading the English version of the war of 
 1 8 12. "Now!" I promised myself , "I shall see some- 
 thing of the island to which the Admiral gave his own 
 name." But promises on a cruise like this, however, 
 are not worth the wasting of a thought upon. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 STATIA — THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 
 
 DON'T waste your time hare/' he said in the 
 swinging dialect of the northern islands, "you 
 will be among your own at Statia and Saba." I had 
 met this Saba man on the jetty, Captain "Ben" Hassel 
 of a tidy little schooner, ex-Gloucester, and he told me 
 of the Dutch islands and their people. He was my 
 first breath of Saba and my nostrils smelt something 
 new. 
 
 Saba had been a love at first sight for I had already 
 seen her at a distance from the deck of the steamer 
 as we had passed southwards in January. The Christ- 
 mas gale which had chased us down from Hatteras 
 passed us on to that more frolicsome imp of Boreas, 
 the squally trade on a "chyange ob de moon" day. It 
 was the same Captain Ben's schooner that I had 
 watched running down for the island under foresail. 
 Through the long ship's telescope I had made out the 
 cluster of white houses of the Windward Village, 
 plastered like cassava cakes on the wall of a house, but 
 as I came to know later, nestled in a shallow bowl that 
 tipped towards the Atlantic. Although we were within 
 the tropics, it blew down cold and blustering with an 
 overcast sky more like the Baltic than the Caribbean. 
 I did not then know how I should come to long for just 
 
 289 
 
290 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 such an overcast sky to shut off for a few hours that 
 blazing ball of fire known to us of the North as the 
 smiling sun. His smile had turned into a sardonic 
 grin. As Saba began to grow indistinct, the sharper 
 outlines of Statia had brought me to the opposite rail 
 and with hungry eyes I swept the shores which were all 
 but hidden by the obstinate rain squall that had come 
 down from the hills and was hanging over the cliffs 
 of the Upper Town as if to rest awhile before start- 
 ing on its weepy way westward to vanish later in the 
 blazing calm of the Caribbean. 
 
 And that is why you shall hear nothing of St. Kitts 
 for the day after I spoke with Captain Ben, I was 
 again in the Yakaboo. The offshore wind that helped 
 us up the lee of St. Kitts carried with it the sweet 
 rummy odour of sugar-cane that kept my thoughts back 
 in the old days. Then, as we were well up the coast, 
 there came another odour, a mere elusive whiff of sul- 
 phur, that went again leaving a doubt as to whether it 
 were real, and my thoughts were switched to the for- 
 midable Brimstone Hill,, now towering above us in- 
 shore, shot some seven hundred feet out of the slope 
 of Mount Misery by a volcanic action which had all 
 but lacked the strength to blow the projectile clear of 
 the land. It was the beginning of a new volcano, but 
 the action had stopped with the forcing up of the mass 
 of rock which now forms Brimstone Hill. On the top 
 of the rock is Fort George, one of the most fascinating 
 masses of semi-ruin I have ever seen. With the atmos- 
 phere of the place still clinging to me I had read 
 Colonel Stuart's "Reminiscences of a Soldier." He had 
 spoken of Bedlam Barracks through which I had 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 291 
 
 just been wandering, in his first letter to England. 
 "Bedlam Barracks, Brimstone Hill, Mount Misery," 
 he said, "are not the most taking of cognomens, but 
 what's in a name?" 
 
 Until recent years there stood on Brimstone Hill 
 the famous bronze cannon which bore the inscription : 
 
 "Ram me well and load me tight, 
 I'll send a ball to Statia's Height." 
 
 The wind freshened and St. Kitts with its Mount 
 Misery and Brimstone Hill was rapidly slipping by as 
 I passed into the shoal channel where "Old Statia" 
 stood up seven miles away. The channel was "easy" 
 on this day and I could give myself up to that altogether 
 delightful contemplation of the approaching island. 
 Characteristic from the east and west in her similarity 
 to the two-peaked back of a dromedary, Statia is more 
 striking when approached from the south where the 
 Atlantic on its way to the Caribbean has cut into the 
 slope of the "Quille," exposing the chalky cliff known 
 as the White Wall. Blue, snow-shadowed, the White 
 Wall gives an impression of freshness that seemed to 
 belie the weathered battery which I could begin to 
 make out at its western end. Here, during the calms 
 of the hurricane season, the sperm whale comes to rub 
 his belly and flukes against the foot of the cliff where 
 it descends into the blue waters of the channel, to 
 scour away a year's growth of barnacles. 
 
 Farther to the westward, de Windt's battery took 
 form, while a thatched negro hut or two on the lower 
 slopes of the "Quille" were the only evidence of human 
 
292 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 habitation. Behind it all, the perfect crater of the 
 "Quille" rose, covered with an almost impenetrable 
 tropic verdure which had flowed up the sides and 
 poured into the bowl as the rain, from the time of the 
 last eruption, had changed the volcanic dust into a 
 moist earth of almost pre-glacial fecundity. 
 
 We had hardly passed mid-channel, it seemed, when 
 the wind, eddying around the south end of the island, 
 swept the canoe with lifted sheets past the corner of 
 Gallows Bay, and I found myself bobbing up and down 
 in the swell off the Lower Town of Oranje. As I 
 lowered my rig and made snug, I could see below me, 
 through the clear waters, what had once been a busy 
 quay. The long ground swell dropping away from 
 under threatened to wreck the centerboard of the Yaka- 
 boo on the ruined wall of a warehouse that had once 
 helped to determine the success of the American col- 
 onies. On shore, an excited group of negro fishermen 
 had gathered from the shadows of the broken walls to 
 join the harbour-master who had lumbered from his 
 hot kantoor (office) to the still hotter sands, in shirt 
 and trousers — and not without an oath. 
 
 "Watch de sea !" he yelled as half a dozen negroes 
 waded in up to their waists. 
 
 "Look shyarp! — now!" and I ran the surf, drop- 
 ping overboard into the soapy foam while the canoe 
 continued on her course riding the shoulders of the 
 natives to a safe harbour in the custom house. 
 
 "Oi see you floy de Yonkee flag," he said in greeting 
 as I came dripping ashore, more like a shipwrecked 
 sailor than a traveller in out-of-way places. 
 
 u Yes. My papers are in the canoe." 
 
THE OLD GUNS AT FORT ORANJE, ST. EUSTATIUS. THE DATE 
 1780 MAY BE SEEN ON THE TRUNNION OF THE NEAREST GUN. 
 
 THE TOMB OF ADMIRAL KRULL. 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 293 
 
 "No hurry," he returned, "the first thing we do here 
 is to have a glass of rum — it is good in the tropics." 
 
 And so I was welcomed to Statia, in the same open 
 manner that the Dutch had welcomed and traded for 
 centuries, and by the last of a long line of them — one 
 of the old de Geneste family. 
 
 While we were drinking our rum, the harbour-master 
 seemed to suddenly remember something. Pulling me 
 to the window, he pointed up to the ramparts of Fort 
 Oranje hanging over us. 
 
 "You know de story of de salute? — No? — Well, I'll 
 carry you to de Gesaghebber (governor) an' to de 
 Fort an' we'll find de Doctor — he can tell you better 
 than I — but you can't go this way." 
 
 Nor could I, for I had no coat but the heavy dog- 
 skin sea jacket, chewed and salt begrimed and alto- 
 gether too hot for the oven-heat on shore. My shirt 
 of thin flannel, once a light cream colour, was now 
 greased from whale oil and smoke stained from many 
 a fire of rain-soaked wood. A hole in the back ex- 
 posed a dark patch of skin, burned and reburned by 
 the sun. My trousers were worn thin throughout their 
 most vital area, the legs hanging like sections of stove 
 pipe, stiff and shrunken well above my ankles with lines 
 of rime showing where the last seas had swept and left 
 their high water mark. My feet were bare, tanned to 
 a deep coffee from continual exposure to the sun in the 
 cockpit. 
 
 The third article of my attire and the most re* 
 spectable was my felt hat, stiff as to brim from the 
 pelting of salt spray and misshapen as to crown from 
 the constant presence of wet leaves and handkerchiefs 
 
294 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 inside. The world may ridicule one's clothing and 
 figure, but one's hat and dog had best be left alone. 
 Still I cannot say that I was ill at ease or embarrassed 
 for I was entirely in keeping with my surroundings. 
 Marse James' office was neat and clean to be sure, but 
 outside, up and down the beach there was nothing but 
 ruin and heart-sinking neglect. 
 
 A razor, honed on the light pith of the cabbage palm, 
 and a tin basin of fresh water contributed largely to 
 the transformation which followed. Shoes and stock- 
 ings from the hold of the canoe added their touch of 
 respectability. It is remarkable what an elevating ef- 
 fect is produced by a mere quarter of an inch of sole 
 leather. A neat blue coat and trousers borrowed from 
 the harbour-master changed this cannibal attire to that 
 of civilisation. True, there was some discrepancy be- 
 tween our respective waist measures, but this was taken 
 care of by a judicious reef in the rear and since it is 
 hardly polite to turn one's back on a governor there 
 would be nothing to offend this august official. With 
 the coat buttoned close under my chin so as to show the 
 edge of a standing military collar there would be noth- 
 ing to betray the absence of white linen beneath. 
 
 They say that once upon a time the dignity of the 
 Gesaghebber, whose authority extends over an area of 
 scarcely eight square miles, was sorely tried by one of 
 his own countrymen. An eminent scientist who came 
 to investigate the geologic formation of the island, 
 landed with much pomp and circumstance, wearing a 
 frock coat and a silk hat. His degeneracy, however, 
 was as the downward course of a toboggan, for only 
 a few weeks later, upon his departure, he dropped in 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 295 
 
 to bid the governor good-bye, attired in pajamas, slip- 
 pers and a straw hat and smoking a long pipe that 
 rested on the comfortable rotundity which was all the 
 more accentuated by his thin attire. 
 
 I combed my hair and with my papers stuffed in my 
 pockets set out to climb the famous Bay Path with the 
 puffing de Geneste. 
 
 Built against the cliff which it mounts to the plateau 
 above in a zigzag of two flights, the Bay Path belies 
 its name. It is in fact a substantial cobbled roadway 
 with massive retaining walls run up to a bulwark breast 
 high to keep the skidding gun carriages of the early 
 days from falling upon the houses below. That it had 
 been built to stand for all time was evident, but even 
 as I climbed it for the first time I could see that its 
 years were numbered. The insidious trickling of wa- 
 ter from tropical rains had been eating the soft earth 
 away from its foundations and making the work easy 
 for the roaring cloud bursts which take their toll from 
 the Upper Town. The bulwarks that had comforted 
 the unsteady steps of the belated burgher were now 
 broken out in places and as we passed under the Do- 
 minican Mission the harbour-master drew my attention 
 to the work of the last cloud-burst which had bared 
 the cliff to its very base. There was no busy stream of 
 life up and down the wide roadway. As we stumbled 
 up the uneven cobblestones we passed a lone negress 
 shuffling silently in the shade of a huge bundle of 
 clothes balanced on her head, down to the brackish 
 pool where the washing of the town is done. Her 
 passing only emphasised the forlorn loneliness of the 
 hot middle day. We gained the streets of the Upper 
 
296 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 Town where the change from the simmering heat of 
 the beach to the cool breezes of the plateau was like 
 plunging into the cool catacombs from the July heat 
 of Rome. 
 
 The Gesaghebber was still enjoying his siesta, we 
 were informed by the negress who came to the door. 
 In the crook of her arm she carried a sweating water- 
 monkey from St. Martin's. She had addressed the har- 
 bour-master, but when she noticed that it was a stranger 
 who stood by his side she dropped the monkey which 
 broke on the flagging, trickling its cool water around 
 our feet. 
 
 u O Lard — who de mon?" she gasped. 
 
 "Him de mon in de boat," de Geneste mimicked — 
 for as such I had come to be known in the islands. 
 
 Leaving the servant to stare after us, we retraced 
 our steps to the fort which we had passed at the head 
 of the Bay Path. Saluting the shrunken Dutch sentry 
 who stepped out from the shadow of the Port, we 
 crossed over the little bridge which spans the shal- 
 low ditch and passed through to the "place d'armes" 
 of Fort Oranje. 
 
 Forming the two seaward sides of an irregular quad- 
 rangle was the rampart, its guns with their hooded 
 breeches pointing valiantly out over the roadstead and 
 sweeping the approaches of the Bay Path. In the 
 angle where the rampart turns back toward the town, 
 stood the flagstaff, with topmast and cross trees, and 
 stayed like a sloop, from which the red, white, and 
 blue flag of Holland flapped in the trade wind. From 
 just such a staff, held in that stepping before me, the 
 flag of Holland had been the first of a foreign power 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 297 
 
 to dip. in honour of the ensign of the infant navy of our 
 Continental Congress. From this very rampart the 
 first foreign salute had been delivered to our naval flag 
 one hundred and thirty-five years before. Whether 
 you will or not you must have a small bit of the history 
 of Statia. 
 
 From her earliest days Statia belonged to the Dutch, 
 who, before the British, were masters of the sea and 
 for long years were supreme in maritime commerce. 
 They have always been sailors as you shall see. The 
 policy of the Dutch has always been for free trade and 
 by this they became rich in the West Indies. Oranje- 
 town, on the lee side of the island, half on the cliff, 
 half on the beach, Upper and Lower Town as it was 
 called, with its open roadstead where at times two hun- 
 dred trading vessels have lain at anchor, possessed no 
 advantages except those of free trade. Statia became 
 a port of call. When our thirteen colonies broke away 
 from the mother country the old Dutch Republic sym- 
 pathised with the young one and the Dutch made 
 money in the commerce that followed. When the 
 struggle for independence broke out Statia was one 
 channel through which the colonies procured munitions 
 of war. Every nation has its blackguards and it seems 
 that English traders at Statia actually supplied to the 
 American colonists powder and cannon balls which were 
 made in England and sent to them in Statia. This 
 Rodney knew and he had for a long time kept a hungry 
 eye on the rich stores of Oranjetown. If he ever took 
 Statia his fortunes would be recouped and — perhaps 
 Marshall Biron knew this when he paid the debts of 
 the old fighting roue and sent him back to London. It 
 
298 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 was on account of these English merchants — "vipers" 
 Rodney calls them — that upon returning to the West 
 Indies one of his first acts was to loot Statia. His 
 most plausible excuse, however, was because here at 
 Fort Oranje, on the cliff above the bay, the first foreign 
 recognition was made of our naval flag. You shall 
 have the story "just now," as they say in the islands. 
 
 It was on the 16th of November, 1776, that the brig 
 Andrea Doria, fourteen guns, third of our infant navy 
 of five vessels, under the command of Josiah Robin- 
 son, sailed into the open roadstead of St. Eustatius and 
 dropped anchor almost under the guns of Fort Oranje. 
 She. could have borne no more fitting name than that 
 of the famous townsman of Columbus, who, after driv- 
 ing the French out of his own country in 1528, founded 
 the republic of Genoa and with the true spirit of de- 
 mocracy, refused the highest office of the grateful gov- 
 ernment which he had established. The Andrea Doria 
 may have attracted but little attention as she appeared 
 in the offing, for in those days the two miles of road- 
 stead from Gallows Bay to Interloper's Point were 
 often filled with ships. But with the quick eyes of sea- 
 farers the guests of Howard's Tavern had probably, 
 even as she was picking out her berth, left their rum for 
 the moment to have their first glimpse of a strange 
 flag which they all knew must be that of the new re- 
 public. 
 
 Abraham Ravene, commandant of the fort, lowered 
 the red, white, and blue flag of Holland in recognition 
 of the American ship. In return, the Andrea Doria 
 fired a salute. This put the commandant in a quan- 
 dary. Anchored not far from the Andrea Doria, was 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 299 
 
 a British ship. The enmity of the British for Holland 
 and especially against Statia was no secret. In order 
 to shift the responsibility, Ravene went to consult Jo- 
 hannes de Graeff, the governor, who was at that time 
 living in the hills at Concordia, his country seat. De 
 Graeff had already seen the Andrea Doria, for Ravene 
 met him in the streets of the Upper Town. A clever 
 lawyer and a keen business man, the governor had al- 
 ready made up his mind when Ravene spoke. "Two 
 guns less than the national salute," was the order. And 
 so we were for the first time recognised as a nation by 
 this salute of eleven guns. For this act, de Graeff was 
 subsequently recalled to Holland, but he was rein- 
 stated as Governor of Statia and held that position 
 when the island was taken by Rodney in 1781. The 
 Dutch made no apology to England. Two years after 
 this salute of '76, John Paul Jones was not served so 
 well at Quiberon, for the French gave him only nine 
 guns, the number at that time accorded to republics. 
 This, of Statia, may well stand as our first naval salute. 
 Near the flag stepping was a bronze sun-dial 
 mounted on a base of carved stone, its creeping shadow 
 marking off the long listless days of the stagnant island 
 as it had measured the too short hours of the busy 
 port. It was like the tick of a colonial clock in the 
 abode of the spinster remnant of a once powerful fam- 
 ily. As I stood on the edge of the rampart and looked 
 down on what was left of the Lower Town, it was hard 
 to realise that the ruined walls below us had once held 
 fortunes in merchandise and that in the empty Road 
 before me had ridden ships captained by the same hard 
 shrewd Yankee skippers that we still know on our own 
 
300 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 coast — skippers as familiar with the bay and the rum 
 shops of Oranjetown as their own neat little gardens 
 at home. 
 
 Forming the two inshore sides of the quadrangle 
 was a row of one-storied buildings, pierced near one 
 end by the vaulted Port through which we had entered. 
 The largest of these, a few steps above the southern 
 end of the rampart, was built of stone. Here in the 
 very room that Ravene had used as Commandant of 
 the island, I gave my papers to the present officer. 
 He was a new arrival from the Old Country and as 
 yet knew no other language than the crackling speech 
 of Holland. As he took the papers, he stepped to the 
 window and his superior smile vanished when he saw 
 that there was no boat lying in the Road. Mars^ 
 James came to my rescue in the unintelligible fusillade 
 that followed. While the harbour-master unsnarled the 
 tangle of red tape, I improved the opportunity to look 
 about me. In his report of the military defences of 
 the island in 1778, Ravene describes the building as a 
 stone structure having two rooms; the first a sort of 
 council chamber and the second a gun room. The lat- 
 ter still contained the old gun racks which held the 
 modern descendants of the old snaphaanen. He also 
 mentions the barred cellar beneath, which was used as 
 the criminal and civil prison. Some days afterward, 
 while poking about in its musty depths, I found some 
 of the old flintlocks and a pile of grape shot, rusted to 
 a depth of a quarter of an inch, like those which Statia 
 furnished to the needy army of Washington. There 
 was still use for a jail, I found, for in one of the wooden 
 shanties of that tumbledown row a negress was con- 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 301 
 
 fined awaiting transportation to the penitentiary at 
 Curasao. She had an incurable mania for theft. 
 
 My papers duly vised for Saba, we again made our 
 way to the Gesaghebber. We found him, very much 
 awake this time, in an animated discussion over a 
 horse trade with the Medical Officer. "Frigid little 
 lump of ice !" I muttered to myself at the curt nod he 
 gave me. The Doctor was another sort. A Welsh- 
 man by birth, an American by education, and a sailor 
 by nature, I found that he had travelled widely and we 
 were soon so deep in conversation that the pompous lit- 
 tle governor, who knew no English, was forgotten for 
 the moment. The harbour-master and the horse trade 
 slipped away unnoticed. Another horse galloped in, 
 the hobby of the Doctor. 
 
 "Did you know that the original cannon used in the 
 first salute to your flag are still lying in the sand where 
 they have been thrown down from the ramparts of the 
 fort?" 
 
 I feigned ignorance, thus removing a dam which 
 might have held back some of those interesting bits 
 which so often drift out on the stream of a story, un- 
 important perhaps in itself. Next to the art of sitting 
 on a log, the ability to listen well is one of the crafts of 
 life in the open. And then, as a diamond, in the vast 
 sheet of blue mud which flows over the sorting tables 
 of the Kimberley mines, is caught on the oily surface, a 
 new name was spoken, that of a hero. Although I 
 have since spent many hours in search of it, I have not 
 found it in print. Krull — a name which goes well with 
 kruit (powder) and canon, — Krull — Krut — Kah-non 
 
302 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 — the gallant Dutch Admiral who fell in one of the 
 most heroic sea fights of his time. 
 
 Rodney, upon the capture of Statia, learned that a 
 convoy of vessels had left the island shortly before his 
 arrival. They were under the protection of a lone 
 Dutch man-of-war in command of Admiral Krull. In 
 a letter of February 4th, 178 1, to Phillip Stephens, 
 Esq., Secretary to the Admiralty, he says : 
 
 "A Dutch Convoy, consisting of 30 sail of Merchant 
 Ships richly loaded, having sailed from St. Eustatius, 
 under the protection of a 60 gun ship, about Thirty- 
 six Hours before my arrival, I detached Captain Rey- 
 nolds (later Lord Ducie) of his Majestie's ship Mon- 
 arch, with the Panther and the Sybil, to pursue them as 
 far as the Latitude of Bermudas, should they not in- 
 tercept them before he got that length." 
 
 The slow sailing convoy was caught and Krull com- 
 manded the ships to hold their course while he waited 
 to stand off the three English men-of-war. He was 
 killed in the unequal fight that followed. Lord Rod- 
 ney says: 
 
 "Since my letter of the 4th instant, by the Diligence 
 and Activity of Capt. Reynolds, I have the Pleasure to 
 inform you that the Dutch Convoy which sailed from 
 St. Eustatius before my arrival have been intercepted. 
 I am sorry to acquaint their Lordships that the Dutch 
 Admiral was killed in the action. Inclosed, I have the 
 honour to send Captain ReynokTs letter; and am, etc." 
 
 In a letter of February 10th, he says: 
 
 "The Admiral, who was killed in the action with the 
 Monarch, has been buried with every Honour of War." 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 303 
 
 In spite of his anger against St. Eustatius and the 
 Dutch, Rodney had only admiration for the brave 
 Krull. 
 
 We made our excuses to the governor and were soon 
 scrambling among the ruins of the Upper Town. A 
 fascinating mixture of substantial old-world houses, 
 surrounded by high walls which gave the streets the 
 appearance of diked canals, of ruins and of negro 
 shanties palsied by the depredations of millions of ants, 
 Upper Oranjetown bore a character quite distinct from 
 any of the West Indian towns of the lower islands. 
 Here was no trace of a preceding French regime to 
 give the houses uncomfortable familiarity with the 
 streets and breed suspicion by their single entrances, 
 nor did the everlasting palm thrust its inquiring trunk 
 over the garden walls like the neck of a giraffe to in- 
 form the humbler plants within what was going on in 
 the street. It lacked the moss-stained and yellow- 
 washed picturesqueness of Fort de France and St. 
 George's and for that very reason the novelty of it 
 was restful. Above all was the feeling that here at 
 one time had existed the neat thrift of the Dutch. 
 With thrift comes money and with money comes the 
 Jew. One wonders how the Jew with his feline dread 
 of the sea, first came to Statia, knowing the long bois- 
 terous passage of those days. The reason may very 
 properly have been the excellent seamanship of the 
 Dutch traders. In the early history of Cayenne we 
 are led to believe that the "fifteen or twenty families of 
 Jews" were brought over by the Dutch. The Jew 
 brings with him his religion and so we find the ruins 
 of a one time rich little synagogue in one of the modest 
 
304 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 side streets. Whereas the Jew brings his religion with 
 him as part of his life, the Christian brings it after him 
 as part of his conscience. Thus we find, not far off, the 
 tower of the Reformed Church with its unroofed walls. 
 The Dutch "Deformed" Church as they have called it 
 ever since a hurricane swept the Upper Town. In the 
 shadows of the walls the Doctor showed me a long 
 line of vaults where lie the old families, de Windts, 
 Heyligers, Van Mussendens and last, the almost for- 
 gotten tomb of Krull, with no mark to proclaim his 
 bravery to the world, and what need, for the world 
 does not pass here — the dead sleep in their own com- 
 pany in a miasm that seems to come up out of the 
 ground and permeate the very atmosphere of the 
 island. 
 
 As in Fort de France, I became a part of the life 
 of Statia; here was a place where I could live for a 
 time. In six hours I had boon companions. There 
 was the Doctor — he would always come first and there 
 was that inimitable Dutchman, Van Musschenbroek of 
 Hendrick Swaardecroonstrasse, the Hague, who had an 
 income and was living in a large house in the town 
 which rented at $8.00 the month and was doing — God 
 knows what. His English was infinitely worse than 
 my German and it was through this common medium 
 that we conversed — Dutch was utterly beyond my ken. 
 
 He used to come of a morning in his pajamas, hatted 
 and with a towel on his arm and wake me for our daily 
 bath. In that delicious fresh morning which follows 
 the cool nights of the outer Antilles we three would 
 scramble down to the Bay, the Doctor pumping the lore 
 of the island into my right ear, the Dutchman rattling 
 
c * c c c 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 305 
 
 off outdoor expedients into my left. He, the Dutch- 
 man, was a well-built man, barrel-chested and with a 
 layer of swimmer's fat, for he had once been the cham- 
 pion back-stroke of Holland and a skater, and had 
 geologised all over the world. 
 
 But we'll listen to the Doctor. Our favourite walk 
 was to Gallows Bay,where there was a clean sand beach. 
 We walked in a past that one could almost touch. As 
 we took up the Bay Path, that first morning, just be- 
 low the fort where a sweet smelling grove of man- 
 chioneel trees, tempting as the mangosteen of the Ma- 
 lays and caustic as molten lead, made dusk of the 
 morning light, the Doctor touched my arm. There 
 in a shallow pit, two yards from our path, lay seven 
 rusty cannon, half buried in the sand. He did not have 
 >;o tell me that these were the last of the old battery of 
 eleven which had belched forth their welcome to the 
 Andrea Doria. Some time after the salute, the guns 
 were condemned and piled up near the present Gov- 
 ernment Post-Office in the fort where they remained 
 till the late seventies. At that time an American 
 schooner, cruising about for scrap iron, came to Statia 
 |to buy old cannon. The trunnions were knocked off 
 so that they would roll the easier and they were thrown 
 over the edge of the cliff. 
 
 Iron cannon, as a rule, bore the date of their cast- 
 ing on the ends of their trunnions whereas the bronze 
 guns were dated near the breech. These bore no date, 
 but they must have been old at the time of the salute. 
 The schooner took four of them, but did not return for 
 the rest. So these seven have remained as unmarked 
 
306 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 and unnoticed as the silent grave of Krull on the pla- 
 teau above. 
 
 Farther along, on our way to the beach, was an im- 
 mense indigo tank with its story. In the ken of the 
 last generation, a ship had been driven ashore in a 
 southwester, the tail of a hurricane. Most of the 
 crew perished in the sea, but three came safely through 
 the surf when Fate decided that after all they must join 
 their comrades on the other shore. They clambered 
 up the broken walls only to fall into the disused tank, 
 now filled with brackish water, where they drowned 
 like rats in a cistern. 
 
 Passing the walls of the last sugar refinery in opera- 
 tion on the island, we came to the beach. A blue spot 
 in the sand caught my eye and I picked up a slave trad- 
 ing bead of the old days. It had been part of a cargo 
 of a ship bound for Africa ; her hulk lay somewhere out 
 there in the darker waters of Crook's reef where it had, 
 lain for the last century or more, sending its mute mes-j 
 sages ashore with each southwest gale, ground dull on 
 their slow journey over the bottom of the Caribbean. 
 
 The Bay was only habitable during the early morn- 
 ing hours, before the sun got well over the cliff above. 
 The rest of the day I spent on the plateau where the 
 sun's heat was tempered by the trade which blew half 
 a gale through the valley between the humps, a fresh 
 sea wind. The active men of Statia go to sea; there 
 is little agriculture besides the few acres of cotton anc 
 sisal that cry for the labour of picking and cutting for 
 here the negro is unutterably lazy. 
 
 I used to see from time to time a ragged old native 
 whose entire day was spent sitting in a shady corner, 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 307 
 
 blinking in the sunlight like a mudplastered turtle, 
 dried-caked. Some one must have fed him, but I can 
 assure you that this was not done from sunrise to sun- 
 down and he must have gone somewhere to sleep but 
 during the light of day I never saw him stir. I passed 
 him for the sixth time one day — I wondered what was 
 going on in the pulp of that brain pan; not conscious 
 thought I was certain — when a man hailed me from the 
 doorstep of what was once a prosperous burgher's 
 house — a last white descendant of that very burgher. 
 The excuse was a bottle of Danish beer but I read 
 through that — he wanted a breath of the outside world 
 and I gave him what I had. He was not a poor white 
 — just another like de Geneste, left by an honourable 
 old family to finish their book — their last page. He 
 lived with a negress whom he extolled and not alto- 
 gether in self-defence. They were married and I took 
 lis word for it. She was cooking and washing in the 
 citchen when I came in and at the call of her master 
 Drought the beer and glasses on a tray with a peculiar 
 grace mixed with an air of wifely right — there was no 
 defiance in her bearing but there was that which I 
 might best describe as an African comme il faut. 
 There was no attempt at an introduction and she left 
 us immediately to resume her labours. We sat on a 
 broken sofa — they wear out and break down in Statia 
 exactly as they do in some of the houses we know where 
 first cost is the only cost — but here they never go to 
 the woodshed. I happened to glance through an open 
 doorway into what was once a drawing room and there, 
 reared up like a rocking horse about to charge forward 
 Tom its hind legs, was a barber's chair. 
 
308 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 "What in the name of Sin have you got that in 
 there for?" 
 
 "Oh, oy cuts hair," he answered with that soft 
 weatherworn tone that belongs to Statia alone. 
 Whether this hair cutting was a partial means of liveli- 
 hood or merely a pastime for the accommodation of his 
 friends I did not ask. I was not even inquisitive 
 enough to ask how the thing came to the island. My 
 host asked me if I would like to have my hair trimmed 
 and I said that I should be delighted. It was like 
 accepting another bottle of beer. I adjusted my bones 
 to the cadaverous red upholstery that showed its stuff- 
 ing while my friend tied the apron around my neck. 
 He did no worse than many a country barber I have 
 met and with less danger from showerings of tonics 
 and laying on of salves. Instead of fetid breathings 
 of Religion, Politics and League Baseball, I listened to 
 tales of old Statia. Some time when I am dining out 
 and find an old Statia name beside me — there are many 
 in our eastern cities — I may be tempted to say, "Gra- 
 cious ! are you a de ? I have had the pleasure of a 
 
 haircut in your great grandfather's drawing room." 
 
 It was while I was in the barber's chair that I was 
 a witness to a scene that many times since has made me 
 stop whatever I have been doing — and think a bit. 
 A sloop was lying in the roadstead bound that eve- 
 ning for Porto Rico. One of her passengers-to-be was 
 the coloured son of this man, who would seek his for- 
 tune in the more prosperous American island. The 
 boy had been about town for a last palaver with his 
 friends and now, in the late afternoon, had come to his 
 home to say good-bye. He had already seen his 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 309 
 
 mother and now came in where his father was cutting 
 my hair. Oh, the irony of that parting! The boy 
 showed little concern — he was perhaps eighteen and 
 dressed in store clothes of Yankee cut. It was the poor 
 miserable father who was hurt — a white man breaking 
 down over the parting with his rather indifferent col- 
 oured offspring. My friend excused himself to me and 
 then putting his arms around the boy's neck sobbed his 
 farewell on the boy's shoulder. His was a figure equal 
 to the mad woman of St. Pierre, to his last shred pa- 
 ternal. I could say more but this is enough ; may I be 
 forgiven this intimate picture. 
 
 One morning the town awoke to find that a Dutch 
 man-of-war was lying in the Roads and then Statia 
 came to life for two days. The ship was the Utrecht, 
 an armoured cruiser stationed in the West Indies. In 
 the late afternoon the ship's band climbed the Bay 
 Path to the fort where I listened to the concert and 
 struck up an acquaintance with a Russian captain of 
 marines who cared not a whit for the beauties of the 
 dying day and cursed the sun for his everlasting smile 
 and prayed for a day of the grey weather of the Bal- 
 tic. To tell the truth I was coming to it myself. The 
 next morning I saw him at play with his clumsy Dutch 
 marines — they were having landing drill and a more 
 cloddish lot I have never seen. They landed in three 
 feet of water, mostly on all fours, from the gunwales 
 of the ship's boats and one fellow — I stood and 
 watched him do it — actually managed to sprawl under 
 the boat and break his arm. 
 
 The grand event of the Utrecht's visit, however, was 
 on the night of the second day when a dance was given 
 
310 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 in the governor's house in honour of Her Majesty's 
 officers. Before the dance a select few of us were in- 
 vited to tea at the house of Mynheer Grube, the for- 
 mer governor. I accepted the invitation, borrowed 
 some clean "whites" from the Doctor, combed and 
 brushed my hair, and went. 
 
 There was something very placid and restful 
 about this home of the old Dutch gentleman and his 
 wife — the quiet dignity of a useful life frugally lived 
 and of duties conscientiously performed. There were 
 old clocks and cupboards in it and a Delft plate or two 
 just as we find them in our Dutch colonial houses of 
 the north. If you examine the outer walls carefully 
 you will find a round place, plastered up as though at 
 some time a cannon ball must have gone through. One 
 did and it was not many generations ago when just such 
 a quiet Hollander as Grube was living there as Gov- 
 ernor. 
 
 It was some time after the looting of Oranjetown, 
 when Statia had been sucked dry by the English and 
 flung back to the Dutch like a gleaned bone, that a 
 French frigate in passing fired upon the Upper Town 
 just to see the mortar fly. It was in the trade season 
 and she bowled along, close under the lee of the island 
 with her weather side exposed as if to say, "Hit me if 
 you can." 
 
 One of her shots passed through the very room in 
 which the governor sat reading. His wife, — I wonder 
 if she had been in the kitchen overlooking the making 
 of some favourite dish? — rushed into the room and 
 found her husband calmly reading with the debris of 
 stone and plaster littered about him, as though noth- 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 311 
 
 ing had happened. She begged her husband in the 
 name of all that was sane to move from his dangerous 
 position. 
 
 "Be calm," said the governor, "don't you know that 
 cannon balls never strike again in the same place?" 
 
 But he was not altogether right. Down on the beach, 
 just beyond Interloper's Point, lay the little old battery 
 of Tommelendyk — Tumble-down-Dick they call it. 
 There had been but little use for the guns of late and 
 there was no militaire now stationed on the island. 
 There was, however, one man on Statia, a one-armed 
 gunner whose blood was roused when he saw the wan- 
 ton firing of the Frenchman. He was working in his 
 field, not far from Tommelendyk and he remembered 
 that there was still some powder and shot left in the 
 magazine and that one of the guns at least was in good 
 order for signalling purposes. He rushed down to the 
 battery followed by his friends. 
 
 In a twinkling the breech-hood was off and the 
 gunner blew through the touch-hole to make sure that 
 the passage was clear. Measuring the powder by the 
 handful, he showed his friends how to ram home the 
 charge and the ball. By this time the Frenchman was 
 almost abreast the battery. The gunner's first shot was 
 a good "liner," but fell short. He had not lost his cun- 
 ning in guessing the speed of a ship. The impromptu 
 crew reloaded in quick time and as they jumped clear 
 of the smoke they gave a yell of delight. The shot 
 had struck the Frenchman in the hull close to the water- 
 line. Two more shots were planted almost in the same 
 place before the frigate could clear the island. 
 
 When she ran into the choppy seas her crew found 
 
312 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 that their ship was rapidly making water. They dared 
 not beat to windward to St. Martin's and were forced 
 to make for St. Thomas, the nearest port to leeward. 
 With her guns and stores shifted to port she must have 
 been a weird spectacle as she bore down on the Danish 
 island, with a free wind and heeled as though she were 
 beating into a gale. 
 
 Grube had been Governor in the same way that his 
 predecessors had held office — burghers performing 
 their duty to the state without political influence and 
 by right of a worthy life. We had our tea and cakes 
 and drank our Curagao in the short evening that 
 brought with it the last music of the band at the fort. 
 Then we arose and went to the house of the present 
 Governor where most of the white people of Statia 
 were already gathered as one huge family. The room 
 was on the upper floor — there are never more than 
 two in these islands — to which we gained access by an 
 outside stairway, from the courtyard, a most convenient 
 arrangement by which a large crowd of guests could not 
 invade the privacy of the rest of the house. Most of 
 the officers of the Utrecht were there and the midship- 
 men—young boys such as you might meet at almost 
 any dance in Edgewater or Brookline. 
 
 It had been a long time since I had danced and I 
 revelled in this party of the Governor of Statia. I 
 danced with Heyligers and de Windts and Van Mus- 
 sendens and no end of names that had been in the 
 island long before the coming of Rodney. I danced 
 with names and my spirit was in the past. The tunes 
 they played were old ones, some of them English and 
 some handed down from the time when the Marquis de 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 313 
 
 Bouille made the island French for a year. There were 
 quaint French themes, some of which I recognised. To 
 these same tunes, in this same room, the ancestors of 
 these people had danced many a time. Then the orches- 
 tra switched to more modern things — "Money Musk" 
 and the old sailor's delight "Champagne Charlie" 
 which you will only hear in our parts in some wharf- 
 side saloon, befuddled through the lips of some old rum- 
 laden shellback. But withal this ancient atmosphere 
 and the dire poverty of these descendants of once pros- 
 perous burgher families there was no sadness at the 
 Governor's that night. If these people were always 
 talking of the glorious Past their introspection had not 
 made them morbid. They were seafarers and their 
 philosophy was a hopeful one. Here was the gather- 
 ing of a congenial happy family. I have never dropped 
 into a community where I felt so immediately and 
 completely at home as here and at Saba. There is one 
 word which applies to these people more than any other 
 and that is — Goodhearted. They are not super-edu- 
 cated surely but they have a far wider knowledge of 
 the world in general than our average farmer com- 
 munity. They retain a refinement of family which gen- 
 erations of poverty have not been able to down and 
 they have survived the fires of want with a spirit that 
 is one of the paradoxes of the world. 
 
 The orchestra finally reached the limit of its strength 
 and stopped playing through sheer exhaustion — they 
 were not professionals, just friends who were glad to 
 do this service. From time to time one of the players 
 would lay aside his instrument and join the dancers for 
 a while till by rote each had had his share. The end- 
 
314 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ing of the music seemed to be the accepted signal for 
 refreshments and those who did not take up trays of 
 coffee and small cakes lined up along the walls as before 
 the dance. The coffee had an awakening effect but the 
 dance did not continue. Presently a whisper found 
 its way from mouth to ear till it reached Van Muss- 
 chenbroek in a far corner. His perspiring face smiled 
 assent and he stepped into the middle of the cleared 
 room. In laughable broken English he announced that 
 he would now delight the audience with an imitation of 
 a fiddler crab. It was a clever stunt and from the way 
 in which he skittered about the floor in arcs of wander- 
 ing centers weaving his claws in the air, I knew that 
 he knew beach life. And so the second part of the 
 evening was started. There was no assumed modesty 
 that needed coaxing — whoever was asked deemed it a 
 pleasure to do his part of the entertaining; was this 
 not a way in which he might honour the Governor and 
 his wife? The midshipmen of the Utrecht entered into 
 the spirit of the thing and one of them sang a Dutch 
 song. Most of these chaps had been on the Utrecht 
 when she attended the Hudson-Fulton celebration in 
 New York and for a time we had a bit of Keith's cir- 
 cuit on the boards. George M. Cohan did not sound 
 a whit better than when we hear him imitated at home. 
 There is a limit to all good things and these people 
 live in moderation and never reach the limit — the party 
 broke up when we were all happily tired. 
 
 I became attached to Statia as I had become attached 
 to Point Espagnol and Fort de France, but I found that 
 little by little my eyes sought the sea more and more. 
 The channel was calling again and peaked Saba became 
 
STATIA— THE STORY OF THE SALUTE 315 
 
 an aggravating invitation. With all the fascination of 
 the old fort and the batteries, the stories of the priva- 
 teers and the brisk companionship of the Doctor, the 
 call was stronger than the present love, and so one 
 morning I took to the shimmering channel and left the 
 island of England's wrath for her sister where the 
 Dutch rule the English. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SABA 
 
 T) land at Saba in a small boat you must choose 
 the right kind of weather. If there is no wind 
 you cannot sail, if there is too much wind you cannot 
 land, for the seas swinging around the island will raise 
 a surf on the rocky beaches that will make a quick end 
 of your boat. For a week there had been too much 
 wind. One day the trade eased up a bit and de Geneste 
 said, "You better make a troy in de morninV I made 
 ready. 
 
 The next morning seemed to promise the same kind 
 of day as that on which I rushed from Guadeloupe to 
 Montserrat and I feared trouble when I should reach 
 Saba. The wind was already blowing a good sailing 
 breeze and we took to the water at seven o'clock and 
 with Saba a little north of wnw and the wind nearly 
 east I sailed west for an hour wing-and-wing. Then 
 I laid my course for the island. Half an hour later I 
 was obliged to reef because we were making too much 
 speed in the breaking seas. "A fine layout this!" I 
 thought, for if I did not reach the island before the 
 surf ran heavy, I had visions of joining my long painter 
 to all my halyards, sheets, and spare line and swimming 
 ashore with it to let the canoe tail off in the wind, 
 moored to some out-jutting rock or perhaps lying off 
 
 316 
 
SABA 317 
 
 under the lee of the island for a day or two till the 
 seas calmed. It was all unnecessary worry. The direct 
 distance from island to island was only sixteen miles 
 and I was across before the seas had grown too large. 
 
 Saba one might call the Pico of the West Indies; 
 not as high by half, but the comparison may stand for 
 all that. From a diameter of two miles she rises to a 
 height of nearly three thousand feet, her summit lost 
 in the low-lying trade clouds which tend to accentuate 
 the loftiness of this old ocean volcano. The West 
 Indies pilot book gives three landing places and of 
 these I was told by de Geneste to try the south side or 
 Fort Landing, four cables eastward of Ladder Point. 
 
 I knew the place when I sailed in toward the island 
 for there was a little shack perched about fifty feet 
 above the beach where the revenue officers, they are 
 called brigadiers, sought shelter from the sun's heat. 
 Above the surf a fishing boat lay on rollers across the 
 rocks, for here is no sand. To the westward, like a 
 terrace, under Ladder Point was a levelled cobble beach 
 some twelve feet above the water where they used to 
 build sloops and schooners before they found that they 
 could get them better and cheaper from Gloucester. 
 Winding upward in a ravine-like cleft were flights of 
 steps hewn out of the solid rock and connected by 
 stretches of steep pathways. 
 
 The shack and the pathway up the ravine were the 
 only signs of human habitation and from the barren 
 aspect of the island with its low scrubby vegetation one 
 would not suspect that the steps and paths led to the 
 homes of some three thousand people. When I had 
 made my rig snug and hoisted my centerboard I rowed 
 
318 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 as close to shore as I dared. As at Statia, a number of 
 black watermen waded out into the sea to lift the canoe 
 clear of the rocks. I rowed a bit to windward to coun- 
 teract a strong current and then as we swept down to- 
 ward the men, I jumped overboard and swimming with 
 my hands on the stern of the Yakaboo I waited till we 
 were opposite the men and then shoved the canoe into 
 their arms. 
 
 One of the brutes might have taken her weight on 
 his head for my food bags were flat and my outfit 
 thinned out, and for the crowd of them she was a mere 
 toy which they lifted clear of the surf and carried 
 ashore to a couple of rollers without even grazing a 
 stone. The skipper, having a proper regard for his 
 bones, washed himself ashore like a limp octopus. 
 
 Now there was one person whom I came to know 
 in Statia but whom I have not mentioned as yet be- 
 cause our friendship really belonged to Saba and it 
 was here she was buried only a few weeks after I left 
 the island. She was a kindly elderly woman and a 
 good friend to me. She had been head nurse at the 
 Government Hospital at Antigua and had been under 
 the care of the Doctor at Statia for some time. He 
 suspected cancer, he told me (she told me that she knew 
 it was cancer) , and since he could do nothing for her, 
 he advised her to go to Saba to live up in the air where 
 no breeze hung about long enough to lose its freshness 
 and where the chill of night brought with it sound sleep. 
 She had gone on to Saba a few days after my arrival 
 at Oranjetown. One afternoon when I had been com- 
 plaining of dizziness and nausea the Doctor gave me 
 a kindly shaking and said, "Now see here ! you yellow- 
 
HERE FREDDIE SIMMONS TEACHES EMBRYO SAILOR-MEN, STILL 
 IN THEIR KNEE TROUSERS, THE USE OF THE SEXTANT AND 
 CHRONOMETER." 
 
SABA 319 
 
 headed Scandihoovian, you've had just a little too much 
 of old Sol and weVe made a little plan for you, Mrs. 
 Robertson and I. When you get to Saba, you'll forget 
 your kittle green tent' for a time and you'll stay with 
 Mrs. Robertson till you're straightened out. Do you 
 mind !" The Doctor could be a bit fierce upon occasion 
 and he was a strong man who would knock you down 
 as soon as not if he thought he could right matters by 
 force. 
 
 So when I picked myself up from the wet rocks and 
 followed the Yakaboo up the beach I was accosted by 
 a white man, one Freddie Simmons — they are for the 
 most part Simmons or Hassels here and you can't go 
 far wrong in calling them by one or the other name. 
 
 He was a young man, seafaring evidently, not from 
 any traditional roughness, but from an indefinable ease 
 of gait, scarcely a roll, and from a way of taking in 
 everything as he looked about him as though he were 
 used to scanning the deck of a vessel. He had an open 
 pleasant face that spoke kindly before he opened his 
 mouth and mild blue eyes that could not lie. 
 
 u My name is Simmons — they call me Freddie Sim- 
 mons." He pronounced it almost like "Fraddie." 
 
 "I'm a Freddie too," I answered as we shook hands. 
 
 u So Mrs. Robertson said. She's breakfast waiting 
 for you up at Bottom — I'll carry you there just now." 
 
 "How the devil did she know I was coming to-day?" 
 I asked. Then he told me how a man up in St. John's 
 had almost looked his eyes out for a week watching 
 for me and was at last rewarded by the sight of a queer 
 rig that could be no other than that of "de mon in de 
 3oat." 
 
320 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 "But I'll have to stow my canoe somewhere before 
 we start," I told him. 
 
 "Oh, we'll take the canoe along," at which he nodded 
 to four black giants who lifted the Yakaboo and 
 started for the path — two with grass pads on their 
 heads where she rested bow and stern while the others 
 walked at each side like honourary pall-bearers to 
 steady the load. And so we proceeded on our way, 
 eight hundred feet up, to the bed of an old crater 
 where the town of Bottom lies, out of sight of all who 
 pass unless they travel in aeroplanes. 
 
 Now I am going to take advantage of the fact that 
 you are soft and short-winded and not used to ciimbing 
 flights of stairs and steep paths. While you can do 
 little but puff and perspire I shall tell you a little of 
 this strange island. What ancient documents Saba may 
 have possessed were whisked up and blown out across 
 the wide seas over a century ago when a hurricane 
 swept the island in 1787 and took with it almost every 
 vestige of human habitation except the low-set concrete- 
 covered rain tanks and the tombs of the ancestors of 
 the present inhabitants. For nearly a century after 
 the island was sighted by Columbus probably no Euro- 
 pean picked his way up the cleft to the upper bowls of 
 the island. There may have been Caribs living here 
 but I have seen no mention of them. When the Dutch 
 began active trading operations in the West Indies in 
 the early part of the 17th century we find them (the 
 Dutch) already settled in Statia and Saba. For nearly 
 three-quarters of a century the island lived in peace. 
 In 1665, seventy English buccaneers from the company 
 of Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan who had captured 
 
SABA 321 
 
 Statia, sailed over to Saba and captured the island with 
 little or no resistance. The main expedition returned 
 to Jamaica but a small garrison was left on each of 
 the islands. Most of the Dutch inhabitants were sent 
 to St. Martin's whither they returned later to Statia. 
 It is from this small handful of English buccaneers 
 that were left in Saba in 1665 by Morgan, that the 
 present white population has descended and while Saba 
 has almost continuously belonged to the Dutch except 
 for a short break in 1665 and in 1781 and also about 
 1 801 it has been truly said that here the Dutch rule 
 the English. There has been little marriage outside 
 of the island by these English people and no mixing 
 with the negroes. Saba is the only island in the West 
 Indies where the whites predominate and the propor- 
 tion to the blacks is two to one. But the greatest para- 
 dox of all is to see here in the heights of this island, 
 six degrees within the tropics, the fair skins and rosy 
 cheeks whose bloom originated in old England in the 
 reign of Charles the Second and has kept itself pure 
 and untarnished there two and a half centuries. 
 
 By this time you have clutched my arm and stopped 
 in the pathway long enough to catch your breath and 
 ask, "Yes, but what do these two thousand whites and 
 one thousand negroes live on?" There is little gar- 
 dening and for the most part the men of the island go 
 to sea where they earn money to support their families 
 and keep their tidy little homes shipshape and neatly 
 painted. As I sit and write this, now that I know the 
 island, I can think of no truer description than that 
 given by the Abbe Raynal in 1798. "This is a steep 
 rock, on the summit of which is a little ground, very 
 
322 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 proper for gardening. Frequent rains which do not 
 lie any time on the soil, give growth to plants of an 
 exquisite flavour, and cabbages of an extraordinary 
 size. Fifty European families, with about one hun- 
 dred and fifty slaves, here raise cotton, spin it, make 
 stockings of it, and sell them to other colonies for as 
 much as ten crowns (six dollars) a pair. Throughout 
 America there is no blood so pure as that of Saba; the 
 women there preserve a freshness of complexion, which 
 is not to be found in any other of the Caribbee islands. 7 * 
 The porters, before us, halted and the Yakaboo 
 came to an aerial anchorage at the crest of the path 
 where the mountainside seemed broken down. It was 
 in reality a "V" blown out of the side of an old crater. 
 No wonder the Yakaboo had come to a stop. She may 
 have seen things unusual for a canoe but she had by no 
 means lost her youthful interest — she was not blase. 
 There, before her, spread out on the floor of an ancient 
 crater, was the prettiest village imaginable. Cosy little 
 homes, a New England village minus chimneys, all 
 seemingly freshly painted white with green shutters and 
 red roofs. To guard against the "frequent rains which 
 do not lie any time on the soil" the streets were lined 
 with walls, shoulder high, which were in reality dikes 
 to direct the torrents which are suddenly poured into 
 Bottom Town from the slopes which surround it. A 
 remarkable coincidence that here, high up in the air, the 
 colony should use the dikes of its mother country but 
 for an entirely different reason. What struck me most 
 forcibly was that while there was no hint of monotony 
 the houses gave the outward appearance of a uniform 
 degree of prosperity; here must be a true democracy; 
 
SABA 323 
 
 if an} 7 man had more money than his neighbour he did 
 not show it, yet there was no hint of greasy socialism, 
 all of which I found true as I came to know the island. 
 
 The Bottom, as the crater floor is called, is a circular 
 plain about half a mile in diameter and surrounded on 
 all sides by a steep wall, continuous except where we 
 stood at the top of the path from the South Landing 
 which we had just climbed and at another point on the 
 west side where the rim is broken and the path called 
 the Ladder descends to the West Landing. Up the 
 rim on the eastern side a path zigzagged and dis- 
 appeared through a notch in the outline to the Wind- 
 ward Side, the village I had seen from the steamer four 
 months before. Lost in the mist, the summit of the 
 island towered over Bottom to the northward. 
 
 Here was a town walled in by Nature. The cleft 
 into which the path was built ended in a small ravine 
 that broke into the level plain of the Bottom and it 
 was across this ravine that Freddie Simmons pointed 
 out the ultimate anchorage of the Yakaboo and the 
 asylum of her skipper. Our procession started again — 
 we stopped once or twice to meet a Simmons or a 
 Hassel — to make a starboard tack along the western 
 side of the ravine, a short tack to port, and we put the 
 canoe down on the after deck — I should say the back 
 porch — of a cool airy house where we were to keep in 
 the shade for a matter of ten days. 
 
 Here then was the end of my cruise in the Lesser 
 Antilles. I had swung through the arc from Grenada 
 to Saba and in the doing of it had sailed some six hun- 
 dred miles. My destination was the Virgins and their 
 nearest island lay a hundred and ten miles away. 
 
ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 "Oh!" I thought, as I looked down at the canoe, "if I 
 could only be sure that I could make you stay absolutely 
 tight and be reasonably sure of the wind, I would not 
 hesitate to make the run in you." Even if I did get 
 her tight and encountered a calm I knew that I would 
 have little chance of withstanding the heat. Mrs. Rob- 
 ertson had come out to welcome me and I heard her 
 step behind me. She had guessed my thoughts for as I 
 turned she said, "You had better not think of it." At 
 that Freddie put in his oar. u Be content, my boy; the 
 boat could do it, but one day of no wind at this time of 
 the year would finish you and you don't want to be 
 found a babbling idiot with the gulls waiting to pick 
 out your eyes." 
 
 Sense was fighting desperately with the spirit of ad- 
 venture but at last sense won out — perhaps through 
 some secret understanding with cowardice. 
 
 "Yes, I believe you're right — I'll let some other 
 damn fool try it if he likes," and that ended the matter. 
 
 It is in the evenings that one comes to know the peo- 
 ple of Saba. They go quietly about their business dur- 
 ing the hours of daylight and then, after supper, for 
 they always eat in their own homes, they meet some 
 place — it was at Mrs. Robertson's that first night — to 
 thresh out the small happenings of the day. News 
 from the outside world may have come by sloop or 
 schooner from St. Kitts or Curasao. Then when the 
 gossip begins to lag, a fiddle will mysteriously appear 
 and an accordion will be dragged from under a chair 
 while the room is cleared for the "Marengo" or a 
 paseo from Trinidad. 
 
 I could have no better chance to observe the "rosy 
 
«» * 
 
 * 
 
 ■ J 
 
 m!i§: : 
 
 
 *-> , ~»ir , ~-ij) 
 
 THE DIKES OF BOTTOM TOWN. 
 
 A COZY SABA HOME. 
 
SABA 825 
 
 cheeks of Saba," and to me the delight of the evening 
 was to be once more among people who lacked that 
 apathetic drift of the West Indies which seems to hold 
 them in perpetual stagnation. The women danced to- 
 gether for the most part to make up for the lack of 
 men. From the very first, these people have been sea- 
 faring and the few men on the island are those crippled 
 by rheumatism or too old to go to sea. You will find 
 Saba men all over the West Indies, captains and mates 
 and crews of small trading schooners in which they are 
 part owners or shareholders. They have learned the 
 trick of spending less than they earn. 
 
 Once in a conversation with the port officer of Maya- 
 guez, at the mention of Saba men, he told me that their 
 shore spree consisted in walking to the playa where 
 they would indulge in ice cream and Porto Rican cigars. 
 On one occasion a Saba foremast hand sought his ad- 
 vice in regard to investing money in a certain coconut 
 plantation in Porto Rico. That they are good sailor- 
 men does not rest on mere fanciful sentimentalism for 
 they have been brought up to it from their very boy- 
 hood. 
 
 In a little house, on the north side of the ravine 
 which the Yakaboo had doubled in the forenoon, was 
 a nautical school provided by a wise government. Here 
 Freddie Simmons teaches embryo sailor-men, while still 
 in their knee trousers, the use of the sextant and chron- 
 ometer and the mathematics that go therewith. 
 
 To me, Saba is a memory of living in a bowl over 
 which the sun swung in a shortened arc. Here in Bot- 
 tom Town the day was clipped by a lengthy dawn and 
 a twilight. As the sun neared the rim to the westward, 
 
326 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 I used to stroll to the "gap" at the Ladder Landing 
 to enjoy the cool of the late afternoon and watch the 
 "evening set" from the shadows of the rocks. Behind 
 me was twilight; on the rocks below and on the Carib- 
 bean before me was yet late afternoon. 
 
 Here was a place for a dream and a pipe of tobacco. 
 I used to wonder how near Columbus had passed on his 
 way to Hispaniola. Why did he give her the name of 
 Saba? Was it from the Queen of Sheba or St. Sabar? 
 And then when the sun had finally gone down behind 
 his cloud fringe and the short twilight had been swept 
 out by night, I would turn back into the dark bowl 
 with its spots of square yellow lights from the win- 
 dows of the Saba people. The stars seemed close here 
 as though we had been pushed up to them from the 
 earth. Later the moon would appear ghost-like over 
 the southern rim and float through the night to the 
 other side. 
 
 One morning Captain Ben's schooner was reported 
 under the lee of the island and that afternoon we car- 
 ried the Yakaboo down the Ladder and put her aboard. 
 She had gone across Saba. I made my last round of 
 good-byes in Bottom Town and then scrambled down 
 the Ladder in the hot afternoon sun. In half an hour 
 a lazy breeze pushed us out into the Caribbean. Saba 
 stood up bold and green in the strong light, her outline 
 distinct with no cloud cap. Little by little the shadows 
 in the rocks at her feet began to assert themselves, blue- 
 black, while her green foliage became a cloth and lost 
 its brilliancy, blue-green it was — there was distance be- 
 tween us and the snug island. When the sun went down 
 she was a grey-blue hump between sea and sky. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL AND "YAKABOO" 
 
 WE awoke with the Virgins dead ahead. We 
 were approaching them as Columbus had — 
 from the eastward. His course must have been more 
 westerly than ours, but had he seen them first in the 
 morning light as I did the effect must have been very 
 nearly the same — a line of innumerable islets that 
 seemed to bar our way. Herrera says, "Holding on 
 their course, they saw many islands close together, that 
 they seemed not to be numbered, the largest of which 
 he called St. Ursula (Tortola) and the rest the Eleven 
 Thousand Virgins, and then came up with another great 
 one called Borriquen (the name the Indians gave it), 
 but he gave it the name of St. John the Baptist, it is 
 now called St. Juan de Puerto Rico." The largest 
 island to windward he named Virgin Gorda — the Great 
 Virgin. 
 
 I spread my chart of the Virgins on the top of the 
 cabin and tried to pick out the southern chain of islands 
 that with Tortola and St. John's form Sir Francis 
 Drake's Channel. On the chart were various notes in 
 pencil which I had gathered on my way up the Lesser 
 Antilles. On the lower end of Virgin Gorda, or Penis- 
 ton as it is called, a corruption of Spanish Town, I 
 should find the ruins of an old Spanish copper mine and 
 
 327 
 
828 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 here was that remarkable strewing of monoliths that, 
 as I brought them close up with my glasses, looked for 
 all the world like a ruined city, more so even than 
 St. Pierre — and was called Fallen Jerusalem. 
 
 Next in line came Ginger with a small dead sea on 
 it, Cooper and Salt Islands where the wreck of the 
 Rhone might be seen through the clear waters if there 
 were not too much breeze. Directly on our course 
 through the Salt Island passage was a little cay marked 
 Dead Chest and called Duchess by the natives. Com- 
 pleting the chain were Peter, and Norman, which might 
 have been the Treasure Island of Stevenson. It was 
 these names, Ginger, Cooper, Dead Chest, Peter, and 
 Norman's that awoke the enthusiasm of Kingsley and 
 from the suggestion of this Dead Chest, Stevenson 
 wrote his famous, "Fifteen men on the Dead Man's 
 chest, Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" 
 
 It was Thursday, June 22nd, the Coronation Day 
 of George Fifth and Queen Mary when we dropped 
 anchor in the pretty harbour of Road Town in Tor- 
 tola. How ancient will it all sound should some one 
 read this line a hundred years from now! I put on 
 respectable dress, for I had with me my trunk which 
 had followed by intermittent voyages in sloops, schoon- 
 ers and coasting steamers, and from its hold I pulled 
 out my shore clothes like a robin pulling worms of a 
 dewy morning. Shaved and arrayed, I was taken to 
 meet the Commissioner, Leslie Jarvis, who, like Whit- 
 field Smith, deserves better than he has received. 
 
 That night as I smoked a parting cigarette with the 
 Commissioner on the verandah of Government House 
 and feasted my eyes on Salt and Cooper and Ginger 
 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL 329 
 
 across the channel in the clear starlight, I told him that 
 I should see -a little of Sir Francis Drake's Channel 
 before I finished my cruise at St. Thomas. 
 
 "We are starting to-morrow in the Lady Constance 
 for a round of the islands and you had better leave 
 your canoe and come with us." 
 
 "I'll go with you as far as Virgin Gorda if I may and 
 leave you there." And so was my last bit of cruising 
 in the West Indies planned. 
 
 The Lady Constance is a tidy little native built sloop, 
 the best I had seen in all the islands, about eighteen 
 tons, used as a "Government Cruiser" to keep smug- 
 gling within reasonable limits and as a means of con- 
 veyance for the use of the Commissioner on his tours 
 of inspection. She is also used for carrying mail to 
 St. Thomas, a run of about twenty-seven miles. 
 
 "Oh, by the way," said the commissioner, as I was 
 half way down the steps, "we take the two ministers 
 with us — you won't mind that?" 
 
 "How can I?" I answered. "It's the Government's 
 party and I suppose they are quite harmless." 
 
 "Quite," came from the dark shadows of the veran- 
 dah. 
 
 In the morning, at a reasonable time, when every- 
 body had enjoyed his breakfast and settled it with a 
 pipe, we got aboard. The Commissioner was accom- 
 panied by all the accoutrements of an expedition, guns, 
 rods, a leather case with the official helmet within, and 
 most important of all, innumerable gallons of pine- 
 apple syrup, baskets of buns and boxes of aluminum 
 coronation medals for each deserving school child in 
 all the British Virgins. The Yakaboo we put aboard 
 
330 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 forward of the cabin trunk — the ministers brought 
 with them their nightgowns and a pleasant air of 
 sanctity. 
 
 Somewhere there lurks in my mind a notion to the 
 effect that professional men of religion are among sail- 
 ors personae non gratae at sea. A thing may in itself 
 be quite harmless and yet may bring down disaster to 
 those about it. Perhaps it is just a whim of the Lord 
 to test his self-proclaimed lieutenants when they venture 
 into the open. There seems always to be trouble at sea 
 when a minister is aboard. The harm we received was 
 trifling but it was a warning. The breeze was fresh 
 when we started and the Lady Constance had already 
 bowed once or twice to the seas when we close-hauled 
 her for the beat up the channel. Suddenly a wave 
 boarded us and with an impish fit gathered the little 
 deck galley in its embrace and with a hiss and a cloud 
 of briny steam carried the box with its coal-pot and 
 cooking dinner and swept the whole of it into the sea. 
 I looked at the Commissioner and we both looked at 
 the parsons. There was a warning in this. Titley, 
 the big coloured skipper, felt it too and from that time 
 our sailing was done with great care. So much for 
 superstition, it seems to grow on me the more I have 
 to do with the sea. 
 
 The channel was full of fish, Jarvis had told me, and 
 with our towbait we would take at least one fish on 
 each tack. We made a good many tacks and got one 
 small barracudda. Of course we knew where the 
 trouble lay. We spent the night under East End where 
 in the morning the Commissioner landed and put an 
 official touch to the depositing of syrup and buns in 
 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL 331 
 
 sundry little dark interiors and gave out medals for out- 
 ward adornment. Thus in the outermost capillaries of 
 the United Kingdom was the fact of the coronation 
 brought home, and, most truly is the stomach of the 
 native the beginning and end, the home and the seat 
 of all being. Then we slipped across to Virgin Gorda 
 and a day later were in Gorda Sound, a perfect har- 
 bour, large enough, some say, to hold the entire British 
 Navy. 
 
 It was from Gorda Sound that I began my little 
 jaunt about the Virgins. I had been looking forward 
 to sailing about in the Drake Channel, for in many 
 ways it is ideal canoe water. Here is an inland sea 
 with a protected beach at every hand, blow high or 
 low. Columbus may have been far off when he named 
 them the "Eleven Thousand," but as I sit here and 
 glance at the chart I can count fifty islands with no 
 difficulty, all in range of forty miles. 
 
 The Virgins are mountainous but much lower than 
 the Lesser Antilles and while they are volcanic in 
 origin they do not show it in outline and must be of a 
 much older formation than the lower islands. They 
 are the tail end of the range which forms Cuba, San 
 Domingo, and Porto Rico. 
 
 I bade good-bye to the Lady Constance one morn- 
 ing, and sailed out before her through the narrow pass 
 by Mosquito Island, while they took the larger opening 
 for low Anegada, which we could not see, twelve miles 
 to the northeast. I hauled up along the shores of 
 Virgin Gorda and made for West Bay. What a con- 
 trast was this sailing to our travelling in the lower 
 islands. Instead of the large capping seas of the trades 
 
ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 here was an even floor merely ruffled by a tidy breeze. 
 For a change it was delightful, but too much of it might 
 prove tiresome and in the end we would probably be 
 seeking open water again. I was soon in the bay and 
 running ashore at the western end I dragged the Yaka- 
 boo across the hot sands and left her under the shade 
 of the thick sea grapes that form a green backing to 
 the yellow beach. There is no town on Virgin Gorda, 
 merely clusters of native huts that might be called set- 
 tlements, the two larger having small school houses 
 which are also used as churches. 
 
 The life in these small outer cays is of a very simple 
 nature. There are no plantations and the negro lives 
 in a sort of Utopian way by raising a few ground pro- 
 visions near his hut and when he wishes to change his 
 diet he goes fishing. To obtain cash he sends his fish 
 and ground provisions to the market in Tortola or St. 
 Thomas and strange to say his most urgent need of cash 
 is for the buying of tobacco. 
 
 Once, during the hurricane season, it chanced that 
 all the sloops were at St. Thomas when Virgin Gorda 
 found that it had run out of tobacco. The sloops had 
 been gone for a week and were due to return when sus- 
 picious weather set in and no one dared leave port even 
 for the shortest run. What with the hand to mouth 
 existence these people lead and the small stock in the 
 shops, there is never more than a week's supply of 
 tobacco on Virgin Gorda and that notwithstanding the 
 fact that the negroes here are inordinate smokers. The 
 first day after the tobacco had given out was lived 
 through with no great difficulty. On the second, how- 
 ever, the absence of the weed began to make itself felt. 
 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL 
 
 The dried leaves of various bushes were tried but 
 with little success. Dried grass and small pieces of 
 bone were burned in pipes and finally those most hard 
 pressed took to pulling the oakum out of the seams of 
 an old boat that lay on the beach of West Bay. When 
 day after day followed and the sloops from St. Thomas 
 did not return, the whole population finally gave itself 
 over to the smoking of oakum and watching for the 
 return of their sloops. Even the oakum in an old 
 beached fishing boat will not furnish smoking material 
 for a couple of hundred natives for any great length 
 of time and finally the island was quite smokeless, a 
 state which to these people borders close onto starva- 
 tion. 
 
 At last the sullen threat of a hurricane passed off 
 and the next day the lookout reported white sail-patches 
 beating up the channel. When the sloops beat into 
 West Bay late that afternoon, the whole population of 
 Virgin Gorda was waiting for them. As soon as the 
 boats were beached the first business of the island was 
 to enjoy a good smoke. To have been there with a 
 camera and to have caught the two hundred columns 
 of bluish smoke drifting aslant in the light easterly 
 breeze ! 
 
 In the morning I was again on the summer sea of the 
 channel. We had cleared Virgin Gorda and were laz- 
 ing along toward Ginger when I saw the mottled fin 
 of a huge devil fish directly on our course. I was in 
 no mind to dispute his way — not being familiar with 
 the disposition of these large rays — -so I hauled up a 
 bit and let him pass a hundred feet or so to leeward. 
 I stood up and watched him as he went by and swore 
 
334 [ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 that some day I would harpoon just such a fellow as 
 that from a whaleboat and take photographs of the 
 doing. Just now I was leaving him alone. His fin, 
 mottled brown and black like the rest of his upper 
 surface, stood nearly three feet high and I judged his 
 size to be about eighteen feet across from tip to tip. 
 
 For my nooning, I went ashore on a little beach on 
 Cooper where I built a fire in the shade of beach 
 growths. The sun, it seemed, did not have the deadly 
 spite in its rays as in the lower islands but this may 
 have been wholly surmise on my part. It was a great 
 joy to be able to do a bit of beach work — that is to 
 live more on the beaches than I had been doing in the 
 Windward and Leeward islands. I sat for a while 
 under the small trees where the cool wind seeped 
 through the shade and set myself to a real sailor's job 
 of a bit of needlework on the mainsail where a batten 
 had worn through its pocket. 
 
 There is a peculiar freshness about these small cays 
 that seems to do its utmost to belie any suspicion of a 
 past. The beaches are shining, the sand and pebbles 
 look new and in a sense perhaps they are, for one does 
 not find here the thin slime on the rocks that is an ac- 
 companiment of long years of near-by civilisation. 
 Man befouls. The vegetation is for the most part 
 new, for excepting an aged silk cotton tree, there are 
 no growths of great age. The palms grow for a gen- 
 eration or two and pass away. The small woody 
 growths of coarse grain and spongy fiber quickly bleach 
 out and rot away upon death. They almost seem to 
 evaporate into the air. Here are places of quickly 
 passing generations that suggest eternal youth. Were 
 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL 335 
 
 our impressions of these places not biased by brilliantly 
 coloured pictures which we have seen in our youth of 
 pirates and adventurers of a former age portrayed on 
 brilliant white beaches with a line of azure sea and a 
 touch of fresh green, we would swear that they were 
 no older than a generation. But all these beaches of 
 perpetual youth knew the rough-booted pirates of cen- 
 turies ago and the Indians before them. Here in the 
 channel between these outer cays and Tortola, three 
 centuries ago, convoys of deeply laden merchant ships 
 under clouds of bellying squaresails used to collect like 
 strange seafowl to sail in the common strength of their 
 own guns and a frigate or two for the European con- 
 tinent. Drake and Morgan and Martin Frobisher, 
 whom we think only as of the Arctic, and the Admiral 
 William Penn knew these places as we know the en- 
 virons of our own homes. 
 
 When I had finished my sewing and had washed my 
 dishes I shoved off again and in a few minutes — what 
 a toy cruise ! — I was ashore on the beach of Salt island 
 where a few huts flocked together under the coco-palms. 
 Here I found a native by the name of William Penn. 
 I asked him if he had ever heard of the old Admiral. 
 Penn, he told me, was an old name in these islands, 
 there having been many Williams. In all probability 
 the name was first assumed by the slaves in the old days 
 and then handed down from generation to generation. 
 
 It was here, in 1867, that the Royal Mail Steamer 
 Rhone was wrecked in a hurricane. William Penn 
 showed me in one of the huts a gilded mirror which 
 had been "dove up" and he told me that the natives 
 were still diving-up various articles from the wreck- 
 
336 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 age. We put off in our canoes and rowed around to the 
 western shore where the steamer lies in some forty feet 
 of water. She must have been broken up on the rocks 
 during the first onslaught of the hurricane and then 
 blown out to where she now lies about two hundred 
 yards from shore. The conditions were not particu- 
 larly good, yet we could see what was left of her in 
 large masses of wreckage literally strewn about on the 
 ocean floor. 
 
 Then I hoisted sail again and was off across the 
 channel to Dead Man's Chest where I would camp for 
 the night. The surf was too high, however, and I 
 had to content myself with a photograph and to sail 
 on to Peter where I came ashore in the cool of the 
 evening on a sandy turtle beach. A native came out of 
 the bush and without any word on my part immediately 
 turned to and built my evening fire. There was a good 
 deal of the simple coast African in him — he freely ad- 
 mitted that it was curiosity that brought him to see me 
 and the canoe and in return for a civil word he was only 
 too glad to do what service he could. He showed the 
 same pride of his village (these negroes all have a 
 strong appreciation of the picturesque) that I found 
 all along the lee coasts and he begged that I visit the 
 snug little bay where he lived, when I set sail in the 
 morning. 
 
 The night promised clear with a small new moon 
 crescent — perfect for sleeping without cover. I had 
 no sooner settled myself down in my tiny habitation 
 than the wind began to drop and thousands of mosqui- 
 toes came out of the bush on a rampage. Instead of 
 pitching my tent on the ground I ran the peak up on 
 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL 337 
 
 the mainmast which I stepped in the mizzen tube. The 
 middle after-guy I ran to the foot of the mizzen mast 
 which was now in the mainmast tube. The sides I 
 pegged in the sand under the bilges of the canoe and in 
 this way I had a roomy canoe tent which gave access 
 to the forward compartment in case of rain. 
 
 After I had rigged the tent I beat the air inside with 
 a towel so that when I fastened down the mosquito 
 bar there was no one inside but myself. I found, how- 
 ever, that I was plenty of company. While the night 
 air outside was cool enough I soon found that the heat 
 from my body accumulated in the tent till I lay on my 
 blankets in a bath of perspiration. A loose flap in the 
 top of the tent would have taken off this warm air as 
 in a tepee. Had there been one mosquito to bother 
 me sleep would have been impossible. At last a gentle 
 night breeze sprang up, I wiped my body dry, and 
 dropped off to sleep. 
 
 The next day was July first, the last of the cruise of 
 the Yakaboo, and almost of the skipper. I was up with 
 the sun — many evil days begin just that way — and off 
 the beach after a hasty breakfast. My destination was 
 Norman Island — I would come back to Peter again — 
 where there were caves in which treasure had actually 
 been found and where there was a tree with certain 
 cabalistic marks which were supposed to indicate the 
 presence of buried treasure. I cleared the end of the 
 island and hauled up for Norman, passing close to 
 Pelican Cay. Norman is a long narrow island with an 
 arm that runs westward from its northern shore, form- 
 ing a deep harbour which gives excellent protection 
 from all quarters but northeast. 
 
338 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 In a rocky wall on the extreme western end of the 
 island where the harbour opens out to the channel are 
 two caves which can be easily seen when sailing through 
 the Flanagan passage into Sir Francis Drake's Channel. 
 These caves are the ordinary deep hollows one com- 
 monly finds in volcanic rock formation close to the 
 sea and were for years unsuspected of holding hidden 
 treasure. They say that a certain black merchant of St. 
 Thomas, who had literally become rich over night, 
 found his money in the shape of Spanish doubloons 
 from an iron chest which he dug up in the far end of 
 one of the caves. The man had bought Norman, had 
 spent some time there and for no apparent reason had 
 suddenly become rich. One day a curious fisherman 
 found the empty chest by the freshly dug hole in the 
 cave and there were even a few telltale coins that had 
 rolled out of range of the lantern of the man who 
 dug out the treasure. And there must have been an- 
 other place for one day a small schooner came down 
 from the north and entered at the port of Road Town. 
 She picked up a native from Salt island and one night 
 she ran down to Norman's. The next morning she put 
 the native ashore on his own island and sailed for parts 
 unknown — as to what happened on Norman the native, 
 it seems, was strangely silent. There's the whole of the 
 tale except what's known by the crew of the schooner. 
 
 As I sailed into the harbour, I saw a sandy beach 
 at the far end where a small wooden jetty stood out 
 in the calm water. Fringing the beach was a row of 
 small cocopalms, behind which the island bowled up 
 into a sort of amphitheater of scrubby hillside. What 
 a place for a pirate's nest! There is scant printed his- 
 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL 339 
 
 tory of Norman and what is written is for the most part 
 in some such records as led the schooner to the island. 
 I rowed in to the beach, the hill to the eastward cutting 
 off all moving air so that a calm of deathly stillness 
 held the head of the bay in a state of quivering heat 
 waves. The low burr of wind in the upper air out- 
 voiced whatever sound might have come from the surf 
 on the windward side of the island. 
 
 There was something peculiarly uncanny about the 
 place which was all the more accentuated by the lonely 
 jetty and a pair of pelicans that launched forth in turn 
 from their perch on the gallows-like frame at its end, 
 to float in large circles over the clear sandy-floored 
 harbour, remounting again in lazy soft-pinioned flaps. 
 They flew off as I tied up to the jetty but completed 
 their circle as I stepped ashore and sat eyeing the 
 Yakaboo as if detailed there on sentry duty. The heat 
 was intolerable and if I were to camp on Norman I 
 should have to find a cooler spot than this. 
 
 First, however, I would hunt the pirate tree, but I 
 had not gone far into the bush before I began to feel 
 faint and sick. The bush was close but shaded and 
 as I retraced my steps to the jetty and came out again 
 into the full glare of the beach the heat came upon 
 me like a blow. I needed water and I knew where 
 I could get it, luke-warm, in my can in the after com- 
 partment of the canoe. I tried to stoop down from 
 the jetty but nearly fell off so I followed the safer plan 
 of lying down on the burning boards and reaching into 
 the compartment with my arms and head hanging over. 
 
 The hatch came off easily enough and with it rose 
 the hot damp odour of the heated compartment mixed 
 
340 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 with the smell of varnish. I took out a bag or two and 
 found them covered with a sticky fluid. Then I dis- 
 covered my varnish can lying on its side with its cork 
 blown out, spewing its contents over all my bags. 
 When I lifted my water-can it came up with heartsink- 
 ing lightness. I took it up on the jetty and sat up to 
 examine it. There in the bottom was a tiny rust hole 
 where the water had run out. Then I lay down again 
 and dabbled my fingers in half an inch of water and 
 varnish in the bottom of the compartment. I had sense 
 enough to know that I was pretty well gone by this 
 time and I went ashore where I lay for some time under 
 the shade of the young cocopalms. 
 
 If I could only get one of those water-nuts I should 
 feel much better and although the trees were young 
 and the nuts hung low they were still nearly three feet 
 above my reach. Perhaps I could shoot them down, so 
 I went back to the canoe and got the rifle which so far 
 had been of little use to me. The will of the good Lord 
 was with me for I found that I could almost touch the 
 nuts with the muzzle of my rifle. By resting the barrel 
 upward along the trunk of the tree I could poke the 
 muzzle within a few inches of the stems. Any one 
 could have made the shot, but I missed because I for- 
 got that the sight was raised a good half inch from the 
 center of the bore. It took me some time to reason 
 this out and I had to sit down for a while to recover 
 from the shock of the recoil. Then the idea came to 
 me. I aimed the rifle this time with its axis in line 
 with the stem and pulled the trigger. Down came the 
 nut and I blew off its head and drank its cool liquid. In 
 like manner I shot another coconut. 
 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL 341 
 
 Stalking the fruit of a cocopalm may sound like the 
 tamest of sport, but no hunting ever gave me keener 
 satisfaction than shooting these two nuts in the neck. 
 The milk was cool and refreshing and I believe it 
 pulled me out of as tight a corner as I have ever been 
 in alone. There was no one living on the island. The 
 coming on of nausea and the feeling that I did not 
 exactly care what happened was hideous to my better 
 sense and I felt that at all costs I must make an effort 
 to refresh myself and then leave the island as soon as 
 possible. By sheer luck of supercaution I got into the 
 canoe and untied the painter (I found it trailing in the 
 water when I got out in the channel later) and then 
 in one last effort of fostered strength I rowed out of 
 the cove into the breeze where I quietly pulled in my 
 oars and lay down. 
 
 A little time later the quick roll of the canoe roused 
 me and I found that I was clear of Norman and close 
 upon Flanagan Island. The wind was cool and I 
 made sail for Tortola. I was still very faint but I 
 had held that mainsheet for so many miles that even 
 half-insensible I could sail the Yakaboo into Road Har- 
 bour — perhaps she did a little more than her half of 
 the sailing. For three days I was taken care of at 
 Government House and then feeling perfectly well I 
 prepared to sail for St. Thomas. The anxious Com- 
 nissioner would not hear of this and the doctor for- 
 )ade me to go into the sun again, warning me to take 
 :he next steamer for New York. 
 
 On the afternoon of July Fourth I was bundled 
 iboard the Lady Constance, together with the Yaka- 
 
342 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 boo, and in the evening we sailed into the Danish port 
 of Charlotte Amalia. 
 
 So here ends the cruise of the Yakaboo after nearly 
 six months of wanderings in the out-of-the-way places 
 of that arc which swings from Grenada to St. Thomas. 
 Six months may seem a long time to you of the office 
 who at the most can get a month of it in the woods or 
 along shore, but to me these months had been so full 
 of varied interest that they were a kaleidoscope of 
 mental pictures and impressions, some of them sur- 
 prisingly unreal, that I had gone through in weeks. 
 Had it not been for the heat I should have kept on and 
 cruised along Porto Rico, San Domingo, and Cuba, 
 crossing the large channels by steamer if necessary. 
 
 But it is the sun which makes impossible the true out- 
 door life in these islands as we know it in the north. 
 I was content with what I had seen. I did not think 
 back with longing of Norman where I had failed to 
 spend the days I had planned, nor of Diamond Rock 
 off Martinique where I had wished to land, nor of the 
 half-French, half-Dutch St. Martin's that was out of 
 reach to windward, nor of Aves, the center, almost, 
 from which the arc of the Caribbees is swung, for I 
 decided, should the opportunity offer, I would come 
 down here again in a boat large enough to sleep in off 
 shore and in which I could escape the heat of the day 
 at anchor in the cool spots where the down draft of 
 the hills strikes the smooth waters of protected coves. 
 
 One morning the Parima nosed her way into the 
 harbour and I put off to her in a bumboat with my 
 trunk and outfit aboard and the Yakaboo towing astern. 
 The trunk and outfit followed me up the companionway 
 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHANNEL 343 
 
 and after a talk with the First Officer I rowed the 
 Yakaboo under one of the forward booms which had 
 swung out and lowered its cargo hook like a spider at 
 the end of its thread. I slipped the canvas slings under 
 the canoe's belly and waved for the mate to "take her 
 weight." She hung even and holding on to the hook I 
 yelled to the head and shoulders that stuck out over the 
 rail to "Take her up I" 
 
 M 'Take her up,' he says," came down to me and we 
 began to rise slowly into the air. We were leaving the 
 Caribbean for the last time together and were swung 
 gently up over the rail and lowered to the deck. 
 
 The steward led me to a stateroom that I was to 
 share with an American engineer returning from Porto 
 Rico. Here was one who did not know of my cruise 
 and I was glad to escape a torrent of questions. He, 
 the engineer, looked askance at my rough clothes and 
 I chuckled to myself while he hung about the open door 
 in the altogether obvious attempt to forestall any sly 
 thieving on my part. I don't blame him. I shaved and 
 packed my suitcase with my shore clothes and then 
 hied me to the shower bath whence I emerged an ordi- 
 nary person of fairly respectable aspect. 
 
 Then some confounded maniac walked along the 
 deck clanging a bell and I knew that it was the call to 
 breakfast. I went below and took my seat opposite 
 the engineer from Porto Rico who recognised me with 
 a start. I embarked on a gastronomic cruise, making 
 my departure from a steep-to grapefruit that had been 
 iced and coming to a temporary anchorage off a small 
 cay of shredded wheat in a sea of milk — foods of a 
 remote past. I was tacking through an archipelago 
 
344 ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 of bacon and eggs when I heard the exhaust of the 
 steam winch and the grind of the anchor chain as it 
 passed in over the lip of the hawse pipe, link by link. 
 I had cleared the archipelago and was now in the open 
 sea of my first cup of coffee and bound for a flat-topped 
 island of flapjacks when I felt the throb of the pro- 
 peller slowly turning over to gather the bulk under us 
 into steerage way. Presently the throb settled down 
 to a smooth vibration — we were under way. 
 
 Some one at my right had been murmuring, "Please 
 pass the sugar? — may I trouble you for the sugar? — I 
 
 BEG your pardon but " and I woke up and passed 
 
 the sugar bowl. Some one else said, "I see by the 
 papers — — " I was back in civilisation again and as 
 far from the Yakaboo and the Lesser Antilles as you, 
 sitting on the back of your neck in a Morris chair. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abime, L\ submarine crater, 
 247 
 
 Admixture; of French with 
 negro, 98, 100, 198; of 
 Carib with negro, 116, 128, 
 129; of Carib with Ara- 
 wauk, 137; of English with 
 negro, 198; of Irish with 
 negro, 278, 280 
 
 Ajoupa, 46, 150, 152 
 
 Andrea Doria, 296-299, 305, 
 306 
 
 Antidote for snake bite, 217, 
 218 
 
 Arawauk origin of Caribs, 
 137, 138 
 
 Bags. See Oiled bags 
 Balling. See Fishing 
 Barber, a Dutch, 307-309 
 Barbot, cited concerning man- 
 
 chioneel trees, 77, 78; Mt. 
 
 Pelee, 217; Redonda, 276 
 Basse Terre, Guadeloupe, 
 
 259-263 
 Basse Terre, St. Kitts, 288 
 Baths, Curative, 169, 170 
 Bay Path, Oranjetown, 295, 
 
 305, 306 
 
 Beaches; typical, 77, 140, 264, 
 265, 266; tetanus on, 116; 
 how to walk on, 231 ; un- 
 suitability for day camping, 
 239; cobbled beach, Saba, 
 317; more habitable in Vir- 
 gin Islands, 332-337- See 
 also Fever beaches. Surf 
 on. See Surf running 
 
 Bequia, island, 101-109, 115 
 
 Black fin, 141 -143 
 
 Blackfish, 1 01 -103 
 
 Boats; Carib canoe, 109, 126, 
 127, 140, 141 ; catamaran, 
 253; drogher, 28; dugouts, 
 119, 157-159, 225-227, 
 235 ; Government Cruiser, 
 329 ; schooners, old 
 Gloucester fishermen, 201, 
 289; trading sloops, 28, 
 170, 171; whale boats, 48- 
 52, 73 
 
 Bottom Town, Saba, 320, 
 322-326 
 
 Brimstone Hill, 290, 291 
 
 Bulling. See Fishing 
 
 Cachacrou Head, 238-247 
 Calabash; for carrying water, 
 
 345 
 
346 
 
 INDEX 
 
 131; use as safe, 131, 132; 
 as shower-bath, 167; as a 
 musical instrument, 205, 
 206 
 
 Calms, 113-115, 255, 263-265, 
 287 
 
 Camels on Nevis, 286 
 
 Cannon, Old, 96, 291, 305, 
 306 
 
 Cannouan, island, 100, 101 
 
 Canoes; Capt. Slocum's, 23; 
 Carib, 109, 126, 127, 140, 
 141; native, 157-159; ad- 
 vantage over larger craft, 
 171, 180. See also Dug- 
 outs, Log 
 
 Caribs, Black, 115-118, 128, 
 129 
 
 Caribs, Yellow; nature lore 
 of boy in Grenada, 3 1 ; 
 houses of, 46, 47, 150, 151 ; 
 physical characteristics of, 
 109; admixture with negro, 
 116, 128, 129; camping 
 with, 125-154; industry of, 
 135; Arawauk origin of, 
 137, 138; language of, 138, 
 148, 149; custom of the 
 "wake" of, 144, 145; re- 
 ligion of, 145-148 
 
 Carriacou, island, 84-93 
 
 Cassava; drying, 100; how 
 prepared, 152, 153 
 
 Castries, 1 71-174 
 
 Catamaran, 253 
 
 Channel runs; among the 
 Grenadines, 71-77, 101- 
 103; to Saint Lucia, 155- 
 161; to Martinique, 179- 
 184; to Dominica, 234-238; 
 to Guadeloupe, 256-259; to 
 Monserrat, 270-274 ; to Re- 
 donda, 278; to Nevis, 282- 
 285; to St. Kitts, 287, 288; 
 to St. Eustatius, 291, 292; 
 to Saba, 316-318; among 
 the Virgin Islands, 330-341 
 
 Charcoal, 38 
 
 Charts, how to carry, 82, 83 
 
 Chateau Belaire, 119, 120, 
 125 
 
 Chocolate, native, 47, 48, 160, 
 
 245 
 Churches; at Mayero, 99; at 
 Owia, 146-148; at Statia, 
 
 304 
 Churchill, cited; concerning 
 
 Caribs, 129; Redonda, 278 
 Clothing for cruise, 31, 81, 
 
 145, 146, 263, 264, 287, 
 
 293, 294 
 Coal-pot, 38, 47 
 Cocoa shop, 61 
 Coconuts, jelly; how to eat, 
 
 H7> 159, 160; shooting, 
 
 340> 34i 
 Colours, tropical, 27, 28, 36, 
 
 107, 161, 162, 225, 326 
 
INDEX 
 
 347 
 
 Cooking, manner of; on coal- 
 pots, 38, 47; cassava, 152, 
 153. See also Cooking out- 
 fit 
 Cooking outfit, 34, 37, 38, 82 
 Cooper Island, 334, 335 
 Coyembouc. See Calabash 
 Crater; of Soufriere, Saint 
 Vincent, 123, 124; of Mt. 
 Pelee, 218, 219, 220; sub- 
 marine, of Dominica, 247; 
 the "Quille" of Statia, 291, 
 292; of Saba, 320-326 
 Creole, French, beauty of, in 
 comparison with English 
 admixture, 198 
 Cuckoo mayoque, Legend of, 
 
 168 
 Currents. See Tide currents 
 Customs officers. See Duanes 
 
 Dauphin, 282, 283 
 
 Dead Man's Chest, 328, 336 
 
 Deshaies, Guadeloupe, 265- 
 269 
 
 Devil fish, 333, 334 
 
 Diamond Rock; French Gui- 
 ana, 55; Martinique, 182, 
 183. In the Grenadines. 
 See Kick 'em Jinny. 
 
 Dikes; in Statia, 303; in 
 Saba, 322 
 
 Dominica, 238-256 
 
 Dorade. See Dauphin 
 
 Drogher, 28 
 
 Duanes, how to elude, 184- 
 
 186, 208-210, 223, 224, 
 
 228 
 Dugouts, log, 119, 157-159, 
 
 225-227, 235. See also 
 
 Canoes, Carib 
 Duquesne Point, 37-39 
 "Dying" native, how to treat 
 
 a, 256 
 
 Easter holidays in Fort de 
 France, 202-206 
 
 Fer-de-lance. See Snakes 
 Feudal government at May- 
 
 ero, 47, 98, 99 
 Fever, tropical, how to avoid, 
 
 3i 
 
 Fever beaches, 39, 266-269 
 
 Fire arms, 35, 82 
 
 Fire-flies, 232 
 
 Fish. See Black fin; Black- 
 fish; Dauphin; Devil fish; 
 Fishing; Flying fish; Jack- 
 fish; Million-fish; Sharks 
 
 Fishing; bulling, 129; for 
 black fin, 141-143 ; at night, 
 244 
 
 Flying fish, 181 
 
 Food; for cruising, 34, 47, 75, 
 82, 139, 160; native, 63, 
 H3, 152, 153, 183, 240- 
 
348 
 
 INDEX 
 
 241 ; a Sunday morning 
 feast, 245 
 Fort de France, 184-207 
 Forts; Fort George, Grenada, 
 27 ; The Vigie, Saint Lucia, 
 171; Fort Rodney, Pigeon 
 Island, 176, 177; H.M.S. 
 Diamond Rock, 182, 183; 
 Fort St. Louis, Fort de 
 France, 184; Cachacrou 
 Head, Dominica, 238, 239; 
 Fort George, Brimstone 
 Hill, 290, 291 ; Fort Or- 
 anje, Statia, 296-300 ; Tom- 
 menlendyk, Statia, 311, 
 312; private, on Union, 96, 
 
 97 
 Frigate, island, 93-95 
 Fruits, tropical, 117, 159, 
 
 160, 247, 264, 265 
 Fuel, 34, 38, 47, 78, 269 
 
 Gardens, Botanical. Carria- 
 cou, 89 
 
 George V, celebration of cor- 
 onation in Virgin Islands, 
 328, 329-331 
 
 Gloucester fishermen as 
 island traders, 201, 289 
 
 Goyave, Grenada, 36, 90 
 
 Grande Riviere Point, 225- 
 
 234 
 Grenada, 26-41, 56, 58 
 Grenadines, 39, 42-109 
 
 Griffith, Dr. J. Morgan, 301, 
 
 304-306, 315, 318 
 Gros-Islet, Saint Lucia, 174- 
 
 176 
 Guadeloupe, 259-269 
 Gutters ; how used by natives, 
 
 197, 198 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 285- 
 286 
 
 Heat, tropical, 116, 263, 264; 
 how to avoid illness from, 
 31, 36, 220, 221, 263 
 
 Herrera, cited; concerning 
 Carib language, 138; Vir- 
 gin Islands, 327 
 
 Houses; native, 28, 46, 93, 99, 
 117, 246; in towns, 28, 
 162, 164, 165, 188-191* 
 262, 267, 303, 322; Carib, 
 46, 47, 150, 151 
 
 Hugues, Victor, 262-265 
 
 Ice, 113, 170 
 
 Ile-de-Caille, 40-74 
 
 Illness, how to avoid, 31, 36, 
 
 220, 221, 263 
 Innocent, Joseph, 164-168 
 Irishmen, Black, 278, 280 
 
 Jack-fish, 47 
 
 Jarvis, Leslie, Commissioner 
 
 of Tortola, 328-331 
 Josephine, Empress, 166, 170, 
 
INDEX 
 
 349 
 
 172, 175, 176; the native 
 who had seen, 173, 174; 
 statue of, 200 
 Jumbies, 42, 45, 178, 242 
 
 Kick 'Em Jinny, 55, 70-77 
 Kingstown, Saint Vincent, 
 
 110113 
 Krull, Admiral, 301-304 
 
 Labat, Pere; country of, 222, 
 223; little economies of, 
 229, 230; cited concerning 
 chocolate, 48; use of cala- 
 bash, 131; Caribs, 138; on 
 sequence of waves, 231; 
 how to catch dorade, 283 
 
 Labour problems, 86, 87, 95, 
 96, 99. See also Metayer 
 system; Paternal system 
 
 Lajoblesse, 45 
 
 Land cruise, A, 250-255 
 
 Language; native, 37, 42; 
 Carib, 138, 148, 149 
 
 Layou, Saint Vincent, 116- 
 118 
 
 "Little Yakaboo," 117, 118 
 
 Mabouya, island, 77-84 
 Madras, how worn, 198 
 Manchioneel trees, 77, 78, 305 
 Manicou, 47 
 
 Mansanilla trees. See Man- 
 chioneel trees 
 
 Martinique, 56, 184-234 
 Mascot of the Yakaboo, 70, 
 
 84, 92, 93 
 Matches, how to carry, 80 
 Mayero, island, 47, 98-100 
 Merry-go-round, 204-206 
 Metayer system, 99 
 Million-fish, 87 
 Monserrat, 272-278 
 Moon, influence of, on tide 
 
 and weather, 31, 42, 44, 72, 
 
 92 
 Moonlight; beauty of, 103, 
 
 107; St. Pierre by, 214-216 
 Mosquitoes; extermination by 
 
 million-fish of, 87; yellow 
 
 fever, 177; on beach, 336, 
 
 337 
 Mouchicarri, variations of 
 
 name, 55 
 Music, native, 48, 145, 148, 
 
 204-206, 268 
 
 Names of islands, origin of, 
 
 44, 55, 56, 276, 327, 328 
 Natives; nature lore of, 31, 
 
 72, 168; curiosity of, 32, 
 37, 100, 104, 105, 109, no, 
 117, 135, 163, 241; patois, 
 37, 42; superstitions of, 42, 
 
 45, 48, 56, 90-92, 100, 101, 
 108, 109, 135, 178, 242; 
 carelessness at sea of, 43, 97, 
 275; yellow streak in, 43, 
 
350 
 
 INDEX 
 
 65; easy philosophy of, 54, 
 97; desire to be considered 
 "white," 86 ; laziness of, 86, 
 306, 307; respect for law 
 of, 86, 99; officiousness of, 
 89, 184-186, 247, 248; 
 primitive undress of, 94; 
 religion of, 99, 146-148; 
 how to drive away, 100, 
 1 01 ; fondness for gold- 
 rimmed glasses, 1 1 1 ; pride 
 in villages of, 1 16, 227, 245- 
 247, 336; unwillingness to 
 serve, 1 201 25 ; medical lore 
 of, 136; remarkable mem- 
 ory of, 173, 174; range of 
 conversation of, 197, 198; 
 use of gutters by, 197, 198; 
 industry of French, 199; 
 games of, 203-204; music 
 of, 48, 145, 148, 204-206, 
 268 ; how to treat "dying," 
 256; apathy of, 260, 266; 
 simple life of, 332. See also 
 Caribs, Black; Caribs, Yel- 
 low; Irishmen, Black; Ne- 
 gro; Whalers, etc. 
 Nautical instruments, 35, 
 
 82 
 Nautical School, Saba, 325 
 Negro admixture; with 
 French, 98, 100, 198, 199; 
 with Caribs, 116, 128, 129; 
 
 with English, 198; with 
 
 Irish, 278, 280. 
 Nevis, 285-287 
 Norman Island, 337-341 
 
 Oiled bags, 34, 37, 78, 81, 83 
 Oranjetown, St. Eustatius, 
 
 292-315 
 Outfit, 34, 35, 37, 38, 78-83 
 Owia Bay, Saint Vincent, 132, 
 
 146-148 
 
 Paternal system, 88 
 
 Pelee, Mt. ; eruption of, 127, 
 
 210-213; ascent of, 216- 
 
 220; beauty of, 224, 225, 
 
 229. 
 Peter Island, 336, 337 
 Petit Martinique, 56 
 Phosphate of alumina on Re- 
 
 donda, 278 
 Photographic outfit, 34, 35, 
 
 82 
 Photography, 112, 113, 196 
 Pigeon Island, 176-179 
 Pirates, 28, 328, 335-338 
 Pitons, The, 161 
 Point Espagnol, 134-154 
 Police Stations, hospitality of, 
 
 36, 41, 120, 174, 175, 267- 
 
 269 
 Porpoises, 1 01 -103 
 Ports of entry, difficulties with 
 
 officials: in Soufriere, Saint 
 
INDEX 
 
 351 
 
 Lucia, 162-164; in Fort de 
 
 France, 184-187, 197; in 
 
 Roseau, Dominica, 247-250. 
 
 See also Duanes. 
 Priest, A, who hoodwinked 
 
 his congregation, 90, 91 ; 
 
 who coasted on a coffin, 91, 
 
 92 
 Priestess of Mayero, 99 
 
 Rallet, Pere Labat's sexton, 
 
 230 
 Raynal, Abbe, cited concern- 
 ing Saba, 321, 322 
 Redonda, 275-282 
 Religion; native, 99, 203; 
 
 Carib, 144-148 
 Remaud, Pere, 174-176 
 Rhone, wreck of R.M.S., 335, 
 
 336 
 Richaud, M., 186-193 
 Rocheford, cited, concerning 
 
 sharks, 284, 285 
 Rodney, Admiral; in the Bat- 
 tle of the Saints, 176, 177, 
 257-259; at Statia, 296-299 
 Roseau, 247-252 
 Rosinante, a sorry steed, 250- 
 255 
 
 Saba, 289, 316-326 
 St. Eustatius, 290, 291-315 
 St. George's, Grenada, 26-35 
 Saint-Hilaire, Jane-Rose de, 
 
 priestess of Mayero, 47, 98- 
 100 
 
 St. Kitts, 288-291 
 
 Saint Lucia, 1 61-179 
 
 St. Pierre, 208-222 
 
 Saint Vincent, 56, 1 10-155 
 
 Saints, The, 257, 259; the 
 Battle of, 176, 177, 257-259 
 
 Salt Island, 335, 336 
 
 Salute, The first to the Amer- 
 ican naval flag, 296-299, 
 305, 306 
 
 Sandy Bay, Saint Vincent, 
 132, 134, 139, 140 
 
 Sauteurs, Grenada, 40, 41, 61- 
 
 School, native, 147 
 Schooners, trading, 201, 289 
 Scott's Head. See Cachacrou 
 
 Head 
 Sea eggs, 119, 121, 125, 126; 
 
 how to extract, 136-139 
 Share system. See Metayer 
 
 system 
 Sharks, 30, 55, 101, 102, 282- 
 
 285 ; how to avoid, 31, 183 ; 
 
 Rocheford, cited, 284, 285 
 Slave trading beads, 306 
 Sleeping on board, 33, 80, 81, 
 
 I04, 243, 336, 337 
 Sleeping outfit, 34, 81 
 Slocum, Captain Joshua, 22 
 Sloops, trading, 28, 275; ad- 
 
352 
 
 INDEX 
 
 vantage of canoe over, 171, 
 
 180 
 Smith, Whitfield, Commis- 
 sioner of Carriacou, 85-93 
 Snakes; fer-de-lance, 122, 
 
 224 ; antidote for bites, 2 1 7, 
 
 218 
 Soap, natural, 169 
 Soccer, as played in Fort de 
 
 France, 203, 204 
 Social life of Dutch ; at Statia, 
 
 309, 310, 312-314; at Saba, 
 
 324, 325 
 Soufriere, Saint Lucia, 161- 
 
 170 
 Soufriere, Saint Vincent, 119- 
 
 125; eruption of, 127-129 
 Spirits feared by natives; 
 
 Jumbies, 42, 45, 178, 242; 
 
 Lajoblesse, 45 
 Squalls, how the C a r i b s 
 
 weather, 142, 143 
 Statia. See St. Eustatius 
 Sugar, Muscovado, 47 
 Sulphur mining, 169 
 Sun, protection against, 3 1 , 94, 
 
 116, 263, 264 
 Surf running, 40, 132, 140, 
 
 225-227, 233, 234, 292, 
 
 317, 3i8 
 Swizzles, 113 
 
 Tangalanga Point, 39, 40 
 Tantes, Les, 71, 76 
 
 Taxation, petty, 253 
 
 Tent; Comstock, 34, 80, 104; 
 use for sleeping on board 
 canoe, 81, 104, 336, 337; 
 native, 178 
 
 Tetanus on beaches, 116 
 
 Theodorini, Dr., optometrist, 
 in, 112 
 
 "Tide, Spinning," 127 
 
 Tide currents, 30, 31, 42-44, 
 56, 71-74 
 
 Tobacco; Tabac de Mar- 
 tinique, 192, 193; famine 
 on Virgin Gorda, 332, 333 
 
 Tommelendyk, Battery of, 
 Statia, 3 1 03 1 2 
 
 Toucari Bay, Dominica, 255, 
 256 
 
 Trade-clouds, 27, 103, 122, 
 272, 273, 287 
 
 Trade-wind, 24, 26, 29-31, 
 41-44, 71, 92, 123, 124, 
 139, I55> 180, 181, 270, 
 271 
 
 Tryworks, 45, 109 
 
 Union Island, 88, 93-100 
 Union Sportive Martiniquaise 
 
 et Touring Club Antillais, 
 
 200-202, 203, 204 
 
 Ventine, Saint Lucia, 167-169 
 
 Vigie, The, Gibraltar of the 
 
 British West Indies, 171 
 
INDEX 
 
 353 
 
 Virgin Gorda, 332, 333 
 Virgin Islands, 327-341 ; Her- 
 rera cited, 327 
 
 Waddy, M., 200-202, 222, 
 
 225-235 
 "Wake," A Carib, 144, 145 
 Wallace, "Old Bill," 105-107 
 Wallibu Dry River, 120, 121 
 Water ; how to drink, 31; for 
 cruising, 34, 82; jelly coco- 
 nuts instead of, 117, 159, 
 160, 340, 341 ; how to carry 
 in a calabash, 131 
 Water-nuts. See Coconuts, 
 
 jelly 
 
 Weather, influenced by the 
 moon, 31, 42-44, 72, 92, 
 178, 271 
 West Indies, scraps of history 
 of; origin of Black Caribs 
 of Bequia, 115, 116; erup- 
 tion of Soufriere, Saint Vin- 
 cent, 127-129; eruption of 
 Mt. Pelee, 127, 210-213; 
 Battle of the Saints, 176- 
 177, 257-259; H.M.S. Dia- 
 mond Rock, 182-183; 
 French capture Cachacrou 
 Head, 238 ; Alexander 
 Hamilton, 285, 286; at Sta- 
 tia, the story of the first 
 salute, 296-299 ; Admiral 
 
 Krull, 301-303; one-armed 
 gunner drives off French, 
 310-312; Saba, 320-322; 
 early explorers and pirates 
 in the Virgin Islands, 335 
 
 Whale boat, 48-52, 73 
 
 Whale meat, a native del- 
 icacy, 63, 64 
 
 Whalers; at lle-de-Caille, 42- 
 75; at Pigeon Island, 176- 
 179; Yankee, 253 
 
 Whales; humpback, 43, 44, 
 50-54, 56-69; sperm, 44; 
 how they scour off barna- 
 cles, 291 ; harpooning, 49- 
 54, 57, 65-68; singing of, 
 53 ; cutting in, 62, 63 
 
 Whaling, 42-69 
 
 White Wall, The, Statia, 291 
 
 Wind. See Trade-wind 
 
 Woolworth, Captain, cited 
 concerning influence of 
 moon on weather, 92 
 
 Yakaboo; meaning of, 23 ; de- 
 scription of, 24, 32-35, 36- 
 38, 83, 113, 114, 156, 157, 
 234-236; sense of compan- 
 ionship with, 35, 36, 104; 
 advantage over larger craft, 
 171, 1 80 ; speed on best run, 
 274 
 
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