former Colonial Secretary, the late Mr. Charles Rogers Nesbitt. The prospects of the Bahamas stand out brightly in contrast with the West Indian sugar-growing islands, for they are in no need of pecuniary assistance, resting as they do on their own merits. They have a surplus revenue, an intelligent Legislature, and possess exceedingly useful products, among others, salt, fruit, sponge, and sisal. Add to this an exceptionally healthy climate, and it may easily be foreseen that a brilliant future is in store for this small but favoured group. Many a victim of pulmonary and nervous diseases, who has stood no chance of recovery in the United States, in Canada, or in our own capricious and damp climate, has entirely recovered after a sojourn in the Bahamas, and has lived to sing the praises of those happy lands which have been gracefully and truthfully named by a great American poet the "Isles of June." Trinidad, Jamaica, and Barbados must also eventually progress, the second named having an important position, especially in view of the prospective Panama Canal. Commercial reciprocity with the United States should do much good. West Indians are loyal and faithful subjects to the Queen; but undoubtedly without that fostering care, which is now more necessary than ever in consequence of the unfair treatment to which they have been lately subjected, that loyalty may eventually be sapped. There are not wanting people, and indeed some who may be described as distinctly far-seeing, who, discontented with the manner in which the Home Government is treating the West Indies, do not hesitate to express the opinion that were they under American rule they would be exceedingly benefited thereby, especially since the recent Cuban war, which has resulted in the annexation to the United States of two of the most important of the group, Cuba and Porto Rico, and enables them with the aid of a powerful fleet to dominate the Central and South American Coast, and to threaten the approaches to the Panama Canal. This is a danger which may at the present time be remote, but nevertheless it is one more worthy of the consideration of our statesmen than perhaps appears on the surface. Havana is virtually the capital of the West Indies, and if the Americans are true to themselves, undoubtedly the prosperity of their new possession will in the next decade be amazing. It therefore behoves the Imperial Government to bestir itself, and enhance in every way the commercial interests of those islands which are under our rule, and to propitiate as much as possible the present loyal disposition of their population. June 16, 1899. AUGUSTUS ADDERLEY. THE WEST INDIES: GENERAL BY MRS. ERNEST HART (Author of "Picturesque Burma"; "The West Indies as they are and as they might be"; "Daily Graphic," &c.) INTRODUCTION It would be impossible in the short time at my disposal to give a clear idea and detailed account of all the islands of the West Indies. I therefore propose to speak only of those islands which I have personally visited, and where I attempted to get some information on the spot of the social, industrial, and political conditions under which the people live. Since the wonder-days of childhood when we followed with liveliest interest the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, have we not all desired to see the wondrous islands of the Atlantic Tropics? Indeed, have we not felt drawn. "Westward ho!" like Columbus, to the very gates of the setting sun, and wished to find ourselves where, as Tennyson describes— "No want there was of human sustenance, Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots, That coiled around the stately stems, and ran It was, therefore, with no small sense of pleasurable anticipation that, this time last year, I found myself aboard an ocean liner bound for a cruise to the West Indies. The impressions of that interesting journey were not only those of splendid colour, of luxurious vegetation, and of glorious sunlight, but of social conditions unexpected and unexplained, of economic problems difficult to solve, and of industrial anomalies which find no counterpart in other countries. If I succeed in awakening in your minds some of the interest with which the West Indies inspired mine, I trust the hour will not be unprofitably spent. BARBADOS Barbados is the Clapham Junction of the West Indies. Every ship going to or coming from the islands passes through the portals of its busy harbour, and Bridgetown is the meeting and the starting point for all interinsular boats. After being a fortnight at sea, the busy mid-ocean mart of Bridgetown is a pleasant surprise. The harbour is seen to be full of shipping-frigates and gunboats from Great Britain, steamers from America, liners from London, and tramps from the islands crowd the placid waters. Our steamer is at once surrounded by numerous row-boats, occupied by coal-black negroes and negresses, who are dressed either in the whitest of shirts and trousers, or in the gayest and cleanest of print dresses. These clamour for passengers, or make the most voluble assurances that our washing can be trusted to them with the certainty of a quick return. The first landing at a new place in the East, or the Tropics, or at an unvisited country, is always an agreeable experience, accompanied with a sense of pleasurable excitement, and the first aspect of a people or race hitherto unknown to one produces an impression never to be effaced. The gentlemanly languor and the cleanly neatness of the Tamils of Ceylon, the half-starved look and the melancholy apathy of the Bengali of Calcutta, the light-hearted joyousness and the ready courtesy of the Japanese of Nagasaki, make impressions which no subsequent knowledge of the country eradicates. In the same way, on landing at Barbados, the bold bearing, the gay-hearted insouciance, and the air of insolent independence of the native Barbadians strike one at once. The women walk erect, clad in spotless white dresses and coloured turbans, and, with swinging gait and statuesque pose, they carry all burdens on their heads. They look you straight in the face out of their bold black eyes, as if to say, "I am black, but I am as good as you any day, if not better." Nearly every one one meets is black-the sailors, the artisans, the shopmen, the waiters -and there is observed in none of them that cringing subserviency so characteristic of the native people of India. The activity of the town of Bridgetown is also surprising to a new-comer. The streets are thronged with passengers, tram-cars run down the narrow roads, and shops and stores (on the American plan) line the sides. There are also handsome and substantial buildings and churches; but the masses of scarlet poinsettias and purple bougainvilliers blazing in the sunlight in the public gardens emphasise the fact that we are indeed again in the tropics. Seen from the high deck of the steamer in harbour the island appears to be one large farm, the fields of which are as green as the cornfields of England in spring; but it is not corn which looks so verdant, but sugarcane, for the whole island of Barbados is in fact one large sugar estate. The island is small, containing only 166 square miles, and is little larger than the Isle of Wight; but of its 106,000 acres 74,000 are planted with sugarThe white roads which intersect the island in every direction, and the cuttings for the same, demon cane. |