The English in the West Indies: Or, The Bow of Ulysses |
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American Antilles asked Barbadians Barbadoes beautiful blue boat Bridgetown British brought Captain Caribbean Sea Caribs Catholic Cherry Garden Church civilisation colonies colour constitution Cuba Cuban cultivation deck Dominica Empire England English feet fleet French friends gardens gentleman gone Government House governor Grenada grow Guadaloupe harbour Havana Hayti heard hundred interest Ireland Irish island Jacmel Jamaica Kingston Labat ladies lagoon land leave lived looked Lucia Martinique ment miles morning mountains mulattoes natural negro never officers once orange ourselves palms passed perhaps persons planted planters political Port au Prince Port of Spain Port Royal prosperous race rise Rodney round ruin scene seen ship shore side slavery slaves soil Spain Spaniards Spanish stand sugar things thousand tion told town trade trees Trinidad tropical West Indian West Indies wild wished
Popular passages
Page 41 - OH England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high, But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I ; And such a port for mariners I ne'er shall see again As the pleasant Isle of Aves, beside the Spanish main. There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and stout, All furnished well with small arms and cannons round about ; And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free To choose their valiant captains and obey...
Page 41 - And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold; And the negro maids to Aves from bondage fast did flee, To welcome gallant sailors, a-sweeping in from sea. Oh sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze A-swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees, With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the roar Of the breakers on the reef outside, that never touched the shore.
Page 39 - I learnt the first authentic particulars of the present manner of life of these much misunderstood people. Evidently they belonged to a race far inferior to the Zulus and Caffres, whom I had known in South Africa. They were more coarsely formed in limb and feature. They would have been slaves in their own country if they had not been brought to ours, and at the worst had lost nothing by the change.
Page 41 - Aves, and quite put down were we. All day we fought like bulldogs, but they burst the booms at night ; And I fled in a piragua, sore wounded, from the fight. Nine days I floated starving, and a negro lass beside, Till for all I tried to cheer her, the poor young thing she died ; But as I lay a gasping, a Bristol sail came by, And brought me home to England here, to beg until I die.
Page 41 - All furnished well with small arms and cannons round about ; And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally. Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold, Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of old...
Page 6 - ... suit. The English settlements in the West Indies, it was supposed, would become independent too. They came to be regarded as being as good as gone. We have Mr. Froude's word for it that he had it on high official authority, about 1860, that all preparations for the transition had been already made. " A decision had been irrevocably taken. The troops were to be withdrawn from the Islands, and Jamaica, Trinidad, and the English Antilles were to be masters of their own destiny.
Page 82 - Let a generation or two pass by and carry away with them the old traditions, and an English governorgeneral will be found presiding over a black council, delivering the speeches made for him by a black prime minister ; and how long could this endure? No English gentleman would consent to occupy so absurd a situation.
Page 123 - The leading of the wise few, the willing obedience of the many, is the beginning and end of all right action. Secure this, and you secure everything. Fail to secure it, and, be your liberties as wide as you can make them, no success is possible.
Page 125 - The scene of operations is a damp, tropical jungle, intensely hot, swarming with mosquitoes, snakes, alligators, scorpions, and centipedes, the home, even as Nature made it, of yellow fever, typhus and dysentery and now made immeasurably more deadly by the multitudes of people who crowd thither.
Page 40 - In no part of the globe is there any peasantry whose every want is so completely satisfied as her Majesty's black subjects in these West Indian islands. They have no aspirations to make them restless. They have no guilt upon their consciences. They have food for the picking up. Clothes they need not, and lodging in such a climate need not be elaborate. They have perfect liberty...