I.
HAD we known just a little more about Trinidad, it would have made a great difference in that luncheon, but it all came out wrong because some of us didn’t know. Too late to influence us in the least, we read in the Daily Gleaner, of Jamaica, that the beef sold in Trinidad is exported alive from Venezuela. To be sure, we were aware that Venezuela occupies a large part of the northern coast of South America, and were conscious that Trinidad lies enclosed in a great bay of that coast, called the Gulf of Paria, off the delta of the Orinoco River; also, in a hazy way, we knew that the Spanish Main is a name applied somewhat vaguely to that same South American coast—a relic of the days of pirates, buccaneers, and freebooting English admirals; but we no more expected to be served a roast of beef from the Spanish Main than a dish of Boston baked beans from our castles in Spain. The two dimly intangible names had ever borne a close comradeship in our minds, a poetic association affiliated them in closest bonds. The same sun kissed into rose tints the turrets of our castles in Spain and the lofty summits of the Spanish Main. The same romance lifted them both away from reality into that land just bordering upon the Islands of the Blest, and much as we longed to materialise our dreams, and make the Spanish Main a usable fact, when the opportunity came for us to do so, it slipped away from us before we were conscious of its existence.
Unaware that the illuminated postal-card menu on the table at the Queen’s Park Hotel, Port of Spain, could in any sense lift the veil from our enchantments, we read the following bill of fare:
Mayonnaise of Fish, with Lettuce
Oysters en Poulet
Scrambled Eggs with Asparagus Tips
Irish Stew
Haricot of Oxtail
Brain Fritters
Curry of Veal à l’Indien
Boiled Turkey and Rice
Ham and Spinach
Fried Sausages and Potatoes
Salad
Assorted Cold Meats
String Beans Rice Mashed Potatoes
Macaroni au Gratin
Chocolate Ice-cream Cakes
Cheese
Eight of us sat down at a table on the veranda, white-walled, white-ceilinged, and white pillared. A white-gravelled walk led out into the white sun, through a stiff, boxed-in, English garden, stuffed with plants in green tubs, and redeemed only by those natural things that will grow and be beautiful in spite of all conventions. Thirsting for cool ices and delectable fruits, looking wistfully for our vanishing fancies of West Indian ambrosia, we turn in a listless, disappointed way to that bill of fare, where ham and spinach and Irish stew and fried sausages send our hopes a-scampering off like a lot of frightened children.
What man in his sane mind would order an haricot of ox-tail in the tropics, when he needs but lift his hand for the food of Paradise; what man, with any sense of the fitness of things, would eat curried veal, when, for the asking, he might sup a libation fit for the gods? Alas! The asking never brought it, and we—that is, one, at least—settled down to scrambled eggs, and felt and looked unutterable scorn upon the one next at table who began at mayonnaise of fish, and took every course to cheese. Ah! friends, this was a case where the one who didn’t know fared ill. She lost her first opportunity of paying her respects to the Spanish Main.
Hungry and disillusioned, the one and the only thing to do is to forget those steaming sausages and the Irish stew as quickly as possible. We shall not stay here a moment longer. Hotels are makeshifts at the best. Let us leave these unromantic, unscrupulous venders of ham and spinach!
There, over yonder on the other side of the savannah, there is a delicious retreat where we can make good our escape.