The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

This was all very well as long as the land had no special virtue—as long as a market, such as that afforded by New York, was wanting. But now that the market has been opened there can be no doubt—indeed, nobody does doubt—that if the land were cleared its money value would be greatly more than it now is. Every one to whom I spoke admitted this, and complained of the backwardness of the island in improvements. But no one tries to remedy this now.

They had a Governor there some years ago who did much to cure this state of things, who did show them that money was to be made by producing potatoes and sending them out of the island. This was Sir W. Reid, the man of storms. He seems to have had some tolerably efficient idea of what a Governor's duty should be in such a place as Bermuda. To be helped first at every table, and to be called "Your Excellency," and then to receive some thousands a year for undergoing these duties is all very well; is very nice for a military gentleman in the decline of years. It is very well that England can so provide for a few of her old military gentlemen. But when the military gentlemen selected can do something else besides, it does make such a difference! Sir W. Reid did do much else; and if there could be found another Sir W. Reid or two to take their turns in Bermuda for six years each, the scrubby bushes would give way, and the earth would bring forth her increase.

The sleepiness of the people appeared to me the most prevailing characteristic of the place. There seemed to be no energy among the natives, no idea of going a-head, none of that principle of constant motion which is found so strongly developed among their great neighbours in the United States. To say that they live for eating and drinking would be to wrong them. They want the energy for the gratification of such vicious tastes. To live and die would seem to be enough for them. To live and die as their fathers and mothers did before them, in the same houses, using the same furniture, nurtured on the same food, and enjoying the same immunity from the dangers of excitement.

I must confess that during the short period of my sojourn there, I myself was completely overtaken by the same sort of lassitude. I could not walk a mile without fatigue. I was always anxious to be supine, lying down whenever I could find a sofa; ever anxious for a rocking-chair, and solicitous for a quick arrival of the hour of bed, which used to be about half-past nine o'clock. Indeed this feeling became so strong with me that I feared I was ill, and began to speculate as to the effects and pleasures of a low fever and a Bermuda doctor. I was comforted, however, by an assurance that everybody was suffering in the same way. "When the south wind blows it is always so." "The south wind must be very prevalent then," I suggested. I was told that it was very prevalent. During the period of my visit it was all south wind.

The weather was not hot—not hot at least to me who had just come up from Panama, and the fiery furnace of Aspinwall. But the air was damp and muggy and disagreeable. To me it was the most trying climate that I had encountered. They have had yellow fever there twice within the last eight years, and on both occasions it was very fatal. Singularly enough on its latter coming the natives suffered much more than strangers. This is altogether opposed to the usual habits of the yellow fever, which is imagined to be ever cautious in sparing those who are indigenous to the land it visits.

The working population here are almost all negroes. I should say that this is quite as much a rule here as in any of the West Indies. Of course there are coloured people—men and women of mixed breed; but they are not numerous as in Jamaica; or, if so, they are so nearly akin to the negro as not to be observed. There are, I think, none of those all but white ladies and gentlemen whose position in life is so distressing.

The negroes are well off; as a rule they can earn 2s. 6d. a day, from that to 3s. For exceptional jobs, men cannot be had under a dollar, or 4s. 2d. On these wages they can live well by working three days a week, and such appears to be their habit. It seems to me that no enfranchised negro entertains an idea of daily work. Work to them is an exceptional circumstance, as to us may be a spell of fifteen or sixteen hours in the same day. We do such a thing occasionally for certain objects, and for certain objects they are willing to work occasionally.

The population is about eleven thousand. That of the negroes and coloured people does not much exceed that of the whites. That of the females greatly exceeds that of the males, both among the white and coloured people. Among the negroes I noticed this, that if not more active than their brethren in the West Indies, they are at least more civil and less sullen in their manner. But then again, they are without the singular mixture of fun and vanity which makes the Jamaica negro so amusing for a while.

These islands are certainly very pretty; or I should perhaps say that the sea, which forms itself into bays and creeks by running in among them, is very pretty. The water is quite clear and transparent, there being little or no sand on those sides on which the ocean makes its entrance; and clear water is in itself so beautiful. Then the singular way in which the land is broken up into narrow necks, islands, and promontories, running here and there in a capricious, half-mysterious manner, creating a desire for amphibiosity, necessarily creates beauty. But it is mostly the beauty of the sea, and not of the land. The islands are flat, or at any rate there is no considerable elevation in them. They are covered throughout with those scrubby little trees; and, although the trees are green, and therefore when seen from the sea give a freshness to the landscape, they are uninteresting and monotonous on shore.

I must not forget the oleanders, which at the time of my visit were in full flower; which, for aught I know, may be in full flower during the whole year. They are so general through all the islands, and the trees themselves are so covered with the large straggling, but bright blossoms, as to give quite a character to the scenery. The Bermudas might almost be called the oleander isles.