We are now speaking more especially of Trinidad. It is a large island, great portions of which are but very imperfectly known; of which but comparatively a very small part has been cultivated. During the last eight or ten years, ten or twelve thousand immigrants, chiefly Coolies from Madras and Calcutta, have been brought into Trinidad, forming now above an eighth part of its entire population; and the consequence has been that in two years, from 1855, namely, to 1857, its imports were increased by one-third, and its exports by two-thirds! In other words, it produced, with its Coolies, three hogsheads of sugar, where without them it only produced one. The difference is of course that between absolute distress and absolute prosperity. Such having hitherto been the result of immigration into Trinidad, such also having been the result in British Guiana, it does appear singular that men should congregate in Exeter Hall with the view of preventing similar immigration into Jamaica!
This would be altogether unintelligible were it not that similar causes have produced similar effects in so many other cases. Men cannot have enough of a good thing.
Exactly the same process has taken place with reference to criminals in England. Some few years since we ill used them, stowed them away in unwholesome holes, gave them bad food for their bodies and none for their minds, and did our best to send them devilwards rather than Godwards. Philanthropists have now remedied this, and we are very much obliged to them. But the philanthropists will not be content unless they be allowed to pack all their criminals up in lavender. They must be treated not only as men, but much better than men of their own class who are not criminal.
In this matter of the negroes, the good thing is negro-protection, and our friends cannot have enough of that. The negroes in being slaves were ill used; and now it is not enough that they should all be made free, but each should be put upon his own soft couch, with rose-leaves on which to lie. Now your Sybarite negro, when closely looked at, is not a pleasing object. Distance may doubtless lend enchantment to the view.
As my sojourn in Trinidad did not amount to two entire days, I do not feel myself qualified to give a detailed description of the whole island. Very few, I imagine, are so qualified, for much of it is unknown; there is a great want of roads, and a large proportion of it has, I believe, never been properly surveyed.
Immediately round Port of Spain the country is magnificent, and the views from the town itself are very lovely. Exactly behind the town, presuming the sea to be the front, is the Savanah, a large enclosed, park-like piece of common, the race-course and Hyde Park of Trinidad. I was told that the drive round it was three English miles in length; but if it be so much, the little pony which took me that drive in a hired buggy must have been a fast trotter.
On the further side of this lives the Governor of the island, immediately under the hills. When I was there the Governor's real house was being repaired, and the great man was living in a cottage hard by. Were I that great man I should be tempted to wish that my great house might always be under repair, for I never saw a more perfect specimen of a pretty spacious cottage, opening as a cottage should do on all sides and in every direction, with a great complexity as to doors and windows, and a delicious facility of losing one's way. And then the necessary freedom from boredom, etiquette, and Governor's grandeur, so hated by Governors themselves, which must necessarily be brought about by such a residence! I could almost wish to be a Governor myself, if I might be allowed to live in such a cottage.
On the other side of the Savanah nearest to the town, and directly opposite to those lovely hills, are a lot of villa residences, and it would be impossible, I imagine, to find a more lovely site in which to fix one's house. With the Savanah for a foreground, the rising gardens behind the Governor's house in the middle distance, and a panorama of magnificent hills in the back of the picture, it is hardly within the compass of a man's eye and imagination to add anything to the scene. I had promised to call on Major ——, who was then, and perhaps is still, in command of the detachment of white troops in Trinidad, and I found him and his young wife living in this spot.
"And yet you abuse Trinidad," I said, pointing to the view.
"Oh! people can't live altogether upon views," she answered; "and besides, we have to go back to the barracks. The yellow fever is over now."