The E—— was bound for the islands as far as St Thomas, the Solent for La Guayra on the Venezuelan Coast, whilst the third steamer was setting off for Grenada and Tobago.
CHAPTER X
THE CUISINE OF THE E——.—THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF DOMINICA
I do not intend to relate my experiences day by day from the time that I joined the Royal Mail Company’s steamship E——, but it behoves me to explain once more to those who would like to take this trip, that unless they can possess their souls in patience, and are in the best of health, they may find more discomfort than gain, more pain than profit in this so-called pleasure trip. Of course I may have had the ill-luck to strike a ship (please excuse the Yankeeism, but at Mandeville where I am writing, we are being invaded by Americans, whose object in life seems to me to be the erection of twenty-three storied sky-scrapers) where the captain, the purser, and the steward were suffering from a temporary loss of the sense of taste, either individually or collectively. The cook was a black, and from the culinary incapacity of the sons of Ham may I, in the future, mercifully be delivered! Of all the inappetising-looking viands, of all the nauseous compounds, the component parts of which you could not even guess at, ever set before defenceless travellers, favoured specially with tourists’ privileges, those we had would take the cake. The first few days the food was incredibly bad, the meat uneatable, sometimes putrid, the bread mouldy, the butter rancid, the bananas rotten, and the oranges unripe! This was whilst we were in port. Things improved somewhat when we were once away from Trinidad. We certainly had better fruit and delicious pines from Antigua, but the food was often sent away untouched, for the cooking was of the very vilest description possible. This, though bad enough, was not the only discomfort endured in that ever-memorable voyage.
Of course the heat and the mosquitoes were inevitable. Fortunately the cleanliness of one’s cabin was a feature to be noted; also the advantage of having it to oneself was a thing to be thankful for; but the memory of the hot, weary, sleepless nights I endured from the noise and rattling winches at work, hoisting up and taking on cargo, which went on at all the ports we touched on our way going up to St Thomas, haunts me yet. Other ships of a less obsolete type are providentially provided with hydraulic cranes to do this work, but I have yet to learn that this particular Company favours any but old-fashioned methods of working. This frightful noise went on over my head; outside my cabin door the niggers in the hold bawled to those working the hoisting or lowering apparatus, as the case might be, whilst the officers shouted down orders to them. There were three consecutive nights with more or less of this hideous din going on, when exhausted nature was demanding sleep. Anything more purgatorial could scarcely be conceived. I was ill for a week from these privileges. When we did have a night free from this pandemonium, the ship was being driven through the water at such a rate we were not allowed to have our port-holes open for fear of being semi-swamped—and this in the tropics! The stewardess was an enormously fat coloured woman of Barbadoes, much given to religion. She was a happy, good-natured body, but incapable of work. It was not pleasant to find yourself in a marble bath which apparently was never scrubbed out from one end of the year to the other.
A married couple, who had travelled to Jamaica on the Port Antonio and were also taking this trip, complained with just cause of the fare given us. In these islands fruit, at least, is cheap. On the evening of the 8th of December our dessert consisted of rotten oranges, ditto bananas, and nuts! I think the menu for breakfast on the 16th of December will remain a standing joke whenever we meet. The tempting dishes offered us were salt-fish, pork chops, and brains! I forget how the latter were served. After a sleepless night and in tropical heat, I need scarcely say that I did not partake of any. We went empty away mostly!
A lady passenger had also an experience which shows how very absurdly the regulations on these ships are adapted for tourists, or indeed for anybody wanting to see something of the islands we passed.
She was on deck at 7.30 A.M. one morning, when one of the ship’s officers approached her, and informed her it was one of the rules that ladies should not appear on deck till breakfast-time. The lady is a daughter of a well-known judge, and her answer was given on judicial lines, to the effect that no mention of such regulation was on her passage ticket, and since she came to see the scenery, she intended every morning when there was land in sight to come up as early as she chose. She said later on to me: “Fancy passing La Soufrière, or any other equally interesting place for which you were enduring stifling heat, mosquitoes, sleepless nights, and bad food, and not allowed to be on deck to see it!”