When the sails were loosed, and the crew began to heave up anchor, the Customs officers hailed a passing boat and went ashore, threatening the captain with all the penalties of the law.
Twenty-four hours later St Pierre, with all its inhabitants, was wiped for ever out of the book of the living, but the barque Orsolina was speeding on her way to sunny France.
La Soufrière at St Vincent was awful in the desolation which the late eruption has produced; the line of demarcation was strictly defined between the green verdure of the country which had not suffered from devastating showers of dust and lava, and that which had been subjected to the outpourings from the crater. Puffs of white smoke here and there announced the neighbourhood of hot sulphur springs.
The inhabitants of Montserrat also lie under the shadow of a volcanic mountain; just above their little town is a crater which, like Pelée, may one day serve as a vent to the fires beneath. Temporary shelter at one corner of the island has been prepared for an emergency of this kind. Meanwhile, the islanders busy themselves very philosophically with the cultivation of limes, an industry which seems to be fairly remunerative. The speech of the people here is still said to recall the brogue of the Irishmen sent out by Oliver Cromwell.
I think one of the most interesting of the smaller islands we saw, but did not touch at, was the little Dutch island of Saba. Here a few hundred thrifty Hollanders inhabit an extinct crater several hundreds of feet above the waters of the Caribbean Sea; they reach their homes by means of ladders hanging from the cliffs. Curious to relate, in their isolated eyrie they build many of the schooners which ply locally from island to island. The ships are let down by ropes, and navigated by these extraordinary islanders, who are considered the ablest sailors in those waters.
It was interesting to find ourselves once more at Trinidad, for events on the Venezuelan coast had progressed since we had been away. We found ourselves riding at anchor within a few hundred yards of the flagship of our West Indian Squadron; other British warships were beside her, and not far away the captured fleet of Venezuela. The crews and men had been sent home. Of course Germany was represented, but America was there in full force to support the Munro policy, in the menacing form of four great warships, which lay motionless on the green waters of the Gulf of Paria. The blockade of the Orinoco had begun, and we met fugitives from the mainland at the hotel on shore, who seemed to have passed through lively times. I spent Christmas Day on the good ship Trent, belonging to the Royal Mail Service, where we were splendidly entertained, and the next morning at an early hour I found myself once more in Kingston.
I feel, however, I cannot bring my account, brief though it is, of what proved to be a very interesting trip, to a close, without some mention of that almost extinct race, the Caribs.
In a Jamaican newspaper an interesting report appears, written by Mr Hesketh Bell, who probably is the best authority living on the subject of the aborigines of the West Indies. He says: “The reserve set apart for the St Vincent Caribs was recently raked by the fire from the Soufrière. But these are Black Caribs, who, through long admixture of negro blood, have lost all the distinguishing traits of the aboriginal tribe. There still exists, however, in Dominica a handful of full-blooded Red Caribs, the last survivors of their race.” Mr Bell, who is the Administrator of the last-named island, then alludes to the pre-Columbian tradition when fleets of canoes overran the Windward and Leeward Islands exterminating the males, but preserving the women of the milder Arawak nation. The latter handed down for many generations from mother to daughter their original tongue. He further says: “Whatever its origin, the Carib type, even in the remnant that survive to-day, shows an unmistakably Mongolian character, and it would be hard to distinguish a Carib from a Chinese or Tartar child.” The Caribs were inveterate cannibals. Defoe, it is believed, placed the scene of his romance in Tobago, and the wild man Friday was presumably one of a hapless lot of Arawaks whom a party had captured, and were probably carrying north for the delectation of the tribe.
The Caribs, says Davis, after having tasted the flesh of all nations, pronounced the French the most delicate, and the Spaniards the hardest of digestion. Laborde interviewed a Carib who “beguiled the tedium of his journey by gnawing the remains of a boiled human foot”; he told the priest that he only ate Arawaks, “Christians gave him stomachache.”
The Administrator goes on to describe how years of peace and protection have completely metamorphosed the Carib, and have arrested almost at the last gasp the extinction of this interesting remnant of one of the world’s aboriginal races. Instead of a bloodthirsty, man-eating savage the Carib is now as law-abiding and mild a subject as any the King has. “He no longer paints crimson circles of roucou round his eyes and stripes of black and white over his body, but on high days and holidays he wears a tall hat and a black coat; instead of yelling round a sacrificial stone, the Carib of to-day goes to confession to the parish priest, and tells his beads with edifying fervour.” The Carib Reserve at Dominica numbers nearly 400 members, probably 120 only are full-blooded. Out of 78 school-children, 26 are described by Mr Bell to have pure blood in them; their chief characteristics are bright, intelligent expressions, oblique eyes, straight hair, rather coarse, of a beautiful blue-black, the complexion varying from brown to a pinkish-yellow. Their chief claims to be of pure blood. He settles petty disputes. Ogiste, his little granddaughter, is evidently the last of his dynasty. She is more negro than Carib, according to the Administrator, and the Salic law prevails in the Carib Reserve.