“My own, dear pretty-eyed wife,—Here I be so safe as you could wish, with many a mile o’ salt water betwixt me and them as would harm me. A mighty lot of terrible strange things I’ve seed; but first I must say as I got to Plymouth all right and met a chap as wanted a sailor-man. He took me, because he couldn’t get a better, and we sailed out of Plymouth on the very next tide. My ship be called the Peabody. She’s a steamer—not much to look at and a poor one to go; but here we are anyway, and I be writing to you from Tobago—an island in the West Indies, where us get brown sugar and cocoanuts and such like foreign contrivances.
“I’ll begin at the beginning, well knowing how you like for things to be all in order and ship-shape as we say. Well, the food’s cruel bad and the ship’s under-manned and under-engined, but we’m just on the windy side of the law, I believe, which is all you can expect from a tramp like the Peabody. The old man (Skipper) is a very good sort and everybody likes him; also the mate; likewise the bosun. Everything’s all right, in fact, except the grub and the engines. I be the carpenter’s mate.
“Us seed a good few wonders coming out over, but it blowed a bit off the Azores (which you can find in father’s big map of the world), and we took it green. By which I mean this vessel shipped solid waves over her bows and we had to slow down, else we’d have gone down. The engines be good for nought in a head wind. But we got to Barbados at last, and I find ’tis called Bim for shortness. In the dimpsy light us fetched it, but out here twilight turns to night while the clock’s striking, and afore we cast anchor ’twas dark and the island lying like a sea monster with a red light on his nose and a white on his tail—lighthouses I mean. Bridgetown it was where us landed part of our cargo—a place with windmills ’pon it and tilled land and miles of stuff, as made me think of home, so green it was; but ’tis sugar-cane when you gets up to it. We didn’t bide in Carlisle Bay long, else I’d have wrote from there, but we was so terrible busy I hadn’t but one chance to land. The folks here be every colour you could name between white and black, through all manner of shades of snuff colour, and butter colour, and putty colour, and peat colour. Cheerful, lazy devils, as like to laugh and smoke and chew sugar-cane all day. But they properly hate work. Reckless mongrels, I should say they was; but in Bim a man don’t have any show unless he’ve got a touch of the tar-brush as they say. That means nigger blood. Such a way as they tell! I never heard English spoke so comic in all my born days. Their clothes be built for ventilation mostly, and I never seed such a show of rags. Barbados is made of coral, but t’other islands are volcanoes, and they’ve a nasty way of going off when you least count upon it. From Carlisle Bay you can see white houses under wooden tiles all scorched grey by the sun heat, and in the streets a great crowd goes up and down in the blazing air and shining dust. Such a noise and clatter I never did hear. Mules squealing, bells ringing, bands playing, niggers bawling. The women all wear white dresses and gay turbans. They’m amazing straight in the back, owing to carrying all their goods ’pon top their heads. They sell cocoanuts, cane, pineapples, oranges, limes, mangoes, yams, pickles, and Lord knows what beside. They stride out beautiful owing to their short petticoats, but their mouths be a caution. The children look like little chocolate dolls, and much you’d love ’em. The policemen all be dressed in white. They fancy themselves an awful lot. The pigs run about the streets and be for all the world like greyhounds (what we call long-dogs to home). The climate’s that fiery that you’ll never get no stock properly fatted in it. But you don’t feel no call for much red meat. We got fresh water and green stuff aboard here, and how I wish I could have sent you my dinner yesterday. I had flying-fish and sweet potatoes and green-skinned oranges, red as gold inside, and many other fine things as would make your little mouth water to hear tell about. But the mangoes is what I like best, though they do say out here they be no better than a bit of tow dipped in turps. Ban’t true, I assure ’e. I got off for two hour just afore we set sail, and went into the country, trapsing round to see what I could see. And if I didn’t come across a great mango tree as ’peared to me to be just a foreign, wild tree alongside the high road. Well, I seed the fruit in it, an’ thinks I, ‘’twill be a fine thing for the ship.’ So up I goes, hand over fist, but not before I made some niggers stop throwing stones up at the tree. Well, I shinned up aloft and began flinging down the mangoes, and the wretched niggers holloed out, ‘Good massa! Massa brave! Massa no frightened ob nobody!’ Then suddenly there was a mighty loud barking and up comed a yellow dog, so big as a calf, and the nigs went off for dear life. ‘Him coming, massa! Him running like de debbil, sar!’ they shouted out as they went; and then a big chap arrived at the bottom of the tree and began giving me all the law and the prophets, I do assure ’e. For it happened to be his tree.
“‘You tief, come down! come down and my dog he tear you. I catch you at last! It all ober wid you now!’
“‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I ban’t coming down to be tored by thicky hulking dog, John.’ (Us calls all niggers ‘John.’)
“‘You a tief and you take to gaol, sar. I no go till you come down,’ he says.
“And I knowed as my ship would sail in two hours or less!
“‘Now list to me, you black ass,’ I says. ‘I thought this here was a wild tree—as anybody would. You ought to stick your name on the tree. And I ban’t a thief, and if you call me one, I’ll break your fat head. Just take the dog and tie him up, then I’ll come down and us’ll have a bit of a tell about it.’
“‘You tief my mangoes! You lodge in de gaol!’ was all he could think of. So I told him not to be such a tarnation fool.
“‘There’s your mangoes on the ground,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you a bob for ’em, and if I hear any more about it, I’ll apply to the Governor to have your beast of a dog shot.’