Or, if the visitor does not care to break up his evening by descending into town, there are few more ideal spots in which to hear a band concert than the little park known as Hastings Rocks, on the very edge of the sea, especially under a full moon. I am an inveterate concert-goer; one naturally becomes so in tropical America, where other music is so rare, and I must confess a preference for the Spanish-American type of concert over the Anglo-Saxon, for the gay throngs of promenaders about the sometimes not too successful attempts to render a classical program over the staid gatherings that listen motionless to an uproar of “popular” music. But even this serves to while away an evening and seldom fails to offer a touch of local color. Thus in negro-teeming Barbados there is scarcely a suggestion of African parentage to be seen at this stately entertainment on Hastings Rocks. It is partly the sixpence admission that keeps the negroes outside, but not entirely. Struck by the fact that there was only one mulatto boy and two light-yellow girls, all very staid and quiet, on the seaside benches, I sought information of the negro gatekeeper. Yes, indeed, he refused admittance to most of those of his own color, and to some white people, too.
“You see,” he explained, “it is like this. Perhaps last night you might go with a girl downtown, and then you come here to-night with your wife; and if that girl allowed to come in here she might want to get familiar and gossip with you. Or she might giggle at you. We can’t have that,” he added, in a tone that reminded one that the Briton, even when his skin is black, is first cousin to Mrs. Grundy. The English sense of dignified orderliness and the negro’s natural gaiety, his tendency to “giggle” at inopportune moments, do not mix well, and the Hasting Rocks concert is one of those places where African hilarity must be ruthlessly suppressed.
Besides Bridgetown, with its 35,000 or more inhabitants, Barbados has a number of what might best be called large collections of houses, such as Speightstown, Holetown—popularly known as “the Hole”—and the like, but its population, surpassed in density, if at all, only by China, a density compared to which that of Porto Rico seems slight indeed, is spread so evenly over all the island that it is hard to tell where a town begins or ends. The island is one of the most remarkable instances of coral formation. Comparatively flat, when likened to most of the West Indies, it consists of a number of stages or platforms that have been built one after the other as the island rose slowly and gradually from the sea to a height, at one point, of nearly 1200 feet. When first discovered it was surrounded by mangrove swamps and tangled, rotting vegetation, but all this has since turned to solid ground. The coral of which it is built contains some ninety per cent. of lime, so that almost the whole island might be reduced to powder in a lime-kiln. The rest of it consists of a species of sandstone known as “Scotland rock,” which comes to the surface in the northwestern part of the island.
Thanks to its geological formation, the close network of roads which reaches every corner of Barbados, as well as all its bare open spaces, are glaringly white and hard on the eyes, especially, if one may judge by the prevalence of glasses among them, those of the white and “high yellow” inhabitants. Yet, for the same reason, it is perhaps the most healthful of the West Indies. It has no swamps to breed malaria; the trade winds from the open ocean sweep incessantly across it. Once it was troubled with typhoid, but the establishment of a single unpolluted water supply for the whole island has done away with this danger. There is great equability of temperature day or night the year round. The wet season, from June to October, is less so than in most tropical lands; though visitors and European inhabitants complain of the midday heat, except in December and January, it is always cool compared to midsummer in the United States. Fresh, dry, and constantly laden with ocean ozone, it is a climate that makes little demand upon the strength and vital powers. All indications point to the fact, however, that it is no place for white women as permanent residents, for virtually without exception they grow scrawny, nervous, and weak-eyed, their pasty complexions sprayed with freckles under their veils.
All roads lead to Bridgetown, but to follow them in the opposite direction to any chosen point is not so simple a matter. Signboards are almost unknown, no doubt being considered a superfluity in so small and crowded a community. The country people, though willing enough, are often too stupid to give intelligible directions, though they make up for this by a persistency in showing one the way in person which no amount of protest can overcome. Ask a question or give them any other slightest excuse to do so, and they will cling to the white pedestrian’s heels for miles in the hope of picking up a penny or a “bit,” always taking their leave with, “I beg you for a cent, sir.” Indeed, that is the constant refrain everywhere along the dazzling but excellent highways. Women and men shout it from the doors of their little cabins; children scamper after one, the black babies are egged on by their elders as soon as they can toddle, each shrieking the invariable demand in a tone of voice which suggests that refusal is impossible. They seem to fancy that white strangers cross the island for no other purpose than to distribute a cartload of English coppers along the way. Almost as incessant are the demands upon the kodak-carrier to “Make me photo, sir,” or, “Draw me portrait, master.”
The Prince of Wales lands in Barbados
The principal street of Bridgetown, decorated in honor of its royal visitor