“Such breakfast, such beginning of the day
Is more than half the whole;”
and very fortunate it is that such is the case, as until the heat of the sun has decreased there is not much inducement for exercise. By that time dinner is ready, and soon after—as early hours are the rule—you retire to your room, to turn out the centipedes, which are of enormous size in St. Thomas, from under your pillow, and the mosquitos from out of the netting. Then you perspire all night. And so passes hotel-life when there are no dinner-parties, nor theatricals, nor excursions to break its monotony.
One morning we took a boat to visit a very curious place called “Krumm Bay.” It was intensely hot, but “Admiral Nelson” pulled away merrily across the harbour, past the western suburb of the town, and in among the islands and creeks, which in olden times afforded good retreats for pirates. Here Blackbeard was wont to retire after some filibustering expedition and take in fresh supplies of wines and provisions. A fishing boat sailed by, in which was an enormous Jew-fish, at which the “Admiral” pulled a very long face, and explained to us that, whenever a Jew-fish was caught, some one of high position in St. Thomas was sure to die, or perhaps was already dead. Strangely enough, next morning we noticed that all the flags were at half-mast, and heard that news had just arrived of the death in England of the head of one of the chief firms in the island.
The islets around were covered with thick under-bush, out of which tall flowering aloes shot up like telegraph poles, but on the mainland cacti predominated, with here and there masses of creamy blossoms of the fragrant Frangipani. I am at a loss to know how the latter plant gained its name, as its scent is by no means the same as that extracted from flowers by the great Roman alchemist Frangipani, and which as “a perfumed powder in a velvet bag,” with
“——a cast of
Odours rare—of orris mixed with spice
Sandal and violet, with musk and rose
Combined in due proportion,”
was considered a wonderful cure for the plague. High up on the arid soil rose a giant cereus, with arms like candelabra; lower down were the round prickly forms of the echinocactus, looking like small hedge-hogs; then there were numbers of the melocactus, which they here call the Pope’s head, and which finds a ready sale among the shipping. We had noticed dépôts for shells and cacti at the other extremity of the town, and probably these are the only exports from the island. Those large trees near the water are manchineel, whose fruit is deadly poison to all but crabs, who esteem it highly. These crabs are themselves considered a delicacy, but are generally kept for a week, and thoroughly purged before being eaten.