Here, There and Everywhere

by Lord Frederic Hamilton

Joss, the Guardsman, struck up an intimate alliance with a young French naval lieutenant of his own age. As the Guardsman knew just two words of French, and the Frenchman was totally ignorant of English, I cannot conceive how they understood one another, but they seemed to take great delight in each other's society, exploring together every corner of Kingston, both by day and by night, addressing each other as "Henri, old man," or "Joss vieux copain," and jabbering away incessantly, each in his own tongue.

Lady Swettenham, the Governor's wife, paid a formal visit to the Admiral on board his flag-ship, the Desaix, and I accompanied her. The Admiral told Lady Swettenham that she and Lady Lathom, who was with her, must consent to be tied up with ribbons bearing the ship's name, the French naval fashion of doing honour to ladies of distinction. The Flag-Lieutenant came in and took a good look at the ladies' dresses; Lady Swettenham being in white, Lady Lathom in pale mauve. Presently "Flags" reappeared bearing white and mauve ribbons (of the exact shade of her dress) for Lady Lathom, and pale pink and blue ones for Lady Swettenham, each about four yards long. Proverbially gallant as are British naval officers, the idea of first studying the ladies' dresses would not have occurred to them; that little touch requires a Frenchman. We wished to take our leave, but the Admiral begged us to remain; there was evidently something coming. It was an intensely hot afternoon, and the heavy, red-plush furniture and curtains of the Admiral's cabin seemed to add to the heat. His face wore the expression some people assume when they are preparing a treat for a child. "Flags" looked in and nodded. "Faites entrer alors," ordered the Admiral, still smiling, and a steward came in bearing six bottles of Guinness' stout. "You see that I know what you like," added the Admiral, beaming. On a broiling hot afternoon in Jamaica, tepid stout is the very last thing in the world that one would choose to drink, but the Admiral was convinced that it was the habitual beverage of all English people, and had actually sent his steward ashore to procure the precious liquid. It was a delicate attention, but it so happened that both ladies had a positive aversion to stout; they drank it bravely notwithstanding, and we all assumed expressions of intense delight, to the Admiral's immense gratification.

It was the Admiral's first visit to the West Indies, and he did not like them. "Non, madame. Des nuits sans fraicheur, des fleurs sans odeur, des fruits sans saveur, des femmes sans pudeur; voila les Antilles!"

The Guardsman and I, anxious to see more of this lovely island, went off by train to the western extremity of Jamaica. The engineer who surveyed the Jamaican Government Railway must have been an extremely eccentric individual. There is a comparatively level and very fertile belt near the sea-coast, extending right round the island. Here nearly all the produce is grown. Instead of building his railway through this flat, thickly populated zone, the engineer chose to construct his line across the mountain range of the interior, a district very sparsely inhabited, and hardly cultivated at all. The Jamaica Government Railway is admirably designed if regarded as a scenic railway, but is hardly successful if considered as a commercial undertaking. The train winds slowly through the "Cockpit" country; now panting laboriously up steep inclines, now sliding down a long gradient, with a prodigious grinding of brakes and squeaking of wheels. The scenery is gorgeous, but there is no produce to handle at the various stations, and but few passengers to pick up. As we found every hotel full at our destination, we had to take refuge in a boarding-house, though warned that it was only for coloured people. We found four subfuse young men, with complexions shaded from pale coffee-colour to deep sepia, at supper in the dining-room.

"May I inquire, sir," said the Guardsman, with ready tact, to the lightest-complexioned of the young men, "how long you have been out from England?"

"I was born in Jamaica, sir," answered the immensely gratified youth, "and have never left it."

"And do you, sir," continued the Guardsman to the swarthiest of them all, "feel the heat of the climate much? It is rather a change from England, isn't it?"

"I, too, sir, have never left Jamaica," replied the delighted young man.

So enchanted were these dusky youths at having been mistaken for white men, that they simply overwhelmed us with attentions during the rest of our stay there.

The Guardsman was bent on shooting an alligator, and having heard that these pleasant saurians swarmed in a swamp beyond the town, went there at dusk with his rifle, and I, very foolishly, was induced to accompany him. There is something most uncanny in these tracts of swamp at nightfall. The twisted, distorted trees, the gleaming, evil-smelling pools of water, and the immense, snake-like lianes hanging from the branches all give one a curious sense of unreality, especially on a moonlight night. It is like a Gustave Dore drawing of a bewitched forest. The Guardsman splashed about in the shallow water, but never a sign of an alligator did we see. Giant tortoises crawled lazily about, just visible in the half-light under the trees; innumerable land-crabs scurried to and fro, and unclean reptiles pattered over the fetid ooze, but we saw no more alligators than we should have seen in St. James's Park.