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AI algorithms data structures and idioms in Prolog Lisp
and Java 6th Edition George F. Luger Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): George F. Luger, William A. Stubblefield
ISBN(s): 9780136070474, 0136070477
Edition: 6
File Details: PDF, 2.27 MB
Year: 2009
Language: english
Luger_all_wcopyright_COsfixed.pd2 2 5/15/2008 6:34:39 PM
 AI Algorithms, Data Structures, and
Idioms in Prolog, Lisp, and Java

Luger_all_wcopyright_COsfixed.pd1 1 5/15/2008 6:34:39 PM

Luger_all_wcopyright_COsfixed.pd2 2 5/15/2008 6:34:39 PM
 AI Algorithms, Data Structures, and
Idioms in Prolog, Lisp, and Java

George F. Luger
William A. Stubblefield

Luger_all_wcopyright_COsfixed.pd3 3 5/15/2008 6:34:39 PM

 Executive Editor Michael Hirsch
Acquisitions Editor Matt Goldstein
Editorial Assistant Sarah Milmore
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Text Design, Composition, and Illustrations George F Luger
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Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
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ISBN-13: 978-0-13-607047-4
ISBN-10: 0-13-607047-7

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10—OPM—12 11 10 09 08

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 Contents
Preface ix

Part I Language Idioms and the Master Programmer 1

Chapter 1 Idioms, Patterns, and Programming 3
1.1 Introduction: Idioms and Patterns 3
1.2 Selected Examples of Language Idioms 6
1.3 A Brief History of Three Programming Paradigms 11
1.4 A Summary of Our Task 15

Part II Programming in Prolog 17

Chapter 2 Prolog: Representation 19
2.1 Introduction: Logic-Based Representation 19
2.2 Prolog Syntax 20
2.3 Creating, Changing, and Tracing a Prolog Computation 24
2.4 Lists and Recursion in Prolog 25
2.5 Structured Representation and Inheritance Search 28
Exercises 32

Chapter 3 Abstract Data Types and Search 33

3.1 Introduction 33
3.2 Using cut to Control Search in Prolog 36
3.3 Abstract Data Types (ADTs) in Prolog 38
Exercises 42

Chapter 4 Depth- Breadth-, and Best-First Search 43

4.1 Production System Search in Prolog 43
4.2 A Production System Solution of the FWGC Problem 46
4.3 Designing Alternative Search Strategies 52
Exercises 58

Chapter 5 Meta-Linguistic Abstraction, Types, and Meta-Interpreters 59

5.1 Meta-Interpreters, Types, and Unification 59
5.2 Types in Prolog 61
5.3 Unification, Variable Binding, and Evaluation 64
Exercises 68
v

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 vi Contents

Chapter 6 Three Meta-Interpreters: Prolog in Prolog, EXSHELL, and a

Planner 59
6.1 An Introduction to Meta-Interpreters: Prolog in Prolog 69
6.2 A Shell for a Rule-Based System 73
6.3 A Prolog Planner 82
Exercises 85

Chapter 7 Machine Learning Algorithms in Prolog 87

7.1 Machine Learning: Version Space Search 87
7.2 Explanation Based Learning in Prolog 100
Exercises 106

Chapter 8 Natural Language Processing in Prolog 107

8.1 Natural Language Understanding 107
8.2 Prolog Based Semantic Representation 108
8.3 A Context-Free Parser in Prolog 111
8.4 Probabilistic Parsers in Prolog 114
8.5 A Context-Sensitive Parser in Prolog 119
8.6 A Recursive Descent Semantic Net Parser 120
Exercises 123

Chapter 9 Dynamic Programming and the Earley Parser 125

9.1 Dynamic Programming Revisited 125
9.2 The Earley Parser 126
9.3 The Earley Parser in Prolog 134
Exercises 139

Chapter 10 Prolog: Final Thoughts 141

10.1 Towards a Procedural Semantics 141
10.2 Prolog and Automated Reasoning 144
10.3 Prolog Idioms, Extensions, and References 145

Part III Programming in Lisp 149

Chapter 11 S-Expressions, the Syntax of Lisp 151
11.1 Introduction to Symbol Expressions 151
11.2 Control of Lisp Evaluation 154
11.3 Programming in Lisp: Creating New Functions 156
11.4 Program Control: Conditionals and Predicates 157
Exercises 160

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 Contents vii

Chapter 12 Lists and Recursive Search 161

12.1 Functions, Lists, and Symbolic Computing 161

12.2 Lists as Recursive Structures 163
12.3 Nested Lists, Structure, and car/cdr Recursion 166
Exercises 168

Chapter 13 Variables, Datratypes, and Search 171

13.1 Variables and Datatypes 171
13.2 Search: The Farmer, Wolf, Goat, and Cabbage Problem 177
Exercises 182

Chapter 14 Higher-Order Functions and Flexible Search 185

14.1 Higher-Order Functions and Abstraction 185
14.2 Search Strategies in Lisp 189
Exercises 193

Chapter 15 Unification and Embedded Languages in Lisp 195

15.1 Introduction 195
15.2 Interpreters and Embedded Languages 203
Exercises 205

Chapter 16 Logic programming in Lisp 207

16.1 A Simple Logic Programming Language 207
16.2 Streams and Stream Processing 209
16.3 A Stream-Based logic Programming Interpreter 211
Exercises 217

Chapter 17 Lisp-shell: An Expert System Shell in Lisp 219

17.1 Streams and Delayed Evaluation 219
17.2 An Expert System Shell in Lisp 223
Exercises 232

Chapter 18 Semantic Networks, Inheritance, and CLOS 233

18.1 Semantic nets and Inheritance in Lisp 233
18.2 Object-Oriented Programming Using CLOS 237
18.3 CLOS Example: A Thermostat Simulation 244
Exercises 250

Chapter 19 Machine Learning in Lisp 251

19.1 Learning: The ID3 Algorithm 251
19.2 Implementing ID3 259

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 viii Contents

Exercises 266

Chapter 20 Lisp: Final Thoughts 267

Part IV Programming in Java 269

Chapter 21 Java, Representation and Object-Oriented Programming 273
21.1 Introduction to O-O Representation and Design 273
21.2 Object Orientation 274
21.3 Classes and Encapsulation 275
21.4 Polymorphism 276
21.5 Inheritance 277
21.6 Interfaces 280
21.7 Scoping and Access 282
21.8 The Java Standard Library 283
21.9 Conclusions: Design in Java 284
Exercises 285

Chapter 22 Problem Spaces and Search 287

21.1 Abstraction and Generality in Java 287
21.2 Search Algorithms 288
21.3 Abstracting Problem States 292
21.4 Traversing the Solution Space 295
21.5 Putting the Framework to Use 298
Exercises 303

Chapter 23 Java Representation for Predicate Calculus and Unification 305

23.1 Introduction to the Task 305
23.2 A Review of the Predicate Calculus and Unification 307
23.3 Building a Predicate Calculus Problem Solver in Java 310
23.4 Design Discussion 320
23.5 Conclusions: Mapping Logic into Objects 322
Exercises 323

Chapter 24 A Logic-Based Reasoning System 325

24.1 Introduction 325
24.2 Reasoning in Logic as Searching an And/Or Graph 325
24.3 The Design of a Logic-Based Reasoning System 329
24.4 Implementing Complex Logic Expressions 330
24.5 Logic-Based Reasoning as And/Or Graph Search 335
24.6 Testing the Reasoning System 346

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 Contents ix

24.7 Design Discussion 348

Exercises 350

Chapter 25 An Expert System Shell 351

25.1 Introduction: Expert Systems 351
25.2 Certainty Factors and the Unification Problem Solver 352
25.3 Adding User Interactions 358
25.4 Design Discussion 360
Exercises 361

Chapter 26 Case Studies: JESS and other Expert System Shells in Java 363
26.1 Introduction 363
26.2 JESS 363
26.3 Other Expert system Shells 364
26.4 Using Open Source Tools 365

Chapter 27 ID3: Learning from Examples 367

27.1 Introduction to Supervised Learning 367
27.2 Representing Knowledge as Decision Trees 367
27.3 A Decision Tree Induction program 370
27.4 ID3: An Information Theoretic Tree Induction Algorithm 385
Exercises 388

Chapter 28 Genetic and Evolutionary Computing 389

28.1 Introduction 389
28.2 The Genetic Algorithm: A First Pass 389
28.3 A GA Java Implementation in Java 393
28.4 Conclusion: Complex Problem Solving and Adaptation 401
Exercises 401

Chapter 29 Case Studies: Java Machine Learning Software Available on the

Web 403
29.1 Java Machine Learning Software 403

Chapter 30 The Earley Parser: Dynamic Programming in Java 405

30.1 Chart Parsing 405
30.2 The Earley Parser: Components 406
30.3 The Earley Parser: Java Code 408
30.4 The Completed Parser 414
30.5 Generating Parse Trees from Charts and Grammar Rules 419
Exercises 422

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 x Contents

Chapter 31 Case Studies: Java Natural Language Tools on the Web 423
31.1 Java Natural Language Processing Software 423
31.2 LingPipe from the University of Pennsylvania 423
31.3 The Stanford Natural Language Processing Group Software 425
31.4 Sun’s Speech API 426

Part V Model Building and the Master Programmer 429

Chapter 32 Conclusion: The Master Programmer 431

32.1 Paradigm-Based Abstractions and Idioms 431
32.2 Programming as a Tool for Exploring Problem Domains 433
32.3 Programming as a Social Activity 434
32.4 Final Thoughts 437

Bibliography 439

Index 443

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 Preface
What we have to learn to do
We learn by doing…

- Aristotle, Ethics

Why Another Writing a book about designing and implementing representations and
Programming search algorithms in Prolog, Lisp, and Java presents the authors with a
Language number of exciting opportunities.
Book?
The first opportunity is the chance to compare three languages that give
very different expression to the many ideas that have shaped the evolution
of programming languages as a whole. These core ideas, which also
support modern AI technology, include functional programming, list
processing, predicate logic, declarative representation, dynamic binding,
meta-linguistic abstraction, strong-typing, meta-circular definition, and
object-oriented design and programming. Lisp and Prolog are, of course,
widely recognized for their contributions to the evolution, theory, and
practice of programming language design. Java, the youngest of this trio, is
both an example of how the ideas pioneered in these earlier languages
have shaped modern applicative programming, as well as a powerful tool
for delivering AI applications on personal computers, local networks, and
the world wide web.
The second opportunity this book affords is a chance to look at Artificial
Intelligence from the point of view of the craft of programming. Although
we sometimes are tempted to think of AI as a theoretical position on the
nature of intelligent activity, the complexity of the problems AI addresses
has made it a primary driver of progress in programming languages,
development environments, and software engineering methods. Both Lisp
and Prolog originated expressly as tools to address the demands of
symbolic computing. Java draws on object-orientation and other ideas that
can trace their roots back to AI programming. What is more important, AI
has done much to shape our thinking about program organization, data
structures, knowledge representation, and other elements of the software
craft. Anyone who understands how to give a simple, elegant formulation
to unification-based pattern matching, logical inference, machine learning
theories, and the other algorithms discussed in this book has taken a large
step toward becoming a master programmer.
The book’s third, and in a sense, unifying focus lies at the intersection of
these points of view: how does a programming language’s formal structure
interact with the demands of the art and practice of programming to

xi

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 xii Preface

create the idioms that define its accepted use. By idiom, we mean a set of
conventionally accepted patterns for using the language in practice.
Although not the only way of using a language, an idiom defines patterns
of use that have proven effective, and constitute a common understanding
among programmers of how to use the language. Programming language
idioms do much to both enable, as well as support, ongoing
communication and collaboration between programmers.
These, then, are the three points of view that shape our discussion of AI
programming. It is our hope that they will help to make this book more
than a practical guide to advanced programming techniques (although it is
certainly that). We hope that they will communicate the intellectual depth
and pleasure that we have found in mastering a programming language
and using it to create elegant and powerful computer programs.
The Design of There are five sections of this book. The first, made up of a single chapter,
this Book lays the conceptual groundwork for the sections that follow. This first
chapter provides a general introduction to programming languages and
style, and asks questions such as “What is a master programmer?” What is a
programming language idiom?,” and “How are identical design patterns
implemented in different languages?” Next, we introduce a number of
design patterns specific to supporting data structures and search strategies
for complex problem solving. These patterns are discussed in a “language
neutral” context, with pointers to the specifics of the individual
programming paradigms presented in the subsequent sections of our
book. The first chapter ends with a short historical overview of the
evolution of the logic-based, functional, and object-oriented approaches to
computer programming languages.
Part II of this book presents Prolog. For readers that know the rudiments
of first-order predicate logic, the chapters of Part II can be seen as a
tutorial introduction to Prolog, the language for programming in logic.
For readers lacking any knowledge of the propositional and predicate
calculi we recommend reviewing an introductory textbook on logic.
Alternatively, Luger (2005, Chapter 2) presents a full introduction to both
the propositional and predicate logics. The Luger introduction includes a
discussion, as well as a pseudo code implementation, of unification, the
pattern-matching algorithm at the heart of the Prolog engine.
The design patterns that make up Part II begin with the “flat” logic-based
representation for facts, rules, and goals that one might expect in any
relational data base formalism. We next show how recursion, supported by
unification-based pattern matching, provides a natural design pattern for
tree and graph search algorithms. We then build a series of abstract data
types, including sets, stacks, queues, and priority queues that support
patterns for search. These are, of course, abstract structures, crafted for
the specifics of the logic-programming environment that can search across
state spaces of arbitrary content and complexity. We then build and
demonstrate the “production system” design pattern that supports rule
based programming, planning, and a large number of other AI
technologies. Next, we present structured representations, including

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 Preface xiii

semantic networks and frame systems in Prolog and demonstrate

techniques for implementing single and multiple inheritance
representation and search. Finally, we show how the Prolog design
patterns presented in Part II can support the tasks of machine learning
and natural language understanding.
Lisp and functional programming make up Part III. Again, we present the
material on Lisp in the form of a tutorial introduction. Thus, a
programmer with little or no experience in Lisp is gradually introduced to
the critical data structures and search algorithms of Lisp that support
symbolic computing. We begin with the (recursive) definition of symbol-
expressions, the basic components of the Lisp language. Next we present
the “assembly instructions” for symbol expressions, including car, cdr, and
cons. We then assemble new patterns for Lisp with cond and defun.
Finally, we demonstrate the creation and/or evaluation of symbol
expressions with quote and eval. Of course, the ongoing discussion of
variables, binding, scope, and closures is critical to building more complex
design patterns in Lisp.
Once the preliminary tools and techniques for Lisp are presented, we
describe and construct many of the design patterns seen earlier in the
Prolog section. These include patterns supporting breadth-first, depth-
first, and best-first search as well as meta-interpreters for rule-based
systems and planning. We build and demonstrate a recursion-based
unification algorithm that supports a logic interpreter in Lisp as well as a
stream processor with delayed evaluation for handling potentially infinite
structures. We next present data structures for building semantic networks
and object systems. We then present the Common Lisp Object system
(CLOS) libraries for building object and inheritance based design patterns.
We close Part III by building design patterns that support decision-tree
based machine learning.
Java and its idioms are presented in Part IV. Because of the complexities
of the Java language, Part IV is not presented as a tutorial introduction to
the language itself. It is expected that the reader has completed at least an
introductory course in Java programming, or at the very least, has seen
object-oriented programming in another applicative language such as
C++, C#, or Objective C. But once we can assume a basic understanding
of Java tools, we do provide a tutorial introduction to many of the design
patterns of the language.
The first chapter of Part IV, after a brief overview of the origins of Java,
goes through many of the features of an object-oriented language that will
support the creation of design patterns in that environment. These
features include the fundamental data structuring philosophy of
encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance. Based on these concepts
we briefly address the analysis, iterative design, programming and test
phases for engineering programs. After the introductory chapter we begin
pattern building in Java, first considering the representation issue and how
to represent predicate calculus structures in Java. This leads to building

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 xiv Preface

patterns that support breadth-first, depth-first, and best-first search. Based

on patterns for search, we build a production system, a pattern that
supports the rule-based expert system. Our further design patterns
support the application areas of natural language processing and machine
learning. An important strength that Java offers, again because of its
object-orientation and modularity is the use of public domain (and other)
libraries available on the web. We include in the Java section a number of
web-supported AI algorithms, including tools supporting work in natural
language, genetic and evolutionary programming (a-life), natural language
understanding, and machine learning (WEKA).
The final component of the book, Part V, brings together many of the
design patterns introduced in the earlier sections. It also allows the authors
to reinforce many of the common themes that are, of necessity,
distributed across the various components of the presentation, We
conclude with general comments supporting the craft of programming.
Using this Book This book is designed for three primary purposes. The first is as a
programming language component of a general class in Artificial
Intelligence. From this viewpoint, the authors see as essential that the AI
student build the significant algorithms that support the practice of AI.
This book is designed to present exactly these algorithms. However, in the
normal lecture/lab approach taken to teaching Artificial Intelligence at the
University level, we have often found that it is difficult to cover more than
one language per quarter or semester course. Therefore we expect that the
various parts of this material, those dedicated to either Lisp, Prolog, or
Java, would be used individually to support programming the data
structures and algorithms presented in the AI course itself. In a more
advanced course in AI it would be expected that the class cover more than
one of these programming paradigms.
The second use of this book is for university classes exploring
programming paradigms themselves. Many modern computer science
departments offer a final year course in comparative programming
environments. The three languages covered in our book offer excellent
examples on these paradigms. We also feel that a paradigms course should
not be based on a rapid survey of a large number of languages while doing
a few “finger exercises” in each. Our philosophy for a paradigms course is
to get the student more deeply involved in fewer languages, and these
typically representing the declarative, functional, and object-oriented
approaches to programming. We also feel that the study of idiom and
design patterns in different environments can greatly expand the skill set
of the graduating student. Thus, our philosophy of programming is built
around the language idioms and design patterns presented in Part I and
summarized in Part V. We see these as an exciting opportunity for
students to appreciate the wealth and diversity of modern computing
environments. We feel this book offers exactly this opportunity.
The third intent of this book is to offer the professional programmer the
chance to continue their education through the exploration of multiple

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 Preface xv

programming idioms, patterns, and paradigms. For these readers we also

feel the discussion of programming idioms and design patterns presented
throughout our book is important. We are all struggling to achieve the
status of the master programmer.
We have built each chapter in this book to reflect the materials that would
be covered in either one or two classroom lectures, or about an hour’s
effort, if the reader is going through this material by herself. There are a
small number of exercises at the end of most chapters that may be used to
reinforce the main concepts of that chapter. There is also, near the end of
each chapter, a summary statement of the core concepts covered.
Acknowledg- First, we must thank several decades of students and colleagues at the
ments University of New Mexico. These friends not only suggested, helped
design, and tested our algorithms but have also challenged us to make
them better.
Second, we owe particular thanks to colleagues who wrote algorithms and
early drafts of chapters. These include Stan Lee, (PhD student at UNM)
for the Prolog chapter on Earley parsing, Breanna Ammons (MS in CS at
UNM) for the Java version of the Earley parser and along with Robert
Spurlock (CS undergraduate at UNM) the web-based NLP chapter, Paul
DePalma (Professor of CS at Gonzaga University) for the Java Genetic
Algorithms chapter, and Chayan Chakrabarti (MS in CS at UNM) for the
web-based machine learning chapter in Java
Third, there are several professional colleagues that we owe particular
debts. These include David MacQueen, University of Chicago, one of the
creators of SML, Manuel Hermenegildo, The Prince of Asturias Endowed
Chair of Computer Science at UNM and a designer of Ciao Prolog, Paul
De Palma, Professor of Computer Science at Gonzaga University, and
Alejandro Cdebaca, our friend and former student, who helped design
many of the algorithms of the Java chapters.
Fourth, we thank our friends at Pearson Education who have supported
our various creative writing activities over the past two decades. We
especially acknowledge our editors Alan Apt, Karen Mossman, Keith
Mansfield, Owen Knight, Simon Plumtree, and Matt Goldstein, along with
their various associate editors, proof readers, and web support personnel.
We also thank our wives, children, family, and friends; all those that have
made our lives not just survivable, but intellectually stimulating and
enjoyable.
Finally, to our readers; we salute you: the art, science, and practice of
programming is great fun, enjoy it!

GL
BS
July 2008
Albuquerque

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 xvi Preface

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 PART I: Language Idioms and the
Master Programmer

all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not
come easy…

- Norman Maclean, (1989) A River Runs Through It

Language and In defining a programming language idiom, an analogy with natural

Idioms
language use might help. If I ask a friend, “Do you know what time it is?”
or equivalently “Do you have a watch?”, I would be surprised if she simply
said “yes” and turned away. These particular forms for asking someone for
the time of day are idiomatic in that they carry a meaning beyond their
literal interpretation. Similarly, a programming language idiom consists of
those patterns of use that good programmers accept as elegant, expressive
of their design intent, and that best harness the language’s power. Good
idiomatic style tends to be specific to a given language or language
paradigm: the way experienced programmers organize a Prolog program
would not constitute accepted Java style.
Language idioms serve two roles. The first is to enhance communication
between programmers. As experienced programmers know, we do not
simply write code for a compiler; we also write it for each other. Writing in
a standard idiom makes it easier for other people to understand our intent,
and to maintain and/or extend our code. Second, a language’s idiom helps
us to make sure we fully use the power the language designers have
afforded us. People design a language with certain programming styles in
mind. In the case of Java, that style was object-oriented programming, and
getting full benefit of such Java features as inheritance, scoping, automatic
garbage collection, exception handling, type checking, packages, interfaces,
and so forth requires writing in an object-oriented idiom. A primary goal of
this book is to explore and give examples of good idioms in three diverse
language paradigms: the declarative (logic-based), functional, and object-
oriented.
The Master The goal of this book is to develop the idea and describe the practice of
Programmer
the master programmer. This phrase carries a decidedly working class
connotation, suggesting the kind of knowledge and effort that comes
through long practice and the transmission of tools and skills from master
to student through the musty rituals of apprenticeship. It certainly suggests
something beyond the immaculate formalization that we generally associate
with scientific disciplines. Indeed, most computer science curricula

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 2 Part I Introduction

downplay this craft of programming, favoring discussions of computability

and complexity, algorithms, data structures, and the software engineer’s
formalist longings. In reality, the idea of programming as a craft that
demands skill and dedication is widely accepted in practical circles. Few
major successful programming projects have existed that did not owe
significant components of that success to the craftsmanship of such
individuals.
But, what then, do master programmers know?
The foundation of a master programmer’s knowledge is a strong
understanding of the core domains of computer science. Although working
programmers may not spend much (or any) time developing and
publishing theorems, they almost always have a deep, intuitive grasp of
algorithms, data structures, logic, complexity, and other aspects of the
theory of formal systems. We could compare this to a master welder’s
understanding of metallurgy: she may not have a theoretician’s grasp of
metallic crystalline structure, but her welds do not crack. This book
presumes a strong grounding in these computer science disciplines.
Master programmers also tend to be language fanatics, exhibiting a fluency
in several programming languages, and an active interest in anything new
and unusual. We hope that our discussion of three major languages will
appeal to the craftsman’s fascination with their various tools and
techniques. We also hope that, by contrasting these three major languages
in a sort of “comparative language” discussion, we will help programmers
refine their understanding of what a language can provide, and the needs
that continue to drive the evolution of programming languages.

Luger_all_wcopyright_COsfixed.pd18 18 5/15/2008 6:34:42 PM

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 Roads climb away from the capital into the pretty, steep hills that
surround it, among which are tucked red-roofed estates and negro
cabins. The island looks more prosperous in the country than in the
town. Its cotton is said to be unsurpassed for the making of lace, and
was selling at the time of our visit, for $2 a pound. In addition, it
produces cottonseed oil, arrow-root, cacao, and, above all, nutmegs.
The nutmeg grows on a tree not unlike the plum in appearance—
residents of Vermont have no doubt seen it often—the fruit
resembling a small apricot. Inside this is a large nut prettily veined
with the red mace that is another of the island’s exports, and the nut
being cracked discloses a kernel which, dried and cured, is carried
down from the hills in baskets on the heads of negroes and shipped
to the outside world as the nutmeg of commerce. The natives, if the
swarthy West Indians of to-day are entitled to that term, make also
pretty little covered baskets in all sizes, which sell for far less after
the steamer has blown her warning whistle than when she has just
arrived.

The eight-hour run from St. Vincent to Grenada, capital of the

Windward group, is close to the leeward of a scattered string of
islands called the Grenadines, some of them comparatively large,
mountainous in their small way, others mere jagged bits of rock
strewn at random along the edge of the Caribbean, all of them
looking more or less dry and sterile. Grenada is rugged and beautiful,
though it does not rival Dominica in either respect. It has variously
been called the “Isle of Spices,” the “Planter’s Paradise,” and the
“Island of Nutmegs.” What claims to be the largest nutmeg
plantation on earth—the West Indians have something of our own
tendency for superlatives—lies among its labyrinth of hills; it
produces also cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and cacao. Though it is
admittedly far more prosperous than St. Vincent, it shows few signs
of cultivation from the sea, for none of its principal products in their
growing state can be recognized from the forest and brush that cover
many an uncleared West Indian isle. The high prices paid for
nutmegs during the war, particularly by fruit preservers in the
United States, has brought fortunes to many of its planters, despite
the fact that the tree takes seven years to mature. Many of the
negroes, too, own their small estates and increase their incomes by
making jelly from the nutmeg fruit. Yet from the sea all this is hidden
under a dense foliage that completely covers the nowhere level
island. Along the geometrical white line of the beach are several
villages; higher up are seen only scattered huts and a few larger
buildings, except where the two considerable towns of Goyave and
Victoria break the pretty green monotony.
But if Grenada must yield the palm for beauty to some of its
neighbors, St. Georges, the capital, unquestionably presents the
loveliest picture from the sea of any port in the Lesser Antilles, if not
of the West Indies. Nestled among and piled up the green hills that
terminate in a jagged series of peaks above, its often three-story
houses pitched in stages one above the other, larger buildings
crowning here and there a loftier eminence, the whole delightfully
irregular and individualistic, it rouses even the jaded traveler to
exclamations of pleasure. The steamer chugs placidly by, as if it had
suddenly decided not to call, passes a massive old fortress, then
suddenly swings inshore as though it had forgotten its limitation and
aspires to climb the mountain heights. A narrow break in the rock
wall opens before it, and it slides calmly into a magnificent little blue
harbor and drops anchor so close to the shore that one can talk to the
people on it in a conversational tone. Why the vessel does not tie up
to the wharf and have done with it is difficult to understand, for the
blue water seems fathoms deep up to the very edge of the quay.
Strictly speaking, it is not a wharf at all, but one of the principal
streets of the town, and passengers in their staterooms have a sense
of having moved into an apartment just across the way from the
negro families who lean out of their windows watching with cheerful
curiosity the activity on the decks below.
The sun was just setting in a cloudless sky when we landed in St.
Georges, yet we saw enough of it before darkness came to veil the
now all too familiar negro slovenliness, though it could not disguise
the concomitant odors. The same incessant cries for alms, the same
heel-treading throngs of guides marked our progress, until we had
shaken them off in a long tunnel through a mountain spur that
connects the two sections of the water-front. For despite its distant
loveliness, the town was overrun by the half-insolent, half-cringing
black creatures who so mar all the Caribbean wonderland, until one
is ready to curse the men of long ago who exterminated the
aborigines and brought in their place this lowest species of the
human family. On shore St. Georges was different only in its steep,
cobbled streets and its rows of houses piled sheer one above another.
Every other shop announced itself a “Dealer in Cacao and Nutmegs.”
In the clamoring throngs of venders squatted along the curb the only
unfamiliar sight was the blue “parrot-fish,” with so striking a
resemblance to the talkative bird as to be mistaken for it at first
glance. But even here there were evidences of Grenada’s greater
prosperity. White men were a trifle more numerous; numbers of
private automobiles climbed away into the hills by what at least
began as excellent highways; a telephone line on which we counted
seventy-six wires disappeared into the interior over the first crest
behind the town. Then a full moon came up over the fuzzy hills,
lending a false beauty to many a commonplace old house-wall,
restoring the romance to the heaped-up town, and flooding the world
with a silver sheen long after we had steamed away in the direction of
Trinidad.
 CHAPTER XV
“LITTLE ENGLAND”

T he “Ancient and Loyal Colony of Barbados” lies so far out to sea

that it requires a real ocean voyage to reach it. Low and
uninteresting at first glance, compared to many of the West Indies, it
is by no means so flat as most descriptions lead one to suppose. Seen
from the sea it stretches up to a fairly lofty central ridge that is
regular from end to end, except for being a trifle serrated or ragged
in the center of the island. Dutch looking windmills, the only
survivors of the cane-crushers that have fallen into disuse and left
only the vine-grown ruins of their stone towers in all the rest of the
Lesser Antilles, are slowly turning here and there on the even sky-
line. Though the island is entirely of coral and limestone formation,
glaringly yellow-white under the blazing sunshine at close range,
there is a suggestion of England in the velvety slopes of its varied-
green fields as seen from far out in the bay. First settled by the
English in 1624, it boasts itself the oldest British colony that has
remained unceasingly loyal to the crown and accepts with pride the
pseudonym of “Little England.”
Barbados has come nearer than any other land to solving the
vexing “negro problem.” Cultivated in all its extent, with a population
of 140,000 negroes and 20,000 whites on a little patch of earth
twenty-one miles long and fifteen wide, or 1200 human beings to the
square mile, without an acre of “bush” on which the liberated slaves
could squat, the struggle for existence is so intense that the black
man displays here an energy and initiative unusual to his race. The
traveler hears rumours of the Barbadian’s un-African activity long
before he reaches the island; he sees evidences of it before his ship
comes to anchor in Carlisle Bay. Not only is the harbor more active,
more crowded with shipping than any other in the Lesser Antilles,
but it has every air of a place that is “up on its toes.” All the languor,
the don’t-care-whether-I-work-or-not of nature’s favored spots are
here replaced by a feverish anxiety to please, an eager energy to snap
up any job that promises to turn a nimble shilling. Scores of
rowboats surround the steamer in a clamoring multitude, their
occupants holding aloft boards on which are printed the names of
their craft—unromantic, unimaginative names compared to those of
the islands that were once or are still French, such as “Maggie,”
“Bridget,” “Lillie White,” “Daisy,” “Tiger.” In face of the fierce
competition the boatmen strive their utmost to win a promise from a
passenger leaning over the rail, to impress the name of their craft on
his memory so that he will call for it when he descends the gangway,
to win his good-will by flattery, by some crude witticism,
—“Remember the ‘Maggie,’ mistress; Captain Snowball”; “The ‘Lillie
White,’ my lady; upholstered in and out!” “The ‘Daisy,’ my
gentleman; rowboat extraordinary to His Majesty!” Meanwhile the
divers for pennies, a few girls among them, are besieging the
passengers from their curious little flat-bottomed boats of double
wedge shape to toss their odd coins into the water and “see the
human porpoises” display their prowess. Yet, unlike the
pandemonium in the other islands, there is no scramble of venders
and beggars up the gangway to the discomfiture of descending
passengers; no crowding of boatmen about it fighting with one
another for each possible fare, to the not infrequent disaster of the
latter. A bull-voiced negro police sergeant, in a uniform that suggests
he has been loaned from the cast of “Pinafore,” keeps perfect order
from the top of the gangway, permitting boats to draw near only
when they are called by name and ruling the clamoring situation with
an iron hand. For there is this difference between the harbor police
of Barbados and those of all the other ports, that they speak to be
obeyed, permit no argument, and if they are not respected, they are
at least duly feared.
Bridgetown was static. The entire population was massed about
the inner harbor; beyond the bridge that gives the town its name
stood an immense new arch with the words “Welcome to Barbados”
emblazoned upon it. We thought it very kind of them to give us such
unexpected attention, until we discovered they were not waiting for
us at all, but for one whom some loyal but not too well schooled
Barbadian had named in chalk on a nearby wall the “Prints of
Whales.” This was the first time in half a century, it seems, that a
member of the royal family to which the “ancient and loyal” little
colony has shown unbroken allegiance had come to visit it. The black
multitude was agog with poorly suppressed excitement; white
natives were squirming nervously; even the few Englishmen in the
crowd were so thawed by the “epoch-making event” that they
actually spoke to strangers. The harbor officer was so eager to lose
none of it that he let us pass without examination; an enterprising
black youth won a sixpence by finding us a place on a crowded barge
a few yards from the royal landing-stage. The tramways had been
stopped; black troops lined the vacant expanse of white main street
that stretched away toward the government house. Nelson’s one-
armed statue in Trafalgar Square had been given an oil bath;
buildings were half hidden behind the fluttering flags of all the Allies
—the Stars and Stripes rarest among them. Even nature had
contributed to the occasion by sending an unexpected little shower to
lay the white limestone dust that habitually rouses the ire of new
arrivals. The island newspaper announced a special holiday in honor
of “the Prince, who will confer upon the loyal inhabitants of this
ancient colony the privilege of receiving a message from his august
father”; it still carried the advertisements of the closed shops,
imploring the citizens not only to buy flags and decorations but to
“get new clothes in honor of our royal visitor.”
He landed twenty minutes after us. A salvo of twenty-two guns
from his battleship in the bay sent as many gasps of excitement and
delight through the eager multitude. The subconscious thought came
to us that it might be better to pay outstanding war debts than to
squander so much powder and coal, but it ill behooves an American
of these days to criticize our neighbors for squandering public funds.
Besides, it is no easy matter to keep up this loyalty-to-the-king
business nowadays, though England, surely, need have no fear of
changes. Then a white launch dashed up the cheering inner harbor, a
curiously boyish-faced young man in a gleaming white helmet
stepped briskly out on the landing-stage into a group of black
policemen in speckless girlish sailor suits, who seemed to lack an
ostrich feather on their round white straw hats, the governor in full-
dress uniform and the lord mayor in purple and red robes bowed low
over the hand that was proffered, and the prince and his suite were
whisked away.
 Black as it was, we were struck by the orderliness of the throng—
what a pandemonium such an event would have caused in the
temperamental French islands!—and its politeness, compared to the
other British West Indies. But if the excitement was suppressed with
British sternness, it was not voiceless. The brief glimpse of the fêted
youth had aroused a thousand exclamations like that of the ragged
old negro woman behind us, “Oh, my God! Dat’s he himself! Oh
Christ!” On the outskirts of the crowd another who had been so far
away as to have caught, at best, a glimpse of the top of the royal
helmet was still confiding to her surroundings, “My Jesus, but him
good lookin’!” An old negro in a battered derby through which his
whitening wool peered here and there elbowed his way through the
dispersing crowd mumbling to himself, “No use talkin’, it’s de British
flag nowadays!” Farther on a breathless market-woman was asking
with the anxious tone of a master of ceremonies who had missed his
train and feared the worst, “Has my gentleman landed yet?” But the
enthusiasm was not unanimous, for still another woman, who fell in
with us down the street, asserted, “Even if de prince landing, it all de
same for we workin’ people. De Prince Albert him landed fifty year
ago, an’ de school-girls dat fall wid de grandstand still hobblin’ about
on dey broken legs.”
The prince spent a whole day in the ancient and loyal colony
before continuing his journey to Australia, most of it in the isolation
of the governor’s residence, but if he carried away an imperfect
picture of this isolated fragment of the empire, he could at least
report to his “august father” that it still retains its extraordinary
loyalty to the crown.

Bridgetown is very English, despite its complexion and dazzling

sunshine. Broken bottles embedded in the tops of plaster walls,
which everywhere shut in private property, shows that this, too, is an
overcrowded country where the few who have must take stern
precautions against the many who have not. The streets bear such
ultra-English names as “Cheapside,” “Philadelphia Lane,” “Literary
Row,” “Lightfoot’s Passage,” “Whitepark Road.” The very signboards
carry the mind back to England—“Grog Shop—The Rose of Devon,”
“Coals for Sale,” “Try Ward’s Influenza Rum—Best Tonic”; the tin
placard of some “Assurance Company” decorates every other façade.
Even the little shingle shacks in the far outskirts bear some
unromantic name painted above their doors; shopkeepers are as
insistent in giving their full qualifications as the clamoring boatmen
in the bay. “O. B. Lawless—American Tailor—Late of Panama”
announces a tiny one-room hovel. There is a British orderliness of
public demeanor even among the naturally disorderly negroes; the
women have neither the color sense nor the dignified carriage of
their sisters of Martinique, rather the gracelessness of the English
women of the lower classes. Yet in one thing Barbados is not English.
It is hospitable, quite ready to enter into conversation even with
strangers.
When it is not silent and deserted under the spell of a holiday or its
deadly Sabbath, Bridgetown pulsates with life. Its wharves are as
busy as all those of the rest of the Lesser Antilles put together, as
busy as our St. Thomas was before Barbados became the focal point
of the eastern Caribbean. Bales and bundles and barrels and
boatloads of produce pour into it as continuously as if every one of its
160,000 were wealthy consumers of everything the world has to
offer. Its own product is constantly being trundled down to waiting
lighters—great hogsheads of sugar or molasses carried on specially
designed iron frames on wheels, each operated by three negroes who
have not lost the amusing childishness of their race for all their
competition-bred industry, for they invariably take turns in riding
the contrivance back to the warehouse, though the clinging to it must
require far more physical exertion than walking. Steamers,
schooners, lighters, rowboats, mule-trucks, auto-“lorries” are
incessantly carrying the world’s goods to and fro. Innumerable
horse-carriages, scores of automobiles, ply for hire. Excellent
electric-lights banish the darkness from all but the poorer class of
houses. Yet despite the constant struggle for livelihood,—or perhaps
because of it,—Bridgetown has little of the insolence of the other
British West Indies. Applicants for odd jobs swarm and beggars are
plentiful, but the latter are unoffensive and the former approach each
possible client with a “Do you want me, my gentleman?” so
courteous that one feels inclined to think up some imaginary errand
on which to send them. They seem to recognize that politeness is an
important asset in their constant battle against hunger, which gives
them also a responsibility, a reliability in any task assigned them,
and a moderation in their demands that is attained by few other
West Indians.
Barbados has a tramway and a railroad, the only ones between
Porto Rico and Trinidad. True, they are modest little affairs, the
tramcars being drawn by mules. Yet the latter step along so lively,
the employees and most of the passengers are so courteous, and
overcrowding is so sternly forbidden that one comes to like them,
especially those lines which rumble along the edge of the sea in the
never-failing breeze, above all in the delightfully soft air of morning
or evening. It would be difficult in these modern days of indifferent
labor to find more courtesy, more earnest efficiency, and stricter
living up to the rules than among Bridgetown’s tram-drivers and
conductors, yet their highest wage is sixty-four cents a day. But for
the war, the system would long since have been electrified; the new
rails have already arrived. There is no real reason, except civic pride,
however, that the mule-cars should be abolished. They are more
reliable than many an electric-line in larger cities; they are a pleasant
change to the speed-weary traveler; and the perfection with which
their extra mule is hitched on at the bottom of the one hill in town
and unhitched again at its summit without the loss of a single trot is
a never-ending source of amusement.
Sojourners in Barbados are certain to make the acquaintance of at
least the long tram-line to St. Lawrence. There are plenty of hotels in
the town proper, but they are habitually crowded with gentlemen of
color. White visitors dwell out Hastings way, some two miles from
Trafalgar Square. Unlike the French and Spanish towns of tropical
America, the downtown section of the Barbadian capital is almost
wholly given over to business—and negroes. The numerous white
inhabitants and most of the darker ones of any standing dwell in the
outskirts. There one may find parks shaded by mahogany and palm-
trees, splendid avenues lined by one or both of these species,
comfortable residences ranging all the way from tiny “villas” draped
with an ivy-like vine or gorgeous masses of the bougainvillea to
luxurious estates in their own private parks. Even the poorer classes
in another stratum still farther from the center of town dwell in neat
little toy-houses of real comfort, compared with the huts of the
masses of Haiti or Porto Rico. For miles along the sea beside this
longest tram-line one passes a constant succession of comfortable,
light-colored houses with boxed verandas, wooden shutters that raise
from the bottom, and a sort of cap visor over the windows. In many
cases these boast tropically unnecessary panes of glass through
which one can make out of an evening interiors of perfect neatness,
homelike, well lighted, furnished and decorated in taste, with none of
the gaudy and crowded bric-a-brac to be seen behind Spanish rejas
in the larger islands.
The night life of Bridgetown is worth a ride behind the now weary
mules, if only to see a negro urchin diligently striving to light a
candle in a tin box on the end of his soap-box cart, lest he be hauled
up for violation of the ordinance forbidding vehicles to circulate after
dark without lamps. Promptly at sunset the black policemen have
changed their white helmets and jackets for German looking caps
and capes. On the way downtown one passes half a dozen wide-open
churches and chapels in which black preachers are vociferously
exhorting their nightly congregations to “walk in de way of de Lard”;
one is certain to rumble past the shrieking hubbub of a Salvation
Army meeting or two. There are crowds of loafers on many a corner
—jolly, inoffensive, black idlers with the spirit of rollicking fun in
their ebony faces, bursting into howls of laughter at the slightest
incident that seems comical to their primitive minds. The filthy
street-habits of the French and Spanish islands are little in evidence,
for the police of Barbados are as vigilant as they are heavy-handed.
Downtown the activities of the day have departed. The larger
stores have closed at four, the small shops at sundown. Only a
scattered score of negro women squat in Trafalgar Square before
their little trays of peanuts, bananas, and home-made sweets, a wick
torch burning on a corner of them whether they are deposited on the
ground or are seeking lack of competition elsewhere on top of their
owners’ heads. There is no theater in Bridgetown; the cinema is as
sad a parody on amusement as it is everywhere, but the audience is
worth seeing, once. The negroes sit in the “pit,” the élite, chiefly
yellow of tint, in a kind of church gallery. Shouts, screams, roof-
raising roars of primitive laughter, deafening applause whenever the
frock-coated villain is undone, mark the unwinding of the film from
beginning to end; it is a scene far different from the comparative
dignity of a black French audience. In the French and Spanish West
Indies the cinemas begin after nine and end around midnight; in
Barbados they start sharply at seven and terminate at ten with a rush
for the last mule-cars, with all but the swift out of luck, and
Bridgetown settles down to deathly Sunday stillness while the weary
mules are still crawling toward the end of their laborious day.
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

Barbadian porters loading hogsheads of sugar

always take turns riding back to the warehouse
 There is an Anglican Church of this style in each
of the eleven parishes of Barbados

On week-days the highways of Barbados are as crowded as city

streets. Heavy draft horses and mules, auto-trucks large and small,
are constantly descending to Bridgetown with the cumbersome
hogsheads of sugar and molasses, or returning with supplies for the
estates. There is an endless procession of almost toy-like carts, each
drawn by a single small donkey, the two wheels habitually wobbly,
the name, address, and license number of the owner in crude letters
on the front of the diminutive box. The donkey is the invariable beast
of burden of the Barbadian of the masses. He carries to town the
products of little gardens; he brings the supplies of the innumerable
small shops throughout the island; the country youth takes his “girl”
riding in his donkey-cart; in later years the whole ebony family packs
into it for a jolt across the country. Unlike the rest of tropical
America, Barbados does not ride its donkeys or use them as pack-
animals; nor, to all appearances, are they abused. Centuries of
British training seems to have given the black islanders a compassion
rare among their neighbors. Horsemen and pack-mules are likewise
unknown along the white highways; oxen are rare; pedestrians are
much less numerous than one would expect in so populous a
community, while bicycles are as widely in use as in England.
There is a curiously English homelikeness about the landscape,
which, if it is seldom rugged, is by no means monotonous. Every acre
of ground is utilized; forbidding stone-and-mud walls topped by
spikes or broken glass line the roads for long distances; villages, or at
least houses, are so continuous that one is almost never out of
human sight or sound. Coral is so abundant and wood so expensive
that immense limestone steps often lead up to tiny wooden shacks,
as out of proportion to their foundations as statues to their pedestals.
The majority of the rather well-kept little negro cabins, however, are
simply set up on small blocks of coral at the four corners. More than
one band of hilarious sailors from visiting battleships have amused
themselves by removing one of these props and tumbling a
Barbadian family out of their beds in the small hours of the night.
Shopkeeping might almost be called the favorite sport of the
“Badeyan”; the lack of jobs enough to go round has led so many to
adopt this means of winning a possible livelihood that the island has
been called “Over-shopped Barbados.” Everywhere wayside shanties
bear the familiar black sign with white letters, varying only in name
and number: “Percival Brathwaite—Licensed Seller of Liquors—No.
765.” Inside, perhaps behind a counter contrived from a single
precious board, are a few crude shelves stocked mainly with bottles
of rum or with cheap “soft drinks,” a few shillings’ worth of
uninviting foodstuffs flanking them. The Barbadians have long been
known as the “Yankees of the West Indies.” They are far more
diligent merchants than most natives of tropical America, so much so
that neither the Chinese, Jews, Portuguese, nor Syrians, so
numerous in the other islands, can compete with them to advantage.
But their knowledge of book-keeping is scanty, and it is often only
the visible end of his light resources that convinces the petty
shopkeeper that he is losing, rather than gaining at the popular
pastime.
Every little way along the island roads other shanties bear the sign
of this or that “Friendly Society.” These are a species of local
insurance company or mutual benefit association. The negroes pay
into them from three pence to a shilling a week,—some of the poorer
neighbors nothing at all,—and receive in return sickness or accident
benefits, or have their funeral expenses paid in case of death. But
they are typically tropical or African in their indifference to a more
distant to-morrow, for at the end of each year the remaining funds
are divided among those members who have not drawn out more
than they paid in, and with perhaps as much as five dollars each in
their pockets the society indulges in a hilarious “blow-out.” Equally
numerous are the signboards of “agents” of the undertakers of
Bridgetown. They do not believe in waiting for the sickle of Father
Time, those deathbed functionaries of the capital, but drum up trade
with Barbadian energy. The island’s newspaper habitually carries
their enticing pleas for clients:
“OUR DEAD MUST BE BURIED,” begins one of these appeals. “In
the SAD HOUR why trouble yourself over the Dead when you can see
E. T. ARCHER GITTENS, the up-to-date and experienced
UNDERTAKER face to face? Look for the Hearse with the GOLDEN
ANGEL!” There follows a “poem” of twenty-four verses setting forth
the advantages of being buried by Gittens and ending with the
touching appeal:
Just take a ride to Tweedside Stable
And you’ll see that this is no Fable.
Phone 281 night or day
And you’ll hear what Gittens has to say.
He and his staff are always on hand
To accommodate any class of man.
“All orders will be promptly executed at MODERATE PRICES.
A TRIAL WILL CONVINCE.”

No doubt it would.

The Barbados government railway—one could not call it a railroad

in so English a community—is an amusing little thing twenty years
old and some two hours long, though that does not mean as much in
miles as one might expect. On week-days its passenger-train
sometimes makes a one-way journey, at a cost of four shillings and
sixpence for first and two shillings for second-class travelers, but on
Sundays it indulges in the whole round trip. From the station near
the famous bridge from which the capital takes its name, the little
train tears away as if excited at its own importance, through slightly
rolling cane-fields, rocky white coral gullies, past frequent Dutchy
windmills flailing their shadows on the ground. Vistas as broad as if
it were crossing a continent instead of a tiny parcel of land flung far
out into the ocean, spread on either hand, that to the right flat and
almost desertlike in its aridity, the north broken in rugged low
ridges, with many scattered villages and gray heaps of sugar-mills on
their crests. The soil is so thin one marvels that it will grow anything,
yet every acre of it shows signs of constant cultivation, the long
expanses of cane broken here and there by small patches of corn,
cassava, yams, and the sweet potatoes on which the mass of the
population depends for nourishment. Every few minutes the train
halts at a station seething with cheerful black faces; everywhere it
crosses white coral roads, some of them cut deep down through the
limestone ridges. Trees are almost plentiful, but they all show
evidence of having been planted. The Spanish discoverers, it is said,
gave the island its present name because its forests were bearded
(barbudos) with what is known in our southern states as “Spanish
moss,” but this, like the original woods, has long since disappeared.
Sunday is as dead as it can only be in a British community. The
cattle and mules stand in the corrals eating dry cane-tops; the square
brick chimneys of the boiling-houses emit not a fleck of smoke. Only
in rare cases even are the windmills allowed to work, though for
some reason nature does not shut off the bracing trade-wind. This is
so constant that it forces all the branches of the trees to the
southwest, until even the royal palms seem to be wearing their hair
on one side. Fields brown with cut cane-tops contrast with the pale
green of those still unharvested; the general sun-flooded whiteness
of the landscape is painful to the eyes. Here and there is a patch of
blackish soil, but it has the vigorless air of having long been
overworked, a looseness as of volcanic lava.
In less than an hour the Atlantic spreads out on the horizon ahead.
Rusty limestone cliffs, a jagged coral coast against which the sea
dashes itself as if angry at the first resistance it encounters since
passing the Cape Verde Islands many hundred miles away, stretch
out to the north and south. We come out to the edge of it, fifty feet
above, then descend to a track so close to the surf that the right of
way must be braced up with old rails. It is a dreary, barren-dry,
brown-yellow coast, yet of a beauty all its own, with its chaotic
jumble of huge rocks among which hundreds of negroes are bathing
stark naked and spouting holes out of which the thundering surf
dashes high into the air. Farther north the landscape grows almost
mountainous, but we have already reached Bathsheba, where Sunday
travelers habitually disembark, leaving the train to crawl on alone to
a few tiny oil-wells around the next rugged promontory.
I climbed the sheer cliff a thousand feet high above Bathsheba, its
face covered with brown grasses, ferns, creeping plants, and the
smaller species of palm that cling to each projecting rock as if their
available nourishment were as scanty and precious as that of the
teeming human population. The view from the summit forever
banishes the notion that Barbados is flat. All “Scotland,” as the
northern end of the island is called, is laid out before you, broken
and pitched and jumbled until it resembles the Andes in miniature.
White ribbons of roads and a network of trails are carelessly strewn
away across it, hundreds of huts are scattered over its chaotic
surface, and an immense building stands forth on the summit of its
highest hill. Jagged, gray-black sandstone boulders of gigantic size
contrast with the white limestone to give the tumbled scene the
aspect of having been left unfinished by the Builder of the western
hemisphere in his hurry to cross the Atlantic. Below, this scene
spreads away to infinity, its scalloped, foam-lashed shore clear-cut in
the dry, luminous atmosphere as far as the eye can see in either
direction. Behind, the picture is tamer, though by no means level.
Rolling cane-fields, with here and there a royal palm, numerous
clusters of huts, and the ubiquitous chimneys and windmills of
sugar-factories breaking the sky-line, stretch endlessly away to the
yellow-brown horizon.
I returned to Bridgetown on foot—he who still fancies the island is
level and tiny should walk across it on a blazing Sunday afternoon—
passing not more than a score of travelers on the way. Once I paused
to chat with a group of “poor whites,” as they call themselves, or what
their black neighbors refer to as “poor buckras” or “red legs.” These
reminders of our own “crackers” are numerous in Barbados,
especially in the “Scotland” district. They are descendants of the
convicts or prisoners taken in the civil wars of England during the
Commonwealth or the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion. Chiefly Scotch
and Irish, some of them royalists of the nobility, they were sent to the
island by Cromwell between 1650 and 1660 and sold to the planters
for 1500 pounds of sugar a head. It is doubtful whether any of them
would be worth that now. Branded and mutilated to prevent their
escape, treated more brutally than the blacks by whom they are held
in contempt to this day, they steadily declined in health and spirits
until their present descendants, with the exception of the few who
rose to be planters, are listless and poverty-stricken, degenerate
victims of the hookworm and of intermarriage. The original
prisoners wore kilts; hence the tropical sun soon won them the
nickname of “red legs,” which has persisted to this day, perhaps
because their bare feet have still a distinctly ruddy tinge. But their
faces are corpse-like in color and their bodies thin and anemic. Of
the adults in this group, not one had more than a half dozen
crumbling fangs in the way of teeth.
Yet they seemed moderately well-informed and of far quicker
intelligence than the sturdier blacks who so despise them. Their air
of honest simplicity acquitted them of any suggestion of boasting
when they asserted that the “poor whites” never steal cane and other
growing crops, the theft of which by the negroes, despite heavy
penalties, is one of the curses of the island. The chief topic of
conversation, nevertheless, was that inevitable post-war one the
world over, the high cost of food. Coffee, their principal
nourishment, they took nowadays without sugar, and though it had
sold at sixteen cents a pound when the war ended, it was now forty.
Rice, sweet potatoes, meal, even breadfruit, “the staff of Barbados,”
had trebled in price. Their “spots,” as they call their gardens, were
constantly being robbed by the negroes. It was no use trying to keep
a goat or a sheep; some black thief was sure to carry it off.
I succeeded at length in bringing up the matter of education. They
sent their boys to the public schools, but it was not safe to send the
girls. There were elementary schools in every parish, where each
pupil paid a penny a week. The teachers were nearly all men and all
were colored. In the higher public schools, which an average tuition
of $72 a year put out of reach for most of them, the teachers were
usually Englishmen; but the color-line was drawn only in the private
schools, of which there were plenty for those who could afford them.
While they talked I noted that the enmity between the two races was
camouflaged under an outward friendliness; the greetings between
the group of “red legs” and the black passers-by had a heartiness of
tone that might easily have deceived an unenquiring observer.
One of the sights of Barbados is the large, old, gray stone Anglican
church in each of the eleven parishes. Their erection was decreed
way back in the days when the Earl of Carlisle, having a superior
“pull” with the King of England, ousted Sir William Courteen as
founder of the colony. They are as English in their sturdy bulkiness,
with their heavy crenelated stone towers and the replica of an
English country churchyard about each of them, despite the difficulty
of digging graves in hard limestone, as the English sparrows which
flock about the neighboring cane-fields. The Anglicans, having gotten
in on the ground floor, have almost a monopoly in the island, though
other denominations have no great difficulty in establishing their
claims to endowments. The Catholics, of whom there are barely a
thousand, have only one small church. Even the shouting sects seem
to have less popularity among the Barbadians than in most negro
communities. Religion is reputed the true bulwark of the social order
in Barbados, but it is rather because the long established churches
serve to maintain the class distinctions on which this is based than
because they succeed in holding the negroes up to any particularly
high standard of morals. Mrs. Grundy is strongly entrenched in all
the British West Indies, but her influence is rather superficial among
the black masses, who have a considerable amount of what other
races call the “hypocrisy” of the Anglo-Saxon.

But Sunday is no time to see Barbados. I walked entirely across the

island without meeting one donkey-cart, so numerous on week-days.
There was scarcely a wheeled vehicle in all the long white vista of
highways, except a rare bicycle and the occasional automobile of a
party of American tourists. Pedestrians were as rare; the people were
everywhere shut in behind their tight-closed wooden shutters, a few
of them singing hymns, most of them sleeping in their air-tight
cabins. The few I roused, out of mere curiosity, treated the
annoyance as something bordering on the sacrilegious. Nowhere was
there a group under the trees; never a picnic party; not a sign of any
one enjoying life. Bridgetown itself, compared to the swarming
uproar of the “prince’s day,” was as a graveyard to carnival time.
With the dawn of Monday, however, the island awakens again to
its feverish activity, and one may easily catch an auto-truck across
the floor-flat, dusty plain stretching some five miles inland from the
capital and drop off on the breezy higher shelves of the island.
Something of interest is sure to turn up within the next mile or two.
The Barbadian, for instance, digs his wells not to get water, but to
get rid of it. They are to be found everywhere, often at the very edge
of the highway and always open and unprotected. They are big round
holes cut far down into the jagged coral rock, splendid places, it
would seem, into which to throw something or somebody for which
one has no use. This is exactly their purpose, for they are designed to
carry off the floods of the rainy season. Barbados has no rivers and
no lakes, or rather, these are all underground, some of them in
immense caverns. In former days the mass of the population
depended for its water supply on shallow, intermittent ponds, the
better class on private arrangements. Now two central pumping
stations and more than a hundred miles of underground pipe furnish
the entire island with excellent, if lukewarm, water from the unseen
rivers. Instead of the roadside shrines of the French islands, the
limestone embankments of Barbadian highways have faucets at
frequent intervals. Water is free to those who fetch it from these. The
better class residents are everywhere supplied by private pipes at a
nominal sum per house. Business places pay thirty cents per
thousand gallons, which is considered so expensive that only one
estate on the island is irrigated though drought is frequently
disastrous in the west and south.
The stodgy windmills everywhere fanning the air are used
exclusively for the grinding of cane. It is a rare patch of landscape
that does not show at least half a dozen of these toiling away six days
of the week. The fact that they have survived in Barbados, of all the
West Indies, may be as much due to its unfailing trade wind as to the
crowded conditions which make the innovation of labor-saving
devices so unpopular. Methods long since abandoned elsewhere are
still in vogue in Barbadian sugar-mills. The cane is passed by hand
between the iron rollers in the stone windmill tower. The big hilltop
yard about this is covered with drying bagasse, or cane pulp, which
is finally heaped up about the boiling-house in which it serves as fuel.
The juice runs in open troughs from the windmill to this latter
building, where it is strained and left to settle until the scum rises to
the surface. Then, this being skimmed off, it is boiled in open copper
kettles. A negro watches each of them, dipping out the froth now and
then with a huge soup-ladle and tossing the boiling liquid into the air
when it shows signs of burning. Toward the end of the process the
“sugar-master” is constantly trying the syrup between a finger and
thumb, in order to tell when the crystals are forming and when to
“strike” the contents of the kettle, which must be done at the right
moment if the sugar is to be worth shipping. From beginning to end
the work is done by hand, and a Barbadian sugar-mill has little
resemblance, except in its pungently sweet odor, to the immense
centrals of Cuba.
In the early days the sugar-men had much trouble in transporting
their product because of the deep gullies and bad roads. Once upon a
time camels were used, but though they answered the purpose
splendidly, being very sure-footed and capable of carrying the price
of a “red leg” each, they died for lack of a proper diet. To this day
Barbadian sugar or molasses is shipped in the cumbersome 110–
gallon hogsheads which were adopted in the days of camels, though
the hauling is now done on mule or auto-trucks.
With an unlimited supply of cheap labor, it is natural that the
Barbadian planters should cling to the old processes. Indeed, the
estate owner who attempts to bring in new machinery is heartily
criticized by his competitors, while the establishment of new mills is
out of the question, there being already too many factories for the
available acreage. The sugar planters, nine out of ten of whom are as
white as the Anglo-Saxon can be after many generations of tropical
residence, hold all Barbados, leaving only the steeper hillsides and
the less fertile patches as “spots” on which the “red legs” and the
negroes plant their yams, arrow-root, sweet potatoes, and cassava.
They live in luxurious old manor houses, usually on high knolls
overlooking their not particularly broad acres, half-hidden in groves
of mahogany-trees, which are protected by law from destruction.
With few exceptions they are the descendants of English colonists,
and still keep the British qualities their ancestors brought with them,
keep them so tenaciously that in some ways they are more English
than the modern Englishman himself. There are suggestions that
they are as short-sighted as most conservatives in taking the last
ounce of advantage of the crowded conditions to keep the laboring
masses at ludicrously low wages. Molasses, which the Barbadians call
“syrup,” has advanced from seven cents to a dollar a gallon in the
past few years, yet the planters are still paying about a shilling per
hundred “holes” of cane, making it impossible for the hardest
workers to earn more than “two and six” a day, though the prices,
even of the foodstuffs grown on the island, have nearly all trebled.
The pessimists foresee trouble and cite the continual presence of a
battleship in Barbadian waters as proof that even the government
fears it. But though they constitute only one eighth of the population
and the percentage is steadily decreasing, the whites have always
ruled in Barbados. As early as 1649 the slaves planned to kill them all
off, and kept the secret of the conspiracy so well that it would
probably have succeeded but for a servant who gave the planters
warning on the eve of the attack. In 1816 there came another fierce
negro rebellion, which was put down with an iron hand. Since then
the blacks have been given little real voice in the government, despite
their overwhelming majority, and the traveler of to-day finds
Barbados the one island of the British West Indies in which the
negroes are not beginning to “feel their oats.”
Some attribute the patent difference between the Barbadian and
other negroes of the western hemisphere to his origin in Sierra
Leone, while the rest came from the Kru or the Slave Coast, but there
is little historical evidence to support this contention. Still others
credit his superior energy and initiative to the absence of malaria in
the island. Most observers see in those qualities merely a proof that
the negro develops most nearly into a creditable member of society
under physical conditions which require him either to work or starve.
Whoever is right, the fact remains that Barbados is one of the few
places where emancipation was not disastrous, and that the
Barbadians are probably, on the whole, the most pleasant mannered
people in the West Indies, if not in the western hemisphere. Except
for rare cases of rowdyism, they are always courteous, yet without
cringing. Even those in positions bringing them into official contact
with the public are, as is too often the reverse in many another
country, extremely obliging, cheerful, yet never patronizing, rarely
brusk, yet efficient and prompt, fairly true to their promises, for a
tropical country, and have little of that aggressive insolence which is
becoming so wide-spread among the negroes in our own country and
the other British West Indies. The crowded condition of the country
evidently makes the constant meeting of people a reason to cut down
friction to the minimum, while the necessity of earning a livelihood
where work is scarce leads them to be careful not to antagonize any
one.
That they are amusing goes without saying. The magnificent black
“bobby” in his white blouse and helmet, for instance, does not reply
to your query about the next tramway with, “Goin’ to Hastings?
Better geta move on then,” but with a mellifluous, “Ah, your
destination is Hastings? Then you will be obliged to proceed very
rapidly; otherwise you are in danger of being detained a half-hour
until the next car departs.” Yet they are not a people that grows upon
one. As with all negroes, there is a shallowness back of their
politeness, a something which reminds you every now and then that
they have no history, no traditions, no ancient culture—such as that
which is apparent, for instance, in the most ragged Hindu coolie—
behind them.
 Small as it is, there are many more points of interest in Barbados.
There is Speightstown, for example, where whaling is still sometimes
carried on; Holetown, with its monument to the first English
colonists; a marvelous view of all the ragged Atlantic coast from the
parish churchyard of St. John’s, in which lies buried a descendant of
the Greek emperors who was long its sexton; Mt. Hillaby, the highest
point of the island, from which one may look down upon all the
chaotic jumble of hills in St. Andrew’s Parish, better known as
“Scotland,” or in the south the broad, parched flatlands of Christ
Church, the only one of the eleven parishes not named for some saint
of the Anglican calendar. Or there is amusement, at least, among the
huts tucked away into every jagged coral ravine, in noting the curious
subterfuges adopted to wrest a livelihood from an overburdened and
rather unwilling soil. Every acre of the island being under cultivation,
there is, of course, no hunting; wild animals are unknown, except for
a few monkeys in Turner’s Woods. These are rarely seen, for so
human have they become in their own struggle for existence that
they post a guard whenever they engage in their forays and flee at his
first intimation of danger. Negro boys earn a penny or two a day for
keeping the monkeys off the cane-fields. There being no streams or
lakes, the island has no disciples of Isaac Walton, but the Barbadians
are inveterate fishermen, for all that. Time was when the little boats
which are constantly pushing out to sea in water so clear that one
may see every crevice of the coral bottom sixty feet below brought
back more fish than the island could consume. Then one might buy a
hundred flying-fish for a penny; to-day these favorites of the
Barbadian table cost as high as two pence each, while the equally
familiar dolphins cost twice that a pound. “Sea eggs,” which are
nothing more or less than the sea-urchin of northern waters, are a
standard dish in this crowded community, for the same reason,
perhaps, that the French have discovered the edible qualities of
snails.

Barbados is the only foreign land ever visited by the father of our
country. In the winter of 1751–52, nearly a quarter of a century
before the Revolution, Captain George Washington, then adjutant
general of Virginia at one hundred and fifty pounds a year,
accompanied his brother on a journey in quest of his health. Major
Lawrence Washington of the British army, owner of Mt. Vernon,
fourteen years older than George, had been suffering from
consumption since he served in the expedition against Cartagena in
South America. They sailed direct to Barbados, then a famous health
resort, by schooner. The skipper must have been weak on navigation,
for, says George’s journal, “We were awakened one morning by a cry
of land, when by our reckonings there should have been none within
150 leagues of us. If we had been a bit to one side or the other we
would never have noticed the island and would have run on down to
——”, the future father of our country does not seem to have a very
clear idea just where. In fact, schoolmarms who have been holding
up the hatchet-wielder as a model for their pupils—unless some
millionaire movie hero has taken his place in the hearts of our young
countrymen nowadays—will no doubt be horrified to learn that
George was not only weak in geography, but even in spelling. He
frequently speaks of “fields of cain,” for instance, and sometimes
calls his distressing means of conveyance a “scooner,” or a “chooner.”
But let him speak for himself:
Nov. 4, 1751—This morning received a card from Major Clark welcoming us to
Barbados, with an invitation to breakfast and dine with him. We went—myself with
some reluctance, as the small pox was in the family. Mrs. Clark was so much
indisposed [the italics are mine] by it that we had not the pleasure of her company.
Spent next few days writg letters to be carried by the Chooner Fredericksburg to
Virginia.
Thursday 8th. Came Captn Crofton with his proposals which tho extravagantly
dear my Brother was obliged to give. £15 pr Month is his charge exclusive of
Liquors & washings which we find. In the evening we remov’d some of our things
up and ourselves; it’s pleasantly situated pretty near the sea and abt a mile from
the Town, the prospective agreable by Land and pleasant by Sea as we command
the prospect of Carlyle Bay & all the shipping in such a manner that none can go in
or out with out being open to our view.

The Washingtons evidently lived near the same spot now inhabited
by American tourists, any two of whom would be only too happy
nowadays to pay forty-three dollars a month for board and lodging,
“Liquor” or no liquor. Capt. Crofton, the rascally profiteer, must have
made a small fortune out of his “paying guests,” for they were always
being invited out to meals at the “Beefstake & Tripe Club” or
elsewhere. Church members, however, will be glad to see the next
entry, despite of that unhappy break about the “Liquor”:
Sunday 11th. Dressed in order for Church but got to Town too Late. [What man
ever kept his sense of time in the tropics?] Went to Evening Service.
Thursday 15th. Was treated with a play ticket to see the Tragedy of George
Barnwell acted. [George, you see, was no money-strewing tourist. But then, he was
not an American in those days.]
Saturday 17th. Was strongly attacked with the small Pox sent for Dr. Lanahan
whose attendance was very constant till my recovery and going out which was not
’till thursday the 12th December.
December 12th. Went to Town visited Maj. Clarke (who kindly visited me in my
illness and contributed all he cou’d in send’g me the necessary’s required by ye
disorder).

Kind of him, surely, after his other little contribution to “ye

disorder” in the shape of that first invitation. The only real result of
the Washingtons’ trip to Barbados was that our first President was
pockmarked for life, for Lawrence got no good out of the trip. George
went back to Virginia and Lawrence to Bermuda, where he grew
steadily worse, and finally went home to die at Mt. Vernon the
following summer bequeathing the estate to his younger brother.
Washington speaks constantly in his journal of the hospitality of
Barbados. That characteristic remains to this day, where it is carried
to an extreme unknown in England and rarely in the United States.
Of all the Lesser Antilles, one leaves Barbados, perhaps, with most
regret.
 CHAPTER XVI
TRINIDAD, THE LAND OF ASPHALT

A S his steamer drops anchor far out in the immense shallow of the
Gulf of Paria, the traveler cannot but realize that at last he has
come to the end of the West Indies and is encroaching upon the
South American continent. The “Trinity” of fuzzy hills, to-day called
the “Three Sisters,” for which Columbus named the island have quite
another aspect than the precipitous volcanic peaks of the Lesser
Antilles. Plump, placid, their vegetation tanned a light brown by the
now truly tropical sun, they have a strong family resemblance to the
mountains of Venezuela hazily looming into the sky back across the
Bocas. Fog, unknown among the stepping-stones to the north, hangs
like wet wool over all the lowlands, along the edge of the bay. The
trade wind that has never failed on the long journey south has given
place to an enervating breathlessness; by seven in the morning the
sun is already cruelly beating down; instead of the clear blue waters
of the Caribbean, the vast expanse of harbor has the drab, lifeless
color of a faded brown carpet. Sail-boats, their sails limply aslack as
they await the signal to come and carry off the steamer’s cargo, give
the scene a half-Oriental aspect that recalls the southern coast of
China.
There is little, indeed, to excite the senses as the crowded launch
plows for half an hour toward the uninviting shore. Seen from the
harbor, Port of Spain, with its long straight line of wharves and
warehouses, looks dismal in the extreme, especially to those who
have left beautiful St. Georges of Grenada the evening before. Yet
from the moment of landing one has the feeling of having gotten
somewhere at last. The second in size and the most prosperous of the
British West Indies may be less beautiful than the scattered toy-lands
bordering the Caribbean, but a glance suffices to prove it far more
progressive. Deceived by its featureless appearance from the sea, the
traveler is little short of astounded to find Port of Spain an extensive
city, the first real city south of Porto Rico, with a beauty of its own
unsuggested from the harbor. Spread over an immense plain sloping
ever so slightly toward the sea, with wide, right-angled, perfect
asphalt streets, electric-cars as up-to-date as those of any American
city covering it in every direction, and having most of the
conveniences of modern times, it bears little resemblance to the
backward, if more picturesque, “capitals” of the string of tiny islands
to the north. The insignificant “Puerto de los Españoles,” which the
English found here when they captured the island a mere century
and a quarter ago, was burned to the ground in 1808; another
conflagration swept it in 1895, so that the city of to-day has a
sprightly, new-built aspect, despite the comparative flimsiness of its
mainly wooden buildings. There are numerous imposing structures
of brick and stone, too, along its broad streets, and many splendid
residences in the suburbs stretching from the bright and ample
business section to the foot of the encircling hills.
Long before he reaches these, however, the visitor is sure to be
struck by the astonishing variety of types that make up the
population. Unlike that of the smaller islands, the development of
Trinidad came mainly after African slavery was beginning to be
frowned upon, and though the negro element of its population is
large, the monotony of flat noses and black skins is broken by an
equal number of other racial characteristics. Large numbers of
Chinese workmen were imported in the middle of the last century;
Hindu coolies, indentured for five years, were introduced in 1839,
and though the Government of India has recently forbidden this
species of servitude, fully one third of the inhabitants are East
Indians or their more or less full-blooded descendants. Toward the
end of the eighteenth century large numbers of French refugees took
up their residence in Trinidad, and the island to-day has more
inhabitants of this race than any of the West Indies not under French
rule. Many of the plantation-owners are of this stock, improvident
fellows, if one may believe the rumors afloat, who mortgage their
estates when times are hard. Then, instead of paying their debts
when the price of sugar and cacao make them temporarily rich, they
go to Europe “on a tear.” Martinique and Guadeloupe have also sent
their share of laborers, and there are sections of Trinidad in which
the negroes are as apt to speak French as English. Portuguese,
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