flag.



CHAPTER IV: PORT OF SPAIN



The first thing notable, on landing in Port of Spain at the low quay
which has been just reclaimed from the mud of the gulf, is the
multitude of people who are doing nothing. It is not that they have
taken an hour's holiday to see the packet come in. You will find
them, or their brown duplicates, in the same places to-morrow and
next day. They stand idle in the marketplace, not because they have
not been hired, but because they do not want to be hired; being able
to live like the Lazzaroni of Naples, on 'Midshipman's half-pay--
nothing a day, and find yourself.' You are told that there are 8000
human beings in Port of Spain alone without visible means of
subsistence, and you congratulate Port of Spain on being such an
Elysium that people can live there--not without eating, for every
child and most women you pass are eating something or other all day
long--but without working. The fact is, that though they will eat
as much and more than a European, if they can get it, they can do
well without food; and feed, as do the Lazzaroni, on mere heat and
light. The best substitute for a dinner is a sleep under a south
wall in the blazing sun; and there are plenty of south walls in Port
of Spain. In the French islands, I am told, such Lazzaroni are
caught up and set to Government work, as 'strong rogues and
masterless men,' after the ancient English fashion. But is such a
course fair? If a poor man neither steals, begs, nor rebels (and