CHAPTER V

An election meeting in Jamaica--Two family experiences at contested
elections--Novel South African methods--Unattractive Kingston--A
driving tour through the island--The Guardsman as orchid
hunter--Derelict country houses--An attempt to reconstruct the
past--The Fourth-Form Room at Harrow--Elizabethan Harrovians--I meet
many friends of my youth--The "Sunday" books of the 'sixties--"Black
and White"--Arrival of the French Fleet--Its inner
meaning--International courtesies--A delicate attention--Absent
alligators--The mangrove swamp--A preposterous suggestion--The swamps
do their work--Fever--A very gallant apprentice--What he did.


The Guardsman's enthusiasm about Jamaica remaining unabated, I
determined to hire a buggy and pair and to make a fortnight's
leisurely tour of the North Coast and centre of the island. Though not
peculiarly expeditious, this is a very satisfactory mode of travel; no
engine troubles, no burst tyres, and no worries about petrol supplies.
A new country can be seen and absorbed far more easily from a
horse-drawn vehicle than from a hurrying motor-car, and the little
country inns in Jamaica, though very plainly equipped, are, as a rule,
excellent, with surprisingly good if somewhat novel food.

As the member for St. Andrews in the local Legislative Council had
just died, an election was being held in Kingston. Curious as to what
an election-meeting in Jamaica might be like, we attended one. The
hall was very small, and densely packed with people, and the
suffocating heat drove us away after a quarter of an hour; but never
have I, in so short a space of time, heard such violent personalities