West India islands; but in Marryat and Scott's time to be ordered to
the West Indies was looked upon as equivalent to a death sentence. Yet
every writer enlarges upon the exquisite beauty of these green, sun-
kissed islands, and regrets bitterly that so enchanting an earthly
paradise should be the very ante-room of death.

In spite of the unhealthy climate, in the days when King Sugar reigned
undisputed, the owners of sugar estates, attracted by the enormous
fortunes then to be made, and fully alive to the fact that in the case
of absentee proprietors profits tended to go everywhere except into
the owners' pockets, deliberately braved the climate, settled down for
life (usually a brief one) in either Jamaica or Barbados, built
themselves sumptuous houses, stocked with silver plate and rare wines,
and held high and continual revel until such time as Yellow Jack
should claim them. In the East Indies the soldiers and Civil Servants
of "John Company," and the merchant community, "shook the pagoda tree"
until they had accumulated sufficient fortunes on which to retire,
when they returned to England with yellow faces and torpid livers,
grumbling like Jos Sedley to the ends of their lives about the cold,
and the carelessness of English cooks in preparing curries, and
harbouring unending regrets for the flesh-pots and comforts of life in
Boggley Wollah, which in retrospect no doubt appeared more attractive
than they had done in reality. The West Indian, on the other hand,
settled down permanently with his wife and family in the island of his
choice. Barbados and Jamaica are the only two tropical countries under
the British flag where there was a resident white gentry born and bred
in the country, with country places handed down from father to son. In
these two islands not one word of any language but English was ever to
be heard from either black or white. The English parochial system had
been transplanted bodily, and successfully, with guardians and