removed from Spanish Town to Kingston, and his effigy had eventually
to be placed in the memorial temple which grateful Spanish Town
erected to commemorate his great victory over de Grasse off Dominica
on April 12, 1782, as the result of which the Lesser Antilles remained
British instead of French. For all these reasons I had experienced,
since the age of thirteen, an intense longing to see these lovely
islands with all their historic associations.

In 1884 I travelled from Buenos Ayres to Canada in a tramp steamer
simply and solely because she was advertised to call at Barbados and
Jamaica. Never shall I forget my first night in that tramp. I soon
became conscious of uninvited guests in my bunk, so, striking a light
(strictly against rules in the ships of those days), I discovered
regiments and army corps of noisome, crawling vermin marching in
serried ranks into my bunk under the impression that it was their
parade ground. For the remainder of the voyage I slept on the saloon
table, a hard but cleanly couch. We lay for a week at Rio de Janeiro
loading coffee, and we touched at Bahia and at Pernambuco. At this
latter place as at Rio an epidemic of yellow fever was raging, so we
had not got a clean bill-of-health. As the blunt-nosed tramp pushed
her leisurely way northward through the oily ultra-marine expanse of
tropical seas, I thought longingly of the green island for which we
were heading. We reached Carlisle Bay, Barbados, at daybreak on a
glorious June morning, and waited impatiently in the roadstead (there
is no harbour in Barbados) for the liberating visit of the medical
officer from the shore. He arrived, gave one glance at our
bill-of-health, and sternly refused _pratique_, so the hateful
yellow flag remained fluttering at the fore in the Trade wind,
announcing to all and sundry that we were cut off from all
communication with the shore. Never was there a more aggravating