situation! Barbados, all emerald green after the rainy season, looked
deliciously enticing from the ship. The "flamboyant" trees,
_Ponciana Regia_, were in full bloom, making great patches of
vivid scarlet round the Savannah. The houses and villas peeping out of
luxuriant tangles of tropical vegetation had a delightfully home-like
look to eyes accustomed for two years to South American surroundings.
Seen through a glass from the ship's deck, the Public Buildings in
Trafalgar Square, solid and substantial, had all the unimaginative
neatness of any prosaic provincial townhall at home. We were clearly
no longer in a Latin-American country. It was really a piece of
England translated to the Caribbean Sea, and we few passengers, some
of whom had not seen England for many weary years, were forbidden to
set foot on this outpost of home. It was most exasperating; for never
did any island look more inviting, and surely such dazzling white
houses, such glowing red roofs, such vivid greenery, and so absurdly
blue a sea, had never been seen in conjunction before. Barbados is
almost exactly the size of the Isle of Wight, but in spite of its
restricted area, all the Barbadians, both white and coloured, have the
most exalted opinion of their island, which in those days they
lovingly termed "Bimshire," white Barbadians being then known as
"Bims." Students of Marryat will remember how Mr. Apollo Johnson, at
Miss Betty Austin's coloured "Dignity ball," declared that "All de
world fight against England, but England nebber fear; King George
nebber fear while Barbados 'tand 'tiff," and something of that
sentiment persists still to-day. As a youngster I used to laugh till I
cried at the rebuff administered to Peter Simple by Miss Minerva at
the same "Dignity ball." Peter was carving a turkey, and asked his
swarthy partner whether he might send her a slice of the breast.
Shocked at such coarseness, the dusky but delicate damsel simpered
demurely, "Sar, I take a lily piece turkey bosom, if you please."