body of Chinese. Still, this extraordinary diversity of race
elements does not make itself at once apparent to the stranger.
Your first impressions, as you pass through the black crowd upon
the wharf, is that of being among a population as nearly African
as that of Barbadoes; and indeed the black element dominates to
such an extent that upon the streets white faces look strange by
contrast. When a white face does appear, it is usually under the
shadow of an Indian helmet, and heavily bearded, and austere: the
physiognomy of one used to command. Against the fantastic ethnic
background of a11 this colonial life, this strong, bearded
English visage takes something of heroic relief;--one feels, in a
totally novel way, the dignity of a white skin.

[Illustration: ST. JAMES AVENUE, PORT-OF-SPAIN, TRINIDAD.]

... I hire a carriage to take me to the nearest coolie village;
--a delightful drive.... Sometimes the smooth white road curves
round the slope of a forest-covered mountain;--sometimes
overlooks a valley shining with twenty different shades of
surface green;--sometimes traverses marvellous natural arcades
formed by the interweaving and intercrossing of bamboos fifty
feet high. Rising in vast clumps, and spreading out sheafwise
from the soil towards the sky, the curves of their beautiful
jointed stems meet at such perfect angles above the way, and on
either side of it, as to imitate almost exactly the elaborate
Gothic arch-work of old abbey cloisters. Above the road,
shadowing the slopes of lofty hills, forests beetle in dizzy
precipices of verdure. They are green--burning, flashing green--
covered with parasitic green creepers and vines; they show
enormous forms, or rather dreams of form, fetichistic and