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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



A Jamaican omnibus is a unique vehicle after 

 its kind. The main portion consists of a square 

 box surmounted by a Chinese canopy in Ameri- 

 can leather, and stuck upon four wheels by the 

 intervention of some antediluvian springs. Be- 

 tween the shafts a sorry mule walks solemnly 

 along, until a blow from the butt-end of the whip 

 (thongs appear to be mere survivals of a once 

 useful structure) rouses him for a moment into a 

 furious canter, subsiding immediately into the 

 original dead-march. Over unmetaled roads in- 

 tersected by open water-ways, and diversified by 

 occasional hollows known under the graphic title 

 of " butter-bowls," the negro driver jolts his 

 luckless victim with undiminished composure, ob- 

 serving with a grin after each unusually heavy 

 jump, ' Massa from Englan' doan't 'customed yet 

 to Jamaica ro-ad ; dat nuffin after massa lam to 

 know him ! " — a pleasing prediction which massa 

 shortly recognizes as no more than the truth. 



So on we jolt, from one tumble-down street to 

 another, past groups of chattering negroes, past 

 long rows of shabby houses with no trottoir in 

 front, until at last we draw up at the broken door 

 and shaky wooden steps of Colonial Hall. I am 

 not writing an account of Jamaica, but merely 

 exposing " The Great Tropical Fallacy ; " and so 

 I will not try to describe the transcendent hor- 

 rors of that unrivaled house of entertainment. 

 I have traveled in Spain, and I thought I un- 

 derstood dirt ; but, believe me, I only knew as 

 yet the first rudiments of that extensive sub- 

 ject. The floors of Colonial Hall might have 

 been converted into a thriving flower-garden. 

 The servants might have sold their rags to an en- 

 terprising manager as " properties " for Joe or 

 Oliver Twist. The loaves of bread might have 

 been transported entire to the entomological cab- 

 inets of the British Museum. The whole house 

 might have been indicted for a nuisance by the 

 righteous indignation of the New Cut. I will not 

 dwell upon it, lest I should seem to exaggerate, 

 but will pass on to my after-experiences of the 

 country at large, so far as they cast a gleam of 

 light upon the true nature of the fallacy in hand. 



That tropical towns are squalid and miser- 

 able, I suppose everybody more or less believes. 

 I discovered at a later date that Kingston, com- 

 pared with Santa Martha or Savanilla, might be 

 considered a clean, thriving, and civilized city. 

 But, to my untutored European mind, it seemed 

 at first sight more frightful than anything I could 

 have believed of Coomassie or Timbuctoo. I sup- 

 pose those who stay at home have no idea of what 

 an extra-European town must necessarily be. At 



any rate, I could not before have believed that 

 there existed on earth a place so wretched, so 

 mean looking, so utterly bankrupt and disrepu- 

 table, as that in which I then stood. 



But the country, thinks the unsophisticated 

 Briton, the country must be beautiful! There 

 the hand of man cannot mar the natural charms 

 of green fields and lovely flowers. There the 

 waving sugar-cane, the graceful bamboo, the 

 spreading tree-fern, the magnificent palms (those 

 palms again !) must make a scene of fairy love- 

 liness. There the orange-trees, the parrots, the 

 butterflies — ah, my dear sir, all, all mere fancy ! 

 Go and see for yourself, or trust those who have 

 seen. Such things you may find if you will at 

 Kew Gardens or at Sydenham, but not, I assure 

 you, in the tropics. 



Behind the town lies a plain, occupied for the 

 most part by grazing farms and cultivated land. 

 You may drive out on any side along a dusty road 

 and survey the beauties of Nature as they unfold 

 themselves to your inquiring eye. Hedges of cac- 

 tus shut it in on either hand, and of course shut 

 off the prospect of every object except their own 

 obtrusive stems. Now, a cactus-hedge is a very 

 pretty thing in the abstract : that is to say, a 

 hedge of such cactus-plants as one may see at 

 Kew or Sydenham aforesaid. But the concrete 

 cactus-hedge of reality consists of tall, scraggy 

 stalks, flowerless and spiny, covered half an inch 

 deep in collected dust, and as thoroughly unro- 

 mantic as dirt and neglect can make them. Here 

 and there a gap in the hedge or an interval of 

 wire-fencing allows one to glance at the fields 

 within. And what fields ! No soft, green turf, 

 pied with daisies and buttercups, but great, dusty 

 levels, overgrown with rank and weedy vegeta- 

 tion, more like rushes than English grass. The 

 dust lies on its spiky blades, not in light powder, 

 but thick and deep as in an uninhabited room. 

 You cannot see the shape of the leaves for the 

 white layer that overlies them, always, of course, 

 under that pelting sunlight which makes the dull- 

 est gray come out in staring whiteness. The 

 plain is one unbroken sea of dingy weeds, and 

 the tropical country has followed the tropical 

 town to John Milton's limbo of false imaginings, 

 the Paradise of Fools. 



And the flowers? And the fruits? Well, 

 there are no flowers. If you wish to see brilliant 

 blossoms, you must go into your own English 

 warren on a May morning, when the primroses 

 cluster by thousands on every sunny bank, when 

 the cowslips raise their dappled heads on every 

 grassy knoll, when the dog-roses sweeten the air 



