186 THE COCAL. 



the white men, of other islands, as beings of an infwior 

 grade ; and takes care to inform yon in the first five minutes 

 that he is " neider Crab nor Creole, but true Barbadian 

 barn." Tliis self-conceit of his, meanwhile, is apt to make 

 him unruly, and the cause of unruliness in others when he 

 emigrates. The Barbadian Xegros are, I believe, the only 

 ones who give, or ever have given, any trouble in Trinidad ; 

 and in Barbados itself, though the agricultural Xegros work 

 hard and well, who that knows the West Indies knows not 

 the insubordination of the Bridgetown boatmen, among whose 

 hands a traveller and his luggage are, it is said, likely enough 

 to be pulled in pieces ? However, they are rather more quiet 

 just now ; for not a thousand years ago a certain steamer's 

 captain, utterly unable to clear his quarter of the fleet of 

 fighting jabbering brown people, turned the steam-pipe on 

 them. At which quite unexpected artillery they fled preci- 

 pitately ; and have had some rational respect for a steamer's 

 quarter ever since. After all, I do not deny that this 

 man's being a Barbadian opened my heart to him at once, 

 for old sakes' sake. 



Another specimen of Negro character T was to have analysed, 



or tried to analyse, at the estate ^vhere I had slept. jNI. F 



had lately caught a black servant at the brook-side busily wash- 

 ing something in a calabash, and asked him wdiat was he doing 

 there ? The conversation w^ould have been held, of course, 



