132 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
In dealing with them, the stranger is apt to be over-reached 
in various ways and comes to feel that he is regarded as en- 
tirely legitimate prey. Like our own negroes, they seem to 
think petty pilfering nothing to be ashamed of and entirely 
commendable so long as it is not discovered. For small of- 
fences they are sentenced by the magistrate to a whipping with 
the ‘‘tamarind rod,’’ which is rather commonly administered. 
The newspaper often had an item to the effect that such and 
such a one had been sentenced to so many strokes of the tama- 
rind rod. While whipping by a master is illegal and may be 
punished, whipping by law is the commonest penalty for petty 
offences. In some ways this may be preferable to imprisonment; 
as it does not deprive the bread-winner, and all of them are 
that, of his time and very necessary wages. Thus the court is 
not under the necessity, as is too often the case with us, of 
either making the family of the laborer suffer by the loss of 
his pay, or letting him off entirely. 
I have little knowledge concerning the status of these people 
regarding sex morality. An interesting side light, however, 
was thrown on the situation by a naive remark of a prominent 
white business man, ‘‘My father had twenty children, not 
counting the illegitimate ones.’? I suppose that as a matter 
of fact these natives, like those on the other islands, are not so 
much immoral as unmoral. The distinction is one that is by 
no means immaterial, and should be kept in mind by anyone 
discussing the matter. 
Of course our party was a source of a great deal of comment 
among these people, and equally of course they had their own 
explanation for our unheard-of proceedings. As was to be 
expected at this time, we were under more or less suspicion and 
many firmly believed us to be Germans with intent to commit 
some atrocity characteristic of the much hated Hun. One man 
on the shore opposite Pelican Island spent a considerable por- 
tion of his valuable time watching our performances, especially 
when dredging, through a spy-glass. He probably found what 
he was looking for, as is usually the case. At any rate, his 
Excellency, Governor Fell, received an anonymous letter stat- 
ing that the writer could positively prove that we were engaged 
in planting mines off the shores of Barbados, and that a terrible 
