136 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
mon parlance the ‘‘bob,’’ and the dollar are recognized units 
of value. The five-dollar note or greenback is current, but 
much larger and more cumbersome than ours, and the pound 
note is still more formidable. Both cents and pennies are 
used in quotations, but the former is really a ‘‘hapenny’’ and 
threepence and six-penny coins are in circulation. The crown, 
sovereign, florin, and guinea are also on hand to bewilder and 
confuse the stranger. We may be prejudiced, but it certainly 
seems to us that an honest, straightforward decimal system has 
very material advantage over the multifarious monetary denom- 
inations of our friends the British. We found, moreover, that 
in the matter of exchange, we were caught ‘‘coming and go- 
ing,’’ having to face a discount in any event. 
Socially, we were the recipients of the proverbial Colonial 
hospitality at its best. This usually took the form of afternoon 
receptions and four o’clock tea. This time honored British 
custom is as prominent here as in England itself. Along with 
the tea were served various kinds of delicious cakes and con- 
fections, together with the local concoction known as the 
‘“swizzle.’’ This is in fact a kind of a cocktail mixed by the 
use of the ‘‘swizzle-stick,’’ a household implement unknown, so 
far as I am aware, outside of the West Indies; although I re- 
member encountering a similar contraption in South America 
used in mixing a soft drink composed of cocoa, parched corn 
and sugar and ealled ‘‘tsetse.’’ The swizzle stick is composed 
of a reed-like axis from one end of which project a number of 
slender branches at right angles to the main shaft. This affair 
is twirled between the palms of the hands and acts somewhat as 
an egg-beater, raising a foam on the surface of the swizzle. Be- 
ing from a prohibition state, I did not seek out the formula by 
which this Barbadian specialty is made. Indeed, it may be a 
State secret to which only a favored few are admitted. Some 
friends informed me that it had considerable ‘‘kick,’’ but there 
were no visible results, so far as I could see. 
These afternoon receptions and teas are entirely informal, 
and here one meets most of the more prominent members of 
Barbadian society and finds it much the same as would be en- 
countered in England or under similar circumstances in the 
United States. Cultivated people are much alike the world 
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