ISLANDS 55 



the whole world seems covered with coal mud, as 

 if about to dissolve into some carboniferous 

 slime. 



This is an important military and coaling 

 station, which perhaps explains much. Mili- 

 tary exigency compelled me to procure a special 

 pass from the Chief of Police to paddle about 

 its dreary streets, and which strictly forbade 

 my climbing the comparatively clean and at- 

 tractive mountains beyond these streets. As a 

 coaling station I am sure of its success and 

 popularity, for the coal carriers who comprise 

 most of the natives, have apparently no time 

 to wash between steamers. So intensive was 

 the grime that the original dark hue of their 

 skins offered no camouflage to the anthracite 

 palimpsest which overlaid it. Such huge negro 

 women, such muscles, such sense of power, I 

 had never before sensed. I should dislike, were 

 I an official of St. Lucia, to take any decided 

 stand on an anti-feminine platform. So satu- 

 rated are the people in coal, such is their lack 

 of proper perspective of this material, they seem 

 actually to be unconscious of its presence. Re- 

 turning on board, one passes the Seaview Hotel, 

 about which coal is piled to a much greater 



