1 66 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



the hospitals the filthiest offscourings of humanity. 

 Of course there was much difficulty in the way, not 

 only from the patients themselves, who preferred 

 hugging this living death and communicating it to 

 others, to separation from their friends, but from rabid 

 philanthropists of the " Exeter-Hall " type, who saw in 

 this an infringement upon the negro's liberty. 



The disease is engendered and propagated by a 

 filthy mode of living and insufficient diet ; hence, the 

 most important agents in effecting a cure are cleanli- 

 ness and good living. No one would suppose the 

 natives would object to that, but they do, and neglect 

 no opportunity for escape from the hospitals ; thus 

 the doctor's position is one of thankless labor and 

 vigilance. 



It was a five-hours' row to Prince Rupert's, and 

 half that to Battalie. We left Roseau in a long dug- 

 out, rowed by four men and guided by a cockswain, 

 and rapidly glided along the Caribbean coast. Re- 

 clining beneath an arched canvas, we could look out 

 upon a swiftly-gliding shore, green sugar plantations, 

 bluff headlands, narrow valleys. Being June, when 

 all the flowering trees are in bloom, and when the 

 fruits are ripe and ripening, it was a pleasure to note 

 the vegetation. Conspicuous above all foliage was the 

 Flamboyant, the " flame-tree," with its broad umbrella- 

 shaped top, one mass of flaming crimson. Without 

 a leaf at the beginning of the season, its twigs and 

 branches are covered with gorgeous flowers. So far 

 as you can distinguish any object on shore, you see the 

 flame-tree, its bright coloring making it as prominent 

 at a distance as bright-plumaged birds, which, as in 



