AN OLD BOOK UPON BARBADOS. 



By J. Graham Cruickshaxk. 



Old books are not read much now-a-days, and I know several 

 people, quite estimable otherwise, who would soon handle a scorpion as 

 touch a book whose pages are dusty and time-worn. Nevertheless, it is 

 the heart of a book that counts, and I have found wit and wisdom and 

 sunshine at the heart of many an old book in rags and tatters. " Old 

 wine to drink,"' says a Spanish author, " old friends to trust, old wood to 

 burn, old books to read." 



By far the best books on the West Indies are the old ones. I have 

 been surprised more than once — until now I have got past surprise. — to 

 find how many excellent books were written about the West Indies in the 

 old time. They were mainly books of travels, and books on natural 

 history. All of them have long ago gone out of print, and no publisher 

 has thought it worth his while to bring out any of them again in a new 

 edition. Nowadays such books are to be got only by a prompt atten- 

 tion to the catalogues of the second-hand booksellers. There you will 

 note them under " America : ' or " West Indies," sometimes with the 

 terrible postscript '•worn'" or " pages frayed" or even " worm-eaten,"' 

 which is quite enough to make the ordinary reader jib immediately. But 

 the book-lover or historical student is not to be put oft' so easily, and he 

 will post an order for that book by return mail, hoping he may not be 

 told in reply, " Sold."' Only in this way may you gather as the years 

 go, a good West Indian library. Only thus you may ever expect to 

 collect on your shelves a few of the old books to paint for you glowing 

 little pictures of the brave days in the Caribbean. 



I have an old book of a disreputable appearance. I do not mind 

 that because I know the book, but I can quite imagine that it would 

 receive short shrift at the hands of a stranger. It is without covers, and 

 the pages are so brittle that I question whether the binder's thread would 

 hold them together. I am not minded to try the experiment. As a 

 matter of fact it should not be in such bad order, because the few other 

 copies I have seen — one other in British Guiana — are in fair order. But 

 this copy, because of the tattered nature of its wardrobe, went cheap, 

 and when one wants three old West Indian books and has the money for 

 two, this point is of some importance as you will observe. 



