FORTY YEARS' LIFE IN TROPICAL GARDENS. 



By Eleanor S. Waby. 



In the summer of 1873, after spending a delightful da}' in Kew 

 Gardens, my husband, who was then employed at Kensington Palace 

 Gardens, said to me, " How would you like to go to Trinidad ? The Kew 

 people have offered me an appointment there, which I should like to 

 accept." The first question was, Where is Trinidad ? I found afterwards 

 that I was not singular in my lack of knowledge ; very few people could 

 tell me more than " it was where the best cocoa came from." We found 

 out all about it, i.e., that it was a West Indian Island, that it took three 

 weeks to get there, that the postage on letters was one shilling, and that 

 we should find it very hot ! We did. Life in Kensington was very 

 bright and happy, but the prospect of a larger income, a free house, large 

 garden and sundry liberal allowances was alluring, to say nothing of see- 

 ing the many plants we knew and loved in the hot-houses and sub- 

 tropical gardens, in their native home and full beauty, so without much 

 hesitation I said, " If it rests with me we will go." In those days the 

 journey was long and tiresome, changing steamers at St. Thomas and St. 

 Lucia where we stopped to coal, and calling at nearly all the intermediate 

 islands, yet it was all so new to us that we did not weary, though we were 

 23 days getting from Southampton to Trinidad. We landed late on 

 Saturday night in pitch darkness and pouring rain ; our boatmen missed 

 the proper landing stage, so my husband and two priests dragged me up 

 a sort of wall into Trinidad. We were taken to a barn-like hotel very 

 bare of furniture and shown into an unceilinged room, which contained 

 a huge four-post mahogany bedstead closely shrouded in mosquito- 

 netting. I, of course, had never seen mosquito-" bars" before and I 

 wandered round and round trying to find a way to get in. At last I 

 decided to untuck a bit at the bottom and crawl in ! 



At breakfast next morning I tasted my first banana ! I had never 

 even seen one before either at Covent Garden Market or in the choice 

 fruiterers' shops. A fellow-passenger on the Mail boat described them 

 as a stodgy sort of thing, with a pear-drop flavour. I agreed with him 

 then ; I wouldn't now ! It was the same man who carefully peeled an 

 Avocado pear and gave me to bite. Oh ! the horror of that mouthful 

 and the subsequent sickness ! It was months before I had the courage to 

 taste a properly prepared one. I had another shock when on asking if 

 potatoes were cheap I was told " potatoes did not grow in the tropics 

 and were dear and not over good when obtainable," but that I must learn 

 to like plantains. All I knew of plantains were the seed spikes given to 

 birds, i.e , " English plantains," and I could not imagine them as an article 

 of food. These various experiences have made me always very careful to 

 prepare local products in the best possible way before offering them 

 to strangers. When we enquired the way to the Botanical Gardens and 



