FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 259 



twenty seas, and it is rarely that I hit upon a 

 novelty that commands enthusiasm ; but I can fairly 

 say that the flying-fish as served at the Bridgetown 

 Club are too delicious for words, and are more fitly 

 praised in a reverential silence like that of the 

 "Devout Lover" when he sing's — 



" It is not mine to sing the stately grace, 

 The great soul beaming in my lady's face." 



His heart was too full for words : so was my 

 mouth, and I wish it were so still, for I shall never 

 taste the like again unless I go back there. Flying- 

 fish swarm in the blue water round this healthy little 

 island as on few other shores, and if only these 

 delicious morsels could be brought alive to London, 

 like the truite au bleu of the Carlton, here indeed 

 would be a new industry to redeem Barbados from 

 the stagnation into which the ups and downs (most 

 of them downs) of sugar have thrown it. There is 

 a glut of labour, in spite of the drain for Panama, 

 and almost before the ship's anchor is down the 

 coloured watermen fall over one another in signifi- 

 cant eagerness for a job. 



As a health resort, the island is favoured more 

 by folk from Trinidad than by tourists from home ; 

 but its health-giving climate is above reproach, 

 having been advertised long ago by the fact that 

 Georo-e Washington visited the island and caught 

 the smallpox there. 



The Barbadian nigger is, as has already been 

 said, a fighter. He is also nearer being an honest 

 worker than anything else of his hue, and he and his 

 women dress more neatly and appropriately than 

 their cousins in Jamaica. The cousinship is not 



