ots, in pairs, peering up out of the sand, at the
very highest verge of the surf-line. As you approach them, they
leap up, and prove themselves to belong to a party of four-eyes, who
run--there is no other word--down the beach, dash into the roaring
surf, and the moment they see you safe in the sea run back again on
the next wave, and begin staring at the sky once more. He who sees
four-eyes for the first time without laughing must be much wiser, or
much stupider, than any man has a right to be.

Suddenly the mangroves opened, and the creek ended in a wharf, with
barges alongside. Baulks of strange timbers lay on shore. Sheds
were full of empty sugar-casks, ready for the approaching crop-time.
A truck was waiting for us on a tramway; and we scrambled on shore
on a bed of rich black mud, to be received, of course, in true West
Indian fashion, with all sorts of courtesies and kindnesses.

And here let me say, that those travellers who complain of
discourtesy in the West Indies can have only themselves to thank for
it. The West Indian has self-respect, and will not endure people
who give themselves airs. He has prudence too, and will not endure
people whom he expects to betray his hospitality by insulting him
afterwards in print. But he delights in pleasing, in giving, in
showing his lovely islands to all who will come and see them;
Creole, immigrant, coloured or white man, Spaniard, Frenchman,
Englishman, or Scotchman, each and all, will prove themselves
thoughtful hosts and agreeable companions, if they be only treated
as gentlemen usually expect to be treated elsewhere. On board a
certain steamer, it was once proposed that the Royal Mail Steam
Packet Company should issue cheap six-month season tickets to the
West Indies, available for those who wished to spend the winter in
wandering from island to island. The want of hotels was objected,
naturally enough, by an Englishman present. But he was answered at
once, that one or two good introductions to a single island would
ensure hospitality throughout the whole archipelago.

A long-legged mule, after gibbing enough to satisfy his own self-
respect, condescended to trot off with us up the tramway, which lay
along a green drove strangely like one in the Cambridgeshire fens.
But in the ditches grew a pea with large yellow flower-spikes, which
reminded us that we were not in England; and beyond the ditches rose
on either side, no