d elsewhere to still
harder and more extensive work, belying, like his father and his
brothers, the common story that the climate forbids exertion, and
that the Creole gentleman cannot or will not, when he has a chance,
do as good work as the English gentleman at home. I do not mention
these men's names. In England it matters little; in Trinidad there
is no need to mention those whom all know; all I shall say is,
Heaven send the Queen many more such public servants, and me many
more such friends.

Then up hurried the good little priest, and set forth in French--he
was very indignant, by the by, at being taken for a Frenchman, and
begged it to be understood that he was Belgian born and bred--
setting forth how His Excellency had not been expected till next
day, or he would have had ready an address from the loyal
inhabitants of Blanchisseuse testifying their delight at the honour
of, etc. etc.; which he begged leave to present in due form next
day; and all the while the brown crowd surged round and in and out,
and the naked brown children got between every one's legs, and every
one was in a fume of curiosity and delight--anything being an event
in Blanchisseuse--save the one Chinaman, if I recollect right, who
stood in his blue jacket and trousers, his hands behind his back,
with visage unimpassioned, dolorous, seemingly stolid, a creature of
the earth, earthy,--say rather of the dirt, dirty,--but doubtless by
no means as stolid as he looked. And all the while the palms and
bananas rustled above, and the surf thundered, and long streams of
light poured down through the glens in the black northern wall, and
flooded the glossy foliage of the mangoes and sapodillas, and rose
fast up the palm-stems, and to their very heads, and then vanished;
for the sun was sinking, and in half an hour more, darkness would
have fallen on the most remote little paradise in Her Majesty's
dominions.

But where was the warden, who was by office, as well as by courtesy,
to have received us? He too had not expected us, and was gone home
after his day's work to his new clearing inland: but a man had been
sent on to him over the mountain; and over the mountain we must go,
and on foot too, for the horses could do no more, and there was no
stabling for them farther on. How far was the new clearing? Oh,
perhaps a couple of miles--perhaps a league. And how high up? Oh,
nothing--only a hundred feet or two.