the evil days of slavery; influences which are
not yet, alas! extinct in Port of Spain. Creoles will understand my
words; and will understand, too, why I, Protestant though I am, bid
heartily God speed to the good ladies of St. Joseph.

To the Anglican clergy, meanwhile, whom I met in the West Indies, I
am bound to offer my thanks, not for courtesies shown to me--that is
a slight matter--but for the worthy fashion in which they seem to be
upholding the honour of the good old Church in the colonies. In
Port of Spain I heard and saw enough of their work to believe that
they are in nowise less active--more active they cannot be--than if
they were seaport clergymen in England. The services were performed
thoroughly well; with a certain stateliness, which is not only
allowable but necessary, in a colony where the majority of the
congregation are coloured; but without the least foppery or
extravagance. The very best sermon, perhaps, for matter and manner,
which I ever heard preached to unlettered folk, was preached by a
young clergyman--a West Indian born--in the Great Church of Port of
Spain; and he had no lack of hearers, and those attentive ones. The
Great Church was always a pleasant sight, with its crowded
congregation of every hue, all well dressed, and with the universal
West Indian look of comfort; and its noble span of roof overhead,
all cut from island timber--another proof of what the wood-carver
may effect in the island hereafter. Certainly distractions were
frequent and troublesome, at least to a newcomer. A large centipede
would come out and take a hurried turn round the Governor's seat; or
a bat would settle in broad daylight in the curate's hood; or one
had to turn away one's eyes lest they should behold--not vanity,
but--the magnificent head of a Cabbage-palm just outside the
opposite window, with the black vultures trying to sit on the
footstalks in a high wind, and slipping down, and flopping up again,
half the service through. But one soon got accustomed to the
strange sights; though it was, to say the least, somewhat startling
to find, on Christmas Day, the altar and pulpit decked with
exquisite tropic flowers; and each doorway arched over with a single
pair of coconut leaves, fifteen feet high.

The Christmas Day Communion, too, was one not easily to be
forgotten. At least 250 persons, mostly coloured, many as black as
jet, attended; and were, I must say for