the evidence of other Englishmen, whose testimony is above suspicion,
seeing that they were free from the moral disturbance that affected Mr.
Froude's auditory powers. G. J. Chester, in his "Transatlantic
Sketches" (page 95), deposes as follows--

[32] "But worse, far worse than the colour, both of men and women, is
their voice and accent. Well may Coleridge enumerate among the pains
of the West Indies, 'the yawny-drawny way in which men converse.' The
soft, whining drawl is simply intolerable. Resemble the worst Northern
States woman's accent it may in some degree, but it has not a grain of
its vigour. A man tells you, 'if you can speer it, to send a beerer
with a bottle of bare,' and the clergyman excruciates you by praying in
church, 'Speer us, good Lord.' The English pronunciation of A and E is
in most words transposed. Barbados has a considerable number of
provincialisms of dialect. Some of these, as the constant use of
'Mistress' for 'Mrs.,' are interesting as archaisms, or words in use in
the early days of the Colony, and which have never died out of use.
Others are Yankeeisms or vulgarisms; others, again, such as the
expression 'turning cuffums,' i.e. summersets, from cuffums, a species
of fish, seem to be of local origin."

In a note hereto appended, the author gives a list of English words of
peculiar use and acceptation in Barbados.

[33] To the same effect writes Anthony Trollope:

"But if the black people differ from their brethren of the other
islands, so certainly do the white people. One soon learns to know--a
Bim. That is the name in which they themselves delight, and therefore,
though there is a sound of slang about it, I give it here. One
certainly soon learns to know a Bim. The most peculiar distinction is
in his voice. There is always a nasal twang about it, but quite
distinct from the nasality of a Yankee. The Yankee's word rings sharp
through his nose; not so that of the first-class Bim. There is a soft
drawl about it, and the sound is seldom completely formed. The effect
on the ear is the same as that on the hand when a man gives you his to
shake, and instead of shaking yours, holds his own still, &c., &c."
("The West Indies," p. 207).

From the above and scores of other authoritative testimonies which
might have been cited to the direct contrary of our traveller's tale
under this head, we can plainly perceive that Mr. Froude's love is not
only blind, but adder-deaf as well. W