hing; but I saw a scornful smite upon his lips. He
picked up a thin dry cane, found some twine in the luncheon basket which
had tied up our sandwiches, found a pin there also, and bent it, and put
a shrimp on it. With a pebble stone for a sinker he started in
competition, and in a minute he had brought out upon the rock the
strangest thing in the shape of a fish which I had ever seen in fresh
water or salt. It was a true 'crayfish,' _ecrevisse_, eight inches long,
formed regularly with the thick powerful tail, the sharp serrated snout,
the long antennae, and the spider-like legs of the lobster tribe. As in a
crayfish, the claws were represented by the correctly shaped but
diminutive substitutes.

When we had done wondering at the prize, we could admire the smile of
conscious superiority in the face of the captor. The fine tackle had
been beaten, as usual, by the proverbial string and crooked pin, backed
by knowledge in the head of a small nigger boy.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Traen las cabezas atadas con unos panuelos labrados hermosos que
parecen de lejos de seda y almazarrones.

CHAPTER VIII.

Home Rule in Trinidad--Political aspirations--Nature of the
problem--Crown administration--Colonial governors--A Russian
apologue--Dinner at Government House--'The Three Fishers'--Charles
Warner--Alternative futures of the colony.

The political demonstration to which I had been invited came off the
next day on the savannah. The scene was pretty enough. Black coats and
white trousers, bright-coloured dresses and pink parasols, look the same
at a distance whether the wearer has a black face or a white one, and
the broad meadow was covered over with sparkling groups. Several
thousand persons must have attended, not all to hear the oratory, for
the occasion had been taken when the Governor was to play close by in a
cricket match, and half the crowd had probably collected to see His
Excellency at the wicket. Placards had been posted about the town,
setting out the purpose of the meeting. Trinidad, as I said, is at
present a Crown colony, the executive council and the legislature being
equally nominated by the authorities. The popular orators, the newspaper
writers, and some of the leading merchants in Port of Spain had
discovered, as I said, that they were living under what they called 'a
degrading tyranny.' They had no grievances, or none that they alleged,
beyond the general one that they had no control over