t at any rate, is English
throughout.

The harbour, when we arrived, was even more brilliant than we had left
it a fortnight before. The training squadron had gone, but in the place
of it the West Indian fleet was there, and there were also three
American frigates, old wooden vessels out merely on a cruise, but
heavily sparred, smart and well set up, with the stars and stripes
floating carelessly at their sterns, as if in these western seas, be the
nominal dominion British, French, or Spanish, the American has a voice
also and intends to be heard.

We had no sooner anchored than a well-appointed boat was alongside with
an awning and an ensign at the stern. Colonel ----, the chief of the
police, to whom it belonged, came on board in search of Miss ----, who
was to be his guest in Bridgetown. She introduced me to him. He insisted
on my accompanying him home to breakfast, and, as he was a person in
authority, I had nothing to do but obey. Colonel ----, to whose
politeness then and afterwards I was in many ways indebted, had seen
life in various forms. He had been in the navy. He had been in the army.
He had been called to the bar. He was now the head of the Barbadoes
police, with this anomalous addition to his other duties, that in
default of a chaplain he read the Church service on Sundays in the
barracks. He had even a license from the bishop to preach sermons, and
being a man of fine character and original sense he discharged this last
function, I was told, remarkably well. His house was in the heart of the
town, but shaded with tropical trees. The rooms were protected by deep
outside galleries, which were overrun with Bougainvillier creepers. He
was himself the kindest of entertainers, his Irish lady the kindest of
hostesses, with the humorous high breeding of the old Sligo aristocracy,
to whom she belonged. I found that I had been acquainted with some of
her kindred there long ago, in the days when the Anglo-Irish rule had
not been discovered to be a upas tree, and cultivated human life was
still possible in Connaught. Of the breakfast, which consisted of all
the West Indian dainties I had ever heard or read of, I can say nothing,
nor of the pleasant talk which followed. I was to see more of Colonel
----, for he offered to drive me some day across the island, a promise
which he punctually fulfilled. My stay with him for the present could be
but brief, as I was expected at Government House.

I have met with exceptio