as expended, no
one else can do any good. The maximum of expense, the minimum of benefit
to the island, is all that has come of it.

Meanwhile the island drifts along, without credit to borrow money and
therefore escaping bankruptcy. The blacks there, as everywhere, are
happy with their yams, and cocoa nuts and land crabs. They desire
nothing better than they have, and do not imagine that they have any
rulers unless agitated by the elected members. These gentlemen would
like the official situations for themselves as in Trinidad, and they
occasionally attempt a stir with partial success; otherwise the island
goes on in a state of torpid content. Captain Churchill, quiet and
gentlemanlike, gives no personal offence, but popularity he cannot hope
for, having no means of recommending himself. The only really powerful
Europeans are the Catholic bishop and the priests and sisterhoods. They
are looked up to with genuine respect. They are reaping the harvest of
the long and honourable efforts of the French clergy in all their West
Indian possessions to make the blacks into Catholic Christians. In the
Christian part of it they have succeeded but moderately; but such
religion as exists in the island is mainly what they have introduced
and taught, and they have a distinct influence which we ourselves have
not tried to rival.

But we have been too long toiling up the paved road to Captain
Churchill's house. My girl-porter guides led me past the fort, where
they exchanged shots with the lounging black police, past the English
church, which stood buried in trees, the churchyard prettily planted
with tropical flowers. The sun was dazzling, the heat was intense, and
the path which led through it, if not apparently much used, looked shady
and cool.

A few more steps brought us to the gate of the Residence, where Captain
Churchill had his quarters in the absence of the Governor-in-Chief of
the Leeward Islands, whose visits were few and brief. In the event of
the Governor's arrival he removed to a cottage in the hills. The house
was handsome, the gardens well kept; a broad walk led up to the door, a
hedge of lime trees closely clipt on one side of it, on the other a lawn
with orange trees, oleanders, and hibiscus, palms of all varieties and
almond trees, which in Dominica grow into giants, their broad leaves
turning crimson before they fall, like the Virginia creeper. We reached
the entrance of the house by wide stone steps, where coun