their heads
above water. The returns on three-quarters of the properties on the
island no longer sufficed to pay the expenses of cultivation and the
interest of the loans which had been raised upon them. There was
impending a general bankruptcy which might break up entirely the present
system and leave the negroes for a time without the wages which were the
sole dependence.

A very dark picture had thus been drawn to me of the prospects of the
poor little island which had been once so brilliant. Nothing could be
less like it than the bright sunny landscape which we saw from the deck
of our vessel. The town, the shipping, the pretty villas, the woods, and
the wide green sea of waving cane had no suggestion of ruin about them.
If the ruin was coming, clearly enough it had not yet come. After
breakfast we went on shore in a boat with a white awning over it, rowed
by a crew of black boatmen, large, fleshy, shining on the skin with
ample feeding and shining in the face with innocent happiness. They
rowed well. They were amusing. There was a fixed tariff, and they were
not extortionate. The temperature seemed to rise ten degrees when we
landed. The roads were blinding white from the coral dust, the houses
were white, the sun scorching. The streets were not the streets
described by Labat; no splendid magazines or jewellers' shops like those
in Paris or London; but there were lighters at the quays loading or
unloading, carts dashing along with mule teams and making walking
dangerous; signs in plenty of life and business; few white faces, but
blacks and mulattoes swarming. The houses were substantial, though in
want of paint. The public buildings, law courts, hall of assembly &c.
were solid and handsome, nowhere out of repair, though with something to
be desired in point of smartness. The market square would have been well
enough but for a statue of Lord Nelson which stands there, very like,
but small and insignificant, and for some extraordinary reason they
have painted it a bright pea-green.

We crept along in the shade of trees and warehouses till we reached the
principal street. Here my friends brought me to the Icehouse, a sort of
club, with reading rooms and dining rooms, and sleeping accommodation
for members from a distance who do not like colonial hotels. Before
anything else could be thought of I was introduced to cocktail, with
which I had to make closer acquaintance afterwards, cocktail being the
established corre