BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1854, 13 September 1913, Page 11

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

A WEST INDIAN SKETCH-BOOK. ' ' 'I : A moro sprightly, agreeable, and generally entertaining book of travel than "The Mulberry Tree," by Winifred James (George 801 l and Sons; per Whitcombs and Tombs), I' have not read this many a long day. Miss James provod her quality as a witty and gaily satirical writer in tho "Letters to My Son," and "Confessions of a Spinster," and in her new book, an account of a nine months' trip to the West Indies, Costa Rica, and the Isthmus of Panama, she is again most pleasantly individual, and freo from all suspicion of merely reflecting _ other people's opinions, in her discriptions of the scenes sho visits, and the people with whom she comes into contact in her journeyings. She is par excellence a. writer of temperamont. Her own strong personality porvados everything she writes, and consequently this book of sketches of the whito, black, and brown, peoplo with whom she meets, in Jamaica, in Barbadoes, in Hayti, and in Central America, is possessed 01 an originality not usually found in the records of the averago modern touristauthor.

In Jamaica. Wollingtonians who are apt to believe that theirs is the one and only "Windy City" of the world should.go to Kingston, Jamaica. There they have a wind locally called "The Doctor," which blows up from the sea as regularly as clockwork every day at the same time. 'It keeps the townspeople hearty and makes the visitors mad. It, comes very suddenly. Before 'it comes there is hardly a breath of air. • One tries tt> throw the sash'a fraction of an inch higher to_ get a fraction of an inch more air. Then, suddenly, the palms begin to rustle and the voices are lost. Thero ,is a stir in the little muslin curtains • beside the dressing table,, and before you can gather your wits together to think what you had best lay hold of first, everything is scat- ' tered and strewn about the floor. You close the windows for the rest of the day and dive down into corners and under tables till you have : swopt. up the chaff of your possessions, cursing apoplectically as- you ' crawl out from under the bed or bump your head on a dressing tablo knob. Yo.i might go down to the water's edge and get a lot of stones to weight your books and papers and table-covers, but that won't help you to do your hair in a tor- ' nado, or make your bo ttles stand ' upright. So you keep your windows , closed and die for lack of air. Just before you die, the evening comes and fcho wind js lost in the stillness again. Then you open your windows , wide, draw downTthe blinds for thoso , most intimate details of dressing, and, before you should, let up the blinds again and provide a- pantomime for the stragglers in the garden below. One learnS quickly not: to hamper oneself with many pruderies in a Turkish bath', whether it be of Leicester Square or the tropics.

The Jamaican Negro. : Miss 'James has' much to say, of the Jamaican negroes, of whose work on the Panama Canar so much has been written. . When tho "American j gangers hustled and bullied tho Barbadians andJamaicans these latter at once sulked. Especially did they .resent the cusswords, which somo of the Yankees hurled at them.' But when treated well, and coaxed a littlo, they did excellent work. They have a curious insensibility and apathy in the presence of pain In Panama, a man (whose foot had been cut off by a passing train'was left lying on the line till a white man came up and found him. The negroes had gone up to him, looked at-him, and passed on, apparently quite indifferent. And 1 myself have seen tliem with a n aniac raving beside them, as unconcerned as. if it wero a cow browsing. Their form of address, however, tho English found as charming as it is certainly curious. "I bid you good-bye, mistress," "I beg you a care-fare," or "a quattie," or' whatever the need of tho moment may be. "I brain you" , means "I outwit you"; "Him favour tiger fe true, "he is very like a tiger." A woman took her baby to the doctor. "What is itP" asked the doctor.; "Him, sah, him blowing bones." The doctor pondered a whilo. It was not for him to admit himself beaten at his own job, but he took a few moments to work it out. "Blowing" was not far off "growing." What bones would a child' of two ,be growing ? Triumphant solution, "He is cutting his teeth." i Between themselves the negroes are often the soul <of politeness. Even roproof is given with dignity, and I agree with Miss James that "Peace, hold your peace, Eugene," are "better words for an admonishment on moonlit waters than 'Stow your gab' or 'Chuck it.'" ■ Miss James tells somo curious storios of tho negro preachers and their delight in long words, but these I have not space to quote.

Whoro Starch Is in Favour. In tho courso of a chapter, bearing tlio curious heading, "On Starch, Words of Four Syllables, and Religion,", tho author makes a plaintive complaint upon the Jamaican Jove of starch: Unless you send eternal and unremitting weekly pleadings, every- • thing you wear is returned to you starched; and what is more, "raw" starched. My handkerchiefs are pieces of cardboard, my night-gowns are hair shirts, and my linen dresses are plaster casts. To insist upon gottmg your things unstarched is to have to take the chance of their being most indifforontly laundered. I remember in my schooldays there was a girl who used to wag her head when she repeated hor poetry lesson. They told hor not to. Tho result was that she ceased to bo able to say hor lesson with any facility at all. Directly she wag allowed to wag her licnd again she bccame brilliant. I cannot, suffor tho starch, becauso I must have at . least o certain amount of sleep, so I hnvc to put up with very mediocre ironing. I would ljko to have tho starch monopoly for tho West Inflies,- if all tho islands are like Jamaica. In the Black Republic. Perhaps tho most interesting chapters of Miss James's oddly-named, but very readable book are tlioso in wKich she describes hor sojourn in Hayti. Apparently, there still exists in Hayti, but with nowadays, perhaps, a trifle thicker veneer, tho barbarism of which Spensor St. John gave such a sensational ac-

i count" in his book "Hayti, or tho Black j Republic," and' to'which Hesketh Pritchard alludes in his much later work, "Where Black Rules White." "Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile" applies much moro accurately to Hayti than it does to CoyIon —Hebor, so tho story goes, had been overcharged by the native boatman at the Indian isle, and it is clear that Miss James, liko so many other recent visitors to San Domingo, would vastly like to see the Americans take tho place in hand, and subject' it to a' "cleaning up process." Tho educated Haytian, who has been in Paris, and wears a frock coat and a silk hat, and is, on the surface at least, the "dermier mot" in civilisation, scoffs at tho idea of tho horriblo Vaudoux rites still being practised. But that, is not the general opinion, and, adds Miss James, "It seems rather futile of them to attempt to try and provo that Vaudoux worship has been put down, when even in Jamaica, a white colony under whito governance, it has not been possible to snite get rid of the comparatively mild Obeah man. The African, like other ritualists, does not part with his ritual easily." And then tho ' author makes some remarks about the twenty-second chaptor of Genesis which I refer my readers to her book. "Law and Order" In Hayti. Law and order aro preserved in Hayti by somewhat drastic methods. The Haytian "bobby's" baton is called a "cocomacaquo." It is a short, thick stick, liko a closely ringed piece of bamboo, but heavily s'hod with iron, and capable of felling a man at a blow. An American engineor told the author of a scene he had witnessed at Cap Haitien. A thief had been caught, and was in the hands of some policemen. They set upon him and beat him to death in a few minutes. In 110 more than ten a hastily dug-out hole was made ; and the poor wretch stamped into it. Tho American said, "It made mo sick, but I had to watch till the end." Miss James was duly presented to tho President,- who rejoiced—he was shortly afterwards blown up in a mysterious dynamite explosion!—in tho name of Jean Jacques Dessalines Cincinnatus Lecomte. Also, slie was introduced to the then Chief of the Police, Department, _ "a quiet, reserved-looking person, with_ rather, sad eyes," who had made Petionville so safe from thieves that "you might leave your jewels on tho roadside and find them there untouched the next morning."

His methods? The suspected man, when caught, was brought before the chief, questioned courteously upon the subject of his misdo-' moauour, set free—and shot in tho back as ho walked away. This rather broke the nervo of those who looked on, and in time thoro was' very little sh joting to ; bo. got at La Coupe. - But for a while,'' according to mv American friend, the sport -was hot, and, for convenience, tho Chief of Police had his own private burial ground close by. From what I heard'- -afterwards, the American had hot used-any unnatural colours for the painting of his picture.

In Panama. Miss James Lad a very pleasant timo in Costa Rica and oil the Isthmus. She wisely does not worry us withintermina.blo engineering details about the Canal, .but prefers to talk about tie people by whom tho great work has been carried on. Of old Panama she gives ' a curiously fascinating picture—with some -ugly- side lights on a certain phase of the.. "white. slave traffic,"' which she found there, and upon which she makes reflections rather too cynical for my liking. Everywhere sho goes she takes notes of men, manners, and customs, from the now 'omnipresent American tourists to the labourers, and always she records her observations in a spirit of ironical humour, which is decidedly entertaining. A large number of illustrations, apparently from kodak snapshots, enhance the interest of the text. (Price, 95.)