From my intimate acquaintance with
Marryat, even the jargon of the negro boatmen struck me with a
delightful sense of familiarity, as did the very place-names, Needham
Point and Carlisle Bay. I was fated not to see Barbados again for
twenty-two years.
In the early part of the eighteenth century a French missionary, one
Father Labat, visited Barbados and gave the most glowing account of it
to his countrymen. According to him the island was brimful of wealth,
and the jewellers' and silversmiths' shops in Bridgetown rivalled
those of Paris. I should be inclined to question Father Labat's strict
veracity. This worthy priest declared that the planters lived in
sumptuous houses, superbly furnished, that their dinners lasted four
hours, and their tables were crowded with gold and silver plate. The
statement as to the length of the planters' dinners is probably an
accurate one, for I myself have been the recipient of Barbadian
hospitality, and had never before even imagined such an endless
procession of fish, flesh, and fowl, not to mention turtle,
land-crabs, and pepper-pot. West Indian negresses seem to have a
natural gift for cooking, though their _cuisine_ is a very highly
spiced and full-flavoured one.
Father Labat's motive in drawing so glorified a picture of Barbados
peeps out at the end of his account, for he drily remarks that the
fortifications of the island were most inadequate, and that it could
easily be captured by the French; he was clearly making an appeal to
his countrymen's cupidity.
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