The Briton contrives an ugly town in
which you can live in reasonable health and comfort; the Spaniard
fashions a most picturesque city in which you are extremely like to
die. Racial ideals differ.
CHAPTER V
An election meeting in Jamaica--Two family experiences at contested
elections--Novel South African methods--Unattractive Kingston--A
driving tour through the island--The Guardsman as orchid
hunter--Derelict country houses--An attempt to reconstruct the
past--The Fourth-Form Room at Harrow--Elizabethan Harrovians--I meet
many friends of my youth--The "Sunday" books of the 'sixties--"Black
and White"--Arrival of the French Fleet--Its inner
meaning--International courtesies--A delicate attention--Absent
alligators--The mangrove swamp--A preposterous suggestion--The swamps
do their work--Fever--A very gallant apprentice--What he did.
The Guardsman's enthusiasm about Jamaica remaining unabated, I
determined to hire a buggy and pair and to make a fortnight's
leisurely tour of the North Coast and centre of the island. Though not
peculiarly expeditious, this is a very satisfactory mode of travel; no
engine troubles, no burst tyres, and no worries about petrol supplies.
A new country can be seen and absorbed far more easily from a
horse-drawn vehicle than from a hurrying motor-car, and the little
country inns in Jamaica, though very plainly equipped, are, as a rule,
excellent, with surprisingly good if somewhat novel food.
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