As
the breeze sprang up, the surf started at once, and fishing became
impossible. We had been warned that many of the reef fish were
uneatable, and that the yellow ones were actively poisonous. We were
quite proud of our Joseph's-coat-like catch, but our henchman, the
negro lad Arthur, assured us that every fish we had caught was
poisonous. We had reason later to doubt this assertion, as we saw him
walking home with a splendid parti-coloured string of fish, probably
chuckling over the white man's credulity.
The natural surroundings of that school were lovely, but the little
white boys, who had lived all their lives in Jamaica, most likely took
it all for granted, and thought it quite natural to have their
bathing-place surrounded by cocoa-nut palms, their playground fringed
with hibiscus and scarlet poinsettias, and the garden a riot of
mangoes, bread-fruits, nutmeg and cinnamon trees.
No doubt they thought their school and its grounds dull and
hideous. On a subsequent voyage home from Jamaica, there was on board
a very small boy from this identical school, on his way to a school in
Scotland. He seemed about eight; a little, sturdy figure in white
cotton shorts. He was really much older, and it was curious to hear a
deep bass voice (with a strong Scottish accent) issuing from so small
a frame.
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