Читать книгу Roraima and British Guiana, With a Glance at Bermuda, the West Indies, and the Spanish Main онлайн

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At last comes breakfast, which is dinner without soup, and where quantity tries to make up for quality.

“Such breakfast, such beginning of the day

Is more than half the whole;”

and very fortunate it is that such is the case, as until the heat of the sun has decreased there is not much inducement for exercise. By that time dinner is ready, and soon after—as early hours are the rule—you retire to your room, to turn out the centipedes, which are of enormous size in St. Thomas, from under your pillow, and the mosquitos from out of the netting. Then you perspire all night. And so passes hotel-life when there are no dinner-parties, nor theatricals, nor excursions to break its monotony.

One morning we took a boat to visit a very curious place called “Krumm Bay.” It was intensely hot, but “Admiral Nelson” pulled away merrily across the harbour, past the western suburb of the town, and in among the islands and creeks, which in olden times afforded good retreats for pirates. Here Blackbeard was wont to retire after some filibustering expedition and take in fresh supplies of wines and provisions. A fishing boat sailed by, in which was an enormous Jew-fish, at which the “Admiral” pulled a very long face, and explained to us that, whenever a Jew-fish was caught, some one of high position in St. Thomas was sure to die, or perhaps was already dead. Strangely enough, next morning we noticed that all the flags were at half-mast, and heard that news had just arrived of the death in England of the head of one of the chief firms in the island.