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

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“Passengers for Bimshire all aboard,” was the cry, as the ship’s cutter pulled for the shore, thus disappointing the clamorous native crews of several expected fees. Presently we landed in Bimshire—as Barbadoes is sometimes called—and were at once surrounded by an agitated crowd of “Bims,” both black and white. As there are no hotels—properly so-called—our luggage was carried to “Hoad’s,” the best boarding house; and after escaping numerous blind beggars who pursued us from the wharf, we were soon ensconced in clean lodgings. Here we found small but comfortable rooms, good food—flying-fish served in two or three different forms being particularly tempting—and indifferent bathing accommodation.

After Martinique, where there are no mosquitoes, one looks disconsolately at the stuffy nettings, and cannot help wondering why the detestable insects should patronize the English islands and not the French. The Barbadian mosquito is of an exceptionally dissipated disposition, as it keeps up its revels far into the morning, and with the heat increases the misery of the late as well as of the early riser.