Dominica - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 62

dark West Indian complexions which, under the powdered curls of the counsels and Judge, added to the
Tenniel-like scene a more exotic eighteenth-century suggestion that might have derived from the pictures
of Guardi or Zoffany.
We took advantage of an introduction from friends in England. 'If you want to see the Caribs,' Mrs. Napi-
er said, 'why don't you come and stay with me at the other end of the island? It's much nearer, and I
might be able to help you. The boat leaves in a couple of hours.'
Owing to the mountainous character of the island, there are practically no roads, and the only means
of communication between Roseau, which lies on the south-west coast, and Ports-mouth, the other town
in the north-west, is by launch: a journey of about twenty miles, which takes about four hours. It was a
blazing afternoon, and we huddled for shade under the awning. Our fellow-passengers were fifty Domin-
icans, all talking to each other in Créole. The language took such firm root during the seventeenth cen-
tury—when in spite of the usual changes of hand and the ferocities of the Caribs, French influence was
predominant—that the following two centuries of English occupation have quite failed to oust it. Domin-
ican English is still often hesitant and laborious, and, in some remote districts, virtually non-existent.
The mountains were wilder and steeper than any we had so far seen, all climbing up to the high, rocky
spine of the island and the lofty mountain peak of Morne Diablotin. At the villages of Batalie and Mas-
sacre—named after a terrible slaughter of the Caribs in early colonial times—we bought coconuts and
bananas, and reached Portsmouth, hidden in its refuge of Prince Rupert's bay, in the late afternoon.
The village emerges from the forest to enclose three sides of a little market-place whose quadrangle is
completed by the sea. Here, under the trees, stood a rectangular block of stone that resembled the empty
pedestal of a former conqueror whose statue had taken wing for Valhalla. This is marked on ancient maps
as the tomb of a military Lord Cathcart, who died at sea on some early expedition. No remains were
found when it was opened in the last century. But it is known in Dominica as the Tomb of Prince Rupert.
For the Prince, when he could no longer charge the Cromwellian ranks across the shires, harried and sank
the warships of King Charles's enemies in the Caribbean. He died, however, in England and was buried
there. A French ship, disabled at the glorious Battle of the Saints—which the French call La Bataille de
la Dominique —foundered on this coast and left her battered timbers to rot. Later on, Nelson would often
put in at this little capital for supplies.
Darkening plantations of lime and cocoa and the remains of a rustic factory were soon replaced by the
forest as the road led us uphill—into the interior, I thought, but really across the northernmost salient of
the island to the north coast. It was quite dark when, turning downhill into a wooded hollow, we saw the
windows of Mrs. Napier's house gleaming through the tree-trunks. Walking across the grass, we came to
a great airy room, with the golden light of the lamps shining on the backs of innumerable books. Drinks
were standing on a table among vast sofas and chairs. The lamp-light fell through the windows on to a
balcony, and a tree-shaded expanse of grass which, after a few yards, fell away in a wooded cliff. The
sound of the waves came up from the combe below.
Our stay at Pointe Baptiste prolonged itself into many more days than were needed for the preparation
of a journey to the Carib country, and looking back on the whole of our Odyssey through the islands it
remains, without question, the happiest part of it.
Mrs. Napier was one of a very small number of people we met in the Antilles who have studied the
colour question with sympathy and thoroughness; in which she may have had a more fortunate start than