So away we rowed, or rather were rowed by four stalwart Negroes, along the northern shore of the gulf, while the sun leapt up straight astern, and made the awning, or rather the curtains of the awning, needful enough.  For the perpendicular rays of the sun in the Tropics are not so much dreaded as the horizontal ones, which strike on the forehead, or, still more dangerous, on the back of the head; and in the West Indies, as in the United States, the early morning and the latter part of the afternoon are the times for sunstrokes.  Some sort of shade for the back of the head is necessary for an European, unless (which is not altogether to be recommended) he adopts the La Platan fashion of wearing the natural, and therefore surest, sunshade of his own hair hanging down to his shoulders after the manner of our old cavaliers.

The first islands which we made—­The Five Islands, as they are called—­are curious enough.  Isolated remnants of limestone, the biggest perhaps one hundred yards long by one hundred feet high, channelled and honeycombed into strange shapes by rain and waves they are covered—­that at least on which we landed—­almost exclusively by Matapalos, which seem to have stranded the original trees and established themselves in every cranny of the rocks, sending out arms, legs, fingers, ropes, pillars, and what not, of live holdfasts over every rock and over each other till little but the ubiquitous Seguine {95a} and Pinguins {95b} find room or sustenance among them.  The island on which we landed is used, from time to time, as a depot for coolie immigrants when first landed.  There they remain to rest after the voyage till they can be apportioned by the Government officers to the estates which need them.  Of this admirable system of satisfying the great need of the West Indies, free labourers, I may be allowed to say a little here.

‘Immigrants’ are brought over from Hindostan at the expense of the colony.  The Indian Government jealously watches the emigration, and through agents of its own rigidly tests the bona-fide ‘voluntary’ character of the engagement.  That they are well treated on the voyage is sufficiently proved, that on 2264 souls imported last year the death-rate during the voyage was only 2.7 per cent, although cholera attacked the crew of one of the ships before it left the Hooghly.  During the last three years ships with over 300 emigrants have arrived several times in Trinidad without a single death.  On their arrival in Trinidad, those who are sick are sent at once to the hospital; those unfit for immediate labour are sent to the depot.  The healthy are ’indentured’—­in plain English, apprenticed--for five years, and distributed among the estates which have applied for them.  Husbands and wives are not allowed to be separated, nor are children under fifteen parted from their parents or natural protectors.  They are expected by the law to work for 280 days in the year, nine hours