Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1878-08-16
NO. 1873.
Gales aud Sketehes.
THE GREAT TROPICAL FALLACY.
From BeIgravia.
Continued from Yesterday

That tropical towns are squalid and mis-
erable. | suppose everybody more or less
believes. | discovered at a later date that
Kingston, compared with Santa Martha or
Savanila, might be considered clean,
thriving and civilized city. But to my un-
tutored European mind it seemed at first
sight more frightful than anything could
have believed OF Coomassie or Timbuctoo.
| suppose those that stay at home have no
idea OF what an European town must
necessarily be. At any rate, could not
before have believed that there existed on
earth place so wretched, SO mean look
ing, so utterly bankrupt and disreputable,
as that in which then stood.
But the country, thinks the unsOphisti-
Gated Briton, the country must be beaut-
lul There the hand of man cannot mar
the natural charms OF green fields and
lovely flowers. There the waving sugar.
cane, the graceful bamboo, the spreading
tree-iern, the magnificent palms Chose
palms again y must make scene OF fairy
loveiness. There the orange-trees, the
parrots, the butterles-ah, my dear sir,
all, all mere fancy Go and see for your
self, or trust those who have seen. Such
things you may find if you will at Kew
Gardens or at Sydenham, but not, assure
You, in the tropics.
Behind the town lies a plain, occupied
for the most part by grazing farms and
cultivated land. You may drive cut on
any side along dusty road and survey
the beauties oil nature as they untold them
selves to your enquirlng eye. Hedges of
cactus shut it in on either hand, and of
course shut off the prospect of every OBJ
lect except their own obtrusive stems.
Now, cactus hedge is very pretty thing
in the abs tract; that is to say, hedge of
such cactus plants as one may see at Kew
or Sydenham aforesaid. But the concrete
cactus hedge of reality consists OF tall.
scraggy stalks. fowerless and spiny, cov-
cred halt an inch deep in collected dust.
and as thoroughly unromantic as dirt and
neg glect can make them. Here aud there
= gap in the hedge or an interval of wire
| fencing allows one to glance at the fields
| within. And what fields! No soft green
turf, pied with daisies and butter cups, but
great dusty levels, overgrown with rank
| and weedy vegetation. more like rushes
than English grass. The dust lies on its
spiky blades. not in light powder, but thick
and deep AS IN an uninhaDited room. You
cannot see the shape of the leaves for the
white layer that overles them, always, of
course, under that pelting sunlight which
makes the dullest grey come out in staring
whiteness. The plain is one unbroken sea
OF dingy weeds, and the tropical country
has followed the tropical town to John
Millions limbo OF false imaginings, the
paradise of fools.
Aud the 1owers And the fruits
| Well, there are no flowers. If you wish
to see brilliant blossoms, you must 90 in
to your own English warren on May
morning, when the prmroses cluster by
thousands on every sunny ba NIX, when the
cowslips raise their dappled heads on ev-
cry grassy knoll, when the dog-roses
sweeten the air on every side with their
pertumed breath. But you will not find
these things in the tropics. A few rare
| trees burst once year into masses of
| crimson bloom; few stray plants after
the rainy season open their faint yellow
| petals in the fields from which the show
| ers have washed away the surface dust;
but the general aspect of every tropical
plain is one of monotonous and weari-
some greenish-brown. As to walking in
the fields in Search OF flowers, you might
as well walk through an acre OF iurze.
| In tro pical countries no man strays far
from the dry highway. or if he strays, he
repehts it afterwards with many literal
thorn in the flesh, not to mention many a
creeping thing, buried deep beneath his
| tender skin.
| The fruits are there, one must allow;
but not the luscious fruits OF our imagina-
| ton, Good oranges are found only in
temperate climates; those which grow
under vertical sun run more 10 rind,
pulp and fibre than TO sweet juice or deli
| cate flavor. Pineapples in the West In
dies are mere masses OF sugary string,
unfit TO compare with our delicious hot
house fruit. As for the common ruck of
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. mangoes. mealy banan-
as, sloppy custard-apples, insipld cheri-
moyas, infantile naseberries-they de-
serve no place at any decent table and, to
say the truth, seldom obtain one. While
we at home are talking with luscious lips
OF the exquisite tropical fruits, the wiser
planter is quietly importing prunes and
raislns, figs and olives for his own desert.
and would rs soon think OF eating croc-
odile as of putting the common aud taste
less messes OF his native trees before his
English guests.
1 1he buds are equally great humbugs
with the fruits and the flowers. Parrots
are said 10 inhabit Jamaica, but / never
succeeded in setting my eyes on one. l
generally lived, during my long stay in
| the land, at the southeast corner only.
SO, whenever told my friends that had
not yet seen parrot, they always an
swered in an oil hand way, IAN, you
should go to the Port Royal Hills" and
spent three months in exploring their
fauna and fora throughout. All that
time never saw solitary parrot. "Ah,"
said my friends again, You must try st.
'Thomas-in-the-Vae They swarm in all
the mango trees in the vale" So took
Il tramp another day, and saw the
vale from end to end; but not
parrot could anywhere be found. My
friends retreated step further. you
must go to the North Side. Ga the North
Side there are simply myriads." At last,
however. | tracked down the myth to the
North Side, and not u parrot did discover
throughout the whole island. They are
/