The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-05-16


 of hotel in the Castries, where you might be able to call somebody up, but l doubt it."
 "Oh, never mind" said I; 1T can rough it. It will not be like Santos, anyhow"
 You're right there, sir. I've seen curious things happen in these waters, too dare say, now, you have been on Pelican Island?"
 'The quarantine station?" said I. "Oh, yes. I have seen it. Uninterest- ing little place it is too."
 Well, now, I'll tell you story about that that I'll venture to say you have never heard before. It happened years ago, and I do not think there ever were many who knew the rights of it. Light your pipe if you like, sir tNo? Well maybe you're right. I should not feel like I had had my din- ner if I didn't get a smoke after it.
 There was a young fellow who came out to BarbadoeS to take a post as manager in one of the firms that trade in Bridgetown. They promised him a good salary, for he belonged to their
 
 smart business man. He knew he would have a lonely time of it out there, and he could well afford wife, so he brought one out with hina-a lit tie English girl. I have heard from those who saw her that she was real fond of him and he of her, and they were wonderfully taken with the strangeness and the newness of every thing they saw. You see, when one first comes out to the tropics ones health is good, and you have the cold climates energy in you, and if you do not take an interest in things then why, you never will.
 Now, about that time a bark had came in from Santos, forty-three days | out, with a clean bill of health for the voyage, and so she had not been quar- | antined. When they began to unload the ballast to fill up with sugar, one of | the men felt i'll, and then another; so | the captain took them up to the town hospital, and there they died of yellow fever and were buried in great hurry | and nothing said about it, for fear peo- pie should be frightened.
 1 "The health officer went on board the | bark and he soon found out what was | the matter. The ballast was all Santos | earth-full of fever, no doubt. He had | the matches of the hold battened down and sealed, and then he tleegraphed to | the owners, asking power to hore l schooner and put the well men on board of her, while the bark was taken out to sea and the ballast jettisoned. But | the owners sent back word that it was no business of theirs and the colony might do what it liked; they had no ] money to waste in hiring schooner l because lot of sailors were afraid of | fellow fever.
 l By this time lot of the men were l i'll, so the government bought couple of marquees from the military and pitched them on Pelican Island--one for the sick men and one for the well ones and they sent a doctor to live with them and to see that no one left the is- | land to carry the infection elsewhere. Now the whole matter being kept very dark. as I said before. and this l young man and his wife being only just 1 landed, and their heads full of each l other and of the wonderful things around them, it is easy enough to see l that they would scarcely hear of what | was going on and one evening nothing would suit the pair but to hire a boat and go sailing in Carlisle bay to get | away from the mosquitoes on the shore, for, as they were newcomers, the mos quitoes plagued them greatly, as dare say they did you, sir, when you first came out.
 "Well, the silly couple started for their sail. and he took q revolver to l shoot sharks with--though he might as well have taken a popgun-not to mem l tion that there are no sharks on Carl- isle bay now; they are frightened of the steamers.
 After they had sailed about for a while. as ill-luck would have it, the girl saw the white tents on Pelican Is- land, and nothing would do for her but to go and explore it and see who was having a picnic there. And the poor young fellow knew no better than to take her at her word. He was London bred, and I don't suppose had ever heard of quarantine in his life.
 "They tied their boat up to the pier, and the first the doctor knew of their being on the island was when he saw | them standing inside tfle door of the | marquee where he was helping the nig- ger attendant to lay out a seaman who had just died of the fever, while two | other poor chaps who had an hour or so longer to live looked on.
 "Well, sir, you may imagine the doc tor was angry. He jumped up and pushed them both out of the tent, and then he got hold of the young man and shook him and asked what he meant by bringing a young woman fresh from home Gas he could see by her color) to that place, and did he know it meant certain death if she took the fever? And so on and so on. And then he told them they could not leave the island now they had got onto it and it was his bounden duty to keep them on it. And all the time the young man never 1 answered a word, but got winter and | winter. At last he cried out to his wife to run down to the boat and he would follow her. She did what she was told, sadly frightened, poor thing. The | doctor called out his nigger from the tent and was for running after her, but the young man whipped out his re- volver and swore the great oath that he would shoot him if he did not stop. The nigger ran away, but the doctor was a good-plucked one. I'll die doing \ t1,D 1,n l,o