Chasten your feeling of ultra superiority and do not put down every untidy-looking white man you meet in remote country districts for a tramp bent on gaining possession of your valuables. Important planters in country districts, away from busy centres, sometimes pay but little attention to outward appearances. Individual planters tire of much reiteration of advice from young and enthusiastic tourists; likewise they are not pleased to hear that you cannot understand how it is that in such a wonderful climate all the planters are not the richest men in the world. The Jamaican does not like the Englishman who imagines that Britain keeps Jamaica going by charitable bequests; it is not pleasant for a hard-working man to come across an individual who tells him to his face that he is little better than a pauper. Above all, let it be remembered that the inhabitants of Jamaica did not brew their 1903 cyclone with the idea of giving Englishmen a little shock in order that British philanthropists might send cheques to the West Indies. Everyday ideas on the politics of the island, on means by which the island’s finances might be put on a better plane, on new industries, and better conditions of labour, will occur to the bright young tripper. It is better for a young man not to give emphasis to these ideas until he has been in the country for several weeks. [Illustration: BLACK RIVER, JAMAICA] THE CARIBBEAN GROUP CHAPTER XXVI THE CARIBBEAN GROUP Because I have exhausted so much space on a description of Jamaica, and the people of Jamaica, it must not be imagined that the shadow of the Queen of the Antilles clouds all the other West Indian islands into insignificance. Trinidad, St. Lucia, Dominica, and the rest of the Caribbean group, have much to say in the history of the West Indies. The Jamaica I have described, the Jamaicans I have mentioned, may be taken as being typical of West India. The natives of the other islands are the brothers and sisters of Jamaicans; the roads, and plantations, and mountains of the other islands differ from those of Jamaica only in the matter of proper names. In the West Indies there are many Rio Cobra rivers, though only one of them is known by that name. The bamboos, the pine-trees, and the banana clumps are of the same species in all the different islands. So for the purposes of this book I thought it more convenient to describe Jamaica and mention the other places.