With the Connaught Rangers : $b in quarters, camp, and on leaveMaxwell, Edward Herbert
History
With the Connaught Rangers : $b in quarters, camp, and on leave
Maxwell, Edward Herbert
Great Britain. Army. Regiment of Foot, 88th (Connaught Rangers); Soldiers -- Great Britain -- Biography
Among the fair places of the earth there is none fairer than the Island
of Grenada. The Carenage and town of St. Georges are situated at the
foot of high hills covered with trees. The road winds up a green
avenue, and gradually ascends to Fort Mathew, where four companies of
the Rangers were quartered. What a view there was from the verandah
of my rooms! The town of St. Georges appeared to consist of toy
buildings, half encircling the harbour, and, far beyond, miles and
miles of sea. In the day time everything was bright and lively: the
balmy trade winds blew fresh and perfumed; the night, when every tree
and bush was lit up by sparkling fireflies, appeared calm and peaceful;
rare flowers seemed to grow uncared for--flowers which at home would
have been highly valued and carefully tended. Fruit is plentiful, and
pine-apples are very fine; a brilliant purple blossom, resembling the
single bell of the hyacinth, opens from each of the diamond-shaped
divisions of the fruit itself, which when young is of the same rich
hue, surrounded by a crest of pink-corded leaves, and protected all
round by others much larger and broader, with saw-like edges and spiked
points. The pine-apple, as it ripens, loses its beautiful and fresh
appearance; the purple changes to pale strawberry, and the leaves
become green. It is placed in ice, and sliced; and there cannot be
anything more delicious than this juicy fruit when the sun is high and
the trade wind has failed.
It would take pages to describe the various dishes a gourmet might
revel in at Grenada; turtle in every way, pepper-pot, and land-crabs.
I can only recommend those who have large yachts to go to the West
Indies for a cruise. Land-crab catching was a very picturesque scene.
These creatures, which live in holes near the sea, are strangely
ugly. At night we used to sally forth, attended by crowds of niggers,
and proceed to an inlet from the sea, on the shore of which the
manchineel-trees grow. If you take refuge from the rain underneath the
shade of these treacherous shrubs, your face and hands become blistered
all over. The ground is full of holes where the land-crabs dwell.
Fascinated by the torch-light (which each native carries), they come
out, and are seized by the expert watcher. These crabs are supposed to
be foul feeders, and when caught they are placed in barrels, and fed
on meal for many days before they are cooked for the table. Another
exciting sport was turtle turning. The natives would watch a turtle
coming out of the water to lay her eggs, and, before she got back to
the sea, would intercept her, and turn her over on her back, in which
position a turtle is quite helpless. Having marked the spot where the
eggs were deposited, they went there, and generally found an enormous
quantity. These eggs when boiled have a skin like parchment. One
becomes in time quite clever at opening them. The way a West Indian
gourmet eats them was always a wonder to me, though I became pretty
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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