Limekiller!

Pygore was weary again. “Good,” was his only, very faint, and perhaps only very faintly un-totally-convinced word on the subject.

Limekiller was just a while thoughtful. Then he asked, “Well, since there is no such superstition here, why are there, well, similar ones?”

Mr. Edwards said, “Well, you know, Mr. Limekiller, that this colony is not and it never was a sugar plantation colony — oh, we’ve had some such, and we have some such now, as a matter of fact: but not much. Not many. Ours has been a country with an economy based on forestry. And this has made. makes… an immense difference. I don’t wish to go into the economic difference it makes, I will leave that to the learned gentlemen from the United Kingdom and the United States. But you see, Mr. Limekiller. One cuts the sugar cane regularly. And when it has been cut, the land is bare. Well, to be sure, the ratoons are still there, the roots, as it were. But, and this is my point, in a cut-over sugar field, there is no place for anything to hide. And, or rather should I say, but? — in a forest there is every place to hide. Because we never cut our forests bare the way you have done in North America. We cut the mahogany, but for each mahogany tree cut there are a hundred other trees left standing. Rosew'ood: same thing. Logwood: same thing. Cedar: same thing. Even more commonplace wood such as pine, ‘emery, Santa Maria, sericoty: we cut selectively.”

“Wise of you — “

“Oh, it is not wisdom, it is — but again: beside the point. And what is the point?” Outside an automobile went by, very very noisily. Verger Edwards inclined his head. “That is the point. Have you not noticed how the people here walk all over the roads and streets despite the automobiles? As if there were no automobiles? So different from either the United States or the United Kingdom? It is not because the people here are stupid, Mr. Limekiller

“I never said they were."

“I know you never. But the reason is, you see, Mr. Limekiller, that, until very recently, there were no automobiles here! A fact, a fact, Mr. Limekiller! Do you know, sir, that when I was a boy — when / was a boy, there were only two motor vehicles in the entire colony? No: three. One was a truck, down in the Southern District, it had been shipped in from one of the Republics, and we never saw it here, because there were no roads, then, Mr. Limekiller! But here, here in King Town, there were only two automobiles. Only two! And one belonged to the Royal Governor! When I was a boy. and I am not yet forty years old, sir, not yet forty years old! In one generation we have moved. moved? we have jumped, leaped, been dragged, as it were, into the automobile age. There are now one thousand motor vehicles in this country, sir. One thousand!."

He paused to let this sink in. Jack felt it sinking. Then Verger Edwards went on, “We moved by boat, when, indeed, we did not move by foot or by horse or by mule. I can remember making a trip to visit my maternal uncle up in St. Michael’s of the Mountains, it was during the War, and it took two weeks to get there… by boat, by boat!. coming back, it took but one week, we had the current behind us.

“Go down the coast from north to south or come up the coast from south to north, do you see any coastal highway with endless lines of cars? No. We have no coastal highway; we still have three incorporated townships, sir, with which there is no communication by road whatsoever. and only one of them even has an airstrip. People move by water here, still, still, in this oh whatever is the year of the reign of our sovereign lady the Queen? Doesn’t matter.

“If I had to sum up in one word the thing which distinguished our small settlements here from settlements of the same size in North America or England or Scotland, the word I should choose, should have to choose, is isolation. And this means that not alone the bodies of the People there, or their houses, were isolated — sir. their minds were often isolated: And, God knows how very often how isolated their lives were. We now have a radio system. That helps. We have books, magazines, newspapers… we have visitors, tourists, capitalists. But I feel almost less than a patriot if I have to explain to you, no, I cannot explain to you, so I simply declare to vou: in some places we are still living in the nineteenth century.” '

“Yes, I

“No, Mr. Limekiller, you don ’t: In some places we are still living in the eighteenth centurv:”

“Well