Notes on the West Indies, vol. 1 of 2 : $b including observations relative to the Creoles and slaves of the western colonies and the Indian of South America: interspersed with remarks upon the seasoning or yellow fever of hot climates
| Language | en |
|---|---|
| First published | 2025-11-24 |
| Rights | Public domain in the USA. |
| Gutenberg ID | #77322 |
Description
"Fatal fingers" by William Le Queux is a work. Based on the opening provided, it reads as an epistolary travel account by a British army physician, charting a voyage to the West Indies and early experiences in colonial ports, ships, and hospitals. The focus is on firsthand observation—of military logistics, naval hospitals, seafaring hazards, colonial society, slavery, and yellow fever—told with the immediacy of letters written on the move. The opening of this work presents a preface explaining that the “Notes” began as private letters and now appear publicly with added material, followed by a contents list that frames the book as a sequence of letters from the late 18th-century West India expedition. The narrative then starts with the author’s departure for military duty, visits to encampments and hospitals at Southampton and Portsmouth, and reflections on public dread of West Indian “seasoning” (yellow fever). He sketches Portsmouth’s docks, a captured French ship, and the Haslar naval hospital, contrasts French levity with English gloom, and observes coarse street life. Repeated gales delay the fleet; a hurricane‑like storm batters ships and nerves, and the author records seasickness, sailors’ gallows humor, and rumors of losses. Transferred from the Ulysses to the Lord Sheffield after a perilous small‑boat crossing and a night of hospitality on the Diana frigate, he finally sails with a vast convoy—only for more tempests to scatter it, leaving him to witness distress signals from a doomed ship and to chronicle a slow, storm‑tossed progress toward Barbadoes. (This is an automatically generated summary.)