inclusion must instil a universal enthusiasm for the game amongst all colours and classes of the population.
Jamaica we did not visit, but I was told by more than one of the team which went out to the West Indies in the early months of 1901 that the cricket there does not attain to any high excellence.
The wickets are not as a rule good, but there are exceptions, and the grounds at Barbados, Demerara, and Antigua provide excellent wickets in fine weather. It is hard enough to make runs on a sticky wicket in England, but it is easy in comparison with a West Indian wicket after rain, for under the influence of a powerful tropical sun, the ball not only takes any amount of break, but gets up perfectly straight as well. The Trinidad ground is the largest, and has the best pavilion and seating accommodation, while of the many grounds I have seen in various parts of the world, none surpasses it from a picturesque point of view; but the wicket is a very bad one, and I really think the authorities would be wise to lay down matting.
The West Indian team which came to England in the summer of 1900 played seventeen games, won five, drew four, and lost eight, and when one considers that the team had never played together before, that they were quite unaccustomed to our climate, and to the strain of three days' cricket, and that they lost the toss twelve times out of the seventeen matches the tour comprised, I do not think their record was at all bad. At the start the side were quite at sea,
