i
- The narrator is traveling through the capitals of Europe now, viewing Empire from the "other side of the meridian."
- He is in Lisbon but is thinking about Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago), transported by the activity and the racial makeup of the land.
ii
- The discussion of Lisbon opens a reference to Pope Alexander (VI) and the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the spoils of the New World between Spain and Portugal in 1494.
- The narrator feels the connection between the two halves of the world through this history.
iii
- The narrator sees the bronze statuary on the banks of a European city and compares it to the unadorned docks back home.
- He believes that this is because his people do not have the "imperial impulse," a.k.a. no call to dominion.
- There is nothing on his island that speaks of history in the European sense—no ruins, for instance—and instead the past is something to be forgotten, not memorialized.
- He tours a Portuguese castle and experiences its past, but he realizes the place is a grave marker.
- Portugal, too, was offered entry into the imperial race (thanks to Alexander), but now the country is as sleepy as St. Lucia.