MRS. CARMICHAEL'S NEGRO POPULATION OF THE WEST INDIES.

ONE more name must be added to the illustrious list of female genius : the ability displayed by Mrs. CARMICHAEL in this work really entitles her to this praise; and it is not her only praise, for true benevolence is as remarkable in her writings as talent. The West Indies have rarely been visited by persons of taste : of late a few publications have appeared from the pens of individuals who may be entitled to be considered such ; but the field is wide, the information still scanty. The real state of these countries, more especially under the heads specified in Mrs. CARMICHAEL'S title, is most imperfectly known. Her remarks relate only to St. Vincent and Trinidad; which islands, however interesting in numerous points, still form a very small portion of our vast colonial possessions in that quarter. Demerara has been in part made known to us by WATERTON'S Wanderings. Latterly, too, Captain ALEXANDER has given some graphic sketches of that country, as of parts of the West Indies. Mr. COLERIDGE'S Six Weeks in the West In- dies gave, in a most lively manner, all that in so short and hasty an inspection could be seen : Jamaica, however, he did not visit. The author of Hamel, a novel, exhibited considerable power in de- lineating the natural appearances of that beautiful and extensive island ; but when we look at these and a few other works—not forgetting, by the way, "Tom Cringle's Log" in Blackwood' s Magazine—and compare the whole of them with the extent, in- terest, and variety of these countries, we must allow that the cul- tivation of the cane has not been favourable to learning or litera- ture.

The existence of slavery in these colonies, and the efforts that have been made to abolish it, have caused continual dis- cussion concerning them ; but little light has been thrown, by all that has been said and sung, on other matters ; and, in- deed, on the very subject in agitation, the poverty of accurate information may be judged by this, that the parties disputing are hardly ever agreed upon the facts, and, in general, argue by the use of that simple rhetorical figure, the lie direct. Mrs. CARMICHAEL'S testimony on the great question of the condition of the slaves in Trinidad and St. Vincent is remarkable for its fulness, and also for its being presented in a most amusing form. We seem never to have been so well acquainted with the slave population before, as after the perusal of this book.; but Mrs. CARMICHAEL does not deal merely in general assertion, nor yet in mere description,—she gives copious anecdotes of the slaves, and enters minutely into individual character. Mrs. CARMICHAEL- was the wife of a planter; and both she and her husband, all through their residence, appear to have been actuated by the most

benevolent motives. What is more, they give high testimony to the general conduct %rid feelings of the class of planters, and would relieve them, as far as her experience goes, from the odium which attaches to the name of slaveholder. Her evidence would indeed go

to show that the slaves are the real masters; that if privation, hardship, or distress, is to be looked for anywhere, it is among the so-called masters—the planters and their families. The revelation as to the real condition of these White people, the difficulties they en - counter, the discomforts they are exposed to, and the small chance they have for aught save mere ruin, will greatly surprise the public opinion of this country. It leads us, however, to very different conclusions from those Mrs. CARMICHAEL has formed. Her report convinces us that the truly meritorious body of slave- masters would lose nothing by emancipation ; that in point of fact their estates would be more valuable to them with a free population than they are now; that the slave is now rendered unfit to be a slave, and will make a far better servant than slave. Itmay be that the perpetual discussions in England of the pro- priety of emancipation have accelerated the progress of the slave to that critical point when he is unfit for slavery and yet scarcely fit for freedom. It is, however, arrived; and nothing surprises us more than the blindness of the planters in getting up an obstinate resistance. The agitation of the question does them more harm than any settlement that it could have been brought to. To be sure, nothing could be much more absurd than the idea of ap- prenticeship ; but the planters are themselves to blame for it. By their obstinate resistance to every measure of emancipation, they have driven the management of it into the hands of individuals who are utterly ignorant of the subject. There is reason to ap- prehend, that apprenticeship will be a far more serious loss to the owners, and a less happy state to the slave, than slavery in its worst times in our colonies. We feel convinced the Negro will, in the majority of cases, work for himself, and hard ; but he will work for no one else, save as a slave—that is to say, under strict compulsion. Apprenticeship is not such compulsion as will pro- duce any other effect than continual bickering, discontent, and quarrelling; the result of which will not be sugar—we wish that it may not be blood.

The great discomfort of the West Indies to the Whites, is the imperfect service of the slaves, their thieving, and their mercenari- ness: lying is of course a slavish vice; but the readers of this work will be astonished to find that, instead of the servility of domestic attendants, which at home would be expected from slaves, the master or mistress has chiefly to expect indolence and sauciness. Slave-work is proverbially slow; and the consequence is, that though in a house you may possibly tie a person to do mestic work, you cannot give any stimulus which will accelerate the rate of its performance; consequently, the work of a Negro woman at sewing or other domestic work, bears the rate to a white person's labour of an hour to a day. The reader will be also surprised to learn, on the testimony of Mrs. CARMICHAEL, which we plainly see is irresistible and unimpeachable, that "any in- dustrious Negro may save thirty pounds sterling yearly, with ease." " I really mean save," adds this lady ; "for besides this, he will purchase all those little articles he requires—candles, soap, now and then salt pork, and beef, &c. besides plenty of fine dresses for himself, his wife or wives, and children : for good Negroes have no small pride in dressing their fa- mily, as they call it, handsome." Numbers do this: they most abound in money of any inhabitants of these islands; and, in frequent instances known to the authoress, they in a great measure support their former " Massa and Misses," now fallen into poverty and ruin by the foreclosing of their mortgages, though still subsisting on some corner of the property. Persons who can comfortably save this sum per annum, cannot be in a condition to be much deplored ; at the same time, an industrious man, who will do it, ought not to be a slave. This is one particular of a thousand of Mrs. CARMICHAEL'S details, that will, after all that has been said of the Negroes, greatly astonish the home reader. What, for instance, will be said of the Negroes on an estate bor- rowing their master's dogger to send their spare plaintains to mar- ket ?—of the overseer marking their respective shares, and receiv- ing 2701. for them :for one cargo, and immediately distributing it ? But the facts concerning the Negroes, both as to their physical, moral, and intellectual condition, in this book, are most copious ; .and we scgmely recollect to have got such an insight into any so- ciety or set 'of people as by this lady's minute and observant re- marks, anecdotes, and, it may be said, experiments. The details are most curious and interesting. We are glad to find that Mrs. CARMICHAEL, who took great pains in instructing, and seems to be well acquainted with the art, ,eontirms other testimony in stating that she finds the Negro child behind no other class of childreh in intellect. They are defi- cient in attention. It is almost impossible to keep them quiet; *bile you are occupied with one, the rest are full of tricks and :drollery. They are, as she says, wholly destitute of feelings of mo- desty •or .shame. There is something to be allowed always for hereditary savagery. The strongest charge the authoress seems to have against the Methodist missionaries is, that they enforce mone of the duties of life, and chiefly insist upon the abolition of dancing. Now Mrs. CARMICHAEL found, and it might have been anticipated, that dancing was a sort of safety-valve, and that the best and most dutiful Negroes were the fondest of dancing. But what a wretched superstition to persuade these poor people that their most favourite and most innocent amusement was an offence in the eye of God ! The Negro gives up dancing and sets off to steal or to conspire. The Negro's aptitude for deception is extraordinary; there are no such professors of the arts of lying and stealing. Here, for instance, is an anecdote of theft that would do honour to BILL SOAMES, or the more learned professors of Paris, such as FOSSARD.

Negro methods of theft defy the most watchful eye. I never went to my store- room that I did not miss some article or other, yet it was not once in twenty cases that I could discover the thief. I was certain as to missing bottles of

Madeira at different times ; and though I watched as minutely as I could, yet I never saw one of them removed. The cellar had a double door, with a very strong lock on each door ; the windows were secured across with wooden rails ; none of these were ever broken or displaced, and as they were old, had they been removed and put in again, it could not have escaped notice. I tried to put a bottle of wine through these bars, but could not succeed ; yet it so happened, that returning quickly to the cellar one day after I had left it, I found a bottle of wine, with the neck of it sticking through the bars, and B— hastily re- treating from the spot when he saw me. When I pointed it out to him, he said, Misses, that be very strange, it must be Jumbee do so." At that time I could not comprehend, or discover how B. or anybody else had got the bottle to the window,—or how, if got there, it could be taken away,—yet I knew that many had disappeared ; and it was not till I had left St. Vincent, and resided in Trinidad, that I learnt the ingenuity of the thief. I was then told by B.'s fellow-servant, that he had a way of putting a string round the bottle when in the cellar without my seeing, and he put the end of the string through the window-bars ; and when I was gone, he drew it to the bars, and placing the neck through the bars, he drew the cork, poured out the wine, and then break- ing the bottle, carried away the fragments. B. could pack pretty well, and I employed him the day before I left St. Vin- cent in packing a case of liquor ; and so very clever was he in his mode of deceit, that although I stood by the whole time, till the box was packed and the lid nailed on,—after which it was deposited where he bad no access to it,—.yet when this case was opened, the bottles were found all empty, and they were not the bottles I had given him to put in; for those I gave were French bottles, and the ones he put in were English : now he must have contrived, while wrapping the straw round each bottle, to place an empty English bottle instead of a French full one.

Negroes will steal, cheat, and deceive in every possible way, and that with a degree of adroitness that baffles the eye and understanding of any European; and what is worse, they invariably get into a passion if you refuse to let them take the book and swear to the truth of what you know to be false.

Slaves steal, but this adroitness will be turned to better use in freedom ; but Heaven help the master of apprentices ! Perhaps we have said enough of the general tendency of this work : we will turn to a more amusing task, that of selecting some of the striking anecdotes of the Negroes, and descriptions of the mode of life on the part of the Whites in these colonies. On the subject of rank among the Negroes, and their tenaci- ousness on the subject of disrespect, we find the folloiiing stories recorded.

The punctilio observed by Negroes towards each other, is past the belief of those who never witnessed it ; any omission of it is sure to procure a beating. I recollect B. one day beating Y., a female servant, very severely : I begged to know the nature of her offence ; it was simply this : she had left the gate open, and B. asked her, "if she had left the gate open to permit his chickens to walk about town ;" when she answered "No," instead of No, Sir; and for this he beat her. One morning A., a washerwoman, came in, and she said, " hy'dee sissy H. ?" (how do you do sister, which is a term for "good woman "), very civilly to H. ; but she did not speak to B.: he was of course all on fire; and going up to her with his arms a-kimbo, he begged to know " what for she gie herself so much impudence as say hy'dee to H., and no say good morning to him?" ( Good morn- ing, he considered as more dignified). A. burst into a loud fit of laughter, and said, "Eh ! eh ! you tink you go cheat me as you do Massa and Misses ; you tell tory about a me on the estate; I would not peak to the like o' you." Here- upon B. hit her a blow in the mouth, and A. fell down exclaiming she was dead. B. did strike her severely, but be knew what he was about ; he had never up to this time been punished, and calculated on this exemption. There was no per- son near me, so it was impossiblefor me to have done any thing but remonstrate ; and even this I had not courage to do with B., for he was not a person to talk to. A. was bruised considerably, but she went away quietly, and never again omitted behaving with respect to Mr. B. ! as he styled himself.

Of their entertainments, we are told that

It is quite common for Negro slaves to give parties, and employ some one to write invitations for them ; but the price of the party is always put at the bot- tom of the note. These invitations are expressed in the very.same way as if one lady wrote to another, and I shall here faithfully copy one. " Mr. re- quests the honour of Mr. —'s companr to a dance and supper on Tuesday evening, at nine o'clock.—Three dollars.' Some parties cost even more than this, and some less, according to the entertainment given. Drinking to excess is hardly ever known; and though our servants often went to dances, I never knew any of them return in the slightest degree intoxicated. X. was the only servant I ever saw who habitually drank to excess. B. I have seen twice a little tipsy, but not so as to incapacitate him for his work—he had just enough to make him unusally impudent ; however, he was at all times very forward, and indeed Negro men are most disagreeably so.

I recollect obtaining the following information from B. as to one of those dances. " How many bad you at the dance?" " More than two hundred."

" What did they dance?" Quadrilles and waltzes." " Did you not dance the English country-dance ?" " No, they no fashion now-a-day." " Had you any refreshment during dancing?" " Yes." " What had you?" " Tea and coffee, and wine of different kinds, sangaree, lemonade, and porter." He also in- formed me they had an excellent supper. Such entertainments are quite com- mon, and Negroes enjoy themselves very much at such times. Indeed, they will dance at any hour of the day. I recollect when our estates' people finished crop, a great band of them, in gay clothes, came to town to see us, preceded by the estates' fiddler, whose hat was trimmed up with ribbons : they had paid for getting these decorations themselves, because they said " they wished to sur- prise me, cause they knowed I had never seen the like afore." The house ser- vants all went into the largest Negro house, and began to dance, although this was just the hottest time of the day : they danced with the greatest agility, not appearing atoll inconvenienced by the heat. Their dresses were Teeny ludicrous, —one woman had her own Christian name and her master's surname marked in large letters in front of her dress; and she told me she paid half a dollar for getting it done. Having got wherewithal to make merry upon, they left us is about an hour, as jovial a party as could well be. The chapter of conversations with the " native African" slaves, contains some very interesting dialogues : this is a specimen. F. was a native African, an Ebo Negro, of uncommonly good character, but not at all clever—a common field Negro; she had been many years ago offered her freedom as a reward for her faithful services, but declined it, saying she pre- ferred remaining as she was She worked for some time after this upon the estate, as a nurse ; but at the period I speak of, she ceased to be able to do any thing. At an early period of her life she had suffered severely from rheumatism, and her joints were much distorted from it ; she was also much bent down from old age, and latterly it became difficult to make her contented or happy. She was in many respects savage; and at times insisted upon lying on the floor with- out any clothes; neither was she willing to have her head tied with a handker- chief, and her naturally black woolly hair had become white from age. She would rarely use a spoon for her calialou soup, which, with a little boiled rice, was all she relished ; and for drink, she liked weak rum and water. Her ap- pearance was any thing but pleasing, it was at times almost disgusting; but she despised and refused all the comforts of civilized life ; and a stranger, to have seen her, as I daily did, lying on her mattress on the floor, using her hand for a spoon to her soup, and hardly a rag upon her, might naturally have exclaimed, " Look at the brutality of this poor Negro's owner !" But had he been conversant with native Africans, be would have perhaps felt as we did, all the desire to render her comfortable according to our interpretation of the word ; but he would no doubt also have experienced the utter impossibility of convincing her that clean- liness, a few clothes, and eating her victuals like a civilized being, were real comforts. She used to say to me, when I spoke to her of such things, " No teaze me, misses, me one very good nigger ; let me be." " Let me be," is a fre- quent expression among Negroes ; and they have, probably, learnt this and other decided Scotticisms from the number of Scotch managers and overseers.

One day I asked F., " How big were you when you left Africa ?" "Misses, me big young woman." " How were you taken?" "Misses, Ebo go war wid a great grandee massa; him massa take Ebo many, many; tie hand, tie foot, no could run away, misses : they gie us only so leetle for yarn (as she said this she took up a splinter of wood, and held it to signify that the food she got was as insignificant in point of size). Well, misses, they take me mamma, too; she be one nice nigger, fat so ; they take her, kill her, boil her, fry her, yam her (eat her) every bit all : dey bringed her heart to me, and force me yam a piece of it. Well, misses, after dat dey sell me to another grandee for cottons, and he send me a Guinea coast ; and when I corned there, the first buckra I seed, misses, I started all." " Where you afraid of the white man ?" "No, misses, no of he, but of he colour ; look so queer, misses, I axe ye pardon." " Did you know you were going to be sold to a white man ?" " Yes, misses, me happy at dat ; nigger massa bad too much, white masse him better far ; Africa no good place, me glad too much to come a white man's country." "Well, what did you do when you were landed ?" " Old massa buy me; old misses very good ; she make nice bamboo for use (clothing), teached me 'bout God," said she, "get me christened ; me quite happy ; me (said she with much exultation) never once punished. Old massa love me, old misses love me, me loved dens ; me get good husband ; me never have sore heart but once, when my H. (her -only child) go dead. Misses, oh, she handsome too much ; take pain in side, dey do all for her, but God say no ; and so she go dead, and so me just take young H—, (a young Negro woman, upon the estate, of the same name as her own daughter); she have no daddy or mamma, and me take her for my own, being, as I was, her god-mamma." The principal enjoyment of this poor wo- man was in telling old stories to the flunily; but the servants were very harsh to her, and I frequently caught the little Negroes under a sand-box tree, pelting her while she lay at the open house-door, with hard green mangoes, which they gathered for the purpose.

The following anecdotes also relate to a " native African." This man, however, was of Trinidad; the former ones were of St. Vincent.

Every. Negro house on Laurel Hill estate was quite equal to those that I have de- scribed in the first volume of this work, as the general abodes of Negroes. They had their plantain-leaf mattresses, as we also had, in general use. Their pil- lows and bolsters were feathers of their own purchasing ; and in the article of -sheets and linen, in I seldom found any deficiency any Negro of good character. Some of course have much finer linen than others ; but there are few who do not lay up some " Irish cloth," as they call it, for their burial. Attachment to respectable dress (I do not mean mere finery, such as jewels, &c.) is always a proof of civilization; and some Negroes are most ridiculous dandies. We had several of such at Laurel Hill. S., the head boiler-man at Laurel Hill, was in- variably a dandy; and it was quite a picture to see him at the teach, watching the sugar, with his air of authority, and his shirt collar stuck up to his ears. He was a native African,—a Coromantee, of a very grave and sedate deport- ment, and exceedingly reserved as regarded his former life. Upon my first visit to Laurel Hill boiling-house, with my children and their governess, he advanced and made a very dignified bow,—wished us all health and happiness, and stoop- ing down, with a piece of white chalk, he put, as I have already said as usual, a mark on our feet ; and we got another bow in return for our Spanish dollar. S. then ushered us all through the works of the sugar manufactory; when we tasted hot liquor and cold liquor, and pan ;sugar, the best of all. This is the remains of the sugar that hardens in the spout, which conveys the sugar from the teach to the wooden coolers. I asked one day, if he remembered Africa? " A little, misses." Would you like to return there and see it again ? " No misses, me country nigger very wicked,—me no wish to see 'em again." Do you think them more wicked than Negroes here—do they steal and lie more, and are they more apt to quarrel and fight ? " Misses, white lady know noting of Africa, in my part ; dey bad too much, me cannot tell you how bad." S.'s look at this moment, was one so expressive of a determination that seemed to say ask no more, that I stopped the conversation. Some time after I mentioned this conversation with S. to D. one of the pleasantest and mildest-mannered fe- male Negroes 1 ever saw. She said, " Misses, it's well you no ask S. no more ...questions; " and she shook her head and looked very wise; "his country, misses, wicked too much." In a half mysterious whisper, she added, " Misses, S. be -one Coromantee ! and oh ! misses, Coromantee eat men; misses, S. be one very ;good nigger ; but me misses, da Coromantee blood be in him." S. was a good vworkman ; but it required great tact to keep him in humour : he was to be talked to always as a man of rank and authority, and in fact he bad that about .him which made it impossible for any one to dare to use any freedom with him. If any ilittle Negro forgot to say Sir to him, he was sure of a blow that would make him remember in future.

One evening, hearing that S. was poorly, I went to pay him a visit. I found him in his calico dressang-gown, clean shirt, and white trousers—his head was -bound with a Madras handkerchief; and he was lying on his sofa, with three as nice pillows to recline upon as possible, with clean linen slips, as white as snow. He had a comfortable basin of chicken-soup, with a plate of boiled rice beside Ern. And is this, thought I, a man who, had he been left in his own country, would have probably been regaling on his fellow-creatures. He talked very sensibly ; and thanked me politely for coming to see him; but I always took care in future to avoid any allusion to his country. S. has since freed himself.

Concerning the Negroes themselves, we shall make but one more extract; it relates to the boiling-house, which -has been re- presented as a scene of great hardship.

Those who represent the season of sugar-making as a time of oppression to the Negro, must either be very ignorant, or else very determined to misrepresent facts. It is quite true that there is more work to do, but it is a work that the Negroes like. It is the season of mirth and jollity; they look forward to crop- time (the West India harvest), and speak of its getting neara and nearer with joy, not with dread : and it is an unanswerable fact, that during crop-time the sick-list diminishes; and such is the fun, and such is the feasting upon canes, hot and cold liquor, and:newhugar, that even the most obstinate skulkers at other times are then much seldomer absent. The stock, too, have much more work to perform; nevertheless, they have plenty of cane-tops and molasses, and they also get fat and healthy. The master, the manager, and overseer, work harder too ; and they have no one to relieve them and take their place : still I never heard any complain. It was known to be a necessary duty ; and the general cheerfulness spreads a smiling aspect over us all. In Trinidad, as in St. Vincent, there is a contest who is to cut the last cane for the season ; and there is a dance at the conclusion, and the master supplies the requisites for a merry-making. It is a rare occurrence, when the boiling-house is not shut up by ten o'clock at night. The people, during sugar-making, are divided into what are called spells •' and those at work at extra hours on Monday do not come on again till Thursday. It is of the utmost consequence to get off the crop in dry weather; for the time and labour required to boil sugar in showery weather is most ex- pensive ; and the quality of the sugar is much deteriorated.

Here, again, is demonstrated the absurdity of any division of time between the master and Negro ; and the absolute necessity that the labour of the one should be at the will of the other, as regards time. The work of a cocoa estate is nothing compared to that of a sugar estate. The whole labour is performed in the shade; but Negroes prefer a sugar estate notwithstanding. We had two Negroes from a cocoa estate, who came upon a sugar one at their own request; and when a Negro came with a message from a cocoa estate to Laurel Hill, he said the very smell of the sugar was delightful to him ; and he was quite happy to get liquor, hot or cold, to drink, and a bit of sugar to take home. I have often heard Mr. C. say to a Negro, after six o'clock, and when he had taken his bundle of grass to the stock,—a duty which is the concluding one of every day,—" Why are you here in the boiling-house ? you have nothing to do here; go home and get your supper, and go to bed, and take a good rest against to-morrow." " Massa, ' was the invariable answer, "me roast me yam in da copper-hole, and get some hot liquor." Then there was the joke, the laugh, and the song going round ; and I often said that the boiling-house, after regular work was over, reminded me of a blacksmith's shop in a Scotch village, where all the gossip of the day was sure to be retailed. Sometimes, indeed, S.'s dig- nity was offended by the familiar dialogues going on ; and he would turn round and tell them " to go out, or not keep such noise dey." The labour of the Negroes was never such as to prevent their having a dance at night ;—and really I cannot conceive of people who are overworked, prefer- ring dancing to bed, and still being robust, healthy, and happy. Where there is really physical suffering, it will easily be seen; and the best and most wily dissembler cannot deceive one on this head. Among all the Negroes 1 have seen in towns, and on estates, I never saw one deformed. person—old, young, or mid- dle-aged. I never saw or heard of an idiot or any insane Negro ; a fact, I think, well worth recording. One of our people was occasionally liable to a tacitur- nity, that at times amounted to despondency. He sometimes indulged in drink- ing to excess ; with this one fault excepted, he was a good faithful Negro. In 1832, without any assignable cense, he committed suicide.

They who imagine the West Indies to be a country of luxury for the White population, will learn the details of their mode of living with surprise. We can only give the following sketch of a planter's domestic economy ; which does not, however, contain more than a very small portion o the hardships he is compelled to submit to.

Fish forms the chief food of all classes of white people ; and, varied by a fowl, or pork, is the daily dinner. Irish mess, beef, and pork, are used in-every family ; and the Creole soups are also much liked—they are never made altogether with fresh meat ; either salt beef or pork is used, to season them ; with, at times, salt fish. Puddings and sweet dishes of any kind are little used in families, except upon rare occasions, the materials requisite for either puddings or pies being exorbitantly dear ; so that the common family dinner of a West India planter is much inferior, both in quantity and quality, to that of people in the very middling ranks of life at home ; while the high price of all the real neces- saries of life, renders living upon a limited income little better than what would be called misery in England. How many families are there at this moment, whose dinner consists daily of jack-fish, and either a roasted plantain, or yam, with occasionally, as a treat, a bit of salt pork. The jack-fish is indeed an ex- cellent fish, resembling the herring in size, and somewhat in flavour also; but

I suspect our lawyers' and merchants' families, &c. at home would look upon this as very poor daily living, and would by no means think they made up for it by twice a year giving a great dinner, and eating fat mutton. Those who have been long settled, and who are accustomed to this style of living, take it very contentedly, and ask their intimate friend " to come and eat fish with them but they know this is not the style of living in England ; and it is not before a considerable lapse of time that they consider you sufficiently creolized, to invite you to come and eat fish; and when they do, it is a sure sign that they consider you no longer as a ceremonious visiter.

I was, therefore, as I before remarked, nearly two years in the West Indies before all this opened upon me,—I say opened, for it was the cause of unfolding and explaining the motives of many actions, which I had before condemned and misconstrued, considering them as originating in choice rather than in necessity. I now saw my error ; not only in this, but being now, as it were, more behind

the scenes, I was convinced, that although a casual observer generally will con-

clude all Creoles to be lazy, luxurious, ignorant, proud, and even deficient in feel- ing, that the cause of his hastily adopting such sentiments, proceeds first from coming out firmly persuaded that a Creole must be all this ; and secondly, from seeing only the outside of society ; for, mixing as a stranger with the colonists at these sumptuous dinners, he little dreams that a fried jack-fish, or salted fish

and plantains, is the colonist's daily fare ; lie sees them listless and unemployed during the evening, but he does not know what fatigues they have undergone during the day; and himself newly arrrived, with all the advantages of an Euro- pean constitution, he makes no allowance for the relaxed state of their constitu- tions which have suffered during perhaps twenty years from the effects of 'a tropical sun. He sees them speak peremptorily to their servants, and in argument main- tain the necessity, in the present state of Negrocivilization, that corporal punish-. ment should not be entirely done away with by law; but the new comer knows nothing, little or nothing, of the real state of Negro civilization : he is totally unaware of the difficulty experienced in managing Negroes ; or, if he has just begun to feel it personally, he blames not the Negro ; but argues with boldness, that the difficulty arises wholly from the bad system of slavery around him ; so that, without even emancipation, he is sure that mildness, and tst, humane management, will make it quite as easy, to manage Negroes as white servants, and he therefore is shocked with what he considers the want of true feeling, "humanity, and justice in the white population.

The greatest cause of inconvenience to the White settler of the West Indies is not the economy with which he is compelled to provide his table or furnish. his abode; neither does hecomplain of the heat, which he contrives to bear pretty well, or to avoid; neither has he so much cause as is usually thought to find fault

The open rafters of a West India house, at all times afford shelter to a nume- old houses, and sometimes in the rafters of a room. The jack-spaniards were

not quite such easy prey, for they used their wings, which not one cockroach netian code : and the success was such as may be judged by this had attempted. Two jack-spaniards, hotly pursued on the window, alighted on fact,—at first, the apprehension of a cul prit was attended with a bat- the dress of one of my children. I entreated her to sit still, and remain quiet. tie of hostile clans; at last, a single constable, with his staff of office

In an almost inconceivably short space of time, a party of ants crawled upon alone, repaired into the wildest parts of the island and brought back her frock, surrounded, covered the two jack-spaniards, and crawled down again to the floor, dragging off their prey, and doing the child no harm. his man; such authority had justice obtained. But these Greeks are

From this room I went to the adjoiuing bed-chamber and dressing-room, and a shrewd race, and, like all quick-minded, intelligent people, adore found them equally in possession of the chasseurs. I opened a large military justice : at the same time, if the question is made an affair of clan chest full of linens, which had been much infested ; for I was determined to or party, none are more ready to do battle, or otherwise gain their take every advantage of such able hunters. I found the ants already inside: I ends by force or fraud. Sir FREDERICK ADAM undid every thing suppose they must have got in at some opening at the hinges. I pulled out the " King Tom " had brought about, in no very long time. linens on the floor, and with them hundreds of cockroaches; not one of which the genius of

escaped. Like other weak men, he grew jealous of his agents : the plan-

W e now left the house, and went to the chambers built at a little distance; sible aristocracy of these islands got about him ; persuaded him but these also were in the same state. I next proceeded to open a store-room at that the residents were tyrannical ; advised him to take things the end of the other house, for a place of retreat ; but, to get the key, I had to into his own hands, when they knew they could do as 'they return to the under room, where the battle was now more hot than ever : the liked with them; and ultimately succeeded pretty nearly in ants had commenced an attack upon the rats and mice ; and, strange as it may

appear, they were no match for their apparently insignificant foes. They sur-

bringing matters back to their former state,—not, however, with- rounded them (as they had the insect tribe), covered them over, and dragged out insurrections, executions, and God knows what besides. Sir them off with a celerity and union of strength that no one who has not watched FREDERICK ADAM is removed, to wear his 3001. coat (his "prin- such a scene can comprehend. I did not see one mouse or rat escape, and I am ciple of government," .as lie called it, unwittingly wise) in the sure I saw a score carried off during a very short period. We next tried the East Indies : but Lord NUGENT ought to take this book to his kitchen—for the store-room and boys' pantry were alread occupied ; but the kitchen was equally the field of battle, between rats, mice, cockroaches, and heart of hearts. We now do not govern by patronage—certainly ants killing them. A huckster Negro came up selling cakes, and seeing the up- not : but had a true and fit government, looking only to the roar, and the family and servants standing out in the sun, he said, " Ah, misses, country's good, been at the head of this nation, Colonel CHARLES you've got the blessing of God to-day, and a great blessing it be to get such a NAPIER would have been the Lord High Commissioner of the cleaning." I think it was about ten when I first observed the ants ; about Ionian Islands.

twelve, the battle was formidable; soon after one o'clock, the great strife began

with the rats and mice; and about three, the houses were cleared. In a quarter Of the miscellaneous parts of this book, we recommend to the of an hour more, the ants began to decamp, and soon, not one was to be seen attention of the reader the comparison, or contrast rather, between within doors. But the grass round the house was full of them ; and they seemed ALI PACHA. and Sir THOMAS MAITLAND, who has been called now feasting on the remnants of their prey, which had been left on the road to the ALI PACHA. of the Ionian Islands. This comparison will and their nests; and so the feasting continued till about four o'clock, when the black ought to become matter of history. birds, who had never been long absent from the calihash and pois-doux trees in the neighbourhood, darted down among them, and destroyed by millions those By way of extract, we have no room save who were too sluggish to make good their retreat. By five o'clock, the whole sages illustrative of the singular character of "for one or two pas-

who Tom."

was over ; before sun dawn, the Negro houses were also cleared out in the same I have said that Sir Thomas Maitland was insufferably rough and abrupt; way ; and they told me they bad seen the black birds hovering about the almond- to give an idea of his manners to those who knew him not, I will relate some trees close the Negro houses, as early as seven in the morning. I never saw anecdotes of him exemplifying the words that I have used. those black birds before or since, and the Negroes assured me that they never "Abrupt." When I first went to the Ionian Islands, I was ushered into his were seen but at such times. Excellency's presence. He was alone, walking up and down in his drawing-