the evening, and often have I seen these
thoughtless young men throwing stones at the lanthorns which were
carried before them to light them to the burying-ground.

I was always an early riser, and believe I owe much of my good health to
this custom. I used to delight in a lovely tropical morning, when, with
a cigar in my mouth, I walked into the market. What would Sir William
Curtis or Sir Charles Flower have said, could they have seen, as I did,
the numbers of luxurious turtle lying on their backs, and displaying
their rich calapee to the epicurean purchaser? Well, indeed, might the
shade of Apicius [Lyttleton's Dialogues of the Dead] lament that America
and turtle were not discovered in his days. There were the guanas, too,
in abundance, with their mouths sewed up to prevent their biting; these
are excellent food, although bearing so near a resemblance to the
alligator, and its diminutive European representative, the harmless
lizard; Muscovy ducks, parrots, monkeys, pigeons, and fish. Pine-apples
abounded, oranges, pomegranates, limes, Bavarias, plantains,
love-apples, Abbogada pears (better known by the name of subaltern's
butter), and many other fruits, all piled in heaps, were to be had at a
low price. Such was the stock of a New Providence market.

Of the human species, buyers and vendors, there were black, brown, and
fair; from the fairest skin, with light blue eyes and flaxen hair, to
the jet black "Day and Martin" of Ethiopia; from the loveliest form of
Nature's mould, to the disgusting squaw, whose flaccid mammae hang like
inverted bottles to her girdle, or are extended over her shoulder to
give nourishment to the little imp perched on her back; and here the
urchin sits the live-long day, while the mother performs all the
drudgery of the field, the house, or the market.

The confusion of Babel did not surpass the present gabble of a
West-India market. The loud and everlasting chatter of the black women,
old and young (for black ladies _can_ talk as well as white ones); the
screams of children, parrots, and monkeys; black boys and girls, clad _a
la Venus_, white teeth, red lips, black skins, and elephant legs, formed
altogether a scene well worth looking at; and now, since the steamers
have acquired so much velocity, I should think would not be an
unpleasant lounge for the fastidious _ennuye_ of France or England. The
cheerfulness of the slaves, whom our morbid philanthropists wish to
render happy by