uries as they care for. They seemed to live happily among
themselves, and to govern their little colony after the manner of the
Patriarchs.

Whether any social condition can be better for the black inhabitants of
the West Indies, than that of these settlers, I very much doubt. They
are not a hard-working people, it is true; but hard work in the climate
of the tropics is unnatural, and can only be brought about by unnatural
means. That they are not sunk in utter laziness one can see by their
neat cottages and trim gardens. Their state does not correspond with
the idea of prosperity of the political economist, who would have them
work hard to produce sugar, rum, and tobacco, that they might earn
money to spend in crockery and Manchester goods; but it is suited to
the race and to the climate. If we measure prosperity by the enjoyment
of life, their condition is an enviable one.

I think no unprejudiced observer can visit the West Indies without
seeing the absurdity of expecting the free blacks to work like slaves,
as though any inducement but the strongest necessity would ever bring
it about. There are only two causes which can possibly make the blacks
industrious, in our sense of the word,--slavery, or a population so
crowded as to make labour necessary to supply their wants.

In one house in the Floridan colony we found a _menage_ which was
surprising to me, after my experience of the United States. The father
of the family was a white man, a Spaniard, and his wife a black woman.
They received us with the greatest hospitality, and we sat in the porch
for a long time, talking to the family. One or two of the mulatto
daughters were very handsome; and there were some visitors, young white
men from the neighbouring village, who were apparently come to pay
their devoirs to the young ladies. Such marriages are not uncommon in
Cuba; and the climate of the island is not unfavourable for the mixed
negro and European race, while to the pure whites it is deadly. The
Creoles of the country are a poor degenerate race, and die out in the
fourth generation. It is only by intermarriage with Europeans, and
continual supplies of emigrants from Europe, that the white population
is kept up.

On the morning of our departure we climbed a high lull of limestone,
covered in places with patches of a limestone-breccia, cemented with
sandstone, and filling the cavities in the rock. All over the hill we
found doubly refracting Iceland-spar in q