uncontrollable license. On this occasion, the black men,
soldiers and all, instead of assisting to put out the fire, broke into
the liquor shops, and having maddened themselves by drinking, fell to
indiscriminate plundering. If it had not been for the women, who, to
their great credit, rendered energetic assistance in working the
engines, the city might have been consumed.

The most curious feature in the life of a city where there are many
blacks is the incessant chatter in the streets. Chaffering, quarrelling,
joking, there seems to be no end to their volubility. In the country it
is the same, and you will sometimes hear two shrews scolding each other
from a couple of hilltops a quarter of a mile apart, with an energy and
unction only equalled by an angry Irishwoman. Men and women fortunately
quarrel so much that they fight very little. Notwithstanding the heroic
deeds of valor performed by black soldiers, I incline to think that they
are, what some one describes the Arabs as being, cowardly, or at least
timid, as individuals, and brave only through discipline and number.

I know of no reminiscences connected with Kingston of any essential
note, unless it be a horrible incident mentioned by Bryan Edwards, the
distinguished historian of the West Indies, as witnessed by himself in
1760. This was the execution of two black men, native Africans,
convicted of the murder of their master. They were exposed in the
parade, in the centre of the town, in an iron frame, and starved to
death! Free access was allowed to the crowds who wished to talk with
them, and with whom they kept up conversation, apparently supremely
indifferent to their fate. Mr. Edwards himself, after they had been
exposed some days, addressed them some questions, but could not
understand their reply. At something he said, however, they both burst
into a hearty laugh. On the morning of the ninth day one silently
expired, and the other soon followed. Punishments so barbarous strike us
with horror, but they are no gratuitous addition to slavery--they are
one of its necessary features. A relation founded purely on force can be
maintained only by terror. And where the proportion of whites is very
small, as in most of the West Indies, they must compensate by the
atrocity of their inflictions for the weakness of their numbers. On the
20th of April, 1856, there fell a rain of uncommon violence in the
parish of St. Andrew, in which I was then residing. For six hours