ctive of West Indian languor, without which life is
impossible. It is a compound of rum, sugar, lime juice, Angostura
bitters, and what else I know not, frisked into effervescence by a
stick, highly agreeable to the taste and effective for its immediate
purpose. Cocktail over, and walking in the heat being a thing not to be
thought of, I sat for two hours in a balcony watching the people, who
were thick as bees in swarming time. Nine-tenths of them were pure
black; you rarely saw a white face, but still less would you see a
discontented one, imperturbable good humour and self-satisfaction being
written on the features of every one. The women struck me especially.
They were smartly dressed in white calico, scrupulously clean, and
tricked out with ribands and feathers; but their figures were so good,
and they carried themselves so well and gracefully, that, although they
might make themselves absurd, they could not look vulgar. Like the old
Greek and Etruscan women, they are trained from childhood to carry heavy
weights on their heads. They are thus perfectly upright, and plant their
feet firmly and naturally on the ground. They might serve for sculptors'
models, and are well aware of it. There were no signs of poverty. Old
and young seemed well-fed. Some had brought in baskets of fruit,
bananas, oranges, pine apples, and sticks of sugar cane; others had yams
and sweet potatoes from their bits of garden in the country. The men
were active enough driving carts, wheeling barrows, or selling flying
fish, which are caught off the island in shoals and are cheaper than
herrings in Yarmouth. They chattered like a flock of jackdaws, but there
was no quarrelling; not a drunken man was to be seen, and all was
merriment and good humour. My poor downtrodden black brothers and
sisters, so far as I could judge from this first introduction, looked to
me a very fortunate class of fellow-creatures.

Government House, where we went to luncheon, is a large airy building
shaded by heavy trees with a garden at the back of it. West Indian
houses, I found afterwards, are all constructed on the same pattern, the
object being to keep the sun out and let in the wind. Long verandahs or
galleries run round them protected by green Venetian blinds which can be
opened or closed at pleasure; the rooms within with polished floors,
little or no carpet, and contrivances of all kinds to keep the air in
continual circulation. In the subdued green light, human