he writer's residence during most of his stay in Jamaica, is,
like Hanover, a parish of small freeholders, but unlike Hanover, the
blacks and the few whites are not on good terms. Excepting what has been
done by missionaries, which is not a little, they are little indebted to
any but themselves for their prosperity. And as one charged with their
religious instruction, the writer can bear witness that for several
years they have needed to be restrained from avarice more than to be
stimulated to industry. A clergyman, a friend of mine, humorously
complained that he had lost by stirring up his people to work, for that
now they were so diligently employed upon their own places, that he
could get scarcely anybody to work for him. The average number of acres
owned by forty families, of which I made lists, is seven--a pretty fair
estimate, I should judge, of the whole; and seven acres in Jamaica is
equivalent in productiveness to a much larger amount here. One fourth
had floored houses, and as large a proportion had sugar mills. Many of
the families have one or two horses, worth commonly from L5 to L12
apiece. Not a few have mules, which are much more valuable; and nearly
all the rest have donkeys. The proportion of floored and glazed houses,
some of them shingled, is steadily though not very rapidly increasing;
and I need not say that in that climate, and with their yet rudimentary
ideas of comfort, a floor of earth is no indication of indigence.

The holdings vary from one to forty acres, but are more commonly from
three to six. Almost every freeholder hires land besides, and a great
deal of time is lost in going to distant pieces of ground. The wants of
the people have increased faster than they reckoned on, and the land was
bought up so rapidly around them that now they are subject to this
disadvantage in making new purchases. In St. Ann, the Baptist
congregations alone spent L10,000 in a few years in buying land.

The furniture of the poorer houses is miserably scanty; L3 would more
than cover it. But the better houses, now multiplying year by year,
boast their four-post bedsteads, often of the native mahogany, sometimes
mahogany chairs, and corresponding articles. If a white family, on
removing, expose their furniture to sale, it is caught up by the people
with eagerness at almost any price asked. The very improvidence of the
negroes stimulates their industry. They are exceedingly litigious, and
exceedingly ostentatious