ng legal titles, and buying
the lands the fruit of which they had enjoyed either for nothing, or
for payment of a small annual assessment for the cultivated portion.
In another quarter--Toco--a notoriously lawless squatter had
expressed his intention of shooting the Government official. The
white gentleman walked straight up to the little forest fortress
hidden in bush, and confronted the Negro, who had gun in hand.

'I could have shot you if I had liked, buccra.'

'No, you could not. I should have cut you down first: so don't
play the fool,' answered the official quietly, hand on cutlass.

The wild man gave in; paid his rates; received the Crown title for
his land; and became (as have all these sons of the forest) fast
friends with one whom they have learnt at once to love and fear.

But among the Montserrat hills, the Governor had struck on a spot so
fit for a new settlement, that he determined to found one forthwith.
The quick-eyed Jesuits had founded a mission on the same spot many
years before. But all had lapsed again into forest. A group of
enormous Palmistes stands on a plateau, flat, and yet lofty and
healthy. The soil is exceeding fertile. There are wells and brooks
of pure water all around. The land slopes down for hundreds of feet
in wooded gorges, full of cedar and other admirable timber, with
Palmistes towering over them everywhere. Far away lies the lowland;
and every breeze of heaven sweeps over the crests of the hills. So
one peculiarly tall palm was chosen for a central landmark, an
ornament to the town square such as no capital in Europe can boast.
Traces were cut, streets laid out, lots of Crown lands put up for
sale, and settlers invited in the name of the Government.

Scarcely eighteen months had passed since then, and already there
Mitchell Street, Violin Street, Duboulay Street, Farfan Street, had
each its new houses built of cedar and thatched with palm. Two
Chinese shops had Celestials with pigtails and thick-soled shoes
grinning behind cedar counters, among stores of Bryant's safety
matches, Huntley and Palmers' biscuits, and Allsopp's pale ale. A
church had been built, the shell at least, and partly floored, with
a very simple, but not tasteless, altar; the Abbe had a good house,
with a gallery, jalousies, and white china handles to the doors.
The mighty palm in the centre of Gordon Square had a neat railing
round it, as befitted the Pallad