roup at the door,
meanwhile, will do anything but invite him to enter; and he will
ride on, with something like a sigh at what man might be, and what
he is.

Doubtless, there are great excuses for the inmates. A house in this
climate is only needed for a sleeping or lounging place. The
cooking is carried on between a few stones in the garden; the
washing at the neighbouring brook. No store rooms are needed, where
there is no winter, and everything grows fresh and fresh, save the
salt-fish, which can be easily kept--and I understand usually is
kept--underneath the bed. As for separate bedrooms for boys and
girls, and all those decencies and moralities for which those who
build model cottages strive, and with good cause--of such things
none dream. But it is not so very long ago that the British Isles
were not perfect in such matters; some think that they are not quite
perfect yet. So we will take the beam out of our own eye, before we
try to take the mote from the Negro's. The latter, however, no man
can do. For the Negro, being a freeholder and the owner of his own
cottage, must take the mote out of his own eye, having no landlord
to build cottages for him; in the meanwhile, however, the less said
about his lodging the better.

In the villages, however, in Maraval, for instance, you see houses
of a far better stamp, belonging, I believe, to coloured people
employed in trades; long and low wooden buildings with jalousies
instead of windows--for no glass is needed here; divided into rooms,
and smart with paint, which is not as pretty as the native wood.
You catch sight as you pass of prints, usually devotional, on the
walls, comfortable furniture, looking-glasses, and sideboards, and
other pleasant signs that a civilisation of the middle classes is
springing up; and springing, to judge from the number of new houses
building everywhere, very rapidly, as befits a colony whose revenue
has risen, since 1855, from 72,300 pounds to 240,000 pounds, beside
the local taxation of the wards, some 30,000 pounds or 40,000 pounds
more.

What will be the future of agriculture in the West Indian colonies I
of course dare not guess. The profits of sugar-growing, in spite of
all drawbacks, have been of late very great. They will be greater
still under the improved methods of manufacture which will be
employed now that the sugar duties have been at least rationally
reformed by Mr. Lowe. An