evidently felt that they were the most important part of the entire
spectacle, and rather resented being passed over.

"You won't see no more prisoners, if you don't look at dese, sar,"
answered Jefferson. "Dar's only terrible few convics in de gaol jus'
now."

"So much the better," answered the unsympathetic Doctor.

It certainly appeared to be a most lonely and languishing place of
incarceration. We inspected the cells, and observed in one of them a
peculiar handle fastened against the wall. This proved to be a West
Indian substitute for the treadmill. The turning of the handle can be
made easy or difficult by an arrangement of screws without the cell. The
affair is set for a certain number of revolutions, and a warder
explained to us that where hard labour has been meted to a prisoner, he
spends long, weary hours struggling with this apparatus and earning his
meals. When the necessary number of turns are completed, a bell rings,
and one can easily picture the relief in many an erring black man's
heart upon the sound of it. At another corner of the courtyard was piled
a great heap of cannon-balls. These were used for shot-drill--an arduous
form of exercise calculated to tame the wildest spirit and break the
strongest back. The whitewashed cells were wonderfully clean and
wholesome--more so, in fact, than most public apartments I saw elsewhere
in the West Indies. This effect may be produced in some measure by the
absolute lack of household goods and utensils, pictures or
_bric-a-brac_. In fact, the only piece of furniture I could find
anywhere was a massive wooden tripod, used for flogging prisoners upon.

[Illustration: "A CHAT WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT."]

Then we went in to have a chat with the Superintendent. He was rather
nervous and downcast, and apparently feared that we had formed a poor
opinion of his gaol. He apologised quite humbly for the paucity of
prisoners, and explained that times were bad, and there was little or
nothing doing in the criminal world of St. Kitts. He really did not know
what had come to the place lately. He perfectly remembered, in the good
old days, having had above fifty prisoners at a time in his hands. Why,
blacks had been hung there before now. But of late days business grew to
be a mere farce. If anybody did do anything of a capitally criminal
nature at St. Kitts, during the next twenty years or so, he very much
doubted if the authorities would permit him to carry the affair
t