s up. Trees had been planted for shade among the houses. There were
village greens with great silk-cotton trees, banyans and acacias,
mangoes and oranges, and shaddocks with their large fruit glowing among
the leaves like great golden melons. The people swarmed, children
tumbling about half naked, so like each other that one wondered whether
their mothers knew their own from their neighbours'; the fishermen's
wives selling flying fish, of which there are infinite numbers. It was
an innocent, pretty scene. One missed green fields with cows upon them.
Guinea grass, which is all that they have, makes excellent fodder, but
is ugly to look at; and is cut and carried, not eaten where it grows. Of
animal life there were innumerable donkeys--no black man will walk if he
can find a donkey to carry him--infinite poultry, and pigs, familiar
enough, but not allowed a free entry into the cabins as in Ireland. Of
birds there was not any great variety. The humming birds preferred less
populated quarters. There were small varieties of finches and sparrows
and buntings, winged atoms without beauty of form or colour; there were
a few wild pigeons; but the prevailing figure was the Barbadian crow, a
little fellow no bigger than a blackbird, a diminutive jackdaw, who gets
his living upon worms and insects and parasites, and so tame that he
would perch upon a boy's head if he saw a chance of finding anything
eatable there. The women dress ill in Barbadoes, for they imitate
English ladies; but no dress can conceal the grace of their forms when
they are young. It struck Pere Labat two centuries ago, and time and
their supposed sufferings as slaves have made no difference. They work
harder than the men, and are used as beasts of burden to fetch and
carry, but they carry their loads on their heads, and thus from
childhood have to stand upright with the neck straight and firm. They do
not spoil their shapes with stays, or their walk with high-heeled shoes.
They plant their feet firmly on the ground. Every movement is elastic
and rounded, and the grace of body gives, or seems to give, grace also
to the eyes and expression. Poor things! it cannot compensate for their
colour, which now when they are free is harder to bear than when they
were slaves. Their prettiness, such as it is, is short-lived. They grow
old early, and an old negress is always hideous.

After keeping by the sea for an hour we turned inland, and at the foot
of a steep hill we met