onally loved and respected: and when a young couple marry, as they
seldom but occasionally do, it is to the priest that they apply to tie
them together.

From the cathedral I wandered through the streets of Roseau; they had
been well laid out; the streets themselves, and the roads leading to
them from the country, had been carefully paved, and spoke of a time
when the town had been full of life and vigour. But the grass was
growing between the stones, and the houses generally were dilapidated
and dirty. A few massive stone buildings there were, on which time and
rain had made no impression; but these probably were all French--built
long ago, perhaps in the days of Labat and Madame Ouvernard. The English
hand had struck the island with paralysis. The British flag was flying
over the fort, but for once I had no pride in looking at it. The fort
itself was falling to pieces, like the fort at Grenada. The stones on
the slope on which it stands had run with the blood which we spilt in
the winning of it. Dominica had then been regarded as the choicest jewel
in the necklace of the Antilles. For the last half-century we have left
it to desolation, as a child leaves a plaything that it is tired of.

In Roseau, as in most other towns, the most interesting spot is the
market. There you see the produce of the soil; there you see the people
that produce it; and you see them, not on show, as in church on Sundays,
but in their active working condition. The market place at Roseau is a
large square court close to the sea, well paved, surrounded, by
warehouses, and luxuriantly shaded by large overhanging trees. Under
these trees were hundreds of black women, young and old, with their fish
and fowls, and fruit and bread, their yams and sweet potatoes, their
oranges and limes and plantains. They had walked in from the country
five or ten miles before sunrise with their loaded baskets on their
heads. They would walk back at night with flour or salt fish, or oil, or
whatever they happened to want. I did not see a single sullen face among
them. Their figures were unconscious of lacing, and their feet of the
monstrosities which we call shoes. They moved with the lightness and
elasticity of leopards. I thought that I had never seen in any drawing
room in London so many perfectly graceful forms. They could not mend
their faces, but even in some of these there was a swarthy beauty. The
hair was hopeless, and they knew it, but they turn the defect