dle?' I asked. 'Never, never,' he said; 'no, no: we do not permit
anyone to be idle.'

My stay with Colonel J---- was drawing to a close; one great festivity
was impending, which I wished to avoid; but the gracious lady insisted
that I must remain. There was to be a ball, and all the neighbourhood
was invited. Pretty it was sure to be. Windows and doors, galleries and
passages, would be all open. The gardens would be lighted up, and the
guests could spread as they pleased. Brilliant it all was; more
brilliant than you would see in our larger colonies. A ball in Sydney or
Melbourne is like a ball in the north of England or in New York. There
are the young men in black coats, and there are brightly dressed young
ladies for them to dance with. The chaperons sit along the walls; the
elderly gentlemen withdraw to the card room. Here all was different. The
black coats in the ball at Jamaica were on the backs of old or
middle-aged men, and, except Government officials, there was hardly a
young man present in civilian dress. The rooms glittered with scarlet
and white and blue and gold lace. The officers were there from the
garrison and the fleet; but of men of business, of professional men,
merchants, planters, lawyers, &c. there were only those who had grown up
to middle age in the island, whose fortunes, bad or good, were bound up
with it. When these were gone, it seemed as if there would be no one to
succeed them. The coveted heirs of great estates were no longer to be
found for mothers to angle after. The trades and professions in Kingston
had ceased to offer the prospect of an income to younger brothers who
had to make their own way. For 250 years generations of Englishmen had
followed one upon another, but we seemed to have come to the last. Of
gentlemen unconnected with the public service, under thirty-five or
forty, there were few to be seen, they were seeking their fortunes
elsewhere. The English interest in Jamaica is still a considerable
thing. The English flag flies over Government House, and no one so far
wishes to remove it. But the British population is scanty and refuses to
grow. Ships and regiments come and go, and officers and State employes
make what appears to be a brilliant society. But it is in appearance
only. The station is no longer a favourite one. They are gone, those
pleasant gentry whose country houses were the paradise of _middies_
sixty years ago. All is changed, even to the officers themselves. Th