ne understood better than Mr. M---- the troubles and dangers of the
colony, but he was inclined, perhaps by temperament, perhaps by
knowledge, to take a cheerful view of things. For the present at least
he did not think that there was anything serious to be feared. The
finances, of which he had the best means of judging, were in tolerable
condition. The debt was considerable, but more than half of it was
represented by a railway. If sugar was languishing, the fruit trade with
the United States was growing with the liveliest rapidity. Planters and
merchants were not making fortunes, but business went on. The shares in
the Colonial Bank were not at a high quotation, but the securities were
sound, the shareholders got good dividends, and eight and ten per cent.
was the interest charged on loans. High interest might be a good sign or
a bad one. Anyway Mr. M---- could not see that there was much to be
afraid of in Jamaica. There had been bad times before, and they had
survived notwithstanding. He was a man of business, and talked himself
little about politics. As it had been, so it would be again.

In his absence at his work I found friends in the neighbourhood who were
all attention and politeness. One took me to see my acquaintances at the
camp again. Another drove me about, showed me the house where Scott had
lived, the author of 'Tom Cringle.' One round in particular left a
distinct impression. It was through a forest which had once been a
flourishing sugar estate. Deep among the trees were the ruins of an
aqueduct which had brought water to the mill, now overgrown and
crumbling. The time had not been long as we count time in the history of
nations, but there had been enough for the arches to fall in, the stream
to return to its native bed, the tropical vegetation to spring up in its
wild luxuriance and bury in shade the ruins of a past civilisation.

I fell in with interesting persons who talked metaphysics and theology
with me, though one would not have expected it in Jamaica. In this
strange age of ours the spiritual atmosphere is more confused than at
any period during the last eighteen hundred years. Men's hearts are
failing them for fear, not knowing any longer where to rest. We look
this way and that way, and catch at one another like drowning men. Go
where you will, you find the same phenomena. Science grows, and
observers are adding daily to our knowledge of the nature and structure
of the material universe, but