only to
see his brother mortals making their corner of this planet into an
orderly and rational home, had better choose some other object for his
pilgrimage.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Tortoise Islands; the buccaneers' head quarters.

CHAPTER XXI.

Return to Jamaica--Cherry Garden again--Black servants--Social
conditions--Sir Henry Norman--King's House once more--Negro
suffrage--The will of the people--The Irish python--Conditions of
colonial union--Oratory and statesmanship.

I had to return to Jamaica from Cuba to meet the mail to England. My
second stay could be but brief. For the short time that was allowed me I
went back to my hospitable friends at Cherry Garden, which is an oasis
in the wilderness. In the heads of the family there was cultivation and
simplicity and sense. There was a home life with its quiet occupations
and enjoyments--serious when seriousness was needed, light and bright in
the ordinary routine of existence. The black domestics, far unlike the
children of liberty whom I had left at Port au Prince, had caught their
tone from their master and mistress, and were low-voiced, humorous, and
pleasant to talk with. So perfect were they in their several capacities,
that, like the girls at Government House at Dominica, I would have liked
to pack them in my portmanteau and carry them home. The black butler
received me on my arrival as an old friend. He brought me a pair of
boots which I had left behind me on my first visit; he told me 'the
female' had found them. The lady of the house took me out for a drive
with her. The coachman half-upset us into a ditch, and we narrowly
escaped being pitched into a ravine. The dusky creature insisted
pathetically that it was not his fault, nor the horse's fault. His ebony
wife had left him for a week's visit to a friend, and his wits had gone
after her. Of course he was forgiven. Cherry Garden was a genuine
homestead, a very menagerie of domestic animals of all sorts and breeds.
Horses loitered under the shade of the mangoes; cows, asses, dogs,
turkeys, cocks and hens, geese, guinea fowl and pea fowl lounged and
strutted about the paddocks. In the grey of the morning they held their
concerts; the asses brayed, the dogs barked, the turkeys gobbled, and
the pea fowl screamed. It was enough to waken the seven sleepers, but
the noises seemed so home-like and natural that they mixed pleasantly in
one's dreams. One morning, after they had been holding a