ch, we grieve to learn
through Mr. Froude's pages, has, like the Bourbon family, not only
forgotten nothing, but, unfortunately for its own peace, learnt nothing
also.

BOOK I: ST. VINCENT

[44] The following are the words in which our traveller embodies the
main motive and purpose of his voyage:--

"My own chief desire was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what
they were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking
about...."

[45] But, alas, with the mercurialism of temperament in which he has
thought proper to indulge when only Negroes and Europeans not of
"Anglo-West Indian" tendencies were concerned, he jauntily threw to the
winds all the scruples and cautious minuteness which were essential to
the proper execution of his project. At Barbados, as we have seen, he
satisfies himself with sitting aloft, at a balcony-window, to
contemplate the movements of the sable throng below, of whose
character, moral and political, he nevertheless professes to have
become a trustworthy delineator. From the above-quoted account of his
impressions of the external traits and deportment of the Ethiopic folk
thus superficially gazed at, our author passes on to an analysis of
their mental and moral idiosyncrasies, and other intimate matters,
which the very silence of the book as to his method of ascertaining
them is a sufficient proof that his knowledge in their regard has not
been acquired directly and at first hand. Nor need we say that the
generally adverse cast of his verdicts on what he had been at no pains
to study for himself points to the "hostileness" of the witnesses whose
[46] testimony alone has formed the basis of his conclusions.
Throughout Mr. Froude's tour in the British Colonies his intercourse
was exclusively with "Anglo-West Indians," whose aversion to the Blacks
he has himself, perhaps they would think indiscreetly, placed on
record. In no instance do we find that he condescended to visit the
abode of any Negro, whether it was the mansion of a gentleman or the
hut of a peasant of that race. The whole tenor of the book indicates
his rigid adherence to this one-sided course, and suggests also that,
as a traveller, Mr. Froude considers maligning on hearsay to be just as
convenient as reporting facts elicited by personal investigation.
Proceed we, however, to strengthen our statement regarding his
definitive abandonment, and that without any apparent reason, of the
plan he had professedly