all sailing in the same vessel._"

Being kindly invited by Captain Hamilton, during our interview with him
at the government house, to call on him and attend his court, we availed
ourselves of his invitation a few days afterwards. We left Bridgetown
after breakfast, and as it chanced to be Saturday, we had a fine
opportunity of seeing the people coming into market. They were strung
all along the road for six miles, so closely, that there was scarcely a
minute at any time in which we did not pass them. As far as the eye
could reach there were files of men and women, moving peaceably forward.
From the cross paths leading through the estates, the busy marketers
were pouring into the highway. To their heads as usual was committed the
safe conveyance of the various commodities. It was amusing to observe
the almost infinite diversity of products which loaded them. There were
sweet potatoes, yams, eddoes, Guinea and Indian corn, various fruits and
berries, vegetables, nuts, cakes, bottled beer and empty bottles,
bundles of sugar cane, bundles of fire wood, &c. &c. Here was one woman
(the majority were females, as usual with the marketers in these
islands) with a small black pig doubled up under her arm. Another girl
had a brood of young chickens, with nest, coop, and all, on her head.
Further along the road we were specially attracted by a woman who was
trudging with an immense turkey elevated on her head. He quite filled
the tray; head and tail projecting beyond its bounds. He advanced, as
was very proper, head foremost, and it was irresistibly laughable to see
him ever and anon stretch out his neck and peep under the tray, as
though he would discover by what manner of locomotive it was that he got
along so fast while his own legs were tied together.

Of the hundreds whom we past, there were very few who were not well
dressed, healthy, and apparently in good spirits. We saw nothing
indecorous, heard no vile language, and witnessed no violence.

About four miles from town, we observed on the side of the road a small
grove of shade trees. Numbers of the marketers were seated there, or
lying in the cool shade with their trays beside them. It seemed to be a
sort of rendezvous place, where those going to, and those returning from
town, occasionally halt for a time for the purpose of resting, and to
tell and hear news concerning the state of the market. And why should
not these travelling merchants have an exchange as well as the