or freedom, and the
same conviction in the community that the people will, if at all
affected by it, be _less_ fit for emancipation in 1840 than they were in
1834. A short call at St. Christopher's confirmed these views in our
minds, so far as that island is concerned.

While in Barbadoes, we had repeated interviews with gentlemen who were
well acquainted with the adjacent islands, St. Lucia, St. Vincent's,
Grenada, &c.; one of whom was a proprietor of a sugar estate in St.
Vincent's; and they assured us that there was the same tranquillity
reigning in those islands which we saw in Barbadoes. Sir Evan McGregor,
who is the governor-general of the windward colonies, and of course
thoroughly informed respecting their internal state, gave us the same
assurances. From Mr. H., an American gentleman, a merchant of Barbadoes,
and formerly of Trinidad, we gathered similar information touching that
large and (compared with Barbadoes or Antigua) semi-barbarous island.

We learned enough from these authentic sources to satisfy ourselves that
the various degrees of intelligence in the several islands makes very
little difference in the actual results of abolition; but that in all
the colonies, conciliatory and equitable management has never failed to
secure industry and tranquillity.]

JAMAICA.

CHAPTER I.

KINGSTON.

Having drawn out in detail the results of abolition, and the working of
the apprenticeship system in Barbadoes, we shall spare the reader a
protracted account of Jamaica; but the importance of that colony, and
the fact that greater dissatisfaction on account of the abolition of
slavery has prevailed there than in all the other colonies together,
demand a careful statement of facts.

On landing in Jamaica, we pushed onward in our appropriate inquiries,
scarcely stopping to cast a glance at the towering mountains, with their
cloud-wreathed tops, and the valleys where sunshine and shade sleep side
by side--at the frowning precipices, made more awful by the impenetrable
forest-foliage which shrouds the abysses below, leaving the impression
of an ocean depth--at the broad lawns and magnificent savannahs glowing
in verdure and sunlight--at the princely estates and palace mansions--at
the luxuriant cultivation, and the sublime solitude of primeval forests,
where trees of every name, the mahogany, the boxwood, the rosewood, the
cedar, the palm, the fern, the bamboo, the cocoa, the breadfruit, the
mango, the almond