t from Africa, but they have been nourished by slavery, until it seems
almost impossible to eradicate them. I am happy to say, however, that
the young people who have been subjected to the best influences, exhibit
already the virtues of public spirit and faithfulness to a very
gratifying degree. The trouble is that they are a minority of the whole.
And until the character of the negroes can be so elevated as to bring
them to put some confidence in one another, they may improve in
individual industry, as they manifestly are improving, but the benefits
resulting from combined action can be enjoyed only in a very limited
measure. Even now two black men can hardly own so much as a small sugar
mill in common. They are almost sure to quarrel over the division of the
profits. The consequence is, that, whereas they might have neighborhood
mills and sugar works of the best quality at much less expense, now,
where the small settlers raise the cane, each man must have his little
mill and boilers to himself, at all the extra cost of money and labor
that it occasions. And so of savings banks and associations for
procuring medical aid, and a thousand other objects of public utility,
without which a people must remain in the rudest state. Fortunately,
however, the negro is strongly disposed to worship, and the church, that
society out of which a thousand other societies have sprung, has a
strong hold upon him. Under the shelter of that, many other beneficent
associations will doubtless grow up.

But if rose-colored accounts of the freed negro are to be dismissed
unceremoniously, on the other hand, the malignant representations which
Mr. Carlyle seems to find such a relish in believing deserve to be
branded as both false and wicked. His mythical negro, up to the ears in
'pumpkin,' working half an hour a day, and not to be tempted by love or
money to work more, would have been, during my whole residence in the
island, as great a curiosity to me as an ornithorhynchus. Doubtless
something approaching to the phenomenon can be found; for a young
Scotchman, a friend of mine, who was appointed to take the census of a
secluded district, came to me after visiting it, and gave me an account
of the people he had found in the bush, answering pretty nearly to Mr.
Carlyle's description. But though he had been in the island from a boy,
he spoke of it with something of the surprise attending a new discovery.
I should state, however, that my residence w