214 EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER. 



The ground, too, has its colonies of them, forming towns and cities covering 

 many square yards. 



Again I move on, and at some little distance, — aye, is it possible! What 

 familiar sound is this that breaks* upon my ear? No, surely it cannot be in 

 the wild and lonely woods of South America! And yet there is no mistaking 

 tbat sound! It must be my old friend the itinerant knife and scissors 

 grinder! Imagination is now off at a gallop, and beautiful green lanes, 

 village greens, church spires, sweet retired valleys, and the lovely hills of 

 my beloved country fill the mind. To the right hand and left, backwards 

 and forwards, I intently gaze for the solution of my doubts; but nothing 

 human meets the eye. Down, down are all the sweet and thronging 

 thoughts of home; back comes the startling reality, and I find myself in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of a colony of black beetles, called scissor-grinders, 

 from the striking resemblance of their noise to that made by the personage 

 alluded to. 



The heat of the day and exercise together have produced thirst and 

 fatigue. I dismount, tie my horse to a tree, and plunge into the bush. A 

 short search brings me into the neighbourhood of the pine-apple, here 

 indigenous. I select one weighing about ten pounds, eat a few slices from 

 it to refresh my body and allay my thirst, throw the rest away, and am 

 again on my route to the church. 



I am located in an island about twenty miles 'long by two or three 

 broad, in the mouth of the Essequebo River — a noble stream, here about 

 thirty-five, some say fifty miles broad. Its course is many hundred miles 

 in the impenetrable forests of the unknown interior. The mouth of the 

 river is for many miles thickly studded with islands, some inhabited. The 

 one on which I reside is perfectly flat, and were it not for embankments, 

 would be under water at high tides. A great portion of it is what we call 

 bush, that is, an impenetrable wood. It produces most of the tropical fruits. 

 The roads are bad and narrow, and the country is intersected with dykes 

 for the conveyance of the cane, when cut, to the sugar-houses, in barges. 

 The staple commodity is sugar, which is produced here of the best kind, 

 from seventeen estates, which belong to proprietors who reside principally in 

 Europe. There are a few European mechanics and storekeepers, the remainder 

 of the population, between four and five thousand, entirely black. 



With regard to the lately emancipated class, I could write volumes, and 

 hope some day to enlighten a few of our very good people in England, who 

 so largely exert themselves in their favour, with no knowledge but from 

 most exaggerated statements of their condition. They are idle, deceitful, 

 most ignorant, untruthful, and very dishonest, and, above all, notoriously 

 ungrateful. Their wages are high, and half a week's work will earn them 

 sufficient for the support of the whole week, and, moreover, maintain them in 

 comfort unknown to an English labourer. They go into the field when they 

 please, and return when they please. The masters scarcely dare remonstrate, 

 for labour is so scarce that many estates are going out of cultivation." 



