138 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS ON WEST INDIAN 

 SOCIETY, &c., No. III. 



NEITHER our law, commerce, nor literature has as yet flourished 

 enough to support a press here. The ancient office of scribe still 

 survives among us, and is occupied by our men of colour, who en- 

 gross, indifferently, eulogies or pasquinades on their betters. We 

 have a reading room, if indeed some half-dozen magazines and island 

 newspapers, filed in a hot-house whither no one cares to resort, may 

 be so termed : I nearly broke my leg in repairing thereto lately, by 

 slipping through a pit-fall set, Duenna like, to confine their negro 

 wenches from sleep-walking. But there is no Court Journal, Morn- 

 ing Post or such like here. 



Otherwise I might now be reading in them that the Captain-gene- 

 ral, here at present on his triennial visit, held a levee yesterday. 

 One, whom his Excellency delighteth to honor as colonial aid-de- 

 camp, presented each in his just grade, whether municipal, clerical, 

 in law or medicine. We were all graciously received ; more so indeed 

 than some bye-play among the governed might have deserved ; 

 although they have provided apartments for himself and suite. 

 Among these are two fair dames from Bath, the governor's lady and 

 her sister, come to star it. So far good ; the enormous rent paid for 

 those wooden cages here, called houses, making the compliment a 

 " pretty considerable one : " but then they have managed to with- 

 hold a mite of tribute money, not enough to defray the expences of 

 this visit, by Mr. Treasurer's opportunely quitting the island. These 

 petty annoyances proceed from private pique, and a zest in some 

 " for anarchy and common weal ; " rather than any deliberate public 

 acts; although our political state is seen in the absence of all means 

 to coerce them. Surely the Tortolians have not forgotten Colonel 

 Maxwell's liberality after the hurricane. 



I have been unable to join in any of the festivities, to which this 

 high presence has given rise, from ill health. This is in my case 

 the gradual effects of an over-heated atmosphere on the constitution, 

 as the only attack of fever has been a very mild one. The influence 

 of a torrid zone on me shews itself in general weakness a loss of 

 appetite, with bilious feelings after fare ever so light. And then 

 comes the attendant languor which inclines one to lounge all day 

 with the feet at their true Creole elevation. For my part, I strove to 

 parry this evil by exercise, going afloat with Last man on the lagoon, 

 which set whole bunches of white teeth on the grin from out their 

 sooty envelopes to see me at the oar. But it availed me not a whit. 



