6 SAN JOSEF. 



gentlemen, and those wlio wait for tliem at home, whether 

 in the city or the estates around, be real Ladies ? As for the 

 rest peace, plenty, perpetual sunnner, time to think and read 

 (for there are no daily papers in San Josef) and what 

 can man want more on earth ? So I thought more than 

 once, as I looked at San Josef nestling at the mouth of its 

 noble glen, and saiel to myself, If the tel<?graph cable were 

 but laid down the islands, as it will be in another year or 

 two, and one could hear a little more swiftly and loudly 

 the beating of the Great Mother's heart at home, then would 

 San Josef be about the most delectable spot which I have 

 ever seen for a cultivated and civilized man to live, and 

 work, and think, and die in. 



San Josef has had, nevertheless, its troubles and excite- 

 ments more than once since it defeated the Dutch. Even as 

 late as 1837, it was, for a few hours, in utter terror and 

 danger from a mutiny of free black recruits. Xo one in the 

 island, civil or military, seems to have been to blame for the 

 mishap. It was altogether OAving to the unwisdom of mili- 

 tary authoiities at home, who seem to have fancied that 

 they could transform, by a magical spurt of the pen, heathen 

 savages into British soldiers. 



The whole tragedy for tragedy it was is so curious, and 

 so illustrative of the Xegro character, and of the effects of 

 the slave trade, that I shall give it at length, as it stands in 



