280 A P BO VISION GROUND. 



beliiud liini ; grand-cliiklren better fed, better clothed, 

 better taudit than he, but his inferiors in intellect and 

 in manhood, because whatever they may be taaght they 

 cannot be taught by schooling to use their fingers and 

 their wits. I fear, therefore, that the average Englisli 

 labourer Avould not prosper here. He has not stamina 

 enough for the hard work of the sugar plantation. He 

 has not wit and handiness enough for the more delicate 

 work of a little spade-farm : and he would sink, as the 

 Xegro seems inclined to sink, into a mere grower of 

 food for himself; or take to drink as too manv of the 

 white immiorants to certain West Indian colonies did 

 thirty years ago and burn the life out of himself with 

 new rum. The Hindoo immigrant, on the other hand, 

 has been trained by long ages to a somewhat scientific 

 a^rriculture, and civilized into the want of manv luxuries 

 for which the Ncoto cares nothinc^; and it is to him 

 that we must look, I think, for a " petite culture " which 

 will do justice to the inexhaustible wealth of the West 

 Indian soil and climate. 



As for the house, which is embowered in the little Paradise 

 which I have been describing, I am sorry to say that it 

 is, in general, the merest wooden hut on stilts; the front 

 half altogether open and unwalled ; the back half boarded 

 up to form a single room, a passing glance into which 



