396 ' ISLES OF SUMMER. 



jects (mostly colored) required better than we did, and that pos- 

 sibly prof ound 23olitical Avisdom existed, though concealed in acts 

 that to plain democratic eyes appeared ludicrously egotistical and 

 vain. 



An old author states that ''the general character of the West 

 Indians is extremely pleasing to strangers. They are frank, lively 

 and generous, and hospitality is carried to an extreme which is 

 unknown in England; and there are few persons, we believe, who 

 have ever visited these islands who have not separated from many 

 of the inhabitants with regret." Speaking of the people of 

 Kingston in Jamaica he says: ''It is their pride to send away 

 their guests so mellow as to be scarcely able to find their way. 

 On this account much extraordinary attention is paid to the roads 

 in Barbadoes." "The streets of Jamaica may almost be said to 

 be paved with glass bottles," How many of these bottles had 

 done service in "entertaining angels unawares," is among the 

 matters mysterious and unknown. The miles of stone walls 

 which enclose the private grounds of the jioople of Nassau, are 

 to a large extent surmounted by the broken fragments of glass 

 bottles, laid in mortar; the broken glass is strongly suggestive 

 of the convivial habits of Nassau in the earlier times. One would 

 suppose it extremely unwise to engraft the habits of the English 

 aristocracy, who are accustomed to raise the damp and chilly fogs 

 which envelope them with the contents of the bottle, upon the 

 customs of a people who live in an atmosphere of almost tropical 

 heat. But the leaders of fashion in Nassau arc not only extremely 

 loyal to their most excellent queen, but seem to aspire in every 

 way to mould their habits and conform their lives to English 

 models, without any regard to the wide differences which exist in 

 all the circumstances which surround them. We should antici- 

 pate that, as a natural and necessary consequence, a rapid wasting 

 of all the vital energies of mind and 1)ody, and a material short- 

 ening of the term of human life. 



