FAR AND NEAR 



Just now I called the negro lazy, though that 

 is probably not strictly the right word. The negro 

 in Jamaica is childish, immature, void of any 

 serious purpose in life, rather than lazy. He is 

 haunted by no ideals : sufficient for the day are 

 the mangoes thereof, and why should he fret and 

 struggle? Those women forever upon the road, 

 making long marches with their burdens, were not 

 lazy; they were children that took life lightly and 

 carelessly. 



The price of labor is low in Jamaica, yet any- 

 thing is dear that costs more than it is worth, and 

 much of the low-priced labor is expensive. On one 

 of the plantations of the United Fruit Company I 

 saw a coolie cleaning the ground of grass and weeds 

 in an orange orchard with a big long-handled hoe 

 at a rate for a given area that was more than four 

 times the price I could have done it for with a horse 

 and cultivator. A vast deal of hand-work is done 

 where we use horses and machinery. 



Most of the road-making and road-mending 

 seems done by women and girls. They are the 

 real beasts of burden. They break up the stone and 

 carry it in bags upon their heads and dump it down 

 where it is wanted. One day I sat half an hour upon 

 the bank by the roadside, and got myself covered 

 with ticks, watching a woman raking the broken 

 otone in place, while my companion was photo- 

 graphing a big cottonwood-tree. 



276 



