JAMAICA HOUSES. 157 



capability of receiving a high polish, which is given 

 and maintained with great labour. Scarcely any- 

 thing surprises an European more than to tread on 

 floors as beautifully polished as the finest tables of 

 our drawing rooms. The' mode in which the gloss is 

 daily renewed is curious : if the visitor should peep 

 out of his bedroom about dawn of day, he would see 

 some half a dozen sable handmaids on their knees in 

 the middle of the floor, with a great tray full of sour 

 oranges cut in halves. Each maid takes a half- 

 orange, and rubs the floor with it until its juice is 

 exhausted ; it is then thrown aside, and the process 

 is continued with another. When the whole floor has 

 been thus rubbed with orange-juice, it is vigorously 

 scrubbed with the half of a cocoa-nut husk, the rough 

 fibres of which, acting as a stifi" brush, soon impart 

 such a reflective power to the hard wood, as would 

 put Day and Martin into ecstacies. After the last 

 touch is given, it is amusing to see the precautions 

 taken by the waiting maids to avoid dimming its 

 beauty. The preparation for breakfast, and various 

 other duties, performed by servants with bare feet, 

 would seem to make it impossible that the floor 

 should remain untarnished, but it does ; and it is 

 thus managed. The girl takes two pieces of linen 

 cloth, and sets one foot upon each ; then with her 

 great toe and its next neighbour, she grasps a pinch 

 of the cloth (for the negroes' toes are almost as 

 effective as fingers), and thus scuffles about the floor; 

 practice enabling them to do this with facility, 

 without their feet ever coming into contact with 

 the wood. 



