FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 201 



Fruit Company alone, not to mention tourist syndi- 

 cates in which Americans control the whole of the 

 capital, must be very large. But it is inconceivable 

 that Great Britain would, with the fleet at her 

 disposal, let anyone rob her Caribbean tiara of its 

 brightest jewel. Nor would the American regime 

 be tolerated within the island. It is worth bearing 

 in mind that the black population outnumbers the 

 white by at any rate five or six to one, and the 

 nigger has no use for an American occupation of the 

 island. He likes the American tourist, who throws 

 him a " quarter" where an Englishman would hand 

 him sixpence, but he likes an English master better 

 than an American boss. 



The Jamaica nigger is less of a problem than 

 his brother in the States, nevertheless he is a puzzle. 

 The visitor's first impression of the loquacious, 

 ceremonious coloured folk of Kingston, who 

 grotesquely mouth the apology for English that is 

 all that has been left to a race taught to forget its 

 own African gibberish, will not in all probability 

 be favourable. Yet some of the domestic servants 

 are cheery, good-natured and willing, and this 

 modified fealty is surprising in view of the abolition 

 of slavery and the immense preponderance of the 

 coloured population. In all probability the finest 

 of the negroes were the brave but ill-starred 

 Maroons, and who knows but, better handled by 

 some of the old-time Governors, they might have 

 made a law-abiding community and furnished 

 admirable recruits for the police ? Tactless treat- 

 ment and the fatal national policy of underestimat- 

 ing the enemy's strength gave them many an easy 

 victory over the regular troops, for even the 



