ANDACOLLO LIMA PANAMA JAMAICA. 1 55 



Jamaica ten days^ and, as I was travelling about the 

 whole time,, I saw a considerable portion of the island. 

 I brought a letter of introduction to Mr. Nuiiez, whose 

 kindness to me during my stay was excessive. I visited 

 several plantations, and saw the processes of making 

 sugar, rum, &c. ; amongst others the Constant Spring 

 and Mona estates, which I was told were two of the 

 best-managed in the island; they each produce some- 

 thing like 300 hogsheads of sugar apiece. I believe 

 from 7Z. to 81. a hogshead is considered a fair profit to 

 the proprietor when worth 181. a hogshead; both these 

 estates are worked by steam power. I conversed with 

 many gentlemen on the slave question, and from what I 

 gathered from them I found that when sugar is low, free 

 labour is most remunerative — that is, supposing a mode- 

 rate amount can be obtained. In other words, if slavery 

 existed at the present time, with present prices, it would 

 entail a loss to the proprietors, because the expense of 

 keeping a large stock of slaves would exceed the profits 

 from the estate. But on the other hand, if sugar was, 

 say, 25Z. a hogshead, as it used to be, in that case a 

 slave estate would be infinitely more profitable than a 

 free one, as the proprietor of the former would be sure of 

 his labour, whereas the latter would not; indeed, the 

 higher price of sugar would militate rather than other- 

 wise against him, as, being compelled by the high price 

 of sugar to pay a higher day's wage, he would get less 

 work done than if he paid less. This will seem astonishing 

 to people who do not know the ^^ nigger ;" but this latter 

 gentleman cannot, by any possible means except com- 

 pulsion, be induced to work after he has made sufiicient 

 to supply his immediate wants — no, not even by greed of 

 dollars. Nothing pleases Pompey or Nero better than 



