CHAP. I.] COOLIES IN THE WEST INDIES. 21 



excitement and more rapid motion, and being slower when in 

 comparative rest, yet on the whole preserving a remarkable 

 uniformity of action. Nor can any one in full health and vigor 

 be more unconscious of the rapid contractions and dilatations of 

 the heart, than are nearly all the inmates of the steam-ship of 

 the complicated works and movements of the machinery, on the 

 accuracy of which their progress and safety depends. 



In the course of the last twelve months, the steamers on this 

 line have sometimes taken as much as seventeen, and even 

 twenty-one days, to make their passage against head winds by 

 Halifax, to Boston ; but the comparative advantage of steam 

 power is never more evident than at the period of the most 

 tedious voyages, the liners having required seventy days or more 

 to cross in corresponding seasons. 



During the passage we had some animated discussions in the 

 saloon on the grand experiment now making by the British 

 government, of importing Coolies, or Hindoo emigrants, from the 

 Deccan into the West Indies, to make up for the deiiciency of 

 Negro labor consequent on the emancipation of the slaves. We 

 had on board a Liverpool merchant, who had a large contract 

 for conveying these Coolies across the ocean, and who told us 

 that more than forty ships would be employed this year (1845) 

 in carrying each 300 Hindoo laborers to Jamaica, at the cost of 

 lG per head, and that he should sell the casks, which con 

 tained the water for their drink, for the sugar trade in the West 

 Indies. The New Englanders on board wished to know how 

 far this proceeding differed from a new slave trade. It was 

 explained to them that the emigrants were starving in their own 

 country ; that the act was a voluntary one on their part ; and 

 that, after a short term of years, the government was bound to 

 give them a free passage back to their native country. Of this 

 privilege many, after saving a sum of money, had actually 

 availed themselves. It was also alleged that they made good 

 agricultural laborers in a tropical climate. The Americans 

 replied, that to introduce into any colony two distinct races, 

 having different languages and religions, such as Negroes and 

 Hindoos, is a curse of the greatest magnitude, and of the most 



