GRANT'S TOWN. 55 
wilts, and from the dews and showers that come down from 
heaven for their sustenance, until a dense and seemingly impen- 
etrable forest, fast anchored to the rocks, and a wild tangle of 
vines and bushes, blushing with flowers that perfume the air, 
cover all the apparent sterility of nature with a beauty which 
seems like childhood’s dreams of fairy land. 
The houses of the negroes are built mostly of wood, but some 
have limestone walls, while the roofs are covered—some with 
shingles and others with a thatching of palmetto leaves. It is 
rare to see a house with glass windows—board shutters take the 
place of sashes, and fire-places and chimneys are unknown. A 
little fire out doors, for cooking, made of dead wood gathered in 
the forest or thickets, which is transported in little bundles upon 
the heads of women and children, is all that is required in this 
warm climate. The walls are not sheathed or plastered, and the 
furniture of the houses is of the rudest and most simple kind. 
The colored people in the day time live out of doors in the open _ 
air, so that in riding through these suburbs, the whole popula- 
tion comes under review. Nobody appears to be at work. In 
sunshine or shadow, having nothing and wanting nothing, taking 
no thought for to-morrow, they live on like the birds from day to 
day, not needing to take lessons of the ant nor of any other of 
the world’s greedy and grasping toilers. All are merry, light- 
hearted and joyous; nobody frets or scolds; not a child cries; and 
the dogs, crouching beside their indolent masters, are literally 
too lazy to bark. All the thieving is of the petty kind—it would 
be too much like work to plan and execute robbery on a large 
scale—and what is the use of committing burglaries and grand 
larcenies when a little sugar-cane or a handful of fruit fills to 
overflowing the measure of their wants! There are no trades- 
unions, no commercial revulsions, and no strikes for higher 
wages. No heads ache from the pressing weight of the crowns 
