296 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
jects (mostly colored) required better than we did, and that pos- 
sibly profound political wisdom existed, though concealed in acts 
that to plain democratic eyes appeared ludicrously egotistical and 
vain. 
An old author states that ‘the general character of the West 
Indians is extremely pleasing to strangers. They are frank, lively 
and generous, and hospitality is carried to an extreme which is 
unknown in England; and there are few persons, we believe, who 
have ever visited these islands who have not separated from many 
of the inhabitants with regret.” Speaking of the people of 
Kingston in Jamaica he says: “It is their pride to send away 
their guests so mellow as to be scarcely able to find their way. 
On this account much extraordinary aticntion is paid to the roads 
in Barbadoes.” ‘‘The streets of Jamaica may almost be said to 
be paved with glass bottles.” How many of these bottles had 
done service in ‘‘entertaining angels unawares,” is among the 
matters mysterious and unknown. The miles of stone walls 
which enclose the private grounds of the people of Nassau, are 
to a large extent surmounted by the broken fragments of glass 
bottles, laid in mortar; the broken glass is strongly suggestive 
of the convivial habits of Nassau in the earlier times. One would 
suppose it extremely unwise to engraft the habits of the English 
aristocracy, who are accustomed to raise the damp and chilly fogs 
which envelope them with the contents of the bottle, upon the 
customs of a people who live inan atmosphere of almost tropical 
heat. But the leaders of fashion in Nassau are not only extremely 
loyal to their most excellent queen, but seem to aspire in every 
way to mould their habits and conform their lives to English 
models, without any regard to the wide differences which exist in 
all the circumstances which surround them. We should antici- 
pate that, as a natural and necessary consequence, a rapid wasting 
of all the vital energies of mind and body, and a material short- 
ening of the term of human life. 
