234 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
fortably ; two cents per day, I have heard it stated, 
will keep them in fish—the only article the poorest 
of them buy. In the mountains they have their pro- 
vision-grounds, where they cultivate yams, plantains, 
sweet potatoes, cassava, and bananas, and to which 
they devote every Saturday. Sunday, with them, is 
a day of recreation. Thus the estates get from their 
laborers but five half-worked days in a week. To the 
staple article of salt fish there should be added another 
which they purchase when impossible to be obtained 
otherwise —the native rum of the island, which is 
their stay and strength. 
The Coolies are even more frugal than the negroes, 
and soon acquire money enough to purchase goats and 
cattle, which they pasture in some obscure corner of 
the estate. Upon the expiration of their indentures, 
they flock at once to the towns, where, like the 
Portuguese, they set up small shops — proving in the 
end rather a detriment to the island than a benefit. 
Though by the terms of their contracts they are 
obliged to work six days in the week, none of them 
do, appropriating to themselves Saturday as a holiday. 
The labor question does not fall within the scope of 
this book, and I fear I have trenched upon ground I 
should not; but these remarks were suggested by see- 
ing my friend of Rutland Vale trying to persuade his 
own hired laborers to go into the field. Even after 
himself and his overseer had led the refractory Indian 
to the field and placed a hoe in his hand, he refused 
to work. It is between such fires as these that the 
planter is placed; and it is time some champion of 
their interests should appear, to place them in a proper 
light before the world. 
