COLORED JEWS. 



15 



Kingston contains about forty thousand inhabitants at 

 present, nine-tenths of whom, at least, are colored. In 

 walking the streets, one scarcely meets white persons as 

 frequently as he would meet colored persons in New York 

 city. The whites are mostly English, or of English descent. 

 The proportion of Jews of all colors is fearfully great. I 

 had never seen a black Jew before, and I was astonished 

 to find how little the expression of the Israeli tish profile 

 was effected by color. My imagination could never have 

 combined the sharp and cunning features of Isaac with the 

 thick lipped, careless, unthinking countenance of Cudjo ; 

 but nature has done it perfectly, if that can be called a 

 combination in which the negro furnishes the color and the 

 Jew all the rest of the expression. What will be the ulti- 

 mate consequence of this corruption of the African blood, 

 is a question over which the wise men of Jamaica are al- 

 ready beginning to scratch their heads. 



Though Kingston is the principal port of the island, it 

 has but little of the air of a commercial city. One looks 

 and listens in vain for the noise of carts and the bustle of 

 busy men ; no one seems to be in a hurry, but few are do- 

 ing anything, while the mass of the population are loung- 

 ing about in idleness and rags. The business is mostly 

 mercantile, and confined to three or four streets. Here 

 are no mechanics or mechanical operatives such as abound 

 in the larger cities of the north. Nearly all who do not 



