SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 4;T 



to meet a person in the streets at evening without his pipe 

 or segar, and it is always considered a mark of attention, when 

 two people meet smoaking, to discharge a mouthful of smoak 

 at each other. 



But to return — we are leaving my Dutchman without his 

 breakfast, which, from its substantiality, will prove to be 

 the best meal he makes in the day. About eleven o'clock 

 he sits down to a table covered with various kinds of ani- 

 mal food, vegetable soups, and fruit. Pepper-pot, a soup 

 flavoured with the juice of the bitter cassada, and made pun- 

 gent with red and green pepper, is a constant concomitant. 

 Madeira wine and water, and malt liquor, are substituted for 

 tea : they are considered more strengthening and better adapt- 

 ed for the heat of the climate than the other, which generally 

 overheats, and is productive of bile. An hour is appropriated 

 for the gentleman to break his fast, after which he orders his 

 horse and pays a visit to some of his neighbours, or rides round 

 the estate to see the negroes at work, in either of which cases 

 a negro boy follows him on foot, with a pouch of segars and a 

 stick of fire. It is his constant practice whether on horseback, 

 walking, or riding in a carriage, to smoak, and be supplied 

 through the medium of a servant. He dines about three or 

 four o'clock, and after taking a portion of claret, retires for his 

 afternoon's nap, where he sleeps away the fatigues of the day. 

 He grows tired of the hammock towards evening, when he 



