JAMAICA HOUSES. 
157 
capability of receiving a high polish, which is given 
and maintained with great labour. Scarcely any- 
thing surprises an European more than to tread on 
floors as beautifully polished as the flnest tables of 
our drawing rooms.. The mode in which the gloss is 
daily renewed is curious : if the visitor should peep 
out of his bedroom about dawn of day, he would see 
some half a dozen sable handmaids on their knees in 
the middle of the floor, with a great tray full of sour 
oranges cut in halves. Each maid takes a half- 
orange, and rubs the floor with it until its juice is 
exhausted ; it is then thrown aside, and the process 
is continued with another. When the whole floor has 
been thus rubbed with orange-juice, it is vigorously 
scrubbed with the half of a cocoa-nut husk, the rough 
fibres of which, acting as a stiff brush, soon impart 
such a reflective power to the hard wood, as would 
put Day and Martin into ecstacies. After the last 
touch is given, it is amusing to see the precautions 
taken by the waiting maids to avoid dimming its 
beauty. The preparation for breakfast, and various 
other duties, performed by servants with bare feet, 
would seem to make it impossible that the floor 
should remain untarnished, but it does ; and it is 
thus managed. The girl takes two pieces of linen 
cloth, and sets one foot upon each ; then with her 
great toe and its next neighbour, she grasps a pinch 
of the cloth (for the negroes’ toes are almost as 
effective as fingers), and thus scuffles about the floor; 
practice enabling them to do this with facility, 
without their feet ever coming into contact with 
the wood. 
