22 
FROM TENERIFFE TO BERMUDAS. 
with black top-knots moving along the beach. These were the negro women, and this 
reminded us that St. Thomas has shared in the general ruin of the West Indian Islands 
the price paid for the emancipation of the slaves. The land is reverting to its primitive 
state of jungle; and the free negro, when pressed by want, crowds into the seaports to 
assist in the coaling of the steamers which trade between Europe and Central America. 
The narrow tongue of land which formerly separated the Gregarie Channel from the 
harbour proper of St. Thomas has been cut through to give free egress to the contaminated 
waters of the latter; by which operation, we were assured, the sanitary condition of this port, 
once notorious for its outbreaks of yellow fever, has been greatly ameliorated. 
The King’s Wharf, our usual landing-place, was about a mile distant, but sometimes 
we stepped on shore opposite our anchorage, 
and, proceeding on foot, entered the town by 
a long suburb inhabited by negroes. Loung¬ 
ing idly about the doors of their little wooden 
huts, the latter were always ready to receive 
“ Massa ” with that smile free of all worldly 
care so characteristic of their race. They 
seemed to belong to an inferior type when 
compared with the negroes we met after¬ 
wards in Bermudas, the Cape de Verde 
Islands, and Brazil ; and their large mouths, 
with other decidedly animal features, deprived 
them of any claim to beauty in a European’s 
eye. The big eyes and less-developed traits of the children were more pleasant to look at, as 
the little ones gambolled about in our path. 
During our stay at Charlotte Amalia we enjoyed the hospitalities of Government House, 
NEGROES AT ST. THOMAS, 
