History of the Caribs. 241 
a poor woman enceinte to discharge her load of wood. 
If the women have not prepared food when the men 
happen to be hungry, the latter simply go and eat with 
the others ; similarly with regard to painting and combing, 
if the wife is not there to help them, they expect others 
to render them these services. While the woman plants 
the cassava and cleans round the house the man will look 
after the children. 
After getting one or two crops from the field, they 
abandon it and make a new one. The trees are cut 
down ; only the small branches and leaves are burnt, the 
stumps and roots remaining in the earth, and the women 
plant their cassava, sweet potatoes, plantains, etc., where- 
ever it happens that there is room. 
Of any three canoes that they begin to make, two 
always get rotten or spoiled before they are finished, on 
account of their laziness ; and, though their fields are 
generally not large, they take such a long time over 
them, that very often one end is spoiled before the other 
is finished. This is true also of their houses and of all 
their work. The thatch on one side is often worn and 
spoiled before the other side is ready for the leaves. 
The old men always do the hardest work, and cut down 
the biggest trees. They only work one or two hour s 
daily, and never two days running. They are all very 
indolent, and it is not difficult to get them to observe 
God's commandment prohibiting work on Sunday. 
Every day they ask when Sunday will come. After 
returning from work they wash immediately and are 
combed. 
The women are not so lazy as the men, and are like 
slaves to them ; they plant the cassava, not with spades 
HH 
