Occasional Notes. 153 
Local Literature. — -From time to time it falls to our 
lot to record the production of new books under this 
heading. Generally these are books dealing with the 
colony itself, in some of its many aspects. But at pre- 
sent we propose just to notice two little books which, 
though their subject is not the colony, may be regarded 
as in very peculiar degree colonial productions. They 
are two small volumes of poems, only intended for private, 
circulation, the one, entitled " What you Will" and dated 
at Georgetown 1881, the other entitled " Abassa : a 
Play, and Poetical Pieces," dated at the same place 
but in 1883, These books have been made — made in 
most unusually comprehensive sense — by a young creole 
of the colony, who modestly desires to be mentioned 
only by the initials of W.M.E.P., to dispel the dreariness 
of a long illness. The writer is his own author, printer, 
publisher. Each little book, is, as far as printing is con- 
cerned, the work of six months, occupying four hours 
daily ; they were produced with a ' chase' of a size, and 
type sufficient, for the impression of only one page at a 
time, so that after each page was printed (there are 112 
in the one, 197 pages in the other book) the 'form' had 
to be broken up and the same type set for the next page, 
the maker within a few hours exercising the various 
duties of compositor, pressman, devil, proof-reader, edi- 
tor, et cet. As truly wonderful instances of persever- 
ance, and as products of a most happy inspiration for the 
driving away of the weariness of illness, these little books 
surely deserve warm words of praise. 
Extension of Cultivation in Dominica.-— In Dominica, 
as in British Guiana, there are some who advocate the 
U 
