104 TlMEHRI. 
still remains the staple of these Colonies, and no one but 
a mere Bookman would have dreamed of enquiring into 
the condition of men and things in the West Indies, 
without making an opportunity for observing life on 
plantations. Still less should a self-constituted special 
correspondent of the British Public have " declined to be 
taken over sugar mills," when the opportunity was made 
for him. Our Knight Errant was in quest of Wind 
Mills, not of Sugar Mills. 
Mr. FROUDE in his " drives about' observed that on 
market days the roads in lamaica were thick with coun- 
try women, who tramped into Kingston with baskets of 
fruit and vegetables on their heads. Here and there, 
astride of a mule or donkey, was a Black Man, pipe in 
mouth and carrying nothing (pp. 239, 263). It does not 
seem to have occurred to our author that these men 
might be riding into town on Estates' business, or on 
their own ; or, that they might have come from greater 
distances. On the contrary, he jumps to the conclusion 
that these men were lazy fellows who were taking it 
easily while the women, poor things, were the beasts of 
burden, slaving for these very wretches. So far from 
dreaming that in the thousands he met, the riders were 
going on quite a different errand to that of the women 
who went a-foot, he seems to have taken the former as 
" drivers', or foremen, of the latter, and he sets down that 
" the road was thronged with women plodding along with 
" their baskets on their heads, a single male on a donkey, 
" to each detachment of them, carrying nothing, like an 
" officer with a company of soldiers" (p. 263). On one 
market day it so befell that, as our Knight was taking a 
drive to Cherry Garden, he met numbers of these 
