WEST INDIES, 
CHAP, V.] 
349 
The cottages of the negroes usually compose a 
•small village, the situation of which, for the sake 
of convenience and water, is commonly near the 
buildings in which the manufacture of sugar is con¬ 
ducted. They are seldom placed with much re¬ 
gard to order, but, being always intermingled with 
fruit trees, particularly the banana, the avocado- 
pear, and the orange, (the negroes’ own planting 
and property), they sometimes exhibit a pleasing 
and picturesque appearance. To affirm that they 
are very tolerable habitations, according to the idea 
which an untravelled Englishman would probably 
form of the world, were an insult to the reader 5 
but it may honestly be said, that allowing for the 
difference of climate, they far excel the cabins of 
the Scotch and Irish peasants as described by Mr. 
Young and other travellers. They are such, at least, 
as are commensurate to the desires and necessities 
of their inhabitants, who build them according to 
their own fancy both in size and shape, the master 
allowing the timber, and frequently permitting the 
estate’s carpenters to assist in the building. In ge¬ 
neral, a cottage for one negro and his wife, is from 
fifteen to twenty feet in length, and divided into 
two apartments. It is composed of hard posts dri¬ 
ven into the ground, and interlaced with whattles 
and plaister. The height from the ground to the 
plate being barely sufficient to admit the owner to 
walk in upright. The floor is of natural earth, 
which is commonly dry enough, and the roof thatch¬ 
ed with palm thatch, or the leaves of the cocoa- 
