CHAPTER XIII.

BEFORE daylight, my host summoned me to the sea-beach, where ten or twelve negroes, male and female, were preparing to haul the seine. While they were thus employed, I asked the Radical how he could be so antiliberal or anti-national as to have a fishingnet from England. He owned the net was English; but pointing to some plantains, and then directing my attention to the rope with which the net was hauled, he observed that the materials were not wanting to have made the net as well as the rope.

An immense quantity of fish were caught, sufficient to fill a canoe: goggle-eyed jacks, yellow tails, baracootas, silver oldwives, trunk fish, and others with no less barbarous names. A few of the most delicate were selected for breakfast, which was served under

the shade of the sea-side grape tree (coccoloba uvifera) where we had the company of Mr. Mathews' family. After this, the negroes came in a body and took away as much fish as they pleased, not less than a bushel a-piece, and yet left many on the shore. Some were hung up to dry and others were salted. The negroes carry them into the interior, and exchange them for jerked hog, on their own account. I heard Abdallah, who had come to see the net drawn, conversing in his native tongue, or rather in a tongue I did not understand, with one of the negroes belonging to the Pen. On my inquiring about the subject of their discourse, which seemed to interest them much, Abdallah told me they had been acquaintances in Houssa, where his friend lived by stealing horses, until he happened to be caught himself, and was transported hither.

Abbesneezer was so struck with the quantity of fish caught, that he began to moralize on it, notwithstanding the lesson he had so lately received. He talked about Jonah and the whale, which, he said, he lived upon for three days, till it made him cast him up in Spanish Town. I called to the coxcomb to hold

his peace; but he replied that I would not believe miracles, and that he was the cause of so much fish being caught; that he dreamt it the night before: he wanted to convert and baptize Abdallah and his friend, who threatened to fling him into the sea, that he might live on fish for three days.

As soon as breakfast was over, I ordered my horses and decamped. Mr. Mathews cautioned me, at parting, against the sanchy, as he called my valet; adding, that however well he might serve me, a saint was like a mule, and that dead or alive he would play me a trick at last; however, he said, your Turk there, Abdallah, may perhaps neutralize the mischief of the enthusiast.

I rode gently on towards Black River, by a sandy road, with the sea on my right hand, having a logwood hedge to pass for three or four miles, which reminded me of the hawthorn fences in England: on the left was a picturesque chain of mountains. My course lay through pastures adorned with numberless fan palms; these are eighty, ninety, or a hundred feet high, the whole length being nearly of the same diameter, and the summit consists of a circular cluster of leaves, each

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leaf about four feet wide, spread out like a fan. The pith of this, as of most of the palms, is convertible into sago. The shafts are fit for sea piles, and, when split, form excellent gutters.

Abdal

I saw several canary-birds, yellowish, as in England, which sang very sweetly; but while my ears were charmed, my nose was offended by a mighty odour from the dead carcass of a mule, on which a score of johncrows were holding an inquest; 'some were stationed in the trees, others were wheeling about, some tugging at the carcass. lah told me they were called john-crows or carrion-crows till lately; but now, he said, they were called amen-preachers, because they finished everything, and eat it all up. 1 Those in the trees had a very awful appearance, with bare red heads and purple gills, their dirty black plumage increasing the disgust they excited by their greedy and stupid looks, stupid from repletion. I could not help fancying them into the fat, rubicund, and voracious-looking monks I had often seen in Italy and elsewhere.

I overtook a girl on the road with a veil over her face, which I thought at first to be

lace, but found to be made of the bark of a tree; it is drawn out by the hand while the bark is green, and has a very pretty effect. As this lass was on her road to Black River, I slackened my pace for the pleasure of conversing with her. She was mounted on an ambling pony, and was attended by a negro boy on foot; her business, as I afterwards learnt, was to lodge a complaint against a white man for having threatened and even offered violence to her person. She informed me likewise of the attempted rebellion on the other side of the Island, and of seven or eight persons (slaves) being hanged at Port Maria. When I asked her if she knew why they had rebelled, she said distinctly, that it was for the freedom which King George had promised them, and the planters withheld. She was herself free, and the negro boy was her slave. At the same time, she thought it very wicked and very unlike a gentleman, for the King George to take away people's negroes without paying for them. I asked her if she were not aware that the King only wished to please some of his subjects; those that prayed very much, and were virtuous and holy good men, and were entitled to ask as a favour, or almost