and went on board — settling the export duties, under
direction of the seller, by giving a half dollar to the
official stationed on board, who pocketed it amidst
vehemently gesticulated protestations, which I took
to be a sort of mock battle between conscience and
duty; or it may be he deemed the bribe insufficient to
satisfy virtue so august. Leaving him to reconcile
matters as best he might I hurried to bed, and when
I awoke in the morning the lovely isle had vanished
like a dream, and we were far on our way toward
Jamaica, that is to say, the Land of Wood and
Water.
Kingston, where we touched for coals, should be the black man's paradise. A negro pilot pretended to guide our vessel into the harbor, a negro port- master pompously manipulated the mails, black shop- keepers importuned passers by, black hackmen clamored for a fare, black prostitutes smiled for cus- tomers, black fruit-venders and parrot-sellers crow^led the avenues leading from the wharf, dashing black dandies flourished their white-headed canes, squads of olack soldiers swelled in the Britisher's red coat, the regimental band which played in the park was com- posed of some fifty fine performers — black ; black women, about fifty in number, some of them young girls, did the coaling, carrying on their heads a tub or half barrel holding sixty pounds of coals, marching up and down the gang-plank with ease and alacrity, accompanying their apparently laborious duty with loud laughter, song, and dancing, while the men sat by and smoked and smiled approval. Swarms of polished ebony bipeds, male and female, perambulated the streets, smoking their long cigars, and familiarly cracking their rude jokes with the passengers. Race distinction, if there be any but such as is merely phy- sical, seems to be here reversed, the Avhite man, as a class, occupying about the position of the black man in other parts. Literally, a white man here
