newspapers, in German as well as English-and an endless variety of circus and steamboat handbills. forming a sort of steamboat album, which may be of value hereafter. Add to this a negro servant, and a small dog, visible, and any quantity of rats and mice invisible, (though noisy,) and you have the whole of this room. While making this survey, and desiring very much to retire, mine host says "When you feel like laying down you can take that bed," pointing to the " high post" by the white curtain. This was a new position to me. I have always found a partition, though sometimes temporary and frail. However, there was no retreat. I had decided to stay, so I turned to my section of the room, and at the suggestion of the good lady, began if I wanted more clothes." I found enough, and was greatly relieved when I found only one sheet. From this I inferred what was intended by "laying down." Doffing coat and boots, I retired. 66 "to see P. S.-My bill for two nights' lodging and several meals is ninety cents! Notwithstanding the terms are reasonable, I caution the reader against wharf-boat entertainment. YE SHIP-BUILDERS OF ENGLAND. YE ship-builders of England, The battle or the breeze : The spirits of retrenchment Through you has found a grave. The costly ships of England For fire-wood yet may burn, Her shipwrights shall return. Which now merits every blow.-Punch. As soon as I was quiet, the mother began to look after her little ones, to see that they were safe and warm. John, what do you mean getting the clothes all off from George Washington? don't you do that again." Geo. W. wakes up-" Ma, John Wesley keeps a kicking me. John Wesley, you go to sleep, and don't you kick George Washington any more. Now be good boys and go sleepin." Some sort of a stew was in the stove, and presently out of the cradle the mother brings the youngest child, who is not a little disturbed by the change from the cradle to his mother's arms. "Clay want some pretty?" The child cries-the coaxing continues, but to no purpose-patience is gone. Now, Henry Clay, you must drink this.” Little 66 Harry" surrenders and all is quiet. Mother and child pass behind the curtain at my feet, wanting to sell spectacles in London, petitions the WATT.-A young man, (says Sir R. Kane,) and Huldah, the servant, alone remains. She lights corporation to allow him to open a little shop, withher pipe and smokes as if she enjoyed it. I sneeze out paying the fees of freedom, and he is refused. a little and she quits. I feel a movement at my He goes to Glasgow, and the corporation refuse feet, and if Huldah did not rob me of a straw bed, him there. He makes acquaintance with some she came very near it. This bed is thrown upon members of the university, who find him very intel the floor, the light is extinguished, and the crack-ligent, and permit him to open his shop within ling of the straw leads me to believe that Huldah, their walls. He does not sell spectacles and magie though a slave, is now free from the cares and toils lanterns enough to occupy all his time; he occupies of the day-free to look back upon her deeds and himself at intervals in taking asunder and re-makthoughts-free to lift up her heart to Him who He finds hath power to forgive all her errors, and to intro-ing all the machines he can come at. there are books on mechanics written in foreign duce her to that perfect freedom which the gospel languages; he borrows a dictionary, and learns promises. With such thoughts as these I go to those languages to read those books. The univer sleep. The morning dawns, and each in regular sity people wonder at him, and are fond of dropsuccession awakes from slumber and prepares for ping into his little room in the evenings, to tell him breakfast. what they are doing, and to look at the queer in On my return to the river, while waiting a boat, it was my pleasure to spend another night at this place, having as company two highly interesting and intelligent young ladies, and a gentleman. "Tis now morning, as mild and pleasant as May; we sit upon the wharf-boat, with our heads uncovered, and yet not too cool. The boys, who are named, as their father said, "after three of the greatest men ever in this country," are playing about the edge of this boat at the peril of their lives. Several times Geo. Washington has been overboard, and as often saved by those who were near at the time. John Wesley is nine years old and cannot read. No church in the town, no Sabbath school, and a day school only now and then. The ladies discover a steamer some four miles off. They protest against further letter-writing. I close to pay my bill and prepare for leaving in the approaching boat. struments he constructs. A machine in the university collection wants repairing, and he is employed. He makes it a new machine. The of Watt stands out before the world-the author of steam-engine is constructed; and the giant mind the industrial supremacy of this country, the herald of a new force of civilization. But was Watt educated? Where was he educated? At his own workshop, and in the best manner. Watt learned Latin when he wanted it for his business. He learned French and German; but these things were tools, not ends. He used them to promote his engineering plans, as he used lathes and levers. SONG. I. For the Living Age. LET me sing thee, while daylight is fleeing, Let me speak to thy innermost being Life's clouds round us often have gathered- Hand in hand the dark storms we have weathered, Comes twilight the tranquil and fair. Still brightly the starry eyes shine, II. Sing not to me in joyous tone: Sing! for the burthen of my life Sing! for my soul will answer thine And my whole heart give back to thee While her bony fingers, bent and knotted, And hung snow-wreaths round her naked beo, While the wind-flaws muttered on the cinders, Till the last spark fluttered and was dead. Life had fresher hopes when she was younger, And their clatter told the bead-roll dismal She was mother of the dead and scattered- With a courage which had never fitted Woes enough to mar a stouter breast. Raised her spirit from our chilly sphere. They were footsteps on her Jacob's Ladder; Angels to her were the Loves and Hopes Which had left her purified but sadder And they lured her to the emerald slopes Of that heaven, where Anguish never flashes Her red fire-whip-happy land where flowers Blossom over the volcanic ashes Of this blighted, blighting world of ours. All her power was a love of Goodness; All her wisdom was a mystic faith, That the rough world's jargoning and rudeness Turns to music at the gate of death. So she walked while feeble limbs allowed her, Knowing well that any stubborn grief She might meet with, would no more than crowd her To the wall whose opening was Relief. So she lived an anchoress of Sorrow, Lone and peaceful on the rocky slope, And when burning trials came, would borrow New fire of them for the lamp of Hope. When at last her palsied hand in groping Rattled tremulous at the gated tomb, Heaven flashed round her joys beyond her hoping, And her young soul gladdened into bloom. LETTERS FROM THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA. [This series of letters is begun in the New York Evening Post; probably from Mr. W. C. Bryant himself.] Kingston, Jan. 11th, 1850. It is not easy to imagine a more delightful series of sensations than one experiences in passing at the rate of two hundred and fifty miles a day, in a first class steamship like the Empire City, from the rigors of a northern winter, to the soft and genial temperature of the tropics. Eight days ago, we sailed from pier No. 3, leaving New York city behind us all ice-bound, her streets covered with snow and resonant with sleigh-bells. Furs and woollens enveloped her population, and thermometers of every sect and denomination were agreed that the weather was very cold. A good part of the following night I passed in walking the deck of the Empire City, without an overcoat of any kind, and was warm and comfortable, as if it were an evening in June. In two days more linen clothing was gladly substituted by the less prudent of our company, including myself, for flannels, and the pitch trickled from the seams of the ship, and from her rigging, under the unrelenting heat of a tropical sun. But the air was always pure, soft and exhilarating, the heat not in the least enervating, and the effect of the gradual transition was not unlike the delightful sensations of a warm bath, protracted through a series of days instead of minutes. No stimulants afford such delightful sensations. I had small occasion for sleep, to which I did not devote on an average more than three hours out of every twenty-four, nor did I suffer any inconvenience from the want of it. Philosophers could probably explain this very easily, by reference to the difference in the weight of the atmosphere, or to the more rapid motion of the earth near the equator, or in a variety of other ways, all equally beyond my comprehension. It satisfied me that with less than half my usual allowance of the "balmy," I always rose perfectly refreshed. In six days from the period of our departure we were entering the harbor of Port Royal, having made the voyage in less time than it had ever been made before. From the time we parted with our pilot off Sandy Hook until we stopped at Jamaica, our wheels never stopped. By night and by day, whether we were sleeping or waking, whether watching or dreaming, the massive engine beneath us, like an imprisoned giant, with arms of iron and breath of flame, toiled on without fatigue and without repose. The weather was uniformly fine, and all the incidents of the voyage conspired to make it pleasant. The interior accommodations of the Empire City are palatial. I enjoyed the exclusive use of a state room, most eligibly situated with a sitting-room adjacent, luxuriously furnished. Our table abounded with all the luxuries of the New York market, and our company was exceedingly pleasant in spite of all the trying familiarities to which one is exposed in the cabins of populous ships. The first land we made, after taking leave of the heights of Neversink, was the point of Mayaguana, about 1200 miles from New York. A dangerous coral reef which projects from the island gives this point some consequence, as it has been more fatal to navigators than any other point, I believe, among the West India Islands. It is a striking illustration of the triumphs of modern navigation that Capt. Wilson was able to calculate his courses with such accuracy, for a distance of 1200 miles, as to come within half a mile of the point, towards which he laid the course of his ship, when he took his last departure from Barnegat. We fortunately arrived at this point during daylight; had we reached it in the night we should have been compelled to lie-too, till morning, the channel is so narrow and tortuous. In passing it from the south, the captain says that he always keeps on, by night or day, for he is enabled to get a "departure," so recently, from the headlands of St. Domingo, that, in the absence of all currents, he can navigate the passage without difficulty, but in coming from the north, owing to the variety of currents which one encounters in the Atlantic, it is impossible for the navigator to calculate his position with such accuracy as to make the passage in the night safe. An error of half a mile in his reckoning might be fatal. At seven o'clock on the morning of the 10th we were boarded by a pilot, as we entered Kingston harbor. He was a mulatto, intelligent looking, and about 25 years of age. He seemed rather overcome by the good luck which had befallen him in getting so big a ship. He soon, however, recovered his self-possession, gave his orders to the man at the wheel, and conducted us safely up in front of Port Royal. Before the ship had fairly stopped we were surrounded with boats filled with negroes, some dressed decently and some indecently, and some not at all. They all talked at once, what they designed for English, but as it would have been unintelligible to me under the most favorable circumstances, of course it was like the apostle's preaching to the Greeks-foolishness. Some of the boats were filled with oranges, bananas and star-apples and other fruits, which our passengers were expected to purchase. The empty boats were waiting for a fare. All such as proposed to land at Jamaica, including myself, soon made a selection from the group, and disembarked ourselves and baggage with as little delay as possible. Before we reached the shore the steamer was ploughing her way again across the bay, on her route to Chagres. We were compelled to stop at Port Royal to have our baggage inspected by the custom-house officers before going over to Kingston. The revenue officers were mostly colored people. I saw but one white oarsman in any of the revenue boats, and in that one the coxswain was a colored man. The officer who examined our trunks is said to be a nephew of Lord Elgin. He did not appear to be very bright; his complexion was a little ambiguous, and his hair seemed to have belonged once to a negro, if it did not then. When the ceremony of inspection was over, we redistributed ourselves in our boat, and bore away for Kingston, about six miles distant, on the opposite side of the bay. We had four colored oarsmen, under the command of Commodore Brooks, himself a very black man with very white linen, whose broad pennant of red, with a white ball, swung at the mast-head, to indicate that he was senior officer of the port. He told me that he re ceived his commission from the Admiral on the station, and that no other boatmen were at liberty to raise the red flag but himself. I was amused at the style in which these pretensions were asserted, and asked him what he would do, if one were so irreverent as to appropriate his color. He said he would go and pull it down, but added that no one would dare to attempt such an outrage. I felt my capacity to realize the dignity of our commander gradually enlarging, and when he added that he had several other boats plying between Kingston and Port Royal, I was awed. Our boat was very well in its way, but the oars were a novelty. They consisted of two pieces. One a long pole, the entire length of the oar, of uniform size from end to end. The other was a board in the shape of an ordinary oar blade, which was spliced to the pole in three places, with a cord and nothing else." The oarsmen struck the water with the side of the blade to which the pole was attached, instead of the smooth side, out of respect to some principle of hydrodynamics, with which I was not familiar. Instead of tholepins they used a rope, tied to the side of the boat, through which the oar was passed, and by which it was detained near, if not in its place, when used. The commodore defended both these novelties with a force of logic which required nothing but a stupidity among his hearers corresponding with his own to render perfectly conclusive. He was about two hours getting us over to Kingston. During the voyage I had leisure to contemplate the striking scenery which bounds that city in the rear. A high range of hills, rising gradually to mountains, surrounds Kingston on all sides. These hills are indented, apparently, by the centurial washing of running waters, until they look as if some astringent had been poured over them in their days of formation, and corrugated their surface into its present shape. They were green, and, as I afterwards discovered, were cultivated and inhabited to their very summits. As we approached the shore, and the vegetation began to reveal itself, I realized for the first time that we were within the tropics. We have hot weather at the north, and custom-house officers and negroes-weather as hot, custom-house officers as troublesome, and negroes as black or yellow as any I had yet encountered, but I had never before seen the cocoa-nut and the plantain growing as I did now. Here, in the depth of winter, orange-trees were dropping their fruit, and the bananas were ready to be plucked; the lignum vitæ tree waved its luxuriant foliage, ornamented with a delicate blossom of surpassing beauty; and, in the distance, our eyes were directed to the sugar estates of the Caymanos, and on the mountains to the abandoned coffee estates belonging to the bankrupt Duke of Buckingham. I was most impatient to get on shore, that I might stray into the country and stare the wonders of tropical vegetation full in the face. Notwithstanding my impatience, I was compelled o submit to many delays. My largest trunk, which was handled by the coachman in New York without difficulty, engaged the devoted exertions of four negroes in the effort to draw it from the boat, which they effected by instalments, after turning it over, as they did every article of luggage, several times, and trying it in various ways and from opposite sides, as if to see if they could not, in some way, get the advantage of it. Finally, getting out of patience with them, I seized hold of the trunk and put it on the car myself, and would have felt infinite pleasure in kicking them all overboard, if I had supposed they had energy or wit enough to get ashore. There are no first class hotels at Kingston, and the best accommodations for travellers are to be found at boarding houses, of which there are two or three which compare with the others as warts compare with corns. To one of these I wended my way with my impedimenta, and entered into the enjoyment of a hospitality, which resembled that dispensed to strangers in New York-in no particular except the prices. They are all kept and served by colored people, who enjoy the princely prerogative which attaches only to indolent people and kings, entire immunity from all the penalties of lapsed time. They have no idea of doing anything within any specified period, and punctuality with them is a word, but not a thing. Of this, more hereafter. Kingston, Feb. 1st, 1850. My first impressions of Kingston are not favor able. It is well enough situated, on ground gradually rising from the sea, at the rate of about one hundred feet to the mile, and the mountains which bound it in the rear, about four miles distant, furnish a most desirable refuge from the extreme heats of summer, or to invalids who require a more braeing temperature occasionally than can be furnished below. In a drive of four hours, one may be transferred from an average temperature of eighty degrees to one of sixty. But the city of Kingston is a most undesirable residence. The streets are all quite narrow, and would scarcely be esteemed wide enough to answer the purposes of alleys in New York. The houses are all partially dilapidated, and of course old. Though I have been through nearly every street, I have not seen a single new house erecting, save the Insane Asylum, which, by the way, has been suspended for want of funds. A terrible fire laid a large portion of the city in ruins several years ago, and only a portion of the houses has been rebuilt. Such as have, are com monly only one story high and very mean. In the busiest parts of this city, and on every block, may be seen vacant lots, on which are crumbling the foundation walls of houses long in ruins. Rents are exceedingly low, less than half a fair interest on the cost of the buildings alone-while the vacant lots cannot be said to have any market value, there being no sales. There are several fine houses yet extant here, but they were all built many years ago, when the island was prosperous, and very few of them are " in repair." There is not a foot of street pavement, to my knowledge, in Kingston, and the streets are almost uniformly from one to three feet lower in the centre than at the sides. This is the result of spring rains, which wash down the mountains in torrents, and through the streets of the city to the river, oftentimes making such channels in the streets as to render them impassable. This periodical visitation was suggested to me, by a resident, as the reason for not paving the street walks. That may be a good reason for Jamaica people, but it would not be a sufficient one for Yankees, if they had to use the streets. They would either remove the mountains altogether, or make such terms with the rain as would induce it to use the highways to the ocean as not abusing them. Kingston contains about twenty thousand inhabitants at present, nine tenths of whom, at least, are colored. In walking the streets, one scarcely meets white persons as frequently as he would meet colored persons in New York city. The whites are mostly English, or of English descent. The proportion of Jews of all colors is fearfully great. I had never seen a black Jew before, and I was astonished to find how little the expression of the Israelitish profile was effected by color. My imagination could never have combined the sharp and cunning features of Isaac with the thick-lipped, careless, unthinking countenance of Cudjo; but nature has done it perfectly, if that can be called a combination in which the negro furnishes the color and the Jew all the rest of the expression. What will be the ultimate consequence of this corruption of the African blood, is a question which might occupy the attention of your Ethnographical Society as profitably, perhaps, as anything which it has recently pondered. Though Kingston is the principal port of the island, it has but little of the air of a commercial city. One looks and listens in vain for the noise of carts and the bustle of busy men; no one seems to be in a hurry; but few are doing anything; while the mass of the population are lounging about in idleness and rags. They have what they call the omnibus here, which is of the capacity and shape of four-wheeled cabs. These vehicles pursue no specific route, but carry their passengers to any part of the city for twenty-five cents, provided their starved horses are equal to the effort. for nothing. Those that were prowling about the streets of Spanishtown and Kingston, I presume, were of the latter class, for there is not a planter on the island probably, whom it would be more difficult to get any work out of, than from one of these. They subsist by begging altogether; they are not vicious, nor intemperate, nor troublesome particularly, except as beggars. In that calling they have a pertinacity before which a northern mendicant would grow pale. They will not be denied. They will stand perfectly still and look through a window from the street for a quarter of an hour, if not driven away, with their imploring eyes fixed upon you, like a stricken deer, without saying a word, or moving a muscle. They act as if it were no disgrace for them to beg, as if the least indemnification which they are entitled to expect, for the outrage perpetrated upon them in bringing them from their distant homes to this strange island, is a daily supply of their few and cheap necessities as they call for them. showed no positive suffering, I never saw one look happy. Each face seemed to be constantly telling the unhappy story of their woes, and like fragments of a broken mirror, each reflecting in all its hateful proportions the national outrage of which they are the victims. I confess that their begging did not leave upon I never saw a place so abounding in old people my mind the impression produced by ordinary and babies. Almost every woman you meet, and mendicancy. They do not look as if they ought of whatever age, has an infant in her arms or some-to work. I never saw one smile, and though they where about her, while the streets are littered with children more advanced. So of aged persons, they are far more abundant than in our northern cities. This may be attributed to the mildness of the weather, which enables the old people to be in the streets at all seasons, without exposing them to those infirmities with which our northern climates afflict the aged. But the fact probably is, THE OYSTER TRADE.-Few people have any idea that while in the north the poor aged people die of of the immensity of the oyster business done in neglect, privation and exposure, as soon as they the United States. The Chesapeake and Delaware become too infirm to provide for all the wants occa- bay oysters go all over the world, and we learn, sioned by our trying climate, and long, cold win- from a late number of the Baltimore Sun, that one ters, in Jamaica the same class do not reach any establishment in that city, during the oyster season, such boundary until much more advanced in years. keeps twenty-five men constantly opening the They have no cold weather; they can easily get all shells, and they sometimes open five hundred galthey require for their support, if they can walk, so lons a day, which are all designed for exportation. abundant are the fruits and edible productions of The oysters are put up in cans, in their own liquor, the island; and though the ties which bind the which are made air-tight and hermetically sealed; parent and child together are generally much more they are warranted to keep fresh in any climate. frail here than at the north, and though the aged Five men are kept constantly employed in making rarely depend upon their children for any assist-the cans. The oysters are sent principally to the ance, yet the means of subsistence are so much more accessible, that one never hears of a person contracting disease, or suffering very seriously for want of food. Western States, but considerable quantities are sent to the West Indies, South America, and some have been even sent to China. On Saturday week-the first day of the oysterI here beheld, for the first time, a class of beings taking season in Fairhaven river-six or seven of whom we have heard much, and for whom I hundred boats were ready for operation with the have felt considerable interest. I refer to the sunrise. The striking of the bell in the brick Coolies, imported by the British government to church was the signal to begin, and soon all was take the place of the faineant negroes, when the stir and commotion amongst men and shell-fish. apprenticeship system was abolished. Those that During the day between thirty and forty thousand I saw were wandering about the streets, dressed hushels of oysters were taken, which, from the rather tastefully, but always meanly, and usually fact of their having been undisturbed for two years, carrying over their shoulder a sort of chiffionier's were unusually large and very fine. Some boats sack, in which they threw whatever refuse stuff took from seventy-five to one hundred bushels each, they found in the streets, or received as charity. and some few went much above this quantity. Their figures are generally superb, and their east-Transient oystermen sold their products at the bank ern costume, to which they adhere as far as their of the river, for 20 and 25 cents per bushel, while poverty will permit of any clothing, sets off their those who make oystering" a regular business, lithe and graceful forms to great advantage. Their preferred to hold on for a speculation. faces are almost uniformly of the finest classic mould, and illuminated by pairs of those dark, swimming, and propitiatory eyes, which exhaust the language of tenderness and passion at a glance. But they are the most inveterate mendicants on the island. It is said that those brought from the interior of India are faithful and efficient workmen, while those from Calcutta and its vicinity are good A SCOTCH STOIC.—“ Ah! John, you won't have me much longer. I shall never leave this bed alive."" Please thee-self, Betty, and the 'll please me," returned John, with great equanimity. "I have been a good wife to you, John," persisted the dying woman. Middlin', Betty, middlin',' responded the matter-of-fact husband. 66 |