floor, and seems intended by nature to support the roof from which it originated. The variety of forms which this matter takes in its different situations and directions, renders this subterranean scenery strikingly grotesque, and, in some places, beautifully picturesque. The stalactites of the caves, when near the surface of the mountain, are of a brownish yellow colour; but, in descending towards the lower caves, they lose the darkness of their colour, which is, by degrees, shaded off to a pale yellow colour. Fragments are broken off, which, when polished, appear beautifully streaked and marbled. Stalactitical caverns are common in limestone rocks. The stalactites are formed by water filtering through the upper part or roof of the cave, and carrying with it calcareous or chalky matter, till it reaches the atmosphere, when the water evaporates and leaves the concrete substance, or stalactites, hanging from the roof; these forms having attained as great length as they can preserve, the chalky liquid continuing to flow, drops on the floor of the cave, and forms accumulations which are called stalagmites; by this neverending process stalactites meet stalagmites, and form natural pillars. SONG. My mother drives me from the door, And bids me wipe my tears; Saw Colin through the casement-light, Twice kiss me at the door. J. KINDER. STREET ARCHITECTURE. THE architecture of private buildings in London, is a subject which, until very lately, appears to have been considered unworthy of attention; architects and builders, although they employed great talent and skill in the erection of our churches and public edifices, seem to have thought anything suitable for the residence of a private individual. The consequence is that the metropolis presents a very strange medley of streets; some, for instance, consisting of fine, lofty houses with either stone or stucco fronts; in others, they are built solely of brick, and of all heights; while some parts of the town (Lambeth for instance,) are disgraced by wooden hovels, that appear not only dangerous to live in, but even to pass by. So great has been the neglect evinced towards private habitations, that even the residences of our nobility and gentry, with very few exceptions, consist of plain brick edifices, with nothing to distinguish them but their size. Within the last few years, however, great improvement has been made in the appearance of private dwellings, by stuccoing the fronts of them, and in many instances adorning them with pilasters, &c. and making each row uniform in appearance with the opposite side of the street. But this (with the exception of widening the streets,) is all that has been done by way of improvement; for, we unfortunately find, that what London dwellings have gained in appearance, they have lost in stability, modern houses seldom standing more than one-third of the time that old ones did; and that although new houses are built four and five stories high, no attention whatever has been paid to the safety of the inmates in case of fire; the roofs of most of the houses being constructed in sloping form, and consequently the only means of escape is to leap out of the window, which is certainly a very dangerous one! The improvements which I would suggest are, in the first place, to use less wood in the construction of houses, more particularly in those essential parts, the rafters and the stairs, the former of which might be constructed of iron, and the latter of stone. Houses built in this manner would, I know, cost nearly double the money in building; but, they would last treble the time that they do now. Another improvement would be to pass an act of parliament, specifying the height that all new houses should be built, three or four different heights being specified in the act for the convenience of inhabitants. But every separate square of houses should be of the same height, with flat and terraced roofs; this would certainly prevent the very frequent loss of life which now occurs from fire, and would likewise be a great convenience to the inhabitants for drying their linen, &c. By raising the balustrades on the top of the house to a moderate height, and carrying the chimneys farther back, those unsightly appendages to our dwellings would be hidden; and if each house had some description of garden on its roof, the shrubs rising above the balustrade or parapet, would not only add greatly to the beauty of the town, but would relieve the fatigue which the eye experiences, when nothing is to be seen but rows of windows and dingy brick buildings. FERNANDO. THE CURFEW BELL. (To the Editor.) IN your entertaining work I find the remarks of one or two Correspondents respecting the "Curfew Bell." In vol. xix. p. 253, Reginald observes, that few places retain this ancient custom; but I think, at every spot, town, or village, where once stood an abbey, monastery, or convent, (especially near the coast,) about the time, or before, or even a few centuries after, the Conqueror, this despotic law is continued, not as imperative, but by custom. M. D. at p. 275, and P. Q. at p. 307, of the same volume of The Mirror, state the continuance of the Curfew in certain places, named by them; and doubtless G. C. is right in his conjectures, respecting Sandwich being the town alluded to by Reginald. The bell is still rung at this place at St. Peter's the Apostle, every night at eight, for the space of six to ten minutes, excepting on the day of a funeral, when the 6th, 7th, or 8th bell is rung at seven o'clock in the morning, according to the circumstances or payment of the deceased. The tenor, or Curfew bell, weighs 15 cwt. 2 qs. 9 lbs. The steeple fell down Oct. 13, 1661; what was substituted for it I know not, for the new bells were not cast till 1779. A bell also rings here at four in the morning from Michaelmas to Christmas, which, I am informed, originated in its calling to work the weavers, who formerly dwelt here in great numbers. The following, from Boys's History of Sandwich, may afford some light on the subject: "The sexton is appointed by the parishioners, and he has a salary from the parish of 40s. for tolling the tenor whenever service requires. He likewise rings the tenor bell every night at eight o'clock, unless there be a burial at the church, and again in the morning at four o'clock, from a fortnight after Michaelmas to a fortnight before Old Lady Day, except on Sundays and in the twelve days after Christmas: for which he has from the Corporation annually 37. and an allowance of 6s. 8d. for candles and oil. Are not these a continuation of the ancient curfew and matin bell? The sexton formerly had an annual allowance of 4s. from the Corporation for ringing at this church Brandgose' bell at one, and the 'curfu' at eight o'clock. 6 "The sexton also rings the 4th bell at every common assembly, by way of notice to the freemen, that the mayor and jurats are proceeding to the hall. This custom originated probably in a decree made in 1534, that at a common assembly, when the mayor comes into the hall, a bell at St. Peter's called brandegoose bell shall begin to ring, and continue to be rung for half an hour: and if in that time the jurats, common councilmen, and commoners do not attend, then to be fined, a jurat 4d., common councilman 2d., and a commoner, ld.: and if no excuse can be made for absence, then the fine to be 1s. 6d. and 4d. respectively. For this and ringing the bell on market day (nine o'clock morn) the sexton is allowed a salary of 4s." If I recollect right, the curfew rings in Yarmouth, at both church and chapel of ease; at St. Peter's, Norwich; St. Mary-atthe-tower, Ipswich; and several parishes in London; at St. Martin's-le-Grand, a short time since, and probably now. Perhaps some of your Correspondents will inform your readers what Brandegoose bell means. I think as it rings at Michaelmas, and Brand (which is Norman French) means grey or fair, that it co:nmences at the season of grey goose feasting, a custom invariably attended to here and in Norfolk-to call home the workmen at one o'clock to dinner. W. W LIFE, life, life, LIFE O thou art to some A lengthened day of woe and strife, And passes darkly by, With scarce one transient moment clear, Or if the "Lark of Hope" should sing, O thou art to some A sunny scene where pleasures, rife, A day which dawns all bright, And glideth sweetly on, Or if one pang the heart should feel, -E. W. M. TOLKIEN. The night-breeze curl'd the deep dark moat, And he must on the early morn, He had his faith to Bertha sworn, And never, never, cease to pray, And when beneath some palm-tree's bough, Memory will picture thee as now, [FEW books of the day appear to correspond so well with their titles as the work we are about to quote. It is from the pen of Mrs. Carmichael, five years a resident in St. Vincent and Trinidad: every page denotes the advantages of such residence, and, above all, the shrewdness and talent for close observation possessed by the writer. It is, throughout, a picture of every-day life in the West Indies, its white, coloured, and negro population; and minute as are many of the details of the habits of this commingled people, they are sketched so cleverly as never to be come tedious. But, a few extracts will best illustrate the merits of this entertaining work.] House Servants. There is in every gentleman's family, a man who styles himself Mr. -'s head servant; his duty is merely to see that the boys under him clean the plate, knives and forks, wash the dinner, breakfast, and tea service, &c. He sees them lay the cloth and arrange the table for the different meals of the family; and he stands in the room during dinner, with the air of an emperor, pointing occasionally to the boys what to do, and bestowing abundance of scolding upon them; nor will the repeated entreaties of his master or mistress, to have done teazing the others, and do his own duty, have any effect: scolding he considers his peculiar privilege, and forego this privilege he will not. He at times removes a dish or plate, and places it in the hand of one of the boys; but in general he is a mere cipher, as far as use is concerned, and yet were the boys left without him, you could not get on at all. I attempted this; but such a scene of confusion and anarchy ensued, that I found, from experience, that bad as despotism may be, it is a far less evil than a republic. This head man, or rather gentleman-for he would be highly incensed were he treated without the utmost deference to his rank, is also employed in some families to go to market, an occupation which he likes; for he makes no small profit by it in various ways, which, however, it is not our business at present to treat of. This is the whole work of a head servant; however, I can assure my readers, that he does groan, nevertheless, under the oppression of so much exertion; and that nothing short of twelve hours' sleep, and twelve hours' lounging in the twenty-four, will ever make him contented. Some have coloured men as head servants; but whether negro, coloured, slave or free, there is not a perceptible shade of difference in the duty that is performed by them. The cook is frequently a male, and is also a person of consequence; he has, if the family be large, either a boy or a woman to assist him; he cooks only soups, meat, fish, and vegetables, nor would he submit to the hardship of baking bread, or making pastry, or puddings. The wood used in cookery is cut, and put down for him, and all the water provided; and it is rarely that he will wash or scour the pans, or kitchen utensils,—some younger boy or girl being employed for that purpose. A West Indian kitchen is so different from an English one, that some description of it may be necessary, to make those who have not seen one comprehend how much less a cook is exposed to the influence of the fire, The floor is either than in an English one. earth, brick, or stone; there are numerous windows, not glazed, but with wooden shutters to fasten down at night, with probably jalousies to exclude the sun and rain-in this way the air is necessarily freely admitted; the chimney is extremely wide, and there is most frequently no grate, but merely a piece of brick-work, about four feet long, and three feet broad, upon which the wood is placed; and they make more or less fire, according to the dinner they have to cook. The face is in this way not exposed to the blaze of the fire nearly so much as in an English kitchen. There is an oven in every kitchen, upon the same principle as a baker's oven;-the wood being put in and burnt down, so that when it is fully heated, it is swept out before the bread or meat is put in. There is no roastingjack: many gentlemen have attempted to get the negroes to use a jack, but in vain; they must have their own way of it, which is simply accomplished by placing two strong logs of wood on each side the fire, and a strong nail in each log to support the spit, which they employ some of their assistants to turn,-and in this way they send up meat tolerably well roasted; but the oven is often also employed for that purpose. This is, I think, considered the whole duty of a cook, whether male or female. In many families, à head female servant is employed, to assist the lady in dressing, work with the needle; or hake pastry, make puddings, &c. These are dishes which make their appearance rarely; and a waiting maid considers she does very well if she assists her mistress in dressing, and does about as much work with her needle in one day, as her mis tress in one hour,—she has generally a young girl under her, who attends to the bedchamber, and this is never thoroughly done; yet this is all that is required of them, and indeed it is all they will do. The other servants are employed in cleaning the house; and their number, and particular employments, are wholly dependent upon the family to which they belong; for of course where the family is large, there must be an increase of servants. The office of a groom ought, one would imagine, to be precisely the same as in England, but that the negro groom makes it a very different office, is no less true. In fact, no horse is brushed or curried, far less, properly fed, unless the master stands by and sees it done: the oats sell well in the market; and besides, the groom can feed his own poultry with the oats; and it need not be said, that he prefers fattening his own fowls to feeding his master's horse. The domestics who officiate as washerwomen, have nothing else to do. With respect to the time which they require for the performance of their labour, I have had trials of many different washerwomen-some slaves and some free-but I never found that fourteen dozen of clothes, such as are commonly used in a family, could be washed and got up from Monday morning to Saturday evening by less than three able bodied women. They never used less, but generally more, than twice the quantity of soap, blue, and starch, required by washerwomen at home; and of all your troublesome establishment, the washerwomen are the most discontented, unmanageable, and idle. It is altogether out of the question ever to look for all the articles coming back that went out; and the destruction of clothes and linens, in consequence of their carelessness, is past belief. I have myself in one twelvemonth had six dozen of chamber towels, a bed-quilt, two pairs of sheets, stockings without number, pocket handkerchiefs and petticoats to a considerable amount, lost, or more probably stolen, in this way;--for I knew perfectly, that they were appropriated to their own use, as I not unfrequently detected the articles in their possession after they thought a sufficient length of time had elapsed for me to forget the loss of them. Every thing, as I have said, is ill washed in the West Indies; they smooth down frills and flounces along with the gown, making every article of a lady's dress as stiff as buckram. They insist, whether you will or not, upon rubbing the smoothing iron over with candle-grease, to make it pass, as they say, easily over the linen; and when I absolutely refused giving candle for this purpose, they stole it themselves, and used it in spite of me. With respect to the number of domestics required in a family,—that necessarily de pends upon the number of the family, the style in which they live, and the home they reside in; but a moderate family, who would live genteelly and comfortably in an English city with three maid servants and one man, and the washing put out, would require at least ten grown up servants, and from five to six young people, from ten to seventeen or eighteen years of age; and after all, the house, and general work, would be very indifferently done. This I consider a very fair average; but if the family exceeded five or six, such an establishment would be found insufficient. St. Vincent. The houses are built in various ways, some of stone, cemented by mud and white-washed; some are built of wood, while others are wove like basket work,-the interstices being filled up with clay and mud, which, when whitewashed, look very nice. They thatch them neatly with migass. They have no chimneys, as they rarely work in doors. As to the size of their house, that is in some measure dependent upon the rank of the negro, and the number in family. Generally speaking, the area of negro houses varies from fifteen feet by twenty, to twenty feet by thirty. Some single men and single women have a house with only one sitting room, and a smaller chamber apart for their bed-room. But head negroes, or families, have always two good rooms, and some have three. They have windows according to the size and number of their rooms, with window shutters to let down at night. All the houses have locks to their doors, which are made of wood by the negroes, and fasten very securely; many, however, supply themselves with padlocks besides. The floor is generally earthern, but the best room is often boarded. Negroes of character and rank,-for I know not how better to ex press myself, being more civilized, have many articles of furniture. Among others they have bedsteads with mosquito curtains, their bed, ding being for the most part a bag filled with the dried plantain leaf. This I have myself slept upon, and used in my own family, and have found it a very comfortable bed indeed. They have a bolster and pillows of the same materials; blankets (one Witney blanket is given every year by the master), a good sheet, and very often a nice bed-quilt; the two latter articles are furnished by themselves. A little shelved corner cupboard, displaying many a showy coloured plate, cup, and saucer, is a common piece of furniture; a good table, one or two benches, and some chairs, with a high table to serve as a sideboard, upon which are displayed the tumblers and wine glasses, often a large shade for the candle, these, with their box of clothes, form the general furniture of a good industrious negro's house, who is probably a head man; for a common field negro, although he can afford all this, has not in general reached that stage of civilization that engenders the desire of possess ing such articles. The cooking utensils are very few and simple, consisting of two or three iron pots, in which the negro makes his soup, stews, &c. A strong wooden pestle and mortar is to be found in all their houses, for beating the boiled plantain down to a mash, a favourite dish they call "tum-tum." They cook in a little thatched shed close to their houses, but not attached to them. A hog-sty, and a place for their poultry, which they rear in great quantities, are also adjoining their house. Indeed, the best sort of negroes have their dwellings often extremely neat and clean; many a Scotch cottager might blush to see them. As soon as a negro girl attains the age of sixteen or seventeen, she probably gets a husband; and the male children perhaps a year or two later, get wives, when of course they have houses of their own; negroes, therefore, never have many children living with them. On occasion of a marriage, it is often necessary to build a house, and there is then usually a merry making; the master or manager deals out rum and sugar to those who have helped to build it, and the new comer frequently gives a supper on the night he takes possession. The houses of the common field negroes are built exactly of the same materials, and on the same plan with those described; but some few have not three rooms, though most of them have an additional chamber, and a small place where they keep their cooking utensils. In good weather, they all cook in the open air before their house door; and if it be rainy, they kindle a fire in the middle of the room, and the door is left open to make an outlet for the smoke. Many field people have bedsteads, and some have curtains. The plantain leaf bed is generel, and blankets are annually provided; some have sheets; but these are luxuries which many of them do not value, and would not use. You may guess almost to a certainty as to the character and degree of civilization of a negro, by the general appearance of his house. A table, chair, and bench, is to be found in every house; also a box, with the inmates' clothes; but those who are idle, lazy, savage, or of bad character (and there are few estates that can boast of having none of that description), are destitute of these comforts. Fruits. The West Indian islands differ as to their productiveness in fruit, but generally speaking, there is a great variety of fruits, according to their season; and upon every property the negroes make a considerable sum by the sale of the fruit. The mango is certainly the most abundant. This fruit hangs in such thick clusters, that the produce of one tree is immense. Of the mango there are many varieties, but the small ones are the best. Some very small, delicate kinds, of a yellow colour, are to be found in the botanic garden at St. Vincent: these are most delicious, though their turpentine flavour is disagreeable to those unused to it. The large kidneyshaped green mango is coarse and full of threads; and I know nothing so perfectly resembling it in taste, as a coarse field carrot, with the addition of a small portion of turpentine and sugar. Mangoes are said to produce leprosy; and I have observed that negroes who eat many of them, are very liable to cutaneous diseases. The alligator pear is a pleasant, wholesome fruit, larger than our largest English pears, with two seeds inside: when ripe it is soft and mellow, and the inside exactly resembles fine yellow butter. It is from this that it is often called subaltern's butter. It is generally eaten for breakfast, either with sugar and lime juice, or with salt and pepper. The negroes are very fond of the alligator pear, and generally call it the zabaca pear. They sell three large ones, when in season, for a penny. The sappadillo tree produces a fruit rather large, but in colour and flavour very like the English medlar. This fruit is not so abundant, and sells for tenpence per dozen, or thereabouts. There are several sorts of plum trees-the Jamaica, the hog plum, and varieties of the Java plum. These fruits are highly astringent; and eaten freely, must be dangerous. During the season they are to be had in abundance, for a mere trifle. The mountain-pear is one of the best, if not the very best fruit of the West Indies. The plant is a cactus, and the negroes have it in their grounds, and sell it often for a penny each. It is in size something similar to a ripe fig; of an olive green and red colour outside, and its inside resembles a mixture of salt and ground pepper, from its numerous small, black seeds. It is always cool, and may be eaten in almost any quantity, without danger. Melons are often raised in negro grounds: they grow without any attention, further than putting the seed in the ground, They are worth from fourpence to eight pence each, according to their size, which is often immense. Pines are every where found on the provision-grounds: they grow like a weed, and the poorer the soil, the better is the pine. I have bought them for a penny, and have also paid for a very large one, out of season, as much as a shilling sterling. Grapes are also found; but they are generally cultivated by the coloured or free negro population. They resemble the large Portugal grape as imported here from Portugal and Spain. They would be of the best quality, were they suffered to remain long enough upon the vine; but the depredation among them, and the injury they sustain from insects, are so great, that they cut the fruit prematurely, and |