the ning strongly through the herd, on horseback every day by and perhaps 150 first-class seven o'clock, riding among mules; yet so hard are the times that neither class of animal fetches anything like the price of former years. Some planters are reducing their works, and are not buying the same amount of working stock as they used to; others have thrown up their plantations altogether, and sold off to the butchers a secondclass animal (their working stock) at a lower price than the pen -keeper can afford to do. Not only so, but explanters constantly turn penkeepers themselves, and, by sending into the towns an inferior animal, seriously disturb the markets belonging properly to a trade scarcely less important than their own. I do not write this to complain of the pen-keeping profession in Jamaica, for I believe that increased steamer facilities between the West Indian Islands and the mainland will reveal a splendid group of markets to demand the supply from Jamaican cattle breeders: I only desire to indicate how far-reaching the effects of the failure in the sugar industry may be. Yet with all this distress in the air, I understand that large sums of money are to be spent in Kingston in converting the mule-tramcars into electric cars, thus throwing a large number of men out of work, and closing a good market for mules. But to the winds with such reflections in holiday-time! How quickly the days passed amongst all the novelties of this place! Although we were VOL. CLXV. NO. M. gangs of workers who clean the banana - plantations, pick the coffee, and pack the oranges, yet it seemed but a few minutes before the bell rang, its welcome sound being the work-clock of the neighbourhood, announcing the hour of breakfast. It was always a meal worthy of the appetites that awaited it, spread upon a carpet of brilliant flowers from the little garden outside the house, and helped by clusters of white orchids, which grow in profusion on every roadside tree. Not a great deal in the way of meat, mercifullygenerally a duck or a first-rate steak; and then a wealth of vegetables, such as roast yams, fried plantain, bread-fruit, and pear, to supply all the nutriment that is pleasant in the hot weather; followed by melons, pines, oranges, and bananas, such as Covent Garden rarely sees, and a demi-tasse of black coffee, which is a veritable revelation. For drink, recollecting that Robert Louis Stevenson so frequently men tioned "claret and a slice of pine-apple" in the Vailima Letters, we occasionally indulged in that; but generally it was Scottish whisky with mineral waters and a large supply of ice, though shandigaff, and even gin, came occasionally before our thirsty notice. (Dear 'Maga,' pardon this gastronomic interlude, which is not, I confess, of as general interest as its factors were essential to our diurnal contentment.) After luncheon let me admit X to a regular irregularity in Jamaican life-namely, a midday siesta; and let me notice at the same time the difference in habit between the workers in Southern Europe and in these tropical parts. For although the sun beats far less fiercely in the former regions, yet work is generally slack towards noon, and an after-dinner sleep is the rule. We have all noticed that in Italy and Spain. But in Jamaica, as soon as the workman's dinner is done,-it lasts generally from 11 to 11.30,-he goes on cheerfully with his work till five in the evening, when the same bell bids him leave off for the day. Included in the Knockalva property are two other estates, named Bogue and Retrieve. The former is close to Montego Bay, and consists of about seventeen islands in the sea, where some excellent shooting is to be had in winter - time. From these islands the property stretches up to the hills inland, and abounds in logwood, which is now being carefully cultivated, as there is a considerable demand for it. To see a forest of logwood in proper trim is a very pretty sight, for the silver-grey trunk of a good tree looks like several birchtrees bound together, spreading at no great height into branches bearing beautiful cool green leaves, not unlike the English thorn. The trees must not be close together, and the grass beneath is rich both in colour and in nutriment, bush and weed being conspicuously absent. One can often see far into these deep quiet forests in consequence; and the effect is sometimes heightened by the herds of cattle that pasture in their shade, or stand to drink at some pool that glistens, and diminishes, in the sun. Retrieve is a different sort of property, situated on the heights overlooking Lucia (pronounced Lucíe), where the cultivations of logwood, cattle, and pimento are all equally undertaken. It is hard to realise at this distance from the scene1 that one was driving but a week agone along the sea-shore, in groves of cocoanuts, for miles at a time, the deep dark-blue of the sea in lovely contrast to the graceful green trees that fringe its coast; now passing vast fields of sugar-cane, whose purple - feathered tops proclaimed that the time of harvest was near; now under great tree-ferns that vary the monotony of high hedges of sensitive plant; accompanied everywhere by gay butterflies and hummingbirds. And amid all this natural profusion live the negroes in their little log-huts, or, if in humbler circumstances, in bothies built of leaves and grass. They all seemed to be busy with something or another. At the doors women were sewing or men were cobbling; here, a little darkey girl combing out her sister's hair under a great Poinsettia-tree, whose red leaves burned brilliant in the sun; there, little picaninnies in a state of nature chasing chickens and pigs; now, where a stream 1 Written during a snowstorm in New York. crosses the road, groups of girls washing linen with their sleeves rolled up well over their elbows, and their skirts well up to their knees; and all along the road we passed men driving cattle or mule-trains laden with produce to the nearest market. From each and all we were certain of a Marnin', massa"; to which my brother (who is sub-agent at Knockalva) would always answer, "How you do, missis?" and received the unvarying reply, "So so, tank massa," which is the most reassuring account that a negro ever gives of his health. 66 Would that there were time to tell of the many amusing things that the natives said to me, their phrases and their proverbs, of the old-time retainers who once were slaves and still call a blessing as he passes upon "my owner ; of the great "Howdye," when all the black residents and and employees of Knockalva marched up in their hundreds with bands and banners to bid me welcome to Jamaica. And I wish I could describe in fitting language the harvest festival, with its decorations of palms, peppers, jam, pickles, loaves on the altar, and a coopful of hens at the vestry door. But all these things, unprinted, remain as abiding memories. Many a foggy winter's night will pass uncursed, and many an hour of Scottish estimates will pass unnoticed, if, in a true spirit of self-detachment, I can transport my mind back to those warm evenings at Knockalva, when, after busy days, we sat, Maurice and I, under the old brown verandah, and, amid a firmament of fireflies, talked of home. IAN MALCOLM. A BIRTHDAY LETTER OF APOLOGY. THE HILL BUNGALOW, KLEDANG, PERAK, Nov. 20, 1898. DEAR 'MAGA,'- Yesterday your letter was brought up here in "ladies' fingers." It is true that these were in a cook's basket with other green food, not to mention eggs and a chicken-still the omen was a happy one, and presaged the good news. So your thousandth birthday is next February. What can I do with the year's end coming, here perched alone upon a mountain like Don Quixote in his shirt, and not a Chinaman or Malay within reach, except Ah Tung the caretaker and Haji Mat the gardener, of whom I know nothing worth relating? Invent I cannot, to plagiarise I am ashamed. Oh, I can't find anything to write about in this dull place. For what does 'Maga' want to hear about but men and women? and to what will she turn a deafer ear than to the "trite tropics" style of word-painting, with its dazzling sunshine, its impenetrable forests, its bird of gorgeous plumage on every bough? Who wants to read about a country farm, an icefield, a semi-detached suburban residence? What is the good of forcing upon an indifferent world the little affairs of a tea-planter, or an invalid in the Canaries, or a Bishop in his diocese? What is life on ranche-in a mine-in a bank -in a balloon-to people out of the trade? а It poured as we came up yes terday. By the way, you will be glad to hear that I am not all alone: there is another person. Thankful indeed were we when the last turn of the crooked six-foot path brought us in sight of the little compound on the ridge, with the zinc-roofed bungalow in the centre. Our coolies, Klings from Madras, Madras, and Chinese, must have been equally pleased; and they did not fail to ask for something extra on account of the weather. The Chinese boldly took their dollar a-head, and urgently demanded cents. for spirits, grinned and marched off. The Klings accepted their half-dollar, acquiescing in the humiliating fact of being only half value; then lingered shivering obtrusively, smiling enticingly, deprecatingly; twiddled their toes, and slipped away. The tin roof was deafening with the drumming of the rain; and we watered the house as we moved about and sadly gazed upon the puddle that had been bread. This house has no fireplace, except of course the cookingrange in the outhouse behind. That is a pity, for two reasons: first, because, unlike the weather in the valley, it often rains here in the morning as well as afternoons, and you want somewhere to dry your clothes at; and second, because the pleasure of feeling uncomfortably and unusually cold is marred by the absence of a wood fire where you could warm your toes and roast jack-fruit seeds (something like Spanish chestnuts if flavoured with imagination), declaring it is just like Home. Still, to be able honestly and truthfully to shiver is a great deal. tumbler you can find, but before these flowers are withered the place of them is rosy with their sisters. And then there are white dwarf roses lower down. Here we are only 3000 feet above sea-level: another 1500 feet will bring you to the zone of white and purple violets. The terraced garden falls steeply away below us. With the roses are other plants, lovely in their way, but tropical, and therefore half repugnant to The house, which is of wood, is raised on posts a few feet above the ground. A broad verandah runs along its whole frontage, and the bedrooms open upon the verandah. The verandah is closed in with panes of glass all round, which is also a delightful novelty. the European spirit of the hour. When the lamps are lighted Gardenias, which shine like and the wind comes drenched stars from out their dark-green with rain and beats against foliage, are importunate of perthese panes, and shakes the fume. Oh that I could sell window frames and whistles them for button-holes at sixthrough the chinks, then you pence apiece! Then there are may shut your eyes and sneeze, huge shrubs aflame with flowers and dream of an English night like hollyhocks. We call them in November. The gusts fly the shoe-flower, because, when down sobbing through the wet your boy has finished the blacktree-tops, and in the lulls clouds ing for your brown shoes, as of dense white mist press close an alternative to cleaning and against the windows. "Oh the ruining them with lemon, he poor sailors!" says the other brings them to an equally illperson involuntarily. But all gotten lustre by rubbing them the while our friends in the with these red flowers. Lower valley are blessing it for a down there are magenta sprays cooler, fresher night. of bougainvillea, and a wonderful creeper with huge golden bells, which, just because it loves to break loose and climb squirrel - fashion among the branches, therefore Haji Mat must, after his kind, crib into a sort of geni's-bottle framework of sticks, daily cutting off its head to keep it in its place. The porch in front of the house is hung with creeping boughs of honeysuckle, covered with perennial blossom, and always throwing out long tendrils which grapple in vain with the smooth surface of the corrugated roof. But honeysuckle grows over our orchidhouses in the valley, so here, though good, it is not the best. Roses-big, loose, pink roses— grow in great bushes on both sides of the porch, a mass of colour that never fades. You may strip the bushes to-day, and load every finger-glass and |