of revolt comes over me, and I long to ravage all the places I see,
all the people I know--or nearly all. Why I do not have negroes
thrashed and mutilated, as some do, I know not. Over against the
southern shore in the parish of St. Elizabeth is an estate called
Salem, owned, it is said, by an American, where the manager does
such things. I am told that savageries are found there. There
are too many absentee owners of land in this island, and the wrongs
done by agents who have no personal honour at stake are all too
plentiful. If I could, I would have no slavery, would set all the
blacks free, making full compensation to the owners, and less to the
absentee owners.

I look out on a world of summer beauty and of heat. I see the sheep
in hundreds on the far hills of pasturage--sheep with short hair,
small and sweet as any that ever came from the South Downs. I see
the natives in their Madras handkerchiefs. I see upon the road some
planter in his ketureen--a sort of sedan chair; I see a negro
funeral, with its strange ceremony and its gumbies of African drums.
I see yam-fed planters, on their horses, making for the burning,
sandy streets of the capital. I see the Scots grass growing five
and six feet high, food unsurpassed for horses--all the foliage too
--beautiful tropical trees and shrubs, and here and there a huge
breeding-farm. Yet I know that out beyond my sight there is the
region known as Trelawney, and Trelawney Town, the headquarters of
the Maroons, the free negroes--they who fled after the Spanish had
been conquered and the British came, and who were later freed and
secured by the Trelawney Treaty. I know that now they are ready to
rise, that they are working among the slaves; and if they rise the
danger is great to the white population of the island, who are
outnumbered ten to one.