148
THE
ENGLISH
IN
THE
WEST
INDIES
did I see either centipede, or scorpion, or jigger, or anyother unclean beast in any room of which these girls had charge. Even mosquitoes did not trouble me, so skilfully and carefully they arranged the curtains. They were dressed in the fashion of the French islands, something like the Moorish slaves whom one sees in pictures of Eastern palaces. They flitted about silent on their shoeless feet, never stumbled, or upset chairs or plates or dishes, but waited noiselessly like a pair of elves, and were always in their place when wanted. One had heard much of the idleness and care lessness of negro servants. In no part of the globe have I ever seen household work done so well by two pairs of hands. Of their morals I know nothing. It is usually said that negro girls have none. They appeared to me to be perfectly modest and innocent. I asked in wonder what wages were paid to these black fairies, believing that at no price at all could the match of them be found in England. I was informed that they had three shillings a week each, and ‘ found themselves,’ i.e. found their own food and clothes. And this was above the usual rate, as Government House was expected to be liberal. The scale of wages may have something to do with the difficulty of obtaining labour in the West Indies. I could easily believe the truth of what I had been often told, that free labour is more economical to the employer than slave labour. The views from the drawing-room windows were enchantingly beautiful. It is not the form only in these West Indian landscapes, or the colour only, but form and colour seen through an atmosphere of very peculiar transparency. On one side we looked up a mountain gorge, the slopes covered with forest; a bold lofty crag standing out from them brown and bare, and the mountain ridge behind half buried in mist. From the other window we had the Botanical Gardens, the bay beyond them sparkling in the sunshine, and on the farther side of it, a few miles off, an island for-