Six months in the West-Indies, in 1825

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MONTSERRAT.

but it is miserable to feel how quickly all that Eton craft goes out of the fingers. However, I mean to be very savage, and I speak my mind the more freely, because in many other respects I admire Montserrat, and regret that a nuisance should be suffered to exist in the threshold of this lovely little country, which must ruffle the temper of any one who is made of flesh and blood, and moreover hath the rheumatism. I am not vindictive; no! I have not a particle of the thing in my nature..I have a grateful recollection of the turtle at the Court House, though we were kept for our dinner so long that anything but that exquisite soup would have come too late; the Madeira too was pure and milky, and the beer clean. These things do not pass utterly from my mind; they have a post-existent life with me, and I refer to them frequently for the purposes of contrast, similitude, or the reviving of my affections. It is indeed commonly but, I apprehend, hastily said, that turtle is eaten in greater perfection in England than in the West Indies. The cookery, I confess, is more studied and elaborate, more science is shown in the anatomy, and superior elegance in the dishing. Besides, it is a greater rarity, and its visits, few and far between, leave something of an angelic smack upon the palate of a worthy recipient in England. But setting aside this last advantage, or rather justly esteeming


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