WEST-INDIAN TRAVELLERS.
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the corpse, and shuts out from the glance of friends, the features which they have so often gazed on with pleasure. If the deceased is a female, an elegant white dress is chosen, with a white satin band around the waist, white silk gloves and stockings, and a blonde cap ornamented with white satin. If the deceased were unmarried, the coffin is covered with fine white broad cloth, and elaborately ornamented with silver lace, nails, plates, and “ little angels," (as the negroes term them ;) if married, it is covered with black cloth and black ornaments. Crape hat-bands and scarfs are now given to the bearers, and hat-bands to the intimate acquaintance only, for if the deceased is much respected, three or four hundred persons of all colours attend the funeral. ' In the arrangement of the procession, (which is always a walking one,) an eye is kept to prejudice. Formerly all coloured persons had coloured bearers, then came a change ; and two white and four coloured men officiated in those characters ; then it came to be three white and three coloured, and in a late instance, four white and two coloured persons formed the complement.* The common coloured people still keep “ a wake" upon the death of their friends ; and on such occasions, while one part of the company are engaged in singing psalms, the others are filling the women's hats with water, putting pepper into wine, pulling off their shoes, and playing other vulgar practical jokes, most irreverent and disgusting at such a season. The Antiguans have a peculiar mode of calling articles by particular names :—thus, potatoes are invariably called Irish potatoes, come 'they from what part of the world they may ; the common Prussian-blue pea, and wheat-flour, are always termed English peas, and English flour, although such articles may come from France or America ; ducks are English ducks ; * How often trifling matters like these speak a mighty change in the " spirit of the times !"