160
JAMAICA.
of Jamaica is temperate and salubrious. Our kind host and his wife, and their interesting family of seven children, of various ages, have enjoyed uninterrupted health, during their two years residence in the Colony. The property on which their house is situated, is a ruinate coffee plantation. Besides, orange trees in full bearing, mangoes, pines, and many tropical fruits, English apples, potatoes, peas, and other vegetables, are grown upon it. The latter, however, appear to degenerate. 25th.—This morning we accompanied our host to Silver-hill, an estate twelve miles distant, in the heart of this mountainous district, where he was going to hold a Court. Four cases of complaint were brought before him. They were all substantiated, and the offenders received suitable punishments and admoni tions. They thanked the magistrate and appeared satisfied with his decisions, though some had been very earnest and ingenious in their defences. He had lis tened patiently to all they had to say, and by that means appeared to obtain their confidence. The over seer* of this estate is a man of color ; he respects the law, though a strict disciplinarian. He has kept a re gistry of the births and deaths of infants as during slavery, from which it appears that the comparative number of deaths has not increased. The children have the same medical care, and the same treatment in other respects as before. Not a single free child works on the estate. The overseer asked a woman, in our presence, to let her eldest child, a boy of eight years, do light work for his clothing and allowance, but she * In Jamaica an overseer is the person who is called manager in the other islands ; and the overseers there are here called bookkeepers ; an attorney, of numerous estates, is called a planting attorney.