JAMAICA.
297
We next visited Hector's River, a fine estate belonging to M A J O R H A L L , an absentee. The head book keeper said there were no complaints to bring before the magistrate. The number of apprentices on this estate is two hundred and sixty, and of free children fifty. The latter receive no allowance but medical care at the expense of the estate, for which the parents, we were told, give no equivalent. We are, however, informed that the apprentices are deprived of all their half Fridays throughout the year, and all the extra hours required by day and night during crop, without any payment, though nominally in return for the slave allowances. The hospital on Hector's River is an airy good building, but too small for its purposes. There were in it several cases of measles, and also of obstinate sores and ulcers. We afterwards called at Grange Hill, a fine estate belonging to Sir H E N R Y F i T Z H E R B E R T , which has recently been turned into an indigo plantation. The Overseer told us that he had made last year two hundred and forty-six pounds of indigo of fine quality, but at an immense expense of labor. He was persuaded it would never succeed in this part of the island, though it might perhaps in the Southern parishes. Indigo was formerly extensively produced in the West Indies ; this is the first instance we have met with of an attempt to restore its cultiva tion, and the circumstance of this interesting experi ment being confided to an Overseer, and one who has made up his mind beforehand that it will not succeed, forebodes an unfavorable result. This Overseer ap peared much irritated ; he broke out into bitter com plaints againts his domestics, and talked of the pride and indolence of the mulattos, of which class the domestic servants are generally composed. He said