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A cause of failure in the West India Islands has been the superabundance of central factories; where one would have been sufficient for the neighbourhood, three and four have been erected, to the detriment of all.[8] In Martinique, for example, there are no less than thirteen, and out of these only six are profitable. Wages in Santa Cruz could not be considered excessive, the average for the negro labourers being ten cents per diem, with bread, sugar, and rum thrown in. But poverty was not noticeable, as it was at St. Thomas, and the number of plump, healthy-looking children was remarkable; when we wanted some memento to take away with us, and asked if they made nothing peculiar to the island, the answer might have been that given by an old lady at Martinique to a similar question:—“Rien que les enfants, Monsieur, en voulez-vous?”

The vast preponderance of the black population over the white ought to be a subject of deep consideration to the island planters, and to us it appeared, from the rumours of discontent and negro outbreaks, that the very existence of the white property-owners was in danger.[9] Home we went by the beach, where the fresh-smelling seaweed lay in great banks, and near us was a wonderfully bright colouring of green, blue, and yellow, as the still water lay over deep or shallow shoals, enclosed within circling coral reef, white with the foaming waves of the blue-black sea beyond.