The West Indies. John Henderson

no light banter. If you ask questions as to her wares she answers with modesty and with intelligence. This is the country-woman, polite and unsophisticated. Beyond the department devoted to the sale of spices and pepper-pods and tobacco, we come to the chicken saleroom. Jamaican market-women nurse captive fowls just in the same manner as Englishwomen fondle lap-dogs. They stroke them and play with their feathers, open a wing to show the strength and youth of a bird, and hold the beak towards their face as if pleading with the doomed fowls for farewell kisses.

      Fronting the poultry-women are the sellers of native vegetables and fruits. These wares are heaped on strips of torn sacking spread upon the stone floor of the market. Each woman sits next her piece of sacking and noisily shouts the merits of her own particular goods. When no customers are about, these women are content to wrangle among themselves as to the comparative merits of rival heaps of fruit; from commercial squabbles of this description it is easy for the conversation to descend to the level of vulgar personalities and strong abuse.

      The meat market is the only selling place which offers no attraction to the idle lounger. For myself I was content to smell it afar off and pass quickly by. Opposite the main entrance to the principal building is the market courtyard, a square patch of grey dust enclosed by an iron railing, and containing a drinking fountain for the people and a long water-filled trough for the donkeys. This is the resting-place for the workers and idling-place for the idlers. Littered about the dust are groups of children, and donkeys, and adults. The children are playing their games, the donkeys are munching at heaps of half-dried green grass, and the adults, stretched at full length on the dust, or on the grass heaps at which the donkeys are taking their meal, are for the most part sleeping the sleep of the tired negro. A few there are who have chosen to lie in the shadow of empty market carts, but more are to be found sleeping in the full glare of the sun.

      The fountain in the centre of the courtyard is the drawing-room of the market place. Here come the youth and the maiden to gossip and flirt over the midday cup of water, and here lounge the matrons to discuss prices, and costumes, and husbands. The men for the most part have found the rum bars, but the women and the striplings congregate round the drinking fountain, drink cups of water, and bathe their hands and faces in the donkey’s drinking trough. The noise of the laughter and talking is louder than the sound of a