writers on the West Indies was shocked by seeing a negress who actually was adorned with pink stockings, yellow shoes, and a bonnet of green trimmed with pink, and displaying a blue rose with silver leaves! Silks, satins, muslins, and crapes are plentifully used, and even the gentlemen' will come out on occasion in a truly glorious costume; with velvet collars, radiant waistcoats, and boots expressly made to 'stamp and creak' well. They all carry umbrellas, silk if possible; and pocket-handkerchiefs, with one end making its appearance from the coat pocket. We are told, however, that the love for gaudy colours is disappearing; and that modesty and sensibility are becoming increasingly apparent in the female sex. In their names, the march of intellect has extinguished the Sambos, Pompeys, and Darkeys of former days, and now the shining pickaninnies rejoice in the appellations of Adeline Floretta,' Rosalind Monemia,' Alonzo Frederick,' and so forth. One cannot but smile at these little affectations; but all this shows a progress towards refinement and civilisation, though some of its offshoots are laughable. The same may be said of their manners, in which a surprising improvement has taken place. The uncouth address and sullen aspect and carriage of the slaves' has been replaced by a great deal of graceful kindliness and ease towards strangers, and a politeness and respect to each other which may often approach extravagance, but is much better than the rough address so common in many parts of England, among the working classes. No negro peasant meets another without exchanging salutations and inquiries. Age is particularly venerated, and the noisy little negroes at their sport will stop while one of their old people are passing, with, 'How dy'e ma'm,' and, How dy'e me picnee,' is the courteous reply. Every one praises their generosity and kindness. To the miserable pauper whites, who abound in some of the West Indies (and whose squalor and feebleness show the wisdom of Carlyle's expectation that the West Indies will some day be saved by a population of 'true splinters of the old Harz rock, heroic white men, 'worthy to be called old Saxons,') they are often known to act the part of guardian angels. They will work for them, feed them, clothe them, without the slightest wish or prospect of receiving remuneration. 6 They are rising too with rapidity in the social scale, and would seem to be fit for any kind of employment. Mr. Baird mentions, that in the legislatures of many of the islands, there are already sundry negro members, as well as many gentlemen of colour. When Mr. Bigelow visited Jamaica, there were ten or a dozen coloured men in the Legislative Assembly, which consists altogether of about fifty members; and the police force, the officers of the penitentiary, the officers of the courts of justice, as well as some of the barristers, were coloured men; and we believe they have since been freely admitted to the magistracy and to political office. The old prejudices against African blood is disappearing, though under slavery it was intensely strong; so much so, that the coloured people were generally not allowed to be buried in the same churchyard with the whites. Nay, at St. John's, in Antigua, the church bell was not allowed to be profaned by tolling for the demise of these degraded people, and a smaller one was actually provided for that purpose! Year by year, too, education is making way; and though in some districts it is complained that the negroes do not show eagerness to obtain schooling for their children, from others very satisfactory reports are sent; and the governors, almost without exception, state that crime is diminishing in the islands. In fact, crime of an atrocious character is very rare indeed. The negroes are guilty of a great deal of petty pilfering, and they are also regardless of truth; but, happily, drunkenness is not one of their prevailing faults; nor are they given to deeds of violence, or of deliberate villany. They are a merry, lighthearted, and kindly people; somewhat shallow and thoughtless, and with the faults that come of that character; but docile, orderly, and peaceable. We must now conclude. We trust the reader will agree with us in thinking that the facts of the case prove, First, that if emancipation might have worked better, had due preparation been made for freedom, this was the fault, not of the abolitionists, but of the planters. Secondly, that the lack of labourers has been very troublesome in some localities, but has not amounted to a severe grievance, and has not arisen from the indolence of the negroes. Thirdly, that the crash of 1847 and the ensuing years was not caused by emancipation; but was caused by the fall in the price of sugar, consequent on the Act of 1846, and the concurrent events. Each of these propositions is of importance. But the two main conclusions which are enforced upon us by our investigation are these. The one, that slavery and monopoly were bearing the West Indies to ruin. The other, that under free labour and free trade they are rising to wealth. Under slavery and monopoly, the labouring class was miserable and was perishing miserably. Under slavery and monopoly, the owners of the soil were reduced to the greatest pitch of distress. The state of affairs which had arisen under this old dis pensation had rendered a crash some day inevitable. But when once that blow had fallen, and the old things had passed away, and the new things had come, then the inherent virtue of the principle of freedom became manifest; and it is now working out the most beneficent, the most astonishing — what a few years ago would have seemed the most incredibleresults. Wisdom has been justified of her children. Seeking only to do the thing that was right and noble, seeking not to please herself, but to do justice, England set free her slaves. It is plain that but for that measure, her colonies would have sunk to irretrievable destruction. It proves now that by that measure, she has set them on the way to happiness and prosperity; that not only are the former slaves enjoying a degree of comfort and independence almost unparalleled, but that our own trade with these islands is becoming of higher and higher value. They are yearly enriching us more and more with the wealth of their fertile soil. Instead of being the plague of statesmen, the disgrace of England, they are becoming invaluable possessions to the British Crown. Never did any deed of any nation show more signally that to do right is the truest prudence, than the great deed of emancipation. 6 'Not once or twice, in our rough island story, And in her dealings with the negro race, both in the West Indies and in Africa, England having only thirsted for the right,' has already begun to find the wisdom of that course. The fight for freedom has been fought amid great discouragements; for a time there were heart-breaking drawbacks to the success attained. But it has been fought with a good courage. And now the spread of commerce and civilisation in West Africa; the happiness of the West Indian peasantry; the inproving agriculture, the extending trade of these islands; the cheering news which governor after governor is sending home of their thriving state, such is the reward, to herself, as well as to them, which England is reaping, from a generous, selfdenying, Christian policy. ART. VI.-1. Dalmatia and Montenegro. By Sir J. GARDNER WILKINSON, F.R.S., &c. 2 vols. London: 1848. 2. Highlands and Islands of the Adriatic. By A. A. PATON. 2 vols. London: 1849. 3. Montenegro and the Slavonians of Turkey. By By Count VALERIAN KRASINSKI. London: 1853. AMONG what may be termed the byways of history and geography, there is, probably, none more full of interest of various kinds than that which leads to the highland principality of Montenegro. None will better repay the attention of the political student; of the scholar wishing to realise the scenes of Homeric and patriarchal life; or of the artist in search of savage yet sublime scenery, and of strange and picturesque costumes. In the fifteenth century this little mountain-state,- a fragment of the great mediæval kingdom of Servia, - arose, like Ararat, above the flood of Mahommedanism which then threatened to overwhelm all the south and east of Europe. It arose at a crisis when the Sultan had finally seated himself on the throne of the Cæsars at Constantinople, as well as of the Caliphs at Bagdad; and when even the Pope was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, for the victorious Infidels had vowed to stable their horses in the Mother Church of Christendom, and to add the spoils of the old to those of the new Rome. And during the four centuries that have elapsed since that period, this rugged tribe of unconquerable mountaineers, and their princes, as in the heroic ages of Greece, kings at once and high priests,have often won no ordinary claims to the attention of Christian Europe. Far beyond those frontier commonwealths, which long bore the brunt of the barbaric invasions of the Turks,beyond the kingdom of Hungary, beyond the republic of Venice, beyond even the Knights of St. John, -the Montenegrins held manfully, during many generations, the outpost of danger and Christianity. The access to Montenegro is easy for all who come in peace and friendship. Like most mountaineers, the Montenegrins are overflowing in their courtesy and respect towards all foreigners who trust themselves to their honour and hospitality. Indeed, by them, as by the Scotch Highlanders of old, the very name of stranger is regarded as almost holy. And it is a journey of scarce a week from London or Paris to the village capital of Tzetinie. Three or four days of railroad will bring the traveller to Trieste. There he will embark in a coasting steamer, which visits many remarkable places on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Such are Zara, the capital of Dalmatia, famous for the siege which it stood against the combined forces of the French and the Venetians at the commencement of the fourth Crusade; Spalato, a very singular and interesting town, entirely built (as its name implies) within the precincts and out of the vast ruins of Diocletian's Palace at Salona; and Ragusa, that tiny but gallant commonwealth, which once sent its argosies to every sea, and during many centuries maintained its independence against both Venice and Turkey, the powerful neighbours whose dominions hemmed in its narrow territory. On the third day of his voyage along those historic shores, and among the picturesque Dalmatian islands, the traveller reaches the Austrian frontier town of Cattaro, situated at the inner extremity of that beautiful inlet of the sea, the Rhizonic Gulf of antiquity, now known as the Bocche di Cattaro. As the territory of Montenegro may be best compared to a natural citadel, so in the Bay of Cattaro below is presented the spectacle of a line of gigantic docks, hewn out from the mountains by the hand of Nature. Three vast basins communicate with each other by narrow channels, termed mouths (Bocche), which the Austrian Government, bent on making Cattaro the Sebastopol of the Adriatic, is now strongly fortifying. So great is the expanse of water, that all the fleets of Europe united together could find safe and commodious shelter in each of these splendid harbours, whose depth would allow the largest ships of war to be moored close to the shore. sterner scenery From the entrance of the Bocche to the town of Cattaro, the steamer occupies about two hours; and as it proceeds onwards through the winding gulf, a shifting panorama of views recalls the soft beauty of the Lake of Como, mingled with the of the Lake of Lucerne. The craggy mountains rise abruptly on either side, with a majestic sweep, barely allowing room for the succession of villages which fringe the shore at their feet; and whose gay Italian towers and steeples, surrounded with gardens and vineyards, and embowered in groves of olive and cypress, are mirrored in the deep still water. The Montenegrin frontier is at only one hour's ascent above Cattaro. In the streets of the town, and in the marketplace, or bazaar, recalling the Agora of the ancient Greeks, outside its walls, the traveller will obtain his first sight of the Montenegrins, who descend thither to sell or barter the scanty produce of their mountains. Here a group of Perianiks, * So called from the feather (pero) worn in their caps. |