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account of the increase and decrease of each kind, and must mark even the date on the eggs, fo that he may fee the oldest set first. He must every morning enter in his book the number of each kind that are with egg, least the stock-house woman deceives him; and though you will think all this a very menial part of duty, which I certainly think it is the greatest and most honourable men in Jamaica were obliged to do it.

Turkies are the most difficult kind to raise; at first they require great care and attention, 'till they get strong and grow to perchers; a small grain of bird-pepper, that grows in the country, given to each as foon as out of the shell, is ferviceable; also, to turn them out early in the morning in some short green grass pasture, and to keep them under some shade in the heat of the day. Guinea or India corn ground is the best food; and as they are subject to the yaws, a diftemper very distructive amongst them, they should be rubbed every morning, when they have this infection, with roast limes and brine.

It is also neceffary to examine the sheep, goats, and swine every morning, least they have fores in their feet, and be devoured by vermine. An ointment made of half a pint of the spirits of turpentine, a pint of lamp oil, a dozen of eggs, and as much temper lime as will, when beat up, make a consistance as thick as paste, is excellent for killing vermine, keeping off flies, and healing of fores, for small stock, cattle and horses.

3.

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About eight o'clock the book-keeper goes to breakfast, and afterwards gives out necessaries for dinner, and hastens to the field 'till twelve, at which time he returns he dines about one o'clock,-he sits at the foot of the table opposite the overseer. When the bell is rung to order the flaves out to work, the cowskin hero drinks the King, as a signal for the book-keeper to depart; he returns about five or fix o'clock to fee the stock fed, and is kept constantly busy about one thing or another till past eight; he then gets his supper, and goes to reft his wearied limbs on a couch of plaintain trash, with Oznabrig or facking sheets, shielded with a pavilion of the fame kind.

A book-keeper is obliged to fuperintend every domestic transaction: when a sheep or a hog is killed, he must stand by and direct a negroe how to falt it; and as it is very difficult to preserve meat three or four days, the best method I ever could learn, was to have a tub, (half a puncheon) with a false bottom full of holes, or a basket, supported by a few bricks, with a few gallons of was ter beneath; the meat should be falted well with dry falt about two or three hours after it is killed, and laid on the false bottom, or basket, and preffed well with some weight; the next day it should be rubbed well again with falt, and packed as before; the cold water beneath, though it should not touch the beef, assists to extract the juice. NOTE, that if fresh beef, or meat of any kind, is not falted in time, that is, the day it is killed, it will will not keep after; and if meat, though ever fo well salted, lies in its brine, it will not keep.

A book-keeper must go round the corn field and cane pieces, to fee if any are broken or stole; he must be here and there and every where; indeed the different parts of his duty are as various and progressive as the days in the year.

He commonly gives his first year's salary for a horse; for though in the Windward Islands gentlemen ride mules, it would be considered a difgrace in Jamaica for the poorest man to ride one; his second year's falary goes to the doctors, and the third to the merchant and taylors; in short, if he can keep tolerable clear of debt for four, five, or fix years, and humbly flatter, fawn, cringe, lye, and dissemble, during the time, and tamely bear the overseer's insults and reproaches without murmuring, he will be recommended as an active, clever, fine young man, and, though quite the reverse, will get preferred.

After he arrives to the dignified station of a cowskin hero, if he behaves strictly honest he never will arrive to any great degree of consequence. Though he will be allowed no indulgence but that of pampering a few horses, and restricted to a certain number, he may keep a favourite wench, to keep a stock-house in her name, and to carry on fome pedling traffic in sheep, pultry, &c.

As merchants in general are batchelors, they dine at ordinaries; their clerks are obliged to find themselves in board, washing, and sometimes lodging

lodging; and though one gets a falary of 1501. or 2001. sterling per annum, he cannot save fixpence, if he lives and appears in the manner clerks generally do; nay, it will be good economy if he keeps himself clear of debt; clerks dress more fashionable and gay than overseers or book-keepers, and shift once or twice daily. Board and lodging in a creditable house will cost about 801. sterling: and as constant washing, and the destructive method black women take of beating and rubbing the clothes with stones and stumps of grafs to fave the expence of foap, wears them amazing fast, it will require yearly, if he has not brought a good stock of shirts, neckcloths, breeches, waistcoats, coats and stockings from home, about 30l.: add to this 201. for two cloth coats, two hats, twelve pair of shoes, hair-ribband and hair-dressing, and 12 1. for wathing, all which are requisite and cannot well be dispensfed without, and though a moderate computation, amount to 1421. A large fum indeed, for the bare neceffaries of life, without including an odd dollar, which of course will be spent in taverns at times: for though a clerk be éver so frugal, he cannot well avoid going into public places like others. Notwithstanding all this, clerks like to dress genteelly on Sundays; for every one, I believe, is buoyed up with the notion that one time or another he will be a merchant; well knowing that almost every West-India merchant was nothing better originally than a clerk,

a clerk, therefore they wear fine waistcoats and florentine breeches, filk stockings, set buckles &c. &c. keep or hire horfses and kitterines, and drive about like their employers, or go bufkined like fox hunters, and keep favourite girls, &c. &c. all which would require another 1421.

Now, as it appears from what I have faid, that clerks save nothing, but rather involve themselves in debt, you may ask, "how is it possible that they can ever become merchants, or great men?" It may indeed surprise you, as it often did me, to fee brats of shop boys, and even fome who have been indentured from charity schools, and such dunghill trash, spring up like mushrooms, to be intrusted with confiderable properties, and in the space of four or five years to be capital merchants; there are a variety of ways and means by which clerks afcend. If a poor young man ferves a merchant three or four years so as to gain his favour, he may get letters of credit, and be put into business for himself; or if he be clever at business he may be taken into partnership, and in time his friend and benefactor may go to Europe for the benefit of his health, whereby he is intrusted with the conducting of all the business, and has a glorious opportunity of becoming a great man on the spoils of his patron; or if a young man is sober, keen, and active, he may push himself into credit, get bargains at vendue, keep a favourite wench, and make her retail them at cent. per cent. profit: or fuch a perfon