I fear, therefore, that the average English labourer would not prosper here.

He has not stamina enough for the hard work of the sugar plantation.

He has not wit and handiness enough for the more delicate work of a little spade-farm: and he would sink, as the Negro seems inclined to sink, into a mere grower of food for himself; or take to drink--as too many of the white immigrants to certain West Indian colonies did thirty years ago--and burn the life out of himself with new rum.

The Hindoo immigrant, on the other hand, has been trained by long ages to a somewhat scientific agriculture, and civilised into the want of many luxuries for which the Negro cares nothing; and it is to him that we must look, I think, for a 'petite culture' which will do justice to the inexhaustible wealth of the West Indian soil and climate.
As for the house, which is embowered in the little Paradise which I have been describing, I am sorry to say that it is, in general, the merest wooden hut on stilts; the front half altogether open and unwalled; the back half boarded up to form a single room, a passing glance into which will not make the stranger wish to enter, if he has any nose, or any dislike of vermin.

The group at the door, meanwhile, will do anything but invite him to enter; and he will ride on, with something like a sigh at what man might be, and what he is.
Doubtless, there are great excuses for the inmates.