CHAPTER XLII. Negroes: Employment of the women—Washing—A scene at the pond— Conversations—The sea-side—“Water frolic”—Hucksters—“Damaged flour”—Female porters—Masculine appearance of some of the females—Indelicacy—Their mode of carrying burdens. Having given a short sketch of the manner in which the generality of the negro-men employ their time, it will be proper also to mention the occupation of the females. Many of these still follow the employment to which they have been habituated from their youth, the cultivation of the sugar-cane. But others, although used to it in their days of slavery, now they have become free, look upon it as degrading; and therefore, quitting the estates to which they formerly belonged, and all the privileges incident to their country-life, they hire a small house in some of the alleys or outskirts of the capital, and there take up their abode. Among this class of women, washing and huckstering are the principal employments; and it is from the profits arising from these means that they are enabled to bring up their daughters in comparative idleness, and send them forth on Sundays dressed in the ridiculous style I have already described. It may not be deemed superfluous to remark how differently _washing_ is conducted in Antigua to the mode pursued in England. There, among the good housewives who preside over such ablutions, it generally occasions gloom and discontent, particularly if the weather proves foul when the _water frolic_ takes place; in that case (as the song says)— “The very kittens on the hearth, They dare not even play; But away they jump, with many a thump, Upon a washing day.” But in this country, where blue skies and sun-shiny days predominate, the case is quite the reverse. Groups of washerwomen may be seen in the morning with large bundles of clothes upon their heads, their half-naked “pic’nees” clinging round their hips, and similarly accoutred little urchins running by their side, wending their way to some of the ponds near the outskirts of the town. When arrived at the place favourable for such sports or occupations, their bundles are first put down, their youngest children placed upon the ground with one of larger growth to watch over it, their own dress properly arranged, and then the business of the day commences.