[39] It may be necessary to explain what is meant by _strangers_, as well as the reason they receive higher wages. The average rate of wages is eightpence sterling, per day,[40] with the additional privilege of a cottage, a plot of ground in which to plant provisions, and medical attendance. Some estates which are short handed, endeavour to procure labourers from other plantations, and as they have not to provide them with anything but their actual wages, they are enabled to give these strangers (as they are termed, to distinguish them from the resident labourers) a few pence more per day. [40] Since the late awful earthquake, 8th Feb. 1843, wages have increased greatly. The sum of 4s. currency, per diem, is now the usual rate; but some estates have to give from 6s. to 8s. currency, for the daily work of negroes, when grinding or cutting canes. [41] The process of opening the ground for planting the cane. This is most laborious work; it is performed with a heavy hoe, and the holes are from three to four feet square, and about a foot deep. CHAPTER XLV. A chapter on colour—Gradual removes from the negroes—Middle classes—Personal appearance—Devotions at their mirrors—Style of dress—Chapel belles—Passion for dress—Home and home scenes—The young men—Extreme officiousness—Higher classes of colour— Coloured Hebes—The chapel tea-party—Gastronomy and speeches— Wesleyan bazaar, and lunch-table—Gastronomic relics. In commencing this “chapter on colour,” it may, perhaps, be deemed _unnecessary_ for me to mention, that there are as many gradations in _tint_ as there are in _rank;_ but as some of my readers may not be perfectly aware of the fact, I prefer to be branded with the title of a “multiplier of words,” rather than omit any subject on which I may be able to afford information. The several removes from a black are as follows:—The _mongrel_, the offspring of a black and mulatto; the _mulatto_, the offspring of a black and a white; the _mustee_, the offspring of a mulatto and a white; the _fustee_, the offspring of a mustee and a white; and the _dustee_, the offspring of a fustee and a white.[42] This last gradation is the connecting link between the degraded children of Ham, and the descendants of his more honoured brethren. It is to be noted, however, that the _mulatto_ is not _always_ fairer than the _mongrel_, or the _mustee_ than the mulatto; and children of the same parents often exhibit as much, if not more, difference of complexion, as those of Europeans.[43]