All West Indians of the higher rank keep a good table; indeed, the custom has become proverbial. Not only does the island contribute its fish, flesh, and fowl, but France and England pay a tribute in the shape of potted meats and soup. The native beef, it must be allowed, is horrible—lean, tough, and sinewy, it requires all your masticatory powers to demolish it, and proves not a bad illustration of the conundrum, “_If_ tough beef-steaks could speak, what English poet would they name?” “Chaw-sir,” (Chaucer.) Some West Indians, however, have asserted that they do not like English beef, it is so “fat and tender!” so much for custom. But the indifferent quality of the Creole beef is easily accounted for, when the state of the animal before it is killed is considered. The cattle bred upon the island, although very small, are used instead of horses in agricultural labour, and are of consequence of great value to the planter. They therefore seldom think of killing them while it is possible for them to be put to the plough, or worked in the cart; but when the planter finds that they are utterly unfit for work, and that death will soon put an end to their toil, or when a cow has become so old and emaciated as to be unable to rear her calves, they make a virtue of necessity, and give them up to the care of one of the old men or women, who feed them about the estate for a few weeks, and occasionally give them a little corn-meal to fatten them, and then sell them to the butcher. I have seen some of these _antediluvian_ creatures, if I may be allowed to use that term, coming into the capital, particularly about Christmas, lame and blind, faltering at every step they made, that it has been a matter of surprise to me how they were able to reach the shambles; but, poor creatures! there they arrive, sooner or later, are quickly despatched, and, about seven o’clock the next morning, you may hear the bellman hallooing out— “Oyes! oyes! a fine fat ox, bery fat, indeed, to be had at the shambles of Mary Swift,” of famed renown! who, in person, amply makes up in longitude what she loses in latitude. I cannot help remarking, in this place, how much more humane the mode of killing these animals, practised in Antigua, appears than that customary in England. Here are no horrible slaughter-houses, still reeking with the blood of those slain before, to harass the poor animal’s sense of smelling, and call for the assistance of those cruel ropes to pull it in; neither is the dire mallet used, which often requires so many strokes before life is extinct. A little grass is scattered down beneath the shade of some spreading tree, to which the creature is tied, and as it bends its head, the butcher, with a sharp knife, separates the spinal marrow between the horns, and death is instant.