It is strange, too, that they will hardly ever sell any of their poultry or meat, or, indeed, anything else they may have to dispose of, to the proprietor or manager residing upon the same estate as themselves. No! they prefer bringing it miles, perhaps, to town, and probably getting less for it, than if they had disposed of it to their masters. If asked to do so, they commonly find some excuse; it is too old or too young, or too fat or too lean, or they cannot catch it, or else they want it for themselves. This singular practice arises from suspicion; they are fearful of letting their masters know what their resources are, and what they do with their property. For this reason, they prefer going to a dark shop to purchase what they want. They do not like to be recognised by any one while thus employed; nor for any one to know how much money they lay out, or what they buy. There are some retail shops, or _stores_, as they are called in the West Indian idiom, which are scarcely six feet high, and which of course are very dark and uncomfortable; yet, as unpleasant as these stores or shops may look to the eye, they are for that very reason frequented by the negroes. I am, in this part of my subject, more particularly speaking of the state of affairs before emancipation, but I believe this mistrust of their employers still continues. In former days, so fearful were the slaves of letting their masters know how much money they possessed, that it was a common practice of theirs to bury it; and often death overtook them before they could tell their relations in what spot they had deposited it, and consequently it was lost. If “Daddy Whelan,” the notorious “treasure-seeker,” in Mrs. Hall’s interesting tale of the “Crock of Gold,” was here, he might be more fortunate than in his own country. In receiving money they are equally suspicious; I have had opportunities of seeing this under the free system. It is customary upon estates to pay the labourers on the Friday, or early on the Saturday morning, and it is curious to see how they count and re-count their money, fearing the paymaster may have cheated them. In one or two instances brought beneath my own eye, a negro has returned his wages, with—“No right, massa, money no ’nough;” it has been counted again, the pay-book referred to, when instead of being _too little_, it has proved to be _too much_; the surplus deducted, and the right sum handed to the negro, he grumbles again, because he brought it back.