I have said in a previous chapter that the people one meets there may be described as an Hispano-Dano-Niggery-Yankee-doodle population. In this I referred not only to the settlers, but to those also who are constantly passing through it. In the shops and stores, and at the hotels, one meets the same mixture. The Spanish element is of course strong, for Venezuela, New Granada, Central America, and Mexico are all Spanish, and hereabouts are called Spaniards. To the Danes the island belongs. The soldiers, officials, and custom-house people are Danes. They do not, however, mix much with their customers. They affect, I believe, to say that the island is overrun and destroyed by these strange comers, and that they would as lief be without such visitors. If they are altogether indifferent to money making, such may be the case. The labouring people are all black--if these blacks can be called a labouring people. They do coal the vessels at about a dollar a day each--that is when they are so circumstanced as to require a dollar. As to the American element, that is by no means the slightest or most retiring. Dollars are going there, and therefore it is of course natural that Americans should be going also. I saw the other day a map, "The United States as they now are, and in prospective;" and it included all these places--Mexico, Central America, Cuba, St. Domingo, and even poor Jamaica. It may be that the man who made the map understood the destiny of his country; at any rate he understood the tastes of his countrymen.--ANTHONY TROLLOPE, _The West Indies and the Spanish Main_ pp. 224-225. VIII THE LABOR ACT _Provisional Act to Regulate the Relations between the Proprietors of Landed Estates and the Rural Population of Free Laborers_ I, Peter Hansen, Knight Commander of the Order Dannebrog, the King's Commissioner for, and officiating Governor-General of the Danish West India Islands, Make known: That, whereas the ordinance dated 29th July, 1848, by which yearly contracts for labor on landed estates were introduced, has not been duly acted upon: whereas the interest of the proprietors of estates, as well as of the laborers, requires that their mutual obligations should be defined: and whereas on inquiry into the practice of the Island, and into the printed contracts and agreements hitherto made, it appears expedient to establish uniform rules throughout the Island, for the guidance of all parties concerned, it is enacted and ordained: