So I remained in that comfortable chair in the vestibule of the hotel and waited. A ragged, disreputable-looking [Illustration: CONSTANT SPRING, JAMAICA] John crow, perched on a bush of scarlet blossoms just in front of where I sat, regarded me with a look of thoughtful contempt. As my nerves got more settled I became conscious of the rich perfumes of the flowers; the insects were buzzing and chirping outside, and the strong sun gave to my shaded resting-place an air of quiet coolness. Graceful negresses were watering the flower-beds; they carried the watering-cans on their heads until they found the particular plant they wished to sprinkle with the refreshing liquid. Their movements were slow and deliberate and very graceful. It was a peaceful summer day; from where I sat I could see, afar off, a thin edge of blue beyond the distant confines of the town, and I made out the white patches of the sails of little vessels. I lit my pipe and waited. Suddenly there was a jangle and a crash, and a buggy stopped at the hotel door; in it the head of my friend Forrest appeared from amidst a heap of sketch-books, easels, portfolios, and virgin canvases. I could see by the agonised expression on his flushed countenance that he was very angry. I called the waiter and told him to help the poor struggling artist to disentangle himself from the debris of his paraphernalia. Poor Forrest came to where I sat and sank into another wicker chair. He seized my cooling drink and emptied the glass at one gulp. “Where am I?” he asked. I shook my head. “Where’s Large and the Colonel?” I shook my head. “Seen my luggage?” I shook my head again. He glanced through the doorway and caught sight of the disreputable John crow perched on the bank of scarlet blossoms, and, fumbling for a pencil, made his first Jamaican sketch there and then. I ordered another cooling drink, and so we waited for our luggage and our friends. Jamaica is the largest and most important island in the British West Indies. It contains an area of some two thousand odd square miles, and supports a population of three quarters of a million people, only two per cent of whom are white. The blacks claim the predominating proportion of seventy-seven per cent, the “coloured” people represent nearly twenty per cent, and the remainder of the population is made up of whites, Indian coolies, and Chinese. The ten thousand coolies at work on the plantations in the interior have become a force in the island, and they are destined to play a considerable part in the commercial salvation of the country. The negroes are, of course, the descendants of the slaves imported from Africa in the days of the slave trade; the coloured class are the offsprings of the union of the whites with the blacks, or of the half-breeds with the negroes. The coolies are of recent importation from India, and the Chinese have come, no one knows how, to trade with the negroes in up-country districts.