But the white men by favour were in the town and they left there a Lieutenant Thicknesse as a hostage, and he told afterwards that Quao's children could not refrain from striking their pointed fingers at his breast as they would have done knives, calling “Buckra! Buckra!” The women, he says, wore by way of decoration necklaces of human teeth, which they declared were white men's, and the jawbone of the unfortunate who had brought the first intelligence of Cudjoe's peace adorned one of their horns, a truly Ashanti way of making memorial of a slain ambassador. And thus the white men came to terms with the Maroons of the east as they had done with those of the west, and the weary island breathed freely and sighing, said at least they had disposed of one danger--and so they had--for more than fifty years. That is to say, the white people of Jamaica had adapted themselves to the thorn which was for ever in their side. The Maroons, they say, far excelled in strength and symmetry all the other negroes in Jamaica. They were blacker, taller and handsomer. Once they were at peace, the life of a Maroon was far from being unhappy, even though white men lived among them nominally to rule them. Their mountain homes were cool and healthy, fully ten or fifteen degrees of temperature below that of Montego Bay or Falmouth, and the surroundings were lovely. From the mountain-side where we dwelt at the Hyde, we looked out over wooded hill and valley, coconut palms cut the sky-line, in the deeper hollows was the vivid green of sugar cane, and the bottoms between the hills were pasture land whereon were mules and horses and cattle, red and white. Always it was hill and dale, woodland and pasture, and flamboyant trees made splashes of gorgeous colour, there were plumps of dark green pimento trees like the myrtle groves wherein the gods of ancient Greece held high revel, there were orange trees and lemon trees with golden fruit and white blossoms that filled the air with fragrance; by moonlight it was fairyland and with the dawn all along the valleys and lowlands and in the clefts of the hills lay a fleecy, soft grey mist, the softest, tenderest mist that refreshed the land and added to its luxuriant fertility. And a little higher up, standing beneath a symmetrical broad leaf or a giant cotton tree, it was possible to see the blue Caribbean flecked with white waves or stilly reflecting the cloudless blue sky above. A lovely land the Maroons had for themselves for all time, and they loved it these long lithe warrior slaves with the quick wild and fiery eyes. But savages they were, and it was to keep some sort of check upon them that a white superintendent with helpers was set to live amongst them. Principally it seemed he was there to see that they did not maintain too friendly relations with the slaves from the plantations. He was bound to reside in the town, from which he could not be absent longer than a fortnight, and every three months he had