The man who comes out to a new land is apt always to see the land he leaves behind through a softening veil that enhances its desirability. He sees only its good points. And naturally this emphasises the drawbacks of the new land. He speaks disparagingly of it, he writes home disparagingly, dwelling on his many hardships. Jamaica was no exception to the almost universal rule. Most men went there to make their fortunes, with every intention of returning to spend them. Only Hans Sloane, a wise and far-seeing man, saw the glory of the land, and left behind him a record of its wealth and its beauty and fertility. Lady Nugent, writing more than one hundred years later, was much more swayed by public opinion, and saw what she was told she would see, a deadly climate where men died like flies, though even she does arrive at the poignant fact that the women who lived with less licence, bore this climate far better than their mates. From her pen, too, we first have some pity for the unfortunates the British imported from the Guinea Coast to work in their plantations. Terrible are the stories told of the sufferings of this alien people from the moment they fell into the hands of the slavers till they stood in the slave markets at Kingston or Montego Bay, told calmly, told coldly, told simply as facts by men who saw only the difficulties of the trade, and of dealing with men and women who “wilfully” drowned themselves to escape their fate. On arrival, the stronger like cattle were sold in the open market, but only here and there do we get awful glimpses of the fate that befell the weaker. Life was no bed of roses for the planter and his white assistants, working to provide funds to be spent in the old country, but it was simply a hell at first for the savages they worked. On the plantations no white woman was welcome. As the masters had taken the white bondswoman for their temporary companions, so now they took the black while they were young and comely. At first it was savages and white masters, and the little coloured children who were but their fathers' chattels. So slowly the people progressed, we hardly realise there was any progress, till we see the men and women of dark complexion clothed and ardent church members, even though they are slaves, and we remember how short a while before they started here as naked savages. Two generations were worlds apart. Cruel rebellion there was, crueller retaliation, but still white and black advanced to better things in the land that was becoming the loved home.