And these houses were naturally very plainly furnished. There were great mahogany beds, one probably even in the sitting-room if the posts happened to be well carved, there were mahogany chairs and tables, perhaps a cupboard or great box or two, all made on the estate, for they all prided themselves upon having a carpenter. They had mattresses and quilts and of necessity mosquito curtains, but they had no pictures--the days of the pictorial calendar were not yet--and never a book, save perhaps the Family Bible, wherein to record the births and deaths of the family. If the house mistress were house proud, having as many servants as she pleased, she perhaps saw to it that her mahogany floors were kept in a high state of polish and the pieces of family silver brought from the Old Country and set out on the country-made sideboard reflected the faces of its owners, but otherwise there was not much ornament. The weather was hot, it was always hot to these men from England, and at first they wore their heavy English clothes, their long coats, their waistcoats, their breeches and heavy woollen stockings; and their hair too was long until they took to wearing wigs, which must have been worse. Well, of course, it was utterly out of the question that a man should go clad like that in a Jamaican August even when the rain came down in torrents and every leaf held a shower of water. He shed his clothes by degrees, and went about his house, where he was only seen by his women, often about his fields, where he was only seen by his slaves, who did not count, in thread stockings, linen drawers and vest, with a large handkerchief tied round his head. Out of doors he would wear a hat on top of this kerchief. Of course there were occasions when he graced some state function with his presence, or twice or thrice in his life on some very important occasion he may have felt impelled to attend church, and then he would adorn his head with a wig. Then, too, he would blossom out into a silk coat and a vest trimmed with silver. Lesley, speaking of his arrival in Jamaica in the beginning of the eighteenth century says, “the people seem all sickly, their complexion is muddy, their colour wan and their bodies meagre, they look like so many corpses and their dress resembles a shroud.” It must be remembered that yellow fever was rampant, and that not till the very end of the nineteenth century was the cause known. “However,” he goes on to say, “they are frank and good-humoured and make the best of life they can. If Death is more busy in this place than in many others, his approach is nowhere received with a greater unconcernedness. They live well, enjoy their friends, drink heartily, make money, and are quite careless of futurity.”