We saw scores of colored farmers digging their crops of potatoes and
onions, their wives and children helping--entirely contented and
comfortable, if looks go for anything. We never met a man, or woman, or
child anywhere in this sunny island who seemed to be unprosperous, or
discontented, or sorry about anything. This sort of monotony became very
tiresome presently, and even something worse. The spectacle of an entire
nation groveling in contentment is an infuriating thing. We felt the
lack of something in this community--a vague, an indefinable, an elusive
something, and yet a lack. But after considerable thought we made out
what it was--tramps. Let them go there, right now, in a body. It is
utterly virgin soil. Passage is cheap. Every true patriot in America
will help buy tickets. Whole armies of these excellent beings can be
spared from our midst and our polls; they will find a delicious climate
and a green, kind-hearted people. There are potatoes and onions for all,
and a generous welcome for the first batch that arrives, and elegant
graves for the second.

It was the Early Rose potato the people were digging. Later in the year
they have another crop, which they call the Garnet. We buy their
potatoes (retail) at fifteen dollars a barrel; and those colored farmers
buy ours for a song, and live on them. Havana might exchange cigars with
Connecticut in the same advantageous way, if she thought of it.

We passed a roadside grocery with a sign up, "Potatoes Wanted." An
ignorant stranger, doubtless. He could not have gone thirty steps from
his place without finding plenty of them.

In several fields the arrowroot crop was already sprouting. Bermuda used
to make a vast annual profit out of this staple before firearms came into