THE DIRECT LINE—THE LAZINESS OF THE NEGRO—FELLOW-PASSENGERS ON THE _PORT
ANTONIO_
I have found during my short stay in Jamaica that it is not wise to
pin too much faith to the gospel of the West Indies, according to J.
A. Froude, nor is it discreet to quote it to the inhabitants thereof.
His book was published in 1888, and the conclusions he arrived at
upon colonial problems are called Froudisms. The moral is that there
is another side to West Indian questions than that of government
officialism, and that these two do not hunt in couples is apparent to the
most casual observer.
I must, however, refrain from discussing the subject since I intend to
devote this chapter to other topics. Having yielded to the conviction
that it was my bounden duty to enlighten people at home as to the easy
accessibility of Jamaica, as well as to inform them what they lose by not
putting in six weeks at least of one winter in this charming island, for
nowhere can one see tropical scenery better than in Jamaica, I pass on to
tell them the best way to get here. This they can do most directly by the
Elder, Dempster steamers, which run fortnightly between Avonmouth Dock,
near Bristol, and Kingston, the chief town in Jamaica. Formerly the
Royal Mail Service had the monopoly of the West Indian trade, but within
the last two years Mr Chamberlain has arranged with the firm of Elder,
Dempster to carry the mails directly to Jamaica, which is the largest of
our island possessions in these waters. These ships are called the Fruit
Boats, for they return with cargoes of bananas. I believe by contract
they have to bring from Jamaica 25,000 bunches every fortnight. This is
the reason of the recent cheapness of this particular fruit; one may
often see them on costermongers’ barrows in London and elsewhere sold for
a halfpenny each.
I left Avonmouth Dock 8th November 1902, in the _Port Antonio_, and a
very comfortable ship I found her. Having paid a little extra, I was
fortunate enough to secure a deck cabin to myself; this is quite worth
the money, especially when one is approaching Jamaica. My first-class
return ticket available for nine months cost £40, but there were good
first-class cabins at £32. Very good stewardesses are carried on all
these ships. Now the Royal Mail steamers go first to Barbadoes; at
present, on account of an outbreak of small-pox last autumn, they go
to Trinidad. Here they trans-ship passengers, cargo, and mails for the
Leeward and Windward Islands into small inter-colonial steamers which ply
between the islands, after which they proceed to Jamaica.
One avoids all this by taking the direct steamers, and, as I have said
before, this island is more accessible than any I have so far visited.
There are capital roads, good conveyances, and good saddle-horses, a
central railway connecting the most important towns. In winter the
climate is perfection, whereas nobody mentions Trinidad but to groan
over their experience of the moist heat and the incessant tropical rain
which makes travelling about that island too fatiguing for words, to say
nothing of the risk of getting fever by not being able always to change
your drenched clothing. Nor do any of the islands between Trinidad and
the Danish island of St Thomas, which I have visited, possess facilities
for tourist accommodation. In some of them roads practically do not
exist beyond the outskirts of the little town where the mail steamers
land passengers. If horses are wanted they have to be hired from the
inhabitants. The hotels, such as they are, and still more, the food, one
would hardly care to take the responsibility of recommending.
It was raining as I said good-bye to my friends on the _Port Antonio_,
a steamer of about four thousand tons. In fact, for some three days
previously a depression had been announced, and everybody prophesied we
should come in for stormy weather. We could not have had worse. It was
under lowering skies and heavy rain we steamed down the Bristol Channel.
The next day, Sunday, scarcely a lady moved from her berth, and most of
the men appeared only to show themselves, returning again to seek the
privacy of their cabins. We rolled and pitched for seven consecutive
days; it was not until we had been more than a week at sea that everybody
sat down to meals. Fortunately I am a good sailor, but I never boast
of my prowess in that respect, knowing, to my cost, that pride goes
before a fall! Some years ago I went to New Zealand by the Cape of
Good Hope, and returned by the Horn, thus circumnavigating the globe. I
learnt to drink cocktails off Tierra del Fuego, came in for fever and
fighting at Rio, and enlarged my stock of unparliamentary language at
the Canaries, where we were not allowed to land, and, instead, had to
endure the slow tortures of coaling. During the whole of that voyage I
suffered the discomforts of sea-sickness exactly twenty minutes, the
scene of my unhappy, though transitory illness being off Plymouth, as
we steamed down channel. In a moment of unguarded weakness, some months
after, I boasted of this to a desponding group of fellow-passengers. We
were leaving Algiers, and the sea was as smooth as it could be, but it
was in the days of my innocence. I know _now_ what is to be expected of
the Mediterranean, and by a cruel experience I also know what a gale in
the Gulf of Lions means. On my arrival at Marseilles, I had broken all
previous records, and for hours had endured the pains of the condemnable.
My appearance was such that my fellow-passengers forbore to taunt me with
my vain boasting of the day previous. How were the mighty fallen! “All
the world wondered,” though they preserved a discreet and kindly silence.
Notwithstanding the rough weather we experienced in the “roaring
forties,” I managed to obtain a good deal of amusement and some useful
information during those days of discomfort. No less famous a writer than
Plato says that to travel profitably one should be between fifty and
sixty. I can scarcely lay claim to as many years, still, if the chief
object in going abroad be, as Plato thinks, to converse with inspired
men whom Providence scatters about the globe, and from whom alone wisdom
can be learnt, I hope I have succeeded in gleaning some of that golden
harvest which falls before the sickle of curious enquiry. We had several
interesting people on board, and whiled away otherwise tedious hours by
exchanging and comparing notes of lands we had or had not travelled in.
A retired colonel, whose chief aim in life was to return to Jamaica
where he had seen twenty years of service, and grow pines for the
English market, assured me quite gravely he had taken up the calling
of a greengrocer. On further enquiry I learnt that he was enthusiastic
about the future possibilities of fruit culture, and, said he, “when we
get the steamers promised us by Elder, Dempster, which are to take only
ten days between Kingston and Bristol, what a chance it will be for us
pine-growers!” I met this gentleman five days after landing at Kingston,
at a garden-party at King’s House. I thought he looked tired, and he
explained that he had been working hard himself ever since he landed,
planting his precious pines. I asked if he could not trust them to his
gardener. “No,” said he; “the blacks are very good fellows, but if you
tell them to put first a layer of sand and then manure, they are bound
to do the opposite. It is easier to plant them yourself.” In saying this
he just touched upon the sore spot in Jamaica, as I afterwards learnt.
The labour question may be bad in England, but it is a very different
thing in this island. Captain C——, of the Royal Mail Service, said to
me one day, “We never overlook a fault amongst our black firemen; with
a white man we can do so, for he will thank his stars the omission was
not noticed, and will be careful not to repeat his fault, but the blacks
have not sense enough for that, and we fine them one or two days’ pay,
as the case may be.” An English lady, who had seen better days at home
and has opened a boarding-house at Mandeville, said to me: “In England
I used to say that I worked like a nigger. Now I say I work like an
Englishwoman.” The laziness of the negro is proverbial in the West
Indies, yet occasionally he makes a good servant. On another occasion
I was told by an old gentleman that he had often watched hard-working
coolies cultivating their little patch of garden. From a window looking
out in an opposite direction he had seen lazy niggers asleep all day
under trees. At night, when the coolies had departed, he had watched
woolly heads creep along the low fence, and steal yams and anything they
could lay their hands upon, which the industrious Hindoo had planted. At
the same time, I am told on unquestionable authority that when sure of
good treatment, the negroes on some estates are hard-working and reliable.
In most cases the West Indian black finds the labour of three days
sufficient to keep him for a week, thus the property owners soon after
the days of emancipation suffered greatly from the lack of labour. To
supply this want the Government imported coolies from India, and it is
interesting to compare the lithe, sinewy Hindoos with their intelligent
dark eyes and black straight hair with the ofttimes lumbering gait of the
woolly-haired, thick-lipped sons of Ham.
One of our most popular passengers was an American lady who had seen
many lands, and last, but not least, had travelled from Japan _viâ_
Vladivostock and the Russian Railway down to Pekin. She had been a guest
at the headquarters of each of the allied forces, and it was interesting
to hear her recount her adventures. She had, she said, met with unfailing
courtesy from the Russian officials, and was loud in her praises of that
nation. She declared that our Indian troops had been generally admitted
to be the finest body of men in Pekin. “You English,” she said, “think a
deal of your alliance with the Japs, but I guess that if it was to their
advantage they would leave you in the lurch any day.” This enterprising
lady had visited the royal palace, and had photographed her Imperial
Majesty of China’s bed, together with other celestial furniture never
before exposed to the impious gaze of foreign devils! Indeed she was a
most entertaining person, and apparently had done everything there was to
be done, as known to this generation.
One of our officers had been in Constantinople at the time of the
Armenian atrocities. He had his tale to tell, and after one had heard
from an eye-witness of the unspeakable cruelty of the Turk, but also of
the utter unworthiness of the Armenian—who seems to have been as much
of a _mauvais sujet_ of the Porte as the Fenian was to us in years gone
past—one felt glad that British blood had not been spilt in defence of so
miserable a people as the Armenians. There were several persons who came
out to Jamaica returning by the same steamer, and spending the four or
five days in a hasty survey of the island. One couple were going on to
Mexico and California. A Russian journalist, commissioned to send home
articles upon Jamaica, and a majestic and venerable dame, known as the
fair Delicia, were also fellow-passengers. The last-named lady is well
known in fashionable circles of Kingston society. She is not far removed
from that limit which is supposed to represent the average lease of life.
Her amiability is not excessive, but her skittishness is phenomenal.
She dances on all possible occasions, and waltzes generally with the
youngest men present. She has a playful way of boasting that she cannot
remember the persons with whom she has quarrelled, and reputations are at
a discount when the fair Delicia engages in conversation.