SUITABLE CLOTHING—PEDESTRIANS IN JAMAICA—SELF-HELP SOCIETY
Before I launch out into ecstasies over the tropical scenery, and the
luxuriant multiplicity of the flora of this island, I intend to rid
my memory of certain precautionary information with which I consider,
at this juncture, it will be well to acquaint any reader who may be
meditating a visit to this part of the world.
In the matter of dress I advise those who wish to see the island scenery
to leave their heavy luggage at either of the hotels they choose to stay
at when first landing. Since the interior parts of the island are in
many places only accessible either on horseback, as to houses high up
in the Blue Mountains, or as Mandeville, by long drives in buggies from
the railway stations, it is advisable to carry only a limited amount of
what one absolutely requires in bags, portmanteaus, or bundles tightly
strapped in waterproof cases. I cannot do better than warn persons of
the tropical rains which are so frequent in the West Indian islands. Do
not time your visit either in May or October, for these are the rainy
months, but you are always liable to sudden outpourings at other times
of the year and in the finest weather. These rains drench you to the
skin often before you can find shelter, and the danger of catching fever
is great if you do not at once change your wet clothing. Personally, I
consider the waterproof cloak which Messrs Elvery in Conduit Street,
W., supply for tropical countries about the most suitable that I have
seen. For everyday wear, washing skirts and blouses, the latter without
lining, are by far the best; a light, fine serge dress will be useful for
a sojourn amongst the mountains where fires are sometimes necessary in
the evening, and blankets are slept under. The true test of the Jamaican
climate is whether or not one can sleep under a woollen cover. Shady
hats, and one or two silk dresses for evening or Sunday wear, are about
as much as one wants for a tourist’s visit of six weeks to a couple of
months.
If, however, you come out to spend the winter at Constant Spring Hotel
and expect to go much into society, you cannot bring out too many smart
gowns, or too much flummery in the shape of millinery, for the heat soon
takes the freshness off your airiest confections. Let the gowns, however,
be such as you would wear in the hottest summer in England, and you will
then be fairly near the mark.
Whilst I am speaking on the subject of dress I may as well acquaint
you with the fact that muslins and cottons are to be bought here as
reasonably as they are in England. Some people say they are cheaper, and
are made and exported especially for colonial use. This probably is a
correct version, when it is taken into consideration that by law all the
blacks have to provide themselves with decent clothing. With the women,
this always takes the form of cotton, either as print, drill, piqué, or
muslin. There are very fair dressmakers, who are certainly very moderate
in their charges, to be found at Kingston. They are excellent copyists
and clever machinists. Provided they have a good pattern they will turn
out a well-made skirt for about six shillings, and a blouse for a little
less. Many people coming out from England employ them, and there is this
to be said in their favour, they do not keep you waiting long for your
dresses, but generally send them to you in two or three days.
Another important item to be considered in a visit to Jamaica is
boots. Some persons tell you to get a size larger, both in gloves and
shoes, than your ordinary sizes for coming out here. At any rate,
provide yourself with soft kid boots coming high up the leg, to protect
your ankles from the insects which seem by preference to attack that
particular part of your limbs. At Kingston the mosquitoes are virulent,
here at Mandeville there are scarcely any. But far worse than these are
the ticks which render it positively dangerous to walk in long grass,
or to gather at random from the country hedges as you take your walks.
These obnoxious insects are the curse of the island; they attack both
man and beast. Years ago West Indians say they roamed as children about
the hills and woods, gathering what wild flowers they liked, never
thinking or troubling about these insects. Now the nurses have strict
injunctions not to let the children wander in long grass for fear of the
noisome little pests. The introduction of foreign cattle into Jamaica
some twenty-five years ago accounts for their presence; since then they
have increased and multiplied till they are a positive plague. In the
_Port Antonio_ we brought out a number of starlings sent by Sir Alfred
Jones, who is the moving spirit of Elder, Dempster & Co., and who is most
energetic in his attempts to benefit the island. This gentleman hopes
they may acquire a taste for ticks in the same way the mongoose on its
arrival in Jamaica devoted his attentions to the extermination of rats
and snakes. It would indeed be a good thing if they could be got rid
of. I hear that another gentleman having the same object in view has
imported a lot of common hedge-sparrows. The poor starlings we brought
out with us suffered terribly from sea-sickness, scarcely half of them
surviving the journey. The timorous-hearted may be thankful that there
is nothing in the animal or reptile world to be afraid of in country
rambles. At home we have poisonous snakes, here there are none. There are
lizards, but the natives eat them, and also the land crab. Scorpions are
rarely met with, and are not considered so dangerous here as elsewhere.
Ants and sand-flies are found in the low-lying lands. The most charming
live things are the beautiful little humming-birds often seen trembling
over sweet-smelling tree blossoms. I have often watched them flitting
over flowering acacia bushes. There are twenty different sorts of these
enumerated by a naturalist called Goese. Those I have generally seen
have bright bodies of metallic shimmering peacock green, with black
feathers on the head, tail and back.
To return to the subject of dress. Gentlemen will find their summer suits
and flannels indispensable; they should also provide themselves with good
macintoshes.
For an athlete, or indeed for anybody possessed of good walking
powers, it is not impossible to take a walking trip over part of this
island—especially as there are small weekly boats starting from Kingston
every Tuesday, stopping at the various ports and harbours as they make
the circuit of Jamaica. These call at each place for fruit on behalf of
the American Fruit Company, whose boats run between Port Antonio and
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The chief harbours are
Port Morant, Kingston, Old Harbour, Green Island, Montego Bay, Falmouth,
Port Maria, St Ann’s Bay, Lucea, and Port Antonio; these boats stop at
all these. The island of Jamaica itself is only 144 miles at its extreme
length, and its greatest width is 49 miles. From Kingston to Annotto Bay
on the north coast it is only 21½ miles. The roads are exceptionally good
throughout, thanks to Sir H. A. Blake, and there is no reason why a good
pedestrian should not fix upon Jamaica as a fitting spot to be done on
shankses’ pony, provided always he be suitably dressed, and commences his
peregrinations at sunrise, rests from 11 A.M. to 4 P.M., and takes up his
journey then till dusk, or as far into the night as he pleases. The same
applies to bicycling and to riding on horseback.
[Illustration: FRUIT STEAMER ON ITS WEEKLY ROUND.
_To face p. 50._]
There is this to be said to people who cannot accommodate themselves
to somewhat primitive conditions of existence, or who are not in the
enjoyment of at least moderately good health: they should not come to
the West Indies at all. In the first place, the excessive heat in the
middle of the day is decidedly trying; even the strongest take some time
to become acclimatised. Then the food is not the same as English people
are used to—that is, in the country lodging-houses and hotels. To this
day I abstain from salt-fish and akee, a favourite West Indian breakfast
dish; nor can I acquire a taste for the Avocado pear, which is eaten as a
salad, but which to me seems identical with soft soap. Papaw too, which
is handed round for dessert, I find as unpalatable as mangoes; both the
latter are, however, considered delicious by West Indians notwithstanding
the flavour of turpentine which characterises the latter. Yams are nice;
they resemble potatoes. The garden egg and Cho Choes are also acceptable,
the latter resembling greatly our vegetable marrow.
At Constant Spring Hotel I first became acquainted with Jamaican fruits,
and the profusion and quantity of them, together with their cheapness,
constitute one of the most agreeable features in the island housekeeping.
Grape fruit, delicious tangerines, too ripe for export, juicy pines, cool
water-melons, bananas _ad lib._, were always piled up in a big central
dish on our breakfast table. Along the road-sides here, at Mandeville,
from whence I am writing these pages, oranges and grape fruit fall off
the trees, and nobody considers it worth their while to pick them up.
The waste of ripe fruit seems enormous, where the means of transit are
not present to convey it to a shipping port.
One of the most delicious things they give you at this hotel is guava
jelly served with cocoa-nut cream. Indeed the table is unexceptionally
good, also both at Myrtle Bank and Constant Spring.
The day following my arrival being Sunday I did not leave the hotel, but
completed a somewhat large correspondence I wanted to send _viâ_ America.
Letters sent to England _viâ_ the Atlas Steamship Company’s vessels to
the States reach home in twelve days; you can also send them by the
Direct Mail and the Royal Mail Service. There are innumerable places
of worship, not only in Kingston but all over the island; in fact the
Church of England, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Methodists,
and Moravians, all do their best to keep the population in that narrow
path where to convince them of sin seems to be the favourite doctrine.
No doubt the attractions of the broad way which leads to destruction
require pointing out vigorously to the semi-heathen intelligence; but
from expositions I heard in nonconformist chapels, I wondered what form
of amusement was left open to “believers.”
Once I was present at Cambridge when a venerable American bishop, since
dead, but known as the “Apostle of the Indians,” uttered the following
words, which I have never forgotten. The occasion was the centenary of a
religious society. Preachers of different persuasions had spoken of the
advance of the society in their own particular sectarian sphere. “Far
be it from me to present to the heathen a divided Christianity!” I hear
that the puzzled wits of the woolly-haired race do give way occasionally
under the strain of theological pressure. I travelled with a poor black,
afflicted with religious mania, from St Thomas to Antigua, and a doctor
told me that there was a good deal of it amongst the natives.
As I had several purchases to make and to expedite by the _Port Antonio_
on its homeward passage, I prepared myself for a long day’s shopping
on Monday, and indeed I did very little else before going to the first
official garden-party at King’s House on the Friday following my arrival.
The town of Kingston has been called in my hearing “a collection
of shanties,” and although I will not give my assent quite to this
appellation, I cannot honestly admire it. Fine buildings it certainly
lacks. The chief street is Harbour Street, and having once found that,
the other streets run either at right angles or parallel with it.
My first commission was to order a number of tortoiseshell articles,
which are made here cheaply and well by a man called Andrews. Then it is
a nice thing to know that you can send your friends a box containing a
hundred oranges properly packed for the sum of twelve shillings, provided
they do not live beyond a certain distance from London. Blue Mountain
coffee is also an acceptable present. Experts declare that there is no
better in the world; and whether it be true or not I cannot tell, but
I learnt from apparently reliable authority that the Czar is supplied
entirely with the product of one of these upland plantations. Guava
jelly made in the island is delicious, and often sent home by request
of those who have known it out here. Indeed I think many families with
delicate-chested members might do worse than live, for a while at least,
in Jamaica. House-rent in the upper part of the town is not dear, and
the houses are well built, all of them being surrounded with gardens
of varying size, where bougainvillia, hibiscus, palm-trees, and the
crimson-leaved poin-settia are nearly always to be seen. The rents of
these vary from £50 to £100, according to size. They have three postal
deliveries per diem. Fruit, vegetables and fish are cheap, and prices
generally most moderate; for instance, beef is sixpence a pound, pork,
ninepence, bread, threepence, sugar, twopence, coffee, one shilling,
fish, sixpence. The dearest articles of diet are ham, at eighteenpence,
tea, three shillings, good butter, eighteenpence to two shillings,
English cheese, eighteenpence. Fruit and vegetables are not worth
mentioning; pines are to be had for twopence, and for a penny you can get
a dozen bananas. The native produce is of course cheap, and you pay more
in proportion for imported goods. A buggy to hold four persons costs,
when new, about £40, and you can buy sufficiently good horses from £15 to
£20, and even cheaper; but the town of Kingston and environs is so well
served by the tramway service, and the hire of buggies within the urban
limits so cheap, that it is quite possible to live comfortably in the
suburbs without a conveyance. The streets are well lighted by gas, some
of the hotels and public buildings by electricity. Labour is not a very
dear item either; the working hours are from 6 A.M. to 5 P.M., with an
hour off, between 11 and 12 o’clock. On Saturdays no work is done after
11 o’clock. Labourers are paid from eighteenpence to two shillings a day,
women from ninepence to one shilling. Many of the domestic servants live
away from the houses, coming early in the morning, and leaving about
nine in the evening. In a great many households the mistress does not
feed the women-servants. If there are several, they have a room to eat
in, providing for themselves; and I should imagine this was by far the
best way, for the nauseous compounds in their stock-pots, when they thus
choose their own provender, are unsuitable to the stomach of any average
English domestic servant. Salt-fish in an advanced stage of decay is a
favourite dish with them, but nothing comes amiss, and all finds its way
into the big pot.
There are not many curios to be bought in any of the West Indian islands,
but for what few there are it is best to go to the Women’s Self-Help
Society. Here you can get lamp-shades, doyleys, mats of all descriptions
made from lace-bark, and ferns artistically arranged; long chains for the
neck, or muff, made from native seeds dried and strung together. Those
which are mostly bought are known locally as “Job’s Tears” and “Women’s
Tongues.” There was a great run on these a week or two back when Dr
Lunn’s tourist steamer, the _Argonaut_, put into Kingston Harbour, and
its passengers, to the number of a hundred and thirty, spent £70 on the
island curiosities. Great joy reigned amongst the lady promoters of the
Society: such a windfall does not often happen to them.
This “Women’s Self-Help Society” was founded by Lady Musgrave, the wife
of a former Governor, and was opened in 1879. Apparently there are a
number of what some of our papers at home are pleased to designate as
decayed gentlewomen in Jamaica, and the object of this industry is
to find a sale for all kinds of work which they, when industriously
inclined, are able to do. There is, however, an agency attached to it
whereby distressed needlewomen can get orders to execute for ladies and
gentlemen, and there is a stock of clothes always kept ready, suitable
for servants and working people.
The latest Handbook of Jamaica says of this institution: “The Society has
been a great boon to many people in reduced circumstances who have to
work for their living, but find it difficult to get suitable employment.
It also enables other women, who do not require the profit of their
work for themselves, to earn something for charities and philanthropic
objects, as well as to raise the standard of work by bringing to bear on
it that cultivated taste and artistic grace which is the natural result
of a refined education.” So much for this Society and its aims. I should
mention that the seeds called “Women’s Tongues” are those which hang
in long pods from a tree called ponciana. When the seeds are dry, and
the wind blows the boughs of the trees, they rattle in the pods, hence
the title. “Job’s Tears” are the seeds of a plant which bends by the
water-edge, its melancholy attitude having given rise to the name.