DOMINICA’S FLOURISHING CONDITION—SCOTCH DINNER—TROPICAL VEGETATION
Two or three days after my arrival at Constant Spring Hotel, I began
to feel that my West Indian experiences would lack any degree of
thoroughness if I did not include a journey to the Windward and Leeward
Islands; how to get to them I had yet to learn.
I longed to set eyes on the volcanoes. Mont Pelée was said to be
continually throwing up huge masses of incandescent lava, which,
constantly rolling down her smoking sides, was altering her geographical
shape, and choking up a contiguous river-bed.
The French Government had prohibited any landing at St Pierre, but a
scientific expedition under Professor La Croix had the pluck to live
in a temporarily constructed observatory at the base of the mountain;
always, I learnt afterwards, in readiness to fly at the approach of
danger. The undermining of the cone going on within the crater threatened
further eruption, ashes ejected having a temperature of 100° Centigrade,
after a week’s cooling. Eyewitnesses gave graphic descriptions of the
abomination of desolation which La Soufrière had worked upon the fertile
districts of the north part of St. Vincent as we sat in the spacious
central hall of Constant Spring Hotel, whilst estate-owners of Jamaica
indulged in jeremiads over the financial depression reigning here.
They pointed in envy to the flourishing condition of the little island
of Dominica, where it is apparent that a West Indian colony can get
along without sugar. It was inspiriting to read how that beautiful and
well-favoured possession of the Crown was forging ahead, in spite of the
Royal Mail Steamship Company’s prohibitive freight charges, and the Sugar
Bounties. Apparently people with moderate capital have been attracted
there sufficiently to purchase Crown lands. This is exactly what Jamaica
needs. The cry here for central sugar factories and new-fashioned plant
instead of obsolete machinery is a loud cry, but that for capital and new
blood is still louder. In Dominica men have had sufficient means to sit
down quietly between the planting of their cocoa trees and its yielding
remunerating returns, a matter of from five to six years.
One Jamaican paper says of this island: “Its happy condition is enough to
make a Jamaican gasp with envy. The revenue in 1901 amounted nearly to
£30,000, the highest ever realised in the island. There was no increase
of taxation, the improvement being entirely due to the development
of trade, and the increased purchasing power of the people. Although
considerable sums were spent in the reconstruction and improvement of
roads, and in other public works, the year closed with an accumulated
surplus of nearly £6000. Of this amount £4000 have been invested as a
reserve fund. Think of Jamaica with a reserve fund! How does Dominica
manage it? So far as we can see, it has ceased to cultivate sugar. During
the last decade it has cultivated cocoa, and produced lime-juice and
its bye-products. The value of its cocoa exports has risen from £7000
to £24,000, while the shipment of lime-juice in 1901 was valued locally
at £35,000. It has also gone in for rubber, vanilla, oranges, and other
minor products.”
People who are to be believed tell me that the percentage of juice
extracted from the cane is 50 per cent. below that attainable with modern
machinery in many parts of the West Indies. It is obvious that until
up-to-date appliances are substituted for the crude and obsolete methods
of manufacture, the sugar industry has no prosperous outlook before it,
nor can it hope to compete with beet sugar.
My intention to visit these islands soon shaped itself. I found a couple
of fellow-passengers were going up to St Thomas in the Danish West Indies
by the Royal Mail steamships, this being their coaling and repairing
station, in reality the _ultima thule_ of their inter-colonial voyages in
these parts.
I arranged, therefore, to leave in a week’s time on the s.s. _Para_. In
the meantime, I hoped to see something of the country round Kingston,
leaving the rest of the island to be visited at the end of December.
The intervening days passed away very pleasantly at Constant Spring
Hotel. There was a dance on the Monday evening; in fact, all through the
winter season there is a weekly gathering of this description. Officers
from the camp, and the principal residents to the number of about
forty, were present on this occasion. Very good music was supplied by
the four musicians who are engaged to play every afternoon in the hotel
drawing-room, a pianist, a violincello player, and two violinists. Some
pretty frocks were worn, many of the girls appearing in delicate muslin
gowns, evidently locally made, but quite adequate to the occasion.
Another day a dinner was given to all the Scotchmen in Jamaica, in honour
of their national saint. The ubiquitous Scot is to be found all over
creation. There is a story going, that when some enterprising explorer
finds his way to the North Pole, he will find a Scot warming himself at
a fire there. About one hundred and fifty sat down to a veritable Scotch
repast. The Governor was the guest of the evening. Visitors staying at
the hotel sat in the verandah outside the dining-room, and listened with
interest to the after-dinner speeches. Before they got to that stage,
the national dish, the haggis, was duly honoured, being carried round
in triumph, preceded by the bagpipes, played by a very stately-looking
piper. This was greeted by the guests with exceeding enthusiasm. Some
of the speeches were quite eloquent, notably so was that of Dr. Gordon,
the Roman Catholic Bishop. He was called upon to answer to the toast
to “bonnie Scotland.” One felt borne away in the spirit to the land
of Burns and Rob Roy, as he led his hearers mentally at a canter over
hill and dale, and across swiftly flowing burns fringed with mountain
ash, and then plunged them into the gloom of mountain fastnesses and
forest depths. It was time, however, to come back to the West Indies
at last, and, when the Bishop sat down, his word-painting of highland
scenery earned for him an enthusiastic ovation. After that a guest with a
considerable flow of language alluded to the fact that “Governors come”
and “Governors go,” but that they (the Jamaicans) “went on for ever.”
Sir Augustus Hemming is certainly possessed of tact, and, whenever I
have heard him speak, generally seems to say the correct thing. On this
occasion, once or twice things were said which were not quite in good
taste, but His Excellency adroitly skidded over risky topics, ignoring
that which had been said, but which it would be better in such a
gathering to have left unsaid.
I have not yet mentioned the impression I received on my first drives and
walks in Jamaica. The colouring is superb. To an artistic mind, there is
scarcely an hour in the day, when looking on to the hills at the back of
the hotel, that a beautiful view is not to be obtained. Sometimes the
mountain summits are veiled in white mists, but at sunset the colours are
grand, and for that only are, to my mind, worth the journey to Jamaica.
The foliage and the parasitical growth, the hanging festoons which drape
from tree to tree, must be seen to be appreciated. Tropical vegetation
is in all its glory here. Innumerable ferns and palm-trees wave in the
air along the banks of the well-kept roads. Plantains and bananas rear
their ragged leaves against the sky. Exquisitely green cedars (not those
we know) are a beautiful feature of the landscape, with orange-trees
bearing blossom and fruit simultaneously. Tamarinds and gums spring from
rocky crags, shrubs and creepers are everywhere; the latter intertwine
themselves in the most wonderful way over tree parasites, back again
to the road bank, then you trace them twenty yards or so further on,
embracing gigantic stems. Not a single tree seems familiar. One feels as
if one were always walking in a botanical garden; the wealth of flowering
plants, of edible fruit and vegetables, strikes one wherever one goes.
How refreshing and how nourishing are the articles of food which Nature,
in an open-handed generosity, not to be found in less favoured climes,
scatters broadcast over these islands! If negroes have yams, bread-fruit,
oranges, bananas, cocoa-nuts, growing at their back door without the
trouble of cultivating them—for anything once stuck into the ground will
grow—how can you expect them to work six days out of seven?
Yesterday I was talking to a coffee-planter, who owns a large property in
this neighbourhood. I asked him how he got on with his blacks, for no two
planters seem to me to agree in their opinions as to the capabilities of
their work-people.
“I don’t have any trouble with them,” he replied. “I pay ’em well because
I find it suits me best, but as to ever imagining they will make decent
citizens, why, it’s out of the question! The fools might have bought us
all out by this time, if they had any sense.”
“And made the island a second Hayti?” I suggested.
“Well, possibly! but when they do buy a bit of land they ruin it by bad
cultivation,” said he.
“I wish they would not live crowded up together in those filthy
one-roomed huts! I cannot get over my feeling of disgust at them in this
respect!”
“They might take a bath sometimes!” he interrupted. “They have not any
decent pride.” He went on to speak of their very sketchy covering at
coffee harvesting time, and said he never let his women-folk go near them
on those occasions.
This gentleman had been in Jamaica since 1876. Sugar, he said, had ruined
his family. Coffee was the only crop he considered worth cultivating.
There was no money in oranges—this conclusion I had arrived at myself.
It was about this time I paid my first visit to Hope Gardens. I went with
a friend who knew one of the officials, and we were taken all over that
interesting government establishment for the promotion of agriculture.
Here plants are introduced, and, if suitable to the climate and soil,
are propagated. The products of Jamaica being purely agricultural, the
well-organised and scientifically-treated garden and plantations are
of great help to students. Early last century yams, cocoas, maize,
and plantains, etc., were first cultivated, so as to make the island
less dependent upon American supplies; they are spoken of as valuable
exotics. Indeed it is interesting to learn where Jamaica obtained her
inexhaustible products. In Bryan Edward’s “History of the British West
Indies,” vol. 1, p. 475, we are told that in 1782 the mango, akee,
cinnamon, camphor, jack-tree, kola, date-palm, rose-apple, turmeric, and
other valuable plants to the number of six hundred had been not only
introduced, but acclimatised in Jamaica.
Spain furnished oranges, lemons, limes, and citrons. The prickly pear
came from Mexico. The shaddock from China. Guinea-grass, which is most
useful for cattle, was accidentally brought from the west coast of
Africa. Sugar-cane was grown here by the Spaniards, but first cultivated
by the English in 1660. Logwood came from Honduras; this is a famous
dye-wood and has a beautiful blossom. The graceful bamboo was brought
from Hispaniola. The scarlet flowering akee, eaten as a vegetable, came
from West Africa in a slaver. Pimento is indigenous to the island;
from this tree we get allspice. The fustic tree, from which khaki dye
is produced, is common along the hedgerows; so is also aniseed, which
is known medicinally in most of our English homes. The nutmeg tree is
quite common in the West Indies. In Hope Gardens they have specimens of
every plant grown in the island, and for those fond of botany, I can
imagine nothing more enjoyable than to wander for hours amongst its trees
and plants. Connected with this government institution the Jamaican
Agricultural Society make special grants for lectures.
Practical demonstrations on bee-keeping have been made throughout the
island, and Jamaica honey is considered one of the best which reaches
the London market.
Personally, I consider the bread-fruit tree, the Jamaican cedar, the
beautiful clumps of feathery bamboos, about the most beautiful of the
trees generally met with in country drives. As one walks along the grass
bordering the road, one may inadvertently step upon the sensitive plant,
which curls up when touched; but one’s attention is incessantly aroused
at the wonderful growth of cacti and orchids, and what the natives call
“wild pines,” lining the boughs of the trees, and fixing themselves
in great clumps in the forks of the branches. The _Palma Christi_, or
castor-oil plant, grows wild.
Farming here is called pen-keeping, and in some districts there are very
fine grazing lands. In fact, it seems to me that no more productive
ground exists under Heaven. If the people had more energy as well as
more capital, it ought to be a little Paradise, barring the ticks. A
relative of mine described the state of Jamaica very aptly when he said,
“The indifference of the blacks was only equalled by the apathy of the
Europeans.”