MONEAGUE HOTEL—THE TROUBLES OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
Returning from Montego Bay, I went by rail to Ewarton, which is in the
centre of Jamaica. To go there I had to change at Spanish Town, which
is 10 miles or so from Kingston. There is only one train every day that
runs the whole distance from Montego Bay to Kingston; this starts at
eight o’clock in the morning, stopping at every station, and reaches
its destination about four in the afternoon. On this occasion I fell
in with a number of the island clergy, who entered the train at every
stopping-place, several having driven distances of 25 and 30 miles,
having risen before daybreak. Since most of the cocks in Jamaica are
different from their feathered kindred of other climes, and keep up one
unhallowed chorus of crowing all through the night, it is not a great
difficulty to tear yourself from your couch.
They were on their way to attend the yearly Synod, which holds its
meetings every January, or, as in this case, February. I met my new
acquaintance, the rector of Montego Bay, in the train. He told me he had
been over twenty years in Jamaica, and he was, I should say, a man of
about forty-five years of age.
“But you have been home of course several times in those years?” I
questioningly asked him.
“Not a bit of it, Madam,” was his curt rejoinder. Apparently he was in
the best of health, and had, to my knowledge, taken four services without
assistance the day previous, which was Sunday, that I never imagined
for a moment it was possible to keep so much vitality and energy going
without occasional recruiting sea-voyages and change from this enervating
climate.
“How do you think I look?” asked he, slapping his chest, and drawing
himself up to his full height, which was not beyond that of the average
male adult.
“Very fit,” was my reply.
“Go home and tell them what a man can look like out here, after twenty
years of total abstinence, and never going home once in all that time.” A
mischievous gleam shot from his eyes as he spoke.
“How many services did you take yesterday?” I asked him.
“An early celebration and a baptism before I met you.” This had been
about half-past nine in the morning, when I was sitting on one of the
crazy tombs in the churchyard, with my attention divided between the
sketch I had been making and my dread of being walked over by a huge
spider, or chance scorpion, to say nothing of occasional futile attempts
to thin the mosquito life of the island, for they always pestered me so
when sketching that I had no conscientious scruples as to massacring them
mercilessly.
“Yes,” I said; “then you had a second celebration after the eleven
o’clock service, and you preached a good twenty minutes.”
“Did you time me?” I laughed. “Well!” continued he, “I had a children’s
service in the afternoon, and evensong at six, so you will admit I had a
fairly busy day.”
“What a pity they don’t send out our curates to do a good ten years
in the colonies before giving them livings in England!” I exclaimed,
thinking of some of the weaklings who complained of being overworked at
home. Our conversation drifted to other topics. I said the black race
struck me as being nothing more than grown-up children, and he agreed
that that was the best way of regarding them. He told me of the reduced
circumstances which some families owning, formerly, large estates had
fallen into; this, according to him, being the result of reckless
extravagance, and never putting aside for a rainy day.
“They must have had splendid incomes,” I commented.
“There’s no doubt of it,” assented he.
“What _did_ they spend their money on?” I asked, thinking of the hundred
and one ways, nowadays, in which money flies, and of the really few
amusements that would present themselves in the middle of the eighteenth
century to these planters.
“Themselves,” he answered, without hesitation; “in luxuriant living, in
dress, and in having a good time at home.”
Before Spanish Town was reached, I met some persons whom I had seen
previously at Mandeville, and we drove together from Ewarton Station over
Mount Diabolo, which is 2000 feet above sea-level, and from whence most
exquisite views are to be obtained over St Thomas in the vale. This is
one of the best drives in the island, and certainly should not be missed.
The Moneague Hotel is a very spacious and comfortable building; it
stands on a hill, and before you turn up towards it, a huge cotton-tree,
with the longest spurs I ever saw, stands in the centre of a pasture,
extending its gaunt limbs from its huge truck as a terrestrial octopus
might be supposed to do. I went up to Moneague especially to visit this
part of the country, which is perfectly lovely whichever way you go. The
day following my arrival I took a forty-mile drive. A most entertaining
coloured man acted in the capacity of coachman, and as we drove along in
a one-seated buggy drawn by a pair of strong ponies, he told me the names
of those trees with which I was not acquainted. I faintly suspected in
one or two cases he drew upon his imagination: he did not answer quite so
glibly as he had done previously. We passed very fine grazing estates,
and I gathered from my loquacious informer that some persons in the
island had made very fair fortunes through grazing and cattle-rearing.
The chief charm of this long day was the road leading through Fern Gully
down to the small town of Ora Cabessa, on the north side of the island.
You drive between enormously high cliffs covered with every variety of
fern; the moisture and shade causes their growth to be quite gigantic,
and you look up to the bit of blue sky overhead through the interlacing
and waving greenery of countless tropical plants. On emerging from the
Gully you arrive at Ora Cabessa, where a police-station, a post-office,
and a telegraph-station acquaint you with the fact that you are once more
in the haunts of civilisation. Here groves of cocoa-nut-trees bend almost
down to the water’s edge, and the coast scenery is lovely. Ochos Rios,
meaning “eight rivers,” is a little further on.
In the vicinity are the two waterfalls made by the Roaring River in its
course to the sea; the lower is very pretty, but the fall a mile higher
up in private property is well worth seeing. Here a more villainous
breed of ticks seems to abound, for everyone warns you to beware of
them, and several men we met on the road who had visited the falls, were
diligently inspecting their nether garments; they were what the native
contemptuously calls “walkfoot buckra,” as distinguished from “carriage
buckra.” There are many funny nigger sayings which, the longer one lives
in Jamaica, the more one grasps their significance. “To a dog’s face say
Mr Dog, behind his back Dog,” is one of them. Substitute for the dog the
white man, and you have learnt a fundamental truth. I was told by my
coloured coachman that no native will wear cast-off clothing. Another
thing that interested me, as pertaining to the native folk-lore, was the
reverence in which children hold spiders. They will curtsey to them,
talk to them on their way to school. Some persons say this is the last
vestige of some old African totem-worship connected with this insect. I
have not mentioned the land crabs which abound at these waterfalls. The
natives call them “soldiers”; they are quite harmless, and I have heard
that they are eaten by the blacks.
I cannot turn my back on this lovely northern coast without alluding
to the ever-memorable landing of the great Columbus, which happened in
1504, during his fourth journey to the New World near this spot. He had
discovered the highlands of Jamaica in 1494, and in the united names of
Ferdinand and Arragon had taken possession of it. A devout Catholic, he
could do no otherwise than obey the decree of Pope Alexander VI. to the
effect that “omnes insulas et terras firmas inventas et inveniendas,
detectas et detegendas versus Occidentem” were given to the Spanish Crown.
It is sorrowful reading which tells us how, suffering from base
ingratitude, in tempestuous weather, and with much difficulty, he reached
a haven since known as Don Christopher’s Cove, on the north side of the
island, with two crippled and leaking ships, which he ran aground to
prevent their foundering. He quite made up his mind to die there. His
crews revolted, the Indians deserted him, the Governor of Hispaniola
mocked his misfortunes. In much suffering, and amongst his rebellious
countrymen, he writes to the King of Spain, and says how low “his zeal
for the service of King Ferdinand and his mistress Queen Isabella had
brought him, how his men who were in health mutinied under Poras of
Seville.” He adds: “As my misery makes my life a burthen to myself, so I
fear the empty title of Vice-Roy and Admiral render me obnoxious to the
hatred of the Spanish nation.
“It is visible that all methods are adopted to cut the thread that is
breaking, for I am in my old age oppressed with insupportable pains
of the gout, and am now languishing and expiring with that and other
infirmities among savages, when I have neither medicines nor provisions
for the body, priest nor sacrament for the soul. My men in a state of
revolt, my brother, my son, and those that are faithful, sick, starving,
and dying. Let it not bring a further infamy on the Castilian name, nor
let future ages know that there were wretches so vile in this, that think
to recommend themselves to Your Majesty by destroying the unfortunate and
miserable Christopher Columbus.” In conclusion, he pathetically appeals
to Queen Isabella: “She, if she lives, will consider that cruelty and
ingratitude will bring down the wrath of Heaven, so that the wealth I
have discovered shall be the means of stirring up all mankind to revenge
and rapine, and the Spanish nation suffer hereafter, for what envious,
malicious, and ungrateful people do now.”
The Spaniards brought their priests over with them when they took
possession of the island. The religious ceremonies were conducted in
handsome edifices, although no traces remain of them. At the first
capital, Seville D’oro, founded by Diego, the discoverer’s son, a
collegiate church was built. In 1688 the founder of the British Museum
declared that there were ruins of ecclesiastical buildings at Seville,
which were situated near the modern St Ann’s Bay, but all such remains
have long since passed away with the increased agriculture and the rapid
growth of tropical flora. No one seems able to tell why the Spaniards
changed their seat of government in 1530, from Seville D’oro to St Jago
de la Vega, the modern Spanish town, where an abbey, churches, and
chapels were built.
I returned to Moneague _viâ_ Claremont. The road ascends for a long
distance through fine estates; it is well graded, and, looking back,
lovely peeps of the sea are afforded. At the top of the hill it is well
to leave the carriage and climb up on a gate or wall, when an extended
coast scene, including St Ann’s Bay, is visible. A pretentious little
fruit-boat, busy as a honey-bee, was puffing away towards Ora Cabessa,
where she anchored, for the coast is too shallow at most of the ports
where the ships call for fruit to allow of their coming alongside
the wharf. The sea was an exquisite blue, and a band of bright green
cane-fields bordered the coast, whilst pimento-trees and cocoa-nut groves
waved in the distance.
I told the driver to be merciful to his beast up that long hill. I was
tired, I said, and had come a long journey the day previously. When I
told him I had come from Montego Bay to the hotel, he expressed surprise
that I was able to take so long a drive as that we were going.
“Ladies ’bout yar would go to bed after a journey like dat, and not rise
up again till de turd day.”
I told him Englishwomen were able to endure much greater hardships than
West Indian ladies.
“Did I not want a coachman to take back with me?” he asked. He would so
much like to go to England. A little further conversation, and I elicited
from him he had a weak lung. That, I said, put that matter completely out
of the question. If in Jamaica his lungs were weak, he would not live a
month in our colder climate. That seemed to upset his calculations.
“Besides, you would not like the food,” I told him. “We have not half the
good things at home you have here.” And we fell to discussing foods.
“Give a man out yar salt-fish and akee and roasted bread-fruit far
breakfast, and he trow away all de ham and eggs into de street,” said he.
We met some desperately poor, ill-clad negroes, and I asked if they were
not very idle.
“No, missus; they can’t get work to do. They don’t know how to do any
ting properly for to get any money. Some of dem don’t earn eight dollars
in a whole year,” he added.
I reckoned up eight dollars as not quite two pounds, and felt aghast at
that for a living wage. The driver had all unwittingly put his finger
upon a sore spot in the educational policy of Jamaica. The present
generation are mostly too grand to work with their hands as their
parents did before them. They connect domestic service and work with
slavery, and every girl who has a smattering of knowledge wants to be a
school-teacher or a dressmaker. The next generation, it is to be hoped,
will not be educated above their position in life, then existence in
Jamaica for white women may cease to be the harrowing anxiety it seems to
be at present. We are not ignorant of the difficulties of housekeeping at
home, with a class of women-servants who are not trained to work, and who
are neither reliable or conscientious, but, with the thickheadedness of
the black thrown in, the case is much worse out here.
[Illustration: COCOA-NUT GROVE.
_To face p. 199._]
I will not conclude this chapter without alluding to the cultivation
of the cocoa-nut palm-tree. Owing to the long time it is necessary to
wait for the first crop, not so much has been done in growing this tree.
It seldom bears until seven years old, but when once it is in good
bearing, it goes on for a hundred years. The yield of a tree averages one
hundred nuts yearly; the bright green blossom and the ripe fruit appear
simultaneously. The cocoa-nut palm grows best near the sea, but does not
require such rich, moist soil as the banana. The rule is that as soon as
the tops are out of reach, the land on which they grow can be put into
pasture. The nut is mostly harvested before it is quite ripe. Cocoa-nut
milk is made from gratings of the kernel. They carve the shell, and it
serves many purposes. The dried kernel is known as “kopra,” and is boiled
down for the preparation of oil. The solid fat is made into candles,
and the oil is used for cooking and for lamps. The cake which is left,
or “poonac,” is a good food for cattle, also used as a manure. The husk
of the fruit yields a fibre which is made into cordage, nets, etc. The
tender leaves are made into mats and boxes, the mature into matting,
sails, etc. The ash yields potash. The midribs of the leaflets are
converted into brooms and brushes; the stalk of the spadix into brushes
for whitewashing. Other parts are also useful.