Carlisle Bay, Feb.
The office of caterer for the mess having fallen to the lot of your
friend, I may tell you that I sometimes go to Bridge-town, to buy living
meat for dinner. You will, perhaps, be surprised to learn that, here,
animals are brought alive into the market, to be killed after the
different joints are sold: and, that it often happens, that the meat is
slaughtered, consigned to the pot or spit, brought to table, and eaten,
without growing cold!
The filthy custom of blowing the meat, is carried to greater excess at
Barbadoes, than in England. As soon as the calf is dead, a small opening
is cut near to the hock, and the whole surface is inflated like a
full-blown bladder. The skin is then taken off, and the meat distributed
to the purchasers for immediate use.
Leaving our comrades, Weir, and Master, on board, Cleghorn and myself
frequently make excursions on shore, and stroll about the town and the
fields, by way of exercise, and of gratifying a strong curiosity to see
and know all that appertains to the change we have made. In these
rumblings, we often surprise the West Indians, by, what they term, the
dangerous extent of our walks; and they assure us that, a few months
hence, we shall be little inclined to use such _violent_ exercise. A
walk of five or six miles appears to them _tremendous_: but we suffer no
inconvenience from it, and, without being, yet, well able to judge, we
fancy that much of the languor and inactivity of the creoles and
creolised, might be prevented, and stronger health enjoyed, if they were
to accustom themselves, more freely, to habits of activity. Against our
theory they urge experience, remarking that all Europeans, however fond
of using much exercise, on their first arrival, gradually lapse into the
same indolent indulgence as the natives.
After one of these excursions we returned to Bridge-town, by way of
Pilgrim, the residence of the governor; a pleasant home, situated upon
an elevated spot, about a mile from the town. Near this place our
attention was arrested by a party of slaves, or, according to the
language of the island, a _gang of negroes_, who were employed in making
a road to the governor’s house. It was the first large body of slaves we
had met with, toiling at their regular employment, immediately under the
lash of the whip; and we could not but remark that the manner of
executing the task afforded a striking example of the effect of climate,
and of slavery. Nothing of diligence, or industry appeared among them;
and but little of bodily labour was expended. They seemed almost too
idle to raise the hammer, which they let fall by its own weight,
repeating the blow several times, upon the same stone, until it was
broken to pieces. A mulatto overseer attended them, holding a whip at
their backs; but he had every appearance of being as much a stranger to
industry, as the negroes; who proceeded very indolently, without seeming
to be at all apprehensive of the driver or his whip, except when he made
it fall across them in stripes.
In proportion to the work done by English labourers, and the price,
usually, paid for it, the labour of these slaves could not be calculated
at so much as twopence per day; for almost any two men in England would
do as much work in a given time, as was performed by a dozen of these
wretched, meager-looking _blacks_.
In our perambulations, we often witness gross and disgusting scenes
among the slaves. Lately we saw a naked washing party, whose skins
exhibited very indecently the crowded scars of repeated punishment.
Women are sometimes seen milking themselves, as they walk along the
streets, and both sexes are observed lying about in pairs, picking the
vermin from each others heads.
You will be more shocked, perhaps, than surprised that such-like
indecencies should be practised among the slaves; but you will join in
my regret that they should happen before the eyes of European wives, and
spinsters; and will lament the sad effect which the frequent recurrence
of such offensive exhibitions must, necessarily, have in destroying that
modesty and delicacy of sentiment, which render so truly lovely, while
they so much embellish the female mind.
Of this baneful effect, I am sorry to have it in my power to mention a
striking example, which lately occurred to my notice. Being in company
with a large party of Europeans, and white creoles, friends and
strangers, male and female, husbands, wives, widows, and maidens, it
happened at the time when the party was assembled, during the short
interval before dinner, that a sweet little babe, only a few months old,
was brought into the room, by its black nurse, to be presented to the
company; when the woman, who, with the exception of one short petticoat,
was in perfect nudity, was desired, before all present, to suckle the
child; and at the same time the mother and grandmother, two most
respectable ladies, in order to divert the infant, amused themselves by
slapping, pressing, shaking about, and playing with the flaccid breasts
of the slave, with very indelicate familiarity, and without seeming to
be at all sensible, that it was, in any degree, indecent or improper!
One day, in passing along the street, we chanced to see a fight between
two women of colour, one a negro, the other a mulatto. The crowd, about
them, was very great, and European curiosity induced us to wait the
result; but we have no desire to witness such another contest. You can
have no conception of the ferocious means which were used by these women
to injure each other. Not only biting, pinching, slapping, and
scratching were employed; but with the more horrid brutality of the
American gouchers, and in the most deliberate manner, did each of these
females thrust her thumb or fingers into the nose, mouth, or eyes, of
the other, striving, in all the bitterness and cruelty of savage nature,
to tear to pieces, to blind, or to maim her opponent.