CHAPTER XI.--More Scenes in Jamaica.

There be land-rats and water-rats--water-thieves

and land-thieves I mean pirates.

The Merchant Of Venice, I. iii. 22--24.

The malady from whose fangs I had just escaped, was at this time making

fearful ravages amongst the troops and white inhabitants of Jamaica

generally; nor was the squadron exempted from the afflicting visitation,

although it suffered in a smaller degree.

I had occasion at this time to visit Uppark camp, a military post about

a mile and a half from Kingston, where two regiments of infantry, and a

detachment of artillery, were stationed.

In the forenoon, I walked out in company with an officer, a relation of

my own, whom I had gone to visit; enjoying the fresh sea breeze that

whistled past us in half a gale of wind, although the sun was vertical,

and shining into the bottom of a pint pot, as the sailors have it.

The barracks were built on what appeared to me a very dry situation

(although I have since heard it alleged that there was a swamp to

windward of it, over which the sea breeze blew, but this I did not see,)

considerably elevated above the hot sandy plain on which Kingston

stands, and sloping gently towards the sea. They were splendid, large,

airy two story buildings, well raised off the ground on brick pillars,

so that there was a perfectly free ventilation of air between the

surface of the earth and the floor of the first story, as well as

through the whole of the upper rooms. A large balcony, or piazza, ran

along the whole of the south front, both above and below, which shaded

the brick shell of the house from the sun, and afforded a cool and

convenient lounge for the men. The outhouses of all kinds were well

thrown back into the rear, so that in front there was nothing to

intercept the sea-breeze. The officers’ quarters stood in advance of

the men’s barracks, and were, as might be expected, still more

comfortable; and in front of all were the field-officer’s houses, the

whole of substantial brick and mortar. This superb establishment stood

in an extensive lawn, not surpassed in beauty by any nobleman’s park

that I had ever seen. It was immediately after the rains when I visited

it; the grass was luxuriant and newly cut, and the trees, which grew in

detached clumps, were most magnificent. We clambered up into one of

them, a large umbrageous wild cotton-tree, which cast a shadow on the

ground--the sun being, as already mentioned, right overhead--of thirty

paces in diameter; but still it was but a dwarfish plant of its kind,

for I have measured others whose gigantic shadows, at the same hour,

were upwards of one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and their

trunks, one in particular that overhangs the Spanish Town road, twenty

feet through of solid timber; that is, not including the enormous spurs

that shoot out like buttresses, and end in strong twisted roots, that

strike deep into the earth, and form stays, as it were, to the tree in

all directions.

Our object, however--publish it not in Askalon was, not so much to

admire the charms of nature, as to enjoy the luxury of a real Havannah

cigar, in solitary comfort; and a glorious perch we had selected. The

shade was grateful beyond measure. The fresh breeze was rushing, almost

roaring, through the leaves and groaning branches, and every thing

around was green, and fragrant, and Cool, and delicious; by comparison

that is, for the thermometer would, I daresay, have still vouched for

eighty degrees. The branches overhead were alive with a variety of

beautiful lizards, and birds of the gayest plumage; amongst others, a

score of small chattering green paroquets were hopping close to us, and

playing at bopeep from the lower surfaces of the leaves of the wild

pine, (a sort of Brobdignag parasite, that grows, like the mistletoe, in

the clefts of the larger trees,) to which they clung, as green and

shining as the leaves themselves, and ever and anon popping their little

heads and shoulders over to peer at us; while the red-breasted

woodpecker kept drumming on every hollow part of the bark, for all the

world, like old Kelson, the carpenter of the Torch, tapping along the

top sides for the dry rot. All around us the men were lounging about in

the shade, and sprawling on the grass in their foraging caps and light

jackets, with an officer here and there lying reading, or sauntering

about, bearding Phoebus himself, to watch for a shot at a swallow, as it

skimmed past; while goats and horses, sheep and cattle, were browsing

the fresh grass, or sheltering themselves from the heat beneath the

trees. All nature seemed alive and happy--a little drowsy from the heat

or so, but that did not much signify--when two carts, each drawn by a

mule, and driven by a negro, approached the tree whereon we were

perched. A solitary sergeant accompanied them, and they appeared, when

a bowshot distant, to be loaded with white deal boxes.

I paid little attention to them until they drove under the tree.

“I say, Snowdrop,” said the non-commissioned officer, “where be them

black rascals, them pioneers--where is the fateague party, my Lily

white, who ought to have the trench dug by this time?”

“Dere now,” grumbled the negro, “dere now--easy ting to deal wid white

gentleman, but debil cannot satisfy dem worsted sash.” Then aloud--“Me

no know, sir--me can’t tell--no for me business to dig hole--I only

carry what you fill him up wid;” and the vampire, looking over his

shoulder, cast his eye towards his load, and grinned until his white

teeth glanced from ear to ear.

“Now,” said the Irish sergeant, “I could brain you, but it is not worth

while!”--I question if he could, however, knowing as I did the thickness

of their skulls, “Ah, here they come!”--and a dozen half drunken, more

than half-naked, bloated, villainous-looking blackamoors, with shovels

and pick-axes on their shoulders, came along the road, laughing and

singing most lustily. They passed beneath where we sat, and, when about

a stonecast beyond, they all jumped into a trench or pit, which I had

not noticed before, about twenty feet long, by eight wide. It was

already nearly six feet deep, but it seemed they had instructions to

sink it further, for they first plied their pickaxes, and then began to

shovel out the earth. When they had completed their labour, the

sergeant, who had been superintending their operations, returned to

where the carts were still standing beneath the tree. One of them had

six coffins in it, with the name of the tenant of each, and number of

his company, marked in red chalk on the smallest end!

“I say, Snowdrop,” said the sergeant, “how do you come to have only five

bodies, when Cucumbershin there has six?”

“To be sure I hab no more as five, and weight enough too. You no see

Corporal Bumblechops dere? You knows how big he was.”

“Well, but where is Sergeant Heavystern? why did you not fetch him away

with the others?”

The negro answered doggedly, “Massa Sergeant, you should remember dem no

die of consumption--cough you call him--nor fever and ague, nor any ting

dat waste dem--for tree day gone--no more--all were mount guard--tout and

fat; so as for Sergeant Heavystern, him left in de dead-house at de

hospital.”

“I guessed as much, you dingy tief,” said the sergeant, “but I will

break your bones, if you don’t give me a sufficing reason why you left

him.”--And he approached Snowdrop, with his cane raised in act to

strike.

“Top, massa,” shouted the negro; “me will tell you--Dr Plaget desire dat

Heavystern should be leave.”

“Confound Dr Plaget”--and he smote the pioneer across the pate, whereby

he broke his stick, although, as I anticipated, without much hurting his

man--but the sergeant instantly saw his error, and with the piece of the

baton he gave Snowdrop a tap on the shin-bone, that set him pirouetting

on one leg, with the other in his hand, like a tee-totum.

“Why, sir, did you not bring as many as Cucumbershin, sir?” “Becaase”

screamed Snowdrop, in great wrath, now all alive and kicking from the

smart--“Becaase Cucumbershin is loaded wid light infantry, sir, and all

of mine are grenadier, Massa Sergeant--dat dem good reason surely!”

“No, it is not, sir; go back and fetch Heavystern immediately, or by the

powers but I will”--“Massa Sergeant, you must be mad--Dr Plaget--you

won’t yeerie--but him say, five grenadier--especially wid Corporal

Bumblechop for one--is good load--ay, wery tif load--equal to seven

tallion company [battallion, I presume], and more better load, great

deal, den six light infantry--beside him say, tell Sergeant Pivot to

send you back at five in de afternoon wid four more coffin, by which

time he would have anoder load, and in trute de load was ready prepare

in de deadhouse before I come away, only dem were not well cold just

yet.”

I was mightily shocked at all this--but my chum took it very coolly.--He

slightly raised one side of his mouth, and, giving a knowing wink with

his eye, lighted a fresh cigar, and continued to puff away with all the

composure in the world.

At length the forenoon wore away, and the bugles sounded for dinner,

when we adjourned to the messroom. It was a very large and handsome

saloon, standing alone in the lawn, and quite detached from all the

other buildings, but the curtailed dimensions of the table in the middle

of it, and the ominous crowding together of the regimental plate, like a

show-table in Rundle and Bridge’s back shop, gave startling proofs of

the ravages of the “pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the

destruction that wasteth at noonday;” for although the whole regiment

was in barracks, there were only nine covers laid, one of which was for

me. The lieutenant-colonel, the major, and, I believe, fifteen other

officers, had already been gathered to their fathers, within four months

from the day on which the regiment landed from the transports. Their

warfare was o’er, and they slept well. At the first, when the insidious

disease began to creep on apace, and to evince its deadly virulence, all

was dismay and anxiety--downright, slavish, unmanly fear, even amongst

casehardened veterans, who had weathered the whole Peninsular war, and

finished off with Waterloo. The next week passed over--the mortality

increasing, but the dismay decreasing and so it wore on, until it

reached its horrible climax, at the time I speak of, by which period

there was absolutely no dread at all. A reckless gaiety had succeeded

not the screwing up of one’s courage for the nonce, to mount a breach,

or to lay an enemy’s frigate aboard, where the substratum of fear is

present, although cased over by an energetic exertion of the will; but

an unnatural light-heartedness, for which account, ye philosophers, for

I cannot--and this, too, amongst men who, although as steel in the

field, yet whenever a common cold overtook them in quarters, or a small

twinge of rheumatic pain, would, under other circumstances, have caudled

and beflannelled themselves, and bored you for your sympathy, at no

allowance, as they say.

The major elect, that is, the senior captain, was in the chair; as for

the lieutenant-colonel’s vacancy, that was too high an aspiration for

any man in the regiment. A stranger of rank, and interest, and money,

would of course get that step, for the two deaths in the regimental

staff made but one captain a major, as my neighbour on the left hand

feelingly remarked. All was fun and joviality; we had a capital dinner,

and no allusion whatever, direct or indirect, was made to the prevailing

mortal epidemic, until the surgeon came in, about eight o’clock in the

evening.

“Sit down, doctor,” said the president--“take some wine; can recommend

the Madeira, claret but so, so your health.”

The doctor bowed, and soon became as happy and merry as the rest; so we

carried on, until about ten o’clock, when the lights began to waltz a

little, and propagate also, and I found I had got enough, or,

peradventure, a little more than enough, when the senior captain rose,

and walked very composedly out of the room--but I noticed him pinch the

doctor’s shoulder as he passed.

The Medico thereupon stole quietly after him; but we did not seem to

miss either--a young sub had usurped the deserted throne, and there we

were all once more in full career, singing and bousing, and cracking.

bad jokes to our hearts’ content. By-and-by, in comes the doctor once

more.

“Doctor,” quoth young sub, “take some wine; can’t recommend the Madeira

this time,” mimicking his predecessor very successfully; “the claret,

you know, has been condemned, but a little hot brandy and water, eh?”

The doctor once more bowed his pate, made his hot stuff, and volunteered

a song.--After he had finished, and we had all hammered on the table to

his honour and glory, until every thing danced again as if it had been a

matter of very trivial concern, he said, “Sorry I was away so long; but

old Spatterdash has got a damned thick skin, I can tell you--could

scarcely get the lancet into him--I thought I should have had to send

for a spring phleme--to tip him the veterinary, you know--and he won’t

take physic: so I fear he will have but a poor chance.”

Spatterdash was no other than mine host who had just vacated!

“What, do you really think he is in for it?” said the second oldest

captain who sat next me; and as he spoke he drew his leg from beneath

the table, and, turning out his dexter heel, seemed to contemplate the

site of the prospective fixed spur.

“I do, indeed,” quoth Dr Plaget. He died within three days!

But as I do not intend to write an essay on yellow fever, I will make an

end, and get on shipboard as fast as I can, after stating one strong

fact, authenticated to me by many unimpeachable witnesses. It is this;

that this dreadful epidemic, or contagious fever--call it which you will,

has never appeared, or been propagated at or beyond an altitude of 3000

feet above the level of the sea, although people seized with it on the

hot sultry plains, and removed thither, have unquestionably died. In a

country like Jamaica, with a range of lofty mountains, far exceeding

this height, intersecting the island through nearly its whole length,

might not Government, after satisfying themselves of the truth of the

fact, improve on the hint? Might not a main-guard suffice in Kingston,

for instance, while the regiments were in quarters half-way up the

Liguanea Mountains, within twelve miles actual distance from the town,

and within view of it, so that during the day, by a semaphore on the

mountain, and another at the barrack of the outpost, a constant and

instantaneous communication could be kept up, and, if need were, by

lights in the night?

The admiral, for instance, had a semaphore in the stationary flagship at

Port Royal, which communicated with another at his Pen, or residence,

near Kingston; and this again rattled off the information to the

mountain retreat, where he occasionally retired to careen; and it is

fitting to state also, that in all the mountain districts of Jamaica

which I visited, there is abundance of excellent water and plenty of

fuel. These matters are worth consideration, one would think; however,

allons--it is no business of Tom Cringle’s.

Speaking of telegraphing, I will relate an anecdote here, if you will

wait until I mend my pen. I had landed at Greenwich wharf on duty--this

was the nearest point of communication between Port Royal and the

Admiral’s Pen--where, finding the flag lieutenant, he drove me up in his

ketureen to lunch. While we were regaling ourselves, the old signalman

came into the piazza, and with several most remarkable obeisances, gave

us to know that there were flags hoisted on the signalmast, at the

mountain settlement, of which he could make nothing, the uppermost was

neither the interrogative, the affirmative, nor the negative, nor in

fact any thing that with the book he could make sense of.

“Odd enough,” said the lieutenant; “hand me the glass,” and he peered

away for half a minute. “Confound me if I can make heads or tails of it

either; there, Cringle, what do you think? How do you construe it?”

I took the telescope. Uppermost there was hoisted on the signal mast a

large tablecloth, not altogether immaculate, and under it a towel, as I

guessed, for it was too opaque for bunting, and too white, although I

could not affirm that it was fresh out of the fold either.

“I am puzzled,” said I, as I spied away again. Meanwhile there was no

acknowledgment made at our semaphore--“There, down they go,” I continued

“Why, it must be a mistake, Stop, here’s a new batch going up above the

green trees--There goes the tablecloth once more, and the towel, and

deuce take me, if I can compare the lowermost to any thing but a

dishclout--why, it must be a dishclout.”

The flags, or substitutes for them, streamed another minute in the

breeze, but as there was still no answer made from our end of the

string, they were once more hauled down--We waited another minute--“Why,

here goes the same signal up again, tablecloth, towel, dishclout, and

all--What the diable have we got here? A red ball, two pennants under.

What can that mean?--Ball--it is the bonnet-rouge, or I am a Dutchman,

with two short streamers” Another look--“A red night-cap and a pair of

stockings, by all that is portentous!” exclaimed I.

“Ah, I see, I see!” said the lieutenant, laughing, “signal-man,

acknowledge it.”

It was done, and down came all the flags in a trice. It appeared, on

enquiry, that the washing cart, which ought to have been sent up that

morning, had been forgotten; and the Admiral and his secretary having

ridden out, there was no one who could make the proper signal for it.

So the old housekeeper took this singular method of having the cart

despatched, and it was sent off accordingly.

For the first week after I entered on my new office, I was busily

engaged on board; during which time my mind was quite made up, that the

most rising man in his Majesty’s service, beyond all compare, was

Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, third of the Firebrand. During this eventful

period I never addressed a note to any friend on shore, or to a brother

officer, without writing in the left-hand lower corner of the envelope,

“Lieutenant Cringle,” and clapping three dashing, &c. &c. &c below the

party’s name for whom it was intended.

“Must let ‘em know that an officer of my rank in the service knows

somewhat of the courtesies of life, eh?”

In about ten days, however, we had gotten the ship into high order and

ready for sea, and now the glory and honour of command, like my only

epaulet, that had been soaked while on duty in one or two showers, and

afterwards regularly bronzed in the sun, began to tarnish, and lose the

new gloss, like every thing else in this weary world. It was about this

time, while sitting at breakfast in the gunroom one fine morning, with

the other officers of our mess, gossiping about I hardly remember what,

that we heard the captain’s voice on deck.

“Call the first lieutenant.”

“He is at breakfast, sir,” said the man, whoever he might have been, to

whom the order was addressed.

“Never mind then--Here, boatswain’s mate--Pipe away the men who were

captured in the boats; tell them to clean themselves, and send

Mr----to me”--(This was the officer who had been taken prisoner along

with them in the first attack)--“they are wanted in Kingston at the trial

today. Stop, tell Mr Cringle also to get ready to go in the gig.”

The pirates, to the amount of forty-five, had been transferred to

Kingston jail some days previously, preparatory to their trial, which,

as above-mentioned, was fixed for this day.

We pulled cheerily up to Kingston, and, landing at the Wherry wharf,

marched along the hot dusty streets, under a broiling sun, Captain

Transom, the other Lieutenant, and myself, in full puff, leading the

van, followed by about fourteen seamen, in white straw hats, with broad

black ribbons, and clean white frocks and trowsers, headed by a

boatswain’s mate, with his silver whistle hung round his neck--as

respectable a tail as any Christian could desire to swinge behind him;

and, man for man, I would willingly have perilled my promotion upon

their walloping, with no offensive weapons but their stretchers, the

Following, claymores and all, of any proud, disagreeable, would-be

mighty mountaineer, that ever turned up his supercilious, whisky

blossomed snout at Bailie Jarvie. On they came, square-shouldered,

narrow-flanked, tall, strapping fellows, tumbling and rolling about the

piazzas in knots of three and four, until, at the corner of King Street,

they came bolt up upon a well-known large, fat, brown lady, famous for

her manufacture of spruce beer.

“Avast, avast a bit”--sung out one of the topmen--“let the nobs heave a

head, will ye, and let’s have a pull.”

“Here, old mother Slush,” sung out another of the cutter’s crew. “Hand

us up a dozen bottles of spruce, do you hear?”

“Dozen battle of pruce!” groaned the old woman--“who shall pay me?”

“Why, do you think the Firebrands are thieves, you old canary, you?”

“How much, eh?” said the boatswain’s mate.

“Twelve feepennies,” quoth the matron.

“Oh, ah!” said one of the men--“Twelve times five is half a crown;

there’s a dollar for you, old mother Popandchokem--now give me back five

shillings.”

“Eigh, oh!” whined out the spruce merchant; “you dem rascal, who tell

you dat your dollar more wort den any one else money eh? How can give

you back five shilling and keep back twelve feepenny--eh?” The culprit,

who had stood the Cocker of the company, had by this time gained his

end, which was to draw the fat damsel a step or two from the large tub

half-full of water, where the bottles were packed, and to engage her

attention by stirring up her bile, or corruption, as they call it in

Scotland, while his messmates instantly seized the opportunity, and a

bottle a-piece also, and, as I turned round to look for them, there

they all were in a circle taking the meridian altitude of the sun, or as

if they had been taking aim at the pigeons on the eaves of the houses

above them with Indian mouth tubes.

They then replaced the bottles in the tub, paid the woman more than she

asked; but, by way of taking out the change, they chucked her stern

foremost into the water amongst her merchandise, and then shouldered the

vessel, old woman and all, and away they staggered with her, the empty

bottles clattering together in the water, and the old lady swearing and

bouncing and squattering amongst them, while jack shouted to her to hold

her tongue, or they would let her go by the run bodily. Thus they

stumped in the wake of their captain, until he arrived at the door of

the Courthouse, to the great entertainment of the bystanders, cutting

the strings that confined the corks of the stone bottles as they bowled

along, popping the spruce into each other’s faces, and the faces of the

negroes, as they ran out of the stores to look at jack in his frolic,

and now and then taking a shot at the old woman’s cockemony itself, as

she was held kicking and spurring high above their heads.

At length the captain, who was no great way ahead, saw what was going

on, which was the signal for doucinog the whole affair, spruce-woman,

tub, and bottles; and the party gathering themselves up, mustered close

aboard of us, as grave as members of the General Assembly.

The regular courthouse of the city being under repair, the Admiralty

Sessions were held in a large room occupied temporarily for the purpose.

At one end, raised two steps above the level of the floor, was the

bench, on which were seated the Judge of the Admiralty Court, supported

by two post captains in full uniform, who are ex-officio judges of this

court in the colonies, one on each side. On the right, the jury,

composed of merchants of the place, and respectable planters of the

neighbourhood, were enclosed in a sort of box, with a common white pine

railing separating it from the rest of the court. There was a long

table in front of the bench, at which a lot of blackrobed devil’s limbs

of lawyers, were ranged--but both amongst them, and on the bench, the

want of the cauliflower wigs was sorely felt by me, as well as by the

seamen, who considered it little less than murder, that men in

crops-black shock-pated fellows--should sit in judgment on their

fellow-creatures, where life and death were in the scales.

On the left hand of the bench, the motley public, white, black, and of

every intermediate shade--were grouped; as also in front of the dock,

which was large. It might have been made with a view to the possibility

of fifteen unfortunates or so being arraigned at one time; but now there

were no fewer than forty-three jammed and pegged together into it, like

sheep in a Smithfield pen the evening before market-day. These were

the forty thieves--the pirates. They were all, without exception,

clean, well shaven, and decently rigged in white trowsers, linen or

check shirts, and held their broad Panama sombreros in their hands.

Most of them wore the red silk sash round the waist. They had generally

large bushy whiskers, and not a few had earrings of massive gold, (why

call wearing earrings puppyism? Shakspeare wore earrings, or the

Chandos portrait lies,) and chains of the same metal round their necks,

supporting, as I concluded, a crucifix, hid in the bosom of the shirt.

A Spaniard can’t murder a man comfortably, if he has not his crucifix

about him.

They were, collectively, the most daring, intrepid, Salvator Rosa

looking men I had ever seen. Most of them were above the middle size,

and the spread of their shoulders, the grace with which their arms were

hung, and finely developed muscles of the chest and neck, the latter

exposed completely by the folding back of their shirt collars, cut large

and square, after the Spanish fashion, beat the finest boat’s-crew we

could muster all to nothing. Some of them were of mixed blood, that is,

the cross between the European Spaniard and the aboriginal Indian of

Cuba, a race long since sacrificed on tile altar of Mammon, the white

man’s god.

Their hair, generally speaking, was long, and curled over the forehead

black and glossy, or hung down to their shoulders in ringlets, that a

dandy of the second Charles’s time would have given his little finger

for. The forehead in most was high and broad, and of a clear olive, the

nose straight, springing boldly from the brow, the cheeks oval, and the

mouth--every Spaniard has a beautiful mouth, until he spoils it with the

beastly cigar, as far as his well-formed firm lips can be spoiled; but

his teeth he generally does destroy early in life. Take the whole,

however, and deduct for the teeth, I had never seen so handsome a set of

men; and I am sure no woman, had she been there, would have gainsayed

me. They stood up, and looked forth upon their judges and the jury like

brave men, desperadoes though they were. They were, without exception,

calm and collected, as if aware that they had small chance of escape,

but still determined not to give that chance away. One young man

especially attracted my attention, from the bold, cool self-possession

of his bearing. He was in the very front of the dock, and dressed in no

way different from the rest, so far as his under garments were

concerned, unless it were that they were of a finer quality. He wore a

short green velvet jacket, profusely studded with knobs and chains, like

small chain-shot, of solid gold, similar to the shifting button lately

introduced by our dandies in their waistcoats. It was not put on, but

hung on one shoulder, being fastened across his breast by the two empty

sleeves tied together in a knot. He also wore the red silk sash,

through which a broad gold cord ran twining like the strand of a rope.

He had no earrings, but his hair was the most beautiful I had ever seen

in a male--long and black, jet black and glossy. It was turned up and

fastened in a club on the crown of his head with a large pin, I should

rather say skewer, of silver; but the outlandishness of the fashion was

not offensive, when I came to take into the account the beauty of the

plaiting, and of the long raven lovelocks that hung down behind each of

his small transparent ears, and the short Hyperion-like curls that

clustered thick and richly on his high, pale, broad forehead. His eyes

were large, black, and swimming, like a woman’s; his nose straight and

thin; and such a mouth, such an under-lip, full and melting; and teeth

regular and white, and utterly free from the pollution of tobacco; and a

beautifully moulded small chin, rounding off, and merging in his round,

massive, muscular neck.

I had never seen so fine a face, such perfection of features, and such a

clear, dark, smooth skin. It was a finer face than Lord Byron’s, whom I

had seen more than once, and wanted that hellish curl of the lip; and,

as to figure, he could, to look at him, at any time have eaten up his

lordship stoop and roop to his breakfast. It was the countenance, in a

word, of a most beautiful youth, melancholy, indeed, and anxious

evidently anxious; for the large pearls that coursed each other down his

forehead and cheek, and the slight quivering of the under-lip, every

now and then evinced the powerful struggle that was going on within.

His figure was, if possible, superior to his face. It was not quite

filled up, set, as we call it, but the arch of his chest was

magnificent, his shoulders square, arms well put on; but his neck--“Have

you seen the Apollo, neighbour?”--“No, but the cast of it at Somerset

House.”--“Well, that will do--so you know the sort of neck he had.”

His waist was fine, hips beautifully moulded; and although his under

limbs were shrouded in his wide trowsers, they were evidently of a piece

with what was seen and developed; and this was vouched for by the turn

of his ankle and well-shaped foot on which he wore a small Spanish

grass slipper, fitted with great nicety. He was at least six feet two

in height, and such as I have described him; there he stood, with his

hands grasping the rail before him and looking intently at a wigless

lawyer who was opening the accusation, while he had one ear turned a

little towards the sworn interpreter of the court, whose province it

was, at every pause, to explain to the prisoners what the learned

gentleman was stating. From time to time he said a word or two to a

square-built, dark, ferocious-looking man standing next him,

apparently about forty years of age, who, as well as his fellow

prisoners, appeared to pay him great respect; and I could notice the

expression of their countenances change as his rose or fell.

The indictment had been read before I came in, and, as already

mentioned, the lawyer was proceeding with his accusatory speech, and, as

it appeared to me, the young Spaniard had some difficulty in

understanding the interpreter’s explanation. Whenever he saw me, he

exclaimed, “Ah! aqui viene, el Senor Teniente--ahora sabremos ahora,

ahora;” and he beckoned to me to draw near. I did so.

“I beg pardon, Mr Cringle,” he said in Spanish, with the ease and grace

of a nobleman “but I believe the interpreter to be incapable, and I am

certain that what I say is not fittingly explained to the judges;

neither do I believe he can give me a sound notion of what the advocate

(avocado) is alleging against us. May I entreat you to solicit the

bench for permission to take his place? I know you will expect no

apology for the trouble from a man in my situation.”

This unexpected address in open court took me fairly aback, and I

stopped short while in the act of passing the open space in front of the

dock, which was kept clear by six marines in white jackets, whose

muskets, fixed bayonets, and uniform caps, seemed out of place to my

mind in a criminal court. The lawyer suddenly suspended his harangue,

while the judges fixed their eyes on me, and so did the audience,

confound them! To be the focus of so many eyes was trying to my

modesty; for, although unacquainted with bettermost society, still,

below any little manner that I had acquired, there was, and always will

be, an under stratum of bashfulness, or sheepishness, or mauvaise honte,

call it which you will; and the torture, the breaking on the wheel, with

which a man of that temperament perceives the eyes of a whole courthouse,

for instance, attracted to him, none but a bashful man can

understand. At length I summoned courage to speak.

“May it please your honours, this poor fellow, on his own behalf, and on

the part of his fellow-prisoners, complains of the incapacity of the

sworn interpreter, and requests that I may be made the channel of

communication in his stead.”

This was a tremendous effort, and once more the whole blood of my body

rushed to my cheeks and forehead, and I “sweat extremely.” The judges,

he of the black robe and those of the epaulet, communed together.

“Have you any objection to be sworn, Mr Cringle?”

“None in the least, provided the court considers me competent, and the

accused are willing to trust to me.”

“Si, si!” exclaimed the young Spaniard, as if comprehending what was

going on--“Somos contentos--todos, todos!” and he looked round, like a

prince, on his fellow--culprits. A low murmuring, “Si, si--contento,

contento!” passed amongst the group.

“The accused, please your honours, are willing to trust to my

correctness.”

“Pray, Mr Cringle, don’t make yourself the advocate of these men, mind

that,” said the--, lawyer sans wig.

“I don’t intend it, sir,” I said, slightly stung; “but if you had

suffered what I have done at their hands, peradventure such a caution to

you would have been unnecessary.”

The sarcasm told, I was glad to see; but remembering where I was, I

hauled but of action with the man of words, simply giving the last shot

“I am sure no English gentleman would willingly throw any difficulty in

the way of the poor fellows being made aware of what is given in

evidence against them, bad as they may be.”

He was about rejoining, for a lawyer would as soon let you have the last

word as a sweep or a baker the wall, when the officer of court

approached and swore me in, and the trial proceeded.

The whole party were proved by fifty witnesses to have been taken in

arms on board of the schooners in the Cove; and farther, it was proved

that no commission or authority to cruise whatsoever was found on board

any of them, a strong proof that they were pirates.

“Que dice, que dice?” enquired the young Spaniard already mentioned.

I said that the court seemed to infer, and were pressing it on the jury,

that the absence of any commission or letter of marque from a superior

officer, or from any of the Spanish authorities, was strong evidence

that they were marauders--in fact pirates.

“Ah!” he exclaimed; “gracias, gracias!” Then, with an agitated hand, he

drew from his bosom a parchment, folded like the manifest of a merchant

ship, and at the same moment the gruff fierce-looking elderly man did

the same, with another similar instrument from his own breast.

“Here, here are the commissions--here are authorities from the Captain

General of Cuba. Read them.”

I looked over them; they were regular to all appearance; at least as

there were no autographs in court of the Spanish Viceroy, or any of his

officers, whose signatures, either real or forged, were affixed to the

instruments, with which to compare them, there was a great chance, I

conjectured, so far as I saw, that they would be acquitted: and in this

case we, his majesty’s officers, would have been converted into the

transgressing party; for if it were established that the vessels taken

were bona fide Guarda Costas, we should be placed in an awkward

predicament, in having captured them by force of arms, not to take into

account the having violated the sanctity of a friendly port.

But I could see that this unexpected production of regular papers by

their officers had surprised the pirates themselves, as much as it had

done me,--whether it was a heinous offence of mine or not to conceal

this impression from the court, (there is some dispute about the matter

to this hour between me and my conscience,) I cannot tell; but I was

determined to stick scrupulously to the temporary duties of my office,

without stating what I suspected, or even translating some sudden

expressions overheard by me, that would have shaken the credibility of

the documents.

“Comissiones, comissiones!” for instance, was murmured by a weather

beaten Spaniard, with a fine bald head, from which two small tufts of

grey hair stood out above his ears, and with a superb Moorish face

“Comissiones es decir patentes--Si hay comissiones, el Diablo, mismo,

les ha hecho!”

The court was apparently nonplussed--not so the wigless man of law. His

pea green visage assumed a more ghastly hue, and the expression of his

eyes became absolutely blasting. He looked altogether like a cat sure

of her mouse, but willing to let it play in fancied joy of escaping, as

he said softly to the Jew crier, who was perched in a high chair above

the heads of the people, like an ugly corbie in its dirty nest--“Crier,

call Job Rumbletithump, mate of the Porpoise.”

“Job Rumbletithump, come into court!”

“Here,” quoth Job, as a stout, bluff honest-looking sailor rolled into

the witnessbox.

“Now, clerk of the crown, please to swear in the mate of the Porpoise.”

It was done. “Now, my man, you were taken going through the Caicos

Passage in the Porpoise by pirates, in August last--were you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Turn your face to the jury, and speak up, sir. Do you see any of the

honest men who made free with you in that dock, sir? Look at them,

sir.”

“The mate walked up to the dock, stopped, and fixed his eyes intently on

the young Spaniard. I stared breathlessly at him also. He grows pale as

death--his lip quivers--the large drops of sweat once more burst from

his brow. I grew sick, sick.

“Yes, your honour,” said the mate.

“Yes--ah!” said the devil’s limb, chuckling--“we are getting on the

trail at last. Can you swear to more than one?”

“Yes, your honour.”

“Yes!” again responded the sans wig. “How many?”

The man counted them off. “Fifteen, sir. That young fellow there is

the man who cut Captain Spurtel’s throat, after violating his wife

before his eyes.”

“God forgive me, is it possible?” gasped Thomas Cringle.

“There’s a monster in human form for you, gentlemen,” continued devil’s

limb. “Go on, Mr Rumbletithump.”

“That other man next him hung me up by the heels, and seared me on the

bare”--Here honest job had just time to divert the current of his speech

into a loud “whew.”

“Seared you on the whew!” quoth the facetious lawyer, determined to have

his jest, even in the face of forty-three of his fellow creatures

trembling on the brink of eternity. “Explain, sir, tell the court where

you were seared, and how you were seared, and all about your being

seared.”

Job twisted and lolloped about, as if he was looking out for some

opening to bolt through; but all egress was shut up.

“Why, please your honour,” the eloquent blood mantling in his honest

sunburnt cheeks; while from my heart I pitied the poor fellow, for he

was absolutely broiling in his bashfulness--“He seared me onon--why,

please your honour, he seared me on--with a redhot iron!”

“Why, I guessed as much, if he seared you at all; but where did he sear

you? Come now,” coaxingly, “tell the court where and how he applied the

actual cautery.”

Job being thus driven to his wit’s end, turned and stood at bay. “Now I

will tell you, your honour, if you will but sit down for a moment, and

answer me one question.”

“To be sure; why, Job, you brighten on us. There, I am down now for

your question.”

“Now, sir,” quoth Rumbletithump, imitating his tormentor’s manner much

more cleverly than I expected, “what part of your honour’s body touches

your chair?”

“How, sir!” said the man of words--“how dare you, sir, take such a

liberty, sir?” while a murmuring laugh hummed through the court.

“Now, sir, since you won’t answer me, sir,” said Job, elevated by his

victory, while his hoarse voice roughened into a loud growl, “I will

answer myself. I was seared, sir, where”--

“Silence!” quoth the crier at this instant drowning the mate’s voice, so

that I could not catch the words he used.

“And there you have it, sir. Put me in jail, if you like, sir.”

The murmur was bursting out into a guffaw, when the judge interfered.

But there was no longer any attempt at ill-timed jesting on the part of

the bar, which was but bad taste at the best on so solemn an occasion.

Job continued, “I was burnt into the very muscle until I told where the

gold was stowed away.”

“Aha!” screamed the lawyer, forgetting his recent discomfiture in the

gladness of his success. “And all the rest were abetting, eh?”

“The rest of the fifteen were, sir.”

But the prosecutor, a glutton in his way, had thought he had bagged the

whole forty-three. And so he ultimately did before the evening closed

in, as most of the others were identified by other witnesses; and when

they could not actually be sworn to, the piracies were brought home to

them by circumstantial evidence; such, for instance, as having been

captured on board of the craft we had taken, which again were identified

as the very vessels which had plundered the merchantmen and murdered

several of their crews, so that by six o’clock the jury had returned a

verdict of Guilty--and I believe there never was a juster--against the

whole of them. The finding, and sentence of death following thereupon,

seemed not to create any strong effect upon the prisoners. They had all

seen how the trial was going; and, long before this, the bitterness of

death seemed to be past.

I could hear one of our boat’s crew, who was standing behind me, say to

his neighbour, “Why, Jem, surely he is in joke. Why, he don’t mean to

condemn them to be hanged seriously, without his wig, eh?”

Immediately after the judgment was pronounced, which, both as to import,

and literally, I had translated to them, Captain Transom, who was

sitting on the bench beside his brother officers, nodded to me, “I say,

Mr Cringle, tell the coxswain to call Pearl, if you please.”

I passed the word to one of the Firebrand’s marines, who was on duty,

who again repeated the order to a seaman who was standing at the door.

“I say, Moses, call the clergyman.”

Now this Pearl was no other than the seaman who pulled the stroke-oar

in the gig; a very handsome negro, and the man who afterwards forked

Whiffle out of the water--tall, powerful, and muscular, and altogether

one of the best men in the ship. The rest of the boat’s crew, from his

complexion, had fastened the sobriquet of the clergyman on him.

“Call the clergyman.”

The superseded interpreter, who was standing near, seemingly took no

notice, immediately traduced this literally to the unhappy men. A

murmur arose amongst them.

“Que--el padre ya! Somos en Capilla entonces--poco tiempo, poco

tiempo!”

They had thought that the clergyman having been sent for, the sentence

was immediately to be executed, but I undeceived them; and, in ten

minutes after they were condemned, they were marched off under a strong

escort of foot to the jail.

I must make a long story short. Two days afterwards, I was ordered with

the launch to Kingston, early in the morning, to receive twenty-five of

the pirates who had been ordered for execution that morning at Gallows

Point. It was little past four in the morning when we arrived at the

Wherry wharf, where they were already clustered, with their hands

pinioned behind their backs, silent and sad, but all of them calm, and

evincing no unmanly fear of death.

I don’t know if other people have noticed it, but this was one of

several instances where I have seen foreigners--Frenchmen, Italians, and

Spaniards, for instance--meet death, inevitable death, with greater

firmness than British soldiers or sailors. Let me explain. In the

field, or grappling in mortal combat, on the blood-slippery quarterdeck

of an enemy’s vessel, British soldier or sailor is the bravest of the

brave. No soldier or sailor of any other country, saving and excepting

those damned Yankees, can stand against them--they would be utterly

overpowered--their hearts would fail them--they would either be cut down

thrust through, or they would turn and flee. Yet those same men who

have turned and fled, will meet death, but it must be as I said,

inevitable, unavoidable death, not only more firmly than their

conquerors would do in their circumstances, but with an intrepidity oh,

do not call it indifference!--altogether astonishing. Be it their

religion, or their physical conformation, or what it may, all I have to

do with, is the fact, which I record as undeniable. Out of five-and

twenty individuals, in the present instance, not a sigh was heard, nor a

moan, nor a querulous word. They stepped lightly into the boats, and

seated themselves in silence. When told by the seamen to make room, or

to shift so as not to be in the way of the oars, they did so with

alacrity, and almost with an air of civility, although they knew that

within half an hour their earthly career must close for ever.

The young Spaniard who had stood forward so conspicuously on the trial,

was in my boat; in stepping in he accidentally trod on my foot in

passing forward; he turned and apologized, with much natural politeness

“he hoped he had not hurt me?”

I answered kindly, I presume--who could have done so harshly? This

emboldened him apparently, for he stopped, and asked leave to sit by me.

I consented, while an incomprehensible feeling crept over me; and when

once I had time to recollect myself, I shrunk from him, as a blood

stained brute, with whom even in his extremity it was unfitting for me

to hold any intercourse. When he noticed my repugnance to remain near

him, he addressed me hastily, as if afraid that I would destroy the

opportunity he seemed to desire.

“God did not always leave me the slave of my passions,” he said, in a

low, deep, most musical voice. “The day has been when I would have

shrunk as you do--but time presses. You have a mother?” said he--I

assented--“and an only sister?” As it happened, he was right here too.

“And--and”--here he hesitated, and his voice shook and trembled with the

most intense and heart-crushing emotion--“y una mas cara que ambos?”

Mary, you can tell whether in this he did not also speak truth. I

acknowledged there was another being more dear to me than either.

“Then,” said he, “take this chain from my neck, and the crucifix, and a

small miniature from my bosom; but not yet--not till I leave the boat.

You will find an address affixed to the string of the latter. Your

course of service may lead you to St Jago if not, a brother officer may.”

His voice became inaudible; his hot scalding tears dropped fast on my

hand, and the ravisher, the murderer, the pirate, wept as an innocent

and helpless infant. “You will deliver it. Promise a dying

man--promise a great sinner.” But it was momentary--he quelled the

passion with a fierce and savage energy, as he said sternly, “Promise!

promise!” I did so, and I fulfilled it.

The day broke. I took the jewels and miniature from his neck, as he led

the way with the firm step of a hero, in ascending the long gibbet. The

halters were adjusted, when he stepped towards the side I was on, as far

as the rope would let him, “Dexa me verla--dexa me verla, una vez mas!”

I held up the miniature. He looked--he glared intensely at it. “Adios,

Maria, seas feliz mi querida, feliz--feliz Maria--adios--adios--Maria

Mar”.

The rope severed thy name from his lips, sweet girl; but not until it

also severed his soul from his body, and sent him to his tremendous

account--young in years, but old in wickedness--to answer at that

tribunal, where we must all appear, to the God who made him, and whose

gifts he had so fearfully abused, for thy broken heart and early death,

amongst the other scarlet atrocities of his short but ill spent life.

The signal had been given--the lumbering flap of the long drop was

heard, and five-and-twenty human beings were wavering in the sea

breeze in the agonies of death! The other eighteen suffered on the same

spot the week following; and for long after, this fearful and bloody

example struck terror into the Cuba fishermen.

“Strange now, that the majority--ahem--of my beauties and favourites

through life have been called Mary. There is my own Mary--un peu passee

certainly--but deil mean her, for half a dozen lit”--“Now, Tom Cringle,

don’t bother with your sentimentality, but get along, do.”--“Well, I

will get along--but have patience, you Hottentot Venus--you Lord Nugent,

you. So once more we make sail.”

Next morning, soon after gunfire, I landed at the Wherry wharf in Port

Royal. It was barely daylight, but, to my surprise, I found my friend

Peregrine Whiffle seated on a Spanish chair, close to the edge of the

wharf, smoking a cigar. This piece of furniture is an arm-chair

strongly framed with hard-wood, over which, back and bottom, a tanned

hide is stretched, which, in a hot climate, forms a most luxurious seat,

the back tumbling out at an angle of 45 degrees, while the skin yields

to every movement, and does not harbour a nest of biting ants, or a

litter of scorpions, or any other of the customary occupants of a

cushion that has been in Jamaica for a year.

He did not know me as I passed; but his small glimmering red face

instantly identified the worthy little old man to me.

“Good morning, Mr Whiffle--the top of the morning to you, sir.”

“Hillo,” responded Peregrine--“Tom, is it you?--how d’ye do, man--how

d’ye do?” and he started to his feet, and almost embraced me.

Now, I had never met the said Peregrine Whiffle but twice in my life;

once at Mr Fyall’s, and once during the few days I remained in Kingston,

before I set out on my travels; but he was a warm hearted kindly old

fellow, and, from knowing all my friends there very intimately, he, as a

matter of course, became equally familiar with me.

“Why the diable came you not to see me, man? Have been here for change

of air, to recruit, you know, after that demon, the gout, had been so

perplexing me, ever since you came to anchor--the Firebrand, I mean--as

for you, you have been mad one while, and philandering with those

inconvenient white ladies the other. You’ll cure of that, my boy

you’ll come to the original comforts of the country soon, no fear!”

“Perhaps I may, perhaps not.”

“Oh, your cousin Mary, I forgot--fine girl, Tom--may do for you at home

yonder,” (all Creoles speak of England as home, although they may never

have seen it,) “but she can’t make pepper-pot, nor give a dish of land

crabs as land crabs should be given, nor see to the serving up of a

ringtail pigeon, nor rub a beefsteak to the rotting turn with a bruised

papaw, nor compose a medicated bath, nor, nor--oh, confound it, Tom, she

will be, when you marry her, a cold, comfortless, motionless Creole

icicle!”

I let him have his swing. “Never mind her then, never mind her, my dear

sir; but time presses and I must be off, I must indeed, so good morning;

I wish you a good morning, sir.”

He started to his feet, and caught hold of me. “Sha’n’t go, Tom,

impossible--come along with me to my lodgings, and breakfast with me.

Here, Pilfer, Pilfer,” to his black valet, “give me my stick, and massu

the chair, and run home and order breakfast--cold calipiver--our Jamaica

salmon, you know, Tom-tea and coffee pickled mackerel, eggs, and cold

tongue--any thing that Mother Dingychops can give us; so bolt, Pilfer,

bolt!”

I told him that before I came ashore I had heard the gig’s-crew piped

away, and that I therefore expected, as Jonathan says, that the captain

would be after me immediately; so that I wished at all events to get

away from where we were, as I had no desire to be caught gossiping about

when my superior might be expected to pass.

“True, boy, true”--as he shackled himself to me, and we began to crawl

along towards the wharf-gate leading into the town. Captain Transom by

this time had landed, and came up with us.

“Ah, Transom,” said Whiffle, “glad to see you. I say, why won’t you

allow Mr Cringle here to go over to Spanish Town with me for a couple of

days, eh?”

“Why, I don’t remember that Mr Cringle has ever asked leave.”

“Indeed, sir, I neither did ask leave, nor have I thought of doing so,”

said I.

“But I do for you,” chimed in my friend Whiffle. “Come, captain, give

him leave, just for two days, that’s a prime chap. Why, Tom, you see

you have got it, so off with you and come to me with your kit as soon as

possible; I will hobble on and make the coffee and chocolate; and,

Captain Transom, come along and breakfast with me too. No refusal, I

require society. Nearly drowned yesterday, do you know that? Off this

same cursed wharf too--just here. I was looking down at the small fish

playing about the piles, precisely in this position; one of them was as

bright in the scales as a gold fish in my old grandmother’s glass globe,

and I had to crane over the ledge in this fashion,” suiting the action

to the word, “when away I went”--

And, to our unutterable surprise, splash went Peregrine Whiffle,

Esquire, for the second time, and there--he was shouting, and puffing,

and splashing in the water. We were both so convulsed with laughter

that I believe he would have been drowned for us; but the boat-keeper

of the gig, the strong athletic negro before mentioned, promptly jumped

on the wharf with his boat-hook, and caught the dapper little old beau

by the waistband of his breeches, swaying him up, frightened enough,

with his little coat skirts fluttering in the breeze, and no wonder, but

not much the worse for it all.

“Diable porte l’amour,” whispered Captain Transom.

“Swallowed a Scotch pint of salt water to a certainty--run, Pilfer,

bring me some brandy--gout will be into my stomach, sure as fate--feel

him now--run, Pilfer, run, or gout will beat you--a dead heat that will

be!” And he keckled at his small joke very complacently.

We had him carried by our people to his lodgings, where, after shifting

and brandying to some tune, he took his place at the breakfast table,

and did the honours with his usual amenity and warm heartedness.

After breakfast Peregrine remembered, what the sly rogue had never

forgotten I suspect, that he was engaged to dine with his friend Mr

Pepperpot Wagtail, in Kingston.

“But it don’t signify, Wagtail will be delighted to see you, Tom

hospitable fellow Wagtail--and, now I recollect myself, Fyall and Aaron

Bang are to be there; dang it, were it not for the gout, we should have

a night on’t!”

After breakfast we started in a canoe for Kingston, touching at the

Firebrand for my kit.

Moses Yerk, the unpoetical first lieutenant, was standing well forward

on the quarterdeck as I passed over the side to get into the canoe, with

the gunroom steward following me, carrying my kit under his arm.

“I say, Tom, good for you, one lark after another.”

“Don’t like that fellow,” quoth Whiffle; “he is quarrelsome in his drink

for a thousand, I know it by the cut of his jib.”

He had better have held his tongue, honest man; for as he looked up

broad in Yerk’s face, who was leaning over the hammocks, the scupper

immediately over head, through whose instrumentality I never knew, was

suddenly cleared, and a rush of dirty water, that had been lodged there

since the decks had been washed down at daydawn, splashed slapdash over

his head and shoulders and into his mouth, so as to set the dear little

man a-coughing so violently that I thought he would have been

throttled. Before he had recovered sufficiently to find his tongue, we

had pulled fifty yards from the ship, and a little farther on we

overtook the captain, who had preceded us in the cutter, into which we

transhipped ourselves. But Whiffle never could acquit Yerk of having

been, directly or indirectly, the cause of his suffering from the impure

shower.

This day was the first of the Negro Carnival or Christmas Holydays, and

at the distance of two miles from Kingston the sound of the negro drums

and horns, the barbarous music and yelling of the different African

tribes, and the more mellow singing of the Set Girls, came off upon the

breeze loud and strong.

When we got nearer, the wharfs and different streets, as we successively

opened them, were crowded with blackamoors, men, women, and children,

dancing and singing and shouting, and all rigged out in their best.

When we landed on the agents wharf we were immediately surrounded by a

group of these merry-makers, which happened to be the Butchers John

Canoe party, and a curious exhibition it unquestionably was. The

prominent character was, as usual, the John Canoe or Jack Pudding. He

was a light, active, clean made young Creole negro, without shoes or

stockings; he wore a pair of light jean small-clothes, all too wide,

but confined at the knees, below and above, by bands of red tape, after

the manner that Malvolio would have called cross-gartering. He wore a

splendid blue velvet waistcoat, with old-fashioned flaps coming down

over his hips, and covered with tarnished embroidery. His shirt was

absent on leave, I suppose, but at the wrists of his coat he had tin or

white iron frills, with loose pieces attached, which tinkled as he

moved, and set off the dingy paws that were stuck through these strange

manacles, like black wax tapers in silver candlesticks. His coat was an

old blue artillery uniform one, with a small bell hung to the extreme

points of the swallow-tailed skirts, and three tarnished epaulets; one

on each shoulder, and, O ye immortal gods! O Mars omnipotent! the

biggest of the three stuck at his rump, the point d’appuit for a sheep’s

tail. He had an enormous cocked hat on, to which was appended in front

a white false-face or mask, of a most methodistical expression, while,

Janus like, there was another face behind, of the most quizzical

description, a sort of living Antithesis, both being garnished and

overtopped with one coarse wig, made of the hair of bullocks tails, on

which the chapeau was strapped down with a broad band of gold lace.

He skipped up to us with a white wand in one hand and a dirty

handkerchief in the other, and with sundry moppings and mowings, first

wiping my shoes with his mouchoir, then my face, (murder, what a flavour

of salt fish and onions it had!) he made a smart enough pirouette, and

then sprung on the back of a nondescript animal, that now advanced

capering and jumping about after the most grotesque fashion that can be

imagined. This was the signal for the music to begin. The performers

were two gigantic men, dressed in calf-skins entire, head, four legs,

and tail. The skin of the head was made to fit like a hood, the two

fore-feet hung dangling down in front, one over each shoulder, while

the other two legs, or hind-feet, and the tail, trailed behind on the

ground; deuce another article they had on in the shape of clothing

except a handkerchief, of some flaming pattern, tied round the waist.

There were also two flute-players in sheepskins, looking still more

outlandish from the horns on the animals heads being preserved; and

three stout fellows, who were dressed in the common white frock and

trowsers, who kept sounding on bullocks horns. These formed the band

as it were, and might be considered John’s immediate tail or following;

but he was also accompanied by about fifty of the butcher negroes, all

neatly dressed-blue jackets, white shirts, and Osnaburgh trowsers, with

their steels and knife-cases by their sides, as bright as Turkish

yataghans, and they all wore clean blue and white striped aprons. I

could see and tell what they were; but the Thing John Canoe had perched

himself upon I could make nothing of. At length I began to comprehend

the device.

The Magnus Apollo of the party, the poet and chief musician, the

nondescript already mentioned, was no less than the boatswain of the

butcher-gang, answering to the driver in an agricultural one. He was

clothed in an entire bullock’s hide horns, tail, and the other

particulars, the whole of the skull being retained, and the effect of

the voice growling through the jaws of the beast was most startling.

His legs were enveloped in the skin of the hind-legs, while the arms

were cased in that of the fore, the hands protruding a little above the

hoofs, and, as he walked reared up on his hind-legs, he used, in order

to support the load of the John Canoe who had perched on his shoulders,

like a monkey on a dancing bear, a strong stick, or sprit, with a crutch

top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then.

After the creature, which I will call the Device for shortness, had

capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for a minute

or two, it came to a stand-still, and, sticking the end of the sprit

into the ground, and tucking the crutch of it under its chin, it

motioned to one of the attendants, who thereupon handed, of all things

in the world, a fiddle to the ox. He then shook off the John Canoe, who

began to caper about as before, while the Device set up a deuced good

pipe, and sung and played, barbarously enough, I will admit, to the tune

of Guinea Corn, the following ditty:

“Massa Buccra lobfor see,

Bullock caper like monkee,

Dance, and shump, and poke him toe,

Like one humane person--just so.”

And hereupon the tail of the beast, some fifty strong, music men, John

Canoe and all, began to rampauge about, as if they had been possessed by

a devil whose name was Legion:

“But Massa Buccra have white love,

soft and silken like one dove.

To brown girl--him barely shivel,

to black girl--oh, Lord, de Devil!”

Then a tremendous gallopading, in the which Tailtackle was nearly

capsized over the wharf. He looked quietly over the edge of it.

“Boat keeper, hand me up that switch of a stretcher,” (Friend, if thou

be’st not nautical, thou knowest what a rack-pin, something of the

stoutest is.)

The boy did so, and Tailtackle, after moistening well his dexter claw

with tobacco juice, seized the stick with his left by the middle, and

balancing it for a second or two, he began to fasten the end of it into

his right fist, as if he had been screwing a bolt into a socket. Having

satisfied himself that his grip was secure, he let go the hold with his

left hand, and crossed his arms on his breast, with the weapon

projecting over his left shoulder, like the drone of a bagpipe.

The Device continued his chant, giving the seaman a wide berth, however:

“But when him once two tree year here,

Him tink white lady wery great boder;

De coloured peoples, never fear,

Ah, him lob him de morest nor any oder.”

Then another tumblification of the whole party.

“But top-one time bad fever catch him,

colour’d peoples kindly watch him

in sick-room, nurse voice like music

from him hand taste sweet de physic.

Another trampoline.”

“So alway come--in two tree year,

and so wid you, massa never fear

brown girl for cook--for wife--for nurse:

buccra lady--poo--no wort a curse.”

“Get away, you scandalous scoundrel,” cried I; “away with you, sir!”

Here the morrice-dancers began to circle round old Tailtackle, keeping

him on the move, spinning round like a weathercock in a whirlwind, while

they shouted, “Oh, massa, one macaronilt if you please.” To get quit of

their importunity, Captain Transom gave them one. “Ah, good massa, tank

you, sweet massa!” And away danced John Canoe and his tail, careering up

the street.

In the same way all the other crafts and trades had their Gumbimen,

Hornblowers, John Canoes, and Nondescript. The Gardeners came nearest

of any thing I had seen before to the Mayday boys in London; with this

advantage, that their jack-in-the--Green was incomparably more

beautiful, from the superior bloom of the larger flowers used in

composing it.

The very workhouse people, whose province it is to guard the Negro

culprits who may be committed to it, and to inflict punishment on them,

when required, had their John Canoe and Device; and their prime jest

seemed to be every now and then to throw the fellow down who enacted the

latter at the corner of a street, and to administer a sound flogging to

him. The John Canoe, who was the workhouse driver, was dressed up in a

lawyer’s cast off gown and bands, black silk breeches, no stockings nor

shoes, but with sandals of bullock’s hide strapped on his great splay

feet, a small cocked hat on his head, to which were appended a large

cauliflower wig, and the usual white false-face, bearing a very

laughable resemblance to Chief-justice S----, with whom I happened to

be personally acquainted.

The whole party which accompanied these two worthies, musicians and

tail, were dressed out so as to give a tolerable resemblance of the Bar

broke loose, and they were all pretty considerably well drunk. As we

passed along, the Device was once more laid down, and we could notice a

shield of tough hide strapped over the fellow’s stem frame, so as to

save the lashes of the cat, which John Canoe was administering with all

his force, while the Device walloped about and yelled, as if he had been

receiving the punishment on his naked flesh. Presently, as he rolled

over and over in the sand, bellowing to the life, I noticed the leather

shield slip upwards to the small of his back, leaving the lower story

uncovered in reality; but the driver and his tail were too drunk to

observe this, and the former continued to lay on and laugh, while one of

his people stood by in all the gravity of drunkenness, counting, as a

first Lieutenant does, when a poor fellow is polishing at the

gangway,--“Twenty-twenty-one twenty-two”--and so on, while the patient

roared you, an it were any thing but a nightingales At length he broke

away from the men who held him, after receiving a most sufficient

flogging, to revenge which he immediately fastened on the John Canoe,

wrenched his cat from him, and employed it so scientifically on him and

his followers, giving them passing taps on the shins now and then with

the handle, by way of spice to the dose, that the whole crew pulled foot

as if Old Nick had held them in chase.

The very children, urchins of five and six years old, had their

Lilliputian John Canoes and Devices. But the beautiful part of the

exhibition was the Set Girls. They danced along the streets, in bands

of from fifteen to thirty. There were brown sets, and black sets, and

sets of all the intermediate gradations of colour. Each set was dressed

pin for pin alike, and carried umbrellas or parasols of the same colour

and size, held over their nice showy, well put on toques, or Madras

handkerchiefs, all of the same pattern, tied round their heads, fresh

out of the fold.--They sang, as they swam along the streets, in the most

luxurious attitudes. I had never seen more beautiful creatures than

there were amongst the brown sets--clear olive complexions, and fine

faces, elegant carriages, splendid figures,--full, plump, and magnificent.

Most of the Sets were as much of a size as Lord----‘s eighteen

daughters, sailing down Regent Street, like a Charity School of a

Sunday, led by a rum-looking old beadle--others again had large Roman

matron-looking women in the leading files, the figurantes in their

tails becoming slighter and smaller, as they tapered away, until they

ended in leetle picaniny, no bigger as my tumb, but always preserving

the uniformity of dress, and colour of the umbrella or parasol.

Sometimes the breeze, on opening a corner, would strike the stern most

of a set composed in this manner of small fry, and stagger the little

things, getting beneath their tiny umbrellas, and fairly blowing them

out of the line, and ruffling their ribbons and finery, as if they had

been tulips bending and shaking their leaves before it. But the colours

were never blended in the same set--no blackie ever interloped with the

browns, nor did the browns in any case mix with the sables--always

keeping in mind--black woman--brown lady.

But, as if the whole city had been tom-fooling, a loud burst of

military music was now heard, and the north end of the street we were

ascending, which leads out of the Place d’Armes or parade, that occupies

the centre of the town, was filled with a cloud of dust, that rose as

high as the house tops, through which the head of a column of troops

sparkled; swords, and bayonets, and gay uniforms glancing in the sun.

This was the Kingston regiment marching down to the Court-house in the

lower part of the town, to mount the Christmas guards, which is always

carefully attended to, in case any of the John Canoes should take a

small fancy to burn or pillage the town, or to rise and cut the throats

of their masters, or any little innocent recreation of the kind, out of

compliment to Dr Lushington, or Messrs Macauley and Babington.

First came a tolerably good band, a little too drummy, but still not

amiss--well dressed, only the performers being of all colours, from

white, down to jet-black, had a curious hodge-podge, or piebald

appearance. Then came a dozen mounted officers at the very least

colonels-in-chief, and colonels, and lieutenant-colonels, and majors

all very fine, and very bad horsemen. Then the grenadier company,

composed of white clerks of the place, very fine-looking young men

indeed--another white company followed, not quite so smart looking--then

came a century of the children of Israel, not over military in

appearance--the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, had passed away, the

glory had long departed from their house,--a phalanx of light browns

succeeded, then a company of dark browns, or mulattoes; the regular half

and--half in this, as well as in grog, is the best mixture after all,

then quashie himself, or a company of free blacks, who, with the browns,

seemed the best soldiers of the set, excepting the flank companies--and

after blackie the battalion again gradually whitened away, until it

ended in a very fine light company of buccras, smart young fellows as

need be--all the officers were white, and all the soldiers, whatever

their caste or colour, free of course. Another battalion succeeded,

composed in the same way, and really I was agreeably surprised to find

the indigenous force of the colony so efficient. I had never seen any

thing more soldier-like amongst our volunteers at home. Presently a

halt was called, and a mounted officer, evidently desirous of showing

off, galloped up to where we were standing, and began to swear at the

drivers of a wagon, with a long team of sixteen bullocks, who had placed

their vehicle, whether intentionally or not I could not tell, directly

across the street, where being met by another wagon of the same kind,

coming through the opposite lane, a regular jam had taken place, as they

had contrived, being redolent of new rum, to lock their wheels, and

twist their lines of bullocks together in much admired confusion.

“Out of the way, sir, out of the way, you black rascals--don’t you see

the regiment coming?”

The men spanked their long whips, and shouted to the steers by name

“Back, back--Caesar--Antony--Crab, back, sir, back;” and they whistled

loud and long, but Caesar and the rest only became more and more

involved.

“Order arms,” roared another officer, fairly beaten by the bullocks and

wagons--“Stand at ease.”

On this last signal, a whole cloud of spruce-beer sellers started

fiercely from under the piazzas.

“An insurrection of the slave population, mayhap,”--thought I, but their

object was a very peaceable one, for presently, I verily believe, every

man and officer in the regiment, had a tumbler of this, to me, most

delicious beverage at his head--the drawing of the corks was more like

street--firing than any thing else--a regular feu de joue. In the

meantime, a council of war seemed to be holden by the mounted officers,

as to how the obstacle in front was to be overcome; but at this moment

confusion became worse confounded, by the approach of what I concluded

to be the white man’s John Canoe party, mounted by way of preeminence.

First came a trumpeter John Canoe with a black face, which was all in

rule, as his black counterparts wore white ones; but his Device, a

curious little old man, dressed in a sort of blue uniform, and mounted

on the skeleton, or ghost, of a gig-horse, I could make nothing of. It

carried a drawn sword in its hand, with which it made various

flourishes, at each one of which I trembled for its Rosinante’s ears.

The Device was followed by about fifty other odd-looking creatures all

on horseback; but they had no more seat than so many pairs of tongs,

which in truth they greatly resembled, and made no show, and less fun.

So we were wishing them out of the way, when some one whispered that the

Kingston Light Horse mustered strong this morning. I found afterwards

that every man who kept a good horse, or could ride, invariably served

in the foot--all free persons must join some corps or other; so that the

troop, as it was called, was composed exclusively of those who could not

ride, and who kept no saddle horses.

The line was now formed, and after a variety of cumbrous manoeuvres out

of Dundas, sixteen at the least, the regiment was countermarched, and

filed along another street, where they gave three cheers, in honour of

their having had a drink of spruce, and of having circumvented the

bullocks and wagons. A little farther on we encountered four beautiful

nine-pounder fieldpieces, each lumbering along, drawn by half a dozen

mules, and accompanied by three or four negroes, but with no escort

whatsoever.

“I say, quashie, where are the bombardiers, the artillerymen?”

“Oh, massa, dem all gone to drink pruce.”

“What, more spruce!--spruce--nothing but spruce!” quoth I.

“Oh, yes, massa--after dem drink pruce done, dem all go to him

breakfast, massa--left we for take de gun to de barrack--beg one

feepenny, massa”--as the price of the information, I suppose.

“Are the guns loaded?” said I.

“Me no sabe, massa--top, I shall see.” And the fellow to whom I

addressed myself stepped forward, and began to squint into the muzzle of

one of the fieldpieces, slewing his head from side to side, with absurd

gravity, like a magpie peeping into a marrow-bone. “Him most be load--

no daylight come troo de touch-hole--take care make me try him.” And

without more ado he shook out the red embers from his pipe right on the

touch-hole of the gun, when the fragment of a broken tube spun up in a

small jet of flame, that made me start and jump back.

“How dare you, you scoundrel?” said the captain.

“Eigh, massa, him no hax me to see if him be load--so I was try see.

Indeed, I tink him is load after all yet.”

He stepped forward, and entered his rammer into the cannon, after an

unavailing attempt to blow with his blubber-lips through the touch

hole.

Noticing that it did not produce the ringing sound it would have done in

an empty gun, but went home with a soft thud, I sung out, “Stand clear,

sir. By Jupiter, the gun is loaded.”

The negro continued to bash at it with all his might.

Meanwhile, the fellow who was driving the mules attached to the

fieldpiece, turned his head, and saw what was going on. In a trice he

snatched up another rammer, and, without any warning, came crack over

the fellow’s cranium to whom we had been speaking, as hard as he could

draw, making the instrument quiver again.

“Dem you, ye, ye Jericho--ah so you bash my brokefast--eh? You no see

me tick him into de gun before we yoke de mule, dem, eh? You tief you,

eh?”

“No!” roared the other--“You Walkandyam, you hab no brokefast, you liard,

at least I never see him.”

“Dem lie dat!” replied Walkandnyam--“look in de gun.” Jericho peered

into it again.

“Dere, you son of a--” (I sha’n’t say what)--“dere, I see de red

flannin wadding over de cartridge--Your brokefast!--you be dem!” roared

Jericho.

And he made at him as if he would have eaten him alive.

“You be dem youshef!” shrieked Walkandnyam--“and de red wadding be dem!”

as he took a screw, and hooked out, not a cartridge certainly, but his

own nightcap, full of yams and salt fish, smashed into a paste by

Jericho’s rammer.

In the frenzy of his rage, he dashed this into his opponent’s face, and

they both stripped in a second. Separating several yards, they levelled

their heads like two telescopes on stands, and ran butt at each other

like ram-goats, and quite as odoriferous, making the welkin ring again

as their flint-hard skulls cracked together. Finding each other

invulnerable in this direction, they closed, and began scrambling and

biting and kicking, and tumbling over and over in the sand; while the

skipper and I stood by cheering them on, and nearly suffocated with

laughter. They never once struck with their closed fists I noticed; so

they were not much hurt. It was great cry and little wool; and at

length they got tired, and hauled off by mutual consent, finishing off

as usual with an appeal to us--“beg one feepenny, massa!”

At six o’clock we drove to Mr Pepperpot Wagtail’s. The party was a

bachelor’s one, and, when we walked up the front steps, there was our

host in person, standing to receive us at the door; while, on each side

of him, there were five or six of his visitors, all sitting with their

legs cocked up, their feet resting on a sort of surbase, above which the

jealousies, or movable blinds of the piazza, were fixed.

I was introduced to the whole party seriatim--and as each of the cock

legs dropped his trams, he started up, caught hold of my hand, and wrung

it as if I had been his dearest and oldest friend.

Were I to designate Jamaica as a community, I would call it a

handshaking people. I have often laughed heartily upon seeing two

cronies meeting in the streets of Kingston after a temporary separation;

when about pistol-shot asunder, both would begin to tug and rug at the

right-hand glove, but it is frequently a mighty serious affair in that

hissing hot climate to get the gauntlet off; they approach,--one, a

smart urbane little man, who would not disgrace St James’s Street, being

more kiln-dried and less moist in his corporeals than his country

friend, has contrived to extract his paw, and holds it out in act to

shake.

“Ah! how do you do, Ratoon?” quoth the Kingston man.

“Quite well, Shingle,” rejoins the gloved, a stout red-faced

sudoriferous yam-fed planter, dressed in blue-white jean trowsers and

waistcoat, with long Hessian boots drawn up to his knee over the former,

and a spannew square-skirted blue coatee, with lots of clear brass

buttons: a broad brimmed black silk hat, worn white at the edge of the

crown--wearing a very small neckcloth, above which shoots up an enormous

shirt collar, the peaks of which might serve for winkers to a starting

horse, and carrying a large whip in his hand--“Quite well, my dear

fellow,” while he persists in dragging at it--the other homo all the

while standing in the absurd position of a finger-post--at length off

comes the glove--piecemeal perhaps--a finger first, for instance--then a

thumb--at length they tackle to, and shake each other like the very

devil--not a sober pump-handle shake, but a regular jiggery jiggery, as

if they were trying to dislocate each other’s arms--and, confound them,

even then they don’t let go--they cling like sucker fish, and talk and

wallop about, and throw themselves back and laugh, and then another

jiggery jiggery.

On horseback, this custom is conspicuously ridiculous--I have nearly

gone into fits at beholding two men careering along the road at a hand

gallop each on a goodish horse, with his negro boy astern of him on a

mule, in clean frock and trowsers, and smart glazed hat with broad gold

band, with massa’s umbrella in a leathem case slung across his

shoulders, and his portmanteau behind him on a mail pillion covered with

a snow white sheep’s fleece--suddenly they pull up on recognising each

other, when, tucking their whips under their arms, or crossing them in

their teeth, it may be they commence the rugging and riving operation.

In this case, Shingle’s bit of blood swerves, we may assume--Ratoon

rides at him--Shingle fairly turns tail, and starts out at full speed,

Ratoon thundering in his rear, with out-stretched arm; and it does

happen, I am assured, that the hot pursuit often continues for a mile,

before the desired clapperclaw is obtained. But when two lusty planters

meet on horseback, then indeed Greek meets Greek. They, begin the

interview by shouting to each other, while fifty yards off, pulling away

at the gloves all the while--“How are you, Canetop?--glad to see you,

Canetop. How do you do, I hope.”--“How are you, Yamfu, my dear fellow?”

their horses fretting and jumping all the time--and if the Jack

Spaniards or gadflies be rife, they have, even when denuded for the

shake, to spur at each other, more like a Knight Templar and a Saracen

charging in mortal combat, than two men merely struggling to be civil;

an after all they have often to get their black servants alongside to

hold their horses, for shake they must, were they to break their necks

in the attempt. Why they won’t shake hands with their gloves on, I am

sure I can’t tell. It would be much cooler and nicer--lots of Scotchmen

in the community too.

This hand-shaking, however, was followed by an invitation to dinner

from each individual in the company. I looked at Captain Transom, as

much as to say, “Can they mean us to take them at their word?” He

nodded.

“We are sorry, that being under orders to go to sea on Sunday morning,

neither Mr Cringle nor myself can have the pleasure of accepting such

kind invitations.”

“Well, when you come back you know--one day you must give me.”

“And I won’t be denied,” quoth a second.

“Liberty Hall, you know, so to me you must come, no ceremony,” said a

third--and so on.

At length, no less a man drove up to the door, than Judge----. When he

drew up, his servant, who was sitting behind on a small projection of

the ketureen, came round and took a parcel out of the gig, closely

wrapped in a blanket--“Bring that carefully in, Leonidas,” said the

Judge, who now stumped up stairs with a small saw in his hand. He

received the parcel, and, laying it down carefully in a corner, he

placed the saw on it, and then came up and shook hands with Wagtail, and

made his bow very gracefully.

“What--can’t you do without your ice and sour claret yet?” said Wagtail.

“Never mind, never mind,” said the Judge; and here dinner being

announced, we all adjourned to the dining room, where a very splendid

entertainment was set out, to which we set to, and in the end, as it

will appear, did the utmost justice to it.

The wines were most exquisite. Madeira, for instance, never can be

drunk in perfection anywhere out of the Tropics. You may have the wine

as good at home, although I doubt it, but then you have not the climate

to drink it in--I would say the same of most of the delicate French

wines--that is, those that will stand the voyage--Burgundy of course not

included; but never mind, let us get along.

All the decanters were covered with cotton bags, kept wet with saltpetre

and water, so that the evaporation carried on powerfully by the stream

of air that flowed across the room, through the open doors and windows,

made the fluids quite as cool as was desirable to worthies sitting

luxuriating with the thermometer at 80 or thereby; yet, from the free

current, I was in no way made aware of this degree of heat by any

oppressive sensation; and I found in the West Indies as well as in the

East, although the wind in the latter is more dry and parching, that a

current of heated air, if it be moderately dry, even with the

thermometer at 95 in the shade, is really not so enervating or

oppressive as I have found it in the stagnating atmosphere on the sunny

side of Pall Mall, with the mercury barely at 75. A cargo of ice had a

little before this arrived at Kingston, and at first all the inhabitants

who could afford it iced every thing, wine, water, cold meats, fruits,

and the Lord knows what all, tea, I believe, amongst other things; (by

the way, I have tried this, and it is a luxury of its kind;) but the

regular old stagers, who knew what was what, and had a regard for their

interiors, soon began to eschew the ice in every way, saving and

expecting to cool the water they washed their thin faces and hands in;

so we had no ice, nor did we miss it, but the judge had a plateful of

chips on the table before him, one of which he every now and then popped

into his long thin bell-glass of claret, diluting it, I should have

thought, in rather a heathenish manner; but n’importe, he worked away,

sawing off pieces now and then from the large lump in the blanket, (to

save the tear and wear attending a fracture,) which was handed to him by

his servant, so that by eleven o’clock at night, allowing for the water,

he must have concealed his three bottles of pure claret, besides

garnishing with a lot of white wines. In fine, we all carried on

astonishingly, some good singing was given, a practical joke was tried

on now and then by Fyall, and we continued mighty happy. As to the

singing part of it,--the landlord, with a bad voice, and worse ear,

opened the rorytory, by volunteering a very extraordinary squeak;

fortunately it was not very long, but it gave him a plea to screw a song

out of his right-hand neighbour, who in turn acquired the same right of

compelling the person next to him to make a fool of himself; at last it

came to Transom, who, by the by, sung exceedingly well, but he had got

more wine than usual, and essayed the coquette a bit.

“Bring the wet nightcap!” quoth our host.

“Oh, it is that you are at?” said Transom, and he sung as required; but

it was all pearls before swine, I fear.

At last we stuck fast at Fyall. Music! there was not one particle in

his whole composition; so the wet nightcap already impended over him,

when I sung out, “Let him tell a story, Mr Wagtail! Let him tell a

story!”

“Thank you, Tom,” said Fyall; “I owe you a good turn for that, my boy.”

“Fyall’s story--Mr Fyall’s story!” resounded on all hands. Fyall, glad

to escape the song and wet nightcap, instantly began.

“Why, my friends, you all know Isaac Grimm, the Jew snuff merchant and

cigar maker, in Harbour Street. Well, Isaac had a brother, Ezekiel by

name, who carried on business in Curacao; you may have heard of him too.

Ezekiel was often down here for the purpose of laying in provisions, and

purchasing dry goods. You all know that?”

“Certainly!” shouted both Captain Transom and myself in a breath,

although we had never heard of him before.

“Hah, I knew it!”--Well then, Ezekiel was very rich; he came down in

August last, in the Pickle schooner, and, as bad luck would have it, he

fell sick of the fever.--“Isaac,” quoth Ezekiel, “I am wery sheek; I

tink I shall tie.” “Hope note, dear proder; you hab no vife, nor

shildir; pity you should tie, Ezekiel. Ave you make your vill, Ezekiel?”

“Yesh; de vill is make. I leavish every ting to you, Isaac, on von

condition, dat you send my pody to be bury in Curacao. I love dat place;

twenty years since I lef de Minories, all dat time I cheat dere, and

tell lie dere, and lif dere happily. Oh, you most sent my pody for its

puryment to Curacao!” “I will do dat, mine proder.” “Den I depart in

peace, dear Isaac;” and the Israelite was as good as his word for once.

He did die. Isaac, according to his promise, applied to the captains of

several schooners; none of them would take the dead body. “What shall I

do?” thought Isaac, “de monish mosh not be loss.” So he straightway had

Ezekiel (for even a Jew won’t keep long in that climate) cut up and

packed with pickle into two barrels, marked, “Prime mess pork,

Leicester, M’Call and Co. Cork” He then shipped the same in the Fan

Fan, taking bills of lading in accordance with the brand, deliverable to

Mordecai Levi of Curacao, to whom he sent the requisite instructions.

The vessel sailed. Off St Domingo she carried away a mast, tried to

fetch Carthagena under a jury-spar--fell to leeward, and finally

brought up at Honduras.

Three months after, Isaac encountered the master of the schooner in the

streets of Kingston. “Ah, mine goot captain--how is you you lookish tin

ave you been sheek?” “No, Moses I am well enough, thank you--poor a

bit, but sound in health, thank God. You have heard of my having

carried away the mainmast, and, after kicking about fifteen days on

short allowance, having been obliged to bear up for Honduras?” “I know

noting of all dat,” said Isaac; “sorry for it, captain--very sad inteed”

“Sad--you may say that, Moses. But I am honest although poor, and here

is your bill of lading for your two barrels of provisions; Prime mess,

it says damned tough, say I--Howsomedever,” pulling out his purse, “the

present value on Bogle, Jopp, and Co’s. wharf is L.5, 6s. 8d. the

barrel; so there are two doubloons, Moses, and now discharge the account

on the back of the bill of lading, will you?” “Vy should I take payment,

captain? if de”--(pork stuck in his throat like ‘amen’ in Macbeth,)

“if de barrel ish lost, it can’t be help--de act of God, you know.” “I

am an honest man, Isaac,” continued the captain, “although a poor one,

and I must tell the truth--we carried on with our own as long as it

lasted, at length we had to break bulk, and your two barrels being

nearest the hatchway, why we ate them first, that’s all. Lord, what has

come over you?”--Isaac grew pale as a corpse.--“Oh, mine Got--mine poor

proder, dat you ever was live, to tie in Jamaic--Oh tear, oh tear!”

“Did they eat the head and hands and--”

“Hold your tongue, Tom Cringle, don’t interrupt me; you did not eat

them; I tell it as it was told to me. So Isaac Grimm,” continued Fyall,

“was fairly overcome; the kindly feelings of his nature were at length

stirred up, and as he turned away, he wept--blew his nose hard, like a

Chaldean trumpet in the new moon--and while the large tears coursed each

other down his care-worn cheeks, he exclaimed, wringing the captain’s

hand, in a voice tremulous and scarcely audible from extreme emotion,”

“Oh, Isaac Grimm, Isaac Grimm--tid not your heart mishgive you, ven you

vas commit te great blasphemy of invoish Ezekiel--flesh of your flesh,

pone of your pone--as por--de onclean peast, I mean. If you hat put

invoish him ash peef, surely te earthly tabernacle of him, as always

sheet in de high places in te Sinacogue, would never have been allow to

pass troo te powels of te pershicuting Nazareen. Ah, mine goot captain

mine very tear friend--vat--vat--vat av you done wid de cask, captain?”

“Oh most lame and impotent conclusion,” sung out the judge, who by this

time had become deucedly prosy, and all hands arose, as if by common

consent, and agreed that we had got enough.

So off we started in groups.--Fyall, Captain Transom, Whiffle, Aaron

Bang, and myself, sallied forth in a bunch, pretty well inclined for a

lark, you may guess. There are no lamps in the streets of Kingston, and

as all the decent part of the community are in their cavies by

half-past nine in the evening, and as it was now “the witching time o’

night,” there was not a soul in the streets that we saw, except a

solitary town guard now and then, lurking about some dark corner under

the piazzas. These same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough

in the daytime, had become unaccountably narrow and intricate since six

o’clock in the evening; and, although the object of the party was to

convoy Captain Transom and myself to our boat at the Ordnance Wharf, it

struck me that we were as frequently on a totally different tack.

“I say, Cringle, my boy,” stuttered out my superior, Lieutenant and

Captain being both drowned in and equalized by the claret--“why, Tom,

Tom Cringle, you dog--don’t you hear your superior officer speak, sir,

eh?”

My superior officer, during this address, was standing with both arms

round a pillar of the piazza.

“I am here, sir,” said I.

“Why, I know that; but why don’t you speak when I Hillo where’s Aaron,

and Fyall, and the rest, eh?”

They had been attracted by sounds of revelry in a splendid mansion in

the next street, which we could see was lit up with great brilliancy,

and had at this time shot about fifty yards ahead of us, working to

windward, tack and tack, like Commodore Trunnion.

“Ah, I see,” said Transom; “let us heave ahead, Tom--now, do ye hear?--

stand you with your white trowsers against the next pillar.” The ranges

supporting the piazza were at distances of about twenty feet from each

other.--“Ah, stand there now--I see it.”--So he weighted from the one he

had tackled to, and making a staggering bolt of it, ran up to the pillar

against which I stood, its position being marked by my white vestments,

where he again hooked on for a second or two, until I had taken up a new

position.

“There, my boy, that’s the way to lay out a warp--right in the wind’s

eye, Tom--we shall fairly beat those lubbers who are tacking in the

stream--nothing like warping in the dead water near the shore--mark that

down, Tom--never beat in a tideway when you can warp up along shore in

the dead water--Damn the judge’s ice” (hiccup) “he has poisoned me with

that piece he plopped in my last whitewash of Madeira. He a judge! He

may be a good crim--criminal judge, but no judge of wine--Why don’t you

laugh, Tom, eh?--and then his saw--the rasp of a saw I hate--wish it,

and a whole nest more, had been in his legal stomach--full of old saws

Shakespeare--he, he--why don’t you laugh, Tom?--Poisoned by the judge,

by Jupiter--Now, here we are fairly abreast of them--Hillo! Fyall, what

are you after?”

“Hush, hush,” said Fyall, with drunken gravity.

“And hush, hush,” said Aaron Bang.

“Come here, Tom, come here,” said Whiffle, in a whisper. We were now

directly under the piazza of the fine house, in the first floor of which

some gay scene was enacting. “Here, Tom, here--now stand there--hold by

that pillar there. I say, Transom, give me a lift.”

“Can’t, Whiffle, can’t, for the soul of me, Peregrine, my dear--but

I see, I see.”

With that the gallant captain got down on all fours; Whiffle, a small

light man, got on his back, and, with the aid of Bang and Fyall, managed

to scramble up on my shoulders, where he stood, holding by the window

sill above, with a foot on each side of my head. His little red face

was thus raised flush with the window sill, so that he could see into

the dark piazza on the first floor, and right through into the

magnificent and sparkling drawing room beyond.

“Now tell us what’s to be seen,” said Aaron.

“Stop, stop,” rejoined Whiffle--“My eye, what a lot of splendid women

no men--a regular lady party--Hush! a song.” A harp was struck, and a

symphony of Beethoven’s played with great taste--A song, low and

melancholy, from two females followed.

“The music of the spheres!” quoth Whiffle.

We were rapt--we had been inspired before--and, drunk as we were, there

we sat or stood, as best suited us, exhibiting the strange sight of a

cluster of silent tipsy men. At length, at one of the finest swells, I

heard a curious gurgling sound overhead, as if some one was being

gagged, and I fancied Peregrine became lighter on my shoulders--Another

fine dieaway note--I was sure of it.

“Bang, Bang--Fyall--He is evaporating with delight--no weight at all,

growing more and more ethereal--lighter and lighter, as I am a gentleman

he is off--going, going, gone--exhaled into the blue heavens, by all

that is wonderful!”

Puzzled beyond measure, I stept hurriedly back, and capsized over the

captain, who was still enacting the joint-stool on all-fours behind

me, by which Whiffle had mounted to my crosstrees, and there we rolled

in the sand, master and man.

“Murdered, Tom Cringle--murdered--you have hogged me like the old

Ramilies--broke my back, Tom--spoiled my quadrilling for ever and a day;

d----n the judge’s ice though, and the saw particularly.”

“Where is he--where is Whiffle?” enquired all hands, in a volley.

“The devil only knows,” said I; “he has flown up into the clouds, catch

him who can. He has left this earth anyhow, that is clear.”

“Ha, ha!” cried Fyall, in great glee, who had seen him drawn into the

window by several white figures, after they had tied a silk handkerchief

over his mouth; “Follow me, my boys;” and we all scrambled after him to

the front door of the house, to which we ascended by a handsome flight

of marble steps, and when there, we began to thunder away for

admittance. The door was opened by a very respectable looking elderly

gentleman, with well powdered hair, and attended by two menservants in

handsome liveries, carrying lights. His bearing and gentlemanlike

deportment had an immediate effect on me, and I believe on the others

too. He knew Fyall and Whiffle, it appeared.

“Mr Fyall,” he said, with much gentleness, “I know it is only meant as a

frolic, but really I hope you will now end it. Amongst yourselves,

gentlemen, this may be all very well, but considering my religion, and

the slights we Hebrews are so often exposed to, myself and my family are

more sensitive and pervious to insult than you can well understand.”

“My dear fellow,” quoth Fyall, “we are all very sorry; the fact is, we

had some d----d bad shaddock after dinner, which has made us very giddy

and foolish somehow. Do you know, I could almost fancy I had been

drinking wine.”

“Cool and deliciously impudent that same, (hiccup,)” quoth the skipper.

“But hand us back little Whiffle,” continued Fyall, “and we shall be

off.”

Here Whiffie’s voice was heard from the drawing room. “Here, Fyall!--

Tom Cringle!--Here, here, or I shall be murdered!”

“Ah! I see,” said Mr H. “this way, gentlemen. Come, I will deliver the

culprit to you;” and we followed him into the drawing room, a most

magnificent saloon, at least forty feet by thirty, brilliantly lit up

with crystal lamps, and massive silver candelabra, and filled with

elegant furniture, which was reflected, along with the chandeliers that

hung from the centre of the coach roof, by several large mirrors, in

rich frames, as well as in the highly polished mahogany floor.

There, in the middle of the room, the other end of it being occupied by

a bevy of twelve or fifteen richly-dressed females, visitors, as we

conjectured, sat our friend Peregrine, pinioned into a large easy chair,

with shawls and scarfs, amidst a sea of silk cushions, by four beautiful

young women, black hair and eyes, clear white skins, fine figures, and

little clothing. A young Jewess is a beautiful animal, although, like

the unclean--confound the metaphor--which they abhor--they don’t improve

by age.

When we entered, the blushing girls, who had been beating Whiffle over

his spindle shins, with their large garden fans, dashed through a side

door, unable to contain their laughter, which we heard long after they

had vanished, echoing through the lofty galleries of the house. Our

captive knight being restored to us, we made our bows to the other

ladies, who were expiring with laughter, and took our leave, with little

Whiffle on our shoulders--the worthy Hebrew, whom I afterwards knew in

London, sending his servant and gig with Captain Transom and myself to

the wharf. There we tumbled ourselves into the boat, and got on board

the Firebrand about three in the morning. We were by this time pretty

well sobered; at four a gun was fired, the topsails were let fall, and

sheeted home, and topgallant-sails set over them, the ship having

previously been hove short; at half-past, the cable being right up and

down--another gun the drums and fifes beat merrily, spin flew the

capstan, tramp went the men that manned it. We were under weigh--

Eastward, ho!--for Santiago de Cuba.