CHAPTER XII--JAMAICA AS I SAW IT

Dorinda came home from church. She had on a neat, blue cotton dress,

a snow-white handkerchief was wrapped round her head, her pretty black

feet were bare, and her comely dark face stood clear cut in the evening

light against the white wall of the house.

“What church do you belong to, Dorinda?”

“Baptist, missus.” So she was one of the Black Family, the church that

bravely tried first to teach the slaves.

“And have you been baptised?”

“No, missus. I'm an enquirer.” It troubled her mistress a little that

Dorinda often felt the strong need to “enquire” sometime, when the table

should be laid or the silver cleaned.

But an “enquirer” exactly represents my attitude towards Jamaica. I'm an

enquirer still, though I lived there for over eighteen months, and every

day I learned something. Indeed, much to my surprise, I find I sometimes

appear to know a great deal more than many of the people who have lived

there all their lives. It reminds me of an American tourist I met once

at the Myrtle Bank, Jamaica's principal hotel--“My dear,” she

said, “I've been a great traveller of late, and I'm just full up of

information, mostly wrong.”

Still, there are some things I can see for myself. They are forced

upon me like a slap in the face. Kingston was a disappointment. It is

a dust-heap, somewhat ill-kept; there is none of the lush luxuriance of

the tropics one expects from its latitude. Out of Kingston--in it too

for that matter--it is very difficult for those not blessed with a

superfluity of this world's goods to live in Jamaica comfortably, simply

and inexpensively; the mosquitoes are a nuisance, the ticks run them a

very good second, and the post office facilities are the very worst in

the world.

Having relieved my mind of my objections to the country, I may say I

have found it a lovely land, its people as hospitable and kind as its

post office is bad--which is saying a good deal--and I enjoyed my stay

there so much that I wanted to settle there.

When I first landed, it struck me the country was black, and then I

learned its nationality.

“What countrywoman are you, Frances?” I asked the lady who condescended

to destroy my clothes under the pretence of washing them. Frances

grinned all over her black face--well, not exactly black but mahogany

red, with a skin so fine the greatest lady in the land might envy her.

“Me, missus, me British, missus.” And British she and her like are for

weal or woe. Strongly against their wills Britain forced her nationality

upon their fathers, and now they are as loyal sons and daughters of the

Empire as are to be found under the Union Jack. Woe be to Britain if she

does not treat these her children well.

There came into the harbour at Kingston, the lovely harbour which is not

half appreciated, a warship with the Stars and Stripes at her peak, and

the black men in the streets and all along the harbour shores looked on

with the greatest interest, More than one man took off the ugly

tourist cap with the deep peak which seems a speciality of Jamaica,

and scratched his wool thoughtfully and then one was found to voice the

thoughts of the rest.

“Ah!” said he, “but wait till _our Temeraire_ comes along.” It is I who

emphasise the “our,” not they. To them it seems quite natural. She is

theirs. And truly I think this people have bought their nationality with

their blood if ever people have. Kingston is full of these Britons.

At first I was inclined to grumble because the houses all seemed in need

of paint, all looked dusty and untidy, and all wanted mending in places,

all the gardens needed water, in fact, but for the saving grace of the

Myrtle Bank Hotel, I should have damned Kingston utterly. But I took

the Psalmist's advice and lifted my eyes to the hills, and I saw what

a lovely world was this to which I had come. There was a harbour, a

harbour that will hold a fleet, a great sheet of blue water sparkling in

the sunshine, fringed all round with the riotous green of the tropics,

and behind were the Blue Mountains, a glorious setting for man's untidy

handiwork. There is range upon range of hills, their peaks clean-cut

against the blue sky, with little cloudlets nestling in their folds,

and dark blue shadows marking the deeper gullies. A splendid range of

mountains they would be in any land, but here they are close, close so

that any man may leave the hot and dusty street and may rest in their

gullies, with the refreshing smell of damp earth and dewy vegetation in

his nostrils.

This is a marked characteristic, one of the great charms of Jamaica.

Nowhere in the world that I have been, have I found in a small area so

many points of vantage from which may be seen beautiful views. Again and

again have I climbed--nay, usually a motor or a buggy carried me--to a

hilltop or a hillside, and there stretching below me was the sea, the

ever changing sea, while around were range after range of hills with

the cloud shadows resting upon them. There are broadleaved banana

plantations on their slopes, the villages are embedded in mango and

bread-fruit trees, the vivid green of sugar plantations is in the rich

bottoms, a house here and there gives life to the scene, but the

rugged rocks, crowned by tall trees, are the same Columbus saw. Here

a symmetrical broad leaf stands out clear against the blue sky, every

branch outlined, and here mahogany, mahoe, and the giant cotton tree,

cedar and sweet-wood and a dozen other trees grow close together, close

and tall, struggling up to the sunshine, marking by their stature and

their girth the wealth of the soil that has given them birth.

Sometimes, often indeed, a tropical storm sweeps over these hills, for

nowhere in the island is the rainfall less than 30 inches in the year,

and in many places in the mountains that amount falls in a month, and

anyone who has the temerity to be out in the downpour has a great broad

banana leaf on his head and over the bundle he is carrying.

I have never seen a country that seemed so primeval and yet was so

well populated, for we must admit that close on a million people in an

island, a little larger than half the size of Wales, makes for fairly

close habitation, and in the remoter corners far away from civilisation

as distance goes in the island, there are everywhere small shacks where

dwell the country folk. When the shacks are very far from the main road,

I know that the owner is an ill-used man, for the Jamaican peasant likes

company. His idea of bliss is to have a house right on the road, where

he can converse with all and sundry who pass by, and keep in touch with

the life of the island. He would not give a “thank you” for permission

to live in the empty Great House on the hill above.

And that is another curious condition of Jamaica, the number of

Great Houses empty and going fast to decay. I have seen some, like

“Stonehenge,” just a heap of rubble, and others like the Hyde, that

except for a day or two once every six weeks are entirely given over to

the bats and the rats, and the other pests of Jamaica. Really quite a

large number of the New Poor of England could be comfortably housed in

the empty Great Houses of Jamaica. Well, perhaps that is a forgivable

exaggeration. But Jamaica is like England, the majority of people cannot

afford to live in her Great Houses built for the days when there

were servants and slaves a-plenty, and there was no thought of modern

improvements.

The Jamaican negro usually does not have his plantation round his home.

As in the old slave days he has it at some distance away, often so far

that he must needs stay there at night to guard it. The idea, I believe,

is that he saves the land round his home for the time when his legs

shall be too old to carry him to a great distance. Still, round the

shack itself may often be seen the poles supporting the green vines of

yams, and often there is a breadfruit tree, its leafy arms stretching

out hospitably, its handsome leaves glimmering and glinting in the

sunshine, and in the season when it is well grown its fruit will support

a village. He probably also has a few bananas or plantains, and there is

sometimes a primitive mill, with a blindfolded mule going slowly round

and round, crushing the cane for the coarse head sugar that the black

man loves. There are some hens scratching happily, for there is plenty

for a hen to eat, a goat or two is tethered on a patch of grass, for the

children want milk, and there is a pig, the only animal the negro feels

bound to feed. He grows yams and corn and cocos for his hog, but

his poor mongrel dog is so starved as a rule (I have seen brilliant

exceptions), it makes your heart ache.

When we lived at the Hyde, the mongrel dogs belonging to the “Busha”

and some of the labourers were the plague of our lives. They were

always ranging the place in search of scraps. On one occasion we did

remonstrate as forcibly as we dared with a black man who owned an

unfortunate starving puppy whose bones stood out of its skin, and the

next day the poor brute arrived, starved as ever, with a bleeding stump

where its tail should have been. On its heels came its angry master. And

we were also angry.

“I dun all me can, missus,” he explained. “He will come. Me cut off him

tail an' burry him an' tie him on top. It sure ting him stay wid him

tail but him bruck de 'tring.”

Poor things! Poor things! The sufferings of the dogs and indeed of all

animals in Jamaica at the hands of unthinking black men!

A self-contained establishment is the Jamaican shack. Sometimes it is

built of wattle, as the huts to-day are built on the Gambia, whence came

the Mandingo slaves, sometimes mud is daubed on the wattle, as it is on

the Gold Coast, sometimes it is built of rough logs and it is thatched

with palm leaves, or, as the family rises in the social scale, with

shingle. In it apparently dwell a large family, ranging from the old

granny whose age no man knoweth, to the new-born baby of her great

grand-daughter, a baby born into a new world where life I know will be

easier for it and hold more advantages than it did for the old woman

who sits nodding in the shade. Perhaps the hut belongs to her. It often

seemed to me that the hut did belong to the women, even as they do in

the country from which they came.

All the cultivator, man or woman, need buy is the scanty household

furnishing, and a very limited supply of clothing for the elders and

the younger children. The older boys and girls soon learn to provide for

themselves. It is quite easy to live off the land, and if more money is

wanted there is always a cattle pen or a sugar estate handy where wages

can be earned. When the emancipation came, the angry planter declared he

wanted no idle vagabonds upon his estate, and did his best to break up

the old slave villages. Now as the manager of a sugar estate told me

he likes to have his labour close, and he at least was encouraging the

negroes once more to build upon his plantation. Not that the negro

works very hard as yet. The hard-working toiler of the north would be

surprised at the easy-going ways of these children of the sun. A man

will work I am told four days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

Friday, but he has his wages on Friday night, so he does no work on

Saturday, it is market day. Sunday of course is a day of rest, everyone

knows it would be wicked to work on Sunday, and Monday is banana

day--the day when the bananas are taken down to the port. All the roads

down from the mountains, the roads that those in authority have decreed

shall be as far as is possible without shade, are lined with people

mostly women and girls bearing on their heads great bunches of green

bananas, which are sold to the fruit companies or at their collecting

depots about the country. A fruitful land! It strikes me forcibly, for

I am fresh from reading the wails of the slave owners--“the negroes will

not increase.” Will any wild things kept in captivity increase? But put

those same wild things in suitable environment. Miss Maxwell Hall has a

story about this increase.

She interested herself to get a pen boy of hers into one of the

contingents going to the war. He wanted to serve the Empire--his Empire.

He was a stalwart young fellow, but enquiries had to be made about those

dependent upon him. Then she found that he was the father of eleven

children, five by one woman and six by two other women! They were all

alive and there was every probability of more! He had already served the

Empire so well that the Government felt he had better stay at home and

see to the proper upbringing of the hostages he had given to fortune.

No wonder there are thronged roads, but there should be more cultivated

patches. The cultivation should be like that of Provence, for this is

a fruitful country, although people talk of its being so poor. Miss

Maxwell Hall, that most capable young pen-keeper, says--“For years

everyone has been engaged in taking money out of Jamaica. No one ever

seems to have thought of putting money into the land, of working the

country for itself.” Exactly what Madden said ninety years before.

Does this explain the desolate looking towns set amidst such fertile

lands? There are poor. I saw them every day, but why they are so poor

I do not know. All the civilised world is crying out for just such small

products as the negro can supply, cold storage is the order of the day,

why then are there any poor in Jamaica? Possibly a discreet knowledge

of the growing powers of the soil is lacking, and also there is no doubt

manual labour is despised.

With whip and chain the white man taught the black--drove the thought

into him with the branding iron--that manual labour was a despicable

thing, something only to be undertaken by those who could do no better,

and we cannot undo that teaching in a few years. Indeed it is only in

the last few years, only since the cruel war which has made us all so

wise, that Britain herself learned the lesson.

I have always been keenly interested in openings for women, and inclined

to be wrathful when other women talk as if matrimony were the only

career for a woman. Of course matrimony is good for a woman, exactly

as it is for a man, but I have always felt strongly that it is for the

nation's good that every woman should go down into the arena and work

for her living as a man does. If she marry--well--she will know

better how to bring up her own sons and daughters, and if she do not

marry--also well. She will have made a place for herself in the world,

and can hold up her head as a valuable citizen.

Feeling this strongly, it is no wonder that one of the most interesting

happenings of my stay in Jamaica was my coming upon Charlotte Maxwell

Hall, a young woman who is entering upon a career I should have loved at

her age. She is young, extremely good looking, if she will allow me

to say so, charming, and, above all, she is strenuous and vivid with

energy--indomitable. She is the Government Meteorologist, and she is

managing the cattle pen which her father bought forty years ago, long

before she was born. She lives up at Kempshot, on top of the highest

hill for miles round, which has one of the loveliest views in lovely

Jamaica, and she is gradually working that 600 acres of rough hill

country into a beautiful park, where the pastures are walled by stone

walls as they are in Derbyshire or Northern China, walls built from the

stones picked off the pastures, which must be put somewhere. She looks

after her trees. She prunes; why should not shelter trees be kept

beautifully, says she, and she takes every opportunity of planting trees

from other lands. And as for her cattle, they are tended under her own

eyes, and she wages unceasing war against that plague of Jamaica, the

tick.

[Illustration: 0320]

For the acquaintance--the friendship I think I may write now--of this

young lady, I am indebted to my cook Malvina. We had left the Hyde

and gone to live at Montego Bay, and the family wanted milk, wanted it

rather badly, as Samuel Hyde Parsons, “young massa up at Hyde,” was but

a small person and milk is a precious commodity in Montego Bay. Many

people got it out of a tin. We did at first. And Malvina suggested--“Why

not missus writing to Miss Maxwell Hall? Miss Maxwell Hall kindly

supplying.”

I didn't know whether the lady would be “kindly supplying” or not, but I

thought the offer of cash down might induce her to do so.

And my letter brought me a visit from a laughing girl in a motor, who

said she did sell milk, rather to the horror of some of her relations

who felt that the most she ought to do was to “oblige a few friends.”

She, finding her milk going to waste, had advanced a step further and

did not see why she should not oblige herself, and had set to work

putting that milk-walk upon a business basis.

And there and then on the verandah looking out over the sea, we struck

up a friendship based on my unbounded admiration for her and her work.

Presently I was looking for a house without being able to find one that

suited my needs, and she came to my rescue with an invitation to the

three of us, myself, Eva and the baby, to go to Kempshot Pen.

And there I saw a side of life which gave me not only great hopes of

Jamaica, but for all the tropical possessions of Britain. Here was a

place run--by a woman, a young woman--and run frankly for gain and for

the good of all the people surrounding it.

Charlotte Maxwell Hall is Jamaican born (of English parents) and she

loves her home, and she is making a beginning of a new phase in that

land. What she is doing to the surprise of her generation, the next

generation will be keen on doing and they will regenerate Jamaica.

Not that there are not rich pens and well kept pens, but they are

managed by men and they are much greater in extent.

Kempshot specially attracted me because it was run by a young woman of

an age when many girls are thinking only of their amusement, run not

only with the intention of getting every ounce of good out of the soil,

but of putting back into that soil all the good that came out out of it.

And the place where she earns her livelihood, the place where the slaves

rose and ninety years ago drove Major Hall and his wife fleeing in the

night down through the jungle for their very lives, bids fair to be a

very jewel among homesteads, a model for all Jamaican homesteads. I only

trust the loneliness of it will not drive her away. And then, of course,

with a woman, and an attractive one, there is always the danger that

some man may persuade her to marry him and he will carry her off.

Oh, but some of those ladies Madden talks about, “accustomed to all

the refinements of English society,” would turn in their graves if they

could see this their modern representative. She will be still in her

youth when her years make her old enough to be the mother of the girls

of his time. But then she arises long before dawn, she is riding or

walking in boots and breeches, dogs at her heels, over the pen seeking

with the eye of the master for defects as soon as the first glimmer of

light comes over the mountains; she rests in the middle of the day, but

her work is hardly done when the sun sinks gorgeously to rest behind the

tree-topped hills in the west.

And she has her work cut out for her. For the negro, whether on her

estate or, what is worse, on its borders, is intolerably wasteful of his

property and other people's. For instance, she found on the land when it

came into her hands two well-grown handsome trees which she discovered

were mahogany trees. She hailed them with delight and gave them every

attention. And then one day to her dismay she found her precious trees,

trees nearly as old as herself, dying and past all hope, for some negro

outside her boundaries had stripped the bark off them, because

mahogany bark--and mahogany bark is difficult to get now in accessible

places--makes the best floor stain! That is the sort of difficulty

the man or woman who would do well by the country has to encounter in

Jamaica. It takes the heart out of the worker. What was the good of

storming and raging, the seventeen year old mahogany trees were dead,

because a negro wanted to earn without trouble a few pence in Montego

Bay. Again and again going the rounds, Miss Maxwell Hall finds that the

black people have ruthlessly cut down trees she is cherishing, cut them

down for firewood, or to make shingles, or for a riding-whip or some

other trifle.

In my experience the negro peasant makes a very wasteful agriculturist.

Sir Hugh Clifford I see, speaking of the countries from which the

forbears of the coloured Jamaican came, advocates that white men be not

encouraged to settle in these lands, that they be left to the peasants.

I see what he means. He deprecates the arrival of the white man, who

comes as a bird of passage, anxious to take all he can out of the land

before retiring after a certain number of years to enjoy his spoils--a

well-earned, peaceful old age he would call it, an old age beginning

somewhere about forty--in the country of his birth.

The countries that go to make up the Empire should not be so treated.

But I cannot think that the peasant on the soil is best left alone to

work out his own salvation. He will work it out I suppose in time,

but the cost will be heavy. I have watched the peasant in the Alpes

Maritimes in France, I have seen the fishermen drawing their nets in the

Italian Riviera, and I have seen the negro in Jamaica and West Africa,

and I unhesitatingly say that the cost of that working out is very heavy

indeed.

The fishermen complained bitterly--there are no more fish, only the

little young ones, but they went on fishing relentlessly, taking every

one, destroying those that were so small they fell through the fine

meshes of the net on to the beach.

“Oh, they take all,” said a man looking on who spoke a little French,

and he laughed.

In Jamaica the peasant is a very wasteful, a ruinous agriculturist,

the only thing he does not waste is his own health and energy. In West

Africa the same accusation held good. The peasant ruthlessly burnt down

the forest trees to make a place for his patch of food-stuffs, and

when the land was worn out there he chose another spot and repeated the

destruction. He does the same in Jamaica.

In France it is the other way. The country is carefully tilled. The

hillsides that would be barren anywhere else are blooming gardens,

but the working out bears cruelly on the individual, especially on

the women. Look at the people, white people all, industrious, thrifty,

admirable in many ways--and about as far advanced in civilisation as

they were at the end of the eighteenth century! Their women are worn

with toil, they are haggard and old, toothless crones, before they are

thirty. All the joy and loveliness has gone out of their life. Up in

the mountains they are devout enough, but they have no use for modern

science, and as I saw them they are not as far advanced as many a negro

I have met in Jamaica, even as the negroes are far behind the farmers of

Australia and New Zealand.

Now I am sure that most people will agree with me that the capable

business man--and in “man” I include the capable of both sexes--the man

with modern knowledge and training, the farseeing man who will settle in

a country and give it the best of his years, will educate and help the

peasant to get the most out of the land and better his lot, who will

bring up his children to follow in his footsteps, must be a boon in any

land. The ignorant peasant wastes; in France his labour and strength in

archaic methods of labour and life, in Jamaica and West Africa he wastes

the timber, he wastes the animals he has under him, he wastes the

soil, the earth brings forth not one-tenth of what it might under more

enlightened rule.

And I need not say what that increase would mean, not only to the

peasant but to a great manufacturing country like Great Britain.

When I read about Garden Cities in England, and the necessity for women

emigrating, I am full of wonder why someone with a little money does

not start an agricultural colony in Jamaica. I can see no reason why the

beautiful land should become the exclusive property of the rich fleeing

from the northern winter. It should be an ideal place for people who

are not rich, especially for women. Here is eternal summer, here

are beautiful surroundings, here is a fertile soil crying out for

cultivation, here is a large peasant population waiting for employment,

here is an ample fruit supply, here should be milk and eggs and chickens

in abundance; here is no need of fires and furs, of winter clothing, of

carpets and curtains, of heavy bedding.

If a woman go to Canada or Australia she must use her hands--it will do

her no harm, but many women do not like the prospect--but in Jamaica for

many a long day to come there will be labour in plenty crying out for

a guiding hand. All it seems to me that is required to make such

settlements a great success is a little money--you cannot have land and

plan to work it for nothing anywhere--a little common sense, and they

would be a boon not only to Jamaica but to the Empire. Only one thing,

two things, perhaps, I would insist on. All the windows must be built as

are those in the south of France and in Italy--like doors that open wide

and let in an abundance of air, and not as they make them in Jamaica,

sash fashion, after the custom of cold England. And no settler must live

in a mosquito-proof room. He must clear away the mosquitoes.

They talk about the Jamaican negro as dishonest, but I think that is to

be attributed to ignorance, and will mend with better wages and better

education. My servants, low as were their wages, might have been trusted

as a rule with my money or my jewellery or even my clothes, and they

only pilfered the flour and sugar and such like commodities which,

considering they fed themselves and these things were dear, was putting

their sins on a par with that of the boy who steals sugar or apples;

but there is a form of larceny in Jamaica which is very crippling to

industry, and which I have not heard of in any other land. The Jamaican

peasant cannot for the life of him help predial larceny, that is

field larceny. He steals not only from the well-to-do man with a large

acreage, but from his neighbour and his friend. Before the yams are

ready for digging, or the corn ready to be cut, comes along the predial

thief and relieves the owner of a large portion of his crop. Whenever

any man plants he must put in enough to supply the greedy robber, who is

too lazy to plant for himself. Everyone expects part of his crop to be

taken. It is the curse of the country.

“Missus,” said a black boy to Miss Maxwell Hall, “you buy my corn when

him ripe?”

“Have you any corn, Cyril?” He rejoiced in that high-sounding name.

“Got good big plot, missus. Him ripe soon.”

“Very well,” she said good-naturedly, anxious to help on the

industrious, and passing over the fact that he had calmly taken her land

without paying any rent. So the time went on and the fowls wanted food.

“Where's that corn, Cyril?”

“Oh, missus!” sighed Cyril, sad, but not surprised, “somebody tief him

all.”

And his was the common lot.

Near one of the big towns there was a man who, having a crop of roots

from which he expected great things, took the trouble to sit up and

watch by night with a shot-gun in his hand. He concealed himself, of

course, and in the uncertain light of the early morning he saw a big

figure stooping over his precious roots, and, aiming low, let fly.

The dark figure scuffled away promptly, and the owner of the land was

satisfied, because when the daylight came he found blood on the ground.

“Now,” he said to himself, “when I hear some man got sick in de laigs

den I know who tief my yams.”

For a day or two nothing happened, and then it began to be rumoured that

a well-known man, a man in quite a decent position in the community, had

a curious swelling in his legs.

“No can put foot to groun',” and the owner of the yams smiled.

The sick man went to the hospital at last, though he stood off as long

as he could, and those inconsiderate doctors, instead of applying the

proper remedies, insisted upon enquiring into the cause of the trouble,

which he felt was no business of theirs.

“What were you doing?” asked the inquisitive leeches.

“Cuttin' bush,” said the patient ruefully, “an' me fall backwards into

makra with bad thorn,” and further investigation revealed the fact that

at the bottom of every makra thorn wound there was a large pellet such

as would come out of a shot-gun!

But the patient insisted he had not been shot. He didn't want to be

arrested for larceny! But everybody about the place then knew that this

well-to-do man had paid a night visit to his poorer neighbour's yam

patch!

What the remedy for this evil is going to be I don't know. Of course

everyone must see the cause. The curse of slavery that hung over the

land for 250 years destroys every shred of selfrespect. I put it to you,

can a slave have any self-respect, a man who is not responsible for his

own doings. He took everything he could get, honestly or dishonestly, he

was fraudulently held himself, what did it matter to him whose property

he took so long as he kept his back from the lash. And a standard of

life that has been inculcated for so long is not likely to be altered

in three generations, especially when for the greater part of that time

these people have been most distressingly poor.

I like the black man of Jamaica. No one can help liking him, and still

more do I like the black woman, with her smiling face and her strong

desire to please. But even in this strong desire to please I trace

the mark of that cruel bondage that held the people for so long. Ask

a peasant man or woman a simple question, how far, for instance, is a

certain place, and he will not tell you the truth, though he may have

walked the distance every day of his life, and if he does not know it

in terms of miles, has a very good idea of how long it will take you to

reach it, and could tell you if he pleased. But no, he tries to find

out how far you wish it to be, and that distance it is. Ask about the

weather, and if you show you wish for rain your peasant predicts rain,

even as he is sure it is going to be fine if you want fine weather.

Still at heart he is a slave, dependent in a measure on the kindliness

of those above him for all he wants.

But dishonesty is not inborn in the Jamaican peasant. At the Myrtle Bank

Hotel, where the servants are not only well paid but get good tips

from the guests, the maids are so rigidly honest that the very pins

and hairpins I dropped on the floor were picked up and placed on my

dressing-table.

It was a significant fact. They were no longer slaves, they were

self-respecting men and women--even as you or I. Their very tongue

had altered. They spoke excellent English, spoke in soft and pleasant

voices, to which it was a pleasure to listen. Most of the negroes have

naturally pleasant tones, educated, they are delightful so long as the

speaker does not think about himself and become pompous and bombastic.

They tell me there is no discontent among the well-paid employees of the

United Fruit Company, that they do their work cheerfully and well, and

I have seen for myself happy, honest, well-spoken house servants. I once

stayed in a house, that of the Hon. A. Harrison, custos of Manchester. I

was, unluckily, very ill, and was waited upon by a girl named Hilda, who

spoke exactly like a highly-educated English lady. She had a charmingly

modulated voice, and her words were well chosen, though she was a

simple, barefooted girl in a cotton gown with a handkerchief on her

head.

“How is it, Hilda, you speak so nicely?” I asked in wonder.

She showed a row of even milk-white teeth in a smile.

“I don't know, ma'am,” she said. “Perhaps it is because I have lived

with my mistress for thirteen years and learned to talk as she does.”

This is what may be, but as a rule is not.

They tell a story of an inspector at a school examining the children in

general knowledge.

“How many feet has a cat?” he asked smiling.

A row of black eyes looked at him stolidly.

He asked again, but still there was no dawning intelligence in those

eyes. He began to wonder. Didn't they have cats in this place? Then the

teacher stood up.

“How many foot puss hab got?”

And they answered as one.

I could wish that the schools were better equipped, for the negro

patois, amusing as it is, is still but patois, and though negro

voices can be soft and pleasant, often I have heard them talking among

themselves with very ugly intonations indeed.

And yet it is a shame to complain, for though it is delightful to live

amidst lovely scenery, it is always the people who add piquancy to life.

And the Jamaican peasant was always adding to my joy. He didn't mean to

do it. It was when he was most natural I got the best results.

On Kempshot Pen one day the head man came reporting that the men

had--like men all over the world--struck for higher wages. But they

chose the wrong time. Their mistress could do without them, and she did.

“Tell them,” she said, “they can go. I can manage.” And they set out to

enjoy themselves. About an hour later she was aroused by a loud wailing,

and in burst a man with his eyes starting out of his head and the lower

part of his face a bloody pulp. She did not recognise one of her own

men, and he could only gug--gug--gug, and splutter blood and broken

teeth. But there were two shamefaced men at the gate who looked as if

they had broken all the commandments, and expected to be well beaten for

it.

“It was Victor,” they explained.

“Victor!”

Then they told the story. As they were on strike Victor had decided to

go shooting. But his gun, an old muzzle-loading affair, declined to go

off. He proceeded to investigate and blew down the barrel, while another

man kindly applied a fire stick to the touch-hole. The matter was

settled in half a second, and he received most of a charge of small shot

in the lower part of his face. It looked horrible enough, but it wasn't

as bad as it might have been, for either the powder was damp or he

had been economical with it. But his wounds were far beyond all simple

household skill, and his mistress could only pack him off on a donkey to

the doctor in the town below.

An open-air life and a vegetable diet is apparently good for the healing

of gun-shot wounds, for long before we expected him, Victor was

back again, but slightly scarred and smiling. He was quite well, he

explained, and had only lost “a toof or two.” The doctor said he had

taken away half his upper jaw, but as he didn't know he had an upper jaw

that didn't trouble him.

Meanwhile at the time of the accident the head man had improved the

occasion.

“See what happen to Victor when you no work,” said he, and every man

jack came back to work without a word about the extra money they had

felt they could not do without, and worked so well that the surprised

pen owner found she had three days' work done in one.

It seemed to me extraordinary, but she only laughed. She was accustomed

to their superstitions working that way. Once she had contracted with a

man named Maxwell to come and shoe her horses, to come always the moment

he was sent for. He agreed readily enough, but the day a horse cast a

shoe and she sent for him, he sent back word he was cutting bush and

could not come. Well, she could not wait, so sent for another man, and

just as he was finishing the job, into the yard came Maxwell with a

bandage over his eye.

“Why, Maxwell, I thought you couldn't come.”

“I come now, missus.”

“But what's the matter with your eye?”

“Well, missus, a bit of bush, he jump up an' lick me in de eye.”

That bit of bush had licked him to such a tune that all the lower eyelid

had been torn away, and the dismayed girl could only apply boracic

ointment as something harmless, and recommend his going down to a doctor

at once. But before he went he assured her solemnly that she had only to

send for him for the future, and on that instant he would come up, and

up till now he has kept his word. He is afraid some evil thing will

happen to him if he does not shoe the Kempshot horses the moment they

require his services.

All over the country are dotted little churches, mostly Baptist, but

true it is as Huxley--was it not--once said, “Man makes God in his own

image.” The damsel, the new housemaid making my bed on the verandah,

feelingly remarked upon how cold I must be. It is pleasantly cool

towards morning, that is the most that can be said for it, but the real

truth came out when Sam was brought outside to share in the delights of

the starlit night.

“Poor little baby,” sighed Leonie, “Oh, poor little baby. Missus not

taking him outside?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, missus,” in shocked tones, “bad for baby.”

“But why?”

Long hesitation--and then out it came. “He small. Dey can kill him

easy.”

It was very startling. “Who will kill him?” Much wriggling. She

evidently didn't like to mention it, but she felt the case was

desperate.

“Dem tings dat walk about at night.”

“What things?”

We'd seen nothing larger than a mongoose. They may go about at night for

all I know, they certainly tore about the grass in the daytime, but I

really did not think by the hurried manner in which they declined our

acquaintance they'd come very near.

She paused, wriggled again, rubbed first one foot against a neat brown

leg and then the other, put her fingers half way down her throat and

whispered as she rolled her eyes--

“De duppies.”

No! One couldn't smile, she was so desperately in earnest, so really

concerned for the sake of the little helpless baby. We older women might

chance things, but she evidently felt it was playing it low down on the

baby to expose him to such risks.

“Oh, duppies! There aren't any duppies.”

“Yes, missus,” and her eyes turned towards where, on the shores of the

Caribbean, the Montego Bay dead lie resting, sleeping their long last

sleep amidst coco-palms and gorgeous flamboyant trees. Oh, a lovely

graveyard, and the sea breeze sweeps across it in the daytime, and

by night comes whispering the scented wind from the hills. “Dey catch

yous”--she grew excited and slurred her words--“tear yous to pieces.”

We are naturally brave. “Oh, Buffer will settle them.” Buffer being the

nearest approach to a bull terrier we could get in Jamaica, a powerful

and handsome white dog.

Again she shook her head mournfully. “Dey tear him to pieces.”

But in spite of all we slept outside and she shook her head mournfully,

“Poor little baby!”

When the duppies did not take us the servants only considered for some

reason or other the evil day was postponed. No one liked passing that

graveyard a quarter of a mile away at night.

Indeed, this faith in evil spirits seems pretty general, even among

people who are a shade higher in the social scale than a house servant.

When we were at the Hyde and Sam was very tiny, we used to put him in

his cradle on the porch outside the front door, and leave him there to

sleep in the fresh air.

To me one day came the “Busha” of the estate, a brown man, who naturally

held a position of authority.

“Mrs Gaunt,” he said uneasily, “the baby is alone.”

“He's asleep.”

“Yes, I see he's asleep. But Mrs Gaunt--we never leave a baby alone.”

Then he hesitated quite a long time and added, “it's dangerous.”

I thought of what could possibly harm a sleeping baby. We were close

against the mountains. Eagles? But there weren't any eagles, and I

didn't expect they would swoop down at the house front if there were.

Turkey buzzards? Yes, there were “John Crows.” I'd even seen the birds

of carrion on the verandah rails.

“Oh, the 'John Crows,' I never thought they'd hurt him.”

“They won't. They won't touch anything alive. But, Mrs Gaunt,” he sank

his voice and spoke very slowly and impressively, “we never leave a

baby alone. We believe that the spirits come and play with them and it's

bad.”

He was evidently afraid that as a white woman I would laugh at this, and

he had only spoken out of the kindness of his heart, because the baby

was in danger. But, of course, I did not laugh. Why should I laugh at

faiths other than mine? And so encouraged, he told me of the spirits

he had seen in broad daylight, spirits that clothed themselves as his

friends, and only when he came up close did he perceive they were, as he

put it, evil spirits.

Well, as a matter of fact, when he was not likely to be about we let Sam

sleep on the porch, and outside he continued to sleep at night in spite

of Leonie's protest, and so far as I can see neither duppy nor evil

spirit ever did him the least harm, dear little man. In fact he

continued to improve till he was the fine baby of the district, and

I set it down to the fresh air in which he lived day and night. I am

afraid I wickedly used the faith in duppies to my own advantage. Buffer

hated a black man. At Montego Bay he used to sit outside the gate and

kindly allow people to pass on the other side of the road, but if they

came too near the territory he was guarding, he stepped out and held

them up. If we heard a squeal we knew it was a woman, if a howl, a man,

and flew to the rescue, but if they threw stones at him it almost took

a motor car to shift him. He had a great reputation, and there was no

predial larceny round my house, chickens and eggs were quite safe. But

the people were afraid of him, and when I went for a walk with Buffer

peacefully trotting along by my side, for he wouldn't have dreamt of

touching anybody away from his own ground, I was more than once met by a

line of furious women with sticks uplifted.

“Kill! kill!” they shouted, and I thought of the old days when they

would have killed a white woman if they could and not only her dog. It

was really awe inspiring. I was afraid they would fling their sticks at

Buffer, and then somebody would be hurt. And the men too threatened, “We

kill dat dog!”

I thought they would do it too, do it in some cruel and lingering

fashion, so I threatened in my turn. “If you touch that dog and hurt him

so that he has to die, I warn you his duppy will haunt you, and I tell

you the duppy of a big white dog is a much worse thing than the dog

himself, for you will not be able to get rid of that!”

And I heard afterwards they said, “Missus go put him duppy on we.” And I

had a reputation as a duppy raiser, and Buffer survived till I could

get him away to Kempshot Pen, where he had more range, and where his

fighting qualities are much valued by his new mistress.

Still is the faith in Obeah strong in Jamaica. It is the ju-ju of the

Coast, and all the historians have many tales to tell of its dread

powers.

In the year 1780, the parish of Westmoreland was kept in a constant

state of alarm by a runaway negro called Plato, who had established

himself among the mountains and collected a troop of banditti, of which

he was the chief. He robbed very often and murdered occasionally. This

could not be allowed, and at last Plato was taken and condemned to

death. He told the magistrates who condemned him that his death would

be revenged by a storm which would lay waste the whole island that year,

and when his negro jailer was binding him to the stake--he was evidently

burned to death according to the ruthless custom of the time--he told

him he should not live long to triumph in his death, for that he had

taken good care to Obeah him before quitting prison.

It certainly did happen, strangely enough, says Matthew Lewis, that

before the year was over there was the most violent storm ever known in

Jamaica, and as for that jailer, “his imagination was so forcibly struck

by the threats of the dying man, that although every care was taken

of him, the power of medicine exhausted, and even a voyage to America

undertaken in hopes that a change of scene might change the course of

his ideas, still from the moment of Plato's death he gradually pined and

withered away before the completion of the twelvemonth.”

Now that was written of 1780, but the very morning I wrote it, 7th March

1921 on Kempshot Pen, came a stalwart negro to see Miss Maxwell Hall,

and to discuss local politics with her.

“And how is it,” asked the young lady, “Daniel Cooper is such a bad man

now? He won't work and he thieves.”

“Missus,” said the cultivator solemnly, “we sorry for him. Can't blame

Daniel Cooper. Him can't help it. Him put so. When I go to Cuba him good

boy”--the gentleman was over forty even then--“an' when I come back dat

Charles Henry put him so. Dat bad man Charles Henry. Make him tief, make

him lie, put him so.”

So Daniel Cooper, idle scamp, for some unknown reason is to be pitied

not blamed, because it is a well-known fact that Charles Henry is an

Obeah man.

Obeah is a very real and live thing in the mountains round Montego Bay.

But Miss Maxwell Hall has decreed that the gentleman who has been “put

so,” whether he is to be pitied or blamed, shall not come on her land.

She will not encourage Obeah.

There was another case, a well-known case some years ago. A woman with

two sons got leave to take up land on Kempshot. She put the boys to

clear it, and as they worked a man came and said she could not have it.

Her husband, who was dead, owed him twenty pounds, and he was taking the

land instead. Everyone knew it was a lie, he never had twenty pounds to

lend anybody. But as the boys worked he warned them.

“You come back after dinner, see what happen to you.”

But they laughed and came back.

“You no come to-morrow,” threatened the man, and sure enough next day

both boys were ill, and while one died the other has been an idiot ever

since.

Again, some years ago, a maid-servant refused the advances of a man she

disliked. He threatened her.

“You no come to me I put you so.”

But she laughed and tossed her head. And that night she was taken with

terrible pains that threatened to crush the life out of her. The doctor

was sent for, an English physician. He said he thought the girl had been

poisoned, but the case baffled him. No remedy that he could think of had

any effect, and he thought she must die.

Then came the cook to her master, her mistress happened to be away.

“Massa,” said she, “Missus very fond of Gloriana.”

He acquiesced. The girl was a favourite with his wife.

“Massa,” pleaded the cook, “you send for Dr----------,” naming a mulatto

doctor, a Creole, who had taken his degree in America, “he can cure

Gloriana.”

Her master looked dubious. If the man with a good Edinburgh degree

could do nothing, he had small faith in any other man. But the cook was

determined. “Dr---------- can cure.” Therelore Dr----------

was sent for. Sure enough, the new man looked at the girl, heard the

story, went round the garden, gathered a leaf here and a leaf there,

made a decoction which the girl drank, and presently she was well again.

The Creole had lived in the island, and had grown up in the ways of the

negroes.

But Obeah so used is certainly a very terrible thing, and not to be made

light of or trifled with.

For the man of African descent, light-hearted and happy soul as he is,

has another side to his character which must not be overlooked, and

which has its influence on his life. Ever and again it peeps out.

One day Miss Maxwell Hall, riding among the hills, came upon, as she had

done hundreds of times before, a pleasant little river which full to the

brim, for the rains had been heavy, wandered along between plantations

of sugar-cane. Presently she came to a gate, and as it had never

occurred to her to do before, she opened it and rode in. The river

widened, the hills closed in, and the trees grew denser, and she found

herself riding along a dank, dark path overhung with rose-apple trees

and mangoes, and as these trees do when it is very damp, all the leaves

were turning black and covered with mildew, the river ended in a dark

pool underneath, a pool of deep, black water that poured itself away

underground. The ground was sodden and wet, and reeking of decay. The

air was heavy and contaminated, and the black leaves of the rose-apple

trees shut out the light and were themselves apparently lifeless, or

perhaps rather they were reeking with a sinister, evil life. Had she

found a pool where witches met, or where the Obeah men wove their

ghastly spells? Her very horse's hoof-beats were muffled in the foul and

rotten vegetation underfoot.

She made her way back into the brilliant tropical sunshine, which was

but a little way off. Leaning against the gate was a man idly chewing a

bit of sugar-cane.

“What place is that?” she asked.

He looked up at her.

“It belongs to de church,” he said.

“Belongs to the church!” she said. “Then, why on earth don't they clear

away some of those mouldy old apple trees?”

“Huh!” said he, “dey likes it dat way. It be Baptism Hole!”

And so it was, the place used for one of the most important ceremonies

of the Baptist church!

They fear still these people, I am afraid, some of them some unknown

terrible power.

At Kempshot Pen there is an observatory built by the late Mr Maxwell

Hall, who installed there a telescope, because he was an astronomer.

Always his daughter used to help her father in his lifetime, and on one

occasion there came to her no less a person than the schoolmaster from

the nearest village, seeking information about the stars. She gave him

a couple of elementary books, and suggested that he should come up

some evening and look through the telescope. He came, a black man,

immaculately clad in a neat tweed suit, a high starched collar, a silken

tie and--a machete was concealed under his arm up his coat.

His hostess was very much astonished, but she said nothing, only

suggested he should look at the full moon through the telescope. He

assented, spent an instructive evening, and then over rum and water and

cake opened his heart.

There were two opinions in the village, he said, and he himself had not

known which to believe. One was that the squire opened the roof, and

putting up the long tube drew down the stars and examined them, the

other that he went up through the tube to the stars and moon! Now he

knew.

But, mark you, what a step upward it means that this man should come to

enquire, even with a machete under his arm.

They say that the last census gave half the people of marriageable

age in Jamaica as married, but had I not been told that, I should have

thought with Lady Nugent that the Jamaican woman did not think much of

matrimony. What she does want is a child, and a child she very often

has, no matter what teachers and preachers may say to the contrary.

Sometimes a couple, when they have got over the flush and restlessness

of youth, will live together peaceably and happily, either married or

unmarried, but the average Jamaican peasant girl--I do not say all, but

many certainly--will often have a child before she settles down. As in

Africa, it is motherhood that counts first.

I discussed the matter with Christy, who presided over the forlorn

stone-paved cavern called a kitchen when I first arrived in Jamaica.

Christy was a wild-looking lady with her hair on end, bare feet of

course, and a ragged skirt. She had been comely in her own way, but

she was as dirty as she was unkempt, and decidedly as useless. She had,

however, great dramatic powers and could tell a story. She had three

children and she displayed them with pride.

No husband was in evidence, so I concluded rashly she was a widow.

“Oh no, missus. My husban' he get intelligence an' he leff me.”

I didn't wonder at his leaving her. I was only surprised that he did not

“get intelligence” before she had three children.

“I got 'nother chile,” said she, as if fearing these three did not do her

justice, “a white chile.”

I wasn't accustomed to Jamaican ways then and I was startled. The three

before me could hardly have been blacker.

“Him's fader white colonel,” said she proudly, and she mentioned a

well-known name in the island, “him's fader very good to me. Have him

before I get married.”

I suppose I looked a little surprised.

“Not do that in England?” asked Christy, seeking information, and I

mendaciously assured her that every woman in that favoured land waited

till she went to church and wore a ring before she had a child.

I was introduced to the white son later on, a great hulking mulatto with

rather a sullen air, and I noticed that the son born out of wedlock was

treated with great respect by the sister and brothers who in England

would be counted the more fortunate. They all called him “massa.” But he

was good to his wild-looking mother, and brought her and her family many

presents. I was not surprised that she was very proud of the colonel's

son.

Then came Rebekah, who took her place when we could stand Christy and

her brood no longer.

Rebekah had a child, and was openly proud of him. We always discussed

him when she kneaded the bread, and I stood over her to see that she

did it, because if I had not, she would have considered that kneading as

done.

“Missus looking lovely,” said Rebekah, “in her pink dress.” Missus'

dress wasn't pink and she didn't look lovely, but I suppose Rebekah

considered it a good way to open the morning. Perhaps if I felt she

considered me lovely, I might ease up on the bread kneading. I never

did, but she never failed to try. Then she told me about her “chile.”

“Yes, missus, de fuss' chile I get he die.”

“Ah, that was sad. And what was his name?”

“Him name Lily. Den I pray to the Lard an' He give me anoder.”

“And your husband--” I began.

“Oh, missus, I get no husban'. He's fader, Amos Hussy, very good man

he's fader, help me with de chile.”

“A white man?” I asked, remembering Christy's colonel.

“Oh, missus!”--she stopped kneading--“if he white I be rich woman. He a

cultivator. Very good man.”

But Frances the laundry woman was franker still. She brought with her

her son “Hedgar,” aged eight, and she explained--

“Hedgar's fader very proud of him, tink most of Hedgar, more'n all his

sons. He want me to leave him an' he keep him, but I say 'no.' Hedgar

de on'y chile I get, mus' keep him, an' I get no work in dat country,”

That far country was about twelve miles off.

But the other sons were a little mystifying; however, she kindly

explained, being a talkative soul.

“He get four sons by four women, all about de same age, but he tink most

of Hedgar.”

I really felt a little delicacy about pursuing enquiries any further,

but Frances felt none. It was commonplace to her.

“He get married,” she chortled, “an' his wife give him no chilluns!”

Frances let me in for sanctioning immorality with a vengeance. She had a

room in which she and Edgar slept, and she kept herself while I paid her

the magnificent sum of 7s. a week. Too little, I admit. But what was

I to do? It was higher than the wages around, and she certainly wasn't

worth what she got. Still she apparently felt no lack, for when I saw a

strange girl about the place, I was informed it was Frances' cousin come

to stay with her in the country for a change! And when the cousin was

gone, seeing I said nothing, she came to me and told me that the man she

was going to marry wanted to come and see her.

“An' he say, missus, he want to come like a man an' not hidin'. Say, ask

missus, let him come.”

I was struck with the nice feeling on the man's part, and cordially gave

my permission, though I must say I was surprised at its being asked.

He came one night after I had gone to bed and next morning he was

engaged in chopping wood for the cook. And then I found to my dismay

that he and Frances and Edgar shared her room!

What was I to say? My leave had been asked. So I shut my eyes and said

nothing, and the gentleman stayed a fortnight, and then sent in to know

what present I was going to give him before he went away!

I suppose to the average stay-at-home middle-class English woman this

state of things sounds shockingly immoral, but after all is it not that

things are here done openly that in other places are done under the

rose.

Up and down Jamaica have I been, and I can honestly say that the average

Jamaican peasant woman looks happy. Nay, she looks more than happy,

for happiness may be a passing condition, the majority of the Jamaican

peasant women look entirely content. There is no unspoken longing in a

peasant woman's face, she is quite satisfied.

“Missus,” said Leonie persuasively, “me kindly begging you leff me sleep

home.” Now Leonie had sworn by all her gods that she would stay at her

post all night, so enquiries were made and it was found “me cousin”

was going to have a baby in six weeks, and as it was her first, very

naturally she did not like being alone at night. But what about her

husband? Oh, she hadn't a husband. Whatever made missus think that? The

father? “Oh, he nice young man, he helping her a lot, but he too young,

not worth marrying.”

“Missus, kindly begging--” insinuatingly.

Well, of course, Leonie spent her nights with the expectant young

mother, and everybody was satisfied.

The real trouble is that these poor little children thus brought into

the world are often not properly looked after. How can a young woman

keep herself and her child on 7s. a week, and that is more than the

majority of them get? And so often it ends in a pitiful little white

coffin with a forlorn little wreath of fern upon it, carried on a

man's shoulder to the graveyard. I have seen them often. There are no

followers, though the Jamaican loves a funeral.

“Not worth while,” said Malvina when I asked why no one went to the poor

little baby's funeral.

Not that the women do not help each other. The fat, smiling cook at

Kempshot who could make most excellent omelettes, had not only her

own child to keep, but two of her dead sister's. She was not married,

neither had the sister been. But will any of the virtuous venture to

cast a stone! Who amongst us who pride ourselves upon our decent lives

would do as much. But again the difficulty crops up. Those children will

grow more and more expensive. How can she start them in the world?

Sometimes these children are “lent out.” It is a curious custom in the

country, the survival of the old slave days when there were numerous

stable helpers and servants in the Great House, and a child was sent

by his mother there and became the understudy of an understudy, and so

learned about horses or gardening or housework. Now, of course, there

are no white people whose houses are open in such fashion, but it is no

uncommon thing for a child to be “lent out” by its mother to some small

cultivator, either to do housework or to work in the fields for his or

her food or clothes. The food is plain and, often like the clothes I am

afraid, scanty.

Miss Maxwell Hall was called out one morning to interview a

miserable-looking little boy, about as high as the table, who in a

ragged shirt and pants stood in the chill of early morning at her gate,

holding a still more miserable-looking little white dog on a string.

He had come to see missus, he said; he had waited all night to see her,

waited in the cold and wet, poor child, for it is cold in the hills to

these people. His mammy had lent him out to Mr----------” over on the

hill yander,” and someone had given him the puppy, which he loved

dearly. And every bone in that poor little dog was plainly visible, his

master did not give the little boy much, but he provided nothing at all

for the dog. So last night Mr---------- had set his dinner down and gone

out for a moment, and while he was away the little starving dog had

wolfed the lot and then wisely run away and hidden in the bush. Upon the

small owner fell the dinner-less man's wrath and he beat him, beat him

with a board with nails in it, and he displayed to the horrified girl

the marks of that castigation. Then he had fled away, recovered his dog

and come to her for protection. Poor little “lent out” child!

But all masters and mistresses are not so cruel. Many are kindly enough

and share what they have with their dependents. The trouble is that they

are ignorant, they do not know how to make the most of the opportunities

that are theirs.

When I lived at the Hyde among the hills in Trelawny, the people used to

come down to the Great House to see us and sell us eggs and fruit--often

I am afraid our own eggs and our own fruit--and they used to beg a

little. Retinella, whom I knew had fowls, and who was I think honest,

used to bring a dozen eggs for sale, and then produce a very tiny

bottle.

“Missus, I kindly begging you a little scent, going to a wedding”--or

a funeral. Both these entertainments required perfuming, and there were

more of them I am sure than the population could possibly stand.

But they did not always beg and they did not always sell. Sometimes they

would bring a few heads of corn, a yam or a sour sop, and when payment

was offered it would be, “Missus, I kindly giving it you. You give

me things, you never let me give you things.” So then we would accept

gratefully, and cast about to see what return could be made without it

being too patent that we were giving something for value received.

The town man likes to see himself in print, and not only the letters in

the _Gleaner_, the principal Jamaican paper, but the advertisements show

his sentiments.

I think the first thing that struck me was the many advertisements for

straightening the hair. I am accustomed in these northern latitudes

to see many prescriptions offering a permanent wave that no damp will

affect, and I have seen not only women but young men with their hair

carefully “Marcelled” with the curling tongs, so why I should be amused

at the man who wants the kink taken out of his locks I do not know.

There are certainly many men and women who do desire it.

But where the coloured man really spreads himself out is in the

matrimonial advertisements. They are a constant source of delight.

Sometimes a lady wants to be married. Here is one who is beginning

early--

“To Marry,” the advertisement is headed. “A lady eighteen years of age

wants a husband” (no beating about the bush, plain statement of fact);

“must be from a respectable family. Fair or white preferred. Enclose

photograph; please send name and address.--Apply Miss G., c/o _Gleaner_,

Kingston.”

“Bride Wanted,” says another advertisement; but the gentleman who

wants has an eye to the main chance. “To correspond with a lady of some

independent means with the view of marriage; any colour except white,

must be good at sewing; March born preferred.--Apply 'Businessman,'

Williamsfield P.0.”

“Any colour except white” is, of course, sheer defiance.

But it is the advertisements of those who rather wish the knot had never

been tied that are the most amusing.

“Notice.--My wife, Sophia Junor, having left my home from the 31st day

of May in my sick bed, and up to this date having not returned, this is

to warn the public that I do not hold myself responsible for any debt

she might contract. Matthias Junor, Bath P.O., Knockands.”

Very often the complaining man warns the public that he intends to marry

again, as “I cannot manage myself.” Sometimes he puts it in much more

grandiloquent language.

“My wife, Mrs Henrietta Scott, has not been under my protection for the

last twenty-one years, 1899 to 1920, and I am not aware of her existence

outside of Jamaica. Unless I am put in possession of information as to

whether she is living or not, I shall proceed to enter into contract of

matrimony. Joseph Scott, Windward Boad, Kingston, 12th July 1920.”

On other occasions the lady has something to say on the subject.

“Notice.--I, Edith Phinn, hereby beg to notify the public that my chief

cause to leave my husband was this: He has ill-treated me and threatened

to shoot me with his revolver, and I am now residing at my families

residence, 50 Cumberland Road, Spanish Town.”

I do like “my families residence.”

And yet another indignant lady--

“Notice.--I beg to inform the public that I have not left the care and

protection of my husband as stated by him” (I do regret that I

missed his advertisement), “and furthermore all his real and personal

belongings are for myself and his four children. We are living in his

home, I never left it even for a day. So I therefore warn the public

not to transact any business with him without my consent.--(Mrs) M. E.

Sibblies, Lewis Store, Clonmel, P.O.”

A lady who can take care of herself!

I suppose nobody quite realises what it is that appeals to a man in the

woman he takes. Presumably there is usually some strong attraction, and

yet there is a story told in Jamaica, a perfectly true story I believe,

which makes me feel that some people are either easily satisfied or

exceedingly accommodating.

There were brides and grooms and bridesmaids and ushers, and much

excitement and confusion and giggling, but the parson went on gravely

with the ceremony, trusting by his correct demeanour to bring these

dark children of the church to a realisation of the solemnity of the

sacrament in which they were taking part. But they would not calm down.

“I think--” he began severely, when the last words had been spoken, but

an usher, who had been particularly objectionable, interrupted him, and

he gave him the attention now he had denied him during the service.

“But sali, but minister,” stammered the excited gentleman in a high

collar, “you's married de wrong woman on to de wrong man!”

Now I, being a common-sense heathen, should have been tempted to

say, like the clergyman officiating at Easter-time marriages in the

Potteries, when ten or twelve couples are married at once, “Now, sort

yourselves.” It seems to me it is the intention that counts. But our

clergyman was made of different stuff. He firmly believed he had bound

indissolubly men and women who did not desire each other, and in much

consternation he retired to his study and sat there with his head in his

hands, wondering what on earth he should do.

Meanwhile, the wedding party also discussed the matter. And presently

the much-troubled parson heard a tap at his door.

“Come in,” he said gloomily, and in came the wedding parties, all

wreathed in smiles.

“Well, minister,” said the spokesman amiably, “we's been tarkin' an'

tarkin' an' we's 'greed to mak' ta change!”

And the parson was mightily relieved. He did not understand how lightly

matrimony sits upon the negro.

But that surely was nothing to the predicament of the lady who took

her baby to be christened, and announced at the font in answer to the

question, “How do you name this child?”

“Call de chile Beel-ze-bub.”

“Oh, but that's not a proper name for a child,” cried the horrified

minister.

The proud mother looked at him doubtfully.

“But I get him outer de Bible.”

“But I tell you it's a wicked name,” asseverated the minister.

She sighed. All the trouble to be gone through again.

“Den, minister, what I call him?”

“Well, call him John if you want a Bible name. That's in the Bible.”

Still the woman felt vaguely there was something wrong.

“You sure dat good name for him, minister”--very earnestly.

“Oh yes, quite sure,” said the minister, anxious to put as far behind

them as possible the dreadful scandal of Beelzebub.

So John the baby was christened, and the mother carried it outside

and the minister came out and did the benevolent pastor to her and her

friends.

“De chile's name am John,” announced the mother.

“Hoo! John!” snorted a neighbour with more knowledge, “but amn't de

piccaninny a gal?” And sure enough she was.

Leonie, being sent on a message, returned nonchalantly and empty-handed.

“But, Leonie, where's the parcel?” Leonie smiled non-committally.

“But, surely, if they didn't give you a parcel they gave you a letter?”

“Oh yes, missus,” agreed Leonie readily, “dey give me a paper but he

lose he's self on de way up.” And of course there was no more to be

said.

My wrath was as nothing to the wrath of a lady who wanted a pergola

made exactly like one she had already that had been up for three or four

years and was nicely covered with roses.

She took the negro carpenter and showed him the pergola, measured it

under his eyes, gave him the measurements and the lumber, and left him

to make another on the other side of the house. Then, alas, she went

away for the day. When she came back, to her horror and dismay she found

her original pergola, all covered with its nicely-tended creepers--the

work of years--had been taken down, stripped of its greenery, laid on

the ground, and the thoughtful and careful carpenter was engaged in

measuring it so as to make the new one exactly like it! What she said

I don't know, but incidents like this help me to understand the

punishments the slaves received of yore.

This same woman's husband happened to say casually to his carter that he

would want him to go into Montego Bay, 16 miles away, the next day. Next

day he found carter and team missing, and could only use bad language.

They did not return till long after dark.

“Well, boss,” said the driver cheerfully, “I been to Kerr's, an' I been

to Hart's, an' I been to--” and he mentioned half a dozen places--“an'

I wait an' wait, an' I wait, an' I go back an' dey none get nothen' for

yous.''

“Why, you fool,” said his angry master, “you ought to have come to me, I

had something I wanted you to take into town.”

After all, the uneducated negro is not the only fool in the world, and

though I laugh, I feel very kindly towards the sinners.

But, sometimes, their foolishness harmed themselves, though I am bound

to say that was not their view of the case.

One of my neighbours, a very kindly American, being told by her boy that

he wanted to go off early on Christmas Day, thoughtfully asked him if

he would then rather have the money instead of the Christmas dinner. He

considered a moment, and to her surprise elected to have the dinner.

On Christmas Day, immediately after the first breakfast, which is very

early in the tropics--seldom after seven, often long before--she went

into the kitchen to give her orders for the day, and there to her great

surprise she saw her boy tucking into his Christmas dinner which the

cook had cooked for him.

“Me eating it now, missus,” he explained with a grin.

“But, Howard!” cried the lady, “how can you possibly eat your dinner

immediately after breakfast?”

“Wanting a long day,” he explained, and the explanation seemed to him

perfectly natural.

His mistress knew that boy. There is a negro pudding made of grated

coconut, coconut milk, corn-meal and sugar, baked. Not a bad pudding if

a little is taken, but Howard one day got outside a large pie-dish full,

and then came rubbing his stomach and groaning to his mistress.

“Why, Howard,” she said a little severely, “I should think you did have

indigestion. Why didn't you put half that pudding away till to-morrow?”

“Ah, missus,” he said, “when he in dish, pudding hab two masters.

Now------” No, words were unnecessary. He'd certainly got that pudding.

I suppose his case was on a par with that of the woman servant in the

same place who, usually going barefoot, appeared on that same Christmas

morning of 1920 in a pair of elaborate boots, very high-heeled and much

too small for her. She could hardly totter when she came to wish her

master and mistress a happy Christmas before setting out on her holiday.

Her mistress said nothing. She had exhausted herself over Howard, but

her husband, the old doctor, took it upon himself to remonstrate.

“Oh, Alice, how can you wear such boots!”

“Ony for to-day, doctor,” she said insinuatingly, “on'y jus' for

to-day!” A long holiday meant for enjoyment, in boots too tight for her,

with heels raised at least a couple of inches--imagine the agony of it.

But if the ignorant negro is foolish, his foolishness is as nothing

sometimes to that of the white man who sets out to help and improve him.

Britain is not always wise in the Governors she chooses, though the

Governor in a small community is a powerful means to good. There was one

wellmeaning man in an island that shall be nameless, who was certainly

most desirous to help the black people, therefore it occurred to him one

day to send a telegram to a rich planter of his acquaintance, asking him

to come and see him as he had something of importance to discuss with

him. Now, a request from a Governor is almost a royal command, but our

planter knew his Governor. He was busy, and he did not there and then

dash off and travel the many miles that lay between him and Government

House. Still, since his estate was a long way off, he came at some

inconvenience to himself.

And the first greetings over:

“You have the welfare of your people at heart, Mr--------?”

“Surely, sir.”

“I wanted to know--would you be prepared to put up a picture show?”

“On my place, sir?”

“Why, yes, of course, for the benefit of your hands.”

“But--but----I'm at least five-and-twenty miles from the port, and the

port is at least six days from New York, and----”

“Yes, of course, I know that.”

“And where am I to get fresh pictures?”

The Governor looked attentive.

“They would come to the first show,” explained the planter patiently,

“and enjoy it, they would come to the second night, the third night

they'd grumble, and after that they'd laugh at me for a fool.”

“H'm--ha--h'm. Well, what about dancing? They're fond of dancing?”

“Of course.”

“Would you put them up a dancing hall?”

“With a floor?”

“Of course.”

And the planter sighed again for his wasted time, for everyone--except

this Governor apparently--knows that the West Indian negro dances every

night of his life very happily on the bare earth by the light of the

stars or the moon! And I agree with the planter such exercise is a great

deal more wholesome taken in the fresh air as the plantation hands are

content to take it.

That planter went home an angry man, and he was met by his still more

angry head man, who had taken his boots to be mended.

“Massa--massa--” he stammered furiously, “dat man--dat tief--boots no

mended--he wearing dem. Massa--massa, can I have him up for breach of

promise?”

But if anyone is really interested in peasant life in Jamaica he should

read the books of Herbert de Lisser, C.M.G., whose country will some day

be deeply grateful to him that he has--among other things he has done

for her--portrayed to the life a type that is rapidly passing away.

Mr Harrison, the Custos of Manchester, tells me that the negro is

becoming proud. It is the first step upward. He will not always beg,

however great his need. He will not if he can help it acknowledge his

poverty. He told me how upon one of his sugar estates he found that for

some time the cook he had engaged to cook for the working women, who

were supposed to provide the material for breakfast, had nothing to do.

The women had no food to be cooked. But they never complained, hungry

they quietly went to work. He therefore instructed his “busha” to

supply yams or plantains or cocos and coconut oil sufficient for a good

breakfast for each woman. They accepted it gratefully, and they did a

far better day's work afterwards. This same gentleman told me how

the little children are like their parents, becoming proud and

self-respecting. They are very poor in that parish where a former

wasteful generation has denuded the mountains of trees to grow coffee,

and so interfered with the rainfall--but do you think the children are

going to acknowledge their poverty? Oh, they have taken their dinners

to school, and if you doubt it, they hold up their little tin pails

proudly. Not for worlds would they take off the cover and show that

inside is that most uninteresting of all foods, cold boiled yam and not,

I am afraid, sometimes enough of that.

No one will ever taunt such women and children with being servile.

Never!

As I write this, I come across an extract from an old writer on the

negro slave which is worth quoting, the contrast is so great.

“Negroes,” he says, “are crafty, artful, plausible, not often grateful

for small services, deceitful, overreaching... they are avaricious and

selfish, giving all the plague they can to their white rulers, little

ashamed of falsehood and even strongly addicted to theft.” But still

even he admits “he has some good qualities mingled with his unamiable

ones. He is patient, cheerful and commonly submissive, capable at times

of grateful attachments where uniformly well treated, and kind and

affectionate towards his kindred and offspring.” And he goes on to say

how tender are the negro mothers. In fact, even he had to acknowledge

that the great bulk of the negroes were beyond the master's observation,

and we of later date can see for ourselves that the faults he complains

of are not peculiar to negroes, but are the common faults of the slave.

As yet, however, the man of African race is often something of a slavish

imitator of things European. He struts and boasts of his progress

exactly as children do. After all, he has had such a toilsome way to

climb since Britain bestowed upon him freedom and poverty, is it to be

wondered at if occasionally he has gone a little astray.

A little while ago the Hon. Marcus Garvey visited Jamaica, and black

Jamaica celebrated his arrival by a full page advertisement in

the _Gleaner_ with a very large picture--a little smeared in the

printing--of the gentleman in question, the most noticeable feature of

which was his large expanse of white waistcoat.

“Big Meetings & Concerts” (announced the advertisement in largest

type) “Arranged All Over the Island to Hear Hon. Marcus Garvey. Elected

Provisional President of Africa, President General of the Universal

Negro Improvement Association and” (oh bathos!) “President of the Black

Star Line Steamship Corporation.

“He will be in Jamaica nine days and will speak as follows------”

And then a list is given of the places at which he will speak, and the

subjects on which he will speak, and it also announces that as President

General of his Association he will appear on these nights in his robes

of office.

At the bottom of the page it says in large type that Marcus Garvey was

elected by twenty-five thousand delegates to the World Convention of

Negroes in New York last summer as the First Provisional President of

Africa.

This is delicious! I don't want to laugh at the black man, but I think

it's a serious clog on his upward career to elect Presidents in

this casual manner. I have seen the only attempt at modern civilised

government in Africa by the black man, and I can only condemn it as a

dismal failure, why, then, should the men of negro descent take upon

themselves to elect for the negroes in Africa a President without a

with or by your leave. It is really much as if the Americans in New York

decided to elect a President General of Europe or Asia without reference

to the feelings of the peoples of those continents. Of course, it may

be merely a term of endearment--if so, I have nothing to say against it.

Everybody to their taste. President of the Negro Improvement Association

is quite another matter. We all wish that society well, so well we would

not have it weakened by any comic opera blandishments, and President

of the Black Star Line is quite legitimate, even though it is a

little--well--just a little consequential, for the “Black Star Line” is

composed as yet of but one steamer, the _Yarmouth_, under 1000 tons.

The first time she came into Kingston harbour, black Kingston went

hysterical with delight. That a ship should sail with a black captain,

and manned by a black crew, seemed to it an amazing thing. When the

dark man makes a fuss over a ship run by his own people, he is saying in

effect--“We are children as yet, but you see we are growing up. We are

coming into our own.”

It seems to me the negro's great fault is that he is bombastic and

claims too much. Marcus Garvey and his crowd are I suppose the natural

reaction from the years of ghastly slavery, when a black man could not

even own himself. Of course we only notice those who come strutting

ridiculously before the footlights. I know there is many and many

a negro as decent, upright, and self-respecting a man as his white

confrère, but the trouble is we do not notice him beside his more

boastful brother.

That the negro does want his interests looking after I have not the

slightest doubt. Our servants used to come to Eva who was clever with

her needle to cut out their clothes for them, and it was wicked to see

the stuff which those poor girls, whose pay was only 6s. and 7s. a week,

used to buy at ridiculously high prices. I have seen 1s. 6d. and 1s. 9d.

a yard paid for unbleached calico that could not possibly have cost

the seller 1 1/2d. a yard. And it had been bought at a negro shop, they

were, in fact, imposed upon by men of their race.

How these things are to be corrected I know not. Education I suppose,

and education we must remember is not the mere teaching of reading

and writing. I am sorry to say I doubt sometimes if the authorities in

Jamaica are giving the Jamaican the best education that they can.

“Dear Mrs-------- is so good.” That is, good for the negroes. They

wouldn't even ask her to dinner because she is not amusing. They would

laugh very much at the idea of themselves subscribing to her standards

of life.

No wonder we get inflated gentlemen proclaiming themselves “Provisional

President of Africa!”

For the negro is capable of better things. It is a great shame that

certain of his numbers should make him a laughing-stock.

When first the idea of contingents of West Indian soldiers for the World

War was mooted, there was opposition. It would be such a bad thing for

the negro, it would give him an extravagant idea of his own value, the

country on the return of its soldiers might look forward to discontent

in a certain section, might even fear outrage and rapine.

But I think the contrary has been the case. Exceptions of course there

must have been. I should not like to set out to count the exceptions

among the white returned soldiers, but the average Jamaican soldier

settled down quietly to his work in his own country, worked all the

better because he had been counted a citizen of the Empire, was proud

that his thews and sinews had helped mightily in the great struggle, was

glad to be received at last on equal terms by men of the colour that so

long had held him in bondage.

I hold, and hold very strongly, that the very first step in the

upraising of either a man or a people is the cultivation of proper

pride.

Read this letter I received from a doctor in the Cameroons during the

war--

“Certainly the wickedest three hours,” he wrote concerning a night

attack up country, “I ever put in.” We could not guess the range in the

cloudy moonlight. The Germans held a hill, we had not a scrap of cover,

the breast-high grass prevented charging, and also made the men stand up

to shoot. By 6.30 a.m. the Germans cleared out precipitately, leaving us

in possession of a very good camp.

“The men were splendid. Tmoru Calfa, a sergeant-major, shot through the

spine high up, lay down by his section and controlled their fire. He

died next day. His was only one instance of their conduct.”

When the Great Roll is called, not among the least surely will be found

the name of that sergeant, pagan from the north of the Gold Coast, who,

being shot high up in the spine, lay down beside his men, controlled

their firing and died next day. Not the Unknown Warrior buried in

Westminster Abbey could have done more.

Which man will the negro race in future years think upon more gladly as

its representative, Marcus Garvey or Tmoru Calfa?

The coming of the negro race to the New World marks a most extraordinary

phase in the world's history. They came unwillingly as slaves, and

as slaves they were held with all the ignominy inseparable from that

condition. Of the race in America I know nothing save what little I have

seen in the streets of New Orleans, where they seem as far apart from

the ruling race as the mountain tops in Jamaica are from the river-beds.

But in Jamaica, whatever there may have been in the old days, there

is now no such cleft. There is, of course, a difference, but it is a

difference that is passing, that will pass as the years go on and the

dark man fits himself to take his place in the world as the social equal

of the white.

Already he sits in the Legislature. He has come a long, long way up from

the chained savage brought in the slave ships. I hope that if a dark man

reads this book he will not think unkindly of me for writing as if there

were a difference between black and white. There is, it would be foolish

to ignore it, but it is only the difference of education and training.

We must remember that in past ages the Anglo-Saxon stood in the

market-place in Rome chained and in slavery, that blue eyes and flaxen

hair marked the savage, and dark complexion and black eyes the civilised

man. The time of servitude of the black man is a little closer. He has

to come up the same stony path that the white man trod, and he will do

it more easily and more quickly--he is doing it--because the white man

has prepared the way.

And I say that deliberately, knowing all the hardships that the white

man has inflicted, for when I talk of the time of servitude of the

blacks in the West Indies, you, my readers, will do me the justice

to own that I have by no means glossed over the crudities and the

foolishness and the brutality of men of my own colour. But the world

is changing, changing fast. It is a better place to live in in this

twentieth century, it will be a better place still as the years roll on,

and the black man like the white will come into his own.