"It's a very interesting bird, I think."
Miss Foster pulled me along and said sharply that the birds were
vultures. They called them scavengers in Jamaica because they really
acted as such. Every bit of dirt and filth and refuse, she declared
with disgust, was thrown into the streets, and devoured shortly by
the scavengers. If a horse or animal died or was killed, it was put
into the street. Within a few minutes it had completely disappeared,
the scavengers having descended like flies upon its body. She darkly
hinted, moreover, that many a human corpse had met a similar fate.
I acquired a shuddering horror for that "interesting bird" then and
there, I can tell you, and I thought of the unscreened windows, and
asked Miss Foster if they ever had been known to touch living things.
She shrugged her shoulders, which was not reassuring.
Miss Foster took me into the hotel's great dining-room, which was like
a pleasant open conservatory, with great palms and plants everywhere.
There we had breakfast, for it seems coffee and toast were just an
appetizer. I never became used to Jamaica cooking. It was mushy, hot,
and sweet.
After breakfast we reported at _The Lantern_, where Mr. Campbell,
looking even fiercer in the day, impatiently awaited us. He wished
Miss Foster to take me directly out to Government House and teach
me my duties there, as the Legislative Council was then in session.
He mumbled off a lot of instructions to Miss Foster, ignoring me
completely. His apparent contempt for me, and his evident belief
that there was no good to be expected from me, whetted my desire to
prove to him that I was not such a fool as I looked, or, rather, as
he seemed to think I looked. I listened intently to everything he
said to Miss Foster, but even so I received only a confused medley of
"Bills--attorney-general--Representative So and So--Hon. Mr. So and
So," etc.
I carried away with me, however, one vivid instruction, and that
was that it was absolutely necessary for _The Lantern_ to have the
good-will of the Hon. Mr. Burbank, whom we must support in everything.
It seemed, according to Mr. Campbell, that there was some newspaper
libel law that was being pressed in the House that, if passed, would
bring the Jamaica press down to a pusillanimous condition.
Mr. Burbank was to fight this bill for the newspapers. He was, in fact,
our representative and champion. _The Lantern_, in return, was prepared
to support him in other measures that he was fathering. Miss Foster
and I were to remember to treat him with more than common attention. I
did not know, of course, that this meant in our newspaper references
to him, and I made a fervent vow personally to win the favor of said
Burbank.
We got into a splendid little equipage, upholstered in tan cloth and
with a large tan umbrella top, which was lined with green.
We drove for several miles through a country remarkable for its
beautiful scenery. It was a land of color. It was like a land of
perpetual spring--a spring that was ever green. I saw not a single
shade that was dull. Even the trunks of the gigantic trees seemed to
have a warm tone. The flowers were startlingly bright--yellow, scarlet,
and purple.
We passed many country people along the road. They moved with a sort
of languid, swinging amble, as if they dragged, not lifted, their flat
feet. Women carried on their heads enormous bundles and sometimes
trays. How they balanced them so firmly was always a mystery to me,
especially as most of them either had their hands on their hips, or,
more extraordinary, carried or led children, and even ran at times.
Asses, loaded on each side with produce, ambled along as draggingly as
the natives.
Miss Foster made only three or four remarks during the entire journey.
These are her remarks. They are curious taken altogether:
"This carriage belongs to Mr. Burbank. He supplies all the vehicles, by
the way, for the press."
"Those are the botanical gardens. Jamaica has Mr. Burbank to thank for
their present excellent condition. Remember that."
"We are going by the Burbank plantation now. He has a place in
Kingston, too, and a summer home in the mountains."
"If we beat that newspaper libel law, you'll have a chance to write
all the funny things and rhymes you want about the mean sneaks who are
trying to push it through."
Even during the long drive through the green country I had been
insensibly affected by the ever-growing heat. In the long chamber of
Government House, where the session was to be held, there seemed not a
breath of air stirring. It was insufferably hot, though the place was
virtually empty when we arrived. I had a shuddering notion of what it
would be like when full.
Miss Foster was hustling about, getting "papers" and "literature" of
various kinds, and as the legislators arrived, she chatted with some of
them. She had left me to my own devices, and I did not know what to do
with myself. I was much embarrassed, as every one who passed into the
place took a look at me. We were the only two girls in the House.
There was a long table in the middle of the room, at which the members
of Parliament and the elected members had their seats, and there was a
smaller table at one side for the press. I had remained by the door,
awaiting Miss Foster's instructions. The room was rapidly beginning
to fill. A file of black soldiers spread themselves about the room,
standing very fine and erect against the walls. At the council table,
on one side, were the Parliament members, Englishmen, every one of
whom wore the conventional monocle. On the other side were the elected
members, who were, without an exception, colored men. I was musing
over this when a very large, stout, and handsome personage (he was
a personage!) entered ponderously, followed by several younger men.
Every one in the room rose, and until he took his seat (in a big chair
on a little elevated platform at the end of the room) they remained
standing. This was his Excellency Sir Henry Drake, the Governor-General
of Jamaica. The House was now in session.
By this time I experienced a natural anxiety to know what was to
become of me. Surely I was not supposed to stand there by the door.
Glancing across at the press table, I presently saw Miss Foster among
the reporters. She was half standing, and beckoning to me to join her.
Confused and embarrassed, I passed along at the back of one end of the
council table, and was proceeding in the direction of the press table,
when suddenly the room reverberated with loud cries from the soldiers
of, "Order! order! order!"
I hesitated only a moment, ignorant of the fact that that call was
directed against me, and, as I paused, I looked directly into the
purpling face of the Governor of Jamaica. He had put on his monocle.
His face was long and preternaturally solemn, but there was a queer,
twisted smile about his mouth, and I swear that he winked at me through
that monocle, which fell into his hand. I proceeded to my seat, red as
a beet.
"Great guns!" whispered Miss Foster, dragging me down beside her, "you
walked in _front_ of the governor! You should have gone behind his
chair. What will Mr. Campbell say when he knows you were called to
order the first day! A fine reflection on _The Lantern_!" She added the
last sentence almost bitterly.
What went on at that session I never in the world could have told. It
was all like an incomprehensible dream. Black men, the elected members,
rose, and long and eloquently talked in regard to some bill. White men
(government) rose and languidly responded, sometimes with a sort of
drawling good humor, sometimes satirically. I began to feel the effect
of the oppressive atmosphere in a way I had not yet experienced. An
unconquerable impulse to lay my head down upon the table and go to
sleep seized upon me, and I could scarcely keep my eyes open. At last
my head did fall back against the chair; my eyes closed. I did not
exactly faint, but I succumbed slightly to the heat. I heard a voice
whispering at my ear, for the proceedings went on, as if it were a
common thing for a woman to faint in Government House.
"Drink this!" said the voice, and I opened my eyes and looked up into a
fair, boyish face that was bending over mine. I drank that cool Jamaica
kola, and recovered myself sufficiently to sit up again. Said my new
friend:
"It'll be cooler soon. You'll get used to the climate, and if I were
you, I wouldn't try to do _any_ work to-day."