BOG WALK
Jamaica, the land of wood and water, is rich in the possession of
countless streams of clear, rushing water. Each of its mountains and
rocky hills contains at least one or two fine waterfalls; each of its
peaceful valleys is streaked with a silver band of river-water flashing
in the sun. To say which of all the rivers might be counted the most
beautiful would be to offend a thousand streams, and all the Jamaican
districts save one. But this at least can be said. No stream in Jamaica
is more beautiful than that part of the Rio Cobra River that flows from
Spanish Town, seawards, through the country called by the islanders, Bog
Walk.
I know a man who was sent by his English doctor to Jamaica for rest and
change. He landed in Kingston and, falling in love with the island,
determined to stop for many weeks. After three days he left Kingston for
Spanish Town, and there he saw Bog Walk.
His intention had been to stop in Spanish Town one night and then
journey farther inland in order to thoroughly explore the country.
Spanish Town delighted him; Bog Walk fascinated him. He bought a
fishing-rod and sat in a punt, anchored in the centre of the Rio Cobra
River at Bog Walk, smoking his pipe and catching fish for five weeks. He
could not tear himself away. And that was all the Jamaica he ever saw.
He had seen Kingston and Spanish Town and Bog Walk, and that he counted
quite enough. And who, knowing these places, knowing the Rio Cobra River
at Bog Walk especially, would be foolish enough to count my friend
foolish. At any rate he saw enough to enable him to say that Jamaica is
the most beautiful country in the world. That is his unqualified
opinion. To him Jamaica is a white city filled to overflowing with
bungalows and coloured people; and a glorious golden valley rich in
tropical trees and fairy flowers which shelter a clear river alive with
fish and brilliant weed. For five weeks he lived in Paradise, at peace
with all the world. His Jamaica is the memory of that time. For our part
we saw the rich Cobra River and drifted down along the shores of Bog
Walk in a flat punt, listening to the music of the birds and the melody
of the insects; watching the shadows of heavy trees flirting with the
river ripples; shivering along the dark stretches where the sky was
blackened by the heavy bamboo clumps, and listening, awe-stricken, to
the noise of their clicking stems. The beauty of the bamboo is a
melancholy beauty; the high canes, fluttering with wavy foliage at their
heads, look cold and miserable along their stems. Our sporting friend,
Large, said they reminded him of those unpleasant
[Illustration: DRY HARBOUR, JAMAICA]
moments in his school days when he chose corporal punishment in
preference to Latin lines. Forrest would not paint them. They were too
foolishly ugly. And I will leave them alone and remember only the rich
river glades of sunlit water studded with white lilies and aflame with
brilliant weeds. I will call to mind the banks filled with palm trees,
thin bush-topped giants, straight as arrows or curved like the archer’s
bow. The palm groves, planted by the mysterious hand of nature in the
form of army corps in battle formation; the front-rank trees on either
side of the stream engaged in bowing in accordance with the chivalry of
romantic forests. The bent trees form a graceful arbour, miles long. The
sun, filtering through the palm-tree roof, spangles the river with
flashing gems of light. And both banks are cool and soft and filled with
scented plants and gaudy blossoms. Occasionally a dragon fly, pursued by
twittering birds, flashes ahead, twisting and doubling like tropical
lightning. Our punt makes no noise as it floats down stream, guided from
the stern by a negro with a bamboo pole. I sit in the bow and watch the
little brown, river-tortoise, the water-rats and gleaming fish.
In the water of the Rio Cobra River there is only one thing that is not
really beautiful, and that is the tortoise. Made into ornaments for my
lady’s hair, the shell of the tortoise is full of subtle fascination.
But on the back of its mother reptile the shell is coloured like the mud
of the Thames at Lambeth; and in the scum that hides the beauty of the
shell weeds of the darkest, dreariest kind grow, like seaweed on an old
wooden sailing-ship. When the tortoise swims the weeds trail from his
back like a cluster of rats’ tails.
Animal life is not in evidence. The most remarkable thing in connection
with Jamaica is the fact that, practically, it cannot boast the
possession of a single indigenous animal larger than the rat species.
The island should be filled with deer. The high bush-covered mountain
slopes would give cover to the greatest of the antlered tribe, and here
among the trees of the valleys and the water of the clear rivers one can
imagine that the quiet pools are the drinking-places of herds of
elephants. But Jamaica is barren so far as animals are concerned. Not
even a monkey scrambles among the leafy vastness of the heaviest
forests, and even in the thickest undergrowth a man may tread with
safety.
Large, who in England is a squire and a sportsman, frequently bemoaned
this lack of animal life. “Put a herd of deer in each of the forests of
Jamaica, and in five years the island will be the sportsman’s paradise,”
he said. And I have no doubt his estimate was correct. I put his opinion
on record for the benefit of those who run the island for profit.
Our boat floated along a stream so narrow that one’s arm, stretched
horizontally at full length, would have measured the exact width; the
attitude would have enabled our fingers to brush through thick beds of
flowering orchids. We passed a native ruthlessly cutting away fragrant
weeds with a murderous machette; we swept beneath a bridge of solid
masonry, and in a little time emerged into a great pool of silent water
which made our little craft pause, and enabled us to dream in peace. It
would be a horrible thing to travel at more than one knot speed down
this river of scented beauty.
We remained quietly still and gazed at a scene as glorious as a young
child’s dream-fairyland. A dream of wood and rock and water, shaded and
shrouded by the wildest mass of luxuriant tropical foliage.
This Jamaica is indeed the Queen of the Antilles, the fairest jewel in
the golden Caribbean, the land of perpetual music and light and beauty.
As I have already written, its name should be God’s island. Its beauty
cannot be translated by art or word or music. It is a dreamland and a
land of dreams.
People talk of its industrial backwardness, its commercial weakness,--of
the impossibility of its finances. I myself have written of its
commercial future. As well discuss the poverty of the convolvulus or the
nakedness of the lily. Jamaica was created by Providence to show mankind
something of the meaning of beauty. It was to stand as an explanation of
Eden--a glimpse of Paradise. Nature never intended that it should become
a rum garden, or even a field for speculative agriculture. It is just a
place that should be allowed to stand for ever as the garden of the
world; the vigorous yet languorous Hesperian reflection of all the
beauty of the east and west and north and south; the heart and soul of
terrestrial beauty. We drifted along, but I know not what else we saw.
I remember the place in a hazy manner; my memory serves me as though it
were a kaleidoscope whose every piece of broken glass was a glimpse of a
new world fitted with joyous life and beauty.
I know that we slipped anchor at last and drank the milk from green
cocoanuts. I know that we got into a buggy and drove along a white dusty
road and reached a place where a meal was served and eaten. But most of
all I remember that across the pools and streams of the Bog Walk gorge
of the Rio Cobra River is to be heard the music of the stars and the
rich lullaby of the rustling of angels’ wings. And Large said it would
have been better had there been a few deer about; Forrest had put down
his sketch-book with a sigh.
For the rest any Jamaica guide-book will tell you that the flat-bottomed
river-boat cost you only a few silver coins.
THE POLITICS OF A JAMAICAN NEGRO
[Illustration: SUNSET, NORTH COAST, JAMAICA]