Jamaican hospitality--Cherry Garden--George William Gordon--The
Gordon riots--Governor Eyre--A dispute and its
consequences--Jamaican country-house society--Modern speculation--A
Spanish fable--Port Royal--The commodore--Naval theatricals--The
modern sailor.
The surviving representatives of the Jamaican gentry are as hospitable
as their fathers and grandfathers used to be. An English visitor who
wishes to see the island is not allowed to take his chance at
hotels--where, indeed, his chance would be a bad one. A single
acquaintance is enough to start with. He is sent on with letters of
introduction from one house to another, and is assured of a favourable
reception. I was treated as kindly as any stranger would be, and that
was as kindly as possible. But friends do not ask us to stay with them
that their portraits may be drawn in the traveller's journals; and I
mention no one who was thus good to me, unless some general interest
attaches either to himself or his residence. Such interest does,
however, attach to a spot where, after leaving Mandeville, I passed a
few days. The present owner of it was the chief manager of the Kingston
branch of the Colonial Bank: a clever accomplished man of business, who
understood the financial condition of the West Indies better perhaps
than any other man living. He was a botanist besides; he had a fine
collection of curious plants which were famous in the island; and was
otherwise a gentleman of the highest standing and reputation. His lady
was one of the old island aristocracy--high-bred, cultivated, an
accomplished artist; a person who would have shone anywhere and in any
circle, and was, therefore, contented to be herself, and indifferent
whether she shone or not. A visit in such a family was likely to be
instructive, and was sure to be agreeable; and on these grounds alone I
should have accepted gratefully the opportunity of knowing them better
which they kindly made for me by an invitation to stay with them. But
their place, which was called Cherry Garden, and which I had seen from
the grounds at Government House, had a further importance of its own in
having been the home of the unfortunate George William Gordon.
The disturbances with which Mr. Gordon was connected, and for his share
in which he was executed, are so recent and so notorious that I need
give no detailed account of them, though, of course, I looked into the
history again and listened to all that I could hear about it. Though I
had taken no part in Mr. Eyre's defence, I was one of those who thought
from the first that Mr. Eyre had been unworthily sacrificed to public
clamour. Had the agitation in Jamaica spread, and taken the form which
it easily might have taken, he would have been blamed as keenly by one
half the world if he had done nothing to check it as he was blamed, in
fact, by the other for too much energy. Carlyle used to say that it was
as if, when a ship had been on fire, and the captain by skill and
promptitude had put the fire out, his owner were to say to him, 'Sir,
you poured too much water down the hold and damaged the cargo.' The
captain would answer, 'Yes, sir, but I have saved your ship.' This was
the view which I carried with me to Jamaica, and I have brought it back
with me the same in essentials, though qualified by clearer perceptions
of the real nature of the situation.
Something of a very similar kind had happened in Natal just before I
visited that colony in 1874. I had seen the whites there hardly
recovering from a panic in which a common police case had been magnified
by fear into the beginning of an insurrection. Langalibalele, a Caffre
chief within the British dominions, had been insubordinate. He had been
sent for to Maritzberg, and had invented excuses for disobedience to a
lawful order. The whites believed at once that there was to be a general
Caffre rebellion in which they would all be murdered. They resolved to
be beforehand with it. They carried fire and sword through two
considerable tribes. At first they thought that they had covered
themselves with glory; calmer reflection taught many of them that
perhaps they had been too hasty, and that Langalibalele had never
intended to rebel at all. The Jamaican disturbance was of a similar
kind. Mr. Gordon had given less provocation than the Caffre chief, but
the circumstances were analogous, and the actual danger was probably
greater. Jamaica had then constitutional, though not what is called
responsible, government. The executive power remained with the Crown.
There had been differences of opinion between the governor and the
Assembly. Gordon, a man of colour, was a prominent member of the
opposition. He had called public meetings of the blacks in a distant
part of the island, and was endeavouring to bring the pressure of public
opinion on the opposition side. Imprudent as such a step might have been
among an ignorant and excitable population, where whites and blacks were
so unequal in numbers, and where they knew so little of each other, Mr.
Gordon was not going beyond what in constitutional theory he was legally
entitled to do; nor was his language on the platform, though violent and
inflammatory, any more so than what we listen to patiently at home.
Under a popular constitution the people are sovereign; the members of
the assemblies are popular delegates; and when there is a diversion of
opinion any man has a right to call the constituencies to express their
sentiments. If stones were thrown at the police and seditious cries were
raised, it was no more than might be reasonably expected.
We at home can be calm on such occasions because we know that there is
no real danger, and that the law is strong enough to assert itself. In
Jamaica a few thousand white people were living in the middle of negroes
forty times their number--once their slaves, now raised to be their
political equals--each regarding the other on the least provocation with
resentment and suspicion. In England the massacre in Hayti is a
half-forgotten story. Not one person in a thousand of those who
clamoured for the prosecution of Governor Eyre had probably ever heard
of it. In Jamaica it is ever present in the minds of the Europeans as a
frightful evidence of what the negroes are capable when roused to
frenzy. The French planters had done nothing particularly cruel to
deserve their animosity, and were as well regarded by their slaves as
ever we had been in the English islands. Yet in a fever of political
excitement, and as a reward for the decree of the Paris Revolutionary
Government, which declared them free, they allowed the liberty which was
to have elevated them to the white man's level to turn them into devils;
and they massacred the whole of the French inhabitants. It was
inevitable that when the volcano in Jamaica began to show symptoms of
similar activity the whites residing there should be unable to look on
with the calmness which we, from thousands of miles away, unreasonably
expected of them. They imagined their houses in flames, and themselves
and their families at the mercy of a furious mob. No personal relation
between the two races has grown up to take the place of slavery. The
white gentry have blacks for labourers, blacks for domestic servants,
yet as a rule (though, of course, there are exceptions) they have no
interest in each other, no esteem nor confidence: therefore any symptom
of agitation is certain to produce a panic, and panic is always violent.
The blacks who attended Gordon's meetings came armed with guns and
cutlasses; a party of white volunteers went in consequence to watch
them, and to keep order if they showed signs of meaning insurrection.
Stones were thrown; the Riot Act was read, more stones followed, and
then the volunteers fired, and several persons were killed. Of course
there was fury. The black mob then actually did rise. They marched about
that particular district destroying plantations and burning houses. That
they did so little, and that the flame did not spread, was a proof that
there was no premeditation of rebellion, no prepared plan of action, no
previous communication between the different parts of the island with a
view to any common movement. There was no proof, and there was no
reason to suppose, that Gordon had intended an armed outbreak. He would
have been a fool if he had, when constitutional agitation and the weight
of numbers at his back would have secured him all that he wanted. When
inflammable materials are brought together, and sparks are flying, you
cannot equitably distribute the blame or the punishment. Eyre was
responsible for the safety of the island. He was not a Jamaican. The
rule in the colonial service is that a governor remains in any colony
only long enough to begin to understand it. He is then removed to
another of which he knows nothing. He is therefore absolutely dependent
in any difficulty upon local advice. When the riots began every white
man in Jamaica was of one opinion, that unless the fire was stamped out
promptly they would all be murdered. Being without experience himself,
it was very difficult for Mr. Eyre to disregard so complete a unanimity.
I suppose that a perfectly calm and determined man would have seen in
the unanimity itself the evidence of alarm and imagination. He ought
perhaps to have relied entirely on the police and the regular troops,
and to have called in the volunteers. But here again was a difficulty;
for the police were black, and the West India regiments were black, and
the Sepoy rebellion was fresh in everybody's memory. He had no time to
deliberate. He had to act, and to act promptly; and if, relying on his
own judgment, he had disregarded what everyone round him insisted upon,
and if mischief had afterwards come of it, the censure which would have
fallen upon him would have been as severe as it would have been
deserved. He assumed that the English colonists were right and that a
general rebellion had begun. They all armed. They formed into companies.
The disturbed district was placed under martial law, and these
extemporised regiments, too few in number to be merciful, saw safety
only in striking terror into the poor wretches. It was in Jamaica as it
was in Natal afterwards; but we must allow for human nature and not be
hasty to blame. If the rising at Morant Bay was but the boiling over of
a pot from the orator of an excited patriot, there was deplorable
cruelty and violence. But, again, it was all too natural. Men do not
bear easily to see their late servants on their way to become their
political masters, and they believe the worst of them because they are
afraid. A model governor would have rather restrained their ardour than
encouraged it; but all that can be said against Mr. Eyre (so far as
regarded the general suppression of the insurgents) is that he acted as
nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand would have acted in
his place, and more ought not to be expected of average colonial
governors.
His treatment of Gordon, the original cause of the disturbance, was more
questionable. Gordon had returned to his own house, the house where I
was going, within sight of Eyre's windows. It would have been fair, and
perhaps right, to arrest him, and right also to bring him to trial, if
he had committed any offence for which he could be legally punished. So
strong was the feeling against him that, if every white man in Kingston
had been empannelled, there would have been a unanimous verdict, and
they would not have looked too closely into niceties of legal
construction. Unfortunately it was doubtful whether Gordon had done
anything which could be construed into a capital crime. He had a right
to call public meetings together. He had a right to appeal to political
passions, and to indulge as freely as he pleased in the patriotic
commonplaces of platforms, provided he did not himself advise or
encourage a breach of the peace, and this it could not be easily proved
that he had done. He was, however, the leader of the opposition to the
Government. The opposition had broken into a riot, and Gordon was guilty
of having excited the feelings which led to it. The leader could not be
allowed to escape unpunished while his followers were being shot and
flogged. The Kingston district where he resided was under the ordinary
law. Eyre sent him into the district which was under martial law, tried
him by a military court and hanged him.
The Cabinet at home at first thanked their representative for having
saved the island. A clamour rose, and they sent out a commission to
examine into what had happened. The commission reported unfavourably,
and Eyre was dismissed and ruined. In Jamaica I never heard anyone
express a doubt on the full propriety of his action. He carried away
with him the affection and esteem of the whole of the English colonists,
who believe that he saved them from destruction. In my own opinion the
fault was not in Mr. Eyre, and was not in the unfortunate Gordon, but in
those who had insisted on applying a constitutional form of government
to a country where the population is so unfavourably divided. If the
numbers of white and black were more nearly equal, the objection would
be less, for the natural superiority of the white would then assert
itself without difficulty, and there would be no panics. Where the
disproportion is so enormous as it is in Jamaica, where intelligence and
property are in a miserable minority, and a half-reclaimed race of
savages, cannibals not long ago, and capable, as the state of Hayti
shows, of reverting to cannibalism again, are living beside them as
their political equals, such panics arise from the nature of things, and
will themselves cause the catastrophe from the dread of which they
spring. Mutual fear and mistrust can lead to nothing in the end but
violent collisions. The theory of constitutional government is that the
majority shall rule the minority, and as long as the qualities, moral
and mental, of the parties are not grossly dissimilar, such an
arrangement forms a tolerable _modus vivendi_. Where in character, in
mental force, in energy, in cultivation, there is no equality at all,
but an inequality which has existed for thousands of years, and is as
plain to-day as it was in the Egypt of the Pharaohs, to expect that the
intelligent few will submit to the unintelligent many is to expect what
has never been found and what never ought to be found. The whites cannot
be trusted to rule the blacks, but for the blacks to rule the whites is
a yet grosser anomaly. Were England out of the way, there would be a war
of extermination between them. England prohibits it, and holds the
balance in forced equality. England, therefore, so long as the West
Indies are English, must herself rule, and rule impartially, and so
acquit herself of her self-chosen responsibilities. Let the colonies
which are occupied by our own race rule themselves as we rule ourselves.
The English constituencies have no rights over the constituencies of
Canada and Australia, for the Canadians and Australians are as well able
to manage their own affairs as we are to manage ours. If they prefer
even to elect governors of their own, let them do as they please. The
link between us is community of blood and interest, and will not part
over details of administration. But in these other colonies which are
our own we must accept the facts as they are. Those who will not
recognise realities are always beaten in the end.
The train from Porus brought us back to Kingston an hour before sunset.
The evening was lovely, even for Jamaica. The sea breeze had fallen. The
land breeze had not risen, and the dust lay harmless on road and hedge.
Cherry Garden, to which I was bound, was but seven miles distant by the
direct road, so I calculated on a delightful drive which would bring me
to my destination before dark. So I calculated; but alas! for human
expectation. I engaged a 'buggy' at the station, with a decent-looking
conductor, who assured me that he knew the way to Cherry Garden as well
as to his own door. His horse looked starved and miserable. He insisted
that there was not another in Kingston that was more than a match for
it. We set out, and for the first two or three miles we went on well
enough, conversing amicably upon things in general. But it so happened
that it was again market day. The road was thronged as before with women
plodding along with their baskets on their heads, a single male on a
donkey to each detachment of them, carrying nothing, like an officer
with a company of soldiers. Foolish indignation rose in me, and I asked
my friend if he was not ashamed of seeing the poor creatures toiling so
cruelly, while their lords and masters amused themselves. I appealed to
his feelings as a man, as if it was likely that he had got any. The
wretch only laughed. 'Ah, massa,' he said, with his tongue in his cheek,
'women do women's work, men do men's work--all right.' 'And what is
men's work?' I asked. Instead of answering he went on, 'Look at they
women, massa--how they laugh--how happy they be! Nobody more happy than
black woman, massa.' I would not let him off. I pricked into him, till
he got excited too, and we argued and contradicted each other, till at
last the horse, finding he was not attended to, went his own way and
that was a wrong one. Between Kingston and our destination there is a
deep sandy flat, overgrown with bush and penetrated in all directions
with labyrinthine lanes. Into this we had wandered in our quarrels, and
neither of us knew where we were. The sand was loose; our miserable
beast was above his fetlocks in it, and was visibly dropping under his
efforts to drag us along even at a walk. The sun went down. The tropic
twilight is short. The evening star shone out in the west, and the
crescent moon over our heads. My man said this and said that; every word
was a lie, for he had lost his way and would not allow it. We saw a
light through some trees. I sent him to inquire. We were directed one
way and another way, every way except the right one. We emerged at last
upon a hard road of some kind. The stars told me the general direction.
We came to cottages where the name of Cherry Garden was known, and we
were told that it was two miles off; but alas! again there were two
roads to it; a short and good one, and a long and bad one, and they sent
us by the last. There was a steep hill to climb, for the house is 800
feet above the sea. The horse could hardly crawl, and my 'nigger' went
to work to flog him to let off his own ill humour. I had to stop that by
force, and at last, as it grew too dark to see the road under the trees,
I got out and walked, leaving him to follow at a foot's pace. The night
was lovely. I began to think that we should have to camp out after all,
and that it would be no great hardship.
It was like the gloaming of a June night in England, the daylight in the
open spots not entirely gone, and mixing softly with the light of moon
and planet and the flashing of the fireflies. I plodded on mile after
mile, and Cherry Garden still receded to one mile farther. We came to a
gate of some consequence. The outline of a large mansion was visible
with gardens round it. I concluded that we had arrived, and was feeling
for the latch when the forms of a lady and gentleman appeared against
the sky who were strolling in the grounds. They directed me still
upwards, with the mile which never diminished still to be travelled.
Like myself, our weary animal had gathered hopes from the sight of the
gate. He had again to drag on as he could. His owner was subdued and
silent, and obeyed whatever order I gave him. The trees now closed over
us so thick that I could see nothing. Vainly I repented of my
unnecessary philanthropy which had been the cause of the mischief; what
had I to do with black women, or white either for that matter? I had to
feel the way with my feet and a stick. I came to a place where the lane
again divided. I tried the nearest turn. I found a trench across it
three feet deep, which had been cut by a torrent. This was altogether
beyond the capacity of our unfortunate animal, so I took the other
boldly, prepared if it proved wrong to bivouac till morning with my
'nigger,' and go on with my argument. Happily there was no need; we came
again on a gate which led into a field. There was a drive across it and
wire fences. Finally lights began to glimmer and dogs to bark: we were
at the real Cherry Garden at last, and found the whole household alarmed
for what had become of us. I could not punish my misleader by stinting
his fare, for I knew that I had only myself to blame. He was an honest
fellow after all. In the disturbance of my mind I left a rather valuable
umbrella in his buggy. He discovered it after he had gone, and had grace
enough to see that it was returned to me.
My entertainers were much amused at the cause of the misadventure,
perhaps unique of its kind; to address homilies to the black people on
the treatment of their wives not being the fashion in these parts.
If there are no more Aaron Bangs in Jamaica, there are very charming
people; as I found when I turned this new leaf in my West Indian
experience. Mr. M---- could not have taken more pains with me if I had
been his earliest friend. The chief luxury which he allowed himself in
his simple life was a good supply of excellent horses. His business took
him every day to Kingston, but he left me in charge of his family, and I
had 'a good time,' as the Americans say. The house was large, with fine
airy rooms, a draught so constantly blowing through it that the candles
had to be covered with bell glasses; but the draughts in these countries
are the very breath of life. It had been too dark when I arrived to see
anything of the surroundings, and the next morning I strolled out to see
what the place was like. It lies just at the foot of the Blue Mountains,
where the gradual slope from the sea begins to become steep. The plain
of Kingston lay stretched before me, with its woods and cornfields and
villas, the long straggling town, the ships at anchor in the harbour,
the steamers passing in and out with their long trails of smoke, the
sand-spit like a thin grey line lying upon the water, as the natural
breakwater by which the harbour is formed, and beyond it the broad blue
expanse of the Caribbean Sea. The foreground was like an English park,
studded over with handsome forest trees and broken by the rains into
picturesque ravines. Some acres were planted with oranges of the choicer
sorts, as an experiment to show what Jamaica could do, but they were as
yet young and had not come into bearing. Round the house were gardens
where the treasures of our hot-houses were carelessly and lavishly
scattered. Stephanotis trailed along the railing or climbed over the
trellis. Oleanders white and pink waved over marble basins, and were
sprinkled by the spray from spouting fountains. Crotons stood about in
tubs, not small plants as we know them, but large shrubs; great purple
or parti-coloured bushes. They have a fancy for crotons in the West
Indies; I suppose as a change from the monotony of green. I cannot share
it. A red leaf, except in autumn before it falls, is a kind of monster,
and I am glad that Nature has made so few of them. In the shade of the
trees behind the house was a collection of orchids, the most perfect, I
believe, in the island.
[Illustration: KINGSTON AND HARBOUR FROM CHERRY GARDEN.]
And here Gordon had lived. Here he had been arrested and carried away to
his death; his crime being that he had dreamt of regenerating the negro
race by baptising them in the Jordan of English Radicalism. He would
have brought about nothing but confusion, and have precipitated Jamaica
prematurely into the black anarchy into which perhaps it is still
destined to fall. But to hang him was an extreme measure, and, in the
present state of public opinion, a dangerous one.
One does not associate the sons of darkness with keen perceptions of the
beautiful. Yet no mortal ever selected a lovelier spot for a residence
than did Gordon in choosing Cherry Garden. How often had his round dark
eyes wandered over the scenes at which I was gazing, watched the early
rays of the sun slanting upwards to the high peaks of the Blue
Mountains, or the last as he sank in gold and crimson behind the hills
at Mandeville; watched the great steamers entering or leaving Port
Royal, and at night the gleam of the lighthouse from among the palm
trees on the spit. Poor fellow! one felt very sorry for him, and sorry
for Mr. Eyre, too. The only good that came of it all was the surrender
of the constitution and the return to Crown government, and this our
wonderful statesmen are beginning to undo.
No one understood better than Mr. M---- the troubles and dangers of the
colony, but he was inclined, perhaps by temperament, perhaps by
knowledge, to take a cheerful view of things. For the present at least
he did not think that there was anything serious to be feared. The
finances, of which he had the best means of judging, were in tolerable
condition. The debt was considerable, but more than half of it was
represented by a railway. If sugar was languishing, the fruit trade with
the United States was growing with the liveliest rapidity. Planters and
merchants were not making fortunes, but business went on. The shares in
the Colonial Bank were not at a high quotation, but the securities were
sound, the shareholders got good dividends, and eight and ten per cent.
was the interest charged on loans. High interest might be a good sign or
a bad one. Anyway Mr. M---- could not see that there was much to be
afraid of in Jamaica. There had been bad times before, and they had
survived notwithstanding. He was a man of business, and talked himself
little about politics. As it had been, so it would be again.
In his absence at his work I found friends in the neighbourhood who were
all attention and politeness. One took me to see my acquaintances at the
camp again. Another drove me about, showed me the house where Scott had
lived, the author of 'Tom Cringle.' One round in particular left a
distinct impression. It was through a forest which had once been a
flourishing sugar estate. Deep among the trees were the ruins of an
aqueduct which had brought water to the mill, now overgrown and
crumbling. The time had not been long as we count time in the history of
nations, but there had been enough for the arches to fall in, the stream
to return to its native bed, the tropical vegetation to spring up in its
wild luxuriance and bury in shade the ruins of a past civilisation.
I fell in with interesting persons who talked metaphysics and theology
with me, though one would not have expected it in Jamaica. In this
strange age of ours the spiritual atmosphere is more confused than at
any period during the last eighteen hundred years. Men's hearts are
failing them for fear, not knowing any longer where to rest. We look
this way and that way, and catch at one another like drowning men. Go
where you will, you find the same phenomena. Science grows, and
observers are adding daily to our knowledge of the nature and structure
of the material universe, but they tell us nothing, and can tell us
nothing, of what we most want to know. They cannot tell us what our own
nature is. They cannot tell us what God is, or what duty is. We had a
belief once, in which, as in a boat, we floated safely on the unknown
ocean; but the philosophers and critics have been boring holes in the
timbers to examine the texture of the wood, and now it leaks at every
one of them. We have to help ourselves in the best way that we can. Some
strike out new ideas for themselves, others go back to the seven sages,
and lay again for themselves the old eggs, which, after laborious
incubation, will be addled as they were addled before. To my
metaphysical friends in Jamaica the 'Light of Asia' had been shining
amidst German dreams, and the moonlight of the Vedas had been
illuminating the pessimism of Schopenhauer. So it is all round. Mr. ----
goes to Mount Carmel to listen for communications from Elijah;
fashionable countesses to the shrine of Our Lady at Lourdes. 'Are you a
Buddhist?' lisps the young lady in Mayfair to the partner with whom she
is sitting out at a ball. 'It is so nice,' said a gentleman to me who
has been since promoted to high office in an unfortunate colony, 'it is
so nice to talk of such things to pretty girls, and it always ends in
one way, you know.' Conversations on theology, at least between persons
of opposite sex, ought to be interdicted by law for everyone under
forty. But there are questions on which old people may be permitted to
ask one another what they think, if it only be for mutual comfort in the
general vacancy. We are born alone, we pass alone into the great
darkness. When the curtain falls is the play over? or is a new act to
commence? Are we to start again in a new sphere, carrying with us what
we have gained in the discipline of our earthly trials? Are we to become
again as we were before we came into this world, when eternity had not
yet splintered into time, or the universal being dissolved into
individual existences? For myself, I have long ceased to speculate on
these subjects, being convinced that they have no bottom which can be
reasoned out by the intellect. We are in a world where much can be
learnt which affects our own and others' earthly welfare, and we had
better leave the rest alone. Yet one listens and cannot choose but
sympathise when anxious souls open out to you what is going on within
them. A Spanish legend, showing with whom these inquiries began and with
what result, is not without its value.
Jupiter, having made the world, proceeded to make animals to live in it.
The ass was the earliest created. He looked about him. He looked at
himself; and, as the habit of asses is, he asked himself what it all
meant; what it was to be an ass, where did he come from, and what he was
for? Not being able to discover, he applied to his maker. Jupiter told
him that he was made to be the slave of another animal to be called Man.
He was to carry men on his back, drag loads for them, and be their
drudge. He was to live on thistles and straw, and to be beaten
continually with sticks and ropes'-ends. The ass complained. He said
that he had done nothing to deserve so hard a fate. He had not asked to
be born, and he would rather not have been born. He inquired how long
this life, or whatever it was, had to continue. Jupiter said it had to
last thirty years. The poor ass was in consternation. If Jupiter would
reduce the thirty to ten he undertook to be patient, to be a good
servant, and to do his work patiently. Jupiter reflected and consented,
and the ass retired grateful and happy.
The dog, who had been born meanwhile, heard what had passed. He, too,
went to Jupiter with the same question. He learnt that he also was a
slave to men. In the day he was to catch their game for them, but was
not to eat it himself. At night he was to be chained by a ring and to
lie awake to guard their houses. His food was to be bones and refuse.
Like the ass he was to have had thirty years of it, but on petition they
were similarly exchanged for ten.
The monkey came next. His function, he was told, was to mimic humanity,
to be led about by a string, and grimace and dance for men's amusement.
He also remonstrated at the length of time, and obtained the same
favour.
Last came the man himself. Conscious of boundless desires and, as he
imagined, of boundless capabilities, he did not inquire what he was, or
what he was to do. Those questions had been already answered by his
vanity. He did not come to ask for anything, but to thank Jupiter for
having created so glorious a being and to ascertain for how many ages
he might expect to endure. The god replied that thirty years was the
term allotted to all personal existences.
'Only thirty years!' he exclaimed. 'Only thirty years for such
capacities as mine. Thirty years will be gone like a dream. Extend them!
oh, extend them, gracious Jupiter, that I may have leisure to use the
intellect which thou hast given me, search into the secrets of nature,
do great and glorious actions, and serve and praise thee, O my creator!
longer and more worthily.'
The lip of the god curled lightly, and again he acquiesced. 'I have some
spare years to dispose of,' he said, 'of which others of my creatures
have begged to be relieved. You shall have thirty years of your own.
From thirty to fifty you shall have the ass's years, and labour and
sweat for your support. From fifty to seventy you shall have the dog's
years, and take care of the stuff, and snarl and growl at what younger
men are doing. From seventy to ninety you shall have the monkey's years,
and smirk and grin and make yourself ridiculous. After that you may
depart.'
* * * * *
I was going on to Cuba. The commodore had insisted on my spending my
last days with him at Port Royal. He undertook to see me on board the
steamer as it passed out of the harbour. I have already described his
quarters. The naval station has no colonial character except the
climate, and is English entirely. The officers are the servants of the
Admiralty, not of the colonial government. Their interests are in their
profession. They look to promotion in other parts of the world, and
their functions are on the ocean and not on the land. The commodore is
captain of the guardship; but he has a commander under him and he
resides on shore. Everyone employed in the dockyard, even down to his
own household, is rated on the ship's books, consequently they are all
men. There is not a woman servant about the place, save his lady's
ladies'-maid. His daughters learn to take care of themselves, and are
not brought up to find everything done for them. His boys are about the
world in active service growing into useful and honourable manhood.
Thus the whole life tastes of the element to which it belongs, and is
salt and healthy as the ocean itself. It was not without its
entertainments. The officers of the garrison were to give a ball. The
young ladies of Kingston are not afraid of the water, cross the harbour
in the steam launches, dance till the small hours, return in the dark,
drive their eight or ten miles home, and think nothing of it. In that
climate, night is pleasanter to be abroad in than day. I could not stay
to be present, but I was in the midst of the preparations, and one
afternoon there was a prospect of a brilliant addition to the party. A
yacht steamed inside the Point--long, narrow, and swift as a torpedo
boat. She carried American colours, and we heard that she was the famous
vessel of the yet more famous Mr. Vanderbilt, who was on board with his
family. Here was an excitement! The commodore was ordered to call the
instant that she was anchored. Invitations were prepared--all was
eagerness. Alas! she did not anchor at all. She learnt from the pilot
that, the small-pox being in Jamaica, if any of her people landed there
she would be quarantined in the other islands, and to the disappointment
of everyone, even of myself, who would gladly have seen the great
millionaire, she turned about and went off again to sea.
I was very happy at the commodore's--low spirits not being allowed in
that wholesome element. Decks were washed every morning as if at sea,
i.e. every floor was scrubbed and scoured. It was an eternal washing
day, lines of linen flying in the brisk sea breeze. The commodore was
always busy making work if none had been found for him. He took me one
day to see the rock spring where Rodney watered his fleet, as the great
admiral describes in one of his letters, and from which Port Royal now
draws its supply. The spring itself bursts full and clear out of the
limestone rock close to the shore, four or five miles from Kingston.
There is a natural basin, slightly improved by art, from which the old
conduit pipes carry the stream to the sea. The tug comes daily, fills
its tanks, and returns. The commodore has tidied up the place, planted
shrubs, and cleared away the bush; but half the water at least, is still
allowed to leak away, and turns the hollow below into an unwholesome
swamp. It may be a necessity, but it is also a misfortune, that the
officers at distant stations hold their appointments for so short a
term. By the time that they have learnt what can or ought to be done,
they are sent elsewhere, and their successor has to begin over again.
The water in this spring, part of which is now worse than wasted and the
rest carried laboriously in a vessel to Port Royal to be sold by measure
to the people there, might be all conducted thither by pipes at small
cost and trouble, were the commodore to remain a few years longer at the
Jamaica Station.
He is his own boatman, and we had some fine sails about the lagoon--the
breeze always fresh and the surface always smooth. The shallow bays
swarm with small fish, and it was a pretty thing to watch the pelicans
devouring them. They gather in flocks, sweep and wheel in the air, and
when they plunge they strike the water with a violence which one would
expect would break their wings. They do not dive, but seize their prey
with their long, broad bills, and seem never to miss.
Between the ships and the barracks, there are many single men in Port
Royal, for whom amusement has to be found if they are to be kept from
drink. A canteen is provided for them, with bowling alley, tennis court,
beer in moderation, and a reading room, for such as like it, with
reviews and magazines and newspapers They can fish if they want sport,
and there are sharks in plenty a cable's length from shore; but the
schoolmaster has been abroad, and tastes run in more refined directions.
The blacks of Tobago acted 'The Merchant of Venice' before Governor
S----. The ships' companies of the gunboats at Port Royal gave a concert
while I was there. The officers took no part, and left the men to manage
it as they pleased. The commodore brought his party; the garrison, the
crews of the other ships, and stray visitors came, and the large room at
the canteen was completely full. The taste of the audience was curious.
Dibdin was off the boards altogether, and favour was divided between the
London popular comic song and the sentimental--no longer with any
flavour of salt about it, but the sentimental spoony and sickly. 'She
wore a wreath of roses' called out the highest enthusiasm. One of the
performers recited a long poem of his own about Mary Stuart, 'the lovely
and unfortunate.' Then followed the buffoonery; and this was at least
genuine rough and tumble if there was little wit in it. A lad capered
about on a tournament horse which flung him every other moment. Various
persons pretended to be drunk, and talked and staggered as drunken men
do. Then there was a farce, how conceived and by what kind of author I
was puzzled to make out. A connoisseur of art is looking for Greek
antiques. He has heard that a statue has recently been discovered of
'Ajax quarrelling with his mother-in-law.' What Ajax was quarrelling
about or who his mother-in-law might be does not appear. A couple of
rogues, each unknown to the other, practise on the connoisseur's
credulity. Each promises him the statue; each dresses up a confederate
on a pedestal with a modern soldier's helmet and a blanket to represent
a Greek hero. The two figures are shown to him. One of them, I forget
how, contrived to pass as Ajax; the other had turned into Hercules doing
something to the Stymphalides. At last they get tired of standing to be
looked at, jump down, and together knock over the connoisseur. Ajax then
turns on Hercules, who, of course, is ready for a row. They fight till
they are tired, and then make it up over a whisky bottle.
So entirely new an aspect of the British tar took me by surprise, and I
speculated whether the inventors and performers of this astonishing
drama were an advance on the Ben Bunting type. I was, of course,
inclined to say no, but my tendency is to dislike changes, and I allow
for it. The commodore said that in certain respects there really was an
advance. The seamen fell into few scrapes, and they did not get drunk so
often. This was a hardy assertion of the commodore, as a good many of
them were drunk at that moment. I could see myself that they were
better educated. If Ben Bunting had been asked who Ajax and Hercules
were, he would have taken them to be three-deckers which were so named,
and his knowledge would have gone no farther. Whether these tars of the
new era are better sailors and braver and truer men is another question.
They understand their rights much better, if that does any good to them.
The officers used to be treated with respect at all times and seasons.
This is now qualified. When they are on duty, the men are as respectful
as they used to be; when they are off duty, the commodore himself is
only old H----.
We returned to the dockyard in a boat under a full moon, the guardship
gleaming white in the blue midnight and the phosphorescent water
flashing under the oars. The 'Dee,' which was to take me to Havana, was
off Port Royal on the following morning. The commodore put me on board
in his gig, with the white ensign floating over the stern. I took leave
of him with warm thanks for his own and his family's hospitable
entertainment of me. The screw went round--we steamed away out of the
harbour, and Jamaica and the kind friends whom I had found there faded
out of sight. Jamaica was the last of the English West India Islands
which I visited. I was to see it again, but I will here set down the
impressions which had been left upon me by what I had seen there and
seen in the Antilles.