Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies

by Matthew Gregory Lewis

  Some of the fruits here are excellent, such as shaddocks, oranges, granadilloes, forbidden fruit ; and one between an orange and a lemon, called 11 the grape or cluster-fruit," appears to me quite delicious. For the vegetables I cannot say so much: yams, plantains, cocoa-poyers, yam-poys, bananas, &c., look and taste all so much alike, that I scarcely know one from the other: they are all something between bread and potatoes, not so good as either, and I am quite tired of them all. The Lima bean is aid to be more like a pea than a bean ; but whatever it be like, it appeared to me very indifferent. As to the peas themselves, nothing can be worse. The achie fruit is a kind of vegetable, which generally is fried in butter; many people, I am told, are food of it, but I could find no merit in it. The palm-tree (or abba, as it is called here) produces a long scarlet or reddish brown cone, which separates into beads, each of which contains a roasting-nut surrounded by a kind of stringy husk, which being boiled in salt and water, upon being chewed has a taste of artichoke, but the consistence is very disagreeable. The only native vegetable which I like much is the ochra, which tastes like asparagus not with quite so delicate a flavour.

  fish, the variety is endless; but I think it rather consists of names than of flavour. From this, however, I must except the silk-fish and mud-fish, and above all, the

  mountain-mullet, which is almost the best fish I ever tasted. All the shell-fish that I have met with as yet have been excellent; oysters have not come in my way, but I am told that they are not only poor and insipid, but frequently are so poisonous that I had better not venture upon them ; and so ends this chapter of the "Almanach des Gourmands" for Jamaica.

  JANUARY 30.

  There were above twenty ladies literally at my feet this morning. I went down to the negro-village to speak to Bessie about going to her black doctor; and all the refractory females of last week, hearing of my being there, came in a body to promise better conduct for the future, and implore Me not to go away.

  The sight of my carriage getting ready to take me to Kingston, and the arrival of post-horses, bad alarmed them with the idea that I was really going to put into execution my threats of leaving them for ever. They had artfully enough prevailed on the wife of Clifford (the driver whom Whaunica bad collared) to be their spokeswoman ; and they begged, and lifted up their folded bands, and cried, and fell on the ground, and kissed my feet and, in short, acted their part so well, that they almost made me act mine to perfection, and fall to blubbering. I told them that I certainly should go to Kingston on Thursday; but if I had good accounts of them during my , absence, I should return in a few days; if, on the contrary, the idle negroes continued to refuse to work without compulsion, then, in justice to the good ones (who last week were obliged to do more than their share), those punishments which I bad stopped must be resumed; but that as Cornwall would be insupportable to me if I could not live there without hearing the crack of the abominable cart-whip, all (lay long, I would not return to it, but ship myself off for England, and never visit them or Jamaica any more. And then I talked very sternly and positively about " punishments,". and making- bad negroes do their work properly ;" and every third, word was tile cart-whip, till I almost 'fancied myself the princess' in the " Fairy Tale," who never opened her month but out came.. two toads and three couple of serpents. However, to sweeten, my oration a little at the end, I told them that, " having inquired closely into the characters of the present book-keepers, I had found no charge against any of them except one, who was accused of having occasionally struck a negro, of using bad language to them, and of being a hasty passionate man, though in other respects very serviceable to the estate. But although these faults were but trifling, and some of them not proved, so determined was I to show that I would suffer no white person on the estate who maltreated the negroes either by word or deed, that I had determined to make an example of him for the warning of the rest, and accordingly had dismissed him this morning."

  This book-keeper, by his own account, bad made himself obnoxious to them, and on hearing of his discharge they one and all sprawled upon the ground in a rapture of joy and gratitude.

  The man had denied positively the charge of striking the negroes, and ascribed in cutting out part of a boiling-house window, in order that he might pass out atolen sugar unperceived -for, to do the negroes justice, it is a doubt whether they are the greatest thieves or liars, and the quantity of sugar which they purloin during the crop, and dispose of at the Bay for a mere trifle, is enormous. However, whether the charge of strinking was true or not, it was sufficiently proved that this book-keeper was a passionate man, and he himself "that the negroes had conceived a spite against him. Indeed, I had less unwillingness to do this, because from the slight nature of this offence it will be easy for him to find another situation ; and I have besides desired a double salary on going away, which will free him from any charge of having been dismissed disgracefully.

  FEBRUARY 1. (Thursday.)

  I left Cornwall for Spanish Town at six in the morning, accompanies by a young naval officer, the son of my next neighbour, Mr. Hill, of Amity, who was good enough not only to lend me a kitteren with a canopy to perform my journey in, to send his son to be my cicerone on my tour. The road wound through mountain-passes, or else on a shelf of rock so narrow-- though without the slightest danger--that one of the wheels was frequently in the sea, while the other side was fenced by a line of bold broken cliff, clothed with trees completely from their brows down to the very edge of the water. Between eight and nine we reached a solitary tavern called Blue-fields, where the horses rested for a couple of hours. It had a very pretty garden on the sea-shore, which contained a picturesque cottage, exactly resembling an ornamental hermitage ; and leaning against one of the pillars of its porch we found a young girl, who exactly answered George Coleman's description of Yarico, "quite brown, but extremely genteel, like a Wedgewood teapot." She told us that she was a Spanish creole who had fled with her mother from the disputes between the royalists and independents in the island of Old Providence ; and the owner of the tavern being a relation of her mother, he had permitted them to establish themselves in his garden-cottage till the troubles of their own country should be over. She talked perfectly good English, and said that there were many of that nation established in Providence. Her name was Antoinetta. Her figure was light and elegant ; her black eyes mild and bright ; her countenance intelligent and good-humoured ; and her teeth beautiful to perfection ; altogether, Antoinetta was by far the handsomest creole that I have ever seen.

  From Blue-fields we proceedeed at once to Lakovia ( a small village), a stage of thirty miles. Here we found a realy of horses, which conveyed us by seven o'clock to " the Gutturs," a house belonging to the proprietor of the post-horses, and situated at the very foot of the tremendous May-day Mountains. the house is an excellent one, and we found good beds, eatables, and, in short, everything that travellers could wish. The distance from lakovia to " the Gutturs" is sixteen miles.

  FEBRUARY 2

  Yesterday the only very striking point of view ( although the whole of the raod was piccturesque0 was "the Cove," situated between the Blue-fileds and Lakovia ; but our journey to-day was a succession of beautiful scenes from beginning to end. Instantly on leaving "the Gutturs" we began to ascend the May-daay mountains, and it was not till after travelling for five and twenty miles that we found ourselves at the foot of them on the other side, at a place called Williamsfield. To be sure, the road was so rough that it was enough to make one envy the Mahometan women, who having no souls at all, could not possibly have them jolted out of their bodies; but the beauty of the scenery amply rewarded us for our bruised sides and battered backs. The road was for the most part bounded by lofty rocks on one side, and a deep precipice on the other, and bordered with a profusion of noble trees and flowering shrubs in great variety. In particular, I was struck with the picturesque appearance of some wild fig trees of singular size and beauty. Although there were only two of us besides servants, we found it necessar
y to employ seven horses and a couple of mules; and as our cavalcade wound along through the mountains the Spanish look of our sumpter mules and of our kittereens (which are precisely the vehicle in which Gil Blas is always represented when travelling with Scipio towards Lirias) gave us quite the appearance of a caravan; nor should I have been greatly surprised to see a trap-door open in the middle of the road, and Captain Rolando's whiskers make appearance. Every one spoke to me with contempt of this south road in respect of beauty, when compared with the northen ; however, it certainly seemed to me more beautiful than any road which I had ever travelled.

  FEBRUARY 3.

  A stage of twenty miles brought us to Old Harbour, and, passing through the Dry River, twelve more landed us at Spanish Town, otherwise called St. Jago de la Vega, and the seat of government in Jamaica, , although Kingston is much larger and more populous, and must be considered as the principal town. We found very clean and comfortable lodgings at Miss Cole's. Spanish Town has nothing to recommend it: the houses are mostly built of wood ; the streets are very irregular and narrow ; every alternate building is in a ruinous state, and the whole place wears an air of gloom and melancholy. The Government House is a large clumsy-looking brick building with a portico, the stucco of which has suffered by the weather, and it can advance no pretensions to architectural beauty. On one side of the square in which it stands there is a small temple protecting a statue of Lord Rodney, executed by Bacon : some of the bas-reliefs on the pedestal appeared to me very good ; but the old admiral is most absurdly dressed in the habit of a Roman general, and furbished out with buskins and a truncheon. The temple itself is quite in opposition to good taste, with very low arches, surmounted by heavy bas-reliefs out of all proportion.

  FEBRUARY 4. (Sunday.)

  We breakfasted with the chief justice, who is my relation, and of my own name, and then went to the church, which is a very handsome one; the walls lined with fine mahogany, and ornamented with many monuments of white marble, in memory of the former governors and other principal inhabitants. It seems that my ancestors on both sides have always had a taste for being well lodged after their decease; for on admiring one of these tombs, it proved to be that of my maternal grandfather; but still this was not to be compared for a moment with my mausoleum at Cornwall. After church I went home with the rector, who is one of the ecclesiastical commissaries, and had a long conversation with him respecting a plan which is in agitation for giving the negroes something of a religious education. We afterwards dined with the member for Westmoreland; and as everybody in Jamaica is on foot by six in the morning, at ten in the evening we were quite ready to go to bed.

  FEBRUARY 5.

  The chief justice went with me to Kingston, where I had appointed the agent for my other estate in St. Thomas's-in-the-East to meet me. The short time allotted for my stay in the island makes it impossible to attend properly both to this estate and to Cornwall at this first visit, and therefore I determined to confine my attention to the negroes on the latter estate till my return to Jamaica. I now contented myself by impressing on the mind my agent (who I am certain is a most humane and intelligent man), my extreme anxiety for the abolition of the cart-whip; and I had the satisfaction of hearing from him, that for a long time it had never been used, more than perhaps twice in the year and then only very slightly, and for, some offence so flaggrant that it was impossible tp pass over it ; and he assured me that whenever I visit Hordley I may depend upon its not being employed at all. on the other hand, I am told that a gentleman of the parish of Vere, who came over to Jamaica for the sole purpose of ameliorating the condition of his negroes, after abolishing the cart.-whip, has at length been constrained to resume occasional use of it because he found it utterly impossible to keep them in any sort of subordination without it.

  There is not here that air of melancholy which pervades Spanish Town, but the place has no pretensions to beauty; and if any person will imagine a large town entirely composed of booths at a race-course, and the streets merely roads, without any sort of paving, he will have a perfect idea of Kingston.

  FEBRUARY 6.

  The Jamaica canoes are hollowed cotton-trees. We embarked in one of them at six in the morning, and visited the ruins of Port Royal, which, last year, was destroyed by fire. Some of the houses were rebuilding ; but it was a melancholy sight, not only from the look of the half-burnt buildings, but the dejected countenances of the ruined inhabitants. I returned to breakfast with the rector and two other ecclesiastical commissaries ; had more conversation about their proposed plan, and became still more convinced of the difficulty of doing anything effectual without danger to the island and to the negroes themselves, and of the extreme delicacy requisite in whatever may be attempted. We afterwards visited the school of the children of the poor, who are educating upon Dr. Bell's system; and then saw the church, a very large and handsome one on the inside, but mean enough as to its exterior. I was shown the tombstone of Admiral Ben bow, who was killed in a naval engagement, and whose ship afterwards

  "Bore down to Port Royal, where the people flocked very much

  To see brave Admiral Benbow laid in Kingston Town Church,"

  admiral's Homer informs us. The church is a large one, but it is going to be still further extended ; the negroes in Kingston and its neighbourhood being (as the rector assured me) so anxious to obtain religious instruction, that on Sundays not only the church but the churchyard that it is so completely thronged with them as to make it difficult to traverse the crowd ; and those who are fortunate enough to obtain seats for the morning service never stir out of the church during the whole day, through fear of being excluded from that of the evening. They also flock to be baptized in great numbers, and many have lately come to be married; and their burials and christenings are performed with great pomp and solemnity.

  One of the most intelligent of the negroes with whom I have yet conversed, was the coxswain of my Port Royal canoe. I asked him whether he had been christened? He answered, no; be did not yet think himself good enough, but he hoped to be so in time. Nor was he married; for he was still young, and afraid that he could not break off his bad habits, and be contented to live with no other woman than his wife; and so he thought it better not to become a Christian till he could feel certain of performing the duties of one. However, he said, he had at least cured himself of one bad custom, and never worked upon Sundays, except on some very urgent necessity. I asked what he did on Sundays, instead: did he go to church ?-No. Or employ himself in learning to read ?-Oh, no : though he thought being able to read was a great virtue (which was his constant expression for anything right, pleasant, or profitable) ; but he had no leisure to learn on week-days; and, as he had heard the parson say that Sunday ought to be a day of rest, he made a point of doing nothing at all on that day. He praised his former master, of whose son he was now the property ; and said that neither of them had ever occasion to lay a finger on him. He worked as a waterman, and paid his master ten shillings a-week, the rest of his earnings being his own profits; and when he owed wages for three months, if he brought two his master would always give him time for the remainder, and that in so kind a manner that he always fretted himself to think that so kind a master should wait for his rights, and worked twice as hard till the debt was discharged. He said that kindness was the only way to make good negroes ; and that, if that failed, flogging would never succeed : and he advised me, when I found a negro worthless, " to sell him at once, and not stay to flog him, and so, by spoiling his appearance, make him sell for less ; for blacks must not be treated now, massa, as they used to be ; they can think, and hear, and see, as well as white people : blacks are wiser, massa, than they were, and will soon be still wiser," I thought the fellow himself was a good proof of is assertion.

  I left Kingston at two o'clock, in defiance of a broiling sun; reached Spanish Town in time to dine with the Attorney-General, and went afterwards to the play, where I found my acquaintance Mr. Hill, of Covent Garden Theatre. The theatre i
s neat enough; as to the performance, it was about equal to any provincial theatricals that I ever saw in England although the pieces represented were by no means well selected, being entirely musical , and the orchestra consisting of nothing more than a couple of fiddles.

  FEBRUARY 7.

  We were to return by the North. Road, and set out at six in the morning. The first stage was to the West Tavern, nineteen miles; and nothing can be imagined more sublime or more beautiful than the scenery. Our road lay along the banks of the Rio Cobre, which runs up to Spanish Town, where its floods frequently commit dreadful ravages. Large masses of rock intercept its current at small intervals, which, as well as its shallowness, render it unnavigable. The cliffs and trees are of the most gigantic size; and the road goes so near the brink of a tremendous precipice that we were obliged always to send a servant forwards to warn any other carriage of our approach, in that it might stay in some broader part while we passed it. A bridge had been attempted to be built over the river, but a storm demolished it before its completion, and nothing was now left standing but a single enormous arch. In like manner, the " Dry River " sets all bridges at defiance: when we crossed it, between Old Harbour and Spanish Town, it was nothing but a waste of sand; but its floods frequently pour down with irresistible strength and rapidity, and sometimes render it impassable for weeks together. I was extremely delighted with the first ten miles of this stage: unluckily, a mist then arose, so thick that it was utterly impossible even to guess at the surrounding scenery, and the morning was so cold that I was very glad to wrap myself in my cloak as closely as if I had been travelling in an English December.