Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies

by Matthew Gregory Lewis

  MARCH 3. (Sunday.)

  In this country it may be truly said that " it never rains but it pours." After a drought of three months it began to rain on Thursday morning, and has never stopped raining since, with thunder all the day, and lightning all the night. These incessant showers have brought out all sorts of insects and reptiles in crowds: the ground is covered with lizards; the air is filled with mosquitoes, and their bite is infinitely more envenomed than on my first arrival. A centipede was found squeezed to death under the door of my bed-room this morning. As to the cockroaches, they are absolutely in legions; every evening my negro-boys are set to hunt them, and they kill them by dozens, on the chairs and sofas, in the covers of my books, and among ' the leaves in my fruit-baskets.

  MARCH 4. (Monday.)

  Since my arrival in Jamaica I am not conscious of having omitted any means of satisfying my Negroes, and rendering them happy and secure from oppression. I have suffered no person to punished, except the two female demons who almost bit a xxx hands off (for which they received a slight Switching), and the most worthless rascal on the estate, whom for manifold offences I was compelled, for the sake of discipline, to allow to pass two days in the bilboes. I have never refused a favour that I could possibly grant. I have listened patiently to all com plaints. I have increased the number of negro holidays, and have given away money and presents of all kinds incessantly.

  Now for my reward. On Saturday morning there were no fewer than forty-five persons (not including children) in the hospital which makes nearly a fifth of my whole gang. Of these the medical people assured me that not above seven had anything whatever the matter with them ; the rest were only feigning sickness, out of mere idleness, and in order to sit doing nothing, while their companions were forced to perform their part of the estate-duty. And sure enough, on Sunday morning they all walked away from the hospital to amuse themselves, except about seven or eight: they will, perhaps, go to the field for a couple of days, and on Wednesday we may expect to have them all back again, complaining of pains which (not existing) it is not possible to remove. Jenny (the girl whose hands were bitten) was told by the doctoress, that having been in the hospital all the week, she ought not, for very shame, to go out on Sunday. She answered, " She wanted to go to the mountains, and go she would." " Then," said the doctoress, " you must not come back again on Monday at least." " Yes," Jenny said, " she should come back:" and back this morning Jenny came. But as her wounds were almost well, she had tied packthread round them so as to cut deep into the flesh, had rubbed dirt into them, and, in short, bad played such tricks as nearly to produce mortification in one of her fingers.

  The most worthless fellow on the whole property is one Nato --a thief, a liar, a runaway, and one who has never been two days together out of the hospital since my arrival, although he has nothing the matter with him : indeed, when the other negroes abused him for his laziness, and leaving them to do his work for him, he told them plainly that he did not mean to work and that nobody should make him. The only real illness which brought him to the hospital, within my knowledge, was the consequence of a beating received from his own father, who had caught him in the act of robbing his house by the help of a false key. In the hospital lie found his wife, Philippa, the mad woman, with whom he instantly quarrelled, and she cut his head open with a plate; and as she might have served one of the children in the same way, we were obliged to confine her. Her husband was thought to be the fittest person to guard her; and, accordingly, they were locked up together in a separate room from the other invalids, till a strait waistcoat could be made. The husband was then restored to freedom, and desired to go to work, which he declared to be impossible from illness; yet he disapeared the whole of the next day, and on his return the following morning he had the impudence to assert that he had never been out of the hospital for an hour. For this runaway offence, and for endeavouring to exasperate his wife's phrenzy, vqs put into the bilboes for two days: on the third he was released, when he came to me with tears in his eyes, implored me most earnestly to forgive what had passed, and promised to behave better for the future " to so good a niassa." It appeared afterwards that he had employed his absence in complaining to Mr Williams, a neighbouring magistrate, that, " having a spite against them; although neither he nor his wife had committed any fault, I had punished them both by locking them up for several days in a solitary prison, under pretence of his wife's insanity, when in fact she was perfectly in her senses." Unluckily, one of my physicians had told Mr. Williams, that very morning, how much he had been alarmed at Cornwall, when, upon going into a mad woman's room, her husband had fastened the door, and he had found himself shut up between them -the woman really mad, and the man pretending to be so too. The moment that Nato mentioned the mad woman as his wife, "What, then," said Mr. Williams, "you are the fellow who alarmed the doctor so much two days ago?" Upon which Nato had the impudence to burst into a fit of laughter,--" Oh, ki, massa, doctor no need be fright ; we no want to hurt him; only make lilly bit fun wid him, massa, that all." On which he was ordered to get out of Mr. Williams's house; slunk back into the Cornwall hospital, and in a few days came to me with such a long story of penitence, and " so good a massa," that he induced me to forgive him.

  To sum up the whole, about three this morning an alarm was given that the pen-keeper had suffered the cattle to get among the canes, where they might do infinite mischief: the trustee was roused out of his bed-the drivers blew their shells to sum- mon the negroes to their assistance--when it appeared that there was not a single watchman at his post; the watch-fires had all been suffered to expire ; not a single domestic was to be found, nor a horse to be procured; even the little servant-boys, whom the trustee had locked up in his own house, and had left fast asleep when he went to bed, had got up again, and made their escape to pass the night in play and rioting : and although they were perfectly aware of the detriment which the cattle were doing to my interests, not a negro could be prevailed upon to rouse himself and help to drive them out, till at length Cubina (who had run down from his own house to mine on the first alarm) with difficulty collected about half a dozen to assist him : but long before this, one of my best cane-pieces was trampled to pieces, and the produce of this year's crop considerably dimi- nished.--And so much for negro gratitude! However, they still continue their eternal song of " Now massa come, we very well off;" but their satisfaction evidently begins and ends with themselves. They rejoice sincerely at being very well off but think it unnecessary to make the slightest return to massa for making them so.

  MARCH 6.

  Nato has kept his promise up to this time, and has actually passed a whole week in the field ; a thing which he was never known to do before within the memory of man.

  So I sent him a piece of money to encourage him ; and told him that I sent him a maccarony for behaving well, and wished to know whether any one had ever given him a maccarony for behaving ill. I hear that he was highly delighted at my thinking him worthy to receive a present from me, and sent me in return the most positive assurances of perseverance in good conduct. On the other hand, Mackaroo has not only run away himself, but has carried his wife away with him. This is improving upon the profligacy of British manners with a vengeance. In England, a man only runs away with another person's wife: but to run away with his own-what depravity ! As to my ungrateful demigod of a sheep-stealer, Hercules, the poor wretch has brought down upon himself a full punishment for all his misdeeds. By running away; and sleeping in the woods, exposed to all the fury of the late heavy rains, he has been struck by the palsy.

  Yesterday some of my negroes found him in the mountains, unable to raise himself from the ground, and brought him in a cart to the hospital ; where he now lies, having quite lost the use of one side, and in every other respect strong and healthy; so that he may look forward to a long and miserable existence.

  MARCH 9.

  The shaddock contains generally thirty-two seeds, two, of which only will reproduce shaddocks ; and t
hese two it is impossible to distinguish : the rest will yield, some sweet oranges, others bitter ones, others again forbidden fruit, and, in short, all the varieties of the orange ; but until the trees actually are in bearing, no one can guess what the fruit is likely to prove ; and even then, the seeds which produce shaddocks, although taken from a tree remarkable for the excellence of its fruit, will frequently yield only such as are scarcely eatable. So also the varieties of the mango are infinite - the fruit of no two trees resembling each other ; and the seeds of the very finest mango (although sown and cultivated with the utmost care) seldom affording anything at all like the parent stock. The two first mangoes which I tasted were nothing but turpentine and sugar; the third was very delicious and yet I was told that it was by no means of a superior quality. The sweet cassava requires no preparation ; the bitter cassava, unless the juice is carefully pressed out of it, is a deadly poison ; there is a third kind, called the sweet-and-bitter cassava, which is perfectly wholesome till a certain age, when it acquires its deleterious qualities. Many persons have been poisoned by mistaking these various kinds of cassava for each other.

  One of the best vegetable productions of the island is esteemed to be the Avogada pear, sometimes called " the vegetable marrow." It was not the proper season for them, and with great dfifficulty I procured a couple, which were said to be by no means in a state of perfection. Such as they were, I could find no great merit in them; they were to be eaten cold with pepper and salt, and seemed to be an insipid kind of melon, with no other resemblance to marrow than their softness.

  As soon as the plantain has done bearing, it is cut down ; when four or five suckers spring from each root, which become plants themselves in their turn. Ratoons are suckers of the sugar-cane : they are far preferable to the original plants, where the soil is rich enough to support them ; but they are much better adapted to some estates than to others. Thus, on my estate in St. Thomas's in the East, they can allow of ten ratoons from the same plant, and only dig cane-holes every eleventh year ; while, at Cornwall, the strength of the cane is exhausted in the fourth ratoon, or the fifth at furthest. The fresh plants are cane-tops ; but those canes which bear flags or feathers at their extremities will not answer the purpose, as dry weatber easily burns up the sligrht arrows to which the flags adhere, and destroys them before they can acquire sufficient vigour to resist the climate.

  MARCH 10. (Sunday.)

  I find that I have not done justice to the cotton-tree. Those I first saw were either withered by age, or struck by lightning, or happened to be ill-shaped of their kind ; but I have since met with others, than which nothing could be more noble or picturesque, from their gigantic height, the immense spread of their, arms, the colour of their steins and leaves, and the wild fantastic wreathings of their roots and branches.

  Nothing can be larger and finer in appearance than the Jamaica poultry of all kinds, but nothing can be uniformly more tough and tasteless ; and the same is the case with all butcher's meat, pork excepted, which is much better here than in Europe. The fault is in the climate, which prevents any animal food from being kept sufficiently long to become tender; so that when a man sits down to a Jamaica dinner, he might almost fancy himself a guest at Macbeth's- Covent-Garden banquet, where the fowls, hams, and legs of mutton are all made of deal boards. I ordered a duck to be kept for two days ; but it was so completely spoiled, that there was no bearing it upon the table. Then I tried the expedient of boiling a fowl till it absolutely fell to pieces ; but even this violent process had not the power of rendering it tender. The only effect produced by it was, that instead of being helped to a wing of solid wood, I got a plateful of splinters. Perhaps, my having totally lost my appetite (from the climate Dot allowing me to take my usual exercise) makes the meat appear to me less palatable than it may to others ; but I have observed that most people here prefer living upon soups, stews, and salted provisions. For my own part, I have for the last few weeks eaten nothing except black crabs, than which I never met with a more delicious article for the table. I have also tried the soldier soup, which is in great estimation in this island ; but although it greatly resembled the very richest cray-fish soup, it seemed to me to be composed of cray-fish which had been kept too long. The soldiers themselves were perfectly fresh, for they were brought to the kitchen quite alive and merry ; but I was told that this taste of staleness is their peculiar flavour, as well as their peculiar scent even when alive, and is precisely the quality which forms their recommendation. It was quite enough fix my opinion of the soup: I took two spoonfuls, and never mean to venture on a third.

  To fill up my list of Jamaica delicacies, I must not forget to mention, that I did my best to procure a Cane-piece Cat roasted in the true African fashion. The Creole negroes, however, greatly disapproved of my venturing upon this dish, which they positively denied having tasted themselves ; and when, at length, the Cat was procured, last Saturday, instead of plainly boiling it with negro-pepper and salt, they made it into a high-seasoned stew, which rendered it impossible to judge of its real flavour. However, I tasted it, as did also several other people, and we were unanimous in opinion that it might have been mistaken for a very good game-soup, and that, when properly dressed, a Cane-piece Cat must be excellent food.

  MARCH 12.

  The most general of negro infirmities appears to be that of lameness. It is chiefly occasioned by the chiga, a diminutive fly which works itself into the feet to lay its eggs, and, if it be not carefully extracted in time, the flesh around it corrupts, and a sore ensues not easily to be cured. No vigilance can prevent the attacks of the chiga; and not only soldiers, but the very cleanest persons of the highest rank in society, are obliged to have their feet examined regularly. The negroes are all provided with small knives for the purpose of extracting them : but as no pain is felt till the sore is produced, their extreme laziness frequently makes them neglect that precaution, till all kinds of dirt getting into the wound, increases the difficulty of a cure ; and sometimes the consequence is lameness for life.

  MARCH 13.

  The Reporter of the African Institution asserts, in a late pamphlet, that in the West Indies the breeding system is to this day discouraged, and that the planters are still indifferent to the preservation of their present stock of negroes, from their confidence of getting fresh supplies from Africa. Certainly the negroes in Jamaica are by no means of this Reporter's opinion, but are thoroughly sensible of their intrinsic value in the eyes of the proprietor. On my arrival, every woman who had a child held it up to show me, exclaiming-," See, massa, see! here nice new neger me bring for work for massa;" and those who had more than one did not fail to boast of the number, and make it a claim to the greater merit with me. Last week, an old watchman was brought home from the mountains almost dead with fever ; he would neither move, nor speak, nor notice any one, for several days. For two nights I sent him soup from my own table ; but he could not even taste it, and always gave it to his daughter. On the third evening there happened to be no soup at dinner, and I sent other food instead ; but old Cudjoe had been accustomed to see the soup arrive, and the disappointment made him fancy himself hungry, and that he could have eaten the soup if it had been brought as usual : accordingly when I visited him the next morning, he bade the doctoress tell me that massa had sent him no soup the night before. This was the first notice that he had ever taken of me. I promised that some soup should be ordered for him on purpose, that evening. Could be fancy anything to eat then ?-" "Milk! milk !" So milk was sent to him, and he drank two full calabashes of it. I then tried him with an egg, which lie also got down and at night, by spoonfuls at a time, he finished the whole bason of soup ; but when I next came to see him, and he wished to thank me, the words in which he thought he could comprise most gratitude were bidding the doctoress tell me he would do his best not todie yet ; he promised to fight hard for it. He is now quite out of danger, and seems really to be grateful. When he was sometimes too weak to speak, on my leaving the room he would dra
g his hand to his mouth with difficulty, and kiss it three orfour times to bid me farewell ; and once, when the CHARGE TO THE C0RNWALL JURY. 111 doctoress mentioned his having charged her to tell me that he owed his recovery to the good food that I had sent him, he added, " And him kind words too, massa ; kind words do neger much good, much as good food."

  In my visits to the old man, I observed a young woman nursing him with an infant in her arms, which (as they told me) was her own, by Cudjoe. I therefore supposed her to be his wife : but I found that she belonged to a brown man in the mountains ; and that Cudjoe hired her from her master, at the rate of thirty pounds a-year !

  I hope this fact will convince the African Reporter that it is possible for some of this " oppressed race of human beings" --" of these our most unfortunate fellow-creatures "-to enjoy at least some of the luxuries of civilized society; and I doubt whether even Mr. Wilberforce himself, with all his benevolence, would not allow a negro to be quite rich enough, who can afford thirty pounds a year for the hire of a kept mistress.