Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies

by Matthew Gregory Lewis

  Another is as follows:-" Two sisters had always lived together on the best terms; but, on the death of one of them, the other treated very harshly a little niece who had been left to her care, and made her a common drudge to herself and her daughter. One day the child, having broken a water-jug, was turned out of the house, and ordered not to return till she could bring back a good one. As she was going along weeping, she came to a large cotton-tree, under which was sitting an old woman without a head. I suppose this unexpected sight made her gaze rather too earnestly, for the old woman immediately inquired, ' Well, my piccaniny, what you see? Oh, mammy,' answered the girl, ' me no see nothing.' ' Good child!' said again the old woman, ' and good will come to you.' Not far distant was a cocoa-tree, and here was another old woman, without any more head than the former one. The same question was asked her, and she failed not to give the same answer which had already met with so good a reception.

  " Still she travelled forwards, and began to feel faint through want of food; when, under a mahogany-tree, she not only saw a third old woman, but one who, to her great satisfaction, had got a head between her shoulders. She stopped and made her best courtesy, ' How day, grannie!' ' How day, my piccaniny ; what matter? you no look well.' , ' Grannie, me lilly hungry.' ' My piccanny, you see that hut, there's rice in the pot, take it, and yam-yamme ; but if you see one black puss, mind you give him him share.'

  "The child hastened to profit by the permission the ' one black puss' failed not to make its appearance, and was served first to its portion of rice, after which it departed ; and the child had but just finished her meal when the mistress of the hut entered, and told her that she might help herself to three eggs out of the fowl-house, but that she must not take any of the talking ones : perhaps, too, she might find the black puss there also; but if she did, she was to take no notice of her. Unluckily all the eggs seemed to be as fond of talking as if they had been so many old

  maids, and the moment that the child entered the fowl-house there was a cry of ' Take me! Take me!' from all quarters. However, she was punctual in her obedience; and although the conversable eggs were remarkably fine and large, she searched about till at length she bad collected three little dirty-looking eggs that had not a word to say for themselves.

  "The old woman now dismissed her guest, bidding her to return home without fear ; but not to forget to break one of the eggs under each of the three trees near which she had seen an old woman that morning. The first egg produced a water-jug exactly similar to that which she had broken ; out of the second came a whole large sugar-estate; and out of the third a splendid equipage, in which she returned to her aunt, delivered up the jug, related that an old woman in a red docker (i. e. pettiecoat) had made her a great lady, and then departed in triumph to her sugar-estate.

  "Stung by envy, the aunt lost no time in sending her own daughter to search for the same good fortune which had befallen her cousin. She found the cotton-tree and the headless old woman, and had the same question addressed to her ; but instead of returning the same answer- ' What me see? ' said she ; ' me see one old woman without him head!' Now this reply was doubly offensive: it was rude, because it reminded the old lady of what might certainly be considered as a personal defect; and it was dangerous, as, if such a circumstance were to come to the ears of the buckras, it might bring her into trouble, women being seldom known to walk and talk without their heads, if ever, except by the assistance of Obeah. ' Bad child ! cried the old woman; ' bad child ! and bad will come to you!'

  "Matters were no better managed near the cocoa-tree ; and even when she reached the mahogany, although she saw that the old woman had not only got her head on, but had a red docker besides, she could not prevail on herself to say more than a short ' How day ? ' without calling her ' grannie.' However, she received the permission to eat rice at the cottage, coupled with the injunction of giving a share to the black puss ; an injunction, however, which she totally disregarded, although she scrupled not to assure her hostess that she had suffered puss to eat till she could eat no more. The old lady in the red petticoat seemed to swallow the lie very glibly, and dispatched the girl to the fowlhouse for three eggs, as she had before done her cousin ; but having been cautioned against taking the talking eggs, she conceived that these must needs be the most valuable, and therefore made a point of selecting those three which seemed to be the greatest gossips. Then, lest their chattering should betray her disobedience, she thought it best not to return into the hut, and acccordingly set forward on her return home; but she had not yet reached the mahogany-tree when curiosity induced her to break one of the eggs. To her infinite disappointment it proved to be empty; and she soon found cause to wish that the second had been empty too : for, on her dashing it against the ground, out came an enormous yellow snake, which flew at her with dreadful hissings. Away ran the girl; a fallen bamboo lay in her path ; she stumbled over it and fell. In her fall the third egg was broken; and the old woman without the head immediately popping out of it, told her, that if she had treated her as civilly as her cousin had done, she would have obtained the same good fortune; but that as she had shown her nothing but rude- ness, she must be contented to carry nothing home but the empty egg-shells. The old woman then jumped upon the yellow snake, galloped away with incredible speed, and never showed her red docker in that part of the island anymore."

  APRIL 8.

  At breakfast the captain was explaining to me the dangerous consequences of breaking the wheel-rope: two hours afterwards the wheel-rope broke, and round swung the vessel. However, as the accident fortunately took place in the day-time, and when the sea was perfectly calm, it was speedily remedied: but this was " talking of the devil and his imps" with a vengeance.

  APRIL 23.

  A gale of wind began to show itself on Monday night; it has continued to blow ever since with increasing violence, and is now become very serious. The captain says that he never experienced weather so severe at this season : this is only my usual luck. Certainly nothing can be more disagreeable than a ship on these occasions. The sea breaks over the vessel every minute, and it is really something awful to see the waves raised into the air by the force of the gale, hovering for a while over the ship, and then coming down upon us swop, to inundate everything below deck as well as upon it. The wind is piercingly cold ; the floors and walls are perpetually streaming. But a fire is quite out of the question; and, indeed, at one time to-day our eating appeared out of the question too ; for at four o'clock the cook sent us word that the sea put the kitchen fire out as fast as he could light it ; that he was almost frozen, having been for the last eight hours up to his waist in water, and that we must make up our minds to get no dinner to-day. However, the steward coaxed him and encouraged him, and poured spirits down his throat, and at last a dinner of some kind was put upon the table ; but it had not been there ten minutes before a tremendous sea poured itself down the companion-stairs and through the hatchway, set everything on the table afloat, deluged the cabin, ducked most of the company, and drove us all into the other room. I was lucky enough to escape with only a sprink- ling. We can only cross the cabin by creeping along by the sides as if we were so many cats. Walking the deck, even for the sailors, is absolutely out of the question ; and the little cabinboy has so fairly given up the attempt, that he goes crawling about upon all fours. Even our Spanish mastiff, Flora, finds it impossible to keep her four legs upon deck. Every five minutes up they all go, away rolls the dog over and over, and when she gets up again shakes her ears, and howls in a tone of the most piteous astonishment.

  APRIL 24.

  Though the gale was itself sufficiently serious, its effects at first were ludicrous enough ; but yesterday it produced a conse- quence truly shocking and alarming. Edward Sadler, the second mate, was at breakfast in the steerage : the boatswain had been cutting some beef with a large case-knife, which he had afterput down upon the chest on which they were sitting; a sudden heel of the ship threw them all to the other side of the cabin; the kn
ife fell with its haft against the ladder; and poor Edward falling against it, at least three inches of the blade were forced into his right side. The wound was dressed without the loss of a moment : but from its depth, the jaggedness of the weapon with which it was made, and from a pain which immediately afterwards seized the poor fellow in his chest, the apothecary thinks that his recovery is very improbable : he says that he liver is certainly perforated, and so probably are the lungs. If the latter have exscaped, it must have been only by the breadth of a hair. every one in the ship is distressed beyond measure a this accident, for the young man is a universal favourite. He is but just one-and-twenty, good-looking, with manners much superior to his station, and so unusually steady as well as active, that if Providence grants him life he cannot fail to, raise himself in his profession.

  APRIL 25.

  Edward complains no longer of the pain in his chest; be sleeps well, eats enough, has no fever, and every symptom is so favourable, that Dr. Ashman encourages us to hope that he has received no material injury. Our ship-carpenter has always appeared to be the sulkiest and surliest of sea-bears: yet on the day of Edward's accident he passed every minute that he could command by the side of his sofa, kneeling and praying, and watching him as if he had been his son, and every now and then wiping away his " own tears " with the dirtiest of all possible pocket-bandkerchiefs. So that what Goldsmith said of Dr. Johnson may be applied to this old,man--" He has nothing of a bear but his skin." After tearing every sail in the ship into shivers, and being as disagreeable as ever it could be, the gale has at length abated. Yesterday it was a storm, and we were going to Ireland, Lisbon, Brest--in short, everywhere except to England; to-day it is a dead calm, and we are going nowhere at all.

  APRIL 28.

  The wounded mate is so much recovered as to come upon deck for a few hours to-day, and may now be considered as completely- out of danger; although Dr. Ashman is positive (from his difficulty of breathing at first, and the subsequent pain in his chest) that his lungs must actually have been wounded, however slightly. We are now nearly abreast of Scilly.

  It seems to be an indispensable requisite for a Nancy-story, that it should contain a witch or a duppy, or in short, some marvellous personage or other. it is a kind of " piece a machines ." But the creole slavess are very fond of another species of tale, which they call " Neger-tricks," and which bear the same relation to a Nancy-story which a farce does to a tragedy. The following is a specimen :-

  A Neger-trick.---"A man who had two wives divided his provision-grounds into two parts, and proposed that each of the women should cultivate one half. They were ready to do their proper share, but insisted that the husband should at least take his third of the work. However, when they were to set out, the man was taken so ill that he found it impossible to move ; he quite roared with pain, and complained bitterly of a large lump which bad formed itself on his cheek during the night. The wives did what they could to relieve him, but in vain: they boiled a negro-pot for him, but he was too ill to swallow a morsel ; and at length they were obliged to leave him, and go to take care of the provision-grounds. As soon as they were gone the husband became perfectly well, emptied the contents of the pot with great appetite, and enjoyed himself in ease and indolence till evening, when he saw his wives returning, and immediately he became worse than ever. One of the women was quite shocked to see the size to which the lump had increased during her absence : she begged to examine it ; but although she barely touched it with the tip of her finger as gingerly as possible, it was so tender that the fellow screamed with agony. Unluckily, the other woman's manners were by no means so delicate; and seizing him forcibly by the head to examine it, she undesignedly happened to hit him a great knock on the jaw, and lo and behold! out flew a large lime which he had crammed into it. Upon which both his wives fell upon him like two furies ; beat him out of the house; and whenever afterwards he begged them to go to the provision-grounds, they told him that he had got no lime in his mouth then , and obliged him from that time forwards to do the whole work himself."

  A negro was brought to England, and the first point shown him being the chalky cliffs of Dover, " O ki! he said; " me know now what makes the buckras all so white!

  MAY 29.

  We once more saw the " Lizard," and indeed was full time that we should. Besides that our provisions were nearly exhausted by the length of the voyage, our crew was in a great measure composed of fellows of the most worthless description ; and the captain lately discovered that some of them had contrived to break a secret passage into the hold, where they had broached the rum-casks, and had already passed several nights in drinking, with lighted candles. A single spark would have been sufficient to blow us all up to the moon!

  JUNE 1. (Saturday.)

  We took our river-pilot on board ; and on Wednesday the 5th, we reached Gravesend. I went on sbore at nine in the morning; and here I conclude my JAMAICA JOURNAL.

  1817.--NOVEMBER 5.( Wednesday.)

  I LEFT London, and again embarked for Jamaica on board the same vessel which conveyed me thither in 1815, and with the same captain also. When we weighed our anchor at Gravesend, before it could be got on board the cable slipped, and down again went the anchor, carrying along with it one of the men who happened to be standing upon it at the moment, and who in conse- quence went plump to the bottom. Luckily the fellow could swim ; so in a few minutes he was on board again, and no harm done. W did not reach the Downs till Sunday the 9th, after experiencing in our passage a severe gale of wind, which broke the bowsprit of a vessel in our sight, but did us no mischief. On arriving in the Downs we found all the flags flying halfmast high, which is a signal of mourning; and we learnt that in a few hours after giving birth to a still-born son, the Princess Charlotte

  of Wales had expired at half-past two on Thursday morning.

  NOVEMBER 21.

  We left the Downs on the 19th ; the weather was fine, but the wind so perverse, that we did not arrive in sight of Ports- mouth till this evening.

  NOVEMBER 22.

  This morning we quitted Portsmouth, and this evening we returned to it. The needle rocks were already in sight when the wind failed competely. There was no getting through the passage, and the dread of a gale would not admit of our remaining in so dangerous a roadstead. So we had nothing for it but to " return to the place whence we came." We are now anchored upon the Motherbank, about two miles from Ryde.

  DECEMBER 24. (Wednesday.)

  I had often heard talk of " a hell upon earth," and now I have a perfect idea of " a hell upon water." It must be precisely our vessel during the last three weeks. On the 3rd we left the Motherbank, and on the 4th we passed Plymouth, and were actually in sight of the Lizard point,, when the wind suddenly became completely foul, and drove us back into the Channel. It continued to strengthen, and by the time that night arrived, we had a violent gale, which blew incessantly till the middle of Sunday, the 7th, when we were glad to find ourselves once more in sight of Plymoutb, and took advantage of a temporary abatement of the wind to seek refuge in the Sound. Here, however, we soon found that we had but little reason to rejoice at the change of our situation. The Sound was already crowded with vessels of all descriptions; and as we arrived so late, the only mooring still unoccupied placed us so near the rocks on one side, and another vessel astern, that the captain confessed that he should feet considerable anxiety if the gale should return with its former violence. So of course, about eleven at night, the gale did return; not, indeed, with its former violence, but increased tenfold ; and once we were in very imminent danger from our ship's swinging round by a sudden squall, and narrowly escaping coming in contact with the ship astern, which bad not, it seems, allowed itself sufficient cable. Luckily we just missed her ; and our cables (for both our anchors were down) being new and good, we rode out the storm without driving or meeting with any accident whatever. The next day was squally ; and in spite of the Breakwater, the rocking of the ship from the violent agitation of the waves by the l
ate stormy weather was almost insup- portable. However, on the 9th the wind took a more favourable turn, though in so slight a degree that the pilot expressed great doubts whether it would last long enough to do us any service. But the captain felt his situation in Plymouth Sound do uneasy, that he resolved at least to make the attempt, and so we crept once more into the Channel. In a few hours the breeze strengthened ; about midnight we passed the lights upon the Lizard, and the next morning England was at length out of sight. This cessation of ill-luck proved to be only " reculer pour mieux sauter ." The gale, it seems, had only stopped to take a breath : about four in the afternoon of Wednesday the wind began to rise again ; and from that time till the middle of the 23rd it blew a complete storm day and night, with only an occasional intermission of two or three hours at a time. Every one in the ship declared that they had never before experienced so obstinate a persecution of severe weather : every rag of sail eas obliged to be taken down ; the sea was blown up into mountains, and poured itslef over the deck repeatedly. The noise was dreadful ; and as it lasted incessantly, to sleep was impossible ; and I passed ten nights, one after another, without closing my eyes ; so that the pain in the nerves of them at length became almost intolerable, and I began to be seriously afraid of going blind. In truth, the captain could not well have pitched upon a set of passenger worse calculated to undergo the trial of a passage so rough. As for myslef, the my brain is so weak, that the continuation of any violent noise makes me absolutley lightheaded ; and a pop-guun going off suddenly is quite sufficient at any time to set every nerve shaking, from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot. The we had a young lady who was ready to die of sea-sickness, and an old one who was a lillte better through fright ; and I had an Italian servant who was as sick as the young lady, and as much frightenend as the old one. The poor fellow had never been really out at sea before ; and with every crack whcich the vessel gave, he thought that to be sure she was splitting right in half. The sailors too were quite knocked up from the unremitting fatigue to which they were subjected by the continuance of this dreadful weather. Several of them were ill ; and one poor fellow actually died and wsa committed to the ocean. Tyo make matters still worse, during the first week the wind was as fould as it could blow ; and we did nothing but run backwards and forwards, without advancing a step towards our object ; till at length every particle of my very small stock of patience eas exhausted, and I could no longer resist suggesting out return to port, rather than continue buffeting about in the chops of the Channel, so much to the damage of the ship and all contained in her. A change of wind, however, gave a complete answer to this proposal. On Thursday it became favourable as to the prosecution of our voyage, but its fury continued unabated till the evening of the 23rd. It then gradually died away, and left us becalmed before the island of Madeira, where we are now rolling backwards and forwards in sight of its capital, Funchal, on the 24th of December, being seven weary weeks since our departure from Gravesend. The evenin, sun is now very brilliant, and shines full upon the island, the rocks of which are finely broken. The height of the mountains cause their tops to be lost in the clouds ; the sides are covered with plantations of vines and forests of cedars; and the white edifices of Funchal,it built upon the very edge of the shore, have a very picturesque appearance. We are now riding between the island and an iso- . lated group of inaccessible rocks called " the Deserters;" and, the effect of the scene altogether is beautiful in the extreme.