The Ghost Apple

by Aaron Thier

  One thing I ought not to omit which is very remarkable viz that one morning I saw a Carwak man who keep’d as a pet to a Silver Chain one monkie, which was a most noble and dignified Creatur, like to a Judge in manners, except that he was as great a Toaper as the Carwak Indian himself, who is the greatest toaper of all the species of Man, drinking of the Kildevil as he dos from morning til night. I have never seen a monkie so drunken as this one upon Saint Reynard.

  Sleeping in the Carrbet, which is the Carwak Hutt, & lieying about all Day, & finding my needs all provided for by the Grayshus Indian, I now descended in a Vortex of Dissipation, being nearlie as full of Despaire as the Carwak, for I knew not how to get off the iland, and lament’d my verry distress’d Situation. Yet all in all I was us’d well, and found each day many several ways I mite beguile the tyme, so that I was happie indeede, in spite of my despayr.

  One evening tho the Muskitos be inconceivable numerous we went down to the See, which in the darkness flickers with a thousand lites, and there I fell to talking with a young sailor / Copplestone was his name, / and recalling with him Merrie Englande. Soon we were joyned by a marine Bamfield was his name and all together with the Carwak we empty’d a dozen Calabashes of the Kildevil & weep’d such teares as evidently weaken’d poor Copplestone beyond hope of recoverie, for he now had a verry stiff way of walking, as I notic’d /, like a Gouty Puritan /, & this I took to be an Evil Omen, for so it was, and the next moment he was lying upon his face in the sand, dead. Yet here I tolde myself, & determin’d, that I would Forcibly keep my spirits from sinking, by Laughing, and Singing, while all my companions were dying around me.

  So I now joyned Bamfield, and some of the Carwak girlles, who stood upon the shoare looking out to See. Bamfield offer’d them the Calabash, thinking they must refuse, for onlie the Carwak men, by custome, are permitted to drink of spirituous liquors, & yet they took it from him and eatch drank, for the Carwak live in dailie expectation of the World’s End, and none of them now carres for what in older dayes was the custom among them. I will not omit another observashun I made upon Carwak girls viz. that many of them are marvelously possessed of that anterior extuberance which is so wanting in the Lacker-fac’d Creolans I had known elsewhere in the ilands.

  Thus we disported ourselves all that night with these 3 girlles and I in particklar with one lovely Girl Yarico /, for such was her name, and this indeede was my first meeting with Yarico my true hart’s love / and verily it was as debauched a tyme as we had yet had in the iland, tho I must draw a Sable curtain over it.

  Next morning Bamfield was gone without any conjecture could be formed what was come of him. Yet soon I found him in a grove of Coco-trees where he lay upon his face in the sand, & when I levered him to his backe I saw a Horrible Thing, namely, that his skin was stretched tight as a jacket to a Dutch-man, & he had been absolutely castrated by the Land Crabs, but of course this Misfortune would not trouble him now, for he was dead. There being nothing more I could do for him, I now went for my Breakfast of Maize or Indian Wheat, which Yarico cook’d for me over the smoak of a swinging fire, the grain being of a shining yellow or orange, as large as Marrow Peas, and also theyr was fishe of a lubricative texture. This ended our gratest Revel, and heare I put an end to the Chapter.

  CHAPTER 8th

  Life Among the Carwak ~ The Ghost Appel ~ Their Method of Extract’ng Sap ~ Desire to Make an Ende ~ Pennington or Codrington ~ Diseases Peculiar to the Climate ~ These Wonderfull People the Carwak

  Now I lived as the Carwak did, for eatch morning I bayth’d in the See, after which I sat to drie upon a log, & breakfast’d upon Cassavie, Indian Wheat, or it may be crabbes, and some tymes I shared this fud with the Macaws, which are a kind of Tropickal Crow. Then a girl often Yarico my love paynted me all over with a dark paynt, after the fashun of the Carwak /, and I hope the reader will forgive me that I did not speake of this custome before now, for it is a verry conspicuous circumstance, and not onlie protects against Insects, but preserves the skinne against the Sunne / and when this was compleated my next care was to walk about the Iland.

  Now I must tell of a Singular Item which I knew upon the Iland, & that was the subtile liquor or as they say Medisin which is made from the Ghost Apple Tree, call’d also the Carwak Apple Tree. This tree is very like to the Mantionell, yet is not half so poyson, tho if the sap fly into the eyes as it is said it makes a man to be stone blinde for a month. Its frutes are round and greene, in bignesse very much like the Crab Appel of the old Continent, and yet in theyr vertues not so, for the Carwak make a drinke from it which is most Miraclous. How it is made, is this, viz. that the fruit, leaves, & it may be some small twigs or flours, are pounded till soft, then pressd in a wooden vessel below which is a kind of bucket, into which it dreeps, and heare the Sap is collect’d. Then it is boyld for some tyme, this being essenshal to destroye the poison which is in the Sap, for I have eaten of the frute which I pluck’d fresh from the tree, and, first, it is by nature so Restringent that it drew my mouth up like a Hen’s fundament, and, two, that it verily swept my Guts clean, from which circumstances I conclude that boyling is essenshial.

  The Carwak have a grate Reverence for this drink of the Ghost Appel Tree, which they make in tyme of Seekness, or else when some one among them has died, but at other tymes they touch it not, for it is a Slow Pernicious Poyson & may not be consum’d but once in a fortnight. However, the circumstances being that the Carwak, not long after we came to the iland, grew seek them selves with the dreadfull Bloody Flux, this was when I observ’d them preparing the Sap. I must not omit to menshun that the Ghost Appel is also used for many other purposes, viz to whit’n the teethe, and extirminate the Okoba, whitch is an insecte which infests the Cassavie.

  The Chief, who alone of the Carwak spoake Englishe, tho others made them Selves understood wel enough, gave us the juice in a calabash dipper, and we dranke. Tho I had been sicklie all that day, yet this drinke frighted away the ague & now I was as if strucke by a Thunder Bolt, the drink being so verry powerfull. Trulie my hed swam with lite, from which I conclude that with-in the sap is that verry substance which, in the darkness, causes the See to glowe with lite, many of these trees being plant’d on the beech, and the sap falling in the water.

  This drinke had produs’d such an effect in me, that, I thought it would be meet to drowne my Self in the See, yet at this tyme I had grate difficultie in moving forward, as I want’d to do. Yet the sap or juice, tho it gave me feet of clay, and so too a Desire to make an ende, had here a quite diffrent effect on others of our number, who were now dwindl’d, I think, to 5 men. There was one Sailor, Pennington I think was his name, or Codrington, that was in a Hectick Feavor, and drinkeing of the juice he would not leave off talking:

  Now Rain / , said he / and other phenomena of which the Atmosphere is theatre, does owe its geniture, as the Ringworm does, Sir, which being an afflictshun consisting in scarllet patches upon the Under Parts, & at the same tyme gloweing with a Scrufulous Halo, dryves a man nearlly mad with the iytching, yet as I said Rain, my Friend, and Ringworm, tho I sense it will be difficult to obtane belief of this, both phenomena, &c. &c.

  Poor Pennington, or Codrington. Perhaps even then he felt the approach of Death, by the lowness of his Spirits, or the want of Bodily Vigour, for I, tho nearlie blinde, could see it writt’n in his face. Perhaps also he thot to frustrate God’s intension by draweing out his speach thus, and ne’er coming to the poynt.

  I was muche distract’d now by two things, namely vomiting, for I was sicke, and, second, I had a grate desire to open a Coco-nut, of which the eatable part is secured within so strong a Magazeen that I could not, for all that I tryd each day, make a passage to the kernel. Yet now I thought I mite have recourse to a stratagem, viz. that I would go to a hill I knew, and from there jump into the See, clutching the Coco-nut, & would lande among the rocks belowe with my full weight an emasiated 9 stone upon the Coco-nut, and there burst it open. This wood have the double effect of ending my
Life, which was all to the gud, and much desir’d, for this Frute the Ghost Appel does produce such a powerfull inclination to take one’s Self off to Heaven, or to Hell.

  Pennington, or Codrington, now having left off talking, he propos’d we drink to the healths of those our friends in the old Continent, and so we did, each of us emptying a calabash, so that I quite forgott my desire to open the Coco-nut, and instead I was driv’n nearlie Madd, and wish’d very much to see my lovely Yarico. And as Pennington, or Codrington, was now suddenlie quite dead at my feete, there for I went off in search of her, intending to make her my Wife.

  It was quite darke, & all alone in the nite I went downe to the See, where I could here voices, and singing, for indeede it was a lovely Musick. The Carwak some of them were sitting upon the sand, tho the sand flees which are there did not molest them on the account of the painte with whiche they cover’d themselves, as I have said. I watch’d threw the Coco trees, and wen I came among them they did not remark me, but only gave me to drink some Perino, so that it struck me, that, in all truthe I loved these people the Carwak, for there too was Yarico, and she smyled at me.

  From

  The Tripoli College Natural Sciences Newsletter (Approved Content)

  March 2010

  Findings: Mosquito Masterminds

  Professor Jana Brewster has just published a paper that may prove shocking to anyone who cherishes a sense of human exceptionalism. It details unequivocal evidence for intelligent community organization and sophisticated group decision-making in mosquitoes, focusing primarily on their use of malaria as a way of controlling the size and geographical distribution of human populations.

  Malaria is a disease of the Old World tropics, and its importance in the New World—particularly its influence on the development of New World plantation slavery—has only recently been acknowledged by historians of the colonial period. Once it was established in the Americas, it wreaked havoc on both indigenous and white European populations, and the labor vacuum thus created in malaria zones was what motivated some colonists to begin importing enslaved Africans. Not only were slaves easier to replace, according to the cynical logic of early slaveholders, but people from West and Central Africa were much more likely to have some resistance to certain forms of the disease. Although early colonists did not understand the biological mechanism, the results were obvious: Planters with African slaves ended up with a larger and more vigorous workforce than planters who employed European laborers.

  Physicians have known for more than a hundred years that malaria is a vector-borne disease spread by infected mosquitoes. Until now, however, those mosquitoes have been dismissed as little more than passive transport for the malarial plasmodium—in effect, a feature of the climate. But this summer, while doing research for an unrelated project, Professor Brewster made a shocking discovery. She learned that Anopheles quadrimaculatus, the species of mosquito that serves as North America’s main malaria vector, can’t be found in most northern states. The effective limit of its range is, incredibly, the Mason-Dixon Line.

  “South of the line,” Professor Brewster says, “we used to see malaria and thus we saw plantation slavery as well. North of the line, there were essentially no infected mosquitoes, no malaria, and therefore no plantation slavery. What this means is that anopheline mosquitoes must have understood and respected this artificial human boundary.”

  Mosquitoes, she argues, must have decided as a group to confine themselves to the Southern states, which means that they were complicit in the creation of a Southern plantation society.

  But the reality may be even more extraordinary. If mosquitoes were capable of recognizing human political boundaries, might they also have been capable of helping to establish such boundaries and thus to engineer that plantation society? They had much to gain by doing so: Unprotected, closely quartered slave populations provide a reliable source of blood meals for female mosquitoes. Since females require mammalian blood for egg production, they would have had an interest in maintaining and reinforcing the slavery system. Professor Brewster has postulated that they “managed their human herds as we might manage our cows and sheep,” probably in order to keep slave plantations close to favored breeding sites.

  This also means that the insect was instrumental in creating a situation that led to civil war. It is therefore reasonable to ask whether mosquitoes consciously brought about that conflict as well, just as they may have helped to create plantation society in the first place. Mosquitoes thrive in wartime for the same reasons they thrive on slave plantations. Large groups of people with inadequate clothing and little or no shelter provide a veritable buffet. Additionally, the deformation of the landscape tends to produce depressions that collect rainwater and provide breeding sites free of the fish and other predators that typically threaten mosquito larvae.

  “I’ve always had a horror of bugs,” Professor Brewster says. “This just makes it worse.”

  In the last hundred years, humans have developed many effective methods of mosquito control, but this doesn’t mean that these insects no longer pose a threat. Malaria is still hyper-endemic in equatorial sub-Saharan Africa, and there is no reason to imagine that we here in North America will be safe forever.

  “They’re cooking up something dreadful,” Professor Brewster says. “They’re just waiting for their moment.”

  An Open Letter from

  the Antillia Liberation Army March 16, 2010

  to

  the people of St. Renard

  Brothers and Sisters:

  The philosopher Hegel, who was himself no friend to the enslaved Africans of his day, nevertheless provides us with these words:

  “Even if I am born a slave, and nourished and raised by a master, and if my parents and forefathers were all slaves, still I am free in the moment that I will it, when I become conscious of my freedom.”

  We have willed it. We are free. But our protests have fallen on deaf ears. We know now that Big Anna and the United States will fight to keep us marginalized, dispossessed, disenfranchised.

  The great Toussaint-Louverture wrote these words during the Haitian revolution, and we make them our own:

  We have no other resource than destruction and flames. The soil bathed with our sweat shall not provide our enemies with the smallest aliment. We will tear up the roads with shot, we will throw corpses into all the fountains, we will burn and annihilate everything in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of that hell which they deserve.

  Commandant Kabaka, the Antillia Liberation Army

  From

  SLAVERY IN THE WEST INDIES

  or

  A Description of One Semester Spent in Tripoli’s Field Studies Program in Tropical Agriculture, etc.

  PART TWO

  Though I had all but given up hope of rescue, yet as soon as Mr. Monthan had delivered his news, namely that the maroons were on the plantation, and that they were burning the cane fields, I was certain that Professor Kabaka had come to set me at liberty.

  But I was not yet a free woman. Indeed, I had a terrible fear that I was now in greater danger than I had ever been, for I did not know what fresh evil my tormentors might conceive, or how carelessly they might discard my life, now that their own lives were in jeopardy.

  After Mr. Monthan had gone, someone picked me up by the hair and stood me next to Mr. Cavendish, who, though he looked as if he had just been startled from a lewd dream, grabbed hold of my arm and said nothing. It was the consummation of a fear that had pursued him, for all I knew, as long as he had been in the island, but now that his fear had become a reality, he was the very picture of self-control. Mr. Drax and the others went into the field office in order to arm themselves, and Mr. Cavendish began to walk in the direction of the longhouse, dragging me along beside him. At every moment I expected him to strike me or sink a knife into my back, or else throw me down and do what he had long been threatening to do.

  Soon we came
to the yard of packed earth where the other students had been cooking their evening meal, and we found them very much agitated by the shouting and the smoke, for they had not yet learned the reason for these alarms. Here, still holding my arm in his moist but irresistible grip, Mr. Cavendish seemed to become quite cheerful, and he commenced a species of oration on the subject of globalization, which he held to be a great good, though inevitably, as he said, there were disagreements such as that which was now being adjudicated in the fields. As he spoke, I felt one of his red eyes upon me, goggling, as it did, apparently free of regard for its fellow, in his large and misshapen head. Later I came to believe that he had gone quite mad, for he seemed perfectly insensible to the disaster that was unfolding around him, and of which the other students were just now becoming aware. He insisted once again, as he had so many times, that he could not trust the local labor force, for though they were “tinctured with the language and outward bearing of piety,” yet they remained capable of anything. Indeed, he said, if they purported to love the Bible, they loved it only “as a Roman Catholic girl loves the doll of a Madonna, which she dresses with muslin and ribbons.

  “And yet what shall I do? Shall I set them at liberty? As two-thirds of them have been born upon the plantation, and many of them are lame, dropsical, and of a great age, to do so would, of all misfortunes that could happen to them, be the most cruel.”

  We listened with a kind of awe to these absurdities. The infernal glow of the burning cane was now visible in the sky, and this in addition to the great quantity of sweet smoke, which had a very distinct smell, like burnt caramel, gave the night the appearance of a region of Hell.