SKETCHES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER IN THE WEST

INDIES.

COMMUNICATED TO, AND EDITED BY, LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

CHAPTER VI.

Not far from Hill Side was an extensive estate that had been thrown up by the owners, the expense of cultivation exceeding the value of the produce. The soil was fairly worn out. Beautiful groups of feathery bamboos in clumps covered the once-fertile valleys and hillocks; and in the former, pine-apples grew wild, wherever there had been huts or gardens belonging to the slaves. I could not help reflecting how much better it would have been if the proprietor, finding the land of no further value for agricultural purposes, instead of allowing it to run to waste, had planted mahogany or hard wood, both of which would have prospered without cultivation; the former for exportation, the latter for domestic purposes. Hard wood, too, is indispensably necessary in the sugar mills, for its durable quality. There is good reason for not planting such trees as braziletto, bully trees, or iron wood, in the interior, because the expense of carrying them to a seaport would not give a profitable return when sent to a distant market; but wherever there is a good road near the woods, as in this instance, the speculation must prove advantageous.

Until the population of the island increases, which there is every probability of its now doing, a considerable portion of it must remain uncultivated, from the scarcity of labour to clear the ground; indeed, I believe I am within the mark when I say that more than two-thirds of the whole is unproductive or barren. How to remedy this is a difficulty, for the immigration of labourers and their families is slow, and by no means to be depended on; for those who are to work in the sun must be brought from the shores of Africa.

As slavery is put down, the usual outlets for the vast population of the countries in and about the Niger must necessarily cease altogether; Nature, however, seems to have intended that the various tribes pent up by the desert should emigrate to the west. By good regulations, and by holding out advantageous prospects to the negroes-among others, the certainty of acquiring property, if inclined to work for fair wages-there does not seem much doubt that so desirable an object might be effected; particularly if African emigration be sanctioned by the British Government, and carried on under the superintendence of their agents. It will be many years, however, before the supply of labourers will be adequate to the wants of the planters; I mean a suffi cient supply to keep down the price of all description of out-door work, by fair competition.

We have yet much to learn of the mineral treasures of Jamaica; for it is supposed that the Spaniards worked copper, and even silver mines in the island. Lead has also been found. In the neighbourhood of Hill Side there are many places that lead one to suppose that iron or some other mineral abounded, for the clay is of a deep red colour, varying from chocolate to scarlet, which stains the hand like paint.

We were not much troubled with snakes or other reptiles about the house; but the mosquitoes were only a degree less annoying than on the sea-shore. There were, however, various descriptions of vegetable flies, which can scarcely be distinguished from leaves or little withered branches of trees. They were said to be very numerous on the Dolphin's Head, a high rock that bounded the landscape to the northeast of our residence.

We remained at Hill Side many months previous to the emancipation, which took place before the time originally intended by the British Government. The negroes had been worked upon by designing persons, who led them to believe that the delay in making them free was entirely the work of the proprietors or their agents, in opposition to the wishes of Queen Victoria. This had engendered a bad feeling amongst them, and it was shewn on every occasion. I often talked with some of the better-informed men from the estates in our vicinity, who all acknowledged the correctness of the fact. They seemed suspicious, and fearful that the long-promised boon should be withheld from them altogether; so much so, that many of them purchased their freedom within a short period before the emancipation, and they eagerly asked my opinion on the subject, considering me a disinterested person from having no property in the country

Whenever an apprentice bought his freedom, the price set upon his services depended upon the length of time which yet remained unexpired of his compulsory apprenticeship. That value was settled by the local magistrates; but the owners naturally asked a high price for giving up all claim upon their slaves: when, therefore, they all became entirely free, and the standard price of labour was debated, the negroes referred triumphantly to that circumstance as a proof of its real value, according to the estimate of the planters themselves. The effect of appraisement was, perhaps, the only means of ascertaining the value of a slave ; but it had this bad effect, that the negro was always inclined to appear a worse character than he really was: because if his master represented him as sober, talented, and a good workman, he became infinitely more valuable than if he had been an immoral, idle, or drunken man. In the first case he paid a large sum for the unexpired term of apprenticeship, and in the latter he became free at a comparatively small sacrifice of money. Thus was a premium openly and ostentatiously offered for vice in word and deed.

In different conversations with the negroes I reasoned with them thus I said that the ultimate emancipation was a matter beyond doubt, that the persons who led them to believe the contrary were their worst enemies, who could have no other object but to create dissension between them and their masters to serve their own purposes; that they should not think of asking high wages when the day of freedom came, because the planters were not prepared to state how much they could afford to pay for their labour, nor were they in any way sufficiently well-informed

on the subject to be able to put a price upon it themselves, but that it should be left like all other commodities to find its own level and real value.

I told them that their houses and grounds, on which they set a high value, were bonâ fide the property of the owners of the land, and that if they wished to retain possession of them by force (as was apprehended) they would never be able to accomplish it, when opposed, as they assuredly would be, by the Government; besides, violence would only jeopardize whatever they might have laid by from their own exertions, as acquired rights could never be attacked or annulled with impunity.

I shewed them that their well-being was intimately connected with the flourishing state of the sugar and coffee properties; because the inhabitants of the sea-coast towns depended upon them in a great measure for their existence, so that if the merchants were impoverished they (the negroes) could no longer dispose of their poultry, vegetables, and fruit, for which they had hitherto found a profitable market, and a sure sale during prosperous times.

Whenever I conversed with the apprentices, they always listened to my arguments with the greatest attention, interrupting me occasionally to state their doubts or opinions, and asking for information upon any matter which was new to them. They evinced much shrewdness in their observations, and invariably expressed themselves obliged for the trouble I took to enlighten them as to their true interests; shewing it too by what the late incomparable comedian Liston would have called, "delicate attentions," in bringing me presents of fruit and flowers. It requires a certain degree of tact and knowledge of the negro character to manage them well; for they are very hasty and irascible, and must state all their grievances, which they do in the most voluble manner, gesticulating all the time to add force to their arguments. It used to amuse me very much to see them on the high road, on their way to the town markets, even when quite alone speaking loudly, and arguing over matters which had disturbed their equanimity. The great art is to listen patiently to what they have to say without interrupting them, and when they are tired of talking they come to a full stop from sheer exhaustion; their volubility acting upon their feelings as the safetyvalve does upon a steam-condenser. When in this state they quietly listen to any remarks that may be made to them; and I always found under these circumstances that they were easily led or persuaded.

Being totally unprejudiced myself, I took considerable pains to form a correct estimate of the negro character, feelings, and wants. The result of my observations was often very much opposed to that entertained by the old residents, who were, from position and the force of habit, inclined to consider the black as a being of an inferior order in the scale of creation. To illustrate this, I will quote the observations of the American deputies, the Rev. James Thorne, and J. Kimball, Esq., who visited Jamaica to make the proper investigations.

"During our stay in Kingston we called on the American consul, to whom we had a letter from the consul at Antigua. We found him an elderly gentleman, and a true-hearted Virginian both in his generosity and in his prejudices in favour of slavery. Things (he said) were going ruinously in Jamaica. The English Government were mad for abolishing slavery. The negroes of Jamaica were the most ignorant and

degraded of all negroes he had ever seen. He had travelled in all our southern states, and the American negroes, even those of South Carolina and Georgia, were as much superior to the negroes of Jamaica as Henry Clay was superior to him. He said they were the most ungrateful, faithless set he ever saw; no confidence could be placed in them, and kindness was always requited by insult. He proceeded to relate a fact, from which it appeared that the ground on which his grave charges against the negro character rested was the ill-conduct of one negro woman whom he had hired some time ago to assist his family. The town negroes (he said) were too lazy to work; they loitered and lounged about on the side-walks all day, jabbering with one another, and keeping up an incessant noise; and they would not suffer a white man to order them in the least. They were rearing their children in perfect idleness; and for his part he could not tell what would become of the rising population of blacks. Their parents were too proud to work, and they sent them to school all the time.

"Every afternoon (he said) the streets were crowded with half-naked little black devils, just broke from the schools, and all singing some noisy tune learned in the infant schools. The burthen of their songs seems to be, 'Oh, that will be joyful!' These words (said he) are ringing in your ears wherever you go. How aggravating, truly, such words must be, bursting cheerily from the lips of the little free songsters! Oh, that will be joyful! joyful! joyful!' and so they ring the changes day after day, ceaseless and untiring. A new song this, well befitting the times and the prospects; but provoking enough to oppressors. The consul denounced the special magistrates: they were an insolent set of fellows; they would fine a white man as quick as they would flog a nigger.'

"If a master called his apprentice You scoundrel!' or 'You huzzy!' the magistrate would either fine him for it, or reprove him sharply in the presence of the apprentice. This, in the eyes of the veteran Virginian, was intolerable: outrageous, not to allow a gentleman to call his servant what name he chooses! We were very much edified by the colonel's exposé of Jamaica manners. We must say, however, that his opinions had much less weight with us after we learned (as we did from the best authority) that he had never been a half-dozen miles into the country during a ten years' residence in Kingston."

Like the worthy American consul were many of the residents of towns, whose occupations and habits of life ill fitted them to form a just estimate of the negro character; and unfortunately the principal sources. of information in such matters, as far as the public is concerned, have been merchants or townspeople, the planters and overseers having plenty of occupation in looking after the estates, and little time to attend to foreign correspondence.

TURF TALK.

BY ZINGANEE.

66

I was not exactly weary of town-devoured with spleen," but still it goes hard with me if I am away from the sight of a thorough-bred for a month, and Tattersalls' at this dull wintry season can make no atonement for it. Hence, as I had long wished to have a look at the Hampton Court paddocks, so rich with reminiscences of Acteon, The Colonel, Fleur de Lis, and the hosts of "terrible high-bred cattle," which have lent a passing, and now a paying, lustre to them in their day, I at last jumped into the South-Western Railway, and sped to take my pleasure with the shade of Cardinal Wolsey. A pointer was standing stark and rigid in some turnips near Wimbledon; but his owner seemed to be no cockney, and had no notion of carrying him home under the idea that he was in a fit. That was all the glimpse of field-sporting I had A.D. 1855.

The paddocks seem to stretch nearly a mile from Mr. Ransome's house to a church in the distance, and are the most complete things I have seen. About four mares are in each, and the foals are quartered in them by twos. In the first we entered were two Orlandoes, but bearing so strong a likeness to Bay Middletons, that it was difficult to believe that the old "Jersey Bay" had not had a hand in them. There was one neat little thing, out of an Arab hackney, or something of the sort, which is destined for the royal children; and a very fine Cowl, who indulged with its chesnut companion in a series of frantic gallops. A brace of them impressed themselves on me in the next paddock; one from the absurd plain lop-eared resemblance it bore to its grandsire Melbourne about the head, and the other, which was out of Lady Strut, by its fine stout limbs. At present an own sister to the filly by Orlando out of Eulogy, who brought the top price (480 gs.) at their last Royal sale, promises very well; and I strongly admire her fine lengthy racing cut. There was another chesnut, with more white on its nose and fore legs than I almost ever remember seeing; and a chesnut with a small neat head, wonderfully like Sittingbourne's. Valentine's Orlando foal looked only weakly; and the old mare, even with Wingenund at her foot and Whaw-hoop in her womb, was a dear £600 purchase to Mr. Payne in 1849. There was one also with rather a Farthingale back; and Yellow Jack's half-sister by Alarm seems quite wasted, and hardly likely to make any price. Still, although there were rather too many fillies, there are ten or eleven very promising things. Two which stood together in a box were the exact antithesis of each other. The one out of Equation was the image of Exact, high on the leg, and looked as if she could live for a mile with the ghost of old Vulture; while the other, out of Manacle, was the beau-ideal of a cut-and-come-again compact little English colt, just what I could have fancied his half-brother