The West Indies and the Spanish Main. Anthony Trollope

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СКАЧАТЬ a walk. Now to me there is no pace on horseback so wearying as an unbroken walk. I did goad my horse into trotting, but it was clear that the animal was not used to it.

      Shortly afterwards I went to the west. The distances here were longer, but the journey was made on wheels, and was not so fatiguing. Moreover, I stayed some little time with a friend in one of the distant parishes of the island. The scenery during the whole expedition was very grand. The road goes through Spanish Town, and then divides itself, one road going westward by the northern coast, and the other by that to the south. I went by the former, and began my journey by the bog or bogue walk, a road through a magnificent ravine, and then over Mount Diabolo. The Devil assumes to himself all the finest scenery in all countries. Of a delicious mountain tarn he makes his punch-bowl; he loves to leap from crag to crag over the wildest ravines; he builds picturesque bridges in most impassable sites; and makes roads over mountains at gradients not to be attempted by the wildest engineer. The road over Mount Diabolo is very fine, and the view back to Kingston very grand.

      From thence I went down into the parish of St. Anns, on the northern side. They all speak of St. Anns as being the most fertile district in the island. The inhabitants are addicted to grazing rather than sugarmaking, and thrive in that pursuit very well. But all Jamaica is suited for a grazing-ground, and all the West Indies should be the market for their cattle.

      On the northern coast there are two towns, Falmouth and Montego Bay, both of which are, at any rate in appearance, more prosperous than Kingston. I cannot say that the streets are alive with trade; but they do not appear to be so neglected, desolate, and wretched as the metropolis or the seat of government. They have jails and hospitals, mayors and magistrates, and are, except in atmosphere, very like small country towns in England.

      The two furthermost parishes of Jamaica are Hanover and Westmoreland, and I stayed for a short time with a gentleman who lives on the borders of the two. I certainly was never in a more lovely country. He was a sugar planter; but the canes and sugar, which, after all, are ugly and by no means savoury appurtenances, were located somewhere out of sight. As far as I myself might know, from what I saw, my host's ordinary occupations were exactly those of a country gentleman in England. He fished and shot, and looked after his estate, and acted as a magistrate; and over and above this, was somewhat particular about his dinner, and the ornamentation of the land immediately round his house. I do not know that Fate can give a man a pleasanter life. If, however, he did at unseen moments inspect his cane-holes, and employ himself among the sugar hogsheads and rum puncheons, it must be acknowledged that he had a serious drawback on his happiness.

      Country life in Jamaica certainly has its attractions. The day is generally begun at six o'clock, when a cup of coffee is brought in by a sable minister. I believe it is customary to take this in bed, or rather on the bed; for in Jamaica one's connection with one's bed does not amount to getting into it. One gets within the musquito net, and then plunges about with a loose sheet, which is sometimes on and sometimes off. With the cup of coffee comes a small modicum of dry toast.

      After that the toilet progresses, not at a rapid pace. A tub of cold water and dilettante dressing will do something more than kill an hour, so that it is half-past seven or eight before one leaves one's room. When one first arrives in the West Indies, one hears much of early morning exercise, especially for ladies; and for ladies, early morning exercise is the only exercise possible. But it appeared to me that I heard more of it than I saw. And even as regards early travelling, the eager promise was generally broken. An assumed start at five a.m. usually meant seven; and one at six, half-past eight. This, however, is the time of day at which the sugar grower is presumed to look at his canes, and the grazier to inspect his kine. At this hour—eight o'clock, that is—the men ride, and sometimes also the ladies. And when the latter ceremony does take place, there is no pleasanter hour in all the four-and-twenty.

      At ten or half-past ten the nation sits down to breakfast; not to a meal, my dear Mrs. Jones, consisting of tea and bread and butter, with two eggs for the master of the family and one for the mistress; but a stout, solid banquet, consisting of fish, beefsteaks—a breakfast is not a breakfast in the West Indies without beefsteaks and onions, nor is a dinner so to be called without bread and cheese and beer—potatoes, yams, plaintains, eggs, and half a dozen "tinned" productions, namely, meats sent from England in tin cases. Though they have every delicacy which the world can give them of native production, all these are as nothing, unless they also have something from England. Then there are tea and chocolate upon the table, and on the sideboard beer and wine, rum and brandy. 'Tis so that they breakfast at rural quarters in Jamaica.

      Then comes the day. Ladies may not subject their fair skin to the outrages of a tropical sun, and therefore, unless on very special occasions, they do not go out between breakfast and dinner. That they occupy themselves well during the while, charity feels convinced. Sarcasm, however, says that they do not sin from over energy. For my own part, I do not care a doit for sarcasm. When their lords reappear, they are always found smiling, well-dressed, and pretty; and then after dinner they have but one sin—there is but one drawback—they will go to bed at 9 o'clock.

      But by the men during the day it did not seem to me that the sun was much regarded, or that it need be much regarded. One cannot and certainly should not walk much; and no one does walk. A horse is there as a matter of course, and one walks upon that; not a great beast sixteen hands high, requiring all manner of levers between its jaws, capricoling and prancing about, and giving a man a deal of work merely to keep his seat and look stately; but a canny little quiet brute, fed chiefly on grass, patient of the sun, and not inclined to be troublesome. With such legs under him, and at a distance of some twenty miles from the coast, a man may get about in Jamaica pretty nearly as well as he can in England.

      I saw various grazing farms—pens they are here called—while I was in this part of the country; and I could not but fancy that grazing should in Jamaica be the natural and most beneficial pursuit of the proprietor, as on the other side of the Atlantic it certainly is in Ireland. I never saw grass to equal the guinea grass in some of the parishes; and at Knockalva I looked at Hereford cattle which I have rarely, if ever, seen beaten at any agricultural show in England. At present the island does not altogether supply itself with meat; but it might do so, and supply, moreover, nearly the whole of the remaining West Indies. Proprietors of land say that the sea transit is too costly. Of course it is at present; the trade not yet existing; for indeed, at present there is no means of such transit. But screw steamers now always appear quickly enough wherever freight offers itself; and if the cattle were there, they would soon find their way down to the Windward Islands.

      But I am running away from my day. The inspection of a pen or two, perhaps occasionally of the sugar works when they are about, soon wears through the hours, and at five preparations commence for the six o'clock dinner. The dressing again is a dilettante process, even for the least dandified of mankind. It is astonishing how much men think, and must think, of their clothes when within the tropics. Dressing is necessarily done slowly, or else one gets heated quicker than one has cooled down. And then one's clothes always want airing, and the supply of clean linen is necessarily copious, or, at any rate, should be so. Let no man think that he can dress for dinner in ten minutes because he is accustomed to do so in England. He cannot brush his hair, or pull on his boots, or fasten his buttons at the same pace he does at home. He dries his face very leisurely, and sits down gravely to rest before he draws on his black pantaloons.

      Dressing for dinner, however, is de rigeur in the West Indies. If a black coat, &c., could be laid aside anywhere as barbaric, and light loose clothing adopted, this should be done here. The soldiers, at least the privates, are already dressed as Zouaves; and children and negroes are hardly dressed at all. But the visitor, victim of tropical fashionable society, must appear in black clothing, because black clothing is the thing in England. "The Governor won't see you in that coat," was said to me once on my way to Spanish Town, "even on a morning." The Governor did see me, and as far as I could observe did not know whether or no I had on any coat. Such, however, is the feeling of the place. But we shall СКАЧАТЬ