CHAPTER XVII
DESCRIPTION OF ROSE HALL—SUGAR—THE EXPENSE OF WORKING AN ESTATE A CENTURY AGO—BANANA CULTIVATION
The mountains round Montego Bay were the scene of a long and unrelenting struggle between the forces of the government and the Maroons. After a prolonged struggle blood-hounds from Cuba were imported to hunt them down. Many ghastly scenes took place in the recesses and defiles amongst the hills.
I had myself a curious experience in the old West Indian-built house of Miss Harrison, which I give for as much as it is worth; the psychologist might be able to interpret it with satisfaction to himself. I was going up to bed on Sunday evening, and I have mentioned before how handsomely the house was internally fitted up with mahogany stairs, flooring and doors, when I distinctly heard the sound of a crack of a whip immediately in my vicinity. I instinctively turned round to see who was coming up behind me, expecting to see a man with a riding-whip in his hand. Needless to say, there was nobody; it was a moonlight night, and the dim glimmer of a paraffin lamp shone across the landing from some half-open door. I had not been thinking or talking of the history of Jamaican families in years past. Instead, I remember feeling irritated at the fulsome boasting of some of the Americans I had just left.
My hostess was anxious that I should drive out to Rose Hall, the home of the Palmers, whose monument I have described. I think a visit to this house, notwithstanding its dilapidated and ruinous state, is useful, in that one can gain an idea of the wealth and luxuriant mode of living of the estate owners in times when sugar fetched any price between £50 and £70 a ton, instead of its present price, which is about £5. These were the days when fine roads were built, handsome houses such as Rose Hall were erected, and lands brought into cultivation. An almost unbroken girdle of sugar-fields encircled the island. When, however, philanthropic effort, headed by Wilberforce, successfully passed the Emancipation Act, which provided that from and after the 1st of August 1834, all slaves in the colonial possessions of Great Britain should be for ever free, with an intermediate state of four and six years, the condition of the sugar-planters was lamentable. They were left with old machinery, scarcity of labour, and poor markets. Indignation was rife, and they threatened to transfer their allegiance to the United States of America. The immediate results of emancipating negroes from slavery has been practically the same everywhere. After the adoption of free trade many of the estates were simply abandoned, or sold for next to nothing. Probably those who could have foreseen how the fruit trade would eventually supersede sugar, would have clung to their lands at all costs.
To give my readers some idea of the interior of a planter’s house in the eighteenth century, I quote from a journal of the Institute of Jamaica a description of the Palmer mansion built for £30,000 in 1760, and richly furnished: “A gap through the boundary wall leads to an avenue of trees, selected for their beauty and fragrance from the endless variety which luxuriates in a southern clime. There may still be seen the cocoa, with its fringy leaves always graceful and always beautiful; the quaint cotton, the king of the forest, from whose huge limbs countless streamers of parasitical plants hang pendent exposed to the breeze; the palm, with its slender speckle of most delicate green; the spreading mahogany, with its small leaves of the deepest dye; and there may be found the ever-bearing orange, with its golden fruit and flowers of rich perfume. Neglect, too, has been here, and the avenue once so trim and neat is now overgrown with weeds and bushes, so much so that the remainder of the ancient wall can scarce now be seen.
“Passing about a half mile through the grove you come suddenly in front of a stately large stone mansion, prettily situated on the top of a gentle slope. The first thing that strikes you is its size and magnitude, the next, the imposing appearance of the flight of steps leading to the main entrance of the mansion. These are 14 feet high, built of large square stone (hewn), and so arranged that the landing-place serves as a portico 20 feet square. A few brass stanchions, curiously wrought and twisted, serve to show what the railing had been, but the few remaining are tarnished with verdigris and broken, bruised and turned in every direction. Magnificent, massive folding-doors of solid mahogany, 4 inches thick, with panels formed by the carver’s chisel in many a scroll and many a device, are upheld by brazen hinges which, fashioned like sea-monsters, seem to bite the posts on which they hang. These doors are in front of the main hall, a room of lofty dimensions and magnificent proportions, 40 feet long, 30 wide, 18 feet high, formed of the same costly materials as the doors, carved in the same manner out of solid planks and fashioned in curious and antique forms, while the top is ornamented with a very deep cornice formed after the arabesque pattern. The floor is of the same highly polished wood. Three portraits in richly carved frames and painted by a master-hand immediately attract attention. One of these portraits represents a hard and stern-featured man clothed in the scarlet and ermine robes of a judge. Another is of a mild, benevolent-looking, gentlemanly person, dressed in the fashion of the olden times with powdered hair, lace cravat, ruffles and silk stockings, buckles, brocaded vest and velvet coat. The third is a female of about six-and-twenty, and, if the painter has not flattered her, she must have been of exquisite beauty.”
Sugar is talked, and has been talked ad nauseam in Jamaica. In one of the leading organs of the Jamaican press I read, in this first week of March 1903, that according to the latest reports from New York the sugar industry is looking up, an appreciable rise in the price of crystals is announced, and this, it is believed, will cause a certain increase in the price of the lower grades of sugar as well. One rejoices to hear that the refiners of sugar in America are beginning to be nervous, lest, in consequence of the coming abolition of the Continental bounty-fed system, the British West Indian sugar should find its way to the markets of the mother-country. There is a special cane called the Muscovados which to the American refineries is indispensable, and which apparently comes in greater bulk from our colonies. In addition, the Brazil crops are not so plentiful as they have been. This being so, there seem to be ample grounds for the hope entertained that the prospects of the sugar industry of this part of the Empire are heightening considerably. Alluding to their hope that in the future there is promise of higher prices generally for cane-sugars, and also to the development and increased outputs of the fruit trade, the writer concludes a most encouraging article with the belief that, all things taken into consideration, Jamaica may be said to be on the eve of a great agricultural and industrial boom.
Now the cultivation of sugar on a large scale implies the circulation of huge sums of money. But those who confidently talk about its revival, and who think that as soon as the bounties are abolished the country will leap back into its former prosperity, forget a very important item on the programme. Certain soils only produce sugar profitably. The area most suitable for the cultivation of cane as a staple article of commerce is a limited one. Westmoreland, Trelawny, and St Thomas, are the parishes where sugar pays for growing because of their proximity to ports. In these days of keen competition, every mile of carriage means so much out of the profits.
I find from a statement supplied by the Merchants’ Exchange that the total export of sugar from 1st April 1902 to 10th January 1903 was 13,468 tons, against 11,523 exported during the same period in the preceding year.
The beautiful and verdant green of the waving cane-fields is one of the most beautiful and characteristic sights of the island; the cane grows from 4 to 7 feet high, occasionally it attains a height of 12 feet. The old mills were worked either by water, wind, or cattle. The machinery used for squeezing the juice out of the sugar-cane consisted of three upright iron-plated rollers, or cylinders, 30 to 40 feet in height. The middle one, to which the moving power was applied, turned the other two by means of cogs. Between these rollers the canes previously cut short were twice compressed. Having passed through the first and second rollers they were turned round the middle one by a circular piece of framework, or screen, called the dumb returner, forced back through the second and third, which squeezed them perfectly dry. The cane-juice was received into a leaden bed, and then conveyed into a vessel called the receiver; the refuse cane-trash was used for fuel to boil the liquor. The juice ordinarily contains eight pints of water, one pint of sugar, one pint of oil and mucilaginous gum, with a portion of essential oil.
OLD-FASHIONED SUGAR MILL.
A mill worked by cattle was considered satisfactory if it passed sufficient canes in an hour to yield from 300 to 350 gallons of juice. As the cane-juice ferments so easily, canes must be ground as soon as they are cut, and great care requires to be exercised in throwing aside those which are tainted.
Bryan Edwards sketches the expenses and profits of a sugar estate in the years 1781 to 1791, and I think it will be interesting to unearth it out of his capacious history, which I confess without reserve to be my happy hunting-ground for reliable information concerning Jamaica’s eventful past.
He divides the necessary outlay under three heads those of (1) Lands; (2) Building; (3) Stock.
| Lands | £14,100 | 0 | 0 |
| Buildings | 7,000 | 0 | 0 |
| Stock | 20,380 | 0 | 0 |
| Total (Jamaica currency) | £41,480 | 0 | 0 |
| (English sterling) | £30,000 | 0 | 0 |
The produce of such a plantation at the London markets, 1781-1791, he reckons thus:—
| Sterling. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 200 hogsheads of sugar | £3,000 | 0 | 0 |
| 130 puncheons of rum | 1,300 | 0 | 0 |
| Gross returns | £4,300 | 0 | 0 |
The net returns, after sundry necessary disbursements, he gives as 7 per cent. on a capital of £30,000.
I was enabled to go over a rum factory, perhaps one of the best known in the island: Appleton rum finds its best market in Jamaica, and is not exported at all. In this case the rum is made from the whole of the cane instead of from the molasses or skimmings of the boiling fluid.
Some of the tourists whom I met had driven from the quaint little town of Falmouth to Montego Bay, a distance of 24 miles along the coast. They were charmed with the beautiful views, especially the grand sunset as they approached Montego Bay; and I do not think I have ever seen more lovely colouring anywhere than here where the exquisitely soft tints seem to melt into each other. The Government is waking up seriously to the fact that the harbour of Falmouth should be improved, and the people of Trelawny have voiced their grievances to some tune since £12,000 are to be spent in deepening the channel.
The Hon. L. C. Shirley, at the last meeting of the Parochial Board, very emphatically urged the need of shipping facilities. He had seen in the days of sugar prosperity five or six barques in the harbour at one time, but, said he, “Sugar and rum being at their lowest ebb, something else must be done. Bananas meant money, but if we have no facilities for shipping what would be the good of planting?”
One of the best authorities in the island on agricultural possibilities and prospects informed me, not long since, that there were old sugar estates to be bought in the neighbourhood of Falmouth for a mere song, which, if purchased now that there is the certainty of improving the harbour, would in a year or so return 100 per cent. if turned into banana plantations. I rather wished I were a man with a capital of £2,000, but when I asked if banana-growing required much experience—
“Yes,” said he, “A young fellow should get on a banana estate for a year at least, before laying out his capital.”
“It is a matter of learning which soil is particularly adapted,” I suggested.
“Not only that,” he rejoined, “but an inexperienced man has no idea how to manage his labourers, and there are always sharks ready to take advantage of his ignorance.”
Which latter I knew to be sapient wisdom, from the unhappy experience of a youthful relative whose gullibility was apparent to an antipodean swindler, with the result that the sorrow-stricken youth learnt wisdom at the expense of a lightened purse.
There is nothing chimerical in the success of the banana trade. America statistically absorbs most of this produce. On all sides we hear of the variety of ways it is useful as an article of diet, whilst its nutritive powers are unquestioned.
America largely buys banana flour. In its unripe stages it is more properly a vegetable. Green bananas mashed and eaten like potatoes form most useful food, whilst ripe bananas, dried and put up in boxes like figs, are both wholesome and satisfying. From the 1st of April 1902 to 10th January 1903, 90,204,597 bunches of bananas were exported from Jamaica.
In the lowlands, where the climate is hot and moist, bananas are at their best. In preparing ground to grow them the land is ploughed with eight or ten oxen, and the plants are put in from 10 to 15 feet apart. The height they attain is a matter of soil and cultivation. At the end of the first year a crop is ready to be gathered. Each plant produces one bunch only. The plants send out suckers from their roots, which are allowed to grow. Thus, when the first plant is cut down as worthless, another is ready to bear; others are in different stages of growth. This goes on for about seven years, when it is needful to plough again and replant the ground in some places, but I have been told of the same banana-trees remaining in bearing thirty and forty years. As the price fluctuates, it has not the element of certainty that coffee has.