Jamaica as it is, 1903

by B. Pullen-Burry

I was driving one day in Kingston, when my coachman turned a sharp corner at a furious rate. In so doing, a woman was nearly run over. “Out of de way, my lub, for God’s sake!” exclaimed he, not attempting to slacken his horse’s pace.

There were other passengers whose eccentricities afforded the passengers of the Port Antonio some amusement and much subject-matter for conversation. We had the Governor of Jamaica and, according to the London newspapers, “suite” on board. In what the “suite” consisted, I am still at a loss to divine. They were the last to come on board at Avonmouth Dock, and as the rest of us who had come by an earlier train watched the small steamer, which brought them alongside the Port Antonio, plunging and rolling in the heavy seas which even then were racing up the Bristol Channel, we congratulated ourselves that we had walked straight on to the vessel from the quay an hour before. When their Excellencies “and suite” came on board, the ship was standing out some distance from the shore. I counted five adults, three babies, and three women-servants. The party consisted of Sir Augustus and Lady Hemming, their secretary, a married daughter with her husband, a coffee planter in Jamaica, three small children belonging to the latter, two nurses and a maid.

The present Governor of Jamaica was formerly a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In 1884 he was sent as a delegate to the West African Conference at Berlin, and later, on special service to Paris in 1890, in connection with the delimitation of French and English possessions on the west coast of Africa. He became the Governor of British Guiana, 1896, and succeeded Sir Henry Norman as Governor of Jamaica in 1898. The term of office is for five years, and this is consequently his last year in Jamaica, unless a special application is made for an extension; but one can scarcely imagine that that will be the case with Sir Augustus and Lady Hemming. Not but what it is conceded on all hands that His Excellency is a most amiable man; if not brilliant, at least he has shown conspicuous talent in the fiscal department. Owing to his clever financial administration, the island budget for the first time this year shows a surplus, although the best that can be said of the condition of Jamaica is that which Mr Chamberlain declared in the House of Commons, to the effect that up to the present the local government had been able to do little more than bring about an equipoise between revenue and expenditure.

The social relations between the chief people in the island and the reigning lady at the gubernatorial residence did not strike me as being particularly happy or satisfactory. One felt sorry that striving colonists such as the Jamaicans should lack that sympathy and consideration which, whether they be white or coloured, they certainly have a right to expect from the wives of those officials who govern them in the King’s name, and who are paid very handsomely out of the island revenues for doing so.

An elderly lady who was present at a ball given last month at King’s House, which is situated in lovely grounds about three miles out of Kingston, remarked to me that it was unlike entertainments of the kind given in times past, in that it lacked “grace, dignity, and refinement.” I was sorry to miss this ball, but, being absent amongst the Windward Islands at the time it took place, I returned to find my invitation awaiting me at my hotel.

CHAPTER V

LAND SWALLOWS—TURKS ISLANDS—AN EARTHQUAKE SHOCK—CONSTANT SPRING HOTEL

We had delightful weather some days before our arrival at Kingston; the sunsets were magnificent, the beautiful colouring of the after-glow I shall never forget. I remember two nights before the end of our journey going to the forecastle of the ship to watch the fantastic shapes of the clouds on the southern horizon, intersected as the dark masses were with the most wonderful opalesque lines of pale green, blue, and yellow, the latter shading into deepest orange. In front of us was flying a little land swallow, heralding the approach of land. As Christopher Columbus neared the scene of his wonderful discoveries, he speaks of the little winged messenger of hope which, flying on ahead of his ship, warned his brave sailors of the approach of terra firma.

It was no less a world-explorer than the above who discovered Jamaica the 3rd of May, 1494. It was during his second voyage to the New World, and the Spaniards kept it till 1655, when it was surrendered to an English force. Oliver Cromwell, whose policy was that of to have and to hold, sent out a Commissioner to conduct the Civil Government, also 1000 troops. These were followed shortly after by 1500 settlers from Nevis, Bermuda, New England, and Barbadoes, and 1000 Irishmen, with as many young women. Ten years later the foundation of Jamaica’s wealth as a sugar-growing country was laid by the immigration into it of over 1000 inhabitants of Surinam, which had been given to the Dutch in exchange for New York, then known as New Amsterdam; these people industriously engaged in planting sugar in the western parts of the island where the country is flat. For many years nothing more momentous than occasional depredations of a piratical nature, or attacks from French cruisers, occurred to disturb the progress of this industry.