Jamaica as it is, 1903

by B. Pullen-Burry

I longed to set eyes on the volcanoes. Mont Pelée was said to be continually throwing up huge masses of incandescent lava, which, constantly rolling down her smoking sides, was altering her geographical shape, and choking up a contiguous river-bed.

The French Government had prohibited any landing at St Pierre, but a scientific expedition under Professor La Croix had the pluck to live in a temporarily constructed observatory at the base of the mountain; always, I learnt afterwards, in readiness to fly at the approach of danger. The undermining of the cone going on within the crater threatened further eruption, ashes ejected having a temperature of 100° Centigrade, after a week’s cooling. Eyewitnesses gave graphic descriptions of the abomination of desolation which La Soufrière had worked upon the fertile districts of the north part of St. Vincent as we sat in the spacious central hall of Constant Spring Hotel, whilst estate-owners of Jamaica indulged in jeremiads over the financial depression reigning here. They pointed in envy to the flourishing condition of the little island of Dominica, where it is apparent that a West Indian colony can get along without sugar. It was inspiriting to read how that beautiful and well-favoured possession of the Crown was forging ahead, in spite of the Royal Mail Steamship Company’s prohibitive freight charges, and the Sugar Bounties. Apparently people with moderate capital have been attracted there sufficiently to purchase Crown lands. This is exactly what Jamaica needs. The cry here for central sugar factories and new-fashioned plant instead of obsolete machinery is a loud cry, but that for capital and new blood is still louder. In Dominica men have had sufficient means to sit down quietly between the planting of their cocoa trees and its yielding remunerating returns, a matter of from five to six years.

One Jamaican paper says of this island: “Its happy condition is enough to make a Jamaican gasp with envy. The revenue in 1901 amounted nearly to £30,000, the highest ever realised in the island. There was no increase of taxation, the improvement being entirely due to the development of trade, and the increased purchasing power of the people. Although considerable sums were spent in the reconstruction and improvement of roads, and in other public works, the year closed with an accumulated surplus of nearly £6000. Of this amount £4000 have been invested as a reserve fund. Think of Jamaica with a reserve fund! How does Dominica manage it? So far as we can see, it has ceased to cultivate sugar. During the last decade it has cultivated cocoa, and produced lime-juice and its bye-products. The value of its cocoa exports has risen from £7000 to £24,000, while the shipment of lime-juice in 1901 was valued locally at £35,000. It has also gone in for rubber, vanilla, oranges, and other minor products.”

People who are to be believed tell me that the percentage of juice extracted from the cane is 50 per cent. below that attainable with modern machinery in many parts of the West Indies. It is obvious that until up-to-date appliances are substituted for the crude and obsolete methods of manufacture, the sugar industry has no prosperous outlook before it, nor can it hope to compete with beet sugar.

My intention to visit these islands soon shaped itself. I found a couple of fellow-passengers were going up to St Thomas in the Danish West Indies by the Royal Mail steamships, this being their coaling and repairing station, in reality the ultima thule of their inter-colonial voyages in these parts.

I arranged, therefore, to leave in a week’s time on the s.s. Para. In the meantime, I hoped to see something of the country round Kingston, leaving the rest of the island to be visited at the end of December.

The intervening days passed away very pleasantly at Constant Spring Hotel. There was a dance on the Monday evening; in fact, all through the winter season there is a weekly gathering of this description. Officers from the camp, and the principal residents to the number of about forty, were present on this occasion. Very good music was supplied by the four musicians who are engaged to play every afternoon in the hotel drawing-room, a pianist, a violincello player, and two violinists. Some pretty frocks were worn, many of the girls appearing in delicate muslin gowns, evidently locally made, but quite adequate to the occasion.

Another day a dinner was given to all the Scotchmen in Jamaica, in honour of their national saint. The ubiquitous Scot is to be found all over creation. There is a story going, that when some enterprising explorer finds his way to the North Pole, he will find a Scot warming himself at a fire there. About one hundred and fifty sat down to a veritable Scotch repast. The Governor was the guest of the evening. Visitors staying at the hotel sat in the verandah outside the dining-room, and listened with interest to the after-dinner speeches. Before they got to that stage, the national dish, the haggis, was duly honoured, being carried round in triumph, preceded by the bagpipes, played by a very stately-looking piper. This was greeted by the guests with exceeding enthusiasm. Some of the speeches were quite eloquent, notably so was that of Dr. Gordon, the Roman Catholic Bishop. He was called upon to answer to the toast to “bonnie Scotland.” One felt borne away in the spirit to the land of Burns and Rob Roy, as he led his hearers mentally at a canter over hill and dale, and across swiftly flowing burns fringed with mountain ash, and then plunged them into the gloom of mountain fastnesses and forest depths. It was time, however, to come back to the West Indies at last, and, when the Bishop sat down, his word-painting of highland scenery earned for him an enthusiastic ovation. After that a guest with a considerable flow of language alluded to the fact that “Governors come” and “Governors go,” but that they (the Jamaicans) “went on for ever.” Sir Augustus Hemming is certainly possessed of tact, and, whenever I have heard him speak, generally seems to say the correct thing. On this occasion, once or twice things were said which were not quite in good taste, but His Excellency adroitly skidded over risky topics, ignoring that which had been said, but which it would be better in such a gathering to have left unsaid.

I have not yet mentioned the impression I received on my first drives and walks in Jamaica. The colouring is superb. To an artistic mind, there is scarcely an hour in the day, when looking on to the hills at the back of the hotel, that a beautiful view is not to be obtained. Sometimes the mountain summits are veiled in white mists, but at sunset the colours are grand, and for that only are, to my mind, worth the journey to Jamaica. The foliage and the parasitical growth, the hanging festoons which drape from tree to tree, must be seen to be appreciated. Tropical vegetation is in all its glory here. Innumerable ferns and palm-trees wave in the air along the banks of the well-kept roads. Plantains and bananas rear their ragged leaves against the sky. Exquisitely green cedars (not those we know) are a beautiful feature of the landscape, with orange-trees bearing blossom and fruit simultaneously. Tamarinds and gums spring from rocky crags, shrubs and creepers are everywhere; the latter intertwine themselves in the most wonderful way over tree parasites, back again to the road bank, then you trace them twenty yards or so further on, embracing gigantic stems. Not a single tree seems familiar. One feels as if one were always walking in a botanical garden; the wealth of flowering plants, of edible fruit and vegetables, strikes one wherever one goes. How refreshing and how nourishing are the articles of food which Nature, in an open-handed generosity, not to be found in less favoured climes, scatters broadcast over these islands! If negroes have yams, bread-fruit, oranges, bananas, cocoa-nuts, growing at their back door without the trouble of cultivating them—for anything once stuck into the ground will grow—how can you expect them to work six days out of seven?

Yesterday I was talking to a coffee-planter, who owns a large property in this neighbourhood. I asked him how he got on with his blacks, for no two planters seem to me to agree in their opinions as to the capabilities of their work-people.