Surely Shakespeare and Tennyson would turn in their graves could they hear their immortal lines quoted in the high, shrill voices, too well-known to describe further, of American travellers. English, as spoken at the University of Cambridge, is good enough for me, I tell them.
Notwithstanding, I quite enjoyed meeting many very charming visitors from the States. We laughed together over some of the funny stories one hears of the negroes in Jamaica. One of the most amusing is that told by a clergyman who was new to their customs and manners.
Soon after landing in Jamaica he was called upon to bury an old negro at a settlement called Springfield. The son, a “boy” of about forty years of age, had charge of the funeral arrangements. This son had not been kind to his poor old parents; though they were living in the next yard and sorely in need, the son would not give them a bite of yam to eat. The funeral took place on the spot; first of all, in the house a few sentences from the Bible, then a Psalm, then a short passage of Scripture, and then to the grave near the coffee bushes in the yard.
He proceeded with the service amid strange scenery, the only white man within miles of the place. The service having been read to the end, to the clergyman’s surprise the son burst out with—
“Now, boys, in wid de dutty!”
They then asked if they might sing a hymn. They were permitted to do so, and as the parson was ignorant as to the kind of hymns they knew, he told them to start one. The son at once led off with—
“Come let us join our cheerful songs
Wid angels round de trone.”
The clergyman says he made tracks for his horse, musing over the strange nature of these people. He soon found that the local grave nomenclature is as follows: A coffin is called a “box,” the grave a “hole,” and the earth “dutty” (dirt).
The proverbs, too, are most amusing.