Jamaica as it is, 1903

by B. Pullen-Burry

Before Spanish Town was reached, I met some persons whom I had seen previously at Mandeville, and we drove together from Ewarton Station over Mount Diabolo, which is 2000 feet above sea-level, and from whence most exquisite views are to be obtained over St Thomas in the vale. This is one of the best drives in the island, and certainly should not be missed. The Moneague Hotel is a very spacious and comfortable building; it stands on a hill, and before you turn up towards it, a huge cotton-tree, with the longest spurs I ever saw, stands in the centre of a pasture, extending its gaunt limbs from its huge truck as a terrestrial octopus might be supposed to do. I went up to Moneague especially to visit this part of the country, which is perfectly lovely whichever way you go. The day following my arrival I took a forty-mile drive. A most entertaining coloured man acted in the capacity of coachman, and as we drove along in a one-seated buggy drawn by a pair of strong ponies, he told me the names of those trees with which I was not acquainted. I faintly suspected in one or two cases he drew upon his imagination: he did not answer quite so glibly as he had done previously. We passed very fine grazing estates, and I gathered from my loquacious informer that some persons in the island had made very fair fortunes through grazing and cattle-rearing. The chief charm of this long day was the road leading through Fern Gully down to the small town of Ora Cabessa, on the north side of the island. You drive between enormously high cliffs covered with every variety of fern; the moisture and shade causes their growth to be quite gigantic, and you look up to the bit of blue sky overhead through the interlacing and waving greenery of countless tropical plants. On emerging from the Gully you arrive at Ora Cabessa, where a police-station, a post-office, and a telegraph-station acquaint you with the fact that you are once more in the haunts of civilisation. Here groves of cocoa-nut-trees bend almost down to the water’s edge, and the coast scenery is lovely. Ochos Rios, meaning “eight rivers,” is a little further on.

In the vicinity are the two waterfalls made by the Roaring River in its course to the sea; the lower is very pretty, but the fall a mile higher up in private property is well worth seeing. Here a more villainous breed of ticks seems to abound, for everyone warns you to beware of them, and several men we met on the road who had visited the falls, were diligently inspecting their nether garments; they were what the native contemptuously calls “walkfoot buckra,” as distinguished from “carriage buckra.” There are many funny nigger sayings which, the longer one lives in Jamaica, the more one grasps their significance. “To a dog’s face say Mr Dog, behind his back Dog,” is one of them. Substitute for the dog the white man, and you have learnt a fundamental truth. I was told by my coloured coachman that no native will wear cast-off clothing. Another thing that interested me, as pertaining to the native folk-lore, was the reverence in which children hold spiders. They will curtsey to them, talk to them on their way to school. Some persons say this is the last vestige of some old African totem-worship connected with this insect. I have not mentioned the land crabs which abound at these waterfalls. The natives call them “soldiers”; they are quite harmless, and I have heard that they are eaten by the blacks.

I cannot turn my back on this lovely northern coast without alluding to the ever-memorable landing of the great Columbus, which happened in 1504, during his fourth journey to the New World near this spot. He had discovered the highlands of Jamaica in 1494, and in the united names of Ferdinand and Arragon had taken possession of it. A devout Catholic, he could do no otherwise than obey the decree of Pope Alexander VI. to the effect that “omnes insulas et terras firmas inventas et inveniendas, detectas et detegendas versus Occidentem” were given to the Spanish Crown.

It is sorrowful reading which tells us how, suffering from base ingratitude, in tempestuous weather, and with much difficulty, he reached a haven since known as Don Christopher’s Cove, on the north side of the island, with two crippled and leaking ships, which he ran aground to prevent their foundering. He quite made up his mind to die there. His crews revolted, the Indians deserted him, the Governor of Hispaniola mocked his misfortunes. In much suffering, and amongst his rebellious countrymen, he writes to the King of Spain, and says how low “his zeal for the service of King Ferdinand and his mistress Queen Isabella had brought him, how his men who were in health mutinied under Poras of Seville.” He adds: “As my misery makes my life a burthen to myself, so I fear the empty title of Vice-Roy and Admiral render me obnoxious to the hatred of the Spanish nation.

“It is visible that all methods are adopted to cut the thread that is breaking, for I am in my old age oppressed with insupportable pains of the gout, and am now languishing and expiring with that and other infirmities among savages, when I have neither medicines nor provisions for the body, priest nor sacrament for the soul. My men in a state of revolt, my brother, my son, and those that are faithful, sick, starving, and dying. Let it not bring a further infamy on the Castilian name, nor let future ages know that there were wretches so vile in this, that think to recommend themselves to Your Majesty by destroying the unfortunate and miserable Christopher Columbus.” In conclusion, he pathetically appeals to Queen Isabella: “She, if she lives, will consider that cruelty and ingratitude will bring down the wrath of Heaven, so that the wealth I have discovered shall be the means of stirring up all mankind to revenge and rapine, and the Spanish nation suffer hereafter, for what envious, malicious, and ungrateful people do now.”

The Spaniards brought their priests over with them when they took possession of the island. The religious ceremonies were conducted in handsome edifices, although no traces remain of them. At the first capital, Seville D’oro, founded by Diego, the discoverer’s son, a collegiate church was built. In 1688 the founder of the British Museum declared that there were ruins of ecclesiastical buildings at Seville, which were situated near the modern St Ann’s Bay, but all such remains have long since passed away with the increased agriculture and the rapid growth of tropical flora. No one seems able to tell why the Spaniards changed their seat of government in 1530, from Seville D’oro to St Jago de la Vega, the modern Spanish town, where an abbey, churches, and chapels were built.

I returned to Moneague viâ Claremont. The road ascends for a long distance through fine estates; it is well graded, and, looking back, lovely peeps of the sea are afforded. At the top of the hill it is well to leave the carriage and climb up on a gate or wall, when an extended coast scene, including St Ann’s Bay, is visible. A pretentious little fruit-boat, busy as a honey-bee, was puffing away towards Ora Cabessa, where she anchored, for the coast is too shallow at most of the ports where the ships call for fruit to allow of their coming alongside the wharf. The sea was an exquisite blue, and a band of bright green cane-fields bordered the coast, whilst pimento-trees and cocoa-nut groves waved in the distance.

I told the driver to be merciful to his beast up that long hill. I was tired, I said, and had come a long journey the day previously. When I told him I had come from Montego Bay to the hotel, he expressed surprise that I was able to take so long a drive as that we were going.

“Ladies ’bout yar would go to bed after a journey like dat, and not rise up again till de turd day.”