In 1867 there were in Montserrat 400 squatters, holding lands of from 3 to 120 acres, planted with cacao, coffee, or provisions. Some of the cacao plantations were valued at £1000. These people lived without paying taxes, and almost without law or religion. The Crown woods had been, of course, sadly plundered by squatters, and by others who should have known better. At every turn magnificent cedars might have been seen levelled by the axe, only a few feet of the trunk being used to make boards and shingles, while the greater part was left to rot or burn. These irregularities have been now almost stopped; and 266 persons, in Montserrat alone, have taken out grants of land, some of 400 acres. But this by no means represents the number of purchasers, as nearly an equal number have paid for their estates, though they have not yet received their grants, and nearly 500 more have made application. Two villages have been formed; one of which is that where we rested, containing the church. The other contains the warden’s residence and office, the police-station, and a numerously attended school.
The squatters are of many races, and of many hues of black and brown. The half-breeds from the neighbouring coast of Venezuela, a mixture, probably, of Spanish, Negro, and Indian, are among the most industrious; and their cacao plantations, in some cases, hold 8000 to 10,000 trees. The south-west corner of Montserrat [{204}] is almost entirely settled by Africans of various tribes—Mandingos, Foulahs, Homas, Yarribas, Ashantees, and Congos. The last occupy the lowest position in the social scale. They lead, for the most part, a semi-barbarous life, dwelling in miserable huts, and subsisting on the produce of an acre or two of badly cultivated land, eked out with the pay of an occasional day’s labour on some neighbouring estate. The social position of some of the Yarribas forms a marked contrast to that of the Congos. They inhabit houses of cedar, or other substantial materials. Their gardens are, for the most part, well stocked and kept. They raise crops of yam, cassava, Indian corn, etc.; and some of them subscribe to a fund on which they may draw in case of illness or misfortune. They are, however (as is to be expected from superior intellect while still uncivilised), more difficult to manage than the Congos, and highly impatient of control.
These Africans, Mr. Mitchell says, all belong nominally to some denomination of Christianity; but their lives are more influenced by their belief in Obeah. While the precepts of religion are little regarded, they stand in mortal dread of those who practise this mischievous imposture. Well might the Commissioner say, in 1867, that several years must elapse before the chaos which reigned could be reduced to order. The wonder is, that in three years so much has been done. It was very difficult, at first, even to find the whereabouts of many of the squatters. The Commissioner had to work by compass through the pathless forest. Getting little or no food but cassava cakes and ‘guango’ of maize, and now and then a little coffee and salt fish, without time to hunt the game which passed him, and continually wet through, he stumbled in suddenly on one squatting after another, to the astonishment of its owner, who could not conceive how he had been found out, and had never before seen a white man alone in the forest. Sometimes he was in considerable danger of a rough reception from people who could not at first understand what they had to gain by getting legal titles, and buying the lands the fruit of which they had enjoyed either for nothing, or for payment of a small annual assessment for the cultivated portion. In another quarter—Toco—a notoriously lawless squatter had expressed his intention of shooting the Government official. The white gentleman walked straight up to the little forest fortress hidden in bush, and confronted the Negro, who had gun in hand.
‘I could have shot you if I had liked, buccra.’
‘No, you could not. I should have cut you down first: so don’t play the fool,’ answered the official quietly, hand on cutlass.
The wild man gave in; paid his rates; received the Crown title for his land; and became (as have all these sons of the forest) fast friends with one whom they have learnt at once to love and fear.
But among the Montserrat hills, the Governor had struck on a spot so fit for a new settlement, that he determined to found one forthwith. The quick-eyed Jesuits had founded a mission on the same spot many years before. But all had lapsed again into forest. A group of enormous Palmistes stands on a plateau, flat, and yet lofty and healthy. The soil is exceeding fertile. There are wells and brooks of pure water all around. The land slopes down for hundreds of feet in wooded gorges, full of cedar and other admirable timber, with Palmistes towering over them everywhere. Far away lies the lowland; and every breeze of heaven sweeps over the crests of the hills. So one peculiarly tall palm was chosen for a central landmark, an ornament to the town square such as no capital in Europe can boast. Traces were cut, streets laid out, lots of Crown lands put up for sale, and settlers invited in the name of the Government.
Scarcely eighteen months had passed since then, and already there Mitchell Street, Violin Street, Duboulay Street, Farfan Street, had each its new houses built of cedar and thatched with palm. Two Chinese shops had Celestials with pigtails and thick-soled shoes grinning behind cedar counters, among stores of Bryant’s safety matches, Huntley and Palmers’ biscuits, and Allsopp’s pale ale. A church had been built, the shell at least, and partly floored, with a very simple, but not tasteless, altar; the Abbé had a good house, with a gallery, jalousies, and white china handles to the doors. The mighty palm in the centre of Gordon Square had a neat railing round it, as befitted the Palladium of the village. Behind the houses, among the stumps of huge trees, maize and cassava, pigeon-peas and sweet potatoes, fattened in the sun, on ground which till then had been shrouded by vegetation a hundred feet thick; and as we sat at the head man’s house, with French and English prints upon the walls, and drank beer from a Chinese shop, and looked out upon the loyal, thriving little settlement, I envied the two young men who could say, ‘At least, we have not lived in vain; for we have made this out of the primeval forest.’ Then on again. ‘We mounted’ (I quote now from the notes of one to whom the existence of the settlement was due) ‘to the crest of the hills, and had a noble view southwards, looking over the rich mass of dark wood, flecked here and there with a scarlet stain of Bois Immortelle, to the great sea of bright green sugar cultivation in the Naparimas, studded by white works and villages, and backed far off by a hazy line of forest, out of which rose the peaks of the Moruga Mountains. More to the west lay San Fernando hill, the calm gulf, and the coast toward La Brea and Cedros melting into mist. M--- thought we should get a better view of the northern mountains by riding up to old Nicano’s house; so we went thither, under the cacao rich with yellow and purple pods. The view was fine: but the northern range, though visible, was rather too indistinct, and the mainland was not to be seen at all.’
Nevertheless, the panorama from the top of Montserrat is at once the most vast, and the most lovely, which I have ever seen. And whosoever chooses to go and live there may buy any reasonable quantity of the richest soil at £1 per acre.
Then down off the ridge, toward the northern lowland, lay a headlong old Indian path, by which we travelled, at last, across a rocky brook, and into a fresh paradise.