So much for the black man’s love letters.
For an accurate picture of the love scenes you must visit the island of rivers and take your place in one of those quiet corners of the banana field, and wait for George and Jemima, or James and Mrs. Agostiss R——. I cannot describe the scene. Go to Jamaica and see it for yourself. It is enough that I have made public the love letters of six men I have never seen; I will not attempt to deal with the meeting and courting of a black man and his sweetheart, lest, unconsciously, I should travesty a fine poem.
The scenes of the love meetings of the natives of Jamaica are always framed in a rich setting of tropical moonlight, or waving palm trees and flashing fire-flies.
If a negro lover could not be eloquent in the midst of such rare beauty he would be unworthy of the name of man.
Next to love-making, eating and drinking, and then dancing may be counted the recreations of the Jamaican coloured gentleman. Though it cannot with justice be stated that the negro is an excessively large eater, the manner in which he takes his food evidences the keen enjoyment he gets from every meal. There is no question of lack of appetite in a negro when feeding time arrives. Whether the dish before him be fruit or salt fish, or mashed vegetables cooked with fat, the diner attacks his food with the utmost relish. There is great licking of lips, rolling of eyes and heavy munching by strong jaws. Give a negro a meat bone, and when he has done with it the fragments that remain would not be of the slightest service to the hungriest dog. When the native has finished his dish of vegetables he cleans the plate with his fingers and tongue. There is no food wasted in the land of eternal sunshine. Give a black child a dozen mangoes and then watch from a safe distance. Before you have seen the child’s manner of eating, you have not realised how juicy a mango really is. With the negro, eating is not an art, but a sensation of concentrated joy. It is very much the same with drinking. He can go an extraordinary length of time without needing any liquid, but when a negro gets the bottle to his lips, quarts disappear at every gulp. No matter whether the drink be water or cokernut juice or rum, the true black man cannot sip. He drinks as much as he can swallow without stopping to take breath, and then he has finished.
A social gathering is never a success in any Jamaican hut or drawing-room unless the assembled guests are given leave to indulge in the pastime of the dance. Dancing is to the black lady what small talk is to her white sister. Indeed, it is infinitely more even than that. Dancing is everything. They dance when they are merry and full of joy, and they dance when they mourn their dead; they dance when they are hungry and when they have feasted. They dance when they are carrying their fruits to the market-place, and they dance as they return with the spoils of their trading. In moments of religious ecstasy their limbs twitch for the relief found in treading the graceful measure, and when great sorrow has fallen on a household, the members dance slowly to express their woe.
Curiously enough their dancing lacks precision; they have not set pieces; no master teaches them “left foot forward, right foot up, twist”; there is no “one two three, hop, one two three, hop” about the coloured dance, yet it is always perfectly graceful. If there is music so much the better, but if there is no music the dancing goes on just the same. The Jamaicans dance with their legs and bodies and heads; all their limbs are brought into play. The arms wave in sympathy with the active legs, the body bends, the head is thrust forwards and backwards. The whole business is snake-like and fascinating.
Sometimes when a large party is collected, a dance will be arranged to represent some story or history. Biblical pictures are the most popular, and the unrehearsed effect of fifty perspiring negroes, seeking to represent in a ballet the story of Jonah and the Whale,
