Where the Twain Meet

by Mary Gaunt

The road that runs right round the island passes close to that little bay now, and the waters of the blue Caribbean, calm and still, mirror the blue skies above as they did on that long ago May day when the last Spanish Governor of Jamaica embarked in a frail canoe and waving his hand to those he left behind set sail for Cuba to the north. This was the end of the high adventure. The very end! The Spanish rule was over, the valued island that lay right in the fairway of commerce—it lies so still—was lost for ever to the Spanish Crown and its last Governor was going away a broken and discredited man.

And bitterly the Spaniards regretted the loss. Pedro de Bayoha, “Governor of the City of Cuba,” wrote to the King setting forth its many advantages, “any fleet however large can lie and careen its ships, and any army can march, as food is very plentiful and the island abounding in tame and wild cattle as well as swine, the quantity of which is so great that every year twenty thousand head are killed for the lard and fat and no use is made of the meat.” So we gather that Ysassi was not very good at the commissariat. Perhaps the English harried him too much.

It has been said with some surprise that there are few relics of the Spaniards in the island. For me, I marvel that there is after all these years still so much. The oranges and the limes, the pomegranates and the coconut palms are a monument to them, and still at Montego Bay is to be seen the outlines of a dark stone fort that overlooked the beautiful bay and guarded the town. And though Indian corn has been sown in the courtyards for many a long day, some of the old cannon that belonged to his Spanish Majesty still lie about. The climate of Jamaica is against the preservation of relics of the past. “Tis a very strange thing,” says Hans Sloane, accustomed to the slow growth of Northern climes, “to see in how short a time a plantation formerly clear of trees and shrubs will grow foul, which comes from two causes; the one not stubbing up the roots, whence arise young sprouts, and the other the fertility of the soil. The settlements and plantations of not only the Indians but even the Spaniards being quite overgrown with tall trees, so that there is no footsteps of such a thing left were it not for the old palisadoes, buildings, orange walks, etc., which show plainly the formerly cleared places where plantations have been.” And Sloane, who was physician to the Duke of Albemarle, the Governor, writes of 1688, not thirty years after the last Spanish Governor had fled.

Even now in Jamaica there are tales of buried treasure. In 1916 the “Busha” or superintendent of an estate in Westmoreland was engaged in pulling down a stout stone wall, evidently built in the old days by slave labour. Each stone was well and truly laid, and tradition said the wall was Spanish. One of the workmen said he had come to a hollow place. And sure enough there was a large jar stuffed full of old Spanish gold and silver coins, hidden I suppose when the Spanish owner of the hato fled before the incoming of the English. Tradition says there are many more, but within the last year or two the Crown, I hear, has insisted on its right of treasure trove, so that it is exceedingly unlikely anyone finding such will proclaim the fact aloud. The Spanish colonists it is true were but a poor people, but even the poorest have need of some little money, and in the days when banks were not much in vogue, cash that would not go into the breeches pocket had to be kept somewhere.

Bridges tells how “a miniature figure of pure gold representing a Spanish soldier with a matchlock in his hand was lately found in the woods of the parish of Manchester. How it came there remains a mystery; for those extensive forests bear no marks of having ever been opened, or even penetrated until lately.” And Bridges wrote about 1828.

But gold is not to be lightly worn or washed away. I can imagine the young Spanish wife who owned that little golden soldier and counted him a very precious possession. And so, when she fled with her baby in her arms and her little daughter clinging to her skirts, she carried it with her. And then came the day when the English pressed them hard, and perhaps her husband, perhaps the head slave, called to her to hurry, they must get away, and the baby cried because she had so little to give it, and the little maid whimpered when she fell among the leafy thorns and rough stones on the steep mountain path, and her mother bending over to comfort her dropped the little golden Spanish soldier that was her treasure from her bundle and never knew of her loss till it was too late to go back to look for it, and there he lay for close on one hundred and sixty years till some Englishman found him and reported the find to verbose, moralising, Bridges.

The author of Old St James too tells a tale of Spanish treasure. He says that sometime in the eighteenth century two Spaniards visited “Success,” an estate in the north of the island not far from the sea-shore. They showed a plan said to have been copied from one held by a Spanish family locating the position of valuable documents buried upon the estate. There were the remains of an old fort, and using the walls as a starting-post the point fixed upon was the centre of the estate's mill-house. Not unnaturally, the visitors wanted to take down the mill-house, undertaking to rebuild it and leave everything as they found it. But the owners objected, perhaps also not unnaturally, for the mill-house was the most important part of the estate and an owner who would live in any tumble-down makeshift himself would often spend large sums upon his mill-house and machinery. Permission was refused, though tradition was with the Spaniards. For all I know those papers may be there still. The mill was one of the last to use cattle as power, and when excavations were being made for the new steam mill, two wells were found, one with water and the other in which water had obviously not been found. It was filled with soil of a different character from that surrounding it. “The water,” says the author, “was evidently that which supplied the fort and it is natural to think that valuables or other papers might have been buried in the other.”

There is still among the older people a certain faith in enchanted jars buried in the earth or left in caves by the Spaniards when they fled the country. In the Rio Cobre there is a table of gold which rises up at noon every day, but though it has been seen by more than one person no one yet has succeeded in getting it before it sinks back under the waters. This, I am credibly informed—you may believe it or not as you please—is because the Spaniards killed a slave to watch over the treasure and no one has been quick enough to throw their hat, knife, or handkerchief over it and so break the enchantment.

There was a poor slave woman once who was ill and unable to finish her task, so the driver made her stay behind and do what she had left undone. She worked all night, and weary and worn, the task was not yet done when her hoe struck something that gave out a jingling sound. She looked carefully and found a Spanish jar, and with such important information dared even approach the high and mighty master himself. On going to inspect, he found so large a jar it had to be pulled out by oxen and was full to the top with golden doubloons. So he rewarded the woman with her freedom and gave her enough to live on all her life. At least that is the story that was told to me. It is a comfort to read of Spanish Gold which for so long has stood in my mind for fanciful treasure, really materialising to some one's advantage.

More especially in the north of the island is this faith in hidden treasure strong. I was told seriously by a young man once that just beyond Montego Bay some very handsome brass cannon were dug up and so curiously wrought were they that they were polished and set up close to where they were found on the shore. But they did not stay there long. One night a Spanish sloop was seen off the coast, next morning she was gone, so were the guns, and no one knows what has become of them.