Not all of the Maroons were banished. Those who came in by the 1st of January 1796 were allowed to stay if they so pleased, and they settled about their old town and about Accompong, but their teeth were drawn. They were no greater danger now than any of the other black people. Less, in fact, for they had a certain contempt for the slaves, and regarded themselves as on a par with the white men.
The people about Maroon Town now do not think of themselves as Maroons. The day I went up, when we had gone as far as we could within a mile and a half of the old Maroon Town, the people came crowding round, and they looked much like the dark folks who lived lower down in the mountains. One yellow man brought me a can full of green coffee berries.
“No, not for sale, for the lady to remember we's by.” I accepted the gift, so graciously given, and I asked the giver's name.
“Heed,” said he, and I said I'd put him in a book, but I don't believe he understood what I said. I felt in my pocket. I know of old the African likes a return present, but I had forgotten my purse, and my host settled the difficulty.
“Take him round to the Chinaman's shop,” he said to his driver, “and give him a drink,” and my yellow friend, whom I thought must be grandson to one of those long-dead soldiers, accepted the offer with a smile.
CHAPTER IX—THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE YEARS
It is very difficult to understand the attitude towards trivial offences of people who lived in a time when the death penalty was legally inflicted for breaking down the banks of a fish pond, stealing anything over the value of a shilling from the person, or illegally felling trees.
With the last clause I have some sympathy. I sometimes feel I could cheerfully see the death penalty inflicted upon whoever was responsible for making Jamaican towns bare of trees, for decreeing that telephone and telegraph wires are of more importance than shade, and for clearing all the country roads so that a tropical sun makes them a purgatory for the unfortunate traveller, when Nature herself has arranged so much more wisely.