Where the Twain Meet

by Mary Gaunt

“What countrywoman are you, Frances?” I asked the lady who condescended to destroy my clothes under the pretence of washing them. Frances grinned all over her black face—well, not exactly black but mahogany red, with a skin so fine the greatest lady in the land might envy her.

“Me, missus, me British, missus.” And British she and her like are for weal or woe. Strongly against their wills Britain forced her nationality upon their fathers, and now they are as loyal sons and daughters of the Empire as are to be found under the Union Jack. Woe be to Britain if she does not treat these her children well.

There came into the harbour at Kingston, the lovely harbour which is not half appreciated, a warship with the Stars and Stripes at her peak, and the black men in the streets and all along the harbour shores looked on with the greatest interest, More than one man took off the ugly tourist cap with the deep peak which seems a speciality of Jamaica, and scratched his wool thoughtfully and then one was found to voice the thoughts of the rest.

“Ah!” said he, “but wait till our Temeraire comes along.” It is I who emphasise the “our,” not they. To them it seems quite natural. She is theirs. And truly I think this people have bought their nationality with their blood if ever people have. Kingston is full of these Britons.

At first I was inclined to grumble because the houses all seemed in need of paint, all looked dusty and untidy, and all wanted mending in places, all the gardens needed water, in fact, but for the saving grace of the Myrtle Bank Hotel, I should have damned Kingston utterly. But I took the Psalmist's advice and lifted my eyes to the hills, and I saw what a lovely world was this to which I had come. There was a harbour, a harbour that will hold a fleet, a great sheet of blue water sparkling in the sunshine, fringed all round with the riotous green of the tropics, and behind were the Blue Mountains, a glorious setting for man's untidy handiwork. There is range upon range of hills, their peaks clean-cut against the blue sky, with little cloudlets nestling in their folds, and dark blue shadows marking the deeper gullies. A splendid range of mountains they would be in any land, but here they are close, close so that any man may leave the hot and dusty street and may rest in their gullies, with the refreshing smell of damp earth and dewy vegetation in his nostrils.

This is a marked characteristic, one of the great charms of Jamaica. Nowhere in the world that I have been, have I found in a small area so many points of vantage from which may be seen beautiful views. Again and again have I climbed—nay, usually a motor or a buggy carried me—to a hilltop or a hillside, and there stretching below me was the sea, the ever changing sea, while around were range after range of hills with the cloud shadows resting upon them. There are broadleaved banana plantations on their slopes, the villages are embedded in mango and bread-fruit trees, the vivid green of sugar plantations is in the rich bottoms, a house here and there gives life to the scene, but the rugged rocks, crowned by tall trees, are the same Columbus saw. Here a symmetrical broad leaf stands out clear against the blue sky, every branch outlined, and here mahogany, mahoe, and the giant cotton tree, cedar and sweet-wood and a dozen other trees grow close together, close and tall, struggling up to the sunshine, marking by their stature and their girth the wealth of the soil that has given them birth.

Sometimes, often indeed, a tropical storm sweeps over these hills, for nowhere in the island is the rainfall less than 30 inches in the year, and in many places in the mountains that amount falls in a month, and anyone who has the temerity to be out in the downpour has a great broad banana leaf on his head and over the bundle he is carrying.

I have never seen a country that seemed so primeval and yet was so well populated, for we must admit that close on a million people in an island, a little larger than half the size of Wales, makes for fairly close habitation, and in the remoter corners far away from civilisation as distance goes in the island, there are everywhere small shacks where dwell the country folk. When the shacks are very far from the main road, I know that the owner is an ill-used man, for the Jamaican peasant likes company. His idea of bliss is to have a house right on the road, where he can converse with all and sundry who pass by, and keep in touch with the life of the island. He would not give a “thank you” for permission to live in the empty Great House on the hill above.

And that is another curious condition of Jamaica, the number of Great Houses empty and going fast to decay. I have seen some, like “Stonehenge,” just a heap of rubble, and others like the Hyde, that except for a day or two once every six weeks are entirely given over to the bats and the rats, and the other pests of Jamaica. Really quite a large number of the New Poor of England could be comfortably housed in the empty Great Houses of Jamaica. Well, perhaps that is a forgivable exaggeration. But Jamaica is like England, the majority of people cannot afford to live in her Great Houses built for the days when there were servants and slaves a-plenty, and there was no thought of modern improvements.

The Jamaican negro usually does not have his plantation round his home. As in the old slave days he has it at some distance away, often so far that he must needs stay there at night to guard it. The idea, I believe, is that he saves the land round his home for the time when his legs shall be too old to carry him to a great distance. Still, round the shack itself may often be seen the poles supporting the green vines of yams, and often there is a breadfruit tree, its leafy arms stretching out hospitably, its handsome leaves glimmering and glinting in the sunshine, and in the season when it is well grown its fruit will support a village. He probably also has a few bananas or plantains, and there is sometimes a primitive mill, with a blindfolded mule going slowly round and round, crushing the cane for the coarse head sugar that the black man loves. There are some hens scratching happily, for there is plenty for a hen to eat, a goat or two is tethered on a patch of grass, for the children want milk, and there is a pig, the only animal the negro feels bound to feed. He grows yams and corn and cocos for his hog, but his poor mongrel dog is so starved as a rule (I have seen brilliant exceptions), it makes your heart ache.