“Don’t be impertinent, yaller woman. By what conveyance air you going?”
“By this steamer, of course. I’ve paid for my passage.”
They went away with this information; and in a short time eight or nine others came and surrounded me, asking the same questions. My answers—and I was very particular—raised quite a storm of uncomplimentary remarks.
“Guess a nigger woman don’t go along with us in this saloon,” said one. “I never travelled with a nigger yet, and I expect I shan’t begin now,” said another; while some children had taken my little servant Mary in hand, and were practising on her the politenesses which their parents were favouring me with—only, as is the wont of children, they were crueller. I cannot help it if I shock my readers; but the truth is, that one positively spat in poor little Mary’s frightened yellow face.
At last an old American lady came to where I sat, and gave me some staid advice. “Well, now, I tell you for your good, you’d better quit this, and not drive my people to extremities. If you do, you’ll be sorry for it, I expect.” Thus harassed, I appealed to the stewardess—a tall sour-looking woman, flat and thin as a dressed-up broomstick. She asked me sundry questions as to how and when I had taken my passage; until, tired beyond all endurance, I said, “My good woman, put me anywhere—under a boat—in your store-room, so that I can get to Kingston somehow.” But the stewardess was not to be moved.
“There’s nowhere but the saloon, and you can’t expect to stay with the white people, that’s clear. Flesh and blood can stand a good deal of aggravation; but not that. If the Britishers is so took up with coloured people, that’s their business; but it won’t do here.”
This last remark was in answer to an Englishman, whose advice to me was not to leave my seat for any of them. He made matters worse; until at last I lost my temper, and calling Mac, bade him get my things together, and went up to the captain—a good honest man. He and some of the black crew and the black cook, who showed his teeth most viciously, were much annoyed. Muttering about its being a custom of the country, the captain gave me an order upon the agent for the money I had paid; and so, at twelve o’clock at night, I was landed again upon the wharf of Navy Bay.
My American friends were vastly annoyed, but not much surprised; and two days later, the English steamer, the “Eagle,” in charge of my old friend, Captain B——, touched at Navy Bay, and carried me to Kingston.