“But when him once two tree year here,
Him tink white lady wery great boder;
De coloured peoples, never fear,
Ah, him lob him de morest nor any oder.”
Then another tumblification of the whole party.
“But top-one time bad fever catch him,
colour’d peoples kindly watch him
in sick-room, nurse voice like music
from him hand taste sweet de physic.
Another trampoline.”
“So alway come—in two tree year,
and so wid you, massa never fear
brown girl for cook—for wife—for nurse:
buccra lady—poo—no wort a curse.”
“Get away, you scandalous scoundrel,” cried I; “away with you, sir!”
Here the morrice-dancers began to circle round old Tailtackle, keeping him on the move, spinning round like a weathercock in a whirlwind, while they shouted, “Oh, massa, one macaronilt if you please.” To get quit of their importunity, Captain Transom gave them one. “Ah, good massa, tank you, sweet massa!” And away danced John Canoe and his tail, careering up the street.
In the same way all the other crafts and trades had their Gumbimen, Hornblowers, John Canoes, and Nondescript. The Gardeners came nearest of any thing I had seen before to the Mayday boys in London; with this advantage, that their jack-in-the—Green was incomparably more beautiful, from the superior bloom of the larger flowers used in composing it.
The very workhouse people, whose province it is to guard the Negro culprits who may be committed to it, and to inflict punishment on them, when required, had their John Canoe and Device; and their prime jest seemed to be every now and then to throw the fellow down who enacted the latter at the corner of a street, and to administer a sound flogging to him. The John Canoe, who was the workhouse driver, was dressed up in a lawyer’s cast off gown and bands, black silk breeches, no stockings nor shoes, but with sandals of bullock’s hide strapped on his great splay feet, a small cocked hat on his head, to which were appended a large cauliflower wig, and the usual white false-face, bearing a very laughable resemblance to Chief-justice S——, with whom I happened to be personally acquainted.
The whole party which accompanied these two worthies, musicians and tail, were dressed out so as to give a tolerable resemblance of the Bar broke loose, and they were all pretty considerably well drunk. As we passed along, the Device was once more laid down, and we could notice a shield of tough hide strapped over the fellow’s stem frame, so as to save the lashes of the cat, which John Canoe was administering with all his force, while the Device walloped about and yelled, as if he had been receiving the punishment on his naked flesh. Presently, as he rolled over and over in the sand, bellowing to the life, I noticed the leather shield slip upwards to the small of his back, leaving the lower story uncovered in reality; but the driver and his tail were too drunk to observe this, and the former continued to lay on and laugh, while one of his people stood by in all the gravity of drunkenness, counting, as a first Lieutenant does, when a poor fellow is polishing at the gangway,—“Twenty-twenty-one twenty-two”—and so on, while the patient roared you, an it were any thing but a nightingales At length he broke away from the men who held him, after receiving a most sufficient flogging, to revenge which he immediately fastened on the John Canoe, wrenched his cat from him, and employed it so scientifically on him and his followers, giving them passing taps on the shins now and then with the handle, by way of spice to the dose, that the whole crew pulled foot as if Old Nick had held them in chase.
The very children, urchins of five and six years old, had their Lilliputian John Canoes and Devices. But the beautiful part of the exhibition was the Set Girls. They danced along the streets, in bands of from fifteen to thirty. There were brown sets, and black sets, and sets of all the intermediate gradations of colour. Each set was dressed pin for pin alike, and carried umbrellas or parasols of the same colour and size, held over their nice showy, well put on toques, or Madras handkerchiefs, all of the same pattern, tied round their heads, fresh out of the fold.—They sang, as they swam along the streets, in the most luxurious attitudes. I had never seen more beautiful creatures than there were amongst the brown sets—clear olive complexions, and fine faces, elegant carriages, splendid figures,—full, plump, and magnificent.
Most of the Sets were as much of a size as Lord——‘s eighteen daughters, sailing down Regent Street, like a Charity School of a Sunday, led by a rum-looking old beadle—others again had large Roman matron-looking women in the leading files, the figurantes in their tails becoming slighter and smaller, as they tapered away, until they ended in leetle picaniny, no bigger as my tumb, but always preserving the uniformity of dress, and colour of the umbrella or parasol. Sometimes the breeze, on opening a corner, would strike the stern most of a set composed in this manner of small fry, and stagger the little things, getting beneath their tiny umbrellas, and fairly blowing them out of the line, and ruffling their ribbons and finery, as if they had been tulips bending and shaking their leaves before it. But the colours were never blended in the same set—no blackie ever interloped with the browns, nor did the browns in any case mix with the sables—always keeping in mind—black woman—brown lady.