Old Jack

by William Henry Giles Kingston

We were rather earlier than usual, and we had some time to wait till the casks were ready for us. On one of these occasions the captain was invited by a planter, Mr Johnstone by name, to pay him a visit at his farm, which was some way up the country. In that climate every gentleman has a servant to attend on him; and all the planters, and others who live there, always have negroes to help them to wash and dress in the morning, to put on their stockings, and all that sort of thing. As the captain had no black fellow to wait on him, he told me that he should want me to accompany him, and I was too glad to have a chance of seeing something of the country. Meantime, to collect our freight faster, he had chartered a schooner which was lying idle in the harbour, and sent her round to the various smaller ports to pick it up, and to bring it to the brig. He had put her under charge of Mr Gale, who had with him Peter Poplar and several other of our men, and also a few blacks, who were hired as seamen.

I thought it very good fun when I found myself once more on a horse; I had not got on the back of one since I was a little boy in Dublin, and then, of course, there was no saddle nor stirrups, and only an old rope for a bridle. They are generally razor-backed beasts, with one or two raws, and blind, at least, of one eye. The captain was mounted on a strong Spanish horse well able to bear him, and I followed on a frisky little animal with his valise and carpet-bags.

I wish that I could describe the wonderful trees we passed. I remember the wild plantains, with huge leaves split into slips, and their red seed-pods hanging down at the end of twisted ropes; the tall palms, with their feathery tops; the monster aloes, with their long flashy thorny leaves; and the ferns as large as trees, and yet as beautifully cut as those in our own country, which clothed every hillside where a fountain flowed forth; and then the countless variety of creepers, whose beautiful tracery crowned every rock, and hung down in graceful festoons from the lofty trees. Now and then, as passing through a valley and mounting a hill, we stopped and looked back, we caught sight of the blue sparkling sea, with the brig and other vessels in the harbour; a few white sails glancing in the sun, between it and the horizon; and nearer to us, valleys with rich fields and streams of water, and orchards of oranges, limes, and shaddocks; and planters’ houses with gardens full of beautiful flowers, and negro huts under the shade of the plantain-trees. Then there were those forest-giants, the silk-cotton-trees, and various kinds of fig-trees and pines, such as in the old world are never seen. But the creepers I have spoken of make the woods still more curious, and unlike anything at home. First, a creeper drops down from a branch 150 feet high, and then another falls close to it, and the wind blows and twists them together; others grow round it till it takes root, and form a lofty pillar which supports the immense mass of twisting and twining stems above. As we rode along, I saw from many a lofty branch the net-like nests of the corn-bird hanging at the end of long creepers. Those mischievous rascals, the monkeys, are fond of eggs, and will take great pains to get them; so the corn-bird, to outwit them, thus secures her nest. It has an entrance at the bottom, and is shaped like a net-bag full of balls. There the wise bird sits free from danger, swinging backwards and forwards in the breeze.

We slept that night at the house of a friend of the captain’s, who had come out with him in the brig. It was a low building of one storey, with steps leading up to it, and built chiefly of wood. A veranda ran all the way round it. The rooms were very large, but not so handsomely furnished, I thought, as the captain’s cabin. People do eat curious food in the West Indies. Among other things, there was a monkey on the table; but if it had not been for the name of the thing, I cannot say there was any harm in it. I got a bit of it after it was taken from the table, and it was very like chicken. There were lizards and snakes, which were very delicate. There was a cabbage cut from the very top of a lofty tree, the palmetto; but that tree is too valuable to be cut down often for the purpose. Then there were all sorts of sweetmeats and dishes made with them. I recollect a mass of guava-jelly swimming in a bowl full of cream, and wine, and sugar, and citron. There were plenty of substantials also; and wines and liquids of all sorts. I know that I thought I should very much like to live on shore, and turn planter. I had reason afterwards to think that they had bitters as well as sweets to taste, so I remained contented, as I have ever been, with my lot.

At night, the captain had a sofa given him to sleep on in the dining-room, and I had a rug in another corner. It was many a long night since I had slept on shore, and I was constantly startled by the strange noises I heard. Often it was only the wind rustling in the palm-trees; but when I opened my eyes, I saw one whole side of the room sparkling with flashes of light; then it would burst forth on the other side; and then here and there single bright stars would gleam and vanish; and lastly, the entire roof would be lighted up. I dared not wake the captain to ask what was the matter, and it was not till afterwards that I discovered that the light was produced by fireflies, which are far more brilliant than the glow-worms of more northern climes. I had gone to sleep, when, just before daybreak, I was again awoke by a most terrific yelling, and screeching, and laughing, and roaring. I thought that the savages were down upon us, or that all the wild beasts in the country were coming to devour us. I could stand it no longer, but shrieked out, “O captain, captain! what’s going to happen us?” The captain started up, and listened, and then burst into a fit of laughter. “Why, you young jackanapes, they are only some of your brothers, the monkeys, holding a morning concert,” said he. “Go to sleep again; don’t rouse me up for such nonsense as that.”

I found afterwards that the noise did proceed only from monkeys, though I did not suppose that such small animals could have made such hideous sounds. To go to sleep again, however, I found was impossible, as I had already enjoyed much more than I usually got on a stretch. The captain, on the contrary, went off again directly; but his sleep was much disturbed, for he tumbled about and spoke so loudly, that at times I thought he was awake and calling me. “You’ll make me, will you?” I heard him say. “I don’t fear you, Captain Ralph. I—a pirate—so I might have been called—I was but a lad—I consented to no deed of blood—It cannot be brought against me—Well, I know—I know—I acknowledge my debt to you.—You exact it to the uttermost—I’ll obey you—The merchants deem me an honest trader—What would they say if they heard me called pirate?—Ha, ha, ha?” He laughed long and bitterly.

I was very glad that no one else was in the room to hear what the captain was saying. A stranger would certainly have thought much worse of him than he deserved. I had now been so long with him that I was confident, whatever he might have done in his youth, that he was now an honest and well-intentioned man. At the same time I could no longer have any doubts that Peter’s surmises about him were correct, “That old gentleman aboard the felucca is Captain Ralph, then,” I thought to myself, “If I ever fall in with him, I shall know how to address him, at all events.” At length the captain awoke; and after an early breakfast, the owner took him round the plantation, and I was allowed to follow them.

The sugar-cane grows about six feet high, and has several stalks on one root. It is full of joints, three or four inches apart. The leaves are light green; the stalk yellow when ripe. The mode of cultivation is interesting. A trench is dug from one end of the field to the other, and in it longways are laid two rows of cane. From each joint of these canes spring a root and several sprouts. They come up soon after they are planted, and in twelve weeks are two feet high. If they come up irregularly, the field is set on fire from the outside, which drives the rats, the great destroyers of the cane, to the centre, where they are killed. The ashes of the stalks and weeds serve to manure the field, which often produces a better crop than before. The canes are cut with a billhook, one at a time; and being fastened together in faggots, are sent off to the crushing-mill on mules’ backs or in carts. Windmills are much in use. The canes are crushed by rollers and as the juice is pressed out, it runs into a cistern near the boiling-house. There it remains a day, and is then drawn off into a succession of boilers, where all the refuse is skimmed off. To turn it into grains, lime-water is poured into it; and when this makes it ferment, a small piece of tallow, the size of a nut, is thrown in. It is next drawn into pots to cool, with holes in the bottom through which the molasses drain off. Rum is made from the molasses, which being mixed with about five times as much water, is put into a still.

There are three sorts of cotton-trees. One creeps on the earth like a vine; another is a bushy dwarf tree; and the third is as high as an oak. The second-named, after it has produced very beautiful flowers about the size of a rose, is loaded with a fruit as large as a walnut, the outward coat of which is black. This fruit, when it is fully ripe, opens, and a down is discovered of extreme whiteness, which is the cotton. The seeds are separated from it by a mill.

The stem of the cacao-tree is about four inches in diameter. In height it is about twelve feet from the ground. The cacao grows in pods shaped like cucumbers. Each pod contains from three to five nuts, the size of small chestnuts, which are separated from each other by a white substance like the pulp of a roasted apple. The pods are found only on the larger boughs, and at the same time the tree bears blossoms and young fruit. The pods are cut down when ripe, and allowed to remain three or four days in a heap to ferment. The nuts are then cut out, and put into a trough covered with plantain-leaves, where they remain nearly twenty days; and, lastly, dried three or four weeks in: the sun. Indigo is made from an herb not unlike hemp. This is cut, and put into pits with water; and being continually stirred up, forms a sort of mud, which, when dry, is broken into bits for exportation.