This again is a matter of considerable importance, as, indeed, where is it not? While in England we are all writing letters to the 'Times,' to ascertain how closely we can copy the vices of Apicius on eight hundred pounds a year, and complaining because in our perverse stupidity we cannot pamper our palates with sufficient variety, it is not open to us to say a word against the luxuries of a West Indian table. We have reached the days when a man not only eats his best, but complains bitterly and publicly because he cannot eat better; when we sigh out loud because no Horace will teach us where the sweetest cabbage grows; how best to souse our living poultry, so that their fibres when cooked may not offend our teeth. These lessons of Horace are accounted among his Satires. But what of that? That which was satire to Augustine Rome shall be simple homely teaching to the subject of Victoria with his thousand a year.
But the cook in the Jamaica country house is a person of importance, and I am inclined to think that the lady whom I have accused of idleness does during those vacant interlunar hours occasionally peer into her kitchen. The results at any rate are good—sufficiently so to break the hearts of some of our miserable eight hundred a year men at home.
After dinner no wine is taken—none, at least, beyond one glass with the ladies, and, if you choose it, one after they are gone. Before dinner, as I should have mentioned before, a glass of bitters is as much de rigeur as the black coat. I know how this will disgust many a kindly friend in dear good old thickly-prejudiced native England. Yes, ma'am, bitters! No, not gin and bitters, such as the cabmen take at the gin-palaces; not gin and bitters at all, unless you specially request it; but sherry and bitters; and a very pretty habit it is for a warm country. If you don't drink your wine after dinner, why not take it before? I have no doubt that it is the more wholesome habit of the two.
Not that I recommend, even in the warmest climate, a second bitter, or a third. There are spots in the West Indies where men take third bitters, and long bitters, in which the bitter time begins when the soda water and brandy time ends—in which the latter commences when the breakfast beer-bottles disappear. There are such places, but they must not be named by me in characters plainly legible. To kiss and tell is very criminal, as the whole world knows. But while on the subject of bitters, I must say this: Let no man ever allow himself to take a long bitter such as men make at ——. It is beyond the power of man to stop at one. A long bitter duly swiggled is your true West Indian syren.
And then men and women saunter out on the verandah, or perhaps, if it be starlight or moonlight, into the garden. Oh, what stars they are, those in that western tropical world! How beautiful a woman looks by their light, how sweet the air smells, how gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens! And then one sips a cup of coffee, and there is a little chat, the lightest of the light, and a little music, light enough also, and at nine one retires to one's light slumbers. It is a pleasant life for a short time, though the flavour of the dolce far niente is somewhat too prevalent for Saxon energies fresh from Europe.
Such are the ordinary evenings of society; but there are occasions when no complaint can be made of lack of energy. The soul of a Jamaica lady revels in a dance. Dancing is popular in England—is popular almost everywhere, but in Jamaica it is the elixir of life; the Medea's cauldron, which makes old people young; the cup of Circe, which neither man nor woman can withstand. Look at that lady who has been content to sit still and look beautiful for the last two hours; let but the sound of a polka meet her and she will awake to life as lively, to motion as energetic, as that of a Scotch sportsman on the 12th of August. It is singular how the most listless girl who seems to trail through her long days almost without moving her limbs, will continue to waltz and polk and rush up and down a galopade from ten till five; and then think the hours all too short!
And it is not the girls only, and the boys—begging their pardon—who rave for dancing. Steady matrons of five-and-forty are just as anxious, and grave senators, whose years are past naming. See that gentleman with the bald head and grizzled beard, how sedulously he is making up his card! "Madam, the fourth polka," he says to the stout lady in the turban and the yellow slip, who could not move yesterday because of her rheumatism. "I'm full up to the fifth," she replies, looking at the MS. hanging from her side; "but shall be so happy for the sixth, or perhaps the second schottische." And then, after a little grave conference, the matter is settled between them.
"I hope you dance quick dances," a lady said to me. "Quick!" I replied in my ignorance; "has not one to go by the music in Jamaica?" "Oh, you goose! don't you know what quick dances are? I never dance anything but quick dances, quadrilles are so deadly dull." I could not but be amused at this new theory as to the quick and the dead—new at least to me, though, alas! I found myself tabooed from all the joys of the night by this invidious distinction.
In the West Indies, polkas and the like are quick dances; quadrilles and their counterparts are simply dead. A lady shows you no compliment by giving you her hand for the latter; in that you have merely to amuse her by conversation. Flirting, as any practitioner knows, is spoilt by much talking. Many words make the amusement either absurd or serious, and either alternative is to be avoided.
And thus I soon became used to quick dances and long drinks—that is, in my vocabulary. "Will you have a long drink or a short one?" It sounds odd, but is very expressive. A long drink is taken from a tumbler, a short one from a wine-glass. The whole extent of the choice thus becomes intelligible.
Many things are necessary, and many changes must be made before Jamaica can again enjoy all her former prosperity. I do not know whether the total abolition of the growth of sugar be not one of them. But this I do know, that whatever be their produce, they must have roads on which to carry it before they can grow rich. The roads through the greater part of the island are very bad indeed; and those along the southern coast, through the parishes of St. Elizabeth, Manchester, and Clarendon, are by no means among the best. I returned to Kingston by this route, and shall never forget some of my difficulties. On the whole, the south-western portion of the island is by no means equal to the northern.
I took a third expedition up to Newcastle, where are placed the barracks for our white troops, to the Blue Mountain peak, and to various gentlemen's houses in these localities. For grandeur of scenery this is the finest part of the island. The mountains are far too abrupt, and the land too much broken for those lovely park-like landscapes of which the parishes of Westmoreland and Hanover are full, and of which Stuttlestone, the property of Lord Howard de Walden, is perhaps the most beautiful specimen. But nothing can be grander, either in colour or grouping, than the ravines of the Blue Mountain ranges of hills. Perhaps the finest view in the island is from Raymond Lodge, a house high up among the mountains, in which—so local rumour says—'Tom Cringle's Log' was written.
To reach these regions a man must be an equestrian—as must also a woman. No lady lives there so old but what she is to be seen on horseback, nor any child so young. Babies are carried up there on pillows, and whole families on ponies. 'Tis here that bishops and generals love to dwell, that their daughters may have rosy cheeks, and their sons stalwart limbs. And they are right. Children that are brought up among these mountains, though they live but twelve or eighteen miles from their young friends down at Kingston, cannot be taken as belonging to the same race. I can imagine no more healthy climate than the mountains round Newcastle.
I shall not soon forget my ride to Newcastle. Two ladies accompanied me and my excellent friend who was pioneering me through the country; and they were kind enough to show us the way over all the break-neck passes in the country. To them and to their horses, these were like easy highroads; but to me—! It was manifestly a disappointment to them that my heart did not faint visibly within me.
I have hunted in Carmarthenshire, and a man who has done that ought to be able to ride anywhere; but in riding over some of these razorback crags, my heart, though it did not faint visibly, did almost do so invisibly. However, we got safely to Newcastle, and our fair friends returned over the same route with no other escort than that of a black groom.
