Show OLD JAMAICA gingert kingston Jamaica Oct 2 1898 dawn was breaking in the east and the blue mountains leaping out of their beds of mist and tumbling their cloudy blankets in every direction a result but bult in every direction we caught the first glimpse of this far f tamed ed bit ot of the queens domain one who is familiar with our own great west sees in jamaica a strong resemblance to the black hills of dakota set in an ocean of lapiz lazuli some of the peaks of the central range are more than feet high and eternally veiled in clouds their lower slopes and ridges ar are 01 clothed with most luxuriant verdure of the tropics and the toot foot hills trending down to the coast in many sharp spurs like a colossal vandyke pattern have emerald valleys between filled with cane fields and coffee groves no emerald was ever halt half so green as the living green of these deep valleys they are watered by innumerable streams that come pouring down from the upper heights height s through canyons banked with tree terns firns gigantic bamboos and a hundred varieties of the great palm family Xay maca land of springs the aborigines called their island you know the early span spaniards lards rendered the word after their own musical f fashion hah mack ah and it remained for the english who always ruin the lature and wring the last drop of romance out of every place that comes into their prosaic hands to flatten it out to jay may key to most of us the name of this small territory associated with its celebrated pineapple pine apple rum or with remembered pains under the apron in connection with pungent ginger judging from the enormous quantities of jamaica rum and jamaica ginger which have long been used in all parts of the civilized world one would expect to find and a fair sized continent here given up to the exclusive product production ion of those useful articles instead of a an n ex extremely y rugged tract miles long by 60 50 broad hardly one fifth of which is yet cultivated perhaps as with panama hats and havana cigars and mexican filigree work the articles are made almost anywhere else than in the place whose name they bear nearing port royal the entrance harbor to kingston we beheld the usual west india scene a level stretch between the sea and the hills formed in the slow course of centuries by debris washed down from above the plain covered with cane fields coffee groves and cocoa palms dotted with villas and the tall chimneys of sugar suga r fa factories etoriS presently kingston came into sight the white walled city of a dream as seen from a distance glor glorified gifted in the golden and rosy glow of the morning between stretched a sandspit eight miles longa natural break breakwater water ris 1 ing only a f few ew feet above the water line in places barely twenty five yards across and noh nowhere nohe e more than fifty fit ty yet et the ithe thundering swells of the caribbean pounding ceaselessly upon it never wear gitany it any thinner just beyond beyond the curling surf wherever the sand is dry enough cocoa palms grow thickly a long line of soft t green above which appears the masts masto and spars of the vessels anchored on the other side of the spit and apparently mixed up with the houses of kingston at the tip end of jot the sand bank stands port royal ahe the ancient puerto real raa 1 I so famous in west indian history A lighthouse light house rears its white bulk halt half way down clown among amon g the palms and a gun to is tired fired from it whenever a vessel fly j ing the colors of great britain appears but the banner of any other country is not considered worthy that delicate compliment treacherous coral reefs rise out of the deep water for several miles some forming low wooded islets others indicated only by the breakers dashing over them and only local pilots can take a vessel through these natural de fences there are two channels through which the lagoon can be approached the eastern passage along which we steamed runs so near the shore that an ship would be sent to the kingdom come by the batteries hidden among the sand hills long before it could reach the mouth the western passage is less intricate but that to is covered by powerful forts thus nature and art have combined to render the position so strong that in old times kingston was considered nowadays a dewey sampson or schley could shell it easily enough over the spit from the open sea As we rounded the point and the lagoon opened out before us the scene was most interesting directly in front were the dock yards forts and towers of o f port Royal with streets and terraces roofs and turrets domes and staples ste ples all sharply defined in the exquisite transparency of the air at the farther end of the lagoon inside the sand bar lay kingston blue and hazy six miles distant back of kingston the mountains now piled in masses of shadowy gray streaked alced with orange and amethyst by the newly risen sun behind them after we had beaten about for halt half an hour a pilot boat shot out from shore with the swiftness of a racing shell the pilot though of ebony complexion like all of his calling in these waters was veneered vene ered with english from top to toe his white duck suit was of the nattiest nastiest natt iest the trousers with an exceeding flare at bottom and his silk hat curtailed to the conventional dimensions of a low crowned derby his conversation was edifying with a drawl and cockney accent which would drive a new york anglo maniac mad wih wah envy though issuing from blackest lips oh say I 1 cant do it doncher yer know and numerous allusions to bloody rot and beastly warm and three penny ha penny in change a bob his boat was another curiously a canoe 37 feet long hallowed out of the trunk of a cedar tree carrying six oars and capable of making seven knots an hour seeing it skimming the waves like a swallow one remembers the tales of the discoverers cover ers about the incredible swiftness of the danoe canoe in which the Arro who inhabited Xay maca and the carlas of the windward island wenton went on their predatory excursions against one another an english guard ship is stationed in front of port royal an old three decker the broad white ensign among three or four gun boats and half a dozen tenders there are batteries on the front and batteries batte ies on the opposite shore morning morn irig bugles were ringing out unsparingly and sunbeams glinting upon the gold and silver lace and shining buttons and ac coutre ments as white coated men and officers passed to parade no it would not be easy to take J jamaica but all the same it ought to belong to uncle samuel as a companion piece to cuba and porto rico at this entrance the channel is about a mile wide the open part of the lagoon being perhaps seven miles long by aa many broad the latter forms formis tie mouth of cobre river the largest 49 jamaica on which ten miles up standa spanish town the original seat ot at government established by the span bards soon after the conquest it was the fashion then come down from the days of and continued to the end of the last century to build all important towns an estuaries at a distance from the sw sea tor for greater security pirate the cobre river down from frole spanish town converted the through its flows into a swamp TOW the swamp is covered i with mangrove thickets and the m man an groves fringing the circuit of the salt sal lagoon are B r crusted with oysters what a crowd of historic associations haunt this place before the first hut was built in kings ton port royal was the rendezvous for car all the english ships which sailed tike spanish main for spoil or commerce here in later times whole fleets were waft gathered to take in stores or to rem refit when shattered by engagements aad ad here the jolly buccaneers bucca sold their plunder and squandered their ill gotten gain in gambling and riot here prices were ere brought for adjudication and pel rates to be tried and banged here nelson and gordon and collingwood and morgan and drake all figured in their theft time somehow such out ont choats do not sem like ordinary mur darers when their romantic advent adventures sad and deeds of blood and lust are so through the glamour of two hundred years it is interesting to recall how morgan became dignified and sir henry a pillar of church am ad state knighted toy by the crown for the tha services he had tendered rendered to tion at the sacking of panama you remember he got away with mule loads of stolen treasure a coloa oal golden key which could not fail to un lock for hirthe him the doors of having turned his back upon his bo companions this red handed pirate be came a most moat popular governor of S J malca and a vigorous prosecutor of petty thieves his prototype is not gl 1 IY together unknown today in walks of 1 ife since the day of its discovery reef beset lagoon has been considered one of the he safest naval davial ports in die world and the narrow and asand spit at ato entrance the key to the island ever power possessed puerto real I 1 1 controlled the harbor and the of the island san jago de la VI viett in the old days re christened town after the great earthquake iv 1682 thus for many years port rapa was the principal town in if not in all the west indies when the he spaniards were driven from the letend they left behind a great many slav fes who sought shelter in the mo mountains and defied the authorities bandits much mixed with 6 blood were nearly exterminated soon ait a t ter er the english occupation but later the remnant grew to be powerful greatly disturbed the colony tl They were the maroons marcons Mar celebrated in song end and a nd story and the history of at i their desperate struggles tor for free freebold dold read like a romance today their descendants sire are a ate people and still enjoy the granted to their forefathers in consider atton atlon a of their services in an n uprising of the blacks it would woi be hard to find a more interesting people than th an the Jamalo JamaicA bans ans of this gen generson genera erWon Uan the blacks which swarm port and kingston are like no other other s under the sun yet have little strain strada fiet the old spanish mixture with the indians the african blood o when slave labor was one of the Ibb bit 0 ings ingo which white civilization on the heathen seems still to firsa uncontaminated spring but it la Is ny my to note how the blackest blacks A ever were born bom have become regular cockneys cock in words air and accent excelling even the englishmen themselves in the broadness of their cawn ts and the frequency of their allu allusions to bloody eads etcetera et cetera g the browns brawns as they are called are K yet yat another distinctive class who ja claim to be the unadulterated descendants of the real native jamaicans Jamaica ns the brave and warlike Arro who railed the happy land of spring before ever a white man waa iwas heard of today the richest man on the island Is brown however there Is now lit ale class distinction an n jamaica the english being singularly free from race udice ludyce excerpt in the matter of a and maybe of americans and ks whites browns brownis and maroons marcons neet t and mingle as one bappe family FANNIE BRIGHAM WARD |