“Come,” thought I; “if the negroes are overworked, it is more than the bullocks are, at all events.” They passed us with abundance of yelling and cracking, and as soon as the coast was clear we again pursued our way up the ravine, than which nothing could be more beautiful or magnificent. On our right hand now rose, almost perpendicularly, the everlasting rocks, to a height of a thousand feet, covered with the richest foliage that imagination can picture; while here and there a sharp steeple-like pinnacle of grey stone, overgrown with lichens, shot up and out from the face of them into the blue sky, mixing with the tall forest trees that overhung the road, festooned with ivy and withes of different kinds like the rigging of a ship, round which the tendrils of many a beautiful wild-flower crept twining up, while all was fresh with the sparkling dew that showered down on us, with every breath of wind, like rain. On our left foamed the roaring river, and on the other brink the opposite bank rose equally precipitously, clothed also with superb trees, that spread their blending boughs over the chasm, until they wove themselves together with those that grew on the side we were on, qualifying the noonday fierceness of a Jamaica sun into a green cool twilight, while the long misty reaches of the blue river, with white foaming rapids here and there, and the cattle wading in them, lengthened out beneath in the distance. Oh! the very look of it refreshed one unspeakably.
Presently a group of half-a-dozen country buccras—overseers, or coffee-planters, most likely, or possibly larger fish than either—hove in sight, all in their blue-white jane trousers, and long Hessian boots pulled up over them, and new blue, square-cut, bright-buttoned coatees, and threadbare, silk, broad-brimmed hats. They dashed past us on goodish nags, followed at a distance of three hundred yards by a covey of negro servants, mounted on mules, in white Osnaburg trousers, with a shirt or frock over them, no stockings, each with one spur, and the stirrup-iron held firmly between the great and second toes, while a snow-white sheep’s fleece covered their massas’ portmanteaus, strapped on to the mail pillion behind. We drove on for about seven miles, after entering the pass—the whole scenery of which was by far the finest thing I had ever seen— the precipices on each side becoming more and more rugged and abrupt as we advanced, until all at once we emerged from the chasm on the parish of St-Thomas-in-the-Vale, which opened on us like a magical illusion, in all its green luxuriance and freshness. But by this time we were deucedly tired, and Massa Aaron’s mansion, situated on its little airy hill above a sea of canes, which rose and fell before the passing breeze like the waves of the ocean, was the most consolatory object in the view; and thither we drove as fast as our wearied horses could carry us, and found everything most carefully prepared for our reception. Having dressed, we had a glorious dinner and lots of good wine; and, the happiest of the happy, I tumbled into bed, dreaming of leading a division of line-of-battle ships into action, and of Mary, and of our eldest son being my first-lieutenant, and
“Massa,” quoth Jupiter—”you take cup of coffee dis marning, massa?”
“Thank you; certainly.”
It was by this time grey dawn. My window had been left open the evening before, when it was hot and sultry enough; but it was now cold and clamp, and a wetting mist boiled in through the open sash, like rolling wreaths of white smoke.
“What is that—where are we—in the North Sea, or on the top of Mont Blanc? Why, clouds may be all in your way, Massa Jupiter, but—”
“Cloud!” rejoined the deity—”him no more den marning fag, massa; always hab him over de Vale in de marning, until de sun melt him. And where is you?— why, you is in Massa Aaron house, here in St-Thomas-in-de-Vale—and Miss—”
“—Miss!” said I—”what Miss?”
“Oh, for you Miss,” rejoined Jupiter, with a grin. “Miss Mary up and dress already, and de horses are at de door; him wait for you to ride wid him before breakfast, massa, and to see de clearing of de fag.”
“Ride before breakfast!—see the clearing of the fog!” grumbled I. “Romantic it may be, but consumedly inconvenient.” However, my knighthood was at stake; so up I got, drank my coffee, dressed, and adjourned to the piazza, where my adorable was already rigged with riding-habit and whip. Straightway we mounted, she into her side-saddle, with her riding-habit and who knows how many petticoats beneath her, while I, Pilgarlic, embarked in thin jane trousers upon a cold, damp, indeed wet saddle, that made me shiver again. But I was understood to be in love, ergo, I was expected to be agreeable. However, a damp saddle and a thin pair of trousers allay one’s ardour a good deal too. But if any one had seen the impervious fog in which we sat—why, you could not see a tree three yards from you—a cabbage looked like a laurel-bush, Sneezer became a dromedary, and the negroes passing the little gate to their work were absolute Titans.—Boom—a long reverberating noise thundered in the distance and amongst the hills, gradually dying away in a hollow rumble. “The Admiral tumbling down the hatchway, Tom—the morning gun fired at Port Royal,” said Mary; and so it was.
The fire-flies were still glancing amongst the leaves of the beautiful orange-trees in front of the house; but we could see no farther, the whole view being shrouded under the thick watery veil which rolled and boiled about us, sometimes thick, and sometimes thinner, hovering between a mist and small rain, and wetting one’s hair and face and clothes most completely. We descended from the eminence on which the house stood, rode along the level at the foot of it, and, after a canter of a couple of miles we began to ascend a bridle-path, through the Guinea-grass pastures, which rose rank and wet, as high as one’s saddlebow, drenching me to the skin in the few patches where I was not wet before. All this while the fog continued as ever; at length we suddenly rose above it—rode out of it, as it were.
St-Thomas-in-the-Vale is, as the name denotes, a deep valley, about ten miles long by six broad, into which there is but one inlet comfortably passable for carriages—the road along which we had to come. The hills, by which it is surrounded on all sides, are, for the most part, covered with Guinea-grass pas-tures—on the lower ranges, and with coffee plantations and provision grounds higher up. When we had ridden clear of the mist the sun was shining brightly overhead, and everything was fresh and sparkling with dewdrops near us; but the vale was still concealed under the wool-like sea of white mist, only pierced here and there by a tall cocoa-nut tree rising above it, like the mast of a foundered vessel. But anon the higher ridges of the grass pieces appeared, as the fog undulated in fleecy waves in the passing breeze, which, as it rose and sank like the swell of the ocean, disclosed every now and then the works on some high-lying sugar estate, and again rolled over them like the tide covering the shallows of the sea, while shouts of laughter and the whooping of the negroes in the fields, rose from out the obscurity, blended with the signal-cries of the sugar boilers to the stokeholemen of “Fire, fire—grand copper, grand copper,” and the ca-ca’ing, like so many rooks, of the children driving the mules and oxen in the mills, and the everlasting splashing and panting of the waterwheel of the estate immediately below us, and the crashing and smashing of the canes, as they were crushed between the mill rollers; and the cracking of the wain and waggonmen’s long whips, and the rumbling, and creaking and squealing of the machinery of the mills, and of the carriage-wheels; while the smoke from the unseen chimney-stalks of the sugar-works rose whirling darkly up through the watery veil, like spinning waterspouts, from out the bosom of the great deep. Anon the veil rose, and we were once more gradually enveloped in vapour. Presently the thickest of the mist floated up, and rose above us like a gauze-like canopy of fleecy clouds overhanging the whole level plain through which the red quenched sun, which a moment before was flaming with intolerable brightness overhead, suddenly assumed the appearance of a round red globe in an apothecary’s window, surrounded by a broad yellow sickly halo, which dimly lit up, as if the sun had been in eclipse, the cane fields, then in arrow, as it is called (a lavender-coloured flower, about three feet long, that shoots out from the top of the cane, denoting that it
is mature, and fit to be ground), and the Guinea-grass plats, and the nice-looking houses of the bushas, and the busy mill-yards, and the noisy gangs of negroes in the field, which were all disclosed, as if by the change of a scene.
At length, in love as we were, we remembered our breakfast; and, beginning to descend, we encountered in the path a gang of about three dozen little glossy black piccaninies going to their work, the oldest not above twelve years of age, under the care of an old negress. They had all their little packies, or calabashes, on their heads, full of provisions; while an old cook, with a bundle of fagots on her head, and a fire-stick in her hand, brought up the rear—her province being to cook the food which the tiny little workpeople carried. Presently several bookkeepers, or deputy white superintendents on the plantation, also passed—strong healthy-looking young fellows—in stuff jackets and white trousers, and all with good cudgels in their hands. The mist, which had continued to rise up and up, growing thinner and thinner as it ascended, now rent overhead about the middle of the vale, and the masses, like scattered clouds, drew towards the ledge of hills that surrounded it, like floating chips of wood in a tub of water, sailing in long shreds towards the most precipitous peaks, to which, as they ascended, they attached themselves and remained at rest. And now the fierce sun, reasserting his supremacy, shone once more in all his tropical fierceness right down on the steamy earth, and all was glare and heat and bustle.
Next morning I rode out at daylight along with Mr Bang, who had arrived on the previous evening. We stopped to breakfast at a property of his about four miles distant, and certainly we had no reason to complain of our fare; fresh fish from the gully, nicely-roasted yams, a capital junk of salt beef, a dish I always glory in on shore, although a hint of it at sea makes me quake; and, after our repast, I once more took the road to see the estate in company of my learned friend. There was a long narrow saddle, or ridge of limestone, about five hundred feet high, that separated the southern quarter of the parish from the northern. The cane-pieces, and cultivated part of the estate, lay in a dead level of deep black mould, to the southward of this ridge, from out there, the latter rose abruptly. The lower part of the ridge was clothed with the most luxuriant orange, shaddock, lime, star-apple, bread-fruit, and custard-apple trees, besides numberless others that I cannot particularise, while the summit was shaded by tall forest timber. Proceeding along a rough bridle-path for the space of two miles, we attained the highest part of the saddle, and turned sharp off to the right to follow a small footpath that had been billed in the bush, being the lines recently run by the land-surveyor between Mr Bang’s property and the neighbouring estate, the course of which mine host was desirous of personally inspecting. We therefore left our horses in charge of our servants, who had followed us, running behind, holding on by their tails, and began to brush through the narrow path cut in the hot underwood. After walking a hundred yards or so, we arrived at the point where the path ended abruptly, abutting against a large tree that had been felled, about three feet high, and at least five in diameter. Mr Bang immediately perched himself on it to look about him, to see the lay of the land over the sea of brushwood. I remained below, complaining loudly of the heat and confined air of my situation, and swabbing all the while most energetically, when I saw my friend start.
“Zounds, Tom, look behind you!” We had nothing but our riding-switches in our hands. A large snake, about ten feet long, had closed up the path in our rear, sliding slowly from one branch to another, and hissing and striking out its forked tongue as it twisted itself, at the height of my head from the ground, amongst the trees and bushes, round and round about, occasionally twining its neck round a tree as thick as my body, on one side of the path, and its tail round another, larger in girth than my leg, on the other; when it would, with prodigious strength but the greatest ease and the most oily smoothness, bend the smaller tree like a hoop, until the trunks nearly touched, although growing full six feet asunder, as if a tacklefall or other strong purchase, had been applied; but continuing all the while it was putting forth its power to glide soapily along, quite unconcernedly, and to all appearance as pliant as a leather thong, shooting out its glancing neck, and glowering about with its little blasting fiery eyes, and sliding the forepart of the body onwards without pausing, as if there had been no strain on the tail whatsoever, until the stems of the two trees were at length brought together, when it let the smaller go with a loud spank, that shook the dew of the neighbouring branches, and the perspiration from Tom Cringle’s forehead—whose nerves were not more steady than the tree—like rain, and frightened all the birds in the neighbourhood; while it, the only unstartled thing, continued steadily and silently on its course, turning and looking at us and poking its head within arm’s length, and raising it with a loud hiss, and a threatening attitude, on our smallest motion.
“A modern group of the Laocoon; lord, what a neckcloth we shall both have presently!” thought I.
Meanwhile, the serpent seemed to be emboldened from our quietude, and came so near that I thought I perceived the hot glow of its breath, with its scales glancing like gold and silver, and its diamond-like eyes sparkling; but all so still and smooth that, unless it were an occasional hiss, its motions were noiseless as those of an apparition.
At length the devil came fairly between us, and I could stand it no longer. We had both up to this period been really and truly fascinated; but the very instant that the coast was clear in my wake, by the snake heading me, and gliding between me and Mr Bang, my manhood forsook me all of a heap, and, turning tail, I gave a loud shout and started off down the path at speed, never once looking behind, and leaving Bang to his fate, perched on his pedestal, like the laughing satyr; however, the next moment I heard him thundering in my rear. My panic had been contagious, for the instant my sudden motion had frightened the snake out of its way, Bang started forth after me at speed, and away we both raced, until a stump caught my foot, and both of us, after flying through the air a couple of fathoms or so, trundled head over heels, over and over, shouting and laughing. Pegtop now came up to us in no small surprise, but the adventure was at an end, and we returned to Mr Bang’s to dinner.
Here we had an agreeable addition to our party in Sir Jeremy Mayo, and the family of the Admiral, Sir Samuel Semaphore, his lady, his two most amiable daughters, and the husband of the eldest.
Next morning we rode out to breakfast with a very worthy man, Mr Stornaway, the overseer of Mount Olive estate, in the neighbourhood of which there were several natural curiosities to be seen. Although the extent of our party startled him a good deal, he received us most hospitably. He ushered us into the piazza, where breakfast was laid, when up rose ten thousand flies from the breakfast-table, that was covered with marmalade, and guava jelly, and nicely-roasted yams, and fair white bread, and the fragrant bread-fruit roasted in the ashes and wrapped in plantain-leaves; while the chocolate and coffee pots—the latter equal in cubic contents to one of the Wave’s water-butts— emulated each other in the fragrance of the odours which they sent forth; and avocado pears, and potted calipiver, and cold pork hams, and—really, I cannot repeat the numberless luxuries that flanked the main body of the entertainment on a side-table—all strong provocatives to fall to.
“You, Quacco—Peter—Monkey,” shouted Stornaway, “where are you, with your brushes? don’t you see the flies covering the table?” The three sable pages forthwith appeared, each with a large green branch in his hand, which they waved over the viands, and we sat down and had a most splendid breakfast. Lady Semaphore and I—for I have always had a touch of the old woman in me—were exceedingly tickled with the way in which the piccaniny mummas, that is, the mothers of the negro children, received our friend Bang. After breakfast, a regular muster took place under the piazza of all the children on the property under eight years of age, accompanied by their mothers.
“Ah, Massa Bang,” shouted one, “why you no come see we oftener? you forget your poor piccaniny hereabout.”
“You grow foolish old man now,” quoth another.
“You no wort—you go live in town, an’ no care about we who make massa money here; you no see we all tarving here;” and the nice cleanly-looking fat matron, who made the remark, laughed loudly.
He entered into the spirit of the affair with great kindliness, and verily, before he got clear, his pockets were as empty as a half-pay lieutenant’s. His feepennies were flying about in all directions.
After breakfast we went to view the natural bridge—a band of rock that connects two hills together—and beneath which a roaring stream rushes, hid entirely by the bushes and trees that grow on each side of the ravine. We descended by a circuitous footpath into the river-course, and walked under the natural arch, and certainly never was anything finer; a regular Der Freyschutz dell. The arch overhead was nearly fifty feet high, and the echo was superb, as we found, when the sweet voices of the ladies, blending in softest harmony— (lord, how fine you become, Tom!)—in one of Moore’s melodies, were reflected back on us at the close with the most thrilling distinctness; while a stone, pitched against any of the ivy-like creepers with which the face of the rock was covered, was sure to dislodge a whole cloud of birds, and not unfrequently a slow-sailing white-winged owl. Shortly after the Riomagno Gully, as it is called, passes this most interesting spot, it sinks, and runs for three miles underground, and again reappears on the surface, and go over the stones, as if nothing had happened. By the by, this is a common vagary of nature in Jamaica. For instance, the Rio Cobre, I think it is, which, after a subterranean course of three miles, suddenly gushes out of the solid rock at Bybrook estate, in a solid cube of clear cold water, three feet in diameter; and I remember, in a cruise that I had at another period of my life, in the leeward part of the island, we came to an estate where the supply of water for the machinery rose up within the bounds of the mill-dam itself, into which there was no flow, with such force, that above the spring, if I might so call it, the bubbling water was projected into a blunt cone like the bottom of a caldron, the apex of which was a foot higher than the level of the pond, although the latter was eighteen feet deep.