The West Indies. John Henderson

sweetmeats, tobacco, eggs, live poultry, and the sticky, greasy pastries dear to the heart of the negro, be he old or young. As a rule the basket stalls are placed at the roadside, well in the glare of the sun. The saleswoman is usually very old, and her costume is of dull rags constructed to resemble a lady’s dress. Her face is creased at the jaws, and the cheek bones stand out like gnarled fists; her remaining teeth are very yellow, and her skinny hands are for ever shuffling the contents of her basket. Such women make no bid for trade; the buyer comes or he comes not. The dull face shows no emotion. It may be that the basket and its contents are the property of a negro speculator; she, the seller, perhaps, is simply an agent working for her daily yam. These are not the merry women of the market-place who come in from the country with a load of produce to sell and to spend a day in town. If it were not for the sweetmeats they would pass as ancient beggars. Of course Kingston has its gamin—the wild, bareheaded, barelegged boy, who is always shouting or running or playing his mysterious games of the streets. He, of course, is the essence of youthful happiness. His day is divided between the harbour, where he dives for pennies among the sharks alongside ocean-going passenger boats, and the streets, where he is prepared for anything, from stealing a water melon to chasing the donkeys of the market-place. When a stranger accosts him he becomes all grinning innocence and flashing teeth. “Me work, sah, yes, sah, very hard work, very little money. I ask you for a penny, sah, for my mother’s sake, sah, one penny.” It seems to me that every boy, be he black or white, or yellow or red, whether he live in London, Paris, Tokio, or Kingston, Jamaica, is afflicted with the same genius of mischief.

      The capital of Jamaica has its pest also. In most places frequented by tourists the great pest is the guide pest; in Jamaica it is the buggyman. The buggy, of course, is the cab of the Indies, and the buggyman is the curse of the country. With him we will deal at length elsewhere. But the buggies and the buggyman should always be considered as the Jamaican pests.

      It is curious to see the long electric Canadian road car swing at ten-mile speed down these narrow streets crowded with the picturesque people of the Western Indies. The effect of the streets is kaleidoscopic; the sudden appearance of a car reminds one of the mutoscope which shows a railway train rushing at the audience. Such is the impression of the road car in the crowded Jamaican streets. The people have become accustomed to this touch of a vigorous Western world. The noise of its rushing and the horrible jangle of its clanking bell have ceased to provoke interest. The car is a thing on which, for a copper or two, the workers may ride home. It saves great fatigue and much walking. The market baskets may be placed beneath the seats; the town slips rapidly behind, and home is reached. Heaven knows what moves the car along. There are no horses, and no engines like those on the railway. It is a thing causing annoyance to the buggyman, that is all. For the rest you can ride five or six miles at ten miles an hour speed for four Jamaican pennies.

      The country-people, who come once a week to sell their produce in the great Saturday foregathering of agricultural Jamaica, still show wonder and fear at the approach of a tram. They still jump into the hedges as the tram flies along—still turn their eyes away from the chaff of the negro conductor. But that is the only respect shown to this foreign importation.

      The dusty streets of the capital melt into country lanes with scented hedges as you swing out of the city on a journey to the Constant Spring terminus of the tramway. White dust takes the place of the darker city dust. The scent of half the flowers of the world crush out the musty odour of crowded alleys, always stewing beneath a tropic sun. That is the great charm of the tramway, the only real excuse for its existence. By it you can rush out of evil town-life into the sweetness of the most beautiful country in the world. To see a high range of purple mountains, fronted by heavy fields of banana trees and towering pines, and brilliant flowers of every tint and shade and shape—to see all these from the seat of a tram car which might just as well be taking you from Shepherd’s Bush to Kew, is a thing every one should experience. The attitude of the native to the cars is representative of ingrained indifference to everything.

      Of all places in and about Kingston, the market-place is the most fascinating. Really there are two buildings—two groups of compact sheds, walled in and guarded by lazy constables of justice. They are distant from each other to the extent of about half a mile, but the road which links the one to the other is, on market days, just as busy a place as either building. So it is easier to count both buildings and roadway one long market. And it is better to trade in the open highway than it is to haggle with women in a crowded building reeking with strong smells of fruit and fowls and vegetables, musty basket-work, decomposing meat, and a few hundred healthy negroes. Of course it is necessary that we should go the round of the covered stalls and stand the cross-fire of two rows of anxious saleswomen, whose lung power is of artillery force. After the first ten yards of the passage any ordinary Englishman has lost his power of blushing. The blandishments of the women are crude and full of personalities. One calls you a pretty English gentleman, and shouts her strong opinion that you would look very handsome in her fine hat of Ippi Appa straw. Another hails you as her long-lost lover; and a younger woman, more brazen than her seniors, invites you to greet her with a “fine big kiss, my love.” It is embarrassing, especially if you show embarrassment. A blush on your cheek is, as it were, a red flag to

       A FRUIT-SELLER ON A SIDE-WALK, KINGSTON

      the wit of three hundred women. Soon you find your utter abandon and exchange compliments. The negro woman respects a white man who has no reserve. At one stall you will find all the fruits of the Indies: succulent mangoes, golden grape fruit, oranges, bananas, guavas, nazeberries, pine-apples, and a half hundred others. The combined force of all the smells is terrific. Next, an aged basket-woman displays examples of the only real art-work produced by the West Indian negroes. The baskets are really good. You can buy one of any shape, any size, and any and every design. Coloured grass is let into snow-white reed with fine cunning, and without regard for any canon of conventionality. The character of the casual negroes is shown in the patterns of their basket-work. All the younger women are told off to superintend the stalls which cater to the weaknesses of tourists. The women are given silver ornaments to wear on their coal black wrists, and frequently their ears are hung with heavy Eastern rings. This is a fashion copied from the coolie women. All the woman’s personal jewellery is offered for sale. She will explain the meaning of the most complicated article of native manufactures with cheerful languor. She assumes an air of indifference so long as she knows you intend to buy. When you begin to show indifference, the instinct of the saleswoman springs to life in her, and she is all entreaty. She offers wonderful whips made from the lace bark tree, whips whose butt and long plaited lash are both made from one piece of wood. She offers walking sticks of ebony, groo groo palm, pimento, bamboo, or cinnamon. Or if you prefer it, you can purchase a shark’s backbone mounted on a steel rod and fitted with a handle of scented sandal wood. This, the lady will tell you, is in England a great novelty, and surely worth five little dollars. Of course there is basket-work, and some pottery shaped out of red Caribbean clay. There are strings of coloured seeds and flower-pots made from wide bamboos. Gourds are carved and coloured and cut into useless shapes alleged to be ornamental, and cocoa-nuts are carved into men’s heads, the red hair left to make a frizzy beard. These, the lady says, are very fine. There are little gourds set on wooden skewers, and so formed into babies’ rattles. These the arch maiden sells to young men and maidens. Last of all, she produces dainty d’oyleys and table-centres and fine ornaments made from the lace bark-tree, and fashioned with ferns and pressed blossoms. These things cost a great deal of money, but as a rule they are very decorative. When you leave her stall, the lady pursues you for many yards with a mammoth lamp-shade, which, she assures you, will be greatly appreciated by your home folks.

      But the stall of the tourist caterer suggests artificiality. After all, the real market is under the vestibule of the great square building. Here are the native people with their pepper-pods and cocoa, their live fowls and jackass rope. The latter, be it understood, is tobacco. Sold in rope form at one penny or twopence per yard, the tobacco is called jackass rope, for what reason I could not discover. It is in this corner of the market-place that one meets the negro only. The woman minds the stall and does the selling, while the husband gossips with his fellows, or sips strong liquids at