Journal of a West-India Proprietor: Kept During a Residence in the Island of Jamaica |
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allowed appeared APRIL 24 arrival assured beautiful begged Black River blue book-keepers brought buckra called captain child colour complaint Cornwall Creoles Cubina curricle dancing dead deck dinner Eboe Edward England eyes favourable FEBRUARY FEBRUARY 12 fellow fish flying fish gave girl ground hand head hear heart Hordley hospital hour Irza Irza's island Jamaica John Fuller kind Kingston length live look massa miles Montego Bay morning mother mountains mulatto neger negroes never night o'clock o'er Obeah obliged occasion once overseer pain passed perfectly person Plato poison poor punishment River rock Rosalvo sail Savannah la Mar scarcely seemed sent ship singing Sir Godfrey Webster slaves soon Spanish Town suffered sugar Sunday tears thing thought to-day told trees trustee vessel whole wife wind woman young
Popular passages
Page 408 - What other negroes may be I will not pretend to guess, but I am certain that there cannot be more tractable or better disposed persons (take them for all in all) than my negroes of Cornwall. I only wish that in my future dealings with white persons, whether in Jamaica or out of it, I could but meet with half so much gratitude, affection and goodwill.
Page 61 - ... upon the ground. Twenty voices at once inquired after uncles, and aunts, and grandfathers, and great-grandmothers of mine, who had been buried long before I was in existence, and whom, I verily believe, most of them only knew by tradition. One woman held up her little naked black child to me, grinning from ear to ear — " Look, massa, look here ! him nice lilly neger for massa ! " Another complained, — " So long since none come see we, massa ; good massa come at last.
Page 323 - S22 as the cruellest proprietor that ever disgraced Jamaica. It was his constant practice, whenever a sick negro was pronounced incurable, to order the poor wretch to be carried to a solitary vale upon his estate, called the Gulley, where he was thrown down, and abandoned...
Page 69 - I really think that her form and features were the most statue-like that I ever met with : her complexion had no yellow in it, and yet was not brown enough to be dark — it was more of an ash-dove colour than anything else ; her teeth were admirable, both for colour and shape ; her eyes equally mild and bright ; and her face merely broad enough to give it all possible softness and grandness of contour : her air and countenance would have suited Yarico ; but she reminded me most of Grassini in
Page 406 - I made it public, that from henceforth no negro should possess more than 405 one house, with a sufficient portion of ground for his family, and on the following Sunday the overseer by my order looked over the village, took from those who had too much to give to those who had too little, and made an entire new distribution according to the most strict Agrarian law. Those who lost by this measure, came the next day to complain to me ; when I...
Page 30 - tis so sweet .... and some tones come so swelling, So right from the heart, and so pure to the ear, — That sure at this moment his thoughts must be dwelling On one who is absent, most kind and most dear. Oh may she, who now dictates that ballad so tender, Diffuse o'er your days the heart's solace and ease, As yon lovely moon, with a gleam of mild splendour, Pure, tranquil, and bright, over-silvers the seas !
Page 51 - At length the ship has squeezed herself into this champagne bottle of a bay ! Perhaps, the satisfaction attendant upon our having overcome the difficulty, added something to the illusion of its effect ; but the beauty of the atmosphere, the dark purple mountains, the shores covered with mangroves of the liveliest green down to the very edge of the water, and the light-coloured houses with their lattices and piazzas completely embowered in trees, altogether made the scenery of the Bay wear a very...
Page 62 - ... seemed to imply that, although he did feel pleasure then in serving me, if he had detested me he must have served me still. I really felt quite humiliated at the moment, and was tempted to tell him, " Do not say that again ; say that you are my negro, but do not call yourself my slave.
Page 108 - ... but not such gardens as those belonging to our English cottages, where a few cabbages and carrots just peep up and grovel upon the earth between hedges, in square narrow beds, and where the tallest tree is a gooseberry bush : the vegetables of the negroes are all cultivated in their provision-grounds ; those form their fo'/cAew-gardens, and these are all for ornament or luxury, and are filled with a profusion of oranges, shaddocks, cocoa-nuts, and peppers of all descriptions.
Page 122 - The hospital has been crowded, since my arrival, with patients who have nothing the matter with them. On Wednesday there were about thirty invalids, of whom only four were cases at all serious ; the rest had " a lilly pain here, Massa," or " a bad pain me know nowhere, Massa," and evidently only came to the hospital in order to sit idle, and chat away the time with their friends. Four of them the doctor ordered into the field peremptorily ; the next day there came into the sick-house six others ;...