Miss Sarah Jack of Spanish Town | Page 4

is nothing so melancholy as a country in its decadence, unless it
be a people in their decadence. I am not aware that the latter misfortune
can be attributed to the Anglo-Saxon race in any part of the world; but
there is reason to fear that it has fallen on an English colony in the
island of Jamaica.
Jamaica was one of those spots on which fortune shone with the full
warmth of all her noonday splendour. That sun has set;--whether for
ever or no none but a prophet can tell; but as far as a plain man may see,
there are at present but few signs of a coming morrow, or of another
summer.
It is not just or proper that one should grieve over the misfortunes of
Jamaica with a stronger grief because her savannahs are so lovely, her
forests so rich, her mountains so green, and he rivers so rapid; but it is
so. It is piteous that a land so beautiful should be one which fate has
marked for misfortune. Had Guiana, with its flat, level, unlovely soil,
become poverty-stricken, one would hardly sorrow over it as one does
sorrow for Jamaica.
As regards scenery she is the gem of the western tropics. It is
impossible to conceive spots on the earth's surface more gracious to the
eye than those steep green valleys which stretch down to the south-west
from the Blue Mountain peak towards the sea; and but little behind
these in beauty are the rich wooded hills which in the western part of
the island divide the counties of Hanover and Westmoreland. The hero
of the tale which I am going to tell was a sugar-grower in the latter
district, and the heroine was a girl who lived under that Blue Mountain
peak.
The very name of a sugar-grower as connected with Jamaica savours of
fruitless struggle, failure, and desolation. And from his earliest growth
fruitless struggle, failure, and desolation had been the lot of Maurice
Cumming. At eighteen years of age he had been left by his father sole
possessor of the Mount Pleasant estate, than which in her palmy days
Jamaica had little to boast of that was more pleasant or more palmy.
But those days had passed by before Roger Cumming, the father of our
friend, had died.
These misfortunes coming on the head of one another, at intervals of a
few years, had first stunned and then killed him. His slaves rose against
him, as they did against other proprietors around him, and burned down

his house and mills, his homestead and offices. Those who know the
amount of capital which a sugar-grower must invest in such buildings
will understand the extent of this misfortune. Then the slaves were
emancipated. It is not perhaps possible that we, now-a-days, should
regard this as a calamity; but it was quite impossible that a Jamaica
proprietor of those days should not have done so. Men will do much for
philanthropy, they will work hard, they will give the coat from their
back;--nay the very shirt from their body; but few men will endure to
look on with satisfaction while their commerce is destroyed.
But even this Mr. Cumming did bear after a while, and kept his
shoulder to the wheel. He kept his shoulder to the wheel till that third
misfortune came upon him--till the protection duty on Jamaica sugar
was abolished. Then he turned his face to the wall and died.
His son at this time was not of age, and the large but lessening property
which Mr. Cumming left behind him was for three years in the hands of
trustees. But nevertheless Maurice, young as he was, managed the
estate. It was he who grew the canes, and made the sugar;--or else
failed to make it. He was the "massa" to whom the free negroes looked
as the source from whence their wants should be supplied,
notwithstanding that, being free, they were ill inclined to work for him,
let his want of work be ever so sore.
Mount Pleasant had been a very large property. In addition to his
sugar-canes Mr. Cumming had grown coffee; for his land ran up into
the hills of Trelawney to that altitude which in the tropics seems
necessary for the perfect growth of the coffee berry. But it soon became
evident that labour for the double produce could not be had, and the
coffee plantation was abandoned. Wild brush and the thick
undergrowth of forest reappeared on the hill-sides which had been rich
with produce. And the evil re-created and exaggerated itself. Negroes
squatted on the abandoned property; and being able to live with
abundance from their stolen gardens, were less willing than ever to
work in the cane pieces.
And thus things went from bad