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The streets at this hour were comparatively empty, the shops still closed, and the gateway and bridge utterly deserted. Passing out of the city by this track, we entered one of the numerous gardens which line the opposite banks of the Orontes, and seated ourselves on a ridge from which we were able to command an extensive prospect, and watch the sun as it rose over the cloud-capped mountains in all the pomp and splendour of a Syrian summer morning. We stationed ourselves with the bridge to our left, while before us was the opposite or city bank of the river, lined with crumbling old walls and surrounded by the houses of some of the wealthy Greeks. Immediately in front of the spot occupied by us was a little wooden balcony overhanging the stream, in which a number of Moslems were congregating for the purpose of going through their morning ablutions before entering into the mosque to pray. To our left, the river was teeming with busy water-wheels, all actively whirling round to irrigate the gardens. Occasional stakes of wood traversed the breadth of the river, and on them eel-fishers were busily at work gathering in the night harvest. Five of them, we were given to understand, were sold for a piastre, or twopence-halfpenny, if purchased on the spot. In the distance we caught glimpses of the sea, and the snowy peaks of the hills glittered gloriously in the sun's early rays. By-and-bye the tops of the minarets and of the deep green poplars became tinged with the same light, and simultaneously the shops opened their sleepy eyes, and the city burst into the activity of every-day life.

In a short time, the bridge was swarming with horsemen and foot-passengers, with donkeys, mules, cows, goats, and countless flocks of sheep; travellers were setting forth on their journeys; shepherds were driving their flocks to distant pasturages; labourers and tillers of the ground were going to their day's work, some of whom were natives of the neighbouring villages who were too late to return on the previous evening; many were going forth to the pleasures of the chase, to shooting, or to hawking, while some few, like ourselves, had evidently come forth to enjoy the fresh air and the scenery.

Half an hour later, and natives from the villages and gardens were thronging into the city with donkey-loads of vegetables and fruits; Bedouins from the desert might have been seen bringing in large jars of butter, the produce of their herds; and now and then a hardy-looking mountaineer with some freshly-gathered honey. By eight o'clock the turmoil and confusion had, to a great extent, subsided. Every man was at his post for the day, and the bazaars and markets were swarming with men, women, and children, of all creeds and professions inhabiting the East, each eagerly intent upon his or her own particular business. Mingling with the multitude, we elbowed our way through the crowd, assailed on every side by a perfect Babel of sounds, determined at any cost to obtain a good view of the market-place, and see how they managed these things at Antioch.

Surviving the extraordinary hustle to which we were subjected, we soon found ourselves in a vast square, standing in the front row of a dense crowd all being more or less interested in the sales that were going on. Fierce-looking Arabs, with their long hair streaming in the air, were galloping to and fro, every now and then charging up to us in a most alarming manner, and only just reining in their fleet coursers when apparently on the very point of trampling down our party. Satisfied with the animal's paces, speculators were not wanting; the bidding accordingly commenced in animated style, and prices were shouted out in all keys and in all directions by invisible competitors. Some score persons might be heard screaming the same sum, when, after halting for a time, an adventurous Turk would add an additional twopence to the bid. The horse was at once pronounced bought and sold; the Arab glided off, and the new proprietor vaulted into the saddle. In any part of England, 201. would have been deemed a cheap price for such a noble-looking animal; in Antioch he fetched just 21. 15s., a sum which was considered exorbitant by the majority of the spectators. Other horses were bought by the same public competition, while some were bartered for. One man, for instance, would give a donkey, a new cloak, and a jar of butter, for a by no means contemptible steed; while the last horse on sale was swopped by the despairing owner for a pair of bright yellow boots, a rusty old musket, and a few measures of oil.

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Next came venders of poultry, with a lengthy array of baskets crammed full of fowls, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, partridges, pigeons, and even quails, which were all speedily disposed of, for the market was overstocked. host bought half-a-dozen baskets of chickens for his farm-house in the country, obtaining them one with another at the astonishing low price of five piastres a dozen, or six dozen-and-a-half chickens for a crown!! Fruit and vegetables were sold by donkey-loads to the various retail grocers; and so soon as the bargain was struck, we saw sober, grey-bearded old Turks, pipe in hand, marching off pompously before a whole herd of donkeys, which he undertook to convey in safety to his shop at the other extremity of the town. Fish and eels; cotton, wool, china, earthen and glass ware; endless heaps of grain; cheese, biscuits, and tobacco; all were in turn exposed for sale, and eagerly bought up or bartered for. Surprised at the immense consumption indicated by the transactions we had witnessed, we inquired if the market-place was thus amply stocked every day in the year. No, was the reply; it was only on a Friday (the Turks Sabbath), that this species of fair was held; on which day the inhabitauts of all the surrounding villages were accustomed to throng into Antioch to buy and sell and get gain.

The business of the day was over by ten, and the square began rapidly to be thinned. Groups of natives collected round the coffee-houses, and discussed the various topics of local news. Poor simple villagers-no great adepts in the mysteries of arithmetic-might be seen counting over and over again the proceeds of the morning's sales, sometimes making the amount fifty piastres above, and sometimes a few score below the mark. Around a much-frequented pump, standing in the centre of the square, grain-merchants and their clerks were carefully comparing notes of weight. While we thus loitered, the loud tones of the muezzin (which is only cried on the Friday, at half-an-hour before mid-day) resounded from a neighbouring minaret, and reminded us somewhat unpleasantly of the fact that we had not yet partaken of breakfast.

Wending our way homewards, accordingly, we passed through a vast variety of streets, at that hour being seen to advantage. One striking peculiarity of the trading quarters in Antioch, as in most other eastern cities, we found to be the possession by each trade or calling of a distinct street or row of bazaars; thus, the carpenters were all in one street; the tinkers in another; the smiths in a third; and so on throughout. Whilst passing through the latter streets, the clattering and confusion was beyond description. When we entered the domains of the shoemakers-all devout and fanatical hadgees (or pilgrims to Mecca)-with their green turban and beads, we were looked upon as intruders, and assailed with discourteous epithets. We passed in safety, however, and getting in the more civilized parts of the city, soon reached the welcome mansion of our host. Here we partook, with all heartiness and relish, of a most substantial breakfast, after which we were under the necessity of making preparations for our depar ture from this most delightful of modern eastern cities.

We had been just twenty-four hours at Antioch as we mounted our horses again. Passing under St. Paul's Gate, we waved our adieu to our worthy host and hostess, who had insisted on accompanying us a short distance on our journey. On reaching the high land of Seleucia, we paused on an eminence to get a farewell view of the famous city. Again, in glorious confusion, rose the domes, minarets, and tiled roofs, the fruit-trees, and poplars; but on this occasion they were seen through a slight haze of gloom, arising from the reflection that we were in all probability for the last time gazing upon that memorable spot.

Antioch may in truth be said to possess the finest climate of the east, and to boast of the most luxuriant gardens. Hitherto her misfortunes have been many and great; for besides those common plagues of the east, pestilence, famine, fire and sword, the city has been oftentimes overthrown by earthquakes, the latest occurring in the year 1822. Her ancient inhabitants looked up with pious amazement to the abstemious Simon Stylites, doing penance on his elevated column; but the modern Antiochians have lately been threatened with what would doubtless occasion them to stare with a much greater astonishment,—

namely, a railroad. Should this threat of advancing civilization, however, ever be accomplished, why then, perhaps, both writer and reader may stand a chance of spending another pleasant day at Antioch.

REMINISCENCES OF JAMAICA.

AMONG Our pleasant recollections of Jamaica, the political equality of its inhabitants is one of the chief. The Jew and the Gentile, the white and the black, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant, the European and the Creole, constitute alike the electors and the actual or eligible representatives. The colony is thus in advance of the parent country. At home we exclude the Jew from the halls of legislation, although we hold that the purposes of civil government are secular, not spiritual, and that the power of civil government is not only a trust for the people, but from the people, either in fact or in form; and we subject him to taxation without representation, while we hold that this is tyranny, and that we are a free and enlightened people. We suffer our colonial offspring, such as Jamaica and Canada, to outstrip us in just and liberal legislation, while we boast of our political progress, and of our colonizing wisdom. Till 1663 the Jews were excluded from Jamaica in 1698 they applied unsuccessfully for a removal of their disabilities, “though they had been permitted, in 1684, to erect synagogues, and to conduct worship according to their own ritual; " about 1740 they were exempted from peculiar tribute, agreeably to royal instruction; and for many recent years they have been placed on a perfect level with all other religionists. The only remaining favouritism in the politics of Jamaica is, the endowment of the Anglo-Episcopal clergy, and of one clergyman of the Church of Scotland; but the abolition of this, in Jamaica and elsewhere, is merely a question of time and manner. One great end of domestic society is, the welfare of man in his immaturity; and the welfare of man, in his maturity, so far as it can be consigned to society at all, belongs to the nation for things secular, and to the church for things spiritual. Thus happily distinct, harmonious and perfect is the provision for man's interests, in the form of divinely-instituted societies. One of the greatest social errors which man can commit is, to attempt to blend or interlink these societies. Separately, they work harmoniously and effectively; conjunctively, they become discordant, and mutually counteractive. Each was instituted independent by its Divine Author, and any other relation is the product of human folly, and the source of infinite evil. The Church should neither serve nor rule the State, but wield its spiritual weapons, and achieve its unworldly ends; and the State should confine itself to the secular interests of the territory, and to the maintenance of the secular rights of every occupant by secular means. Such is clearly the teaching of social science, of political and Christian philosophy; such is the noble and exemplary achievement of the United States of America; such is the tendency of our own civil government and religious changes; and such will ultimately be the condition of the world, if the progress of our race be not a delusion and a dream. Nothing can be more satisfactory and convincing than the effects of the liberal legislation of Jamaica. A Roman Catholic is the Attorney-General, a Methodist is in the Council, several Jews are in the House of Assembly,-colour and creed are no barriers to the elevation of capacity and merit; and neither discord nor danger in consequence obtains.

No country in the world more forcibly illustrates the expediency of liberty and equality than Jamaica. There were no fewer than twenty-six slave insurrections before emancipation; there has not been one insurrection since. Emancipation has converted tools into human beings, slaves into freemen, and poor dependents into small proprietors and comfortable cottagers. It has hastened the downfall of a few proprietors that had been long tottering under enormous debts and encumbrances, but it has immensely elevated and benefited hundreds of thousands of mankind. If man, not money,-if masses, and not small minorities, be the proper object of consideration, there can be but one opinion respect

ing the West Indian liberation. And if the conduct of the emancipated can prove their fitness for freedom, and the wisdom of their emancipators, Jamaica alone is sufficient to determine the safety and propriety of negro freedom. We must not exhibit the losses of a few West Indian proprietors, and conceal the untold gains of the West India peasantry; we must not ascribe to freedom the consequences of mortgages that originated with slavery; we must not confound with emancipation the subsequent imperial legislation that has so greatly injured the planters; we may expect freedom to compete successfully with slavery in all industrial pursuits; but we must not expect freedom to compete with slavery and the slave trade, with slave-trading Cuba, for instance, just as the tradesman who buys his materials cannot compete with the tradesman who steals. The fact is, that the agricultural productions and exports of Jamaica have greatly increased since emancipation; and if the robbery and tyranny of other countries, and the adverse legislation of the parent country, have rendered the market prices unremunerative to the planter, and necessitated the abandonment of several estates, it is not freedom we are to blame, but the want of it; and the proper remedy lies in hastening the universal abolition of the slave trade, and the universal recognition of human rights and relations.

The moral aspect of negro emancipation is no less satisfactory than the material. The writer of these recollections has had ample opportunities of witnessing the conduct of the industrial classes in Europe and America, and he has no hesitation in averring that he has never known a peasantry more sober, civil, and well-behaved than that of Jamaica. If the labourers of England were as inadequately paid, and the domestic servants as much neglected as are those of Jamaica, the evils and complaints of the former country would be at all events equal to those of the latter. In England, a labourer gets two shillings or more a day; but if a negro in Jamaica does less work, under a tropical sun, for ninepence or a shilling, or, in many cases, for sixpence, in a period of only an hour, or an hour and a half less than that of the Englishman, he is stigmatized as lazy and dishonest. When the railway was constructed between Kingston and Spanish-town, it was found that good wages secured as much celerity and steadiness in Jamaica as in any other country. It may be that the proprietors cannot afford to pay the labourers of Jamaica better wages, and should not therefore be blamed; and it is equally certain that the labourers ought not to be blamed for declining such wages, and cultivating their own grounds in preference, or for rendering service in mere proportion to their scanty wages.

Contact with European civilization and religion has made the negroes of Jamaica much less excitable and impulsive than their African forefathers. They treat those above them in society with marked respect, and behave towards each other with great courtesy; to the sick they are exceedingly kind and gentle; and for religion, in all its forms, they have a characteristic reverence. Neither the children in the school, nor the adults in the various relations of life, evince any want of understanding or any incapability of culture. Many of their common and proverbial sayings are pithy and sagacious, as well as highly amusing. The cotton-tree is the largest in the island, and the saying that "when cotton-tree falls, billy-goat jumps over," reminds one of the ass kicking the dead lion. A deceitful man they describe as "cutlass cut two sides." The star-apple does not fall of its own accord, but withers on the tree, if not plucked; and the negroes describe the tenacity with which the cautious or parsimonious man clings to his money by saying, "Him 'tick like a 'tar-apple." Play with puppy, puppy lick your mouth," is like the well-known saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt." "Hand go, hand come," means that one good turn deserves another. The white man, especially as master, they call "buckra;" but so much reduced as to be obliged to go afoot, they call "walkfoot buckra." Vegetation languishing from drought, they describe by saying, "Him no good, de dry ketch him;" or impeded in its growth by the cropping of the goat, they describe it by saying "De goat worry it." They often indicate what is inquired for by saying, "See it before you ;" considerable distance, as "far enough," or a good pull;" and short distance, as "not so far," or not too far." "So-so" denotes

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the natural or customary state of any person or thing; so-so water" is water only; "so-so, I tank you," means well as usual; "not so well," ailing a little; "not too worser," not much worse; and "a little so-so" means somewhat better. Negroes from Guinea or Africa sometimes excuse themselves to the interrogation by saying, "Massa, how me know ?-me poor Guinea bird;" or, "Massa, me know notin',-the poor Guinea negar." For both, they say "all two;" and both genders are "him." Long nights are berry tall." "So you see me, so me 'tan," means I am what I seem. The originality and sagacity of many of these sayings are sufficient evidence of mental capability.

The superstitions of Jamaica, imported from Africa, are called Obeahism and Myalism. There are very few of the lower classes that have not some lingering fear of the Obeah and Myal men, and of their charms and incantations. Like believers in witchcraft, many of the negroes imagine that sickness, sores, and special misfortunes, are secretly inflicted by adverse charms, and they describe it by saying "Somebody do me so." The general belief is, that the Obeah men inflict evil, and that the Myal men can detect and counteract them. Thus, according to this very mischievous superstition, their bane and antidote are both before them. When any one wishes to injure his neighbour, he either procures from an Obeah man and hides, or gets the Obeah man himself to hide, some fatal charm near the door or in the habitation of the victim; and when some Obeah spell is supposed to be on a man, a Myal man is sent for to discover and destroy it. He digs in the floor, or before the door, and draws forth the mischievous materials, such as bits of glass, nails, and hair; and sometimes he pretends to extract these things from the body or limbs of the person afflicted, and holds them up in triumph, as the cause of the sufferings and the proof of his own cleverness. Very many instances have occurred of the slow decline and death of persons who fancied themselves Obeahed. This, in some cases, is doubtless to be accounted for by the power of fear, which predisposes to sickness or produces it, or greatly accelerates it. Our own opinion is, that the Obeah and Myal men, or, in one word, the Fetishmen, are the Thugs of the African race; that they are secret murderers, as well as impostors; that the Obeah and Myal men play into each other's hands; and that for a sufficient reward they will compass an individual's death, by working on his imagination and his fear; or, if this be insufficient, by slow and subtile poison. What the Obeah man hides, the Myal copartner can find; and when nothing has been hid, something secreted on the Myal man's person can be deceptively produced to authenticate his professions, and entitle him to a reward. An Obeah man on a slaveholder's property often caused several deaths, and was sold off as soon as detected. The laws of Jamaica are very severe and stringent, but not too much so, against these dangerous superstitions; but they are frequently evaded by the skill of the practitioners and the connivance of the people. The Fetishmen are sure to be well fed and paid by the ignorant and superstitious. A remarkable instance of this came partly under our own observation. Accompanied by a clerical friend, we rode one morning to see a cottager, who had been long sick. Observing that his cottage was out of repair, both of us urged the neighbours who were present to turn out and renew the thatch, and in consequence they did so. Some time after, a Fetishman came to this cottage, and was entertained by the invalid owner with good fare, including ham and malt, which are not at all cheap in the mountains. The impostor remarked that the cottage had been lately thatched, and said to the owner, "Now your disease is in that thatch, and unless you have it pulled off, you will never get well." Accordingly the thatch was removed, and the poor man's sickness was greatly aggravated by the damp of his dwelling; but there is no reason to think that his neighbours re-thatched his cottage gratuitously. This very man was a member of a church, at the time of these occurrences, and was in receipt of church gratuities. On the whole, however, Obeahism and Myalism have greatly declined, and in the form of secret murder perhaps now scarcely ever occur. Under a stringent legislation, and before the light and power of Christianity, they cannot long endure. At present, their great stronghold and centre is the parish of St. Mary, and in other parishes they

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