April i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AORTCTJLTURIST. 



73S 



Ceylon brands were quite equal in color and weight 

 to Top Mountain, Jamaica. I fancy the custom arose 

 simply because there beiug no cart-roads ; it would 

 have cost much more to convey coffee to Kingston in 

 parchment than clear and ready to be casked. As 

 regards sea, as most of the estates are not more than 

 ten miles off as the crow flies, I do not see how the 

 argument against eea'air can hold good, and, as, more- 

 over stores (norks they call them here) are small and 

 the coffee is mostly cured and kept in uuvent- 

 ilated barbacue huts, it certainly does not get 

 as much care as in the fine large Ceylon stores, with 

 eoir-matting floors, jalousie windows, and plenty of 

 ventilation. As to machinery, the pulper described 

 and used by Laborie of St. Domingo, 100 years 

 ago, is still the only one in use on these estates, no 

 lessons seem to have been taken from the improve- 

 ments in Ceylon ; this of itself is sufficient to point 

 out how little Jamaica has advanced as compared with 

 younger colonies. The rattletrap prevails with its heavy, 

 Bolid barrel of the hardest wood procurable, its old- 

 fashioned punch, the cumbrous heavy sieve, not 

 driven even by a crank, but by curious heavy ^obs 

 on the barrel, which work a wooden frame attached 

 to the sieve, and makes a loud clucking noise ; 

 so I shall be very glad when I receive the iron 

 pulper with elevators and circular sieve from J. 

 Walker & Co., and get a proper machine at work. 

 As to pulping houses they are small, and as a rule 

 the cisterns, all lead one into another, convenience and 

 arrangement are no where, such a " laissez aller " 

 style being quite in keeping with the negro character 

 of lack of order and neatness. Except dressing fine 

 for church on Sundays he seems to be careless about 

 cleanliness and outward appearances, an old tattered 

 suit of clothes being worn over the under one, and of 

 course gives them a very beggarly aspect. 



Another peculiarity of Jamaica is, that the estate 

 does not supply tools, the laborers bring their own, 

 such clumsy, heavy, long handled hoes, set at a pecu- 

 liar slope, are not calculated to do best wcrk. Every 

 man carries a cutlass in the use of which he is an 

 adept : he loves nothing better than to be hacking, or 

 " billing bush." Of spade bars, small weeding hoes, 

 scrapers, they are ignorant ; their digger is a harpoon- 

 shaped article stuck on a wooden handle (like a lance) 

 and not fit for heavy holing. I only met with one 

 quintanie amongst my people, called by them "gravel 

 hoe, " and finding they were to be got in Kingston 

 sent for dozen and have since used them to much 

 advantage for holing and road work. At job work 

 the Creoles do famously, at the ordinary day work 

 they are as bad or worse than average coolies. Petty 

 larceny of fruit and such things is still very preval- 

 ent, and as to veracity, it is not to be named ; yet 

 you see the churches and chapels usually crowded, 

 the people fond of reading the Bible and singing 

 hymn-', yet it is an established fact that GO per cent 

 of the births in the island are illegitimate. Well did 

 the traveller who visited Jamaica observe that they 

 were fond of church, the singing of hymns, and read- 

 ing the Bible, jet he noticed their evident great 

 dislike to the ten commandments. 



Our climate here is very like that of ITva ; the rains 

 come iu May and October and [November, the latter 

 being equivalent to our big monsoon iu India. The 

 rains do not last long, but are often very heavy at the 

 time, causing Hoods and landslips, of which there are 

 many evidences all round ; the Hood of 1815 is noted as 

 the worst, and in 1879 a great deal of damage was 

 clone. Since 1SS0, there has been a dry cycle which 

 has been of much benefit to the high-grown coffte, and 

 injurious to the settlers' coffee at low elevations. The 

 sample of Blue Mountain coffee is generally very fine, 

 long canoe shaped beans like Cejlou Bauiboda and 

 other high districts. Prices have been much better of 



late, as there does not seem to be at present a very 

 large supply of colory coffee in the market. A good 

 deal of money has been made by planters and others by 

 purchasing settlers' coffee in the cherry, pulping and 

 curing it properly, and sending it home in barrels 

 with some distinguishing mark from the " bona fide " 

 estate brand. I have heard of one case where 103 

 tierces were purchased iu one season, and, as it probably 

 made from 30s to 40s a cwt. profit, it did not at all 

 turn out a bad speculation. One hears nothing of cwt. 

 here, it is all tubs and tierces ; a man asks how many 

 tubs do you get a day, another will say he hopes "to 

 make " a crop of so many tierces. 



Another Jamaica "fad" is that your tierces must 

 be made of red American wood ; consequently 

 the poor planter has to pay 18s to 20s for a tierce, 

 or about 3s a cwt. for the mere package; whereas in 

 Ceylon all the curing, casking and snipping was 

 done for 4s 6d a cwt. Planters have taken to 

 shipping in old flour barrels which are cheaper and 

 answer as well, as would also the common sorts of 

 Jamaica wood : if any one here would have the moral 

 courage to start the process, and establish a cooperage, 

 which I am sure would pay handsomely. In my next 

 I must give you some specimens of Jamaica English 

 and a few " negro " proverbs which are very clever 

 and amusing. 



As to cinchona not much has been done lately, 

 I will write more about what has been done, in 

 another letter. I have heard lately that on the 

 Attorney-General's property on the north side, they 

 have ceased to line and hole, just dibbling in the 

 plants, and giving the men a three-toot stick, to 

 put them in that far apart, but any how as to line 

 and straightness. They also find that such elaborate 

 and expensive nurseries are not necessary, as the 

 seed sown broadcast in ordinary mould and slightly 

 covered over, comes up just as well and strong as 

 when tbe more expensive process was in vogue. I 

 believe cinchona on this plan on virgin land and a 

 free soil where there are no weeds to light against, 

 and the land can be cheaply kept clean, until the 

 trees cover the ground and make weeding almost 

 unnecessary, will pay well, even at present prices. 



W. S. 



Gold in North Borneo. — The communication 

 which Mr. Gibbon has favoured us with (p. 739) is not 

 only interesting but exciting. In the case of ordinary 

 grauite, far less than one ounce of gold to a ton of rock 

 pays well, and the North Borneo assay shows the exist- 

 ence iu iron dust, which must surely be more tractable 

 than granite, of over an ounce of gold to the ton in 

 Nos. 2 and 4. Such being the case, we suspect the 

 publication of the assay will attract not merely Chinese 

 but European diggers, from Australia in any case and 

 probably from Europe itself. At this moment the 

 world is far mere in want of gold than of tin, and, 

 whatever the amount of iron dust or alluvial matter 

 r quired to be turned over, we should think that gold 

 worth £3 12s an ounce,, at the rate of even half an 

 ounce to the ton, would pay amply : better, we should 

 think, than the stanniferous ore which is now found 

 so abundantly, not only in " Perak " which owes its 

 name to the silver-like metal but in Tasmania and 

 many parts of Australia. Hundreds of millions, of 

 ounces of gold might now be thrown into the markets 

 of the world without appreciably affecting the price 

 of the metal (the great medium of the world's ex- 

 changes) or the profits of the diggeis. Mr. Gibbon 

 can, no doubt, supply information as to the area or 

 areas over which the auriferous sand is spreal, to 

 tho.-e who determine to go " prospecting " from Ceylon, 

 to take up and work claims aud collect rich dust if 

 not nuggets, 



