396 NORTH SIDE. 



ent occupants of the interior, known as Maroons*, 

 and afterwards recognised by specific treaties as a 

 free people, governed by their own officers, and only 

 in so much a part of the colony as that they received 

 their appointments from the governors, and lived in 

 villages under the superintendence of an European 

 officer, commissioned and stipended by the govern- 

 ment. In this state of freedom and independence, 

 their characteristic habit, as mountain rangers, was 

 made by express laws subservient to a sort of police 

 of the forest. Their most stirring pastime was the 

 hunting of the wild hog. This pursuit served the 

 purpose of chevies for negro runaways, till traffick- 

 ing in jerked pork and in rewards for apprehended 

 runaways became a systematised business with them. 

 In the days of slavery, the Maroon huntsman was a 

 fine specimen of the athletic negro, on whom was 

 stamped the impress of the Freeman. He was 

 generally seen in the towns armed with a fowling- 

 piece and cutlass, and belts that suspended on one side 

 a large plaited bag, known as a cuttacoo, and on the 

 other a calabash, guarded with a netted covering, in 

 which he carried his supply of water. On his back, 

 braced round his shoulders, and suspended by a 

 bandage over the forehead, was generally seen the 

 wicker cradle, that held inclosed a side of jerked 

 hog, which he sold passing along, in measured slices, 

 to ready customers, as an especial delicacy for the 

 breakfast table. The accoutred Maroon, with this 

 vendible commodity, was altogether a striking and 

 characteristic figure in our streets. The abolition of 



* From Cimarron (Spanish), wild. 



