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. 
