68 
In  the  Land  of  Ginger. 
( Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
t    February,  1898. 
crop  for  such  ready  money  as  is  essential  to  maintain  their  existence. 
The  cultivation  and  gathering  of  this  drug  is  largely  in  the  hands 
of  that  peculiar  class  of  West  Indian  peasants  known  as  Quashie. 
Quashie  is  the  title  given  the  snuff-colored  and  brown  people  as 
distinct  from  blacks,  that  make  up  nine-tenths  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  West  Indies. 
Though  I  know  him  well,  it  would  be  impossible  to  paint 
Quashie  in  words.  To  appreciate  him,  one  must  be  in  his 
actual  presence.  From  a  Northern  standpoint  he  is  poorly 
equipped  for  the  battle  of  life  ;  he  is  simple-hearted,  unambitious, 
and  intellectually  poor.  Life  to  him  is  not  serious,  nor  very  earnest. 
It  is  more  like  a  sunny  dream.  He  lives  in  a  hut  far  back  from  the 
road,  a  home  bowered  in  tangled  foliage  brilliant  with  flowers.  It  is 
one-storied,  one-roomed,  unfloored,  thatched  with  palms,  opening  all 
around,  plenty  of  ventilation,  but  it  is  orderly,  clean  and  tidy.  He 
has  a  buxom  mate,  numerous  daughters,  but  few  sons.  Like  him, 
they  are  all  symmetrically  cast,  clean,  and  full  of  tropical  vitality. 
Food  is  more  than  abundant ;  it  drops  from  the  trees  and  springs 
up  from  the  ground.  Ever  so  few  shillings  pay  the  taxes,  and 
supply  clothing  and  all  other  wants,  whether  of  necessity  or  luxury. 
He  owes  no  man,  and  no  man  owns  him.  Thus,  in  humble  surround- 
ings, the  typical  ginger  planter  lives  in  more  independence,  ease 
and  contentment  than  any  dispenser  of  Jamaica  ginger  may  even 
hope  to  attain. 
The  ginger  planter  is  not  given  to  taking  in  knowledge  or  giving 
out  information.  Long  and  vigorous  cross-questioning  will,  in  the 
end,  only  elicit  the  fact  that  he  "  doesn't  rightly  know  "  anything 
about  ginger,  or  how  much  will  be  his  own  or  his  neighbor's  crop. 
To  the  price  or  crop  prospects,  improvements  in  cultivation,  dif- 
ference in  quality,  he  gives  little  thought  or  care.  He  divides  gin- 
ger into  "blue"  and  "  yellow  "  from  the  color  of  the  rhizome. 
These  are  also  known  as,  respectively,  "  turmeric  "  and  "  flint."  I 
was  unable  to  see  any  botanical  difference  in  the  plant  producing 
the  two  different  colored  root-stalks,  and  many  intelligent  planters 
were  unable  to  distinguish  the  kinds  without  first  examining  the 
root.  If  anything,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  blue  was  a  degenerate 
species.    The  root  of  the  blue  is  hard  and  fibrous,  yields  a  much 
