We had to stop for a few minutes as the officer of the port came alongside for the mails. We then went on at reduced speed. The lagoon is generally shoal. A deep water channel runs along the side of it which is farthest from the sea; made, I suppose, by the river, for as usual there is little tide or none. Halfway up we passed under the walls of Fort Augusta, now a ruin and almost deserted, but once mounting a hundred guns. The money which we spent on the defence of Jamaica in the old times was not always laid out wisely, as will be seen in an account which I shall have to give of this remarkable structure; but, at any rate, we were lavish of it.
Of the sharks with which the water used to swarm we saw none. Port Royal Jack and his kindred are said to have disappeared, driven or frightened out by the screws of the steamers. But it is not a place which I should choose for a swim. Nor did the nigger boys seem as anxious as I had seen them in other spots to dive for sixpences under the ship's side.
No account is made of days when you come into port after a voyage. Cargoes have to be landed, or coal has to be taken in. The donkey engines are at work, hoisting packing cases and luggage out of the hold. Stewards run to and fro, and state-room doors are opened, and busy figures are seen through each, stuffing their portmanteaus and preparing for departure. The church bells at Kingston, ringing for early service, reminded me that it was Sunday. We brought up at a jetty, and I cannot say that, close at hand, the town was as attractive as it had appeared when first I saw it. The enchantment was gone. The blue haze of distance gave place to reality. The water was so fetid under the ship's side that it could not be pumped into the baths. Odours, not Arabian, from open drains reminded me of Jacmel. The streets, up which I could see from the afterdeck, looked dirty and the houses shabby. Docks and wharves, however, are never the brightest part of any town, English or foreign. There were people enough at any rate, and white faces enough among them. Gangways were rigged from the ship to the shore, and ladies and gentlemen rushed on board to meet their friends. The companies' agents appeared in the captain's cabin. Porters were scrambling for luggage; pushing, shoving, and swearing. Passengers who had come out with us, and had never missed attendance at the breakfast table, were hurrying home unbreakfasted to their wives and families. My own plans were uncertain. I had no friends, not even an acquaintance. I knew nothing of the hotels and lodging houses, save that they had generally a doubtful reputation. I had brought with me a letter of introduction to Sir H. Norman, the governor, but Sir Henry had gone to England. On the whole, I thought it best to inclose the letter to Mr. Walker, the Colonial Secretary, who I understood was in Kingston, with a note asking for advice. This I sent by a messenger. Meanwhile I stayed on board to look about me from the deck. The ship was to go on the next morning to the canal works at Darien. Time was precious. Immediately on arriving she had begun to take in coal, Sunday though it might be, and a singular spectacle it was. The coal yard was close by, and some hundreds of negroes, women and men, but women, in four times the number, were hard at work. The entire process was by hand and basket, each basket holding from eighty to a hundred pounds weight. Two planks were laid down at a steep incline from the ship's deck to the yard. Swinging their loads on their heads, erect as statues, and with a step elastic as a racehorse's, they marched up one of the planks, emptied their baskets into the coal bunkers, and ran down the other. Round and round they went under the blazing sun all the morning through, and round and round they would continue to go all the afternoon. The men took it comparatively easy. The women flew along, laughing, and clamouring, as if not knowing what weariness was--willing beasts of burden, for they had the care upon them of their children; the men disclaiming all responsibilities on that score, after the babies have been once brought into the world. The poor women are content with the arrangement, which they prefer to what they would regard as legal bondage. They earn at this coaling work seven or eight shillings a day. If they were wives, their husbands would take it from them and spend it in rum. The companion who is not a wife can refuse and keep her earnings for her little ones. If black suffrage is to be the rule in Jamaica, I would take it away from the men and would give it to the superior sex. The women are the working bees of the hive. They would make a tolerable nation of black amazons, and the babies would not be offered to Jumbi.