No one in my youth that I ever heard of wanted to go to West Africa, and yet from the time I was twelve years old I had an intense desire to go there, without the faintest hope of its being gratified.
As a young girl I came home to England and stayed with friends in Liverpool, shipowners, whose people had been African traders for hundreds of years, and African traders one hundred and twenty years ago certainly meant slave traders, for the slave trade was a “very genteel trade.” I pored over the models of the factories they had on the West Coast of Africa, and the pictures of their ships in the Oil Rivers, and voiced my great desire to go there, a desire that amused them very much, for they who could have gone any day would not have dreamt of taking the trouble. They had estates in Jamaica too, had had them for many years, and I found on a shelf an old slave account book from that island which meant so little to them that they jotted2 down on the blank pages the number of eggs their hens laid. How I wished I could see the place whither those slaves from Africa had gone, but Africa and Jamaica were far away in those days.
I went back to Australia, married and settled down, and then being widowed came to England again to make my way in the literary world, and the first spare money I had, it was ￡225, I remember, I realised my childish dreams and took passage for the West Coast of Africa. I was so interested, found it so well worth while, that I went again to the land to which no man wanted to go, the land that was known as the “White Man’s Grave.” Why I should have taken so keen an interest in the land where the slave trade was born, why I should later have gone to a slave colony, I cannot imagine, but I did, and the result has been a curious light on past and present, a linking up of those old days with the future that lies ahead of Jamaica.
Perhaps in a former life I too was a slave, or perhaps I was one of those careless folk who lived in one of the death-traps they called Castles on the Guinea Coast, and something in me made me wish to see them again, and having seen them, something certainly stronger than myself made me finish with Jamaica, the lovely island where Britain though she does not seem to know it, is experimenting in negro rule.
Yes, surely, some haunting memory of a past life has shaped my career.
And this is how it came about. I was ill and had to go to a warm climate, and as the War had disturbed shipping3 I could get passage nowhere except to Jamaica. And safe on board the Camito, steaming down the Welsh Coast with the tang of the salt sea breeze in my nostrils4, it flashed across me that here at last when I least expected it had come my great chance. Into my hands had been put the opportunity, if I could but use it, to complete a half-finished task. I was indeed going to find out the end of the story that had thrilled my childish years, for this island set in a tropical sea is indissolubly bound up with the Castles on the Guinea Coast. From the swamps at the mouths of the Niger and the Gambia, from the surf-beaten Gold and Ivory and Slave Coasts had come the lumbering5 little square ships that took to the New World the dark people of the Old, hundreds and thousands of them, and in Jamaica there had grown up under the British Crown a people apart. Call it coincidence if you like, but to me it will always seem that a Greater Power guided my unwilling6 feet into the ways that brought me in touch with the things I most wanted to know.
And sailing west on that comfortable ship, where ice, beef-tea, fruit, cakes, or any other desired luxury came at a word to the steward7, where a question to the captain or one of the officers discovered for me in exactly what part of the world we were, it was impossible not to think of the first man who had dared those seas. The Genoese navigator had come sailing west under the Spanish flag, and he had come slowly, slowly, where we steamed fast. They were only just beginning to believe the world was round in those days, and doubtless many of the sailors shipped for the voyage were ignorant men, not knowing whither they were bound. And their leader felt his way dubiously9 where we were quite certain of our going. On and on they went into the unknown. How unknown we can hardly conceive nowadays, any more than we can conceive of the dangers they faced. Think of it. There were fish which could swallow a ship, crew and all, there was the “Flying Dutchman,” portent10 of death, there were mermaids11 and syrens to lure12 them to destruction, there were enchantments14 of all sorts, in addition to the ordinary perils15 of the sea, and then of course—supposing the world wasn’t round! Suppose they arrived at the place where the water gathered itself together and poured in one mighty16 waterfall right off the earth into space and nothingness! I am sure as the days went on the crews must have discussed the matter, have talked among themselves of the terrible dangers they were facing, have gone every night and morning to pray before the Virgin17 and Child on the poop, and at last they came to declare how worse than foolish was Columbus not to turn back when day after day showed still only a blue waste of waters.
And if they had gone over that tremendous waterfall I am sure there would have been those among the crew who would have declared at the supreme18 moment that they knew it would be so, they had always known it would be so. Had Pedro not met a pig on the way to the ship, had the black cat not died before they reached Madeira, and surely the Admiral should have turned back when the wind shifted so that he saw the new moon for the first time through the glass of the cabin port!
But at last—what a long last it must have seemed to those first voyagers who had dared to leave the coasts—they saw sea-weed and land birds, and at last, at last—not the terrible waterfall they had feared but land, land, land such as they had left behind them. What a moment it must have been for the great mariner19! We passed that land, that island. There must linger round it still, I think, some of the wild delight that filled the hearts of the explorers, for still men point it out, “The first land Columbus saw!”
We came into sight of Jamaica in the late afternoon and sailed along the south coast as the shadows were falling. A well-wooded country we saw, as its first discoverer must have seen more than four hundred years before, a land of steep mountains and deep valleys, with here and there patches of vivid green that, those who knew, told us were the sugar plantations20 that were the gold mines of Jamaica in the sugar boom. And the mists rose up from the valleys, and the shadows grew deeper and the day died in a glory of red and gold, a sight so common that no one takes note of it; and the night with a sky of velvet22, embroidered23 with diamonds, crystal clear, came sweeping24 down upon us—a cloak of darkness—as we steamed into Kingston Harbour.
Columbus did not land in Jamaica on his first voyage, but he undoubtedly25 saw it, as we saw it, many and many a time. The memory of him was with me still as we landed. What to me were the comforts of the Myrtle Bank Hotel set right in Kingston, or of the Constant Spring out at the foot of the mountains? No, that is ungrateful. As an old traveller, no one can appreciate better than I the comforts of a good hotel. But as I dreamt on a comfortable steamer, so I dreamt more vividly26 of the past on the verandah of the Myrtle Bank, looking down the palm avenue to the sea. The night air was heavy with spicy27 scents28, and the fireflies wheeled and danced, living lights in the dark shadows under the greenery, all the voluptuousness30 of the tropics was here in this land of romance which Columbus found for Spain, and that later was the first great tropical possession of Britain. But Jamaica has been an unlucky land, and I doubt whether Britain has yet realised its value. It might be called the land of lost opportunities, so often have those who governed it let its good things pass by. I doubt whether Spain herself got any great good from this new possession; certainly Columbus found small peace here. With “his people dismayed and downhearted, almost all his anchors lost and his vessels31 bored as full of holes as a honeycomb, driven by opposing winds and currents, he put into Puerto Bueno, in the parish of Saint Ann’s. But not finding sufficient food or water” (probably water, as it is now known as Dry Harbour), “he sailed east again and put into a cove8 since known as Don Cristopher’s Cove.” His ships were mere32 wrecks33, those brave “castled” ships that had sailed from Spain with such high hopes, and it was very certain that whatever might happen to them, back to Spain they could not go. It was a terrible situation, an awful strait in which those brave mariners34 found themselves over four hundred years ago.
“You must see the parish of St Ann,” said a Jamaican lady to me; “it is all green grass and white Indian cattle, and dark green pimento trees.”
In those days there was probably not much green grass, natural grasses grow roughly and in tufts, and there were no Indian cattle; but the dark green pimento trees were there, their fragrance35 and that of many a tropical flower and tree must have been brought by the land breeze to the sailors in the ships. For Columbus sank his unseaworthy, worm-riddled ships in the harbour, sank them till the water came right up to their decks, a sign of the desperateness of his position, for no leader if he had any hope of redeeming36 the situation would have sunk the only means he had of returning to his own land.
0026
In a Cove like this Columbus beached his ship a bow-shot of the shore. I don’t know how far that is, but certainly too far to swim easily in a tropical sea, they were sunk side by side and were placed in the “best possible state of defence,” which probably means that every cooling current of air, the pleasant pungent37 sea breeze in the morning, and the aromatic38 land breeze in the evening were shut out. It must have had its effect upon the crews this lack of fresh air, though probably they were not greatly concerned about it. They very likely considered as men did long after their time that the land breeze was dangerous and that the sea breeze gave them ague, and I expect they looked out over the shimmering39 sea and hated it with a bitter hatred40 and blamed pitilessly the man who brought them there.
And yet in all the world I have not seen a more lovely sea than the sea that rings Jamaica. Sometimes the wind blows it into ripples41, sometimes a stronger wind beats it into white foam42, the clouds gather, it grows dark, inky black, and the rain comes beating down, rain that must have swirled43 across the decks and threatened to swamp out the little ships—their prison. But oftenest, I know, that sea was still, lovely, with the shallows like great jewelled opals of tenderest translucent44 green in a setting of sparkling sapphires45 and pearls, and entrancing little coves46 fringed by mangroves where the coconut49 palms stand up tall and stately as near the water as they can get, and all this against a background of mountains wooded to their very peaks, makes a scene never to be forgotten. There were no coconut palms in the time of Columbus. They came from the mainland, a right royal gift of the Spaniards to the island they made their own, but there were the sea grapes, great straggling bushes with big round leaves and bunches of purple berries so like grapes that it is not till you taste them you find by their slightly acrid50 savour and the big stone in the middle that they are not. Still, to men after a voyage at the beginning of the sixteenth century, in the days of our King Henry VII., those sea grapes must have been a godsend, they and the luscious51 naseberries, which are sweet and sickly, but good to counteract52 scurvy53.
I can’t like the naseberry. The tree it grows on is large and handsome, but the fruit itself, which is about the size of a russet apple, cannot be eaten ripe from the tree because it is full of a whitish astringent54 juice, but must be kept like the medlar till it is well on its way to rottenness and then it may be eaten with a spoon. Probably Columbus’s men ate hundreds of them, grumbling55 that they had come out to find gold and silver, and their leader had brought them to a watery56 prison where they had to subsist57 on fish which they grew to loathe58, cassava bread and naseberries, occasionally traded by the Indians, sea grapes gathered by themselves—poor substitutes for the wheaten bread and peaches and grapes of their own land.
Day after day, day after day, they looked out on that sea where there was never a sail. They were apparently59 cut off from all hopes of home, and their leader lay in his cabin crippled with gout. And then the despised food began to give out.
In his despair Columbus sent out the first exploring expedition into Jamaica. Diego Mendez, one of the best and bravest of his officers, and three men, started to walk through Trelawny, St James, and Hanover, visiting the villages and interviewing the native chiefs and making treaties with them by which the forlorn company were to receive regular supplies of food in exchange for fish hooks, knives, beads61, combs, and such trifles as all the world over have taken the fancy of primitive62 man.
I have been through these parishes—in a motor car. There are coconut walks there now, the tall and graceful63 palms standing64 out against the sky, sugar plantations, patches of vivid green, pimento groves48 with trees like great myrtles clothed in glossy65 dark green, and rows of broad-leaved bananas and plantains, and the air is fragrant66 with the scent29 of orange and lemon blossom and hundreds of other growing things. On the hill tops are the Great Houses of the pen keepers and planters set in gardens, with the overseers’ and book-keepers’ houses lower down, and as near the road as they can get, the shacks67 of the negro helpers and independent cultivators. Strangely enough, in a little island that has been settled by Europeans for over four hundred years, the roads that wander along the entrancing sea shore and by the mountain side often look into gullies, at the bottom of which it seems as if we might find the villages where Diego Mendez made treaties. I should hardly have been surprised if in one of the little lonely coves we had come across the sunken ships of Columbus fastened close together for safety and with little houses thatched over in bow and stern. There are wild places still in this island which, after all, is only 4207 square miles—of hillside—not much larger than a good sized station in Australia, and gullies waiting for man to come and turn to good account their wealth. Here is room, and more than room, for the dwellers69 in the great cities who have never seen a glorious sunset and know not the scent of a pimento grove47.
That meant for Columbus a weary time of waiting among dissatisfied men, for what adventurer, who had come out seeking gold and silver and precious stones, would be content to lie sweltering—rotting, I expect they called it—even in the most beautiful cove in the world. Presently the story went round that Columbus had been banished71, his prestige was gone, and two brothers named Porras rose as leaders of the mutineers.
Even the life of the veteran was in danger. As I write this on my verandah, looking out over the blue Caribbean, with a little pauperised tingting bird sitting on the rail calling aloud that I have always provided his breakfast and that even little slim black birds with bright yellow eyes can be led astray by too much ease and comfort, I seem to realise with what bitterness the iron entered into the soul of the old man. There was no actual danger, they had enough to eat, and could sleep, sheltered and in peace, and sooner or later he thought help would come. Patience, he preached, patience. But the mutineers would have their way. They built or stole ten canoes and went out along the coast, ravaging72 and pillaging73. The first of the pirates who ravaged74 the coasts of Jamaica and their victims, were not the white people but the gentle brown folk whom Columbus had designed to make peacefully their slaves. “They wandered from village to village,” says his chronicler, “a dissolute and lawless gang, supporting themselves by fair means or foul75, according as they met with kindness or hostility76, and passing like a pestilence77 through the land.”
I can almost understand it and forgive. Almost anything was better than sitting still watching the sun climb over the mountain in the morning and sink into the sea in the evening, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the relief that was so long in coming.
For Mendez having got to Hispaniola had then to make his way to Spain, and it was not till the 28th June 1504 that relief ships came sailing in and Columbus was able to leave Jamaica. He died in 1506, and by way of recompense, I suppose, in 1508 his son Diego was appointed Governor of the Indies, and in 1509 went out to San Domingo, taking with him his wife, who was a cousin of King Ferdinand.
In Jamaica under the Spaniards, a translation by Frank Cundall and Joseph Pieterez of documents found in the archives of Seville in Spain, the curious may read the slow story of the Spanish settling of Jamaica and its gradual evacuation. They did not come in with a rush, for there was no fabulous79 wealth of gold and silver here. Again and again the Spanish King urges the Governors to seek for gold, but though doubtless, they sought diligently80, for the finding would have been the making of them, they found none, and we cannot but feel that the Spanish colonists81 were poor and of but little account. If you read Hans Sloane on the remains82 he found round about the old city of Seville, your sense of romance is satisfied, but the cold facts taken from the archives of Seville in Spain speak of a little handful of poor people struggling with an exuberant83 nature. Here, as I write, there comes to me the smell of very poor tobacco, only fragrant in the open air, and looking up I see a negro woman in leisurely84 fashion digging up the weeds among the grass of what will, some day I hope, be a lawn under the coconut palms. How leisurely is that fashion I can hardly describe, save by mentioning she only gets 3s. 6d. a week, boards and lodges85 herself and works accordingly. She has bare feet, a nondescript, drab-coloured garment that calls itself a dress, and a ragged86 hat made out of a banana trash and bound with a string of bright red. She is of African descent, but not unlike her probably were the Indians who worked in the fields for those first Jamaican colonists. Yes, she is content, fairly content I should say, almost too content, or she would strive a little to better herself.
I should like to have seen the beginnings of the Spanish occupation of Jamaica. How they slowly set up their hatos round the island, choosing out the fertile river bottoms and fencing in their lands lightly, so lightly that soon the lonely parts of the island were overrun with wild cattle and pigs descended87 from those that escaped. They planted coconut palms and brought over oranges and lemons and limes from their native land which took root and flourished, so that Hans Sloane, writing thirty years after the Spaniards had been driven out, talks of the orange and lime walks, and nowadays if you want orange trees on your land you have only to throw out one or two rotten oranges to have a crop of young seedlings88.
“The buildings of the Spaniards,” says Hans Sloane, “on this island were usually one Story high, having a Porch, a Parlour, and at each end a Room with small ones behind for Closets etc. They built with Posts put deep into the ground, on the sides their Houses were plaistered up with Clay on Reeds, or made of the split Truncs of Cabbage Trees nail’d close to one another and covered with Tiles or Palmetto Thatch68. The Lowness as well as the fixing the Posts deep in the Earth was for fear their Houses should be ruin’d by Earthquakes, as well as for Coolness.”
Immediately they settled, the Spaniards rounded-up the luckless Indians. Their lot was hard enough, though possibly not as hard as that of those driven to work in the mines, and as labourers on the hatos they soon began to fail their masters. Perhaps that is not to be wondered at. Las Casas, the benevolent89 bishop90, who is responsible for the first introduction of negro slaves into the New World says, “they hanged the unfortunates by thirteens in honour of the thirteen apostles. I have beheld91 them throw the Indian infants to their dogs; I have seen five caciques burnt alive; I have heard the Spaniards borrow the limb of an human being to feed their dogs and next day return a quarter to the lender.”
It seems a gruesome enough story, and where the mercy came in from Las Casas’ point of view in substituting negroes for the Indians I do not know, especially as they say the negroes were infinitely92 inferior to the Indians, and as long as the Spaniards could get the latter they preferred them.
But that the Spaniards destroyed all the Indians there is no doubt. They were a mild and indolent brown people, very like those now to be seen in British Guiana, but historians differ as to their numbers: one man says that “in Jamaica and the adjacent islands within less than twenty years the Spaniards destroyed more than 1,200,000,” but later researches have brought the figure in Jamaica down to about 60,000, a much more likely number, and after all quite enough to destroy in twenty years.
They lived, these Spanish conquerors93, on the island for over one hundred and fifty years, a poor little company, or so I gather, but rich in the fruits of the earth. And the people at home took a fatherly interest in them. If an emigrant94 left his wife at home, he had to have her written consent to his going and give security that he would return for her within three years. And this security was evidently very necessary, for among the archives at Seville there is a note touching95 a lady of Ciudad Rodrigo complaining to the Queen in 1538 that her husband had deserted96 her twenty-five years before to go to the Indies and had married another lady in Jamaica, where he was settled. But though the Queen ordered that the matter should be looked into and justice done, there is no end to the story.
Though we talk about the Spanish towns in Jamaica, they were really very small. In July 1534 there were but eighty citizens in the town of Seville, and of these soon after only twenty remained, the others having died of “diseases and pestilences”! And we are told that in twenty years they had not reared ten infants, a pitiful return. In the first record we get of Spanish Town, it had only one hundred inhabitants. In 1597 a Governor named Fernando Melgarejo de Cordova came out for six years. He brought with him by permission four servants, jewels to the value of 200 ducats (roughly worth ￡40), a black slave, four swords, four daggers97, and four of each kind of other arms, and his salary was 300,000 maravedis, which sounds a great deal, but as a maravedi was equal to half a farthing he only had ￡156 a year, surely a small sum even for those times when money was worth so much more, and Jamaica, too, as his advisers98 were never tired of impressing on the King of Spain, was a valuable colony, and if it fell into the hands of the King’s enemies none of the other colonies would be safe.
When Melgarejo arrived, he found the Englishman Sir Anthony Shirley had sacked and held to ransom99 the Villa60 de la Vega, the city of the plains, the capital, guided thereto by a native Indian, and proud as we are of our old-time mariners, still the times were rough and merciless, their ways matched the times, and we may pity the people who waked up that hot August morning in 1597 to find that their hereditary100 enemies the English were upon them. Sir Anthony Shirley claimed that while he was in Jamaica he was “absolute master of the whole,” and he seems to have made arrangements for his return with the comfortable conviction that he could certainly provision his ships with beef and cassava, to say nothing of the cooling fruits which by this time were plentiful101 and must have been of inestimable value to these wanderers upon the seas.
Sir Anthony Shirley was only one of many. For these corsairs who soon came to Jamaica regularly were drawn102 from all the nations of Europe and “they rob and they trade,” wrote the worried Governor.
And when they didn’t trade and they didn’t rob they helped themselves not only to wood and water but to beef and pork, that was running wild it is true, but naturally the Spaniards considered it theirs, and then sometimes, when they had raided a little too often, the tables were turned and they left their bones there.
Don Fernando goes at length into his prowess in going out in a boat to defend a frigate103—a frigate was a very small ship in those days—that two English launches had boarded and he says he retook that frigate and made them retire. More, he sent Captain Sebastian Gonzalez—there is a swagger in his name—with troops by land to Port Negrillo, there “to wait till the Captain of the English corsair should go to obtain water and capture him; and they lay in wait for him and killed those who landed and brought back their ears, broke the jars to pieces and burnt the boat.”
And so the story of Jamaica goes on in the Seville archives, a tale of a small people with stocks of horses and cattle and pigs, a tale of struggles to build churches, and to hold the island, because though no gold or silver had been found, it was yet too central to allow any other nation to settle there.
But it rose in value, for the next Governor, Alonzo de Miranda, had his salary increased to close on ￡400 a year. He was much worried by a Portuguese104 corsair named Mota, who “with two launches and a tender was going along the whole coast sacking and plundering105 the ranches106 and seizing the inhabitants and doing many other injuries, to remedy which I was obliged to assemble a fleet by sea, and go myself by land with soldiers to defeat the design of the enemies and they went away from the coast. With all that, I have had information that in the remote cattle hunting places they land, and with some of the cow catchers who have run away from Espanola, whom they bring, they dress hides and supply themselves with meat.” This, he goes on to say, “cannot be remedied without much cost and expense.”
When first I went to Jamaica, a friend, Mr Clarence Lopez, with kindness I can never forget, lent me a house in the northern part of the island in the parish of Trelawny. It was the Great House on the Hyde, a pen about eight miles as the crow flies from the sea. Jamaica is 144 miles long at the longest portion and 49 miles broad at the broadest, it is little more than half the size of Wales, but when I went to that house set on the side of a mountain with a glorious view of hill and valley, coco-palm and banana, I went to the very loneliest place I have ever lived in in my life, and I have been in many lands. It is one of the loveliest too. Behind are the mountains, clothed to their peaks in woodland, bound together with all manner of creeping vines and the mountains fling their arms round, so that they seem to guard the old house from the winds of the south, and all in the ground grow pimento and orange and lemon trees, handsome, broad-leaved bread-fruit and tall naseberry trees, while the little garden on a plateau just behind the house is a wilderness107 of roses, pink and white, and red and yellow, and fragrant as the first roses that ever grew in a Persian garden. The house is two storied, and though it has many annexes108 the main building stands by itself. Much money has been expended109 upon it. Two great flights of stone steps lead up to the porch at the front door, the floor of which is tessellated as carefully as if it had been done in Italy; all the handles of the doors are of heavy cut glass and so are the door plates, while gilded110 beading decorates what they call in Jamaica the two great halls, that is the dining room downstairs and its fellow upstairs. The floors are of polished mahogany and so is the staircase; but no one had lived in it for years and “Ichabod” was written over everything.
It had been built with a view to defence, there was no doubt about it. On the porch a couple of men with guns could hold the front of the house, in the hall there is a trap-door leading to the storey below, cellars half underground, and in the walls in front are loop-holes through which a man might easily shoot. The second storey overhangs the first a little and there is not a corner but could easily be held by a man with a gun. Yes, decidedly it was built for defence, such defence as might be needed in the end of the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The first night we spent there, my companion, Eva Parsons, and I alone with the weird112 black servants who had seen but very few white people and whose ways were strange to us, we felt the loneliness keenly. Eva was ill, and she was a Londoner born and bred. There were rats racing113 about downstairs, there were bats making curious sounds in the roof, and when a potoo bird gave vent70 to its long drawn-out uncanny cry, Eva abandoned courage and came flying into my room. And she was no coward. I comforted her to the best of my ability, and we decided111 that until we got the house a little more habitable one bedroom was quite big enough for the two of us.
But what must it have been like on those ranches in the old days when the Spaniards were few and scattered114, and the corsairs, English and Portuguese and French and Dutch, and a nondescript crowd that were worse than any, came cruising along the coasts and landed and attacked the lonely houses? Think of the women who lay still shivering or crept to each other’s rooms and wondered was that the pirates or was it only a rat, or possibly a bat in the roof? Or that weird sound?—Was it a potoo bird killing115 rats? or was it an English sailor calling to his mate in his harsh, unknown tongue?
“Except in the principal one, Caguya,” says Sedeno de Albornoz, speaking of the corsairs, “they anchor in the ports without being disturbed by anyone, and refit and careen their ships with perfect ease as if in their country. I can certify116 that, while a prisoner of theirs, I have heard with much concern many conversations with regard to colonising this island and fortifying117 two ports, one on the north side and one on the south. I always told them that there was a garrison118 of ten companies of infantry119 stationed by the King our master, besides three in the town, and two of mounted mulattoes and free negroes armed with hocking knives and half moons, of whom they are much afraid. They did not like that reply, and though doubtful contradicted me, saying they knew very well what was in the island. It is very certain that it is more important to them than any other, as it is better and more fertile and abundant than all those they have settled in the Indies; nor is there another like it in the Indies. Cuba and Espanola are indeed much larger, but Jamaica in its entirety is more plentiful than these, for it has much horned stock, and herds120 of tame swine, and wild ones in great numbers, from the hunting of which every year is obtained a quantity of lard that serves instead of oil for cooking.” So much lard that there are people who declare that Montego Bay, from which much lard was exported, took its name from a corruption121 of the Spanish word for lard.
“Likewise,” goes on Sedeno, “there is a large number of good horses, donkeys, and mules122, fisheries of turtle and dainty fish, and a very fine climate from its healthy airs and waters.” Indeed he cannot say enough for the island. He finishes, “there are now a little over 300 colonists, mostly poor people. Nearly 450 men bear arms,” so I suppose he only counts those as colonists who actually settled on the land, “including the hunters and country folks, all of whom are labouring people, strong and suitable for war by reason of their courageous124 spirits if indeed lacking military discipline.”
And even as he wrote the enemy was within the gates, and the Governor of Jamaica writes despairingly to the King of Spain. He says 53 ships of war—there were really 38—came in sight of the island, and they bore 15,000 seamen125 and soldiers, while the invaders126 claim they conquered with 7000 soldiers and a sea regiment127 of 1000. But he probably is right when he says “there are 8000 souls scattered about the mountains, children, women, and slaves, without any hope of protection except from God, with the enemy’s knife every hour at their throats.” We hear so little about the women and children in these wars of conquest and yet on them most heavily of all must have pressed the difficulties and the dangers.
And the Governor died a prisoner of war, and finally this Governorship which never seems to have been much sought after and was worth nothing, now descended upon Christ oval Arnaldo Ysassi, who was not even a trained soldier.
The rest of the pitiful story is one of flight, flight, flight, the Spaniards always pressed northward128, always begging and praying help from Cuba, begging for bread and getting a stone.
For we say Jamaica was conquered in 1655, but it takes a long while for a people who are holding a land by guerilla warfare129 to understand that they are beaten, and it was evident that Ysassi was heartened by many a skirmish that seemed to him a success. Towards the end of October 1656, however, we find the King of Spain writing—“The English have a foothold in Jamaica, obstructing130 the commerce of all the islands to windward with the coasts of the mainland and of New Spain. The fleets and galleons131 run great risk in passing by Jamaica.”
But even in March of the next year the Viceroy of Mexico writes to Ysassi congratulating him on his appointment to the Government of Jamaica, though he himself was beginning to realise what a hollow farce132 it was.
However he made it unpleasant for the arrogant133 invaders. “I now send a smart English sergeant134,” he writes, “who will give your Excellency lengthy135 news of the whole state of the island.” Poor English sergeant, smart even in his captivity136! I hope they did not make things very hard for him in Mexico. That is the worst of history. The ultimate fate of the pawns137 is never told, only in these state papers there is that one entry that pictures for us the upright young figure with the keen blue eyes and firm set mouth, firm even in misfortune. God rest his soul! and God bless him for keeping up the honour of the English nation.
Even when reliefs did come, they brought little comfort to the harassed138 Governor. In August 1657, two captains landed at Ochos Rios, not far from where Columbus spent his weary year. They were supposed to help the Spanish Governor but, as soldiers, they pointed78 out to him the hopelessness of the situation. They said he could not succeed in the interior, that “it will cost some trouble to capture any horses from the enemy, and with infantry the risk is manifest.” I have seen the country and I can’t imagine how they thought to use horses.
But in spite of these Job’s comforters, Ysassi kept writing bravely to the Viceroy that he was harrying139 the enemy, that still they could not get any good from the hatos that they held.
“Those who come to get beef, die without anyone being left to carry the news...” What a picture of bloodthirsty, merciless war it gives us! When the great golden moon sends her light streaming through the coconut walks, and the glorious night is heavy with the scent of the orange flowers and the pimento groves, I cannot but think of those bloody140 days in the seventeenth century when the English drove the Spaniards to the remote corners of the island, and the Spaniards in their turn killed remorselessly, so that none should go back to tell the tale.
Again he reports in the middle of September,
“I sallied out upon the road to encounter them with the few troops I had, which were about 80 men” (Oh, for the might of Spain!) “because the others are without shoes and not accustomed to the discomforts141 of the open country.”
He descants142 on their ragged condition. “The few soldiers I have are naked and barefoot and cannot stand the mosquitoes” (I sympathise with them)—“Please help them.” He has not even paper to write his reports and the whole history is punctuated143 with prayers for provisions, “for soldiers will fight badly if they have nothing to eat and are badly clothed. I assure your Excellency that some die reduced to sticks.”
It was evidently a prolonged series of skirmishes, with sometimes one party conquering, sometimes the other, but the Spaniards seem to have thought their re-establishment was merely a matter of time. Once they gave their minds to the matter they must win, and meanwhile Ysassi was doing useful work holding the place till the good time came. They could not believe they had lost Jamaica.
“For the love of God,” he prays the Governor of Cuba, “I again ask you to send me not linen144, or a new shirt, because I do not make use of it” (a gallant145 of Spain!) “but some old cloth.”
But brave Ysassi was nearing the end. In July 1658 he had reinforcements from Mexico but is obliged to write sadly—“In fine, sir, on this 26th June the enemy defeated me with the loss of 300 men although his loss, so far as troops are concerned, was greater.” (The pitiful pride!) “If they beat me,” he says in effect, “me starving, short of ammunition146, provisions, everything that might enable me to make good, at least I have given them something better than they gave me.”
And so he sends the remnant of his army into the mountains to forage147 for themselves and he speaks of the negro slaves, the first mention we have of the Maroons148 that have figured so largely in Jamaican history.
“The negroes, Sir,” he writes to his King, “who have remained fugitives149 from their masters who have abandoned the island and your Majesty150’s arms, are more than two hundred, but many have died, and I inform your Majesty so that you may command what is most suitable to your Royal Service to whoever may come to govern the island. I have not done a small thing in conserving151 them, keeping them under my obedience152, when they have been sought after with papers from the enemy. I have promised their Chiefs freedom in your Majesty’s name but have not given it until I receive an order for it.” As if his gift of freedom could have mattered very much to the negroes, who already had the freedom of the hills and the hunted Spaniards much at their mercy.
And here again we are faced with contradictions that make me glad it is not my business to write history.
“The Spaniards in their authority over their slaves,” writes the very verbose153 Bridges, “appear to have been restrained by no law whatever; but were sanctioned in every act which could extort154 their labour or secure their obedience, so long however as the strength of the native Indians withstood the execrable cruelties of their Castilian taskmasters, the negroes were considered as very inferior workmen. Ovando complained of their continued importation to Hispaniola, where he found them but idle labourers, who took every opportunity of escaping into the woods, and assisting the natives in their feeble attempts to throw off the Spanish yoke155. But as Indian life wasted, negro labour became necessary to supply its place.”
And yet after that he goes on to say: “The British conquerors profited but little by the negroes whom they found in the island of Jamaica, and whose services were inseparable from the hard fate of their expatriated owners.... Not five hundred slaves were employed in the cultivation156 containing more than two million acres of the richest land. The degeneracy of their masters had reduced all classes to nearly an equality; so that in fact slavery hardly existed in Jamaica. Poverty had for a series of years forbidden a further importation of Africans; the negro race had rapidly decayed, and the few that were left were employed to supply the wants of the indolent Spaniards in Saint Jago, by the cultivation of their hatos in the country, and were preserved with the greatest care and cherished as their own children.... The easy condition of the slaves was manifested in their attachment157 to the fallen fortunes of their masters; and they were confidently left by them to retain possession of an island which they could no longer keep themselves.” Surely a curious way to end a paragraph which began by declaiming against the unbridled cruelty of the Spaniards. So they were not all cruel, and even troubled Ysassi felt sure that the runaway158 negroes would prefer the Spanish rule to the English. Perhaps there was something in the devil they knew.
In Spain the enquiries into the state of the country appear to have been endless. It was easier to hold the north side of the island, the fleeing Spaniards wrote them, and one man tells how his hunting slaves were enabled to help the unfortunates who had abandoned their hatos on the south and fled into the mountains in the north. I see those frightened women and children, toiling159 along through the mountain passes, perhaps taking it in turns to ride a mule123 or donkey, afraid of the hunting slaves, savage160 men with little clothing and yet thankful for the meat and wild fruits they gave them. And they said that in the first three years they had killed nearly 2500 of the enemy’s men, “while on our side very few were lost. The enemy also suffered from a pestilence from which more than 6000 died.” And so they buoyed161 themselves up with false hopes. But whether they were killed or wounded or died of pestilence these persistent162 English came on and pushed them farther and farther towards the north. Even the mountains were no refuge, and we read how sick men, women and children, Spanish colonists and slaves, “embarked163 in one of his Majesty’s smacks,” that made several trips by order of the Governor of Cuba who charged (the wretch164! to take such advantage of their desperate straits) “for each person removed from Jamaica, even infants, at the rate of ten and twelve pesos” (about thirty shillings). One family even paid him more than three times that, so evidently there were pickings attached to a Spanish Governorship.
And at last in February 1660 even brave Ysassi must have seen, and seen thankfully, I should think, that the end was approaching. He was defeated at Manegua (Moneague)—it is a pleasure resort up among the hills nowadays, where the tourists come from England and America—and at a Council of War the abandonment of the island was recommended.
Slowly, slowly, it had come to that, after all the hopes, all the sacrifices, all the fighting, all the long, long struggle and suffering, after nearly five years of it they must go. The English offered terms, but the Spanish were proud and haggled165, and though the English seem to have been more than kindly166 and courteous167 the Spaniards were loth to give in, and finally we find D’Oyley, the English Governor, writing “the time for capitulating has expired.” The English would have sent them to Cuba, sent them with all honour, but the Spanish Governor, who had never been more than the shadow of a Governor of Jamaica, could not give in. He complains that the English only undertook to send away the Spaniards to Cuba, “as the greater part of the force were Indians, Negroes, and Mulattos, without counting Slaves and Coloured domestic servants.... I determined168 to die sooner than abandon or leave the meanest of those who had been with me... the troops,” he goes on pathetically, he had advised the Governor of Cuba, “were very dejected and weak from want of food and eaten up with lice, for not even the Captains had more clothes than what they wore.” So he decided to build two canoes and in fifteen days they were finished and provided with sails, “from some sheets belonging to the hunters who had escaped.” We can see those canoes building, the careful watch that had to be kept lest the English should catch them, the subdued169 triumph when they were all complete, the despair when it was found they would only hold seventy-six people, and so, after all his protestations, “I was obliged to leave in the island thirty-six under the charge of one of the Captains who was assisting me.”
And they call the cove where he embarked Runaway Bay. It is a misnomer170, and a slur171 on the memory of a brave man. Surely no man ever turned his back on the enemy more reluctantly.
They came in safety to Cuba and no mention is ever made of the thirty-six left behind and the captain who stayed with them. I like to think that Ysassi sent for them when he could.
The road that runs right round the island passes close to that little bay now, and the waters of the blue Caribbean, calm and still, mirror the blue skies above as they did on that long ago May day when the last Spanish Governor of Jamaica embarked in a frail172 canoe and waving his hand to those he left behind set sail for Cuba to the north. This was the end of the high adventure. The very end! The Spanish rule was over, the valued island that lay right in the fairway of commerce—it lies so still—was lost for ever to the Spanish Crown and its last Governor was going away a broken and discredited173 man.
And bitterly the Spaniards regretted the loss. Pedro de Bayoha, “Governor of the City of Cuba,” wrote to the King setting forth174 its many advantages, “any fleet however large can lie and careen its ships, and any army can march, as food is very plentiful and the island abounding175 in tame and wild cattle as well as swine, the quantity of which is so great that every year twenty thousand head are killed for the lard and fat and no use is made of the meat.” So we gather that Ysassi was not very good at the commissariat. Perhaps the English harried176 him too much.
It has been said with some surprise that there are few relics177 of the Spaniards in the island. For me, I marvel178 that there is after all these years still so much. The oranges and the limes, the pomegranates and the coconut palms are a monument to them, and still at Montego Bay is to be seen the outlines of a dark stone fort that overlooked the beautiful bay and guarded the town. And though Indian corn has been sown in the courtyards for many a long day, some of the old cannon179 that belonged to his Spanish Majesty still lie about. The climate of Jamaica is against the preservation180 of relics of the past. “Tis a very strange thing,” says Hans Sloane, accustomed to the slow growth of Northern climes, “to see in how short a time a plantation21 formerly181 clear of trees and shrubs182 will grow foul, which comes from two causes; the one not stubbing up the roots, whence arise young sprouts183, and the other the fertility of the soil. The settlements and plantations of not only the Indians but even the Spaniards being quite overgrown with tall trees, so that there is no footsteps of such a thing left were it not for the old palisadoes, buildings, orange walks, etc., which show plainly the formerly cleared places where plantations have been.” And Sloane, who was physician to the Duke of Albemarle, the Governor, writes of 1688, not thirty years after the last Spanish Governor had fled.
Even now in Jamaica there are tales of buried treasure. In 1916 the “Busha” or superintendent184 of an estate in Westmoreland was engaged in pulling down a stout185 stone wall, evidently built in the old days by slave labour. Each stone was well and truly laid, and tradition said the wall was Spanish. One of the workmen said he had come to a hollow place. And sure enough there was a large jar stuffed full of old Spanish gold and silver coins, hidden I suppose when the Spanish owner of the hato fled before the incoming of the English. Tradition says there are many more, but within the last year or two the Crown, I hear, has insisted on its right of treasure trove186, so that it is exceedingly unlikely anyone finding such will proclaim the fact aloud. The Spanish colonists it is true were but a poor people, but even the poorest have need of some little money, and in the days when banks were not much in vogue187, cash that would not go into the breeches pocket had to be kept somewhere.
Bridges tells how “a miniature figure of pure gold representing a Spanish soldier with a matchlock in his hand was lately found in the woods of the parish of Manchester. How it came there remains a mystery; for those extensive forests bear no marks of having ever been opened, or even penetrated188 until lately.” And Bridges wrote about 1828.
But gold is not to be lightly worn or washed away. I can imagine the young Spanish wife who owned that little golden soldier and counted him a very precious possession. And so, when she fled with her baby in her arms and her little daughter clinging to her skirts, she carried it with her. And then came the day when the English pressed them hard, and perhaps her husband, perhaps the head slave, called to her to hurry, they must get away, and the baby cried because she had so little to give it, and the little maid whimpered when she fell among the leafy thorns and rough stones on the steep mountain path, and her mother bending over to comfort her dropped the little golden Spanish soldier that was her treasure from her bundle and never knew of her loss till it was too late to go back to look for it, and there he lay for close on one hundred and sixty years till some Englishman found him and reported the find to verbose, moralising, Bridges.
The author of Old St James too tells a tale of Spanish treasure. He says that sometime in the eighteenth century two Spaniards visited “Success,” an estate in the north of the island not far from the sea-shore. They showed a plan said to have been copied from one held by a Spanish family locating the position of valuable documents buried upon the estate. There were the remains of an old fort, and using the walls as a starting-post the point fixed189 upon was the centre of the estate’s mill-house. Not unnaturally190, the visitors wanted to take down the mill-house, undertaking191 to rebuild it and leave everything as they found it. But the owners objected, perhaps also not unnaturally, for the mill-house was the most important part of the estate and an owner who would live in any tumble-down makeshift himself would often spend large sums upon his mill-house and machinery192. Permission was refused, though tradition was with the Spaniards. For all I know those papers may be there still. The mill was one of the last to use cattle as power, and when excavations193 were being made for the new steam mill, two wells were found, one with water and the other in which water had obviously not been found. It was filled with soil of a different character from that surrounding it. “The water,” says the author, “was evidently that which supplied the fort and it is natural to think that valuables or other papers might have been buried in the other.”
There is still among the older people a certain faith in enchanted194 jars buried in the earth or left in caves by the Spaniards when they fled the country. In the Rio Cobre there is a table of gold which rises up at noon every day, but though it has been seen by more than one person no one yet has succeeded in getting it before it sinks back under the waters. This, I am credibly195 informed—you may believe it or not as you please—is because the Spaniards killed a slave to watch over the treasure and no one has been quick enough to throw their hat, knife, or handkerchief over it and so break the enchantment13.
There was a poor slave woman once who was ill and unable to finish her task, so the driver made her stay behind and do what she had left undone196. She worked all night, and weary and worn, the task was not yet done when her hoe struck something that gave out a jingling197 sound. She looked carefully and found a Spanish jar, and with such important information dared even approach the high and mighty master himself. On going to inspect, he found so large a jar it had to be pulled out by oxen and was full to the top with golden doubloons. So he rewarded the woman with her freedom and gave her enough to live on all her life. At least that is the story that was told to me. It is a comfort to read of Spanish Gold which for so long has stood in my mind for fanciful treasure, really materialising to some one’s advantage.
More especially in the north of the island is this faith in hidden treasure strong. I was told seriously by a young man once that just beyond Montego Bay some very handsome brass198 cannon were dug up and so curiously199 wrought200 were they that they were polished and set up close to where they were found on the shore. But they did not stay there long. One night a Spanish sloop201 was seen off the coast, next morning she was gone, so were the guns, and no one knows what has become of them.
They tell much the same story about a great jar of gold which was supposed to have been buried in a cane202 piece in St Thomas. One night the Spaniards came, gagged and bound the watchman—I did not know every cane piece had a watchman, but so the story runs—and dug up the jar leaving a sum of money for the watchman and the hole so that the owners of that field might have some idea of what they had missed.
I am afraid these two last stories are purely203 apocryphal204, but many people believe in them and they serve to show how fixed in Jamaica is the faith in Spanish Gold.
At Kempshot, on top of a high hill, Miss Maxwell Hall two or three years ago was roused night after night by the tramping of feet along the hillside. At first the noise was a mystery of the night then it ceased, but a week or two later she found that some great caves on the estate had been entered and extensive digging had gone on. It was impossible that anything could have been found, for the Maxwell Halls themselves had dug out those caves thoroughly205 searching not for Spanish treasure but for Arawak remains. It was evident that a large company had gone there nightly. The place had an evil reputation and she knew that not two or three men would have lightly dared its dangers even for promise of gold, and broken and discarded rum bottles showed how the investigators206 had been bucked207 up with “Dutch courage.”
A little treasure will go a long way in making stories, and one jar of coin found will supply material for a dozen. But it is interesting to think that if you buy a plot of land in Jamaica, especially in the north, you may just chance to buy with it a jar of gold.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
culmination
|
|
| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
jotted
|
|
| v.匆忙记下( jot的过去式和过去分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
shipping
|
|
| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
nostrils
|
|
| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
lumbering
|
|
| n.采伐林木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
unwilling
|
|
| adj.不情愿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
steward
|
|
| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
cove
|
|
| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
dubiously
|
|
| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
portent
|
|
| n.预兆；恶兆；怪事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
mermaids
|
|
| n.（传说中的）美人鱼( mermaid的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
lure
|
|
| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
enchantment
|
|
| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
enchantments
|
|
| n.魅力( enchantment的名词复数 )；迷人之处；施魔法；着魔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
perils
|
|
| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
virgin
|
|
| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
supreme
|
|
| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
mariner
|
|
| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
plantations
|
|
| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
plantation
|
|
| n.种植园，大农场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
velvet
|
|
| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
embroidered
|
|
| adj．绣花的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
sweeping
|
|
| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
undoubtedly
|
|
| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
vividly
|
|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
spicy
|
|
| adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
scents
|
|
| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
scent
|
|
| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
voluptuousness
|
|
| n.风骚，体态丰满 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
vessels
|
|
| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
wrecks
|
|
| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
mariners
|
|
| 海员，水手（mariner的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
fragrance
|
|
| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
redeeming
|
|
| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
pungent
|
|
| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
aromatic
|
|
| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
shimmering
|
|
| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
hatred
|
|
| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
ripples
|
|
| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
foam
|
|
| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
swirled
|
|
| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
translucent
|
|
| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
sapphires
|
|
| n.蓝宝石，钢玉宝石( sapphire的名词复数 )；蔚蓝色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
coves
|
|
| n.小海湾( cove的名词复数 )；家伙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
grove
|
|
| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
groves
|
|
| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
coconut
|
|
| n.椰子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
acrid
|
|
| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
luscious
|
|
| adj.美味的；芬芳的；肉感的，引与性欲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
counteract
|
|
| vt.对…起反作用，对抗，抵消 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
scurvy
|
|
| adj.下流的，卑鄙的，无礼的；n.坏血病 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
astringent
|
|
| adj.止血的，收缩的，涩的；n.收缩剂，止血剂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
grumbling
|
|
| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
watery
|
|
| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
subsist
|
|
| vi.生存，存在，供养 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
loathe
|
|
| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
villa
|
|
| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
beads
|
|
| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
primitive
|
|
| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
glossy
|
|
| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
fragrant
|
|
| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
shacks
|
|
| n.窝棚，简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
thatch
|
|
| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
dwellers
|
|
| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
vent
|
|
| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
banished
|
|
| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
ravaging
|
|
| 毁坏( ravage的现在分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
pillaging
|
|
| v.抢劫，掠夺( pillage的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
ravaged
|
|
| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
foul
|
|
| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
hostility
|
|
| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
pestilence
|
|
| n.瘟疫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
fabulous
|
|
| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
diligently
|
|
| ad.industriously;carefully | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
colonists
|
|
| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
exuberant
|
|
| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
leisurely
|
|
| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
lodges
|
|
| v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
ragged
|
|
| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
seedlings
|
|
| n.刚出芽的幼苗( seedling的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
benevolent
|
|
| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
bishop
|
|
| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
beheld
|
|
| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
conquerors
|
|
| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
emigrant
|
|
| adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
touching
|
|
| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
daggers
|
|
| 匕首，短剑( dagger的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
advisers
|
|
| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
ransom
|
|
| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
hereditary
|
|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
plentiful
|
|
| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
frigate
|
|
| n.护航舰，大型驱逐舰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
Portuguese
|
|
| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
plundering
|
|
| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
ranches
|
|
| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
wilderness
|
|
| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
annexes
|
|
| 并吞( annex的名词复数 )； 兼并； 强占； 并吞（国家、地区等）； 附加物，附属建筑( annexe的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
expended
|
|
| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
gilded
|
|
| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
weird
|
|
| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
racing
|
|
| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
killing
|
|
| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
certify
|
|
| vt.证明，证实；发证书(或执照)给 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
fortifying
|
|
| 筑防御工事于( fortify的现在分词 )； 筑堡于； 增强； 强化（食品） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
garrison
|
|
| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
infantry
|
|
| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
herds
|
|
| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
corruption
|
|
| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
mules
|
|
| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
mule
|
|
| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
courageous
|
|
| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
seamen
|
|
| n.海员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
invaders
|
|
| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
regiment
|
|
| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
northward
|
|
| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
warfare
|
|
| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
obstructing
|
|
| 阻塞( obstruct的现在分词 )； 堵塞； 阻碍； 阻止 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
galleons
|
|
| n.大型帆船( galleon的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
farce
|
|
| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
arrogant
|
|
| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
sergeant
|
|
| n.警官，中士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
lengthy
|
|
| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
captivity
|
|
| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
pawns
|
|
| n.（国际象棋中的）兵( pawn的名词复数 )；卒；被人利用的人；小卒v.典当，抵押( pawn的第三人称单数 )；以（某事物）担保 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
harassed
|
|
| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
harrying
|
|
| v.使苦恼( harry的现在分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
bloody
|
|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
discomforts
|
|
| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
descants
|
|
| n.多声部音乐中的上方声部( descant的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
143
punctuated
|
|
| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
gallant
|
|
| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
ammunition
|
|
| n.军火，弹药 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
forage
|
|
| n.(牛马的)饲料，粮草；v.搜寻，翻寻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
maroons
|
|
| n.逃亡黑奴（maroon的复数形式）vt.把…放逐到孤岛（maroon的第三人称单数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
fugitives
|
|
| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
majesty
|
|
| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
conserving
|
|
| v.保护，保藏，保存( conserve的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
obedience
|
|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
verbose
|
|
| adj.用字多的；冗长的；累赘的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
extort
|
|
| v.勒索，敲诈，强要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
yoke
|
|
| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
cultivation
|
|
| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
attachment
|
|
| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
runaway
|
|
| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
toiling
|
|
| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
buoyed
|
|
| v.使浮起( buoy的过去式和过去分词 )；支持；为…设浮标；振奋…的精神 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
persistent
|
|
| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
embarked
|
|
| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
wretch
|
|
| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
haggled
|
|
| v.讨价还价( haggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
courteous
|
|
| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
subdued
|
|
| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
misnomer
|
|
| n.误称 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
slur
|
|
| v.含糊地说；诋毁；连唱；n.诋毁；含糊的发音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
frail
|
|
| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
discredited
|
|
| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
abounding
|
|
| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
harried
|
|
| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
relics
|
|
| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
marvel
|
|
| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
cannon
|
|
| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
preservation
|
|
| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
formerly
|
|
| adv.从前，以前 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
shrubs
|
|
| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
sprouts
|
|
| n.新芽，嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
superintendent
|
|
| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
trove
|
|
| n.被发现的东西，收藏的东西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
Vogue
|
|
| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
penetrated
|
|
| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
unnaturally
|
|
| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
undertaking
|
|
| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
192
machinery
|
|
| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
excavations
|
|
| n.挖掘( excavation的名词复数 )；开凿；开凿的洞穴（或山路等）；（发掘出来的）古迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
enchanted
|
|
| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
credibly
|
|
| ad.可信地；可靠地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
undone
|
|
| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
jingling
|
|
| 叮当声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
brass
|
|
| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
199
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
200
wrought
|
|
| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
201
sloop
|
|
| n.单桅帆船 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
202
cane
|
|
| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
203
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
204
apocryphal
|
|
| adj.假冒的，虚假的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
205
thoroughly
|
|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
206
investigators
|
|
| n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
207
bucked
|
|
| adj.快v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的过去式和过去分词 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |