Omaha daily bee., 1895-05-06
A RICH BLACK BRoGUE.
Montserrats Ten thousand Happy Irish
si, Negroes.

| IL seems TO me that L was getting pretty
well out Of the world when l landed in
Jamaica" said the young botanist who has
been describing his West Indian experiences
to New York Sun reporter, but learned
atterward that Jamaica is positively metro
polltan compared with some of the other
| ISLANDS. l had the good fortune to find a
schooner about to sail from Jamaica for st.
hltts that would land me at Montserrat. As
| Montserrat was to be my next point | was
giad enough to take passage in her. You may
| thlnk that there is no great good fortune In
! hndlng schooner to travel in when I might
! nave gone in a steamer, but | considered IL
very lucky. Travelling in that part of the
| woriu Is not quite what II is in the neighbor-
| hood OF New York
Il suppose that hardly anv Inhabited island
| OF the west Indies is less known to the world
thah Montserrat. Two American and two
British steamers touch there every month.
uut there are rarely any passengers going or
coming III 1t were not for the labels we
sometimes see on lime-juice bottles, Pure
Mohlserrat Lime Juice we should hardly
ever near OF the place. II is the great lime
| luice producer of the world; and as no Brit
ish snip is allowed to leave port without a
| supply OF lime Juice for the sailors the bust
ness Is large one. 1t is pretty nearly in
the heart OF the tropics, being in latitude
| 10 degrees AZ minutes north. II Is a tiny
place, only twelve miles long and eight
uroad IN It's largest parts, and containing less
squdTe miles, WIN population or
| IV'VoV. When l landed / made the 193d
white person on the island; there were 1872
| before arrived, all the others being col
| ored.
Small as it is, Montserrat has had
| checkered existence. Columbus himself dis
covered it in 1493 but after that the island
! lay undisturbed by the whites for nearly two
centuries. The English colonized it and the
French captured it; then it was restored to
tne English and again captured by the
N
over to the English and they have held 1t
ever since. Like our own country it has
president but he is appointed by the crown
anu Is subordinate to the governor of neigh
oorlhg Antigua. His salary is 81, 900 a year
winch is lot of money in Plymouth, the
capltal town. Over in Jamaica everything
was In the past; they show a stranger not so
much what they have, as what they have
ilaI; i 80 1t was relief to find that Montserrat
IS living in the present. The little island is
uolns as well now as 1t ever did perhaps
better, because it depends not upon sugar
Dut upon lines. l tell you these little things
ABOUT the island so that you will know what
sort OF place l was going to.
VIII just add that the center Of the
ssland ls mountain rising several thousand
Ieet hlgh and that its reputed floral treasures
were what attracted me to Montserrat On
the sea level in those atitudes Won find only
the flora of hot countries: but on the nomn,
tallS you md the flora of all climates
= Nhen we approached Plymouth one Of the
nrst things / saw was a long stone wall half
way up the hill surmounted as | thought.
Dy row OF cannon balls at irregular in
terVals. But as we drew nearer | found that
my supposed cannon balls were the heads of
coiored gentlemen who stood on the ground
Dehind, watching our arrival A dilapidated
wooden piert REACHED out thirty or forty
leet INTO the'9water, and soon the greater
part OF the 1,4OO inhabitants of the town
were there to see rs land Our first effort to
throw line ashore was a failure. and the
sailor VINO threw 1t made some uncompli-
mentary REMARKS This brought a reply
rom the man on, the shore who was sup
posed to catch ,it-a coal-black negro of great
on, phwatI4are ye givIn ns" the black
man shouted, BE Jasus, how can I catch
tne ZONE when | can't rache it?"
lIere were shouts of derision from the
ciU"u' ana every word spoken was in as
rlch an Irish brogue as Cne could hear in
New York or Kilkenny. The brorua would
nave been a pleasant reminder of home If
It's cChlng from a crowd of West India
negroes had not given it an uncanny sound
why those fellows talk like black Irish
'i.n, L saiu TO the captain CT the schooner
- Irish! he replied. They're as Irish as
B'lly-be-dam. Nine-tenths of the darlies
on thls island are Of Irish descent. They
world val NieS III the
1T was not til was settled in the Red
. solved hn
mystery of these Irish negroes MANY vears
ago company of Irish Quakers bought a
large tract of land in Montserrat. and went
nto the lime-juice business extensively
lhey imported a great many Irish laborers
anu large proportion of these men were
unable to resist the attractions of the native
women and married and settled down there
lhere children, of course, were half Irish
ana half negro, but the Irish blood was the
stronger, and the negro characteristics had
10 give way before 1t. The original Irishmen
have been dead and gone for years. but their
descendants have repeopled the island and
the brogue and other Irish characteristics
remain. ~
The physical results of this union Of two
races are often startling. Some of the Irish
negroes are almost as white as Won or I
ana others are coal black. There's no telling
what may happen in Montserrat family
One baby is typical African, and the next
is fair little thing, with straight red hair.
IL is not only in Montserrat, either, that
such things happen. | know a white man
on one or the other islands, a man of wealth
ana refinement without the slightest sign
OF any black blood in him, whose father
also was perfectly white and well educated. |
rms man married beautiful American girl |
and there was mourning in the family when
IN due time there was born to them n child
as black as the ace Of spades The man
knew what 1t meant and he had to explain |
that there had been a trace of black blood
In his grandfather, which had lain dormant |
through two generations, but had thus made
itself plainly manifest in the third The |
child was hurried off to America to be reared |
and educated, and is here now and four or |
five perfectly white children were born to |
the couple afterward."
NOT THE RIGHT RTMn OF nav