Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-05-17
JAMA|CA'S ::GARDE Ms
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Land Of Green Mountains in
a Dazzling Blue Sea.
TROPICAL PRODUCTS
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10 az
PRoDIGAL WEALTH IN FLOWERS
AND TREES.
An Island Looking for Salvation to
the American Appetite
for Fruit.
Copyright, 1902, BY T. ]. Hains.1

Copyright, 1902, BY 7. ]. Hains.)
Written for The Evening Star.
1t has been through the American appe-
tite for fruit that the most beautiful island
Of the American tropics has been made
habitable for the civilized. Before the ad-
vent of the banana industry the Island Of
Jamaica was, as it still is in many parts,
religiously, morally and physically black
1t bears the imprint of the sons Of Ham,
the sons of slavery-sloth and other things
belonging to the down-trodden race which
will not be necessary to recount.
To the northernefsiit seems strange to
find the ship from American: or English
ports boarded by a man as Black as sin,
with the intelligence of serpent and as
harmless withal as a child. The new ar
rival cannot quite get over the fact that
the custom house officer is a niger" in
every sense. Then, when the quarantine
doctor comes alongside with his boat Of
gayly uniformed blacks. the American
looks ataehe top of his white helmet with
the certain expectation Of soon beholding
white face upturned to- those above. 1t
comes as "a shock to find white eyeballs
to the inky skin ofsthe doctors face. It
is useless to look for, white men. Outside of
Kingston they are as scarce as polar bears
in New York.
Port Antonio, the principal fruit port on
the coast is naturally one of the first
places of interest to the lover of the trop-
ica1 garden. 1t is here that the fruit-grow-
ing Industry has advanced to a great COM
mercial enterprise. Here all steamers stop
and enter or clear. II they are to carry
away the gifts of the sun. gods.
To describe this 6ne town would take
more space than that allotted to an ordi-
nary newspaper, but 1t Is typical of all the
oil a1fx Oh AZ
as st. Lucea, at the western end of the
island. Tall cocoanut trees line the shores
and hllsides, their tops, high above the
burning sand, rustling softly in the trade
wind The coleTings OF the Iilly slopes
beyond defy Dissertation. and the bright
sunshine makes a paradise of the little
hole of blue water and its surroundings.
Far away in the southern distance rise the
huge mountains peak above peak into the
dense masses of vaper which drifts along
their tops, until the lana finally yanishes
in the white and Blue.
The banana pens are nthe lowlands, and
the fruit is brought tos the ship in cars,
men transferring IT to the vessels hold I'M
til the tally warns the stevedores that the
ship is ready for further orders and may
proceed to sea and down*he shore into the
shimmering distance.
The Telephonesin. the Fruit Trade.
The next port where tAe cargo is to- be
made up will probably be Annotta bay or
st. AIMS. All along the, shore of the is
land the fruit shippers have run their tele-
phone wires, and they can keep track with
accuracy of all heJbumches of bananas
ready for shipment. The itinerary usually
covers six or seven places, and the number
of punches is marked for each town. The
ship which can carry from twenty-five to
thirty thousand :bunehes will find her cargo
all laid out for her unless some accident
happens. Then the surplus fruit, which
t.. ia
pushed for the port of clearance, where
it will find it way into her hold In time
for her to get to sea on schedule. g..
Bananas are measured in punches and the
punches measured in hands For in
stance, a bunch of nine or ten hands of
bananas will have nine or ten projections of
fruit averaging a dozen or more, alternat-
ing down the opposite side of the main
stem, making total of more than 100 ba-
nanas on the stem. The smaller punches
have sometimes as few as six hands, or
sixty bananas on the bunch, and will, con-
sequently, sell for less than the bunch of
ten hands. A cargo will average about 81
bunch.
All tropical towns are somewhat similar
in aspect, but these fruit ports are especial
ly interesting. The huts, houses with
their matched roofs and dusky inhabitants,
are very picturesque. but not clean. The
women are seen about the yards washing
clothes or doing other chores, sometimes
even breaking stone for the roads, sitting
compiacently with pipe in mouth and stone
and hammer before them. while the pile of
rock between their knees slowly dwindles
in size under their easy strokes. The men
do very little. indeed, and it is against the
religion and practice OF the Jamaica women
to marry for this reason. When married,
the English law makes their property avail
able to their husbands, who, consequently,
will not do any work while it lasts. I'm
married, they are their own masters, and II
the lover who Is the father Of many chill
dren does not attend to business, he will
find his place usurped by some more willing
buck and will have to look elsewhere for a
home. This strange state of affairs has
been the bane Of the missionaries, but there
seems to be no remedy for it, for a woman
once free will not enter slavery again. With
the coolie-the imported Indian who works
the sugar plantation-the moral ties are en-
tirely different. The East Indian Furnishes