The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-08-30
LITTLE COLONY OF IRONSIDES.
THEIR Walk AND CONVERSATION
THE SAME FOR CENTURIES.
Women or the Cayman Islands Dress just
rs Their Grandm0thers Dressed In
CrOmweli's Tine-And There's no Nom
sense About 'Em--dsreat Turtle Fishers.

an American TOURIST, us he watched half a
dozen sailors unloading turtles from a
small schooner anchored in the harbor OF
Kingston, Jamaica. Not one Of them was
less than feet tall, and two we're giants.
Well built, tanned by the tropical sun,
brawny. handsome, frank OF countenance,
| and agile as cats, they looked the ideal
| sailor.
Don't you know who they are?" said a
| Jamaican friend to the tourist. "They are
| Cayman Islanders. No wonder you ad-
mire them. l suppose that physically
and morally, they are about the finest
F, race of men in the world
| The Caymanians, tucked away and iso-
lated from the rest of the world on tiny
islands in the Caribbean Sea, between
| Jamaica and Cuba, have succeeded in
| establishing that ideal commonwealth Of
| which philosophers and statesmen have
| dreamed. Crime, immortality and disease
are unknown among them; they have just
as much civilization as is good for them, and
no more and they hold fast to primitive
ideas of duty and religion, and practise the
old-fashoned virtues.
| The Cayman Islands are three in number
Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cay
man Brac. On the first over a thousand
people dwell, and they have even a couple
| of small towns, called Georgetown and
Bodden Town. On the second there are
about hundred residents, and on the
third barren rock iuttine sharply out Of
the placid surface Of the Caribbean, only
a couple of families dwell.
! Unlike the other islands Of the West
| Indies, they are inhabited mainly by white
| people. There are no negroes in the smaller
| Caymans, and only n small minority Of
| them in Grand Cayman. and these are recent
| arrivals. The original settlers were some
| of Cromwells tronsides, and the manners
| and virtues of that stern breed of men
| survive in their descendants to this day.
When Cromwell had England and Europe
| under his heel, he sent out an expedition
which captured Jamaica from the Span
iards. Some of the men in that expedition
were veterans of Naseby and Marston
Moor, and they were naturally advanced
to the highest offices in the new colony
But when Charles II. came to his own again
these men found the times out of joint.
They were deprived of their Offices and
| harshly treated by the Royalst authorities.
Unwilling to bow the knee to Baal,"
they sold their possessions, bought a ship,
and sailed away to colonize the Caynans
and live as they pleased. unhindered by
kings or governors They were another
shipload of Pilgrim Fathers.
The Caymans were desert islands, oc-
casionally used by buccaneers for refittlng
| and provisioning their ships The IRON
! sides made short work of those gentry,
and had the islands TO themselves. They
established a patrlarchal form OF govern
| mont, titled the ground, built houses and
! villages, and sailed the neighboring seas
| in ships of their own construction. They
| hoStei the British flag, but practically
| they We're an independent people
| Thor descendants to-day are nomi-
] nally subject to the Governor of Jamaica
| but they make their own laws and govern
| themselves through elected overseers and
! vcstrymen. All the other colonies in the
| West Indies are automatically ruled by
| officials sent ont from England, but the
! Cavmanians are as independent as the
| Canadians or the Australians,
just as they have kept the old English
| methods of government, so they have
! kept the old English customs and manners.
| The women dress like the Puritan maids
of Oliver Cromwell's time. That is be-
| cause they never see foreign woman
! OF fashion paper. Daughters have
| dressed like their mothers for generations.
! They have had no other way, and, even
| if they had, a new-fanEled idea would
| have been frowned upon as "A snare of the
| evil one
| The spirit of Smite-Them- Hip-and-Th
! Tompkins and his fellows still pervades
| the little commonwealth, but it has its
! advantages. On the other West Indian
! islands, from half to two-thirds of the
! children are born out of wedlock, and half
| the population steals the other half's crop.
! On the CaymanS, the morals are Of the
| best and neither theft nor any other crime
| is practised There is not n single police
! man in the archipelago, and no need for
i one.
what would you people do to one of
| your number if he or she went wrong?"
a patriarchal Cayman Islander was once
asked.
Verify he replied, in the slow, grave
| archaic speech of his people, "the thought
| hath never been present with me. In
t; my life of more than threescore years
the Lord hath preserved us from that ca
/ !amity. | know not what we would do
! But such an one could not live among us
! thereafter"
| do ships often call here and bring you
news of the outside world?" he was asked
Mo- he replied "Once in three or
| four years Il British warship comes hither,
| bringing the Governor Of Jamaica on n tour
| of inspection. In my life | have seen but
| three others.
There was British st eamer many years
! ago which came here for supplies, being
| out of her course and overdue. Soon after
| ward timber schooner, going to Jamaica,
| was blown hither by hurricane The
third was an American steam yacht, a
few years ago The owner was rich and
great in his own country, so they told me,
but he liked our simple ways, and stayed
among us for many months"
But if the Caymanians do not got many
visitors, they do lot of visiting them
selves, One OF their principal industries
is shipbulding, in which they are experts
Their schOoners are the stanchest and
swirtest in the Caribbean Sea, and there
are no harder or more fearless sailors than
they, Shippers in all the ports of the West
Indies and the Spanish Main are eager to
give them charters.
They usually work for themselves, how
ever, catching turtles on the Central Ameri-
can coast. They are the turtle fishers
in-chief To the world The green turtle
soup esteemed by the Aldermen of London
and by the patrons of the best restaurants
in all the cities of the United States is
placed upon the table through the energy
and daring of these simple, plain-living
Caymanlans. Themselves the least hXur-
Gus OF people, they provide he world with
one of its greatest Injuries.
Turtle fishing is no easy task. Squalls
and hurricanes are frequent in the Carb-
heln, and manga Cayman sailor has persisted
with his schooner, or fingered miserahlv
in an open boat under the blazing tropical
sky, until he died Of hunger and thirst
lnnumcrable coral reefs and sandbars add
to the dangers of navigation, especially