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There was nothing stirring; and although a group of idlers, amounting to about twenty or thirty, did collect about us on the end of the wharf, which, by the by, was terribly out of repair, yet they all appeared ill clad, and in no way so well furnished as the blackies in Jamaica; and when we marched up through a hot, sandy, unpaved street into the town, the low, one story, shabby looking houses were falling into decay, and the streets more resembled river courses than thoroughfares, while the large carrion crows were picking garbage on the very crown of the causeway, without apparently entertaining the least fear of us, or of the negro children who were playing close to them, so near, in fact, that every now and then one of the urchins would aim a blow at one of the obscene birds, when it would give a loud discordant croak, and jump a pace or two, with outspread wings, but without taking flight.
"Ah!" said he, pushing his nightcap a little over his left ear, "you young gentlemen come out of the north with your dozen blackies or so, lay out some two or three thousand dollars in house and land, and then think you can play the absentee as much as you like, and that you do us a deal of honour when you allow us to collect and remit your income, for you to spend out of the country.
The fun now "grew fast and furious," a large wash tub was ordered in, placed under a beam at the corner of the room, and filled with water; a sack and a three inch rope were then called for, and promptly produced by the blackies, who, apparently accustomed to Fyall's pranks, grinned with delight.
He says although Madhabad is not gay, it is Piccadilly compared to where he often is, out in camp, forty miles from another European, with not a soul to speak to from week to week. The evenings are the dreariest times, and he often goes to bed immediately after dinner. He was quite cheerful, and said he liked the life. Madhabad is a large village, but the Blackies are the only Europeans.
The blackies were used to this sort of thing, and marched along as unconcernedly as if it were the natural state of things, only now and then would be heard a remark as a shell came a little nearer than usual. The spot was reached, and in a few minutes Helmar was superintending the throwing up of trenches.
Though matters were serious enough, I, with a youngster's thoughtlessness, enjoyed a fit of laughter while we were in the middle and hottest hurry of our preparations. It happened that two stout blackies rushed into the hall from different quarters, one bearing on his back a sack of earth, the other a bundle of canes or battens. Tilt they went with heads stooping down right against each other.
But she had no time to utter another word, before the fugitive pitched, with all his weight, right against her; and at the very moment another servant came trundling down with a large tray full of all kinds of meats and I especially remember that two large crystal stands of jellies composed part of his load so there we were regularly capsized, and caught all of a heap in the dark landing place, half way up the stair; and down the other flight tumbled our guide, with Mr Treenail and myself, and the two blackies, on the top of her, Tolling in our descent over, or rather into, another large mahogany tray which had just been carried out, with a tureen of turtle soup in it, and a dish of roast beef, and platefulls of land crabs, and the Lord knows what all besides.
No, sir, I shall sleep in my cart, and not come into the presence of ladies. Hereupon he departed, and I was informed that he had been drunk for seventeen days, sans desemparer, on his last visit to Caledon. However, he kept quite sober on this occasion, and amused himself by making the little blackies scramble for halfpence in the pools left in the bed of the river.
He had twisted up his mouth and mirth provoking nose, which, by an unaccountable control over some muscle, present in the visage of no other human being, he made to describe a small circle round the centre of his face, and slewing his head on one side, he was warbling, ore Yotundo, some melodious ditty, with infinite complacency, and, to all appearance, to the great delight of his auditory, when his eyes lighted on me, he was petrified in a moment, I seemed to have blasted him, his warbling ceased instantaneously, the colour faded from his cheeks, but there he sat, with open mouth, and in the same attitude as if he still sung, and I had suddenly become deaf, or as if he and his immediate compotators, and the group of blackies beyond, had all been on the instant turned to stone by a slap from one of their own John Canoes.
'All about me is most strange, a mixture of East and West, such as can be nowhere else seen: savage and civilised life is here blended together, blackies and turbans and laced footmen all wait at table together. PETERHOFF: July 2, 1842. 'I find myself most completely provided for here. I have a sitting-room, bedroom, and servant's room with all comforts....
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