Jamaica Station

“ The English interest in Jamaica is still a considerable thing. The English flag flies over Government House, and no one so far wishes to remove it. But the British population is scanty and refuses to grow. Ships and regiments come and go, and officers and State employés make what appears to be a brilliant society. But it is in appearance only. The station is no longer a favourite one. They are gone, those pleasant gentry whose country houses were the paradise of middies sixty years ago. All is changed, even to the officers themselves. ”

“ The through trains running to the far eastern points of the island will run direct from the Pennsylvania Station as far as Jamaica by electricity, heavy motors hauling the standard equipment. At Jamaica, in a million-dollar transfer station that is part of the big improvement scheme, the steam locomotives will take up their part of the work. Electricity for long stretches of standard railroad where the traffic is comparatively slight is still an economic impossibility.
So much for New York, where the lead has been taken in providing suburban service on the railroads operated by electricity. ”

“ The station he holds is a very important one, and the business connected with it is of a character and an extent that, were he not a man of superior abilities, he could not sustain. He is highly respected by the government in the island, and at home, and possesses the esteem of his fellow-citizens of all colors. He associates with persons of the highest rank, dining and attending parties at the government-house with all the aristocracy of Jamaica. ”

“ Visitors to Jamaica, coming out with introductions to a few residents, would soon find themselves in very pleasant society at Kingston, and during the winter months there are a good many garden-parties, dinners, and dances, both at the hotels and in the neighbourhood.
Besides the naval station at Port Royal there is a garrison at Newcastle which is situated some 4000 feet above sea-level; it appears that formerly our soldiers were quartered in mangrove swamps: the Government has of late years gone to the opposite extremes. ”

“ The Guardsman and I, anxious to see more of this lovely island, went off by train to the western extremity of Jamaica. The engineer who surveyed the Jamaican Government Railway must have been an extremely eccentric individual. There is a comparatively level and very fertile belt near the sea-coast, extending right round the island. Here nearly all the produce is grown. Instead of building his railway through this flat, thickly populated zone, the engineer chose to construct his line across the mountain range of the interior, a district very sparsely inhabited, and hardly cultivated at all. ”

“ The Jamaica Government Railway is admirably designed if regarded as a scenic railway, but is hardly successful if considered as a commercial undertaking. The train winds slowly through the "Cockpit" country; now panting laboriously up steep inclines, now sliding down a long gradient, with a prodigious grinding of brakes and squeaking of wheels. The scenery is gorgeous, but there is no produce to handle at the various stations, and but few passengers to pick up. ”

“ The Southern RR stations at Locust Avenue, Berlin, Springfield and Ocean Point were closed. The Southern Railroad's line from Jamaica to Hunter's Point became the main line for passenger service since it was straighter and fully double tracked, while the old Long Island RR route via Winfield was relegated to freight service. At the Fresh Pond station a separate track was laid so as to render the route to Bushwick entirely independent of the main line. ”

“ It is the crumpled, irregular, casual Jamaica that the railroad traveller sees. The valleys, the plateaus, the hills, the mountains, rivers and ravines, pass along the carriage window in bewildering succession; the views one sees are beautiful and mystical beyond comprehension—like the tints in a stormy sunset.
One thing at least the intelligent traveller will learn on his railway journey; he will realise that the beauty of the tropics can never be comprehended by the finite mind of man. ”

“ Jamaica is proud of its railway. The people of the country, remembering the difficulties of its building, and the frequent weaknesses of its finances, are glad the line is complete, and that it is possible to travel at good speed from one end of the island to another. In truth the history of the line from its beginning in 1845 to the present day is not lacking in interest. Parts of the track have been built by official and parts by private enterprise. ”

“ Jamaica has a number of good roads and bridle paths; the main roads, controlled by the public works department, encircle the island, with several branches from north to south. The parochial roads are maintained by the parish boards. A railway traverses the island from Kingston in the south-east to Montego Bay in the north-west, and also branches to Port Antonio and to Ewarton. Jamaica is included in the Postal Union and in the Imperial penny post, and there is a weekly mail service to and from England by the Royal Mail Line, but mails are also carried by other companies. ”

“ We were, therefore, obliged to drop anchor, and are now riding within a couple of miles of the shore, but with as utter an incapability of reaching it as if we were still at Gravesend. The north side of the island is said to be extremely beautiful and romantic; but the south, which we coasted to-day, is low, barren, and without any recommendation whatever. As yet I can only look at Jamaica as one does on a man who comes to pay money, and whom we are extremely well pleased to see, however little the fellow’s appearance may be in his favour. ”

“ For an athlete, or indeed for anybody possessed of good walking powers, it is not impossible to take a walking trip over part of this island—especially as there are small weekly boats starting from Kingston every Tuesday, stopping at the various ports and harbours as they make the circuit of Jamaica. These call at each place for fruit on behalf of the American Fruit Company, whose boats run between Port Antonio and Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. ”

“ Dense, almost unpopulated forests, like some sections of eastern Cuba, covered the ever more rugged landscape; but if the scenery flanking Jamaica’s railway is more striking than that visible from the trains in Porto Rico, it is because it passes through rather than around the island, for on the whole our own West Indian colony is more beautiful. ”

“ The hardy-looking mountaineers one sees from the carriage window of the train, clad in the very sketchiest of clothing, are the descendants of fierce and warlike slaves of mixed African and Indian blood who, on the conquest of Jamaica by the Cromwellian troops, escaped to the hills, and defied the new possessors of the island to conquer them. ”

“ The Guardsman's enthusiasm about Jamaica remaining unabated, I determined to hire a buggy and pair and to make a fortnight's leisurely tour of the North Coast and centre of the island. Though not peculiarly expeditious, this is a very satisfactory mode of travel; no engine troubles, no burst tyres, and no worries about petrol supplies. A new country can be seen and absorbed far more easily from a horse-drawn vehicle than from a hurrying motor-car, and the little country inns in Jamaica, though very plainly equipped, are, as a rule, excellent, with surprisingly good if somewhat novel food. ”

“ But the high point of the trip comes when one changes at Jamaica, there boarding the 1:15 for Salamis. This is the train that on Saturdays takes back the two famous club cars, known to all travellers on the Oyster Bay route. Behind partly drawn blinds the luncheon tables are spread; one gets narrow glimpses of the great ones of the Island at their tiffin. This is a militant moment for the white-jacketed steward of the club car. On Saturdays there are always some strangers, unaccustomed to the ways of this train, who regard the two wagons of luxury as a personal affront. ”

“ Having yielded to the conviction that it was my bounden duty to enlighten people at home as to the easy accessibility of Jamaica, as well as to inform them what they lose by not putting in six weeks at least of one winter in this charming island, for nowhere can one see tropical scenery better than in Jamaica, I pass on to tell them the best way to get here. This they can do most directly by the Elder, Dempster steamers, which run fortnightly between Avonmouth Dock, near [8] Bristol, and Kingston, the chief town in Jamaica. ”

“ It saves great fatigue and much{33} walking. The market baskets may be placed beneath the seats; the town slips rapidly behind, and home is reached. Heaven knows what moves the car along. There are no horses, and no engines like those on the railway. It is a thing causing annoyance to the buggyman, that is all. For the rest you can ride five or six miles at ten miles an hour speed for four Jamaican pennies.
The country-people, who come once a week to sell their produce in the great Saturday foregathering of agricultural Jamaica, still show wonder and fear at the approach of a tram. ”

“ In another chapter will be found a brief history of the nearly two thousand miles of good roads in Jamaica, together with an account of the expenditure thereon and cost of keeping them in repair. The British Administration spends on an average annually for roads in Jamaica about $500,000. Without underestimating the strategical importance of a central railway from east to west in Cuba the immediate returns to the population from good roads would be far in excess of the more pretentious enterprise. ”

“ PORT ROYAL The chief interest of Port Royal lies rather in the silent witness which through two and a half centuries she has borne to the naval activities of the island of Jamaica, and in a measure to those of the British fleets which have from time to time visited these waters, than in any part which she has played in the internal domestic development of the colony, although she has now and again sent to the Assembly such notable members as William Beeston, Samuel Long, Marmaduke Freeman, Peter Beckford, Matthew Concanen, Roger Hope Elletson and Samuel Jackson Dallas. ”

“ From Tenedores the surveyed line of railroad extends up the valley of the Motagua to Gualan, thence up the ascent to the high plateau on which stands Chiquimula, and thence to Guatemala City, where it will connect with the road now in operation from that city to San José, on the Pacific, five thousand feet below.
Before leaving the Atlantic coast we must again mention the numerous steamship lines from Livingston to New Orleans, New York, Belize, Puerto Cortez, Jamaica, [64] and England. Communication may thus be had with the best markets for all tropical products. ”

“ Jamaica is one hundred and forty-four miles long and fifty miles wide, and its entire area is a network of these wonderful roads. Roads which would grace a Roman Empire, here wind through vast lonely forests and plantations of coffee and cacao, past towns whose ramshackle houses are giving the last gasps of dissolution. Jamaica has evidently suffered under the affliction of road-making governors, whose single purpose has been to build roads though all else go untouched, and they have held to that ambition with bulldog pertinacity. No one can deny the wonder of the Jamaican highway. ”

“ THE HILL STATIONS The white inhabitants of Jamaica swear by the hill stations: Newcastle, Mandeville, Malvern, Belle Vue and the rest. The description of the journey to Newcastle will stand as an example of the manner in which one travels to each, except that, in some cases, the railway as well as the double-horse buggy is necessary for the journeying. The tourist should remember that what appeals to the sun-dried Jamaican Englishman does not of necessity appeal with the same force to a tourist in love with the tropics. ”

“ Passengers can also be booked through, via the Colon and Panama Railway, to the principal ports on the Chilian Coast. The steamers of the Pacific Mail Co. and Campania Sud-Americana Co. leave Panama weekly for the South, reaching Callao in about nine days and arriving at Valparaiso in about 21 days. Seeing that for years past the climate of Jamaica has been libelled as unhealthy, it cannot be too strongly affirmed, that from a medical point of view, the wonderful air of the hilly districts is unrivalled ”

“ Kingston, originally begun as a settlement of refugees from Port Royal after the earthquake, gradually grew in importance, and finally became the capital of the island.
During the wars which followed the French Revolution, Jamaica was of importance as the great centre of British interests in the Western Caribbean.
We now headed for Jamaica; Kingston, its capital, lies towards the eastern extremity of its southern coast. The town is placed on flat land which gradually rises into dwarf hills. It is built parallel to, and abutting on to its water-front. ”

“ Jamaica, our next port of call, is thirty-six hours away, and at last we have placid blue water from which the flying fish break in little clouds, and a breeze suggestive of the isles of spice. The ship’s company which two days back was largely content with cots, and the innumerable worthless remedies for seasickness, always recommended by people who don’t get sick, now pines for exercise and entertainment. Young men normally sane, bestride an horizontal boom and belabor each other with pillows until one or both fall to the hospitable mattress below. ”