FROM "TOM CRINGLE'S LOG." BY MICHAEL SCOTT. [MICHAEL SCOTT: A Scotch author; born at Glasgow in 1789; died in 1835. After studying in the University of Glasgow, he lived in Jamaica 1806–1822, then returned to Scotland and established himself in business. He is the author of "Tom Cringle's Log" and "The Cruise of the Midge," which first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine.] THIS day was the first of the Negro Carnival or Christmas Holidays, and at the distance of two miles from Kingston the sound of the negro drums and horns, the barbarous music and yelling of the different African tribes, and the more mellow singing of the Set Girls, came off upon the breeze loud and strong. When we got nearer, the wharfs and different streets, as we successively opened them, were crowded with blackamoors, men, women, and children, dancing and singing and shouting, and all rigged out in their best. When we landed on the agents' wharf we were immediately surrounded by a group of these merrymakers, which happened to be the Butchers' John Canoe party, and a curious exhibition it unquestionably was. The prominent character was, as usual, the John Canoe or Jack Pudding. He was a light, active, clean-made young Creole negro, without shoes or stockings; he wore a pair of light jean smallclothes, all too wide, but confined at the knees, below and above, by bands of red tape, after the manner that Malvolio would have called cross-gartering. He wore a splendid blue velvet waistcoat, with old-fashioned flaps coming down over his hips, and covered with tarnished embroidery. His shirt was absent on leave, I suppose, but at the wrists of his coat he had tin or white iron frills, with loose pieces attached, which tinkled as he moved, and set off the dingy paws that were stuck through these strange manacles, like black wax tapers in silver candlesticks. His coat was an old blue artillery uniform one, with a small bell hung to the extreme points of the swallow-tailed skirts, and three tarnished epaulets; one on each shoulder, and, O ye immortal gods! O Mars armipotent! the biggest of the three stuck at his rump, the point d'appui for a sheep's tail. He had an enormous cocked hat on, to which was appended in front a white false-face or mask, of a most Methodistical expression, while, Janus-like, there was another face behind, of the most quizzical description, a sort of living Antithesis, both being garnished and overtopped with one coarse wig, made of the hair of bullocks' tails, on which the chapeau was strapped down with a broad band of gold lace. He skipped up to us with a white wand in one hand and a dirty handkerchief in the other, and with sundry moppings and mowings, first wiping my shoes with his mouchoir, then my face (murder, what a flavor of salt fish and onions it had!), he made a smart enough pirouette, and then sprung on the back of a nondescript animal, that now advanced capering and jumping about after the most grotesque fashion that can be imagined. This was the signal for the music to begin. The performers were two gigantic men, dressed in calfskins entire, head, four legs, and tail. The skin of the head was made to fit like a hood, the two fore feet hung dangling down in front, one over each shoulder, while the other two legs, or hind feet, and the tail trailed behind on the ground; deuce another article had they on in the shape of clothing except a handkerchief, of some flaming pattern, tied round the waist. There were also two flute players in sheepskins, looking still more outlandish from the horns on the animals' heads being preserved, and three stout fellows, who were dressed in the common white frock and trousers, who kept sounding on bullocks' horns. These formed the band, as it were, and might be considered John's immediate tail or following; but he was also accompanied by about fifty of the butcher negroes, all neatly dressed-blue jackets, white shirts, and Osnaburgh trousers, with their steels and knife cases by their sides, as bright as Turkish yataghans, and they all wore clean blue and white striped aprons. I could see and tell what they were; but the thing John Canoe had perched himself upon I could make nothing of. At length I began to comprehend the device. The Magnus Apollo of the party, the poet and chief musician, the nondescript already mentioned, was no less than the boatswain of the butcher gang, answering to the driver in an agricultural one. He was clothed in an entire bullock's hide, horns, tail, and the other particulars, the whole of the skull being retained; and the effect of the voice growling through the jaws of the beast was most startling. His legs were enveloped in the skin of the hind legs, while the arms were cased in that of the fore, the hands protruding a little above the hoofs; and, as he walked reared up on his hind legs, he used, in order to support the load of the John Canoe who had perched on his shoulders, like a monkey on a dancing bear, a strong stick, or sprit, with a crutch top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then. After the creature, which I will call the Device for shortness, had capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for a minute or two, it came to a standstill, and, sticking the end of the sprit into the ground, and tucking the crutch of it under its chin, it motioned to one of the attendants, who thereupon handed, of all things in the world, a fiddle to the ox. He then shook off the John Canoe, who began to caper about as before, while the Device set up a deuced good pipe, and sung and played, barbarously enough, I will admit, to the tune of "Guinea Corn," the following ditty: "Massa Buccra lob for see Bullock caper like monkee Dance, and shump, and poke him toe, Like one humane person-just so." And hereupon the tail of the beast, some fifty strong, music men, John Canoe and all, began to rampage about, as if they had been possessed by a devil whose name was Legion :— "But Massa Buccra have white love, To brown girl-him barely shivel- Then a tremendous gallopading, in the which Tailtackle was nearly capsized over the wharf. He looked quietly over the edge of it. 66 Boatkeeper, hand me up that switch of a stretcher." (Friend, if thou be'st not nautical, thou knowest what a rack pin, something of the stoutest, is.) The boy did so, and Tailtackle, after moistening well his dexter claw with tobacco juice, seized the stick with his left by the middle, and balancing it for a second or two, he began to fasten the end of it into his right fist, as if he had been screwing a bolt into a socket. Having satisfied himself that his grip was secure, he let go the hold with his left hand, and crossed his arms on his breast, with the weapon projecting over his left shoulder, like the drone of a bagpipe. The Device continued his chant, giving the seaman a wide berth, however— "But when him once two tree year here, Ah, him lob him de morest nor any oder." Then another tumblification of the whole party. "But top-one time bad fever catch him, Another trampoline. "So alway come-in two tree year, And so wid you, massa never fear Brown girl for cook for wife-for nurse "Get away, you scandalous scoundrel," cried I; "away with you, sir!" Here the morris dancers began to circle round old Tailtackle, keeping him on the move, spinning round like a weathercock in a whirlwind, while they shouted, "Oh, massa, one macaroni, if you please." To get quit of their importunity, Captain Transom gave them one. "Ah, good massa, tank you, sweet massa!" And away danced John Canoe and his tail, careering up the street. In the same way all the other crafts and trades had their Gumbi-men, Hornblowers, John Canoes, and Nondescript. The Gardeners came nearest of anything I had seen before to the May-day boys in London, with this advantage, that their Jack-in-the-Green was incomparably more beautiful, from the superior bloom of the larger flowers used in composing it. The very workhouse people, whose province it is to guard the negro culprits who may be committed to it, and to inflict punishment on them, when required, had their John Canoe and Device; and their prime jest seemed to be every now and then to throw the fellow down who enacted the latter at the corner of a street, and to administer a sound flogging to him. The John Canoe, who was the workhouse driver, was dressed up in a lawyer's cast-off gown and bands, black silk breeches, no stockings nor shoes, but with sandals of bullock's hide strapped on his great splay feet, a small cocked hat on his head, to which were appended a large cauliflower wig, and the usual white false-face, bearing a very laughable resemblance to Chief Justice S, with whom I happened to be personally acquainted. The whole party which accompanied these two worthies, musicians and tail, were dressed out so as to give a tolerable resemblance of the Bar broke loose, and they were all pretty considerably well drunk. As we passed along, the Device was once more laid down, and we could notice a shield of tough hide strapped over the fellow's stern frame, so as to save the lashes of the cat, which John Canoe was administering with all his force, while the Device walloped about and yelled, as if he had been receiving the punishment on his naked flesh. Presently, as he rolled over and over in the sand, bellowing to the life, I noticed the leather shield slip upwards to the small of his back, leaving the lower story uncovered in reality; but the driver and his tail were too drunk to observe this, and the former continued to lay on and laugh, while one of his people stood by in all the gravity of drunkenness, counting, as a first lieutenant does, when a poor fellow is polishing at the gangway, "Twenty-twenty-one-twenty-two"-and so on, while the patient roared out, an' it were anything but a nightingale. At length he broke away from the men who held him, after receiving a most sufficient flogging, to revenge which he immediately fastened on the John Canoe, wrenched his cat from him, and employed it so scientifically on him and his followers, giving them passing taps on the shins now and then with the handle, by way of spice to the dose, that the whole crew pulled foot as if Old Nick had held them in chase. The very children, urchins of five and six years old, had their Liliputian John Canoes and Devices. But the beautiful part of the exhibition was the Set Girls. They danced along the streets, in bands of from fifteen to thirty. There were brown sets, and black sets, and sets of all the intermediate gradations of color. Each set was dressed pin for pin alike, and carried umbrellas or parasols of the same color and size, held over their nice showy, well-put-on toques, or Madras handkerchiefs, all of the same pattern, tied round their heads, fresh out of the fold. They sang, as they swam along the streets, |