e donkey
engines are at work, hoisting packing cases and luggage out of the hold.
Stewards run to and fro, and state-room doors are opened, and busy
figures are seen through each, stuffing their portmanteaus and preparing
for departure. The church bells at Kingston, ringing for early service,
reminded me that it was Sunday. We brought up at a jetty, and I cannot
say that, close at hand, the town was as attractive as it had appeared
when first I saw it. The enchantment was gone. The blue haze of distance
gave place to reality. The water was so fetid under the ship's side that
it could not be pumped into the baths. Odours, not Arabian, from open
drains reminded me of Jacmel. The streets, up which I could see from the
afterdeck, looked dirty and the houses shabby. Docks and wharves,
however, are never the brightest part of any town, English or foreign.
There were people enough at any rate, and white faces enough among them.
Gangways were rigged from the ship to the shore, and ladies and
gentlemen rushed on board to meet their friends. The companies' agents
appeared in the captain's cabin. Porters were scrambling for luggage;
pushing, shoving, and swearing. Passengers who had come out with us, and
had never missed attendance at the breakfast table, were hurrying home
unbreakfasted to their wives and families. My own plans were uncertain.
I had no friends, not even an acquaintance. I knew nothing of the hotels
and lodging houses, save that they had generally a doubtful reputation.
I had brought with me a letter of introduction to Sir H. Norman, the
governor, but Sir Henry had gone to England. On the whole, I thought it
best to inclose the letter to Mr. Walker, the Colonial Secretary, who I
understood was in Kingston, with a note asking for advice. This I sent
by a messenger. Meanwhile I stayed on board to look about me from the
deck. The ship was to go on the next morning to the canal works at
Darien. Time was precious. Immediately on arriving she had begun to take
in coal, Sunday though it might be, and a singular spectacle it was. The
coal yard was close by, and some hundreds of negroes, women and men, but
women, in four times the number, were hard at work. The entire process
was by hand and basket, each basket holding from eighty to a hundred
pounds weight. Two planks were laid down at a steep incline from the
ship's deck to the yard. Swinging their loads on their heads, erect as
statues, and with a step elastic as a raceho