IV.

ST. JAGO DE LA VEGA.

SPANISH TOWN, or St. Jago de la Vega, is the capital de jure, whilst Kingston is the capital de facto, of Jamaica.

One of the most ancient cities in the colony, the seat of government, and once the home of all that was wise and learned and distinguished in Jamaica society, it is now a waste and a desert. Long-tailed pigs wander about the streets; carrion-crows pick up garbage in its once thronged thoroughfares. At the back of the handsome square where King's House is situated, the negroes have built their shingled huts.

Everything connected with it is dull and languid. The few officials whose duties keep them there are gloomy and dispirited; and the occasional balls, which, like angels' visits few and far between, waken the echoes in the old ball-room of Government House, only by the contrast render the desertion more marked and the solitude more appalling.

Yet wandering through its deserted streets one cannot but feel that after all there was a time when

Spanish Town was indeed a city. The very houses, albeit they are tumbling to pieces, have an air of aristocracy about them to which those in Kingston have no pretension; and what we seek for in vain in every other part of the colony, viz., traces of its ancient grandeur, we find in St. Jago de la Vega.

Looking at these antiquated mansions, with the numbers still on their doors, we can imagine the days when governors and bishops and judges held high festival within. What visions of jerked hog and black crab, of turtle-soup and old Madeira, does the sight of them produce! What pictures do they conjure up of those wicked old times when aides-de-camp used to ride alligators through the streets, when admirals used to give balls to the brown girls of the town, when vice in every shape was more reputable than it is at present! Is there a single bottle of the old Madeira extant? Does any one remember the Hell Fire Club? Is there any one alive who has tasted Bath punch?

The old barn-like cathedral of Spanish Town contains a few good monuments; notably one to Lady Elgin, by Steell of Edinburgh. There is an epitaph, too, to the memory of a departed functionary, which we cannot refrain from giving, as an edifying instance of Creole modesty. Under the medallion of M. T. Cicero we read :

D

Near this place are interred
the remains of

HUGH LEWIS, ESQUIRE,

Barrister-at-law, His Majesty's Advocate-General for this Island,.

and

Representative in Assembly for the Parish of Port-Royal.
He was born the 2d August 1753.

He died the 23d January 1785.

Early and zealously attached to the profession of the law,
which nature had prepared him to adorn,
He cultivated her partial endowments
with unremitting assiduity.

To a voice, clear and strong,

To action, graceful and affecting,

He added knowledge the most accurate and extensive.
Superior, both from integrity and ability,

To the meanness of sophistry,

His arguments at the Bar were rational and forcible,
His eloquence in the Senate dignified and persuasive.
Though by his merit raised with unusual rapidity
To the highest honours of his profession;
Yet such was his liberality and condescension,
So truly benevolent was he, and sincere,
That he enjoyed the uncommon felicity
To be

Unenvied by any,

THE DELIGHT AND ADMIRATION OF ALL.

Dating back from the Spanish days-and it is worthy of remark that, with the exception of Sevilla Nueva in St. Ann's, all the great Spanish settlements were on the south side of the island-the history of Spanish Town is the history of the colony. Under its Spanish masters it had its abbey, its chapels, and its convents; but beside a magnificent avenue of tamarind trees, which marks the site of the Spanish Governor's house, and a quaint old bridge across the Rio Cobre near the Bog Walk, no remains of that age exist.

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Then came the English conquest, with its long bederoll of names, which are household words in English naval history. In its streets the struggle between cavaliers and roundheads was enacted as fiercely as at home, and a local antiquary, the Honourable Richard Hill, states in one of his works that the common negro ejaculations of My father!" and "O King!" used to express surprise or astonishment, date back from these times. Those were the days of the buccaneers too. One of them, Sir Thomas (or, as he is sometimes called, Sir Henry) Morgan, actually rose to be Governor of Jamaica, and very odd and not altogether edifying stories are still told of the great doings which used to take place in King's House under his reign.

From that date up to the time when the House of Assembly became a power both for good and for evil in the colony, with the exception of a few negro insurrections, nothing worthy of record ensued. In 1692, the city was severely damaged by the earthquake which destroyed Port Royal, a town which was fast becoming a dangerous rival to Spanish Town-now, alas! like it, a city of the dead. And then began what the Creoles still consider to have been the palmy days of this colony, when great fortunes were made and spent by Scotch and English adventurers; when political jobs were rife; and when the island-unhappy island!-was alternately governed by a knot of needy lawyers, or ignorant, purse-proud planters, just as the one party or the other happened to be in power.

""Twas Self and Party after all, for all the stir they made."

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Yet even to this day there are men who regret the old House of Assembly. As for its members, "the one half," in the words of Hector Mitchell, the first mayor of Kingston, "could not afford to be in it, nor the other half to be out of it." "The brown men ruined it," it was once remarked to me; 'they were so poor, so greedy, and so fond of hearing themselves speak. They were mostly all lawyers; and although they habitually lived on green plantains and salt fish, spoke as if they were rich planters, feeding sumptuously every day on turtlesoup and old Madeira." The House of Assembly was a free institution, and had its black members as well. One of the most famous of these was a decent old negro, named Vickers, who was member for St. Catherine's. He used to ride up to the House on a dray, clad in a green coat, with brass buttons, a white hat, and bare feet. Of course, like every other member of the Colonial Parliament, he had the entrée into society, and a negro song still commemorates his behaviour at a ball given in Kingston :—

"Den one celebrate black gentleman, de member for St. Cat,
Him pop into de supper-room, like a half-starved cane-piece rat,
Him say 'him belly pinch him,' so begin fe wag him jaw,
Begin fe finding fault, say de duck was roasted raw.
Our young man what 'tan by him say, 'Hi! yerry (listen), Mr.
Bickers,

If you no please wid de vittles, why not pitch in to de liquors?' Him say, 'me frien', I tink you is right, so if you get any good old swizzle,

I will pitch in to de grog, fill me skin, and den I'll mizzle.'"

Long before the House of Assembly had decreed its own dissolution, the fortunes of Jamaica, and