Money rolled into the pockets of these Jamaican planters;
there is but little sport possible in the island, and they had no
intellectual pursuits, so they just built fine houses, filled them
with rare china, Chippendale furniture, and silver plate, and found
their amusements in eating, drinking and gambling.
Even to-day the climate of Jamaica is very enervating. Wise people
know now that to keep in health in hot countries alcohol, and wine
especially, must be avoided. Meat must be eaten very sparingly, and an
abstemious regime will bring its own reward. In the eighteenth
century, however, people apparently thought that vast quantities of
food and drink would combat the debilitating effects of the climate,
and that, too, at a time when yellow fever was endemic. There are
still old-fashioned people who are obsessed with the idea that the
more you eat the stronger you grow. The Creoles in Jamaica certainly
put this theory into effect. Michael Scott, in _Tom Cringle_, describes
many Gargantuan repasts amongst the Kingston merchants, and as he
himself was one of them, we can presume he knew what he was writing
about. The men, too, habitually drank, of all beverages in the
world to select in the scorching heat of Jamaica, hot brandy and
water, and then they wondered that they died of yellow fever! Every
white man and woman in the island seems to have been gorged with
food.
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