Page:History and adventures of Jack Mansong.pdf/10

10 negroes, as before, rushed upon their guns, but the Maroons firing as they retreated, kept them at bay and made great slaughter. Jack in vain encouraged his men he could not rouse them to the combat, and they fled in every direction.

Next day the Governor published a proclamation, offering a free pardon to such of the insurgents as would return to their duty. This had the desired effect ; for they all returned except Jack, who still determined to harass the Europeans. He again repaired to the cave of Amalkir, who hung an obi horn about his neck, rare for its supposed virtues.

Dr. Mosely, in his Treatise on Sugar, says— “ I saw the obi of the famous negro robber, Three Finger‘d Jack, the terror of Jamaica, in 1780.— The Maroon who slew him brought it me. It consisted of a goat's horn, filled with a compound of grave dirt, ashes, the blood of a black cat, and human fat, all mixed into a kind of paste : a cat's foot, a dried road, a pig‘s tail, a slip of virginal parchment of kid-skin, with characters marked with blood on it, were also in his obian bag.— These, with a keen sabre, and two guns, were all his obi ; with which, and his courage in descending into the plains, and plundering to supply his wants, and his skill in retreating into difficult fastnesses, among the mountains, commanding the only access to them, where none dared to follow him, he terrified the inhabitants, and set the civil power and the neighbouring militia of the island at defiance, for near two years.

It would be tedious to enumerate all the exploits of this famous robber, we shall therefore only relate a few of the most prominent. One day, as Jack was reconnoitring on the top of Lebanus, he beheld a negro beneath, armed, and bearing provisions. Jack rushed down the