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jaws as each lion-like cry—half-way between a snarl and a howl—rose from their windpipes. For half
an hour this savage sound continued, slowly gaining in speed and volume as the minutes passed. Eyes
were closing, and it was plain that the trance-like state that ushers in possession was slowly approaching.
Every few seconds the Shepherd leapt, with astounding agility, about a yard into the air with a cry that
sounded like 'Bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo!', a sound made by filling his cheeks with air and expelling it through
his thick and flexible lips. A peal on the bell followed each of these leaps, and as the collective numinos-
ity increased, he raised his hands and his face towards the roof and invoked the assembling spirits. 'What
are you waiting for, Jesus? Come down, Gabriel; come down, Michael and Moses and Abraham. We're
all here, we're ready, what are you waiting for?' The roaring had waxed into an agonized fortissimo; and
soon, sure enough, down the celestial beings came.
The speed and the violence with which the crises of possession occurred was as strange as anything we
had witnessed in the practice of Voodoo. One after the other the adepts fell to the ground as though they
had been mown down by rifle fire and lay there kicking and writhing and shuddering in desperate pangs.
I counted thirty-four at one moment, all prostrate. Their flailing feet raised a cloud of dust. The barking
and howling had sunk to a chorus of moans and gasps and sobs as the vessels of possession squirmed and
writhed, or, with arms outstretched, rolled over and over. The throes of incarnation were reminiscent of a
net-load of fish which has just been hauled out of the water and emptied on the sea-shore. The Shepherd
remained upright in this squirming tangle of humanity, leaping and whirling and clanging his bell and
summoning, in stentorian apostrophe, the last of the lingering celestial beings from the clouds.
Nearly an hour passed before the congregation were all on their feet again. As we left, they were drawn
up in a ragged file before the Shepherd, their white uniforms dirty and crumpled and torn, their turbans
awry or lost, the foam drying on their lips. Their eyes were still revulsed in the retreating aftermath of
immanence. The Shepherd, as each of his flock approached, rubbed her all over with his hands in a sort
of vigorous massage that covered the skull, neck, breast, back, arms, waist and thighs. While this was
taking place, the subjects stood docile and patient, shivering slightly now and then. When it was over,
they lurched, one by one, wearily out into the lanes. It was about four o'clock in the morning.
Riots, often begun by entirely different parties and sometimes for the most trivial reasons, are fairly fre-
quent events in the streets of Kingston. The town, while we were there, was still in convalescence from
a recent outbreak. Frequent glimpses of Mr. Bustamante and Mr. Manley, the first cousins and bitter
political enemies whose factions are as firmly embattled against each other as those of the Capulets and
the Montagues in Verona, are constant reminders of this split. What seems very surprising is that Mr.
Bustamante, the pistol-packing, hard-living and humorous ex-rabble-raising demagogue, whose every
word and gesture have an engaging histrionic phoneyness, should be the leader of the more moderate
party; while Mr. Manley—darker, equally aristocratic in appearance, but whose reserve and poise and
purity of speech remind one constantly that he is a Rhodes scholar and a K.C.—should be the leader of
the extreme left P.N.P.; as far left, he told us, as it is possible to be, short of revolution and public violence;
but (he dropped his low voice still lower to lend emphasis to what he was about to say) entirely uncon-
nected with the Communist Party. He had failed to win a seat in the House of Representatives in the last
elections, so had no official platform for his views. I only had one opportunity, and for a very short time,
of conversing with this very impressive-looking man, and of appraising his rather diffident and academ-
ical distinction. Mrs. Manley is English. It is rumoured in Kingston that, as a gesture of protest against
colour-prejudice, she would prefer (though there is no actual foundation for it in fact) to be thought of
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