I had an old nurse living with me a few years ago, an African, but who had been brought to this island as a slave when she was about ten years of age. She is a firm believer in jumbles, and is one of those privileged people who, it is said, can talk to these gloomy beings, and, by some potent charm known only to themselves, hinder them from playing any mischievous trick. For this reason she was frequently called upon to use her art, when the jumbies troubled any of the little negroes. When this was the case, she went into a room by herself, and entered into a conversation with the invisibles, and by some means or the other, succeeded in drawing them away. No one else, who has not a similar power, dares to remain by; for they believe if they did, the jumbies would blow upon them, and throw them into a fit, or else cause their immediate death. Betsey, for that is her name, like most of her class, is very fond of talking to herself, and one day I remember hearing the following soliloquy. It was about some lady in the island who wore false hair and false teeth:—“Eh, eh! you eber hear such a ting as that tho’, dat missis hab one sombody’s hair, all curly curly, so tie it on he head, an say he b’longs to he; an den dat no all self, for he hab one sombody’s teeth too! Eh, eh! me wonder how he like, me no go do so, war for? s’pose jumby cum an say, gib me me hair, gib me me teeth, war me go do den; jumby no like people com take der tings away.” I ought here perhaps to remark, that when negroes are talking, they seldom use but one of the genders, and that the masculine, in direct opposition to Lindley Murray. It is also a very prevalent opinion among the negroes that if they beg one of their dying friends to “trouble” any one they dislike, (that is, for his spirit or jumby to appear to him,) the jumby, which they expect to rise on the third day from death, will do their bidding, and that the person so haunted can never take rest until he himself dies. Their opinion respecting the immortality of the soul is, as far as I can understand it, this— that if a person die one day and is buried the next, during the succeeding night, the spirit, or as they term, it the “jumby,” rises, and either goes to heaven, or, if during life they have committed any crime, or met with a violent death, wanders about the earth, until by prayers, fumigations, or something of the kind, it is laid to rest.[18]