Summary

British Researcher Callum Aragon arrives in Jamaica to investigate and record the activities of tribes of Maroons who live in the mountains. As his books and personal effects are unloaded from the ship that transported him and into the house he has been assigned, he learns that the former white governor of the island had been chased away, and that it is not advisable for him to begin his investigations right away. Aragon insists on starting immediately, but has to turn back because the smell of the spices being used in the cooking of a feast is too strong. He spends the next few weeks settling into his house, getting used to the heat and mosquitoes, and bullying his female servant and translator, Nanni. He also begins an aggressive sexual relationship with her, the narration commenting on how he had left behind a barren...