Hartley Neita, Contributor
THE first time I went to the Milk River Bath in Clarendon, I must have been about 10 years old. I remember very little of that outing.
It was a Sunday outing by bus, and we left our village at about 11 o'clock, after morning church. The road, I recall, was long and narrow and was made of marl and stone.
The land through which the road ran was flat and there were very few trees, and they were scraggy. Every now and then we passed a small house made of wattle-and-daub and covered with thatch. Children stood outside watching the bus with their fingers stuck in their mouths.
Because the road was rough the bus crawled its way, and it was a long time before we reached the Bath and we stopped. We were all hungry and tired, and the mothers quickly unfolded table cloths to spread on the ground.
Pots with meat and food were opened and we were served. The women gave their menfolk their lunch first. We young ones who were more hungry than the men, had to wait for them to be fed. And we were not pleased, but learnt the first lesson of life - you cannot fight City Hall.
After lunch, while some families went into the cubicles for their bath, the others took turns in groups of about ten to sail the nearby river on a motorboat. The propeller churned white foam behind the boat and we young ones believed it was the milk which named the river.
It was years later - in 1963 to be exact - that I visited the Baths again. This time it was on an assignment with the to-be-appointed Director of Tourism, John Pringle to identify potential tourist attractions.
It was clear from before reaching the Baths that it was a most unsuitable place to which tourists could or should be influenced to visit. The road was more or less paved, but the journey was boring. There was nothing to see except the same scraggy trees of the early memory of my early youth. Cars were not air-conditioned then.
There were vents on the front doors which could be adjusted to direct air from outside. But if the time was hot then the air pulled into the car was also hot. There were no beer joints on the road, and so we arrived at the Baths hot and miserable.
The place had a depressing look. The buildings needed coats of paint. Crotons and periwinkles struggled to grow on the grounds. It was definitely not a place to include in the itinerary for tourists.
Now Jamaica has many natural mineral baths. There is the Black River in St. Elizabeth, Rockfort in eastern Kingston, and Bath in St. Thomas, plus several minor ones. It is even said that the place in the Hope River where Alexander Bedward baptised his flock and cured them of ailments, had mineral properties.
Milk River is rich in mineral salts and possesses a high radioactivity which renders it of the utmost therapeutic values, and it is not surpassed by any mineral bath in the world.
It is nine times as active as Bath, England, 50 times that of Vichy, France, three times as active as Karlsbad, Austria, and 54 times as active as Baden in Switzerland. Gout, rheumatism, sciatica, lumbago, neuralgia, excema, kidney and liver troubles are the complaints for which the water is specially recommended.
Despite this remarkable reputation, Milk River has been allowed to deteriorate. It has a Board of Management, but like all previous boards over the years enjoys very little funding. Every now and then, the roofs of the buildings are patched and the walls given minor repairs. The four baths mentioned above attract hundreds of thousands every year. They are spanking clean. Their foyers are of shining marble. They have gyms and masseurs. They are surrounded by landscaped gardens. They have gift shops with souvenirs and they sell their own bottled mineral water.
Milk River also has a legend - which it shares with Bath in St. Thomas - of a slave who had been beaten and full of wounds fled the plantation. He came across a pool of water and washed himself. Exhausted, he fell asleep and when he woke, his wounds were covered with scabs and were in the process of healing. He spread its fame far and wide and it became a popular healing place.
This is a dramatic story which adds to the aura of the Baths, and which we do not seem to know how to exploit.
Because of Highway 2000, five years from now Milk River will be one hour from cruise ship visitors to Ocho Rios, and 45 minutes for visitors to Kingston.
From 20 years ago, the Jamaica Tourist Board identified a crowd of elderly men and women living their retirement years in Florida and who spent three months every year travelling to various spas throughout the world.
There are thousands of such persons in the world who would have a reason, apart from sun, sand, sea and sex, to come to Jamaica.
It is time now to be active in influencing an investor to take on this project. It will be the easiest attraction in Jamaica to promote.
