THE

WEST INDIES

AND THE

SPANISH MAIN.

By

ANTHONY TROLLOPE,

AUTHOR OF "BARCHESTER TOWERS," "DOCTOR THORNE,"
"THE BERTRAMS," ETC.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1859.

[The right of translation is reserved.]
 

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET

CONTENTS

THE

WEST INDIES

AND THE

SPANISH MAIN.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.
 

I am beginning to write this book on board the brig ——, trading between Kingston, in Jamaica, and Cien Fuegos, on the southern coast of Cuba. At the present moment there is not a puff of wind, neither land breeze nor sea breeze; the sails are flapping idly against the masts; there is not motion enough to give us the command of the rudder; the tropical sun is shining through upon my head into the miserable hole which they have deluded me into thinking was a cabin. The marine people—the captain and his satellites—are bound to provide me; and all that they have provided is yams, salt pork, biscuit, and bad coffee. I should be starved but for the small ham—would that it had been a large one—which I thoughtfully purchased in Kingston; and had not a kind medical friend, as he grasped me by the hand at Port Royal, stuffed a box of sardines into my pocket. He suggested two boxes. Would that I had taken them!

It is now the 25th January, 1859, and if I do not reach Cien Fuegos by the 28th, all this misery will have been in vain. I might as well in such case have gone to St. Thomas, and spared myself these experiences of the merchant navy. Let it be understood by all men that in these latitudes the respectable, comfortable, well-to-do route from every place to every other place is viâ the little Danish island of St. Thomas. From Demerara to the Isthmus of Panamá, you go by St. Thomas. From Panamá to Jamaica and Honduras, you go by St. Thomas. From Honduras and Jamaica to Cuba and Mexico, you go by St. Thomas. From Cuba to the Bahamas, you go by St. Thomas—or did when this was written. The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company dispense all their branches from that favoured spot.

But I was ambitious of a quicker transit and a less beaten path, and here I am lying under the lee of the land, in a dirty, hot, motionless tub, expiating my folly. We shall never make Cien Fuegos by the 28th, and then it will be eight days more before I can reach the Havana. May God forgive me all my evil thoughts!

Motionless, I said; I wish she were. Progressless should have been my word. She rolls about in a nauseous manner, disturbing the two sardines which I have economically eaten, till I begin to fear that my friend's generosity will become altogether futile. To which result greatly tends the stench left behind it by the cargo of salt fish with which the brig was freighted when she left St. John, New Brunswick, for these ports. "We brought but a very small quantity," the skipper says. If so, that very small quantity was stowed above and below the very bunk which has been given up to me as a sleeping-place. Ugh!

"We are very poor," said the blue-nosed skipper when he got me on board. "Well; poverty is no disgrace," said I, as one does when cheering a poor man. "We are very poor indeed; I cannot even offer you a cigar." My cigar-case was immediately out of my pocket. After all, cigars are but as coals going to Newcastle when one intends to be in Cuba in four days.

"We are very poor indeed, sir," said the blue-nosed skipper again when I brought out my solitary bottle of brandy—for I must acknowledge to a bottle of brandy as well as to the small ham. "We have not a drop of spirits of any kind on board." Then I altered my mind, and began to feel that poverty was a disgrace. What business had this man to lure me into his stinking boat, telling me that he would take me to Cien Fuegos, and feed me on the way, when he had not a mouthful to eat, or a drop to drink, and could not raise a puff of wind to fill his sails? "Sir," said I, "brandy is dangerous in these latitudes, unless it be taken medicinally; as for myself, I take no other kind of physic." I think that poverty on shipboard is a disgrace, and should not be encouraged. Should I ever be on shore again, my views may become more charitable.

Oh, for the good ship 'Atrato,' which I used to abuse with such objurgations because the steward did not come at my very first call; because the claret was only half iced; because we were forced to close our little whist at 11 p.m., the serjeant-at-arms at that hour inexorably extinguishing all the lights! How rancorous were our tongues! "This comes of monopoly," said a stern and eloquent neighbour at the dinner-table, holding up to sight a somewhat withered apple. "And dis," said a grinning Frenchman from Martinique with a curse, exhibiting a rotten walnut—"dis, dis! They give me dis for my moneys—for my thirty-five pounds!" And glancing round with angry eye, he dropped the walnut on to his plate.

Apples! and walnuts!! What would I give for the 'Atrato' now; for my berth, then thought so small; for its awning; for a bottle of its soda water; for one cut from one of all its legs of mutton; for two hours of its steam movement! And yet it is only now that I am learning to forgive that withered apple and that ill-iced claret.

Having said so much about my present position, I shall be glad to be allowed to say a few words about my present person. There now exists an opportunity for doing so, as I have before me the Spanish passport, for which I paid sixteen shillings in Kingston the day before I left it. It is simply signed Pedro Badan. But it is headed Don Pedro Badan Calderon de la Barca, which sounds to me very much as though I were to call myself Mr. Anthony Trollope Ben Jonson. To this will be answered that such might have been my name. But then I should not have signed myself Anthony Trollope. The gentleman, however, has doubtless been right according to his Spanish lights; and the name sounds very grand, especially as there is added to it two lines declaring how that Don Pedro Badan is a Caballero. He was as dignified a personage as a Spanish Don should be, and seemed somewhat particular about the sixteen shillings, as Spanish and other Dons generally are.

He has informed me as to my "Talla," that it is Alta. I rather like the old man on the whole. Never before this have I obtained in a passport any more dignified description of my body than robust. I certainly like the word "Alta." Then my eyes are azure. This he did not find out by the unassisted guidance of personal inspection. "Ojos, blue," he suggested to me, trying to look through my spectacles. Not understanding "Ojos," I said "Yes." My "cejas" are "castañas," and so is my cabello also. Castañas must be chestnut, surely—cejas may mean eyebrows—cabello is certainly hair. Now any but a Spaniard would have declared that as to hair, I was bald; and as to eyebrows, nothing in particular. My colour is sano. There is great comfort in that. I like the word sano. "Mens sana in corpore sano." What has a man to wish for but that? I thank thee once more, Don Pedro Badan Calderon de la Barca.

But then comes the mystery. If I have any personal vanity, it is wrapped up in my beard. It is a fine, manly article of dandyism, that wears well in all climates, and does not cost much, even when new. Well, what has the Don said of my beard?

It is poblada. I would give five shillings for the loan of a Spanish dictionary at this moment. Poblada! Well, my first effort, if ever I do reach Cuba, shall be made with reference to that word.

Oh; we are getting into the trade-winds, are we? Let Æolus be thanked at last. I should be glad to get into a monsoon or a simoom at the present moment, if there be monsoons and simooms in these parts. Yes; it comes rippling down upon us with a sweet, cool, airy breeze; the sails flap rather more loudly, as though they had some life in them, and then fill themselves with a grateful motion. Our three or four sailors rise from the deck where they have been snoring, and begin to stretch themselves. "You may put her about," says the skipper; for be it known that for some hours past her head has been lying back towards Port Royal. "We shall make fine track now, sir," he says, turning to me. "And be at Cien Fuegos on the 28th?" I demanded. "Perhaps, sir; perhaps. We've lost twenty-four hours, sir, doing nothing, you know."

Oh, wretched man that I am! the conveyance from Cien Fuegos to the Havana is but once a week.

The sails are still flopping against the yard. It is now noon on the 29th of January, and neither captain, mate, crew, nor the one solitary passenger have the least idea when the good brig —— will reach the port of Cien Fuegos; not even whether she will reach it at all. Since that time we have had wind enough in all conscience—lovely breezes as the mate called them. But we have oversailed our mark; and by how much no man on board this vessel can tell. Neither the captain nor the mate were ever in Cien Fuegos before; and I begin to doubt whether they ever will be there. No one knows where we are. An old stove has, it seems, been stowed away right under the compass, giving a false bias to the needle, so that our only guide guides us wrong. There is not a telescope on board. I very much doubt the skipper's power of taking an observation, though he certainly goes through the form of holding a machine like a brazen spider up to his eye about midday. My brandy and cigars are done; and altogether we are none of us jolly.

Flap, flap, flap! roll, roll, roll! The time passes in this way very tediously. And then there has come upon us all a feeling not expressed, though seen in the face of all, of utter want of confidence in our master. There is none of the excitement of danger, for the land is within a mile of us; none of the exhaustion of work, for there is nothing to do. Of pork and biscuits and water there is, I believe, plenty. There is nothing tragic to be made out of it. But comic misery wears one quite as deeply as that of a sterner sort.

It is hardly credible that men should be sent about a job for which they are so little capable, and as to which want of experience must be so expensive! Here we are, beating up the coast of Cuba against the prevailing wind, knowing nothing of the points which should guide us, and looking out for a harbour without a sea-glass to assist our eyes. When we reach port, be it Cien Fuegos or any other, the first thing we must do will be to ask the name of it! It is incredible to myself that I should have found my way into such circumstances.

I have been unable not to recount my present immediate troubles, they press with such weight upon my spirits; but I have yet to commence my journeyings at their beginning. Hitherto I have but told under what circumstances I began the actual work of writing.

On the 17th of November, 1858, I left the port of Southampton in the good ship 'Atrato.' My purposed business, O cherished reader! was not that of writing these pages for thy delectation; but the accomplishment of certain affairs of State, of import grave or trifling as the case may be, with which neither thou nor I shall have further concern in these pages. So much it may be well that I should say, in order that my apparently purposeless wanderings may be understood to have had some method in them.

And in the good ship 'Atrato' I reached that emporium of travellers, St. Thomas, on the 2nd of December. We had awfully bad weather, of course, and the ship did wonders. When men write their travels, the weather has always been bad, and the ship has always done wonders. We thought ourselves very uncomfortable—I, for one, now know better—and abused the company, and the captain, and the purser, and the purveyor, and the stewards every day at breakfast and dinner; not always with the eloquence of the Frenchman and his walnut, but very frequently with quite equal energy. But at the end of our journey we were all smiles, and so was the captain. He was tender to the ladies and cordial to the gentlemen; and we, each in our kind, reciprocated his attention. On the whole, O my readers! if you are going to the West Indies, you may do worse than go in the 'Atrato.' But do not think too much of your withered apples.

I landed at St. Thomas, where we lay for some hours; and as I put my foot on the tropical soil for the first time, a lady handed me a rose, saying, "That's for love, dear." I took it, and said that it should be for love. She was beautifully, nay, elegantly dressed. Her broad-brimmed hat was as graceful as are those of Ryde or Brighton. The well-starched skirts of her muslin dress gave to her upright figure that look of easily compressible bulk, which, let 'Punch' do what it will, has become so sightly to our eyes. Pink gloves were on her hands. "That's for love, dear." Yes, it shall be for love; for thee and thine, if I can find that thou deservest it. What was it to me that she was as black as my boot, or that she had come to look after the ship's washing?

I shall probably have a word or two to say about St. Thomas; but not now. It is a Niggery-Hispano-Dano-Yankee-Doodle place; in which, perhaps, the Yankee-Doodle element, declaring itself in nasal twang and sherry cobblers, seems to be of the strongest flavour; as undoubtedly will be the case in many of these parts as years go on revolving. That nasal twang will sound as the Bocca Romana in coming fashionable western circles; those sherry cobblers will be the Falernian drink of a people masters of half the world. I dined at the hotel, but should have got a better dinner on board the 'Atrato,' in spite of the withered apples.

From St. Thomas we went to Kingston, Jamaica, in the 'Derwent.' We were now separated from the large host of Spaniards who had come with us, going to Peru, the Spanish Main, Mexico, Cuba, or Porto Rico; and, to tell the truth, we were not broken-hearted on the occasion. Spaniards are bad fellow-travellers; the Spaniard, at least, of the Western hemisphere. They seize the meats upon the table somewhat greedily; their ablutions are not plentiful; and their timidity makes them cumbersome. That they are very lions when facing an enemy on terra firma, I do not doubt. History, I believe, tells so much for them. But half a gale of wind lays them prostrate, at all hours except feeding-time.

We had no Spaniards in the 'Derwent,' but a happy jovial little crew of Englishmen and Englishwomen—or of English subjects rather, for the majority of them belonged to Jamaica. The bad weather was at an end, and all our nautical troubles nearly over; so we ate and drank and smoked and danced, and swore mutual friendship, till the officer of the Board of Health visited us as we rounded the point at Port Royal, and again ruffled our tempers by delaying us for some thirty minutes under a broiling sun.

Kingston harbour is a large lagune, formed by a long narrow bank of sand which runs out into the sea, commencing some three or four miles above the town of Kingston, and continuing parallel with the coast on which Kingston is built till it reaches a point some five or six miles below Kingston. This sandbank is called "The Palisades," and the point or end of it is Port Royal. This is the seat of naval supremacy for Jamaica, and, as far as England is concerned, for the surrounding islands and territories. And here lies our flag-ship; and here we maintain a commodore, a dock-yard, a naval hospital, a pile of invalided anchors, and all the usual adjuncts of such an establishment. Some years ago—I am not good at dates, but say seventy, if you will—Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake.

Those who are geographically inclined should be made to understand that the communication between Port Royal and Kingston, as, indeed, between Port Royal and any other part of the island, is by water. It is, I believe, on record that hardy Subs, and hardier Mids, have ridden along the Palisades, and not died from sun-stroke in the effort. But the chances are much against them. The ordinary ingress and egress is by water. The ferry boats usually take about an hour, and the charge is a shilling. The writer of these pages, however, has been two hours and a quarter in the transit.

CHAPTER II.

JAMAICA—TOWN.
 

Were it arranged by Fate that my future residence should be in Jamaica, I should certainly prefer the life of a country mouse. The town mice, in my mind, have but a bad time of it. Of all towns that I ever saw, Kingston is perhaps, on the whole, the least alluring, and is the more absolutely without any point of attraction for the stranger than any other.

It is built down close to the sea—or rather, on the lagune which forms the harbour, has a southern aspect, and is hot even in winter. I have seen the thermometer considerably above eighty in the shade in December, and the mornings are peculiarly hot, so that there is no time at which exercise can be taken with comfort. At about 10 a.m., a sea breeze springs up, which makes it somewhat cooler than it is two hours earlier—that is, cooler in the houses. The sea breeze, however, is not of a nature to soften the heat of the sun, or to make it even safe to walk far at that hour. Then, in the evening, there is no twilight, and when the sun is down it is dark. The stranger will not find it agreeable to walk much about Kingston in the dark.

Indeed, the residents in the town, and in the neighbourhood of the town, never walk. Men, even young men, whose homes are some mile or half-mile distant from their offices, ride or drive to their work as systematically as a man who lives at Watford takes the railway.

Kingston, on a map—for there is a map even of Kingston—looks admirably well. The streets all run in parallels. There is a fine large square, plenty of public buildings, and almost a plethora of places of worship. Everything is named with propriety, and there could be no nicer town anywhere. But this word of promise to the ear is strangely broken when the performance is brought to the test. More than half the streets are not filled with houses. Those which are so filled, and those which are not, have an equally rugged, disreputable, and bankrupt appearance. The houses are mostly of wood, and are unpainted, disjointed, and going to ruin. Those which are built with brick not unfrequently appear as though the mortar had been diligently picked out from the interstices.

But the disgrace of Jamaica is the causeway of the streets themselves. There never was so odious a place in which to move. There is no pathway or trottoir to the streets, though there is very generally some such—I cannot call it accommodation—before each individual house. But as these are all broken from each other by steps up and down, as they are of different levels, and sometimes terminate abruptly without any steps, they cannot be used by the public. One is driven, therefore, into the middle of the street. But the street is neither paved nor macadamized, nor prepared for traffic in any way. In dry weather it is a bed of sand, and in wet weather it is a watercourse. Down the middle of this the unfortunate pedestrian has to wade, with a tropical sun on his head; and this he must do in a town which, from its position, is hotter than almost any other in the West Indies. It is no wonder that there should be but little walking.

But the stranger does not find himself naturally in possession of a horse and carriage. He may have a saddle-horse for eight shillings; but that is expensive as well as dilatory if he merely wishes to call at the post-office, or buy a pair of gloves. There are articles which they call omnibuses, and which ply cheap enough, and carry men to any part of the town for sixpence; that is, they will do so if you can find them. They do not run from any given point to any other, but meander about through the slush and sand, and are as difficult to catch as the musquitoes.

The city of Havana, in Cuba, is lighted at night by oil-lamps. The little town of Cien Fuegos, in the same island, is lighted by gas. But Kingston is not lighted at all!

We all know that Jamaica is not thriving as once it throve, and that one can hardly expect to find there all the energy of a prosperous people. But still I think that something might be done to redeem this town from its utter disgrace. Kingston itself is not without wealth. If what one hears on such subjects contains any indications towards the truth, those in trade there are still doing well. There is a mayor, and there are aldermen. All the paraphernalia for carrying on municipal improvements are ready. If the inhabitants have about themselves any pride in their locality, let them, in the name of common decency, prepare some sort of causeway in the streets; with some drainage arrangement, by which rain may run off into the sea without lingering for hours in every corner of the town. Nothing could be easier, for there is a fall towards the shore through the whole place. As it is now, Kingston is a disgrace to the country that owns it.

One is peculiarly struck also by the ugliness of the buildings—those buildings, that is, which partake in any degree of a public character—the churches and places of worship, the public offices, and such like. We have no right, perhaps, to expect good taste so far away from any school in which good taste is taught; and it may, perhaps, be said by some that we have sins enough of our own at home to induce us to be silent on this head. But it is singular that any man who could put bricks and stones and timber together should put them together in such hideous forms as those which are to be seen here.

I never met a wider and a kinder hospitality than I did in Jamaica, but I neither ate nor drank in any house in Kingston except my hotel, nor, as far as I can remember, did I enter any house except in the way of business. And yet I was there—necessarily there, unfortunately—for some considerable time. The fact is, that hardly any Europeans, or even white Creoles, live in the town. They have country seats, pens as they call them, at some little distance. They hate the town, and it is no wonder they should do so.

That which tends in part to the desolation of Kingston—or rather, to put the proposition in a juster form, which prevents Kingston from enjoying those advantages which would naturally attach to the metropolis of the island—is this: the seat of government is not there, but at Spanish Town. Then our naval establishment is at Port Royal.

When a city is in itself thriving, populous, and of great commercial importance, it may be very well to make it wholly independent of the government. New York, probably, might be no whit improved were the National Congress to be held there; nor Amsterdam, perhaps, if the Hague were abandoned; but it would be a great thing for Kingston if Spanish Town were deserted.

The Governor lives at the latter place, as do also those satellites or moons who revolve round the larger luminary—the secretaries, namely, and executive officers. These in Jamaica are now so reduced in size that they could not perhaps do much for any city; but they would do a little, and to Kingston any little would be acceptable. Then the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly sit at Spanish Town, and the members—at any rate of the latter body—are obliged to live there during some three months of the year, not generally in very comfortable lodgings.

Respectable residents in the island, who would pay some attention to the Governor if he lived at the principal town, find it impossible to undergo the nuisance of visiting Spanish Town, and in this way go neither to the one nor the other, unless when passing through Kingston on their biennial or triennial visits to the old country.

And those visits to Spanish Town are indeed a nuisance. In saying this, I reflect in no way on the Governor or the Governor's people. Were Gabriel Governor of Jamaica, with only five thousand pounds a year, and had he a dozen angels with him as secretaries and aides-de-camp, mortal men would not go to them at Spanish Town after they had once seen of what feathers their wings were made.

It is like the city of the dead. There are long streets there in which no human inhabitant is ever seen. In others a silent old negro woman may be sitting at an open door, or a child playing, solitary, in the dust. The Governor's house—King's House as it is called—stands on one side of a square; opposite is the house of the Assembly; on the left, as you come out from the Governor's, are the executive offices and house of the Council, and on the right some other public buildings. The place would have some pretension about it did it not seem to be stricken with an eternal death. All the walls are of a dismal dirty yellow, and a stranger cannot but think that the colour is owing to the dreadfully prevailing disease of the country. In this square there are no sounds; men and women never frequent it; nothing enters it but sunbeams—and such sunbeams! The glare from those walls seems to forbid that men and women should come there.

The parched, dusty, deserted streets are all hot and perfectly without shade. The crafty Italians have built their narrow streets so that the sun can hardly enter them, except when he is in the mid heaven; but there has been no such craft at Spanish Town. The houses are very low, and when there is any sun in the heavens it can enter those streets; and in those heavens there is always a burning, broiling sun.

But the place is not wholly deserted. There is here the most frightfully hideous race of pigs that ever made a man ashamed to own himself a bacon-eating biped. I have never done much in pigs myself, but I believe that pigly grace consists in plumpness and comparative shortness—in shortness, above all, of the face and nose. The Spanish Town pigs are never plump. They are the very ghosts of swine, consisting entirely of bones and bristles. Their backs are long, their ribs are long, their legs are long, but, above all, their heads and noses are hideously long. These brutes prowl about in the sun, and glare at the unfrequent strangers with their starved eyes, as though doubting themselves whether, by some little exertion, they might not become beasts of prey.

The necessity which exists for white men going to Spanish Town to see the Governor results, I do not doubt, in some deaths every year. I will describe the first time I was thus punished. Spanish Town is thirteen miles from Kingston, and the journey is accomplished by railway in somewhat under an hour. The trains run about every four hours. On my arrival a public vehicle took me from the station up to King's House, and everything seemed to be very convenient. The streets, certainly, were rather dead, and the place hot; but I was under cover, and the desolation did not seem to affect me. When I was landed on the steps of the government-house, the first idea of my coming sorrows flitted across my mind. "Where shall I call for you?" said the driver; "the train goes at a quarter past four." It was then one: and where was he to call for me? and what was I to do with myself for three hours? "Here," I said; "on these steps." What other place could I name? I knew no other place in Spanish Town.

The Governor was all that was obliging—as Governors now-a-days always are—and made an appointment for me to come again on the following day, to see some one or say something, who or which could not be seen or said on that occasion. Thus some twenty minutes were exhausted, and there remained two hours and fifty minutes more upon my hands.

How I wished that the big man's big men had not been so rapidly courteous—that they had kept me waiting for some hour or so, to teach me that I was among big people, as used to be done in the good old times! In such event, I should at any rate have had a seat, though a hard one, and shelter from the sun. But not a moment's grace had been afforded me. At the end of twenty minutes I found myself again standing on those glaring steps.

What should I do? Where should I go? Looking all around me, I did not see as much life as would serve to open a door if I asked for shelter. I stood upon those desolate steps till the perspiration ran down my face with the labour of standing. Where was I to go? What was I to do? "Inhospitalem caucasum!" I exclaimed, as I slowly made my way down into the square.

When an Englishman has nothing to do, and a certain time to wait, his one resource is to walk about. A Frenchman sits down and lights a cigar, an Italian goes to sleep, a German meditates, an American invents some new position for his limbs as far as possible asunder from that intended for them by nature, but an Englishman always takes a walk. I had nothing to do. Even under the full fury of the sun walking is better than standing still. I would take a walk.

I moved slowly round the square, and by the time that I had reached an opposite corner all my clothes were wet through. On I went, however, down one dead street and up another. I saw no one but the pigs, and almost envied them their fleshlessness. I turned another corner, and I came upon the square again. That seemed to me to be the lowest depth of all that fiery Pandemonium, and with a quickened step I passed through but a corner of it. But the sun blazed even fiercer and fiercer. Should I go back and ask for a seat, if it were but on a bench in the government scullery, among the female negroes?

Something I must do, or there would soon be an end of me. There must be some inn in the place, if I could only find it. I was not absolutely in the midst of the Great Sahara. There were houses on each side of me, though they were all closed. I looked at my watch, and found that ten minutes had passed by since I had been on my legs. I thought I had wandered for an hour.

And now I saw an old woman—the first human creature I had seen since I left the light of the Governor's face; the shade I should say, meaning to speak of it in the most complimentary terms. "Madam," said I, "is there an inn here; and if so, where may it be?" "Inn!" repeated the ancient negress, looking at me in a startled way. "Me know noting, massa;" and so she passed on. Inns in Jamaica are called lodging-houses, or else taverns; but I did not find this out till afterwards.

And then I saw a man walking quickly with a basket across the street, some way in advance of me. If I did not run I should miss him; so I did run; and I hallooed also. I shall never forget the exertion. "Is there a public-house," I exclaimed, feverishly, "in this —— place?" I forget the exact word which should fill up the blank, but I think it was "blessed."

"Pubberlic-house, massa, in dis d——m place," said the grinning negro, repeating my words after me, only that I know he used the offensive phrase which I have designated. "Pubberlic-house! what dat?" and then he adjusted his basket on his head, and proceeded to walk on.

By this time I was half blind, and my head reeled through the effects of the sun. But I could not allow myself to perish there, in the middle of Spanish Town, without an effort. It behoved me as a man to do something to save my life. So I stopped the fellow, and at last succeeded in making him understand that I would give him sixpence if he would conduct me to some house of public entertainment.

"Oh, de Vellington tavern," said he; and taking me to a corner three yards from where we stood, he showed me the sign-board. "And now de two quatties," he said. I knew nothing of quatties then, but I gave him the sixpence, and in a few minutes I found myself within the "Wellington."

It was a miserable hole, but it did afford me shelter. Indeed, it would not have been so miserable had I known at first, as I did some few minutes before I left, that there was a better room up stairs. But the people of the house could not suppose but what every one knew the "Wellington;" and thought, doubtless, that I preferred remaining below in the dirt.

I was over two hours in this place, and even that was not pleasant. When I went up into the fashionable room above, I found there, among others, a negro of exceeding blackness. I do not know that I ever saw skin so purely black. He was talking eagerly with his friends, and after a while I heard him say, in a voice of considerable dignity, "I shall bring forward a motion on de subject in de house to-morrow." So that I had not fallen into bad society.

But even under these circumstances two hours spent in a tavern without a book, without any necessity for eating or drinking, is not pleasant; and I trust that when I next visit Jamaica I may find the seat of government moved to Kingston. The Governor would do Kingston some good; and it is on the cards that Kingston might return the compliment.

The inns in Kingston rejoice in the grand name of halls. Not that you ask which is the best hall, or inquire at what hall your friend is staying; but such is the title given to the individual house. One is the Date-tree Hall, another Blundle's Hall, a third Barkly Hall, and so on. I took up my abode at Blundle Hall, and found that the landlady in whose custody I had placed myself was a sister of good Mrs. Seacole. "My sister wanted to go to India," said my landlady, "with the army, you know. But Queen Victoria would not let her; her life was too precious." So that Mrs. Seacole is a prophet, even in her own country.

Much cannot be said for the West Indian hotels in general. By far the best that I met was at Cien Fuegos, in Cuba. This one, kept by Mrs. Seacole's sister, was not worse, if not much better, than the average. It was clean, and reasonable as to its charges. I used to wish that the patriotic lady who kept it could be induced to abandon the idea that beefsteaks and onions, and bread and cheese and beer composed the only diet proper for an Englishman. But it is to be remarked all through the island that the people are fond of English dishes, and that they despise, or affect to despise, their own productions. They will give you ox-tail soup when turtle would be much cheaper. Roast beef and beefsteaks are found at almost every meal. An immense deal of beer is consumed. When yams, avocado pears, the mountain cabbage, plaintains, and twenty other delicious vegetables may be had for the gathering, people will insist on eating bad English potatoes; and the desire for English pickles is quite a passion. This is one phase of that love for England which is so predominant a characteristic of the white inhabitants of the West Indies.

At the inns, as at the private houses, the household servants are almost always black. The manners of these people are to a stranger very strange. They are not absolutely uncivil, except on occasions; but they have an easy, free, patronizing air. If you find fault with them, they insist on having the last word, and are generally successful. They do not appear to be greedy of money; rarely ask for it, and express but little thankfulness when they get it. At home, in England, one is apt to think that an extra shilling will go a long way with boots and chambermaid, and produce hotter water, more copious towels, and quicker attendance than is ordinary. But in the West Indies a similar result does not follow in a similar degree. And in the West Indies it is absolutely necessary that these people should be treated with dignity; and it is not always very easy to reach the proper point of dignity. They like familiarity, but are singularly averse to ridicule; and though they wish to be on good terms with you, they do not choose that these shall be reached without the proper degree of antecedent ceremony.

"Halloo, old fellow! how about that bath?" I said one morning to a lad who had been commissioned to see a bath filled for me. He was cleaning boots at the time, and went on with his employment, sedulously, as though he had not heard a word. But he was over sedulous, and I saw that he heard me.

"I say, how about that bath?" I continued. But he did not move a muscle.

"Put down those boots, sir," I said, going up to him; "and go and do as I bid you."

"Who you call fellor? You speak to a gen'lman gen'lmanly, and den he fill de bath."

"James," said I, "might I trouble you to leave those boots, and see the bath filled for me?" and I bowed to him.

"'Es, sir," he answered, returning my bow; "go at once." And so he did, perfectly satisfied. Had he imagined, however, that I was quizzing him, in all probability he would not have gone at all.

There will be those who will say that I had received a good lesson; and perhaps I had. But it would be rather cumbersome if we were forced to treat our juvenile servants at home in this manner—or even those who are not juvenile.

I must say this for the servants, that I never knew them to steal anything, or heard of their doing so from any one else. If any one deserves to be robbed, I deserve it; for I leave my keys and my money everywhere, and seldom find time to lock my portmanteau. But my carelessness was not punished in Jamaica. And this I think is the character of the people as regards absolute personal property—personal property that has been housed and garnered—that has, as it were, been made the possessor's very own. There can be no more diligent thieves than they are in appropriating to themselves the fruits of the earth while they are still on the trees. They will not understand that this is stealing. Nor can much be said for their honesty in dealing. There is a great difference between cheating and stealing in the minds of many men, whether they be black or white.

There are good shops in Kingston, and I believe that men in trade are making money there. I cannot tell on what principle prices range themselves as compared with those in England. Some things are considerably cheaper than with us, and some much, very much dearer. A pair of excellent duck trousers, if I may be excused for alluding to them, cost me eighteen shillings when made to order. Whereas, a pair of evening white gloves could not be had under four-and-sixpence. That, at least, was the price charged, though I am bound to own that the shop-boy considerately returned me sixpence, discount for ready money.

The men in the shops are generally of the coloured race, and they are also extremely free and easy in their manners. From them this is more disagreeable than from the negroes. "Four-and-sixpence for white gloves!" I said; "is not that high?" "Not at all, sir; by no means. We consider it rather cheap. But in Kingston, sir, you must not think about little economies." And he leered at me in a very nauseous manner as he tied his parcel. However, I ought to forgive him, for did he not return to me sixpence discount, unasked?

There are various places of worship in Kingston, and the negroes are fond of attending them. But they love best that class of religion which allows them to hear the most of their own voices. They are therefore fond of Baptists; and fonder of the Wesleyans than of the Church of England. Many also are Roman Catholics. Their singing-classes are constantly to be heard as one walks through the streets. No religion is worth anything to them which does not offer the allurement of some excitement.

Very little excitement is to be found in the Church-of-England Kingston parish church. The church itself, with its rickety pews, and creaking doors, and wretched seats made purposely so as to render genuflexion impossible, and the sleepy, droning, somnolent service are exactly what was so common in England twenty years since; but which are common no longer, thanks to certain much-abused clerical gentlemen. Not but that it may still be found in England if diligently sought for.

But I must not finish my notice on the town of Kingston without a word of allusion to my enemies, the musquitoes. Let no European attempt to sleep there at any time of the year without musquito-curtains. If he do, it will only be an attempt; which will probably end in madness and fever before morning.

Nor will musquito-curtains suffice unless they are brushed out with no ordinary care, and then tucked in; and unless, also, the would-be-sleeper, after having cunningly crept into his bed at the smallest available aperture, carefully pins up that aperture. Your Kingston musquito is the craftiest of insects, and the most deadly.

CHAPTER III.

JAMAICA—COUNTRY.
 

I have spoken in disparaging terms of the chief town in Jamaica, but I can atone for this by speaking in very high terms of the country. In that island one would certainly prefer the life of the country mouse. There is scenery in Jamaica which almost equals that of Switzerland and the Tyrol; and there is also, which is more essential, a temperature among the mountains in which a European can live comfortably.

I travelled over the greater part of the island, and was very much pleased with it. The drawbacks on such a tour are the expensiveness of locomotion, the want of hotels, and the badness of the roads. As to cost, the tourist always consoles himself by reflecting that he is going to take the expensive journey once, and once only. The badness of the roads forms an additional excitement; and the want of hotels is cured, as it probably has been caused, by the hospitality of the gentry.

And they are very hospitable—and hospitable, too, under adverse circumstances. In olden times, when nobody anywhere was so rich as a Jamaica planter, it was not surprising that he should be always glad to see his own friends and his friends' friends, and their friends. Such visits dissipated the ennui of his own life, and the expense was not appreciable—or, at any rate, not undesirable. An open house was his usual rule of life. But matters are much altered with him now. If he be a planter of the olden days, he will have passed through fire and water in his endeavours to maintain his position. If, as is more frequently the case, he be a man of new date on his estate, he will probably have established himself with a small capital; and he also will have to struggle. But, nevertheless, the hospitality is maintained, perhaps not on the olden scale, yet on a scale that by no means requires to be enlarged.

"It is rather hard on us," said a young planter to me, with whom I was on terms of sufficient intimacy to discuss such matters—"We send word to the people at home that we are very poor. They won't quite believe us, so they send out somebody to see. The somebody comes, a pleasant-mannered fellow, and we kill our little fatted calf for him; probably it is only a ewe lamb. We bring out our bottle or two of the best, that has been put by for a gala day, and so we make his heart glad. He goes home, and what does he say of us? These Jamaica planters are princes—the best fellows living; I liked them amazingly. But as for their poverty, don't believe a word of it. They swim in claret, and usually bathe in champagne. Now that is hard, seeing that our common fare is salt fish and rum and water." I advised him in future to receive such inquirers with his ordinary fare only. "Yes," said he, "and then we should get it on the other cheek. We should be abused for our stinginess. No Jamaica man could stand that."

It is of course known that the sugar-cane is the chief production of Jamaica; but one may travel for days in the island and only see a cane piece here and there. By far the greater portion of the island is covered with wild wood and jungle—what is there called bush. Through this, on an occasional favourable spot, and very frequently on the roadsides, one sees the gardens or provision-grounds of the negroes. These are spots of land cultivated by them, for which they either pay rent, or on which, as is quite as common, they have squatted without payment of any rent.

These provision-grounds are very picturesque. They are not filled, as a peasant's garden in England or in Ireland is filled, with potatoes and cabbages, or other vegetables similarly uninteresting in their growth; but contain cocoa-trees, breadfruit-trees, oranges, mangoes, limes, plantains, jack fruit, sour-sop, avocado pears, and a score of others, all of which are luxuriant trees, some of considerable size, and all of them of great beauty. The breadfruit-tree and the mango are especially lovely, and I know nothing prettier than a grove of oranges in Jamaica. In addition to this, they always have the yam, which is with the negro somewhat as the potato is with the Irishman; only that the Irishman has nothing else, whereas the negro generally has either fish or meat, and has also a score of other fruits besides the yam.

The yam, too, is picturesque in its growth. As with the potato, the root alone is eaten, but the upper part is fostered and cared for as a creeper, so that the ground may be unencumbered by its thick tendrils. Support is provided for it as for grapes or peas. Then one sees also in these provision-grounds patches of coffee and arrowroot, and occasionally also patches of sugar-cane.

A man wishing to see the main features of the whole island, and proceeding from Kingston as his head-quarters, must take two distinct tours, one to the east and the other to the west. The former may be best done on horseback, as the roads are, one may say, non-existent for a considerable portion of the way, and sometimes almost worse than non-existent in other places.

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Jamaica is the copiousness of its rivers. It is said that its original name, Xaymaca, signifies a country of streams; and it certainly is not undeserved. This copiousness, though it adds to the beauty, as no doubt it does also to its salubrity and fertility, adds something too to the difficulty of locomotion. Bridges have not been built, or, sad to say, have been allowed to go to destruction. One hears that this river or that river is "down," whereby it is signified that the waters are swollen; and some of the rivers when so down are certainly not easy of passage. Such impediments are more frequent in the east than elsewhere, and on this account travelling on horseback is the safest as well as the most expeditious means of transit. I found four horses to be necessary, one for the groom, one for my clothes, and two for myself. A lighter weight might have done with three.

An Englishman feels some bashfulness in riding up to a stranger's door with such a cortége, and bearing as an introduction a message from somebody else, to say that you are to be entertained. But I always found that such a message was a sufficient passport. "It is our way," one gentleman said to me, in answer to my apology. "When four or five come in for dinner after ten o'clock at night, we do think it hard, seeing that meat won't keep in this country."

Hotels, as an institution, are, on the whole, a comfortable arrangement. One prefers, perhaps, ordering one's dinner to asking for it; and many men delight in the wide capability of finding fault which an inn affords. But they are very hostile to the spirit of hospitality. The time will soon come when the backwoodsman will have his tariff for public accommodation, and an Arab will charge you a fixed price for his pipe and cup of coffee in the desert. But that era has not yet been reached in Jamaica.

Crossing the same river four-and-twenty times is tedious; especially if this is done in heavy rain, when the road is a narrow track through thickly-wooded ravines, and when an open umbrella is absolutely necessary. But so often had we to cross the Waag-water in our route from Kingston to the northern shore.

It was here that I first saw the full effect of tropical vegetation, and I shall never forget it. Perhaps the most graceful of all the woodland productions is the bamboo. It grows either in clusters, like clumps of trees in an English park, or, as is more usual when found in its indigenous state, in long rows by the riversides. The trunk of the bamboo is a huge hollow cane, bearing no leaves except at its head. One such cane alone would be uninteresting enough. But their great height, the peculiarly graceful curve of their growth, and the excessive thickness of the drooping foliage of hundreds of them clustered together produce an effect which nothing can surpass.

The cotton-tree is almost as beautiful when standing alone. The trunk of this tree grows to a magnificent height, and with magnificent proportions: it is frequently straight; and those which are most beautiful throw out no branches till they have reached a height greater than that of any ordinary tree with us. Nature, in order to sustain so large a mass, supplies it with huge spurs at the foot, which act as buttresses for its support, connecting the roots immediately with the trunk as much as twenty feet above the ground. I measured more than one, which, including the buttresses, were over thirty feet in circumference. Then from its head the branches break forth in most luxurious profusion, covering an enormous extent of ground with their shade.

But the most striking peculiarity of these trees consists in the parasite plants by which they are enveloped, and which hang from their branches down to the ground with tendrils of wonderful strength. These parasites are of various kinds, the fig being the most obdurate with its embraces. It frequently may be seen that the original tree has departed wholly from sight, and I should imagine almost wholly from existence; and then the very name is changed, and the cotton-tree is called a fig-tree. In others the process of destruction may be observed, and the interior trunk may be seen to be stayed in its growth and stunted in its measure by the creepers which surround it. This pernicious embrace the natives describe as "The Scotchman hugging the Creole." The metaphor is sufficiently satirical upon our northern friends, who are supposed not to have thriven badly in their visits to the Western islands.

But it often happens that the tree has reached its full growth before the parasites have fallen on it, and then, in place of being strangled, it is adorned. Every branch is covered with a wondrous growth—with plants of a thousand colours and a thousand sorts. Some droop with long and graceful tendrils from the boughs, and so touch the ground; while others hang in a ball of leaves and flowers, which swing for years, apparently without changing their position.

The growth of these parasite plants must be slow, though it is so very rich. A gentleman with whom I was staying, and in whose grounds I saw by far the most lovely tree of this description that met my sight, assured me that he had watched it closely for more than twenty years, and that he could trace no difference in the size or arrangement of the parasite plants by which it was surrounded.

We went across the island to a little village called Annotta Bay, traversing the Waag-water twenty-four times, as I have said; and from thence, through the parishes of Metcalf and St. George, to Port Antonio. "Fuit ilium et ingens gloria." This may certainly be said of Port Antonio and the adjacent district. It was once a military station, and the empty barracks, standing so beautifully over the sea, on an extreme point of land, are now waiting till time shall reduce them to ruin. The place is utterly desolate, though not yet broken up in its desolation, as such buildings quickly become when left wholly untenanted. A rusty cannon or two still stand at the embrasures, watching the entrance to the fort; and among the grass we found a few metal balls, the last remains of the last ordnance supplies.

But Port Antonio was once a goodly town, and the country round it, the parish of Portland, is as fertile as any in the island. But now there is hardly a sugar estate in the whole parish. It is given up to the growth of yams, cocoas, and plantains. It has become a provision-ground for negroes, and the palmy days of the town are of course gone.

Nevertheless, there was a decent little inn at Port Antonio, which will always be memorable to me on account of the love sorrows of a young maiden whom I chanced to meet there. The meeting was in this wise:—

I was sitting in the parlour of the inn, after dinner, when a young lady walked in, dressed altogether in white. And she was well dressed, and not without the ordinary decoration of crinoline and ribbons. She was of the coloured race; and her jet black, crisp, yet wavy hair was brushed back in a becoming fashion. Whence she came or who she was I did not know, and never learnt. That she was familiar in the house I presumed from her moving the books and little ornaments on the table, and arranging the cups and shells upon a shelf. "Heigh-ho!" she ejaculated, when I had watched her for about a minute.

I hardly knew how to accost her, for I object to the word Miss, as standing alone; and yet it was necessary that I should accost her. "Ah, well: heigh-ho!" she repeated. It was easy to perceive that she had a grief to tell.

"Lady," said I—I felt that the address was somewhat stilted, but in the lack of any introduction I knew not how else to begin—"Lady, I fear that you are in sorrow?"

"Sorrow enough!" said she. "I'se in de deepest sorrow. Heigh-ho me! Well, de world will end some day," and turning her face full upon me, she crossed her hands. I was seated on a sofa, and she came and sat beside me, crossing her hands upon her lap, and looking away to the opposite wall. I am not a very young man; and my friends have told me that I show strongly that steady married appearance of a paterfamilias which is so apt to lend assurance to maiden timidity.

"It will end some day for us all," I replied. "But with you, it has hardly yet had its beginning."

"'Tis a very bad world, and sooner over de better. To be treated so's enough to break any girl's heart; it is! My heart's clean broke, I know dat." And as she put both her long, thin dark hands to her side, I saw that she had not forgotten her rings.

"It is love then that ails you?"

"No!" She said this very sharply, turning full round upon me, and fixing her large black eyes upon mine. "No, I don't love him one bit; not now, and never again. No, not if he were down dere begging." And she stamped her little foot upon the ground as though she had an imaginary neck beneath her heel.

"But you did love him?"

"Yes." She spoke very softly now, and shook her head gently. "I did love him—oh, so much! He was so handsome, so nice! I shall never see such a man again: such eyes; such a mouth! and then his nose! He was a Jew, you know."

I had not known it before, and received the information perhaps with some little start of surprise.

"Served me right; didn't it? And I'se a Baptist, you know. They'd have read me out, I know dat. But I didn't seem to mind it den." And then she gently struck one hand with the other, as she smiled sweetly in my face. The trick is customary with the coloured women in the West Indies when they have entered upon a nice familiar, pleasant bit of chat. At this period I felt myself to be sufficiently intimate with her to ask her name.

"Josephine; dat's my name. D'you like dat name?"

"It's as pretty as its owner—nearly."

"Pretty! no; I'se not pretty. If I was pretty, he'd not have left me so. He used to call me Feeny."

"What! the Jew did." I thought it might be well to detract from the merit of the lost admirer. "A girl like you should have a Christian lover."

"Dat's what dey all says."

"Of course they do: you ought to be glad it's over."

"I ain't tho'; not a bit; tho' I do hate him so. Oh, I hate him; I hate him! I hate him worse dan poison." And again her little foot went to work. I must confess that it was a pretty foot; and as for her waist, I never saw one better turned, or more deftly clothed. Her little foot went to work upon the floor, and then clenching her small right hand, she held it up before my face as though to show me that she knew how to menace.

I took her hand in mine, and told her that those fingers had not been made for threats. "You are a Christian," said I, "and should forgive."

"I'se a Baptist," she replied; "and in course I does forgive him: I does forgive him; but—! He'll be wretched in this life, I know; and she—she'll be wretcheder; and when he dies—oh-h-h-h!"

In that prolonged expression there was a curse as deep as any that Ernulphus ever gave. Alas! such is the forgiveness of too many a Christian!

"As for me, I wouldn't demean myself to touch de hem of her garment! Poor fellow! What a life he'll have; for she's a virgo with a vengeance." This at the moment astonished me; but from the whole tenor of the lady's speech I was at once convinced that no satirical allusion was intended. In the hurry of her fluttering thoughts she had merely omitted the letter "a." It was her rival's temper, not her virtue, that she doubted.

"The Jew is going to be married then?"

"He told her so; but p'raps he'll jilt her too, you know." It was easy to see that the idea was not an unpleasant one.

"And then he'll come back to you?"

"Yes, yes; and I'll spit at him;" and in the fury of her mind she absolutely did perform the operation. "I wish he would; I'd sit so, and listen to him;" and she crossed her hands and assumed an air of dignified quiescence which well became her. "I'd listen every word he say; just so. Every word till he done; and I'd smile"—and she did smile—"and den when he offer me his hand"—and she put out her own—"I'd spit at him, and leave him so." And rising majestically from her seat she stalked out of the room.

As she fully closed the door behind her, I thought that the interview was over, and that I should see no more of my fair friend; but in this I was mistaken. The door was soon reopened, and she again seated herself on the sofa beside me.

"Your heart would permit of your doing that?" said I; "and he with such a beautiful nose?"

"Yes; it would. I'd 'spise myself to take him now, if he was ever so beautiful. But I'se sure of this, I'll never love no oder man—never again. He did dance so genteelly."

"A Baptist dance!" I exclaimed.

"Well; it wasn't de ting, was it? And I knew I'd be read out; oh, but it was so nice! I'll never have no more dancing now. I've just taken up with a class now, you know, since he's gone."

"Taken up with a class?"

"Yes; I teaches the nigger children; and I has a card for the minister. I got four dollars last week, and you must give me something."

Now I hate Baptists—as she did her lover—like poison; and even under such pressure as this I could not bring myself to aid in their support.

"You very stingy man! Caspar Isaacs"—he was her lost lover—"gave me a dollar."

"But perhaps you gave him a kiss."

"Perhaps I did," said she. "But you may be quite sure of this, quite; I'll never give him anoder," and she again slapped one hand upon the other, and compressed her lips, and gently shook her head as she made the declaration, "I'll never give him anoder kiss—dat's sure as fate."

I had nothing further to say, and began to feel that I ought not to detain the lady longer. We sat together, however, silent for a while, and then she arose and spoke to me standing. "I'se in a reg'lar difficulty now, however; and it's just about that I am come to ask you."

"Well, Josephine, anything that I can do to help you—"

"'Tain't much; I only want your advice. I'se going to Kingston, you see."

"Ah, you'll find another lover there."

"It's not for dat den, for I don't want none; but I'se going anyways, 'cause I live dere."

"Oh, you live at Kingston?"

"Course I does. And I'se no ways to go but just in de droger"—the West Indian coasting vessels are so called.

"Don't you like going in the droger?" I asked.

"Oh, yes; I likes it well enough."

"Are you sea-sick?"

"Oh, no."

"Then what's the harm of the droger?"

"Why, you see"—and she turned away her face and looked towards the window—"why you see, Isaacs is the captain of her, and 'twill be so odd like."

"You could not possibly have a better opportunity for recovering all that you have lost."

"You tink so?"

"Certainly."

"Den you know noting about it. I will never recover noting of him, never. Bah! But I tell you what I'll do. I'll pay him my pound for my passage; and den it'll be a purely 'mercial transaction."

On this point I agreed with her, and then she offered me her hand with the view of bidding me farewell. "Good-bye, Josephine," I said; "perhaps you would be happier with a Christian husband."

"P'raps I would; p'raps better with none at all. But I don't tink I'll ever be happy no more. 'Tis so dull: good-bye." Were I a girl, I doubt whether I also would not sooner dance with a Jew than pray with a Baptist.

"Good-bye, Josephine." I pressed her hand, and so she went, and I never saw nor heard more of her.

There was not about my Josephine all the pathos of Maria; nor can I tell my story as Sterne told his. But Josephine in her sorrow was I think more true to human nature than Maria. It may perhaps be possible that Sterne embellished his facts. I, at any rate, have not done that.

I had another adventure at Port Antonio. About two o'clock in the morning there was an earthquake, and we were all nearly shaken out of our beds. Some one rushed into my room, declaring that not a stone would be left standing of Port Royal. There were two distinct blows, separated by some seconds, and a loud noise was heard. I cannot say that I was frightened, as I had not time to realize the fact of the earthquake before it was all over. No harm was done, I believe, anywhere, beyond the disseverance of a little plaster from the walls.

The largest expanse of unbroken cane-fields in Jamaica is at the extreme south-east, in the parish of St. George's in the East. Here I saw a plain of about four thousand acres under canes. It looked to be prosperous; but I was told by the planter with whom I was staying that the land had lately been deluged with water; that the canes were covered with mud; and that the crops would be very short. Poor Jamaica! It seems as though all the elements are in league against her.

I was not sorry to return to Kingston from this trip, for I was tired of the saddle. In Jamaica everybody rides, but nobody seems to get much beyond a walk. Now to me there is no pace on horseback so wearying as an unbroken walk. I did goad my horse into trotting, but it was clear that the animal was not used to it.

Shortly afterwards I went to the west. The distances here were longer, but the journey was made on wheels, and was not so fatiguing. Moreover, I stayed some little time with a friend in one of the distant parishes of the island. The scenery during the whole expedition was very grand. The road goes through Spanish Town, and then divides itself, one road going westward by the northern coast, and the other by that to the south. I went by the former, and began my journey by the bog or bogue walk, a road through a magnificent ravine, and then over Mount Diabolo. The Devil assumes to himself all the finest scenery in all countries. Of a delicious mountain tarn he makes his punch-bowl; he loves to leap from crag to crag over the wildest ravines; he builds picturesque bridges in most impassable sites; and makes roads over mountains at gradients not to be attempted by the wildest engineer. The road over Mount Diabolo is very fine, and the view back to Kingston very grand.

From thence I went down into the parish of St. Anns, on the northern side. They all speak of St. Anns as being the most fertile district in the island. The inhabitants are addicted to grazing rather than sugarmaking, and thrive in that pursuit very well. But all Jamaica is suited for a grazing-ground, and all the West Indies should be the market for their cattle.

On the northern coast there are two towns, Falmouth and Montego Bay, both of which are, at any rate in appearance, more prosperous than Kingston. I cannot say that the streets are alive with trade; but they do not appear to be so neglected, desolate, and wretched as the metropolis or the seat of government. They have jails and hospitals, mayors and magistrates, and are, except in atmosphere, very like small country towns in England.