12 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. i. 



dies away, the hot air of the plains being rarefied, 

 ascends towards the tops of the mountains, and is 

 there condensed by the cold; which making it speci- 

 fically heavier than it was before, it descends back to 

 the plains on both sides of the ridge. Hence a night- 

 wind is felt in all the mountainous countries under the 

 torrid zone, blowing on all sides from the land to- 

 wards the shore, so that on a north shore the wind 

 shall come from the south, and on the south shore 

 from the north. Agreeably to this hypothesis, it is 

 observable that in the islands to windward, where they 

 have no mountains, they have no land-breeze. || 



Of the general appearance of a distant country, and 

 the scenery with which it is clothed, it is difficult, by 

 mere verbal description, to convey an idea. To the 

 first discoverers, the prospect of these islands must 

 have been interesting beyond all that imagination can 

 at present conceive of it. Even at this day, when 

 the mind is prepared by anticipation, they are beheld 

 by the voyager for the first time, with strong emotions 

 of admiration and pleasure ; arising not only from the 

 novelty of the scene, but also from the beauty of the 

 smaller islands, and the sublimity of the larger, whose 



U The account thus given of the land-wind, is chiefly in the words of 

 Dr. Franklin, whose description is so precise and accurate as to admit of 

 no improvement. In Barbadoes, and most of the small islands to wind- 

 ward, the sea-breeze blows as well by night as by day. It is sometimes 

 the case in Jamaica in the months of June and July, the land at that 

 time being heated to such a degree, that the cold air of the mountains i 



. '- 



not sufficiently dense to check the current which flows from the sea, 



