JAMAICA 217 



tego Bay and northeast to Port Antonio, across the island. 

 These are well managed and comfortably equipped. Some 

 of the scenery along the roads is magnificent. Railway 

 construction is difficult and expensive. Seventy thousand 

 acres of the crown lands were conveyed to the West India 

 Improvement Company for its part in constructing the 

 railways. There are also six hundred and eighty-five 

 miles of telegraph line, operated by the postal system, 

 with convenient offices everywhere throughout the island. 



The glory of Jamaica, however, is its public highways. 

 There are thirty-six hundred miles of fine roads, roads 

 such as no country district in the United States pos- 

 sesses, which are built to grade, splendidly macadam- 

 ized, well drained and cared for. These make communi- 

 cation easy, and every portion of the island accessible. 

 Not only are the roads of the highest type, but good 

 bridges everywhere abound. Some of these are so excel- 

 lent that when the railways were constructed they were 

 occupied by them without further strengthening. Strange 

 to say, these roads are more used by pedestrians than by 

 vehicles. The negro inhabitants think nothing of walking 

 from twenty to forty miles a day, and, when footing is so 

 good, many of them prefer it to the more expensive rail- 

 way system. The island is indebted for this superior 

 system of railways and public roads to Sir Henry Blake, 

 for many years governor, who has recently been promoted 

 to Hong-Kong. He devoted every energy to perfecting 

 the means of transportation, and was justly proud of his 

 department of public works. 



The island has a good system of coastal and foreign 

 communication. A comfortable steamer leaves Kingston 

 every week and circumnavigates the island, touching at 

 every little port, not only affording the benefits of trans- 

 portation to the inhabitants, but presenting to the tourist 

 the opportunity for a most charming journey. Excellent 

 lines of steamers ply between fche island and the United 

 States, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, the Lesser 



