ST. VINCENT. 



181 



from the steamer, fronting which and the sea is the 

 police station, a line, large building of stone, the best 

 public building in the smaller English islands. A 

 broad street borders the bay, and two more run parallel 

 to it farther baek, until the bordering amphitheatre of 

 hills prevents further building. Streets intersect these 

 at right angles and end at the base line of the hills, 

 save three or four which traverse the valleys to estates 

 among the mountains, and two that ascend the hills 

 and extend around either shore to windward and lee- 

 ward. Valleys run up from the bay far into the moun- 

 tains, and the various spurs of hills increase in height 

 as they recede from shore, so that Kingston and its bay 

 are half encircled by a range of hills and mountains, 

 above and around whose summits the clouds continu- 

 ally play. 



The highest peak is Morne St. Andrews; rising 

 to the east of it, and commanding the town, is a high, 

 steep hill known as Dorsetshire Height, crested by a 

 ruined fort. When the Caribs, in the last century, 

 had overrun the island to windward, they swarmed 

 upon this hill, attacked the fort, made prisoners the 

 garrison, and were dislodged by soldiers from the 

 town only after a desperate fight. There are a few 

 old cannon remaining on the heights, but dismounted 

 and imbedded in the earth. Most of them were 

 bought by an enterprising speculator, during the late 

 war between North and South, and sold to one party 

 or the other. 



The sunset view from here is superb. Conspicuous 

 are the palmistes, or cabbage palms ; one house is 

 encircled by them, a white house with bright red 

 roof; they raise themselves erect in clumps of a score 



