THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF PORT ROYAL. 775 



a number of small cays of ^olian formation, whicli, originally 

 detached, have now been joined together by ridges of sand. This 

 formation is still going on to the southward, and an outer line, 

 similar to the Palisades, is gradually being built up on the nu- 

 merous small detached cays which lie between East and bouth- 



east Cays. 1 t. v ;i ^ 



When the Spaniards discovered Jamaica the present Palisades 

 were in much the same condition as the outer line is now-that is 

 to say, there was a line of detached cays, connected by banks of 

 loose, shifting sand, which were submerged at high water, with 

 here and there channels of sufdcient depth to admit of the passage 

 of small vessels. In 1635, 

 when Colonel Jackson, 



KINGSTON 



the English adventurer, 

 attacked and plundered 

 St. Jago de la Vega, the 

 capital of Jamaica, the 

 small cay of calcareous 

 rock, which ultimately 

 became the nucleus of 

 Port Royal, was sepa- 

 rated from the Palisades 

 by a channel sufficiently 



deep for his ships to pass through. Twentyjears later when 

 Venables captured the island from the Spaniards, this channel 

 was closed by a narrow bank of sand barely rising above the 

 water, and those who had accompanied the former expedition 

 remarked upon the change which had taken place From that 

 date the sand seems to have accumulated rapidly, and before long 

 the Palisades became one continuous tongue of sand, extending 

 from the mainland of the island on the east to Port Royal Point 



on the west. , -.i. ,-. . xv -u ^A 



The Spaniards, during the century and a half that they held 

 Jamaica, never erected any buildings upon Cagua, or Punto de 

 Caguaya, as the cay at the western extremity of the Palisades 

 was termed by them.* Indeed, in their day the site was not at all 

 suitable, for during the prevalence of strong breezes the sand was 

 swept hither and thither by the sea, and a great portion of the 

 cay submerged. After, however, the cay had become .|oined to 

 the Palisades, and the sand ridge had risen two or three feet 

 above high water, Cagua, or Careening Point, as the English 

 called it, became a good position from which to defend the en- 

 trance of the harbor. The first work, which mounted twenty-one 

 small guns, but consisted merely of a stockade with a wall ot 



* This name is supposed to be a corruption of caragua, the Indian name for the aloe. 



