B O O K II. CHAP. IX. 187 



to its importance. The road or harbour is guarded not only by 

 the (hoals, but by two batteries ; the firfl, .1 publick one, of five 

 guns, fix to uliie-poundcrs, built on a little eminence near the fea; 

 the other, a private property, belonging to Mr. Crutcher. Ex- 

 clufive of thefe fortrefles, the variation of the fands renders the 

 entrance difficult, and dangerous to thofe who are not well ac- 

 quainted with it. The barracks ftand at about a quarter of a mile 

 from the bay ; are capable of receiving thirty men, and generally gar- 

 rifoned with a party of regulars. The church is about the fame 

 diilance from the village of Black River, a handfome edifice of 

 brick, lately re-built. The parfonage-houfe flood on Middle- 

 quarter-Mountains, in a dry, elevated, and very pleafant fituation, 

 in the centre of the glebe ; but, not long fince, was unfortunately 

 burnt to the ground by an accident. The redlor's ftipend is 200/. 

 per annum ; but he has likewife a confiderable income from the la- 

 hour of about twenty Negroes, which, in confequence of an ad of 

 aflembly, pafied in the year 1753, for difpofing of fundry parcels of 

 land belonging to the parifh, were purchafed with the value of the 

 fales for the ufe of the re^flory ; and, by another aft pafl'ed in 1764, 

 all the parcels of land then undifpofed of were directed to be fold, 

 and the nett-money applied to the buying a trail of provifion-ground 

 contiguous to the old glebe, and to be annexed to it in perpetuity: 

 fo that the whole of the glebe confifts of, at leaft, two hundred 

 acres of fine paftureand provifion-land ; and the value of the living 

 is computed to be between fix and feven hundred pounds a year. 

 By the road-fide, not far from the parfonagc, is a very curious ob- 

 jeft, viz. a large fpreading fig-tree, whofe boughs overfliadow the 

 road. It is about thirty feet in height, and out of its fummit ap- 

 pears to grow an elegant thatch-tree, of about ten or twelve inches 

 diameter, which has a branched top diftincl from the other, and 

 rifing twelve or fifteen feet above it. The wild fig-tree is, in its 

 infant ftate, only a poor, weakly, climbing plant, like the tendril 

 of a vine, which rears itfelf from the ground by the friendly help 

 of fome neighbouring tree, and fhoots out feveral delicate radicles, 

 which entwine about the fupporter, and gradually extend them- 

 felves downwards as the flem increafes. This at length attains to 

 the fummit, multiplying its branches and radicles, which in pro- 



B b 2 ccfs 



