KINGSTON, JAMAICA. 18)3 



the Royal Navy is sure to visit. There are important docks at Antigua, Jamaica, and 

 Bermuda ; while the whole station known professionally as the " North American and 

 West Indian " reaches from the north of South America to beyond Newfoundland, Kingston, 

 and Jamaica, where England maintains a flag-ship and a commodore, a dockyard, and a 

 naval hospital. 



Kingston Harbour is a grand lagoon, nearly shut in by a long sand-spit, or rather 

 bank, called "The Palisades/' at the point of which is Port Royal, which, about ninety 

 years ago, was nearly destroyed by an earthquake. Mr. Trollope says that it is on record 

 that hardy " subs " and hardier " mids " have ridden along the Palisades, and have not 

 died from sunstroke in the effort. But the chances were much against them. The ordinary 

 ingress and egress, as to all parts of the island's coasts, is by water. Our naval establishment 

 is at Port Royal. 



Jamaica has picked up a good deal in these later days, but is not the thriving country 

 it was before the abolition of slavery. Kingston is described as a formal city, with streets 

 at right angles, and with generally ugly buildings. The fact is, that hardly any Europeans 

 or even well-to-do Creoles live in the town, and, in consequence, there are long streets, which 

 might almost belong to a city of the dead, where hardly a soul is to be seen : at all events, 

 in the evenings. All the wealthier people and there are a large number have country 

 seats "pens/' as they call them, though often so charmingly situated, and so beautifully 

 surrounded, that the term does not seem very appropriate. The sailor's pocket-money will 

 go a long way in Kingston, if he confines himself to native productions; but woe unto 

 him if he will insist on imported articles ! All through the island the white people are 

 very English in their longings, and affect to despise the native luxuries. Thus, they will 

 give you ox-tail soup when real turtle would be infinitely cheaper. " When yams, avocado 

 pears, the mountain cabbage, plantains, and twenty other delicious vegetables may be had 

 for the gathering, people will insist on eating bad English potatoes; and the desire for 

 English pickles is quite a passion." All the servants are negroes or mulattoes, who are 

 greatly averse to ridicule or patronage; while, if one orders them as is usual in England, 

 they leave you to wait on yourself. Mr. Trollope discovered this. He ordered a lad in 

 one of the hotels to fill his bath, calling him "old fellow." "Who you call fellor?" asked 

 the youth; "you speak to a gen'lman gen'lmanly, and den he fill de bath." 



The sugar-cane and by consequence, sugar and rum coffee, and of late tobacco, are 

 the staple productions of Jamaica. There is one district where the traveller may see 

 an unbroken plain of 4,000 acres under canes. The road over Mount Diabolo is very fine, 

 and the view back to Kingston very grand. Jack ashore will find that the people all 

 ride, but that the horses always walk. There are respectable mountains to be ascended in 

 Jamaica : Blue Mountain Peak towers to the height of 8,000 feet. The highest inhabited 

 house on the island, the property of a coffee-planter, is a kind of half-way house of 

 entertainment ; and although Mr. Trollope who provided himself with a white companion, 

 who, in his turn, provided five negroes, beef, bread, water, brandy, and what seemed to 

 him about ten gallons of rum gives a doleful description of the clouds and mists and fogs 

 which surrounded the Peak, others may be more fortunate. 



The most important of the West Indian Islands, Cuba " Queen of the Antilles " > 



