igS THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



I\Iar, and took berth on board the steamer Earl of Elgin, 

 which was coasting eastwards. After a day's pleasant 

 steaming along the south shore of Jamaica, they got into 

 Kingston Harbour at nightfall. The tossing of the Ca- 

 ribbean Sea was exchanged for the smooth surface of the 

 land-locked harbour, over which a flock of gulls were 

 flying and hovering. He proceeded to a noisy hot hotel, 

 where the contrast with the still cool nights of Bluefields, 

 scarcely broken by the note of a bird or a bat, kept him 

 awake till near morning, or at least till long after a riotous 

 party of billiard-players had finally decided to break up. 

 He rose early and walked about the dirty and unattractive 

 capital of Jamaica. Having despatched a note to Mr. 

 Richard Hill, in Spanish Town, to announce his arrival, 

 he paid some calls, and drove out a little way into the 

 country, to find, on his return to the hotel, that Mr. Hill 

 had instantly responded to his summons, and was in the 

 parlour waiting to welcome him. This was the first meet- 

 ing of the brother ornithologists. The next day Mr. Hill 

 did the honours of Kingston, and in particular took Gosse 

 to the rooms of the Jamaica Society, where they examined 

 together Dr. Anthony Robinson's drawings of birds and 

 plants. The specimens in the town museum were few and 

 in wretched preservation, yet the objects in themselves 

 mostly good. By the afternoon train the friends left 

 Kingston for Spanish Town, and spent the evening in 

 examining a large collection of drawings of birds, made 

 by Richard Hill himself. 



Philip Gosse's brief stay at Spanish Town was made 

 extremely pleasant to him by the assiduous hospitalities 

 of Richard Hill. On the lOth, in company with Mr. Hill 

 and a young collector, Mr. Osborne, who had been invited 

 to meet the English naturalist, Sam and the latter 

 ascended Highgate, a peak of the Liguanea Mountains, 



