1 85 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



Moravians, which radiated into all parts of the county of 

 Westmoreland. 



On board the Caroline Philip Gosse had made the 

 acquaintance of a Mr. and Mrs. Plessing, German 

 Moravians, who were coming out to Jamaica to be em- 

 ployed as missionaries. Their account of Bluefields had 

 struck him as singularly attractive to the naturalist, while 

 the religious views of the Moravians, which were quite 

 novel to him, exercised a fascination over his religious 

 curiosity. On arriving at Alligator Pond, therefore, the 

 Plessings had written to know whether he could be received 

 at Bluefields as a tenant, and without waiting for a reply — 

 since Bluefields was large enough to admit a regiment of 

 tenants — they proceeded on their leisurely voyage thither. 

 Had they waited for an answer, the reply would have been 

 in the negative ; for Mr. Coleman and his wife were both 

 dangerously ill, and in no position to receive a guest. In 

 that climate, however, in a very large house, and sur- 

 rounded by willing negroes, the responsibility of a hostess 

 may be minimized, and Philip Gosse took up his abode in 

 a suite of lightly furnished rooms without disturbing the 

 Colemans. 



The position of Bluefields was one not only of excep- 

 tional beauty, but of singular convenience to a collecting 

 zoologist. It lies a little above the sea, on a gentle slope, 

 with steep woods rising to the back of it, and a noisy 

 rivulet, always exquisitely fresh, brawling under its bam- 

 boos and guava trees down to the sea through the heart of 

 the estate. Behind the house, a ride of four or five miles 

 leads to the summit of the lofty Bluefields Mountain, from 

 which the south-western coast of Jamaica is seen as in a 

 map from South Negril to Grand Pedro Bluff, with " the 

 sparkling Caribbean Sea stretching away to the far, far 

 distant horizon " in the direction of Cuba. On his first 



