FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 205 



and the pace, is fast and the shooting often good. 

 If the riding looks a trifle reckless to the visitor, it 

 must be remembered that these Creoles ride like 

 Centaurs, and are one, body and mind, with their 

 mounts. 



While in St Ann I visited more than one pen, 

 for there are men of Devon in the parish, and I 

 had known some of the pen-keepers in the old 

 country. One of the prettiest little pens was Cedar 

 Valley, which commands a view of the sea and a 

 fine panorama of surrounding country. Mr Conran's 

 larger residence in his adjoining pen was also, I 

 noticed, on a hill. This site combines, I imagine, 

 the advantage of dryness with a more sweeping 

 view of the estate, an important consideration in a 

 land in which petty theft is a commonplace. 



The Garden of Jamaica was all at its best in 

 June. That the island is, with the solitary excep- 

 tion of Dominica, the gem of the Antillean tiara 

 is generally admitted. Compared with its equally 

 fertile neighbour, nearly nine times its area, that 

 lies a hundred miles further north, it is as Devon- 

 shire to Suffolk, with glorious mountains that plant 

 their feet at the doors of the capital and in the 

 spume of the sea, whereas from most standpoints 

 in Cuba the distant vista of the hills is suggestive 

 only, like the faint blue on the chin of its priests. 



St Ann is the cattle parish. Sugar may flourish 

 more generously in Westmoreland, but sugar is a 

 fluky friend, and the prosperity of Jamaica's future 

 rests on other foundations. At present, Jamaica 

 sugar is most appreciated in the form of rum, and 

 the cane is supplanted by the banana in the vege- 

 table assets of the island. Down the winding 



