Nevis as « West Indian Health Resort. 287 
those trees, or of some others, [ am not certaine, but many of our men became 
so tormented with a burning swelling all over their bodies, they seemed like 
scalded men, and were mad with paine. Here we found a great poole, wherein 
bathing themselves, they found much ease ; and finding it fed with a pleasant 
small streame that came out of the woods, we found the head half a mile within 
the land, distilling from a many of rocks, by which they were well cured in two 
or three days. ”’ [Pp. 198, 199 of John Smath’s Travels : Glasgow, 1907. James 
MacLehose and Sons. | 
In his History of the Caribby Islands, published in 1666, John Davies of 
Kidwelly says of Nevis: “ There are in it divers springs of fresh water, 
whereof some are strong enough to make their way to the sea. Nay, there is 
one spring whereof the waters are hot and mineral. Not far from the 
source there are bathes made, which are trequented with good success, in 
order to the curing ofthose diseases for whichthe waters of Bourbon are 
recommended. ~ 
The comparison with the waters of a French spring is, no doubt, due to the 
fact that the author’s work is really founded upon that of the French author 
Rochefort. 
Let us now listen to writers of the eighteen century. 
Tn his first edition of The British Empire in America, Oldmixon says (Vol. 
IL. p. 195), under the head of Nevis : ‘‘ One spring here is a mineral, and the 
waters hot. Baths were made not far from the source, and frequented with 
good success for the cure of those distempers that the baths at the Bath in 
Engiand, and Bourbon in France, are famous for curing. ” 
The Reverend William Smith, at one time Rector of St. John’s in Nevis, and 
afterwards Rector of St. Mary’s in Bedford, published, in 1745, A Natural His- 
tory of Nevis, from which the following particulars relating to the Bath are taken 
(pp. 54 to 59) :— 
“32. N.B. In my parish of St. John, in the island of Nevis, there is a con- 
siderable spot of sulphurous ground on the south side, at the upper end of a deep 
rupture in the earth vulgarly called Sulphur Gut, which is so excessively hot 
(like that near the Devil’s Coppers in St. Christophers) as to make us immediate- 
ly feel it through our shoe soals. And I must further assure you, that two 
doctors (my particular acquaintance) were so curious as to bury some eggs 
about an inch deep in that spot for the space of three or four minutes, in which 
small time they were full as hard quite thorough, as boyling or roasting could 
make them. 
“33. At the foot of a declivity adjoining to the south side of Charlestown, 
our Metropolis, we have a little hot river called the Bath (supposed to flow from 
the aforementioned sulphur-ground, which is not above three-quarters of a 
mile higher up in the country), that runs half a mile or better before it looses 
itself in the sea-sands. I knew a negro boy who was sent down from Barbadoes 
to Nevis for that very purpose (after being twicesalivated in vain), cured of a 
very bad leprosy by using it ; and, indeed, all distempered people, both Whites 
