288 Timehri. 
and Blacks, find great benefit by it. The salivations had caused the boy to break 
out in running sores or ulcers all over from head to foot, and they being added 
to leprosy, made him a sad (rueful) spectacle. However, by drinking and 
washing three or four times a-day, for an hour at least each time, in the water 
of this river, he went back to his master sound and clean at two months’ end. 
This is a confirmation of what Sir Hans Sloane says, in page 45, of his voyage 
to Jamaica, viz.: The bath is here taken notice of by some travellers, as 
Harcourtand Smith. The first says it cures the leprosy, and is good in coughs, 
it curing the author, who drank and bathed. It also remedies burning with 
gunpowder, and swelled legs (Harcourt, Purchase, 44). The second tells us that 
it cured men in two or three days, who were tormented with a burning swelling, 
as scalding from the dew of trees (Smith's Obs., pag. 57). I guess that Smith 
means here manchineal trees, under whose shade some of his men had incon- 
siderably lain down for repose, or stood to escape a shower of rain, or perhaps 
cut down wood for firing. 
** 34. I myself bathed in it once a fortnight, and own that it contributed not 
a little to my health and vivacity. I usually went in at nine o’clock at night ; 
and observed that in two minutes time the sweat was ready to blind me, and, 
that in about three minutes more, I was obliged to quit it through faintness of 
spirit. Upon stepping out of it upon the green bank, the wind blew so exceeding 
cold that I should almost have fancied myself instantaneously transported 
to Nova Zembla, or Greenland ; that is to say, we have a perpetual breeze of 
the trade wind that runs from East to West, which refreshes us in the day, 
but is cool enough in the night,and of course must prove intensely cold when we 
just come out of so hot a bath. Ido not mean that it blows directly from the 
East point ; for it varies from the North-East to South-East, according to the 
place and position of the sun ;and, in October, it generally blows directly 
from the North. We have no land and sea breezes as is usual at Jamaica. 
However, half a pint of strong Madeira wine enabled me to cloath, put on my 
riding coat, and go briskly home. The next morning I was almost as nimble 
as a Mountebank’s tumbler. When I lived at Charlestown, which I did for 
the last nine months of my stay in that country, it was my custom to walk to 
this river every morning, at sun-rising, to drink a pint of its water, which I 
found operated both by stool and urine Some of my acquaintance would drink 
of it till they puked, and say they found great benefit by so doing ; but, as I 
have an aversion to puking, I never cared to use it in that way. 
“35. Towards the sea-side is a particular spot of ground in this river 
where a man may set one foot upon a spring so wondrous cold that it is ready to 
pierce him to the very heart, and at the same moment fix his other foo upon 
another spring so surprisingly hot, that it will quickly force him to take it off 
again. But the water there being full my chin deep, and I no swimmer, I 
durst not venture so far in, as to feel the springs by way of experiment. How- 
ever, several of my friends, whose veracity might be depended on, assured me 
of its truth. 
“36. At another place about two miles and a half to the southward of 
Charlestown, is a very sharp point of land that jets out a considerable way 
