FLORDIA AND THE WEST INDIES 219 



but I shall be surprised if the tourist be not an 

 important factor in its future prosperity. 



Of the few seaside towns that I visited, Montego 

 Bay was in some respects the most delightful, and 

 the sea-bathing, at a spot called " Doctor's Cave/' 

 must certainly rank among the finest in all the 

 world. The water is so clear that you can see a three- 

 penny-piece lying on the sand in three fathoms. The 

 sand is so soft that it rubs the skin as fine as silk. 

 There is deep water, with a raft, for those who dive ; 

 there is shallow water, with a firm sandy bottom, for 

 those who only paddle. There is a bath-house, with 

 dressing-rooms and a fresh shower. If anything, the 

 temperature oi the water before breakfast, when Mr 

 Hart (not to know Mr Hart at Montego Bay is not 

 merely to argue yourself unknown, but also to risk 

 losing a mass of local information) used most kindly 

 to drive me over in his buggy, was a trifle too warm 

 to refresh. Curiously enough, perhaps by contrast 

 with the then warmer atmosphere, it struck colder 

 at midday. In all my memories of bathing in fresh 

 and salt, from April shivering on the shore of the 

 Baltic to July basking in the Mediterranean, morn- 

 ing dips in Sydney Harbour, at Funchal, up the 

 Thames and down the Channel, " Doctor's Cave" 

 will henceforth have a corner of its own. I never 

 knew its better from Tasmania to the Tweed. 

 The railway journey to Montego Bay from 

 Kingston lasts six or seven hours, and the track 

 winds through some of the loveliest mountain scenery 

 in the island, differing from that through which 

 I rode in Carolina a month earlier in the tropical 

 vegetation that clothed the foothills, giving way to 

 a more Northern type of vegetation as the colder 



