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they had the whole property to themselves ; but no 

 sooner had they done their duty upon the rats, 

 than they extended their exertions to the cats, of 

 whom their strength and size at length enabled 

 them completely to get the better ; and since that 

 last victory, Sir Charles Price's rats, as they are 

 called, have increased so prodigiously, that (like 

 the man in Scripture, who got rid of one devil, and 

 was taken possession of by seven others) this single 

 species is now a greater nuisance to the island 

 than all the others before them were together. 

 The best mode of destroying rats here is with 

 terriers; but those imported from England soon 

 grow useless, being blinded by the sun, while their 

 puppies, born in Jamaica, are provided by nature 

 with a protecting film over their eyes, which effect- 

 ually secures them against incurring that calamity. 



February 12. 

 Poor Philippa, the woman who used always to 

 call me her " husband," and whom I left sick in 

 the hospital, during my absence has gone out of 

 her senses ; and there cannot well happen any thing 

 more distressing, as there is no separate place for 

 her confinement, and her ravings disturb the other 

 invalids. There is, indeed, no kind of bedlam in the 

 whole island of Jamaica : whether this proceeds 

 from people being so very sedate and sensible, that 

 they never go mad, or from their all being so mad, 

 that no one person has a right to shut up another for 



