176 



being out of his senses, is a point which I will not 

 pretend to decide. One of my domestic negroes, a 

 boy of sixteen, named Prince, was abandoned by his 

 worthless mother in infancy, and reared by this 

 Philippa ; and since her illness he passes every 

 moment of his leisure in her sick-room. On the 

 other hand, there is a woman named Christian, at- 

 tending two fevered children in the hospital ; one 

 her own, and the other an adopted infant, whom she 

 reared upon the death of its mother in child-birth ; 

 and there she sits, throwing her eyes from one to 

 the other with such unceasing solicitude, that no 

 one could discover which was her own child and 

 which the orphan. 



February 13. 



Two Jamaica nightingales have established them- 

 selves on the orange tree which grows against my 

 window, and their song is most beautiful. This bird 

 is also called " the mocking-bird," from its facility 

 of imitating, not only the notes of every other 

 animal, but — I am told — of catching every tune 

 that may be played or sung two or three times in 

 the house near which it resides, after which it will 

 go through the air with the greatest taste and pre- 

 cision, throwing in cadences and ornaments that 

 Catalani herself might envy. 



But by far the most curious animal that I have 

 yet seen in Jamaica is " the soldier," a species of 

 crab, which inhabits a shell like a snail's, so small 



