OLD HARBOUR. 
299 
THE LIGUANEA MOUNTAINS. 
Early in March, a day’s pleasant sailing along the 
south shore of the island, in a little coasting steamer, 
carried me to Kingston. The aspect of the country 
generally, from the sea, is forbidding : very few 
traces of cultivation are seen ; the harbours are few, 
and an almost interminable range of dark forest 
meets the eye, frequently degenerating to low, 
scrubby bushes, giving the impression of a very 
barren soil. This is especially the character of the 
scenery between the bold abrupt promontory called 
Pedro Bluff, whose broad front of chalk stands up 
almost perpendicularly from the sea, and the long 
peninsula of Portland, on which not a single planta- 
tion breaks the dismal uniformity of the stunted 
olive-brown bushes. 
Once past this rugged point, the scene becomes 
more fair and interesting. We open a broad and 
deep bay, known as Old Harbour, dotted with beau- 
tiful islands ; its shores rising up in an amphitheatre 
of verdant hills, bearing the marks of cultivation and 
residence. The wide mouth of the bay, about four- 
teen miles from point to point, is studded thick with 
little low kays, or rocky islets, breaking the waste of 
water with their refreshing greenness. This noble 
bay, when Columbus discovered it, was inhabited by 
thousands of Indians, the most intelligent and the 
most civilised of all the aborigines of the Antilles 
that he had seen. On the largest of these islets, 
embosomed in the sheltered lake-like harbour, dwelt 
