with them those of Spanish Town, had collapsed. Emancipation, and the abolition of the monopoly on sugar, had ruined the planters. The old families were absentees. Their properties, left to be managed by attorneys, had been squatted upon, and were in the hands of negroes. The House of Representatives had become an "unutterable abomination;" and when the disturbances of 1865 ensued, the Assembly, feeling itself powerless, laid down its nominal authority, and Jamaica became a Crown colony. Seven years only have elapsed, but it is now a thing of the past as much as if it had expired centuries ago. The few who remain of the old turbulent spirits have sunk into quiet respectability. Let us hope that renewed prosperity to the island and a bright and glorious history may be the results of "The New Constitution."

66

V.

THE AMENITIES OF TROPICAL TRAVEL.

TRAVELLING in Jamaica has its pleasures: when has travelling not? But for a country inhabited by English men and women, and which deems its progress in civilisation quite abreast of the day, it has more disagreeables than are creditable to it. In the first place, it must all be done by carriage. There is a short line of railway, it is true, between Kingston and Old Harbour in St. Dorothy's, of which we shall have more to say anon; but that takes you no more than twenty-six miles on your tour round the island, and occupies three and a half hours in doing so. Travelling fatiguing in this country!" said a Creole lady to me; nonsense; you don't require to ride. You have a buggy and horses. What more do you want?" But we do want a little more, madam. Progression at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour is somewhat slow in these advanced days. Sitting in a buggy for six or seven hours is apt to make a man feel cramped and sore at the end of the day. Horses are liable to knock up-Jamaica horses in particular. The sun is rather hot in this climate, too. And your negro driver! Well, there is such a thing as bouquet d'Afrique!

One of

cross in

have to

In fine

There are a few peculiarities in Jamaica travelling, too, which we may as well mention here. these is the number of rivers you have to the eastern, and the number of hills you climb in the western, district of the island. weather, and with horses accustomed to the work, a fording or two in the course of a journey is rather a welcome interlude than otherwise. Picturesque groups will occasionally cheer the traveller's eye. Women "kirtled 'boon the knee" washing clothes in the stream, or beetling them on large stones by the water-side; or a "walk-foot buckra" resting under a tree; or a clump of chattering negroes and negresses discussing all the little gossip of the neighbourhood; for "de ribber" is the source of all the scandal, and the generator of all the petty squabbles of the district. But this species of amusement becomes a little wearisome when, as we occasionally found, there were thirty or forty such streams to be crossed in the long day's march. The steepness and ruggedness of the roads is another disagreeable peculiarity of travelling in Jamaica. Many of the roads, in the hill districts of the island particularly, are improperly laid, or rather remain in the old hogtracks when they were settled by the early colonists of the island. The old maxim, that "where a hog could walk a horse could walk," is only now beginning to be repudiated by even professional surveyors. It was always a matter of astonishment to me how so few really serious accidents occurred on these, in many cases, dangerous roads. One was constantly

meeting with drays at their narrowest parts; or, going sharply round a corner, you found yourself suddenly faced by a wain, with a spell of twelve or sixteen oxen attached, full of hogsheads of sugar, drawn right across the road; or an ass laden with panniers would start out of "the bush" just where the path wound along the side of a deep gully, into which it would have been certain destruction to have been thrown. And if such accidents were providentially rare, this was in no wise attributable either to the carefulness of the draymen, or the intelligence of the animals they drove.

Inns in the rural districts of Jamaica there are none. But in most of the towns and villages are to be found taverns, where accommodation for the night can be procured. There is a strong family resemblance amongst all the country lodging-houses. Your landlady is generally some old brown woman, the “housekeeper" or wife of its late proprietor. On the walls of the sorry sitting-room are suspended relics of its former occupant his miniature, done in the days of his prosperity, or his masonic diploma, or his riding-whip and planter's hat, or the blunderbuss he shouldered when he served with the militia. In your bedroom you will find a gigantic mahogany four-post bed, so high that on retiring for the night the assistance of a chair will be required; the pillow and mattresses moth-eaten; the coverlet a mass of gaudy-coloured flowers of dubious cleanliness; and the mosquito curtains bearing evident traces of never having been loosened for years. As the evening advances, an

evil-smelling kerosene lamp will be placed on the table, which will speedily be covered with myriads of winged ants, moths, and other creatures attracted by the light and the glare. And, in the course of a couple of hours after your arrival, you will sit down to a dinner, of which the pièce de résistance will be a sinewy fowl, not steeped in Falernian, alas! but floating in liquid grease, coloured a brilliant orange with "annatto" (Bixa orellana), and highly seasoned with "Scotch bonnets," or some other of the many varieties of the "country peppers" (Capsicum). Flanking this will be a leathery boil of salt pork, all fat and rind, a green plantain roasted in the ashes, and a dish of yams or cocoas. Creole cookery, always bad, seems to culminate in such houses as these. But if the traveller can put up with bad food, extortionate charges, and a room which probably is not weather-tight, he will be treated with a kindness which, though inclined to slip into familiarity, is the very essence of hospitality, and he will gain an insight into the ways of a class of persons who are fast dying out. Occasionally he may come across a rare curiosity in these "old time" taverns. Perhaps a grotesque picture of the great earthquake at Port Royal in 1692, or a half-obliterated oil painting of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, or a musical box, or some "grandmother's" china. Old customs and usages seem to hang about their musty walls. He need not be surprised if his " early coffee" is ground between two stones- -a custom once universal throughout the island, and which is