ART. III. Conclufion of the Hiftory of Jamaica: or, general Survey of the Ancient and Modern State of that Ifland, with Reflections on its Situation, Settlements, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws, and Government.

N a former Review of this Hiftory of Jamaica, we observed

ed thofe political diftempers, which owe their existence to various extrinfecal caufes; and from his faithful and patient manner of reprefenting those exotic evils, he appears to us, to be tacitly foliciting a catholicon to abate their malignity.-Upon looking further into this performance, we find in fefe redit, our Author refumes his character, and proceeds like a man of ingenuity and fentiment, to prefent us with the beauties and deformities of his country and countrymen; to the end, that by proper attention and legal difcipline, the one may be improved and preferved; the other corrected and reclaimed."

Our Author throws out various lures to court the industrious into those beautiful patches, with which nature has adorned the face of the Western Ocean. He firft removes the terror of climate, by moderating the exceffive heats. Let him speak his own feelings, and let us attend to his philofophical reasoning on local and relative heat and cold, which are fo fenfibly dif tinguished in the different parts of the island; from whence we thall be convinced, that a man has no occafion for a garment of the asbestos to prevent his being confumed by the fcorching rays of a tropical fun.

In advancing from the fea coaft towards the mountains, fays our Author, every mile produces a fenfible change towards a cooler temperature; and, after arriving among the mountains, there is feldom any caufe to complain of too much heat. In Auguft, and in the evening of a day that was thought exceffively fultry in the lowlands, I have found a fire very comfortable in Pedro's Cockpits, in St. Ann's. On the fummit of Guy's Hill, Monte Diablo, Carpenter's Mountains, and others, I never experienced a troublesome heat even at noon, under a vertical fun. The fea coat is likewife marked with this irregularity; and is more or less hot, according as it is more or lefs open to the free, perflation of the fea-breeze. The greatest degree of heat on the higher mountains rarely, I believe, exceeds feventy-five on Fahrenheit's fcale; but the general itation of the thermometer there is from fixty to fixty nine or feventy. The north fide of the ifland is in general cool, pleafant, and very healthy, except on the flat low parts, bordering upon the coaft. The difference of atmosphere here from the fouth fide is evident from the lefs power of the fun in forwarding maturity. The canes on the fouth fide are ripe and fit to cut in the beginning of January; but the north fide crops do not commence till the latter end of March, or fometimes later. The greater frequency of rain, and cloudiness of the atmosphere, with other correfponding caufes, obftruct the folar

See Review for Auguft.

Ff4

influence,

influence, retard vegetation, and prevent the canes from coming earlier to maturity. It is likewife to be confidered, that, when the un is moving in the fouthern tropic, the mountains caft a fhade over a very large tract of this fide of the country, till he has attained to fome height above the horizon; and this is repeated before he fets: fo that these parts have not near fo much of his genial warmth as their oppofites in the fouthern diftri&t. So the altitude of the Blue Mountains causes, every morning during the hotter months, a very agree. able shade to a large part of Liguanea, ftretching weftward from their foot. At fuch times of the year, the fun's disk continues, unperceived by the inhabitants, on that part for a confiderable time; the view of it being intercepted by that immenfe wall of high land. From this variety of climate it muft appear, that heat and cold are here entirely local and relative; depending on fituation, whether low and level ground, or elevated and mountainous; on the propinquity er diftance of hills, open to a free current of air, or barricadoed round; deep vales encircled by hills, being liable to collect the heat as it were into a focus, and in fome degree fcreened from a fteddy wind; on the nature of the foil, whether clay, fand, marshy, chalk, or marle, rocky, or other mixtures. I his fhews the abfurdity of conveying an idea of the climate of any country in general, by a defcription which is only applicable to certain parts of it. The breadth of the island, and great elevation of the mountainous ridges towards its center, give it advantages that none of the smaller ifles poffefs. The atmosphere, being much heated and rarefied near the fea-coaft during the day-time, is, according to the obvious laws of nature, fucceeded by the denfer air of the mountains, which rushes in conftant ftreams from fun fet till an hour or two after fun-rife ; whence it happens, that every part of the coaft is ventilated, by this land-wind, as it is called, flowing towards all the points of the compafs; and that, in the middle of the mountainous region, there is often no fenfible motion of the air, though at the very fame time a fresh land breeze, proceeding from that quarter, is felt by the inhabitants on the low-lands, near the coaft, and on both fides the ifland.'

The early and latter rains, fo often mentioned in facred hiftory, pay the fame grateful tribute to the western, as they do to the eastern regions; these seasons, as they are termed, are expected with much anxiety; they being as effentially neceffary to fertilize the plantations of Jamaica, as the interluency of the Nile is, to thofe immeafurable tracts, extending from Abyffinia to Grand Cairo; they determine the wealth of the ifland, and the planter is a prince or a beggar, from the prefence or absence of thefe benignant fhowers. The Author presents us with an entertaining picture in defcribing the approaches of thefe equinoctial vifitors.

The heavy rains, which (if the feafons are regular) fhould fall in Máy and October, feem to owe their origin entirely to the shifting of the wind from N. E. to S. or S. E. in the former month, and from S. E. to N. or N. E. in the latter. During this contention for the maftery, the light airs, which then gently agitate, are variable and unfteady by which means the vapours are exhaled in abundance

from

from the fea, and accumulated from all points, till the force of the victorious current, always violent at firft, condenfes, and impels them down in deluges. The irregularity of the feafons, or failure of them in May, I apprehend, is to be ascribed to an unusual feebleness and short duration of the Norths in particular years, as well as to the uncommon vigour and permanency of the fea breeze in those years; by which means the vapours are not fuffered to accumulate, but are continually driven on, in one direct track, without oppofition, and therefore do not fall upon the ifland. For fome time preceding the rainy feafon, its approach is announced by feveral prognoftics. Corufcations of, lightning are feen towards night in all parts of the horizon, though not a cloud then perceptible: at other times, thunder-clouds are obferved to continue hovering near the coafts, or over the mountains; and the fcintillations of a faint lightning playing around their edges very beautifully, in a'thoufand different figures and directions, during almost the whole night. As the feafon draws nearer, a black bank of vapours is beheld, for feveral days, rifing a few degrees above the fouthern horizon. The fea breeze at this time is light and fluttering. In a few days time the rain comes on, ufhered in with strong gufts of wind, and hollow thunder at intervals. Nothing can be more awful and majestic than the flow and folemn advance of these gloomy vapours, which darken the air, and obfcure the fun for feveral days. The thunder is foon filenced; and then the rain, after spending its fury in cataracts (for I cannot call them fhowers), drops foftly down in a kind of drizzle during the remainder of the featon. The rain goes off generally as it came in with fome thunder; after which, the regular wind, whether breeze or north, fets in with a fteady current. The air, thus purified and restored to its elafticity, is then inexpreffibly agreeable; the fun refumes his accustomed fplendour; and all nature feems enlivened.'

He then heightens the colouring. When the fun is retired, the clouds foon move away, and fhortly disappear below the horizon, or wafte into the atmosphere. The beautiful azure canopy then opens to view, ftudded with innumerable twinkling orbs: the moon light nights are particularly fine, the clearness of ather affisting her luftre, and conftituting her the parent of a fecond day; which though lefs dazzling to the eye, is, from its greater coolness and placidity, more grateful to the mind, and foothing to the fpirits, than the fplendid irradiations of the fovereign luminary. In the moon's absence, her function is not ill fupplied by the brightnefs of the milky way, (which in this part of the world is tranfcendently beautiful,) and by that glorious planet Venus, which appears here like a little moon, and glitters with fo refulgent a beam, as to caft a fhade from trees, buildings, and other objects; fo that the nights are very feldom fo obfcure as to puzzle a traveller.

No object of nature, I think, can be more pleafing and picturefque, than the appearance of the heavens about fun fet, at the clofe of almost every day; when that majestic orb feems perched for a while on the fummit of a mountain: its circumference is dilated by the interpofing vapour; and here, detained in view by the refraction of rays, it looks as if refting fome moments from its career, and in fufpence before its departure: on a fudden it vanishes, leaving a trail of splendour aloft, which ftreaks the clouds, according to their

different

different pofitions and distances, with the most lovely and variegated tints that the happieft fancy can imagine. I have often wifhed, upon thefe occafions, for fome capital painter, to copy from fo perfect and elegant an original. Scenes of this kind are fo frequently exhibited here, that they ceafe to attract the admiration of the inhabitants in general; for novelties are apt to ftrike the eye much more than the most beautiful objects conftantly feen. Yet Mr. James Dawkins, well known for his taste and endowments, after having vifited the most celebrated countries of the East, used to declare, that he thought this island one of the lovelieft fpots he had ever beheld. Nor do I think him partial to his natale folum in this teftimony of approbation; for the gentlemen of this ifland are not accused of entertaining fuch prejudices; and other travelled connoiffeurs have concurred in the like opinion.'

Having now opened a most delectable profpect, to tempt the honeft, but friendless adventurer, to fet off for the Weft Indies; he proceeds to enumerate the bleffings which Providence has fo unfparingly bestowed upon the many islands in the neighbourhood of Jamaica. And here he takes occafion to introduce an inftance of that wonderful impulfe in the turtle, which so obviously governs the whole animal creation; and to fhew, from their vast abundance, what plenty of delicious food they afford the inhabitants of the Caymanas, three fmall iflands lying 30 or 40 leagues from the weft end of Jamaica.

The inftinct which directs the turtle to find these islands, and to make this annual visitation with fo much regularity, is truly wonderful. The greater part of them emigrate from the gulph of Honduras, at the distance of 150 leagues; and, without the aid of chart or compaís, perform this tedious navigation with an accuracy fuperior to the beft efforts of human skill; infomuch that it is affirmed, that vessels, which have loft their latitude in hazy weather, have steered entirely by the noise which these creatures make in fwimming, to attain the Caymana ifles. The females are faid to lay no less than 900 eggs; which circumftance, if true, may account for the conftant amazing multiplication of their fpecies in thefe feas. When the feafon for hatching is past, they withdraw to the fhores of Cuba, and other large islands in the neighbourhood; where they recruit, and in about the fpace of a month acquire that delicious fat for which they are in fo much efteem. In these annual peregrinations acrofs the ocean, they resemble the herring fhoals: which, by an equal providential agency, are guided every year to the European feas, and become the exhauftlefs fource of profit to the British empire. The fhore of the Caymanas being very low and fandy, is perfectly well adapted to receive and hatch their eggs; and the rich fubmarine paftures around the larger iflands afford a fufficient plenty of nourishing herbage, to repair the wafte which they neceffarily have undergone. Thus the inhabitants of all thefe iflands are, by the gracious difpenfation of the Almighty, benefited in their turn; fo that, when the fruits of the earth are deficient, an ample fuftenance may ftill be drawn from this never-failing refource of turtle, or their eggs, conducted annually as it were into their very hands.'

Where

Where is the independent spirit who would not wish to take up his refidence in the hofpitable island of the Grand Cayman, removed from every idea of tyranny, and under the government of Nature's gentleft laws; as pictured by our Author?—The Grand Cayman is the only one of the three iflands conftantly inhabited. The land is fo low, that, four or five leagues off, it cannot be feen from a fhip's quarterdeck; but is generally known by the trees upon it, which are lofty, and appears at that distance like a grove of mafts emerging out of the ocean. This island is about one mile and a half in length, and about one mile in breadth. It has no harbour for veffels of burthen: but the anchorage on its S. W. coaft is moderately good. On the other, or N. E. fide, it is fortified with reefs of rocks, between which and the shore, in fmooth water, the inhabitants have their craals for keeping turtle. The prefent race of inhabitants are faid to be defcendants from the English Buccaniers: and in all amount to about 160, white men, women, and children. Although the island is an appenage of Jamaica, and fo understood by the law of 1711, which enacts," that no perfon fhall deftroy any turtle eggs upon any island or quays belonging to Jamaica ;" the people upon it have never been an object of the legislature of that colony: they have a chief, or governor of their own choofing, and regulations of their own framing; they have fome juftices of the peace among them, appointed by commiffion from the governor of Jamaica; and live very happily, without fcarcely any form of civil government. Their poverty and fmallnefs of number fecure them effectually from thofe animofities that difturb the peace of larger focieties; yet they are not without a sense of decorum in their manner of living. Their tran-. quillity depends much on a due prefervation of good order. Their governor and magiftrates decide any matter of controversy arifing among them, without appeal. Their fingle men and women, who intend cohabiting together, for the most part, take a voyage to jamaica, which is only a fhort and agreeable tour on the water, get themselves married with the proper folemnity, difpofe of their turtle, and then return home to their friends. No part of the world perhaps, is more healthful than this fpot: the air, coming to them over a large tract of fea, is extremely pure; the long lives and vigour of the inhabitants are certain proofs of its falubrity. The element that furrounds them affords the greatest abundance of fish and turtle, the latter efteemed the most wholefome of all Weft-India food, and beft agreeing with the climate. The foil, toward the middle range of the island is very fertile, producing corn and vegetables in plenty; fo that the inhabitants are able to breed hogs and poultry more than fufficient for their own ufe.'

Our Author glances at the advantages which England at prefent obtains from her trade with Jamaica; and like a faithful patriot dwells upon the improvable value of that ifland to the mother country, if her real intereft was attended to abroad, and affifted at home; and most of the arguments he advances to fupport his poftulatum, carry conviction with them. After many elaborate calculations, and plans of improvement, he exclaims:

• What