which is navigable for canoes and barges transporting produce from the inland plantations. Vere is also remarkable for a singular ridge of hills, which form the promontory of Portland, an eminence ten miles in length, and two in breadth. This headland projects over the sea coast, and commands an extensive view, by which the approach of an enemy may be easily. descried.

The high lands on both sides the Minho are cool and healthy, and the soil in general very fertile, and chiefly cultivated with sugar canes. But the almost level tract of land, which continues from the sea to the mountains of Clarendon, upwards of sixteen miles in length, and fourteen in breadth, is chiefly laid down in pasture: it is famous for mutton and poultry, with which the inhabitants carry on a large trade to the markets of the great towns. This parish also produces plentiful annual crops of Guinea corn, and likewise pulse of various kinds, for the subsistence of the negroes. The early English settlers in this place, made immense fortunes by the cultivation and sale of indigo: such was the opulence of the planters, that at one time more gentlemen's carriages were kept in this district, than in all the other parts of the island, except Spanish Town. But more modern proprietors have converted their lands into pasture, and attended chiefly to the raising of cotton and cattle; so that the indigo works continued to be neglected, till at length the cultivation was totally abandoned: upon the whole, the parish is said to be on the decline.

St. Mary is situated contiguous to St. George, Surry, on the east; on the west to St. Anne; on the south to St. Thomas in the Vale; and is bounded on the north by an arm of the sea that separates Cuba from Jamaica. It is watered by twenty-four rivers, the principal of which are the Sambre, the Nuevo, Bagnal's Waters, and Port Maria: it likewise has a number of springs and rivulets. The land is diversified by mountains, hills, dales, and vallies; and in general the soil is fertile.

The chief ports are, Anotto Bay, Port Maria, Auracabessa, Saltgut, and Rio Nuevo, all of them affording good anchorage. But there is no security for ships from the hurricanes, the ports being all exposed to the north. Two of these harbours are distinguished in the history of this island for remarkable events:

Port Maria, for the asylum afforded Columbus from a storm in which his vessel sprung a leak, and was near foundering; and Rio Nuevo, for the decisive victory obtained by General D'Oyley over the Spaniards, which gave the possession of the whole island to our troops. The weather of this parish is rainy during the greatest part of the year, and so cold that most of the houses have chimnies, independently of the kitchens- --2

circumstance which is rarely to be found in any other houses on the island. Frequent insurrections of the negro slaves in this parish, have occasioned the building of no less than four barracks, at which small corps of regular troops are stationed. Each barrack will hold sixty men; and Fort Haldane, at the entrance of the harbour of Port Maria, is always kept in a state of defence, to guard against an attack from a foreign enemy.

There are three hamlets in this parish, at Rio Nuevo, Port Maria, and Saltgut, having from eight to twelve houses in each, inhabited mostly by store-keepers, wharfingers, and shopkeepers. The mulattoes and freed negroes have a separate town, called Scots-hall and Negro Town. The chief productions of Vere, are sugar, rum, a small quantity of indigo, coffee, tobacco, and corn. The great plenty of water and provisions occasions an abundant breed of hogs; but neither poultry nor sheep thrive well, owing to the unsuitableness of the grass, and the too great moisture of the atmosphere. But still the land is capable of considerable improvement; and it is probable that in time, though it was the last settled of any district of the island, it will become populous and permanently prosperous.

St. Anne's parish joins St. Mary on the east quarter; St. James, Cornwall, on the west; Clarendon and St. Thomas, to the south; and is bounded on the north by the sea. Twelve rivers supply it with plenty of water, and greatly contribute to its fertility. The Rio Bueno, St. Anne's great river, the Roaring, and the White rivers, are the principal. The harbours are, St. Anne's Bay, Dry Harbour, Rio Bueno, Ocho Rios, and Runaway Bay. The bay of St. Anne is defended by a reef of rocks, stretching almost across its entrance, and leaving only a small channel for ships to go in and come out. The bason, by means of this barrier, and of two points of land projecting from the shore in the form of the points of a crescent, is so effectually sheltered, that the vessels which are stationed in it are at all times riding at anchor in smooth water. Another advantage is the great depth of the harbour, which will admit the largest West Indiamen to load here with sugars, laying their broadsides close to the wharf. It is defended by a strong battery; and a company of regular infantry is stationed at the neighbouring barracks.

The town of St. Anne contains between forty and fifty houses, separated from each other, and extending along the beach. On the western side of the bay stands the parish church, a very handsome edifice: and upon an eminence, a most delightful spot, in the centre of the present town, stood the Old Spanish Town of Sevilla Nueva, or New Seville. The remains of this famous city, whose magnificent public buildings were erected

under the guidance of Peter Martir, or Martyr, abbot of the cathedral, are still visible, in the ruins of a castle and a cathedral, and other fragments that have been dug up at different times. These had been carefully preserved when Sir Hans Sloane visited the town of St. Anne's, in the year 1688, who gives a minute detail of those antiquities in his history of Jamaica.*

The inhabitants of St. Anne carried on some traffic for mules and other cattle with the Spaniards of the island of Cuba, who

* I observed (says Sir Hans Sloane) the ruins of the town called Sevilla, among which was a church, built by Peter Martyr of Angleria, of a sort of freestone, to be had near this city, and bricks. A pavement was found two miles from the church. The city was so large, it had a fortified castle, the walls of pebble and brick; it was and is a good port. There was formerly here one great sugar work, at a pretty distance, the mill whereof went by water, which was brought some miles thither. The axletree of this is to be seen entire at this day. The town is now Captain Hemmings' plantation. The church was not finished; it was twenty paces broad, and thirty paces long. There were two rows of pillars within: over the place where the altar was to be, were some carvings, under the ends of the arches. It was built of a sort of stone, between freestone and marble, taken out of a quarry about a mile up in the hills: the houses and foundations stand for several miles along, and the ground towards the country is rising. Captain Hemmings told me he sometimes found pavements under his canes three feet covered with earth, and several times wells, and sometimes burial-stones finely cut.

"There are the beginnings of a great house, called a Monastery, but I suppose the house was designed for the governor. There were two coats of arms lay by, not set up, a Dualone, and that of a Count, I suppose, belonging to Columbus, his family, the proprietors of the island. There had been raised a town, part brick and part hewn stone, as also several battlements on it, and other lower buildings not finished. At the church lie several arched stones to complete it, which had never been put up, but lay among the canes. The rows of pillars within were for the most part plain. In the time of the Spaniards, it was thought the Europeans had been cut off by the Indians, and so the church left unfinished.

"When the English took the island, the ruins of this city were so overgrown with wood, that they were all turned black; nay, I saw a Mammee Tree, or bastard Mammee Tree, grow within the walls or tower, so high that it must have been a large gun could kill a bird on the top of it; and the most part of the timber felled off this place when it was planted, was sixty feet or more long. A great many wells are on this ground. The west gate of the church was a very fine work, and stands very entire: it was seven feet wide, and was as high before the arch began. Over the door in the middle was our Saviour's head, with a crown of thorns, between two angels; on the right side, a small round figure of some saint, with a knife stuck into his head; on the left, a Virgin Mary, or Madona, her arm tied in three places, Spanish fashion." Sir Hans Sloane's Introduction, vol. I. page 66, 67.

We may easily learn from this quotation, that the town of Sevilla, though now nothing but ruins, was once a place of considerable extent and population. And we may also infer, from the unfinished state in which the public edifices appeared when inspected by Sir Hans Sloane, that the town was deserted on some sudden emergency. Its appearance, therefore, combines with other corroborating circumstances, to assure us that the Spaniards were cut of by the Indians.

came over in the course of a single night, in small decked ves sels, and sometimes even in open boats. This intercourse, however, proved very detrimental to the settlers in this parish; for the Spaniards seduced many of the negroes by alluring promises; and likewise privately kidnapped them with impunity. Considering, therefore, that the passage is so short, and that a negro flying to Cuba becomes, on his arrival there, the property of the Spanish crown, is baptized into the Roman Catholic faith, and cannot be recovered by his heretic master, it is wonderful that the desertion was not greater. And this is still more surprising, as the court of Spain avowedly protected these refugees; and, so recently as the year 1768, refused to deliver up a number of slaves belonging to British masters, though application was made for their restitution by our ambassador at the court of Madrid.

From White River to Rio Bueno, the eastern and western boundaries of the parish, a level ground extends for the space of twenty-four miles along the coast. Its greatest breadth, to the foot of the hills, does not exceed one mile, the hills gradually ascending to high mountains. The soil of this tract of land is, for the most part, a shallow stratum of mould, upon a white hot marl, which produces, with good management, moderate crops of canes. It is therefore well covered with sugar plantations, and the hills with Pimento-trees; immense woods of this plant overspreading them to a great distance from

the coast.

Two very extraordinary natural curiosities, highly gratifying to the view of the numerous spectators who resort to them, are exhibited in this parish. The first is a surprising cascade, formed by a branch of the Rio Alto, or High River, which is supposed to re-emerge, (after a subterraneous current of several miles,) between Roaring River plantation and Menzie's Bog. The hills in this quarter are many of them composed of a stalactite matter; by whose easy solution, the waters oozing through the rocks are copiously charged with it, so that they incrustate all bodies deposited in them. The source of this river is at a very considerable elevation above the level of the sea, and at a great distance from the coast. From thence it runs between the hills successively, broad or contracted, as they on each side approach nearer, or recede further from one another. In one of the more extended spaces, it expands its water in a gentle descent among a very curious group of Anchovy Pear trees, whose spreading roots intercept the shallow stream in a multitude of different directions. The water thus retarded deposits its grosser contents, which, in the course of time, have formed various incrustations around as many cisterns, spread

4.