of using them internally and externally, as well as the regimen to be observed while taking them, is nearly the same.

The parish, taken collectively, has increased very considerably of late years in the number of negroes on its estates, and also in the quantity of cattle; and now contains upwards of one hundred settlements; so that it has every prospect of becoming one of the most populous and opulent in the whole island.

Portland parish was formerly only a part of the parish of St. Thomas, and was not constituted by law a distinct and separate parish till the year 1723, when White River was fixed to be its south-east boundary. It comprises a large tract of very fine land; but the settlements are scattered along the sea coast. Only a small portion of the interior part is cultivated, it being mountainous, and subject to almost continual rains. It has also a prodigious extent of thick woods: but if they were cleared, a free passage would be afforded to the wind and vapours, and the rains would be decreased. The Rio Grande, or Great River, is the chief of seven or eight which water this district; but they are, in general, of very little note. The Rio Grande has its source about sixteen miles from the sea, and becomes considerable by the accession of several streams of the smaller rivers falling into it.

There are three respectable shipping-places within this district. The principal of these is Port Antonio, formerly called St. Francis, which lies on the north-east part of the coast. It has two commodious harbours, the eastern and western, divided from each other by a narrow peninsula, about three miles and a half in length, on the point of which stands Fort George. The ship channel leading into the western harbour, passes between this point and Lynch's, or Navy Island, and is about one mile over. The entrance into the eastern, lies between the south-east point of Navy Island and the main land, and is about three miles broad from shore to shore-both harbours are landlocked, and capable of receiving a very large fleet. It was once proposed by government, to erect store-houses and wharfs for naval stores, and for careening men of war, together with strong fortifications, at Port Antonio, which opens directly into the windward passages: but the design was laid aside, on finding the air of Navy Island to be unhealthy. A town was likewise intended to be built, to be called Titchfield, after a manor in Hampshire belonging to the Duke of Portland, then governor of Jamaica; but the plan proved abortive, though the situation still bears the name.

From the report of skilful surveyors, no part of the island better deserves the attention of the government than this extensive parish. Yet little more has been done for its improve

ment than the making of the new road, which passes through an almost uninhabited wild, from Bath to Port Antonio, traversing a tract of near sixty thousand acres without a single settlement upon it. The Maroons had a small town called Moor Town, and a hamlet named Manchinul, near the harbour of Manchinul; this harbour, being a convenient place for shipping the produce of the county, the vicinity is better settled than any other division of the parish. The harbour is spacious and secure, and is defended by a battery of ten guns. Between this port and Antonio, there is another shippingplace on Priestman's River. These several advantages for trade, in point of situation, clearly demonstrate the want of a good town, as the means of increasing the number of settlements in this parish, which do not amount in all to one hundred; bearing no proportion to its great extent, and to the richness of the soil, which is admirably adapted to the growth of indigo of the best quality.

The last parish that we have to notice in the county of Surry, is the parish of St. George, on the precinct of St. Mary, Middlesex, which is its western boundary. It joins Portland eastward; skirts the parish of St. Andrew and St. David, south, and has the sea for its northern boundary. Anotto Bay, which is partly in this parish and partly in St. Mary's, is the common shipping-place for both: its road is secure, except in the season when the north winds blow; to the violence of which it is greatly exposed. The inconvenience of too much rain, and the great distance from the principal market of the island, keep back the cultivation, and consequent population, of this parish: to which must be added, the want of roads through its extensive wood-lands. Till these are formed, no considerable improvements can take place. The small quantity of land hitherto settled in sugar plantations, turns to better account, with less labour, than the plantations of some other parishes, where canes have been long cultivated. The most remarkable curiosity in this parish, is a salt lake, called Alligator Pond: it is five miles long, and half a mile broad, extending from Fig-tree to Buff River Bay, and separated from the sea by a narrow slip of sandy land. It is a singular phenomenon; but no account is given by tradition, or record, in what manner it was formed. Some suppose it was thrown thither by an earthquake: others conjecture, with more reason, that it has been left on the plain by an inundation of the sea.

CHAP. X.

HISTORY OF JAMAICA.

County of Cornwall-description of Savannah la Mar, the county town of Montego, and Trelawney-parishes, extent, productions, boundaries, and rivers-general statement of population-settlements and produce of the whole island, from the last authentic documents.

THE COUNTY OF CORNWALL.

This county is divided into five parishes, which contain nine towns, and three or four villages.

THE parish of St. Elizabeth skirts the parishes of Clarendon

and Vere, in Middlesex, on the east; it joins Westmoreland westward; St. James's and Trelawney parishes in this county, on the north; and the sea is its southern boundary. The Black River, and another called the Y. S., the Hector, the Broad River, and several small ones, contribute to the fertility of this district, and to the commercial convenience of its inhabitants, The Black River, according to Long, is the noblest in the whole island its source is in the north division of the parish, at the distance of sixteen miles from the nearest part of the sea coast: it meanders about thirty-four miles before it reaches the sea, and is navigable by boats and large barges for many. miles. The Y. S, is the next considerable stream: it is so called from an ancient Gallic word formed by these two letters, and signifying crooked or winding; in one of its windings, in the bosom of a thick wood, it encounters a kind of rocky breakers, formed by a craggy mountain, from the fissures of which it descends rapidly in a beautiful cascade, deemed one of the remarkable natural curiosities of the island. The town of Lacovia is situated about seven miles inland from Pedro Bay it lies very low in a kind of bottom, and is liable to be inundated by the waters of a large morass which surrounds it. It contains, however, two tolerable taverns, or inns, for the reception of travellers; and, besides a court-house for the purpose of holding the quarterly session of the peace, and transacting the parish business, it has about fourteen houses, mostly

inhabited by Jews. Accompong and Charles Town were in habited by the Maroons before they were sent into exile. There is likewise a small hamlet belonging to this parish, called Black River Village, remarkable only for the handsome parish church which stands near it. The soil of this parish varies considerably in some parts there are rich veins of mould adapted to the cultivation of sugar cane; this land lies contiguous to the banks on the Y. S. and Black Rivers: but a prodigious tract, consisting of not less than twenty thousand acres, lies scattered in waste morass, which might be drained and made productive. The south-west part of the parish is mountainous and stony, while the vales are continued sands, particularly the plain of Luana. On the whole, it is reckoned an unhealthy district; and the troops that were stationed in barracks in swampy places near the bay, were attacked with putrid fevers and dysenteries, which proved fatal to many of them. Nearly eighty thousand acres of land in this parish remain uncultivated; the greater part of it mountainous, but capable of producing coffee and other valuable commodities.

Westmoreland parish was formerly a part of St. Elizabeth, and was made a separate district in 1703: it therefore joins it on the eastern side, and extends to a part of St. James's: the west and south divisions are bounded by the sea coast, and on the north it is united to the parish of Hanover. Its chief rivers are Bluefields in the eastern division, the Bonito and the New Savannah westward, and the Great River on the north-east side. But it is principally remarkable for its head-lands, and good harbours. Bluefield Bay is the most distinguished. It is situated to the westward, is very spacious, and has such excellent anchorage, that it is the constant rendezvous, in time of war, for our homeward-bound fleets and their convoys intend ing to steer by the Gulph of Florida.

The town of Savannah la Mar, the capital of Cornwall, is situated west of Bluefield Bay, and is sheltered on the one side by the head-land called Bluff Point, and on the other by Ca barito. The roads to this town are for the most part deep and dirty. The rains in this parish are heavier than in the others on the south side of the island, and the country is flat towards the sea; so that during the rainy seasons the roads are almost impassable.

Though the ships that are to take on board the produce of the neighbouring plantations, consisting of sugars, rum, mahogany planks, and other commodities for exportation, lie before the town, it has but an indifferent harbour, or rather road. The water is shoaly, and poorly defended from a stormy sea; nor is the town much better guarded against the attacks of an

enemy. The fort, which cost the parishioners upwards of sixteen thousand pounds, is ill contrived, and frequently undermined by the waves. Formerly eighteen or twenty guns were mounted on it, and kept in good order; but most of them in the course of time, from neglect, have been dismounted: and the salutes to men of war, and on other occasions, are obliged to be given from a battery of fourteen small pieces of ordnance placed before the court-house. This edifice was erected in 1752, for the purpose of holding courts of common-pleas, the quarter sessions of the justices of the peace, elections, and parish business; but in 1758 it was enacted by the legislature of the island, that the assize court for the county should be holden ins this town, which considerably enlarged and extended its jurisdiction. This town carries on a considerable trade, being commodiously situated for a correspondence with Truxillo, Honduras, and the Musquito shore; the passage to which is short and speedy, for the trade-wind serves both going and returning. At present, however, it is not large, for it consists of only one decent street, and about seventy scattered houses. Underneath the court-house are the barracks, capable of holding seventy men: a company of regulars constantly do garrison duty. But the situation is not healthy, on account of a tract of undrained morass land seven miles in length, which lies to the westward, and cannot well be drained, being covered with mangroves, and lying below the level of the sea. Even the ground on which the town is built is flat and low, so as to be subject to those excessive heats and putrid vapours, which, in the months of July and August, produce diseases that prove fatal to constitutions not habituated to the climate by long residence. The hamlet of Queen's Town, called also Beckford's, and the Savannah, is about two miles distant from the capital: this was intended by the late Richard Beckford, Esq. to have been a handsome town, deriving its name from the founder. That gentleman made a free grant of the land in lots of from five to twenty acres, and formed a plan of regular streets, with a large square in the center, on which the church was to be erected; but the plan not being carried into execution, a hamlet was substituted, which consists of a few wellbuilt houses; but in other respects it is not a place of any

note.

The planters who quitted Surinam in 1675, and the remnant of the Scots colony at Darien, who came to the island of Jamaica in 1699, settled in the eastern district of this parish, near Scots Cave. From the Dutch emigrants, this division obtained the name of Surinam Quarters; and the names of several of