grey mare at the bottom of the dingle, with a score of Abdallah's amen-preachers hard at work on her. We parted at Blue Mountain; Mr. Mathews and Selwyn returned to C, and I jogged on to an estate situated on the banks of Morgan's River.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

February 25-Wednesday.

I MADE a short halt of one night at Morgan's River, and returned by Port Morant to Manchioneal, where I spent another day with Miss Harriet and her father, and then proceeded towards Port Antonio, the Ultima Thule of my peregrinations, whence I mean to embark for England. I am lodged at the house of a gentleman near Priestman's River, late the occupation of a most able and amiable physician, who died of hydrophobia, or rather the fear of it, a favourite dog having bitten him at a time when he was otherwise unwell in body and mind. The dog ran away into the woods, and no doubt was mad; the poor gentleman, already ill with a fever, soon pined to death, after a residence of many years in the island, where he was universally loved and respected, though he had run through a

course of misfortunes, which had obliged him to sell all his patrimony and his negroes. No one, from all accounts, ever seems to have been more worthy of the favour of fortune, and no one ever was honoured with more of her frowns:-she is a capricious jade.

"Vitam regit fortuna non sapientia." Who can say he ever received from her a life of tranquillity and happiness?

The sea-shore here is lined with estates, the interior is all mountain and forest. I am told that there is not space to manœuvre a regiment of cavalry in the whole parish of Portland. The estates are very productive; the soil strong clay, and the whole of the coast is a mass of honeycomb rock rising perpendicularly out of the sea, which is almost unfathomable even from the shore. A few miles inland is a settlement of Maroons at Moore Town, where there is also a portion of a battalion of the 60th regiment; the remainder of the battalion resides at Titchfield barracks; and no troops in the world, I am told, are more healthy.

February 26-Thursday.

.I continued my route along the sea-coast.

this morning at day-break, and saw the sun rise out of the ocean. Near the shore there was comparatively little swell, and every bay was as still as the grave; so calm, that I could see the fish swimming many fathoms below me as I looked down from the impending rocks. There were three sharks in one of these bays, lying as if they were at anchor, motionless, with only the dorsal fin appearingabove water. They were not very overgrown monsters, although powerful enough to have amputated a leg or a head. I heard once of a negro throwing himself, or falling, overboard out of a ship, in one of the harbours here, who was torn to pieces in an instant by the sharks, and buried in their maws, nothing being left of him but a tinge of his blood in the water. In the bay where I saw the sharks, and in two others along. the coast, I could distinguish, by the curl of the water, that more than one or two subterranean rivers discharged themselves into the sea beneath the rocks; one was very considerable, and agitated the sea where it disembogued, like the rush from a mill, for a space fifty or sixty yards wide, at the least. The rocks were lined with curious grotesque-looking trees,

whose branches were uncommonly distorted and crooked, but they bore a large beautiful white flower, which is called here the seaside jasmine; it is the plumeria alba.-The lizards frisked about the roads like rabbits in a warren; they are the only game I ever 'meet with, and would furnish excellent diversion to the fair sportsman, not to the pothunter perhaps.

'After passing through some grand and most romantic woods, where the withes formed very elegant curves and lines of all denominations, I came to a rivulet, which flows into the bottom of the bay, called Turtle Crawl, though now very little frequented by turtle, at least sea turtle. There were turtles in the shape of black girls, at least a score, some washing clothes, some washing themselves, flouncing about like nereids. At my approach, those who were on shore dashed into the water as if they had been wild ducks, and dived away like so many coots. When they were, according to their own notions, far enough from our masculine gaze, they emerged one by one, popping up their black heads, and shewing their ivory mouths as they laughed and made fun of me. I asked them if they were slaves.