"

"No, sar," he answered; "didn't kill no fatted nuffing, but I precious
near kill de podigal son."

Concerning St. Christopher, we have direct authority, from the immortal
and ubiquitous Columbus himself, that it is an island of exceptional
advantages; for, delighted with its aspect in 1493, he bestowed his own
name upon it. Indeed, the place has a beautiful and imposing appearance.
Dark green forests and emerald tracts of sugar-cane now clothe its
plains and hills; and Mount Misery, the loftiest peak, rises to a height
of over four thousand feet. Caribs were the original inhabitants and
possessors of St. Kitts, but when England and France agreed to divide
this island between them in 1627, we find the local anthropophagi left
out in the cold as usual. After bickering for about sixty years, the
French enjoyed a temporary success, and slew their British brother
colonists pretty generally. Then Fortune's wheel took a turn, and under
the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, St. Kitts became our property from strand
to mountain-top.

[Illustration: "VOLCANIC INDICATIONS."]

There is only one road in this island, I am told, but that is thirty
miles long, and extends all round the place. Volcanic indications occur
freely on Mount Misery, and, as at Nevis, so here, the entire community
may, some day, find itself very uncomfortably situated. A feature of St.
Kitts is said to be monkeys, which occur in the woods. These, however,
like the deer at Tobago, are more frequently heard of than seen. People
were rather alarmed here, during our flying visit, by a form of
influenza which settled upon the town of Basseterre; but we, who had
only lately come from England, and were familiar with the revolting
lengths to which this malady will go in cold climes, reassured them, and
laughed their puny tropical species to scorn. Finally, of St. Kitts, I
would say: From information received in the first case, and from
personal experience in the second, that there you shall find sugar
culture in most approved and advanced perfection, and purchase
walking-sticks of bewildering variety and beauty.

[Illustration: "THE DOCTOR GREW DELIGHTED."]

The ladies of our party decreed they had no wish to visit the gaol--a
decision on their part which annoyed Jefferson considerably. He
explained that the St. Kitts prison-house was, perhaps, better worth
seeing than anything on the island; he also added that a book was kept
there in which we should be invited to