ar
view the mountains of Jamaica. Coming from the southeast quarter of the
island, we were passing under them where they are highest. They rose,
seemingly almost from the water's edge, to the height of seven and eight
thousand feet, their towering masses broken into gigantic wrinkles and
corrugations, whose fantastic unevenness was subdued into harmony by the
softening veil of yellowish green darkening above, which clothed them to
their tops. Between their base and the sea actually lies one of the most
richly cultivated districts of the island, the Plaintain Garden River
district. But we were too far out to distinguish much of it; and what
little we did see is in my memory absorbed in the image of the verdant
giants which rose behind.

In the forenoon our pilot came on board, a comfortable, self-possessed
black man, who toward sunset brought us off the Palisades. This is the
name of the narrow spit of land which forms the outer wall of the
magnificent harbor of Kingston. Upon it is situated the naval station of
Port Royal, the principal rendezvous of the British fleet in the West
Indies. Here is that exquisitely comfortable naval hospital, with its
long ranges of green jalousies, excluding the blazing light and
admitting the sea breeze, in which the officers and crew of our ship
Susquehanna were cared for with such generous hospitality a few years
ago, when attacked by yellow fever. The heartburnings of the present may
be somewhat lessened by reflecting on some of these mutual offices of
kindness in the past.

Around the naval station clusters a poor village of perhaps fifteen
hundred souls, the miserable remnant of the once splendid city of Port
Royal, whose sudden fate I shall relate hereafter.

We rounded the point of the Palisades--which is marked by some
unfortunate cocoanut trees, which, having vainly struggled with the sea
breeze to maintain the elegant stateliness of their race, have long
since given up the contest, and resigned themselves to being stunted and
broken into the appearance of magnified splint brooms planted upside
down--and found ourselves at last in our desired haven, Kingston harbor.
It is a broad and sheltered basin, fully entitled, I understand, to the
standard encomium of a harbor of the first rank, namely, that it will
float the united navies of the world. Due provision has been made by
three strong forts near the entrance that the navies aforesaid shall not
enter until the time of such au