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den-like loveliness of this delightful parish. It is principally devoted to grazing, and its pastures are maintained in a park-like perfection. Grassy eminences, crowned with woods, and covered with herds of horses and the handsome Jamaica cattle, descend, in successive undulations, to the sea. Over these, from the deck of a vessel a few miles out, may be seen falling the silver threads of many cascades. Excellent roads traverse the parish, which is inhabited by a gentry in easy circumstances, and by a contented and thriving yeomanry. St. Anne appears to be truly a Christian Arcadia. In respect of climate and vegetation, there are three Jamaicas--Jamaica of the plains, Jamaica of the uplands, and Jamaica of the high mountains. The highest summit of the mountain region, is below the line at which snow is ever formed in this latitude, and it is disputed whether an evanescent hoarfrost even is sometimes seen upon it. As high as four and five thousand feet there are residences, which, however, purchase freedom from the lowland heats at the expense of being a large part of the time enveloped in chilling fogs. Here the properly tropical productions cease to thrive, and melancholy caricatures of northern vegetables and fruits take their place. You see in the Kingston market diminutive and watery potatoes and apples, that have come down from the clouds, and on St. Catherine's Peak I once picked a few strawberries, which had about as much savor as so many chips. The noble forest trees of the lower mountains, as you go up, give way to an exuberant but spongy growth of tree-ferns and bushes. Great herds of wild swine, descended from those introduced by the Spaniards, roam these secluded thickets, and once furnished subsistence to the runaway negroes who, under the name of Maroons, for several generations annoyed and terrified the island. In these high mountains the sense of deep solitude is at once heightened and softened by the flute-like notes of the solitaire. I shall never forget the impression produced by first hearing this. It was on the top of St. Catherine's Peak, fifty-two hundred feet above the sea, in the early morning, when the mountain solitude seemed most profound, that my companion and I heard from the adjacent woods its mysterious note. It was a soft and clear tone, somewhat prolonged, and ending in a modulation which imparted to it an indescribable effect, as if of supernal melancholy. It seemed almost as if so
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