me mild angel were
lingering pensively upon the mountain tops, before pursuing his downward
flight among the unhappy sons of men.

The uplands of the island, from 800 to 1,500 feet above the sea, are a
cheerful, sunny region, in which the tropical heat is tempered by
almost constant refreshing breezes, and, in the eastern part at least,
by abundant showers. Some of the western parishes not unfrequently
suffer terribly from drought. There are two or three which have not even
a spring, depending wholly upon rain water collected in tanks. These
sometimes become dry, causing unutterable distress both to man and
beast. We hear even sometimes of poor people starving during these
seasons of drought. But our more favored region in the east scarcely
knows dearth. Our mighty mountain neighbors seldom permitted us even to
fear it, and were more apt to send us a deluge than a drought.

In the uplands our winter temperature was commonly about 75 deg. in the
shade at noon, and the summer temperature about ten degrees higher. The
nights are almost always agreeably cool, and frequent showers and
breezes allay the sultriness of the days. I never saw the thermometer
above 90 deg. in the shade, and seldom below 65 deg.. It once fell to 54 deg., to
the lamentable discomfort of our feelings and fingers. Of course, where
the sun for months is nearly vertical, and twice in the summer actually
so, the heat of his direct beams is intense. But those careful
precautions of avoiding travelling in the middle of the day, on which
some lay such stress, we never concerned ourselves with in Jamaica, and
I could not discover that we were ever the worse for it. An umbrella was
enough to stand between us and mischief.

On the whole, it may safely be said that there is no climate more like
that which we imagine of Eden than that of the highland region of
Jamaica during a large part of the year. It is true that after a while
northern constitutions begin to miss the stimulus of occasional cold.
But for a few years nothing could be more delightful. The chief drawback
is that at uncertain cycles there come incessant deluges of rain for
months together, making it dreary and uncomfortable both in doors and
out. Years will sometimes pass before there is any excessive amount of
these, and then sometimes for years together they will prevail to a most
disagreeable extent. They break up the mountain roads and swell the
mountain streams to such a degree as to render