. We passed Up Park
Camp and the cantonments of the West India regiments, and then through a
'scrub' of dwarf acacia and blue flowered lignum vitae. Handsome villas
were spread along the road with lawns and gardens, and the road itself
was as excellent as those in Barbadoes. Half an hour's drive brought us
to the lodge, and through the park to the King's House itself, which
stands among groups of fine trees four hundred feet above the sea.

All the large houses in Jamaica--and this was one of the largest of
them--are like those in Barbadoes, with the type more completely
developed, generally square, built of stone, standing on blocks, hollow
underneath for circulation of air, and approached by a broad flight of
steps. On the three sides which the sun touches, deep verandahs or
balconies are thrown out on the first and second floors, closed in front
by green blinds, which can be shut either completely or partially, so
that at a distance they look like houses of cards or great green boxes,
made pretty by the trees which shelter them or the creepers which climb
over them. Behind the blinds run long airy darkened galleries, and into
these the sitting rooms open which are of course still darker with a
subdued green light, in which, till you are used to it, you can hardly
read. The floors are black, smooth, and polished, with loose mats for
carpets. The reader of 'Tom Cringle' will remember Tom's misadventure
when he blundered into a party of pretty laughing girls, slipped on one
of these floors with a retrospective misadventure, and could not rise
till his creole cousin slipped a petticoat over his head. All the
arrangements are made to shut out heat and light. The galleries have
sofas to lounge upon--everybody smokes, and smokes where he pleases; the
draught sweeping away all residuary traces. At the King's House to
increase the accommodation a large separate dining saloon has been
thrown out on the north side, to which you descend from the drawing room
by stairs, and thence along a covered passage. Among the mango trees
behind there is a separate suite of rooms for the aides de-camp, and a
superb swimming bath sixty feet long and eight feet deep. Altogether it
was a sumptuous sort of palace where a governor with 7,000_l._ a year
might spend his term of office with considerable comfort were it not
haunted by recollections of poor Eyre. He, it seems, lived in the
'King's House,' and two miles off, within sight of his windows,