AL SKETCH.

Jamaica was discovered by Columbus himself, on the 3d of May, 1494,
while prosecuting his second voyage. On his fourth and last voyage he
was shipwrecked on its northern coast, and, through the cruel jealousy
of the governor of Hispaniola, was detained there nearly a year before
relief was sent. In the dearth of historical associations, I have
sometimes pleased myself with gazing at the high summit of Cape Clear
Hill, which is far and wide conspicuous along the northern shore, and
reflecting that the eye of the great discoverer may have often rested
upon it during his weary detention, endeavoring thus to raise present
insignificance somewhat by linking it with the one illustrious name in
the annals of the island.

Sevilla d'Oro, the first settlement of the Spaniards in Jamaica, was
founded in 1509, near the place of Columbus's shipwreck. It soon became
a splendid city. Traces of pavement are still discoverable two miles
distant from the church and abbey around which the town was built. In a
few years, however, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arisen. Even
the cause of its destruction is not certainly known. It is supposed,
however, to have been a sudden irruption of the Indians. These were of
the same voluptuous and gentle race which peopled the other Great
Antilles, but, like them, might have been roused to temporary madness by
the diabolical cruelties of the Spaniards. If so, their brief revenge
availed them little, for by 1558, the sixty thousand Indians, who
inhabited the island when discovered, had been extirpated, it is said,
to the very last one. Near the seashore in the east of the island are
some caves, in which mouldering bones of the unhappy aborigines are
still found, who had taken refuge here, preferring to die of famine
rather than to fall into the merciless hands of the Spaniards.

After the extirpation of the Indians, the labor of African slaves was
introduced. Some sugar was raised, but the greater part of the island
was devoted to the raising of cattle and swine. Besides the few whites
and negroes needed for this, and a small number at two or three
seaports, the population was mainly gathered in the town of St. Jago de
la Vega. This was built on the south side, a few miles from the sea,
after the destruction of Sevilla d'Oro. At the time of the English
conquest in 1655, during Cromwell's protectorate, the population
consisted of twelve hundred whites and fifteen hundred negro slaves.