One fine morning about this time, we had just anchored on our return from a cruise, when I received, as I was dressing, a letter from the secretary, desiring me instantly to wait on the Admiral, as I was promoted to the rank of commander, (how I did dance and sing, my eye!) and appointed to the Lotus—Leaf, of eighteen guns, then refitting at the dockyard, and under orders for England.

I accordingly, after calling and making my bow, proceeded to the dockyard to enter on my new command, and I was happy in being able to get Tailtackle and Reefpoint once more removed along with me.

The gunner of Lotus—Leaf having died, Timotheus got an acting warrant, which I rejoice to say was ultimately confirmed, and little Reefy, now a commander in the service, weathered it many a day with me afterwards, both as midshipman and lieutenant.

After seeing every thing in a fair train on board, I applied for a fortnight’s leave, which I got, as the trade which I was to convoy had not yet congregated, nor were they likely to do so before the expiry of this period.

Having paid my respects at the Admiral’s pen, I returned to Kingston. Most of the houses in the lower part of the town are surmounted by a small lookout, as it is called, like a little belfry, and usually furnished with one or more good telescopes, fitted with green blinds. It is the habit of the Kingstonians to resort in great numbers to those gardemange-looking boxes, whenever a strange sail appears in the offing, or any circumstance takes place at sea worth reconnoitring. It was about nine o’clock on a fine morning, and I had taken my stand in one of them, peering out towards the east, but no white speck on the verge of the horizon indicated an approaching sail, so I slewed round the glass to the westward, to have a squint at the goings on amongst the squadron, lying at anchor at Port Royal, about six miles off, then mustering no fewer than eighteen pennants, viz. one line of battle ship, one fifty, five frigates, two corvettes, one ship-sloop, four eighteen gun brigs, three schooners, and a cutter. All was quiet, not even one solitary signal making amongst them; so I again scoured the horizon towards the east, when I noticed a very dashing schooner, which had sailed that morning, as she crept along the Palisadoes. She was lying up the inner channel, taking advantage of the land-wind, in place of staggering away to the southward through the ship-channel, already within the influence of the sea breeze, but which was as yet neutralized close in shore where she was by the terral. The speed of the craft—the rapidity with which she slid along the land with the light air, riveted my attention. On enquiry, I found she was the Carthagenian schooner Josefa. At this moment the splash of oars was heard right below where we stood, and a very roguish-looking craft, also schooner-rigged, about a hundred tons burden apparently, passed rapidly beneath us, tearing up the shining surface of the sleeping harbour, with no fewer than fourteen sweeps. She was very heavily rigged, with her main mast raking over the tafferel, and full of men. I noticed she had a long gun on a pivot, and several carronades mounted. Presently there was a good deal of whispering amongst the group of half-a-dozen gentlemen who were with me in the lookout, who, from their conversation, I soon found were underwriters on the schooner outside.

“Heyday,” said one, “the Antonio is off somewhat suddenly this morning.”

“Where may that schooner, that is sweeping so handsomely down harbour, belong to?” said I to the gentleman who had spoken.

‘To Havanna,’ was the answer; “but I fear he intends to overhaul the Josefa there, and she would be a good prize to him, now since Carthagena has thrown off allegiance to Spain.”

“But he will never venture to infract the neutrality of the waters surely,” rejoined I, “within sight of the squadron too?”

The gentleman I spoke to smiled incredulously; and as I had nothing particular to do for a couple of hours, I resolved to remain and see the issue. In a few minutes, the sea-breeze came thundering down, in half a gale of wind, singing through the rigging of the ships alongside of the wharfs, and making the wooden blinds rattle again. The Antonio laid in her sweeps, spread her canvass in an instant, and was lying-to, off the fort at Port Royal, to land her pass, in little more than half-an-hour from the time she passed us, a distance of no less than seven miles, as she had to sail it. In a minute the jib sheet was again hauled over to leeward, and away she was like an arrow, crowding all sail. I had seldom seen a vessel so weatherly before. In an hour more, she was abreast of the town, and abeam of the Josefa, who, from being cooped up in the narrow inner channel, had, ever since the sea-breeze set down, been bothering with short tacks, about, and about, every minute. Presently the Antonio dashed in through a streak of blue water in the reef, so narrow, that to look at it, I did not think a boat could have passed, and got between the Josefa and Port Royal, when he took in his gaff-topsail, and hauled down his flying-jib, but made no hostile demonstration, beyond keeping dead to leeward, tack for tack with the Josefa; and once, when the latter seemed about to bear up and run past him, I noticed the foot of his foresail lift, and his sails shiver as he came to the wind, as much as to say, “Luff again, my lady, or I’ll fire at you.” It was now clear Josefa did not like her playmate, for she cracked on all the canvass she could carry; and, having tried every other manoeuvre to escape without effect, she at length, with reckless desperation, edged away a point, and flew like smoke through another gap, even smaller and shallower than the one the Antonio had entered by. We all held our breath until she got into blue water again, expecting every moment to see her stick fast, and her masts tumble over the side; but she scraped clear very cleverly, and the next moment was tearing and plunging through the tumbling waves outside of the reefs. Antonio, as I expected, followed her, but all very quietly, still keeping well to leeward, however. Thus they continued for half an hour, running to the southward and eastward, when I noticed the Havanero, who had gradually crept up under the Josefa’s lee-quarter, hoist his colours and pennant, and fire a gun at her. She immediately tacked in great confusion, and made all sail to get back through the canal into the inner channel, with the other schooner close at her heels, blazing away from his long gun as fast as he could load. A Spaniard, who was one of the principal owners of the Josefa’s cargo, happened to be standing beside me in the lookout; at every shot, he would, with a face of the most intense anxiety, while the perspiration hailed off his brow, slap his hands on his thighs, and shrink down on his hams, cowering his head at the same time, as if the shot had been aimed at him, and he was trying to shun it, apostrophizing himself, with an agitated voice, as follows:

“Valga me Dios, que demonio, que demonio! Ah, Pancho Roque, tu es ruinado, mi amigo.” Another shot. “Tu es ruinado, chicatico, tan cierto como navos no son coles.” A third flash. “Oh, rabo de lechon de San Antonio, que es eso, que es eso!”

Neck and neck, however, in came the Josefa, staggering right through the narrow channel once more, persecuted by the Antonio, with the white breakers foaming and flashing close to on each side of her, but by this time there was a third party in the game. I had noticed a lot of signals made in the flag-ship. Presently one of the sloops of war fired a gun, and before the smoke blew off, she was under weigh, with her topsails, spanker, and fore-topmast-staysail set. This was his Majesty’s sloop of war Seaflower, which had slipped from her moorings, and was now crowding all sail in chase of the arrogant Don, who had dared to fire a shot in anger in the sanctuary of British waters. All this while, the Antonio had been so intent on hooking the Carthagenian, that the sloop was nearly up to him before he hove about and gave up the chase; and now the tables were beautifully turned on him, for the Seaflower’s shot was flying over and over him in whole broadsides, and he must have been taken, when, crack, away went the sloop’s foretopgallant mast, which gave the rogue a start. In an hour he was away to windward as far as you could see, and his pursuer and the Josefa were once more at anchor in Port Royal.

That evening I returned to the dockyard, where I found every thing going on with Lotus—Leaf as I could wish. So I returned, after a three days sojourn on board, to Kingston, and next afternoon mounted my horse, or rather a horse that a friend was fool enough to lend me, at the agent’s wharf, with the thermometer at ninety-five in the shade, and cantering off, landed at my aunt Mrs Palma’s mountain residence, where the mercury stood at sixty-two at nightfall, just in time to dress for dinner. I need not say that we had a pleasant party, as Mary was there; so, having rigged very killingly as I thought, I made my appearance at dinner, a mighty man, indeed, with my two epaulets; but to my great disappointment, when I walked into the piazza, not a soul seemed to acknowledge my promotion. How blind people are! thought I. Even my cousins, little creole urchins, dressed in small transparent cambric shifts, tied into a knot over their tails, and with devil the thing else on, seemed to perceive no difference, as they pulled me about, with a volley of “Cousin Taam, what you bring we?”

At length, dinner was announced, and we adjourned from the dark balcony to the dining room. “Come, there is light enough here; my rank will be noticed now, surely—but no, so patience.” The only males of the party were the doctor of the district, two Kingston gentlemen, and Colonel B—— of the Guards; the ladies at dinner being my aunt, Mary, and her younger sister. We sat down all in high glee; I was sitting opposite my dearie. “Deuced strange—neither does she take any notice of my two epaulets;” and I glanced my eye, to be sure that they were both really there. I then, with some small misgiving, stole a look towards the Colonel—a very handsome fellow, with all the ease and polish of a soldier and a gentleman about him. “The devil, it cannot be, surely,” for the black-eyed and black-haired pale face, seemed annoyingly attentive to the militaire. At length this said officer addressed me, “Captain Cringle, do me the honour to take wine.” Mary started at the Captain.

“She gazed, she redden’d like a rose, Syne pale as ony lily.”

Aha, thought I, all right still. She trembled extremely, and her mother at length noticed it, I saw; but all this while, B—— was balancing a land-crab on his silver fork, while, with a wine-glass in his other claw, he was ogling me in some wonderment. I saw the awkwardness of the affair, and seizing a bottle of catchup for one of sercial, I filled my glass with such vehemence, that I spilt a great part of it; but even the colour and flavour did not recover me; so, with a face like a northwest moon, I swilled off the potion, and instantly fell back in my chair “Poisoned! by all that is nonsensical—poisoned catchup oh Lord!” and off I started to my bedroom, where, by dint of an ocean of hot water, I got quit of the sauce, and clinching the whole with a caulker of brandy, I returned to the dinner-table a good deal abashed, I will confess, but endeavouring most emphatically all the while to laugh it off as a good jest. But my Mary was flown; she had been ailing for some days, her mother alleged, and she required rest. Presently my aunt rose, and we were left to our bottle, and sorry am I to say it, I bumpered away, from some strong unaccountable impulse, until I got three parts drunk, to the great surprise of the rest of the party, for guzzling wine was not certainly a failing of mine, unless on the strong provocation of good fellowship.

Mary did not appear that evening, and I may as well tell the whole truth, that she was pledged to marry me whenever I got my step; and next morning all this sort of thing was duly communicated to mamma, &c. &c. &c., and I was the happiest, and so forth—all of which, as it concerns no one but myself, if you please, we shall say no more about it.

The beautiful cottage where we were sojourning was situated about three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and half way up the great prong of the Blue Mountains, known by the name of the Liguanea range, which rises behind, and overhangs the city of Kingston. The road to it, after you have ridden about five miles over the hot plain of Liguanea, brings you to Hope estate, where an anatomy of an old watchman greeted me with the negro’s constant solicitation—“Massa, me beg you for one fee-penny.” This youth was, as authentic records show, one hundred and forty years old only.—The Hope is situated in the very gorge of the pass, wherein you have to travel nine miles farther, through most magnificent scenery; at one time struggling among the hot stones of the all but dry river-course; at others, winding along the breezy cliffs, on mule-paths not twelve inches wide, with a perpendicular wall of rock rising five hundred feet above you on one side, while a dark gulf, a thousand feet deep, yawned on the other, from the bottom of which arose the hoarse murmur of the foliage-screened brook. Noble trees spread their boughs overhead, and the most beautiful shrubs and bushes grew and blossomed close at hand, and all was moist, and cool, and fresh, until you turned the bare pinnacle of some limestone-rock, naked as the summit of the Andes, where the hot sun, even through the thin attenuated air of that altitude, would suddenly blaze on you so fiercely, that your eyes were blinded and your face blistered, as if you had been suddenly transported within the influence of a sirocco. Well, now, since you know the road, let us take a walk after breakfast. It shall be a beautiful clear day—not a speck or cloud in the heavens. Mary is with me.

“Well, Tom,” says she, “you were very sentimental last evening.”

“Sentimental! I was deucedly sick, let me tell you—a wineglassful of cold catchup is rather trying even to a lover’s stomach, Mary. Murder, I never was so sick, even in my first cruise in the old Breeze! Bah! Do you know I did not think of you for an hour afterwards?—not until that bumper of brandy stayed my calamity. But come, when shall we be married, Maria? Oh! have done with your blushing and botheration tomorrow or next day? It would not be quite the thing this evening, would it?”

“Tom, you are crazy. Time enough, surely, when we all meet in England.”

“And when may that be?” said I, drawing her arm closer through mine. “No, no—tomorrow I will call on the admiral; and as you are all going to England in the fleet at any rate, I will ask his leave to give you a passage.”

All of which, as I said before, being parish news, we shall drop a veil over it—so a small touch at the scenery again.

Immediately under foot rose several lower ranges of mountains those nearest us, covered with the laurel-looking coffee-bushes, interspersed with negro villages hanging amongst the fruit-trees like clusters of birds nests on the hillside, with a bright green patch of plantain suckers here and there, and a white painted overseer’s house peeping from out the wood, and herds of cattle in the Guinea-grass pieces. Beyond these, stretched out the lovely plain of Liguanea, covered with luxuriant cane-pieces, and groups of negro houses, and Guinea-grass pastures of even a deeper green than that of the canes; and small towns of sugar-works rose every here and there, with their threads of white smoke floating up into the clear sky, while, as the plain receded, the cultivation disappeared, and it gradually became sterile, hot, and sandy, until the Long Mountain hove its back like a whale from out the sea-like level of the plain; while to the right of it appeared the city of Kingston, like a model, with its parade, or place d’armes, in the centre, from which its long lines of hot sandy streets stretched out at right angles, with the military post of Up park camp, situated about a mile and a half to the northward and eastward of the town. Through a tolerably good glass, the church spire looked like a needle, the trees about the houses like bushes, the tall cocoa-nut trees like harebells; a slow crawling black speck here and there denoted a carriage moving along, while waggons, with their teams of eighteen and twenty oxen, looked like so many centipedes. At the camp, the two regiments drawn out on parade, with two nine-pounders on each flank, and their attendant gunners, looked like a red sparkling line, with two black spots at each end, surrounded by small black dots. Presently the red line wavered, and finally broke up, as the regiments wheeled into open column, when the whole fifteen hundred men crawled past three little scarlet spots, denoting the general and his staff. When they began to manoeuvre, each company looked like a single piece in a game at chess; and as they fired by companies, the little tiny puffs of smoke floated up like wreaths of wool, suddenly surmounting and overlaying the red lines, while the light companies breaking away into skirmishers, seemed, for all the world, like two red bricks suddenly cast down, and shattered on the ground, whereby the fragments were scattered all over the green fields, and under the noble trees, the biggest of which looked like small cabbages. At length the line was again formed, and the inspection being over, it broke up once more, and the minute red fragments presently vanished altogether like a nest of ants, the guns, looking like so many barleycorns, under the long lines of barracks, that looked no bigger than houses in a child’s toy. As for the other arm, we of the navy had no reason to glorify ourselves. For, while the review proceeded on shore, a strange man-of-war hove in sight in the offing, looming like a mussel-shell, although she was a forty-four-gun frigate, and ran down before the wind, close to the Palisadoes, or natural tongue of land, which juts out like a bow from Rock Fort, to the eastward of Kingston, and hoops in the harbour, and then lengthens out, trending about five miles due west, where it widens out into a sandy flat, on which the town and forts of Port Royal are situated. She was saluting the admiral when I first saw her. A red spark and a small puff on the starboard side—a puff, but no spark, on the larboard, which was the side farthest from us, but no report from either reached our ears; and presently down came the little red flag, and up went the St George’s ensign, white, with a red cross, while the sails of the gallant craft seemed about the size of those of a little schoolboy’s plaything. After a short interval, the flag ship, a seventy four, lying at Port Royal, returned the salute. She, again, appeared somewhat loftier; she might have been an oyster-shell; while the squadron of four frigates, two sloops of war, and several brigs and schooners, looked like ants in the wake of a beetle. As for the dear little Wave, I can compare her to nothing but a musquitto, and the large 500—ton West Indiamen lying off Kingston, five miles nearer, were but as small cock-boats to the eye. In the offing the sea appeared like ice, for the waves were not seen at all, and the swell could only be marked by the difference in the reflection of the sun’s rays as it rose and fell, while a hot haze hung over the whole, making every thing indistinct, so that the water blended into sky, without the line of demarcation being visible. But even as we looked forth on this most glorious scene, a small black cloud rose to windward. At this time we were both sitting on the grass on a most beautiful bank, beneath an orange-tree—the ominous appearance increased in size—the sea breeze was suddenly stifled—the swelling sails of the frigate that had first saluted, fell, and, as she rolled, flattened in against the masts the rustling of the green leaves overhead ceased.

The cloud rolled onward from the east, and spread out, and out, as it sailed in from seaward, and on, and on, until it gradually covered the whole scene from our view, (shipping, and harbour, and town, and camp, and sugar estates,) boiling and rolling in black eddies under our feet. Anon the thunder began to grumble, and the zigzag lightning to fork out from one dark mass into another, while all, where we sat, was bright and smiling under the unclouded noon-day sun. This continued for half an hour, when at length the sombre appearance of the clouds below us brightened into a sea of white fleecy vapour like wool, which gradually broke away into detached masses, discovering another layer of still thinner vapour underneath, which again parted, disclosing through the interstices a fresh gauze-like veil of transparent mist, through which the lower ranges of hills, and the sugar estates, and the town and shipping, were once more dimly visible; but this in turn vanished, and the clouds, attracted by the hills, floated away, and hung around them in festoons, and gradually rose and rose until presently we were enveloped in mist, and Mary spoke. “Tom, there will be thunder here what shall we do?”

“Poo, never mind. Mary, you have a conductor on the house.”

“True,” said she; “but the servants, when the post that supported it was blown down t’other day, very judiciously unlinked the rods, and now, since I remember me, they are, to use your phrase, ‘stowed away’ below the house;” and so they were, sure enough. However, we had no more thunder, and soon the only indications of the spent storm were the red discoloured appearance of the margin of the harbour, from the rush of muddy water off the land, and the chocolate colour of the previously snow-white sandy roads, that now twisted through the plain like black snakes, and a fleecy dolphin-shaped cloud here and there stretching out, and floating horizontally in the blue sky, as if it had been hooked to the precipitous mountain tops above us. Next day it was agreed that we should all return to Kingston, and the day after that, we proceeded to Mr Bangs’s Pen, on the Spanish Town road, as a sort of halfway house, or stepping stone to his beautiful residence in St Thomas in the Vale, where we were all invited to spend a fortnight. Our friend himself was on the other side of the island, but he was to join us in the valley, and we found our comforts carefully attended to; and as the day after we had set up our tent at the Pen was to be one of rest to my aunt, I took the opportunity of paying my respects to the admiral, who was then careening at his mountain retreat in the vicinity with his family. Accordingly, I took horse, and rode along the margin of the great lagoon, on the Spanish Town road, through tremendous defiles; and after being driven into a watchman’s hut by the rain, I reached the house, and was most graciously received by Sir Samuel Semaphore and his lady, and their lovely daughters. Oh, the most splendid women that ever were built! The youngest is now, I believe, the prime ornament of the Scottish Peerage; and I never can forget the pleasure I so frequently experienced in those days in the society of this delightful family. The same evening I returned to the Pen. On my way I fell in with three officers in white jackets, and broad-brimmed straw hats, wading up to the waist amongst the reeds of the lagoon, with guns held high above their heads. They were shooting ducks, it seemed; and their negro servants were heard ploutering and shouting amidst the thickets of the crackling reeds, while their dogs were swimming all about them.

“Hillo!” shouted the nearest—“Cringle, my lad—whither bound? how is Sir Samuel and Lady Semaphore, eh? Capital sport, ten brace of teal there”—and the spokesman threw two beautiful birds ashore to me. This wise man of the bulrushes was no less a personage than Sir Jeremy Mayo, the commander of the forces, one of the bravest fellows in the army, and respected and beloved by all who ever knew him, but a regular dare devil of an Irishman, who, not satisfied with his chance of yellow fever on shore, had thus chosen to hunt for it with his staff, in the Caymanas Lagoon.

Next morning, we set out in earnest on our travels for St Thomas in the Vale, in two of our friend Bang’s gigs, and my aunt’s ketureen, laden with her black maiden and a lot of bandboxes, while two mounted servants brought up the rear, and my old friend Jupiter, who had descended, not from the clouds, but from the excellent Mr Fyall, who was by this time gathered to his fathers, to Massa Aaron, rode a musket shot ahead of the convoy to clear away, or give notice of any impediments, of wagons or carts, or droves of cattle, that might be meeting us.

After driving five miles or so, we reached the seat of government, Spanish Town. Here we stopped at the Speaker’s house—by the way, one of the handsomest and most agreeable men I ever saw—intending to proceed in the afternoon to our destination. But the rain in the forenoon fell so heavily, that we had to delay our journey until next morning; and that afternoon I spent in attending the debates in the House of Assembly, where every thing was conducted with much greater decorum than I ever saw maintained in the House of Commons, and no great daring in the assertion either. The Hall itself, fitted with polished mahogany benches, was handsome and well aired, and between it and the grand court, as it is called, occupying the other end of the building, which was then sitting, there is a large cool saloon, generally in term time well filled with wigless lawyers and their clients. The House of Assembly (this saloon and the court-house forming one side of the square) is situated over against the Government House; while another side is occupied by a very handsome temple, covering in a statue erected to Lord Rodney, the saviour of the Island, as he is always called, from having crushed the fleet of Count de Grasse.

At length, at grey-dawn the next day, as the report of the morning gun came booming along the level plain from Port Royal, we weighed and finally started on our cruise. As we drove up towards St Thomas in the Vale, from Spanish Town, along the hot sandy road, the plain gradually roughened into small rocky eminences, covered with patches of bushes here and there, with luxuriant Guinea-grass growing in the clefts; the road then sank between abrupt little hills the Guinea corn fields began to disappear, the grass became greener, the trees rose higher, the air felt fresher and cooler, and proceeding still farther, the hills on either side swelled into mountains, and became rocky and precipitous, and drew together, as it were, until they appeared to impend over us. We had now arrived at the gorge of the pass, leading into the valley, through which flowed a most beautiful limpid clear blue stream, along the margin of which the road wound, while the tree-clothed precipices rose five hundred feet perpendicularly on each brink. Presently we crossed a wooden bridge, supported by a stone pier in the centre, when Jupiter pricked a-head to give notice of the approach of waggons, that our cavalcade might haul up, out of danger, into some nook in the rock, to allow the lumbersome teams to pass.

“What is that?”—I was driving my dearie in the leading gig—“is that a pistol shot?” It was the crack of the long whip carried by the negro waggoner, reverberated from hill to hill, and from cliff to cliff; and presently the father of gods came thundering down the steep acclivity we were ascending.

“Massa, draw up into dat corner; draw up.”

I did as I was desired, and presently the shrill whistle of the negro waggoners, and the increasing sharpness of the reports of their loud whips, the handles of which were as long as fishing-rods, and their wild exclamations to their cattle, to whom they addressed themselves by name, as if they had been reasonable creatures, gave notice of the near approach of a train of no fewer than seven waggons, each with three drivers, eighteen oxen, three hogsheads of sugar, and two puncheons of rum.

Come, thought I—if the negroes are overworked, it is more than the bullocks are, at all events. They passed us with abundance of yelling and cracking, and as soon as the coast was clear, we again pursued our way up the ravine, than which nothing could be more beautiful or magnificent. On our right hand now rose, almost perpendicularly, the everlasting rocks, to a height of a thousand feet, covered with the richest foliage that imagination can picture, while here and there a sharp steeple-like pinnacle of grey-stone, overgrown with lichens, shot up, and out from the face of them, into the blue sky, mixing with the tall forest trees that overhung the road, festooned with ivy and withes of different kinds, like the rigging of a ship, round which the tendrils of many a beautiful wild-flower crept twining up, while all was fresh with the sparkling dew that showered down on us, with every breath of wind, like rain. On our left foamed the roaring river, and on the other brink the opposite bank rose equally precipitously, clothed also with superb trees, that spread their blending boughs over the chasm, until they wove themselves together with those that grew on the side we were on, qualifying the noonday fierceness of a Jamaica sun into a green cool twilight, while the long misty reaches of the blue river, with white foaming rapids here and there, and the cattle wading in them, lengthened out beneath in the distance. Oh! the very look of it refreshed one unspeakably.

Presently a group of half-a-dozen country Buccras-overseers, or coffee-planters, most likely, or possibly larger fish than either—hove in sight, all in their blue-white jean trowsers, and long Hessian boots pulled up over them, and new blue square-cut, bright-buttoned coatees, and thread-bare silk broad-brimmed hats. They dashed past us on goodish nags, followed at a distance of three hundred yards by a covey of negro-servants, mounted on mules, in white Osnaburg trowsers, with a shirt or frock over them, no stockings, each with one spur, and the stirrup-iron held firmly between the great and second toes, while a snow-white sheep’s fleece covered their massas portmanteaus, strapped on to the mail pillion behind. We drove on for about seven miles, after entering the pass, the whole scenery of which was by far the finest thing I had ever seen, the precipices on each side becoming more and more rugged and abrupt as we advanced, until all at once we emerged from the chasm on the parish of St Thomas in the Vale, which opened on us like a magical illusion, in all its green luxuriance and freshness. But by this time we were deucedly tired, and Massa Aaron’s mansion, situated on its little airy hill above a sea of canes, which rose and fell before the passing breeze like the waves of the ocean, was the most consolatory object in the view; and thither we drove is fast as our wearied horses could carry us, and found every thing most carefully prepared for our reception. Having dressed, we had a glorious dinner, lots of good wine; and, the happiest of the happy, I tumbled into bed, dreaming of leading a division of line-of-battle ships into action, and of Mary, and of our eldest son being my first lieutenant.

“Massa”—quoth Jupiter—“you take cup of coffee, dis marning, massa?”

“Thank you—certainly.”

It was by this time grey dawn. My window had been left open the evening before, when it was hot and sultry enough, but it was now cold and damp, and a wetting mist boiled in through the open sash, like rolling wreaths of white smoke.

“What is that—where are we in the North Sea, or on the top of Mont Blanc? Why, clouds may be all in your way, Massa Jupiter, but....”

“Cloud!” rejoined the Deity—“him no more den marning fag, massa; always hab him over de Vale in de morning, until de sun melt him. And where is you?—why, you is in Massa Aaron house, here in St Thomas in de Vale—and Miss.”

“Miss”—said I—“what Miss?”

“Oh, for you Miss,” rejoined Jupiter with a grin, “Miss Mary up and dress already, and de horses are at de door; him wait for you to ride wid him before breakfast, massa, and to see de clearing of de fag.”

“Ride before breakfast!—see the clearing of the fog!” grumbled I. “Romantic it may be, but consumedly inconvenient.” However, my knighthood was at stake; so up I got, drank my coffee, dressed, and adjourned to the piazza, where my adorable was all ready rigged with riding-habit and whip; straightway we mounted, she into her side saddle with her riding-habit, and who knows how many petticoats beneath her, while I, Pilgarlic, embarked in thin jean trowsers upon a cold, damp, indeed wet, saddle, that made me shiver again. But I was understood to be in love; ergo, I was expected to be agreeable. However, a damp saddle and a thin pair of trowsers allays one’s ardour a good deal too. But if any one had seen the impervious fog in which we sat—why, you could not see a tree three yards from you—a cabbage looked like a laurel bush, and Sneezer became a dromedary, and the negroes passing the little gate to their work were absolute Titans. Boom, a long reverberating noise thundered in the distance, and amongst the hills, gradually dying away in a hollow rumble. “The admiral tumbling down the hatchway, Tom—the morning gun fired at Port Royal,” said Mary; and so it was.

The fire-flies were still glancing amongst the leaves of the beautiful orange-trees in front of the house; but we could see no farther, the whole view being shrouded under the thick watery veil which rolled and boiled about us, sometimes thick, and sometimes thinner; hovering between a mist and small rain, and wetting ones hair, and face, and clothes, most completely. We descended from the eminence on which the house stood, rode along the level at the foot of it, and, after a canter of a couple of miles, we began to ascend a bridle-path, through the Guinea-grass pastures, which rose rank and soaking wet, as high as one’s saddlebow, drenching me to the skin, in the few patches where I was not wet before. All this while the fog continued as thick as ever; at length we suddenly rose above it—rode out of it, as it were.

St Thomas in the Vale is, as the name denotes, a deep valley, about ten miles long by six broad, into which there is but one inlet comfortably passable for carriages—the road along which we had come. The hills, by which it is surrounded on all sides, are, for the most part, covered with Guinea—grass pastures on the lower ranges, and with coffee plantations and provision grounds higher up. When we had ridden clear of the mist, the sun was shining brightly overhead, and every thing was fresh and sparkling with dewdrops near us; but the vale was still concealed under the wool-like sea of white mist, only pierced here and there by a tall cocoa—nut tree rising above it, like the mast of a foundered vessel. But anon the higher ridges of the grass pieces appeared, as the fog undulated in fleecy waves in the passing breeze, which, as it rose and sank like the swell of the ocean, disclosed every now and then the works on some high-lying sugar estate, and again rolled over them like the tide covering the shallows of the sea, while shouts of laughter, and the whooping of the negroes in the fields, rose from out the obscurity, blended with the signal cries of the sugar boilers to the stockholemen of “Fire, fire grand copper, grand copper,” and the ca cawing, like so many rooks, of the children driving the mules and oxen in the mills, and the everlasting splashing and panting of the water-wheel of the estate immediately below us, and the crashing and smashing of the canes, as they were crushed between the mill rollers; and the cracking of the wain and waggonmen’s long whips, and the rumbling, and creaking, and squealing of the machinery of the mills, and of the carriage-wheels; while the smoke from the unseen chimney stalks of the sugar-works rose whirling darkly up through the watery veil, like spinning waterspouts, from out the bosom of the great deep. Anon the veil rose, and we were once more gradually enveloped in clouds. Presently the thickest of the mist floated up, and rose above us like a gauze-like canopy of fleecy clouds overhanging the whole level plain, through which the red quenched sun, which a moment before was flaming with intolerable brightness overhead, suddenly assumed the appearance of a round red globe in an apothecary’s window, surrounded by a broad yellow sickly halo, which dimly lit up, as if the sun had been in eclipse, the cane-fields, then in arrow, as it is called, (a lavender coloured flower, about three feet long, that shoots out from the top of the cane, denoting that it is mature, and fit to be ground,) and the Guinea-grass plats, and the nice-looking houses of the bushas, and the busy mill-yards, and the noisy gangs of negroes in the field, which were all disclosed, as if by the change of a scene.

At length, in love as we were, we remembered our breakfast; and beginning to descend, we encountered in the path a gang of about three dozen little glossy black piccaninies going to their work, the oldest not above twelve years of age, under the care of an old negress. They had all their little packies, or calabashes, on their heads, full of provisions; while an old cook, with a bundle of fagots on her head, and a fire stick in her hand, brought up the rear, her province being to cook the food which the tiny little work-people carried. Presently one or two book-keepers, or deputy white superintendents on the plantation, also passed,—strong healthy looking young fellows, in stuff jackets and white trowsers, and all with good cudgels in their hands. The mist, which had continued to rise up and up, growing thinner and thinner as it ascended, now rent overhead about the middle of the vale, and the masses, like scattered clouds, drew towards the ledge of the hills that surrounded it, like floating chips of wood in a tub of water, sailing in long shreds towards @he most precipitous peaks, to which as they ascended they attached themselves, and remained at rest. And now the fierce sun, reasserting his supremacy, shone once more in all his tropical fierceness right down on the steamy earth, and all was glare, and heat, and bustle.

Next morning, I rode out at daylight along with Mr Bang, who had arrived on the previous evening. We stopped to breakfast at a property of his about four miles distant, and certainly we had no reason to complain of our fare-fresh fish from the gully, nicely roasted yams, a capital junk of salt beef, a dish I always glory in on shore, although a hint of it at sea makes me quake; and, after our repast, I once more took the road to see the estate, in company of my learned friend. There was a long narrow saddle, or ridge of limestone, about five hundred feet high, that separated the southern quarter of the parish from the northern. The cane-pieces, and cultivated part of the estate, lay in a dead level of deep black mould, to the southward of this ridge, from out which the latter rose abruptly. The lower part of the ridge was clothed with the most luxuriant orange, shaddock, lime, star-apple, breadfruit, and custard apple-trees, besides numberless others that I cannot particularize, while the summit was shaded by tall forest timber. Proceeding along a rough bridle path for the space of two miles, we attained the highest part of the saddle, and turned sharp off to the right, to follow a small footpath that had been billed in the bush, being the lines recently run by the land-surveyor between Mr Bang’s property and the neighbouring estate, the course of which mine host was desirous of personally inspecting. We therefore left our horses in charge of the servants, who had followed us running behind, holding on by the tails of our horses, and began to brush through the narrow path cut in the hot underwood. After walking a hundred yards or so, we arrived at the point where the path ended abruptly, abutting against a large tree that had been felled, the stump of which remained, being about three feet high, and at least five in diameter. Mr Bang immediately perched himself on it to look about him, to see the lay of the land over the sea of brushwood. I remained below, complaining loudly of the heat and confined air of my situation, and swabbing all the while most energetically, when I saw my friend start.

“Zounds, Tom, look behind you!” We had nothing but our riding switches in our hands. A large snake, about ten feet long, had closed up the path in our rear, sliding slowly from one branch to another, and hissing and striking out its forked tongue, as it twisted itself, at the height of my head from the ground, amongst the trees and bushes, round and round about, occasionally twining its neck round a tree as thick as my body, on one side of the path, and its tail round another, larger in girth than my leg, on the other; when it would, with prodigious strength, but the greatest ease, and the most oily smoothness, bend the smaller tree like a hoop, until the trunks nearly touched, although growing full six feet asunder; as if a tackle fall, or other strong purchase, had been applied; but continuing all the while it was putting forth its power, to glide soapily along, quite unconcernedly, and to all appearance as pliant as a leather thong,—shooting out its glancing neck, and glowering about with its little blasting fiery eyes,—and sliding the forepart of the body onwards without pausing, as if there had been no strain on the tail whatsoever, until the stems of the two trees were at length brought together, when it let the smaller go with a loud spank, that shook the dew off the neighbouring branches, and the perspiration from Tom Cringle’s forehead-whose nerves were not more steady than the tree-like rain, and frightened all the birds in the neighbourhood; while it, the only unstartled thing, continued steadily and silently on its course,—turning and looking at us, and poking its head within arm’s length, and raising it with a loud hiss, and a threatening attitude, on our smallest motion.

“A modern group of the Laocoon—lord, what a neckcloth we shall both have presently!” thought I.

Meanwhile, the serpent seemed to be emboldened from our quietude, and came so near, that I thought I perceived the hot glow of its breath, with its scales glancing like gold and silver, and its diamond-like eyes sparkling; but all so still and smooth, that unless it were an occasional hiss, its motions were noiseless as those of an apparition.

At length the devil came fairly between us, and I could stand it no longer. We had both up to this period been really and truly fascinated; but the very instant that the coast was clear in my wake, by the snake heading me, and gliding between me and Mr Bang, my manhood forsook me all of a heap, and, turning tail, I gave a loud shout, and started off down the path at speed, never once looking behind, and leaving Bang to his fate, perched on his pedestal, like the laughing satyr; however, the next moment I heard him thundering in my rear. My panic had been contagious, for the instant my sudden motion had frightened the snake out of his way, he started forth after me at speed, and away we both raced, until a stump caught my foot, and both of us, after flying through the air a couple of fathoms or so, trundled head over heels, over and over, shouting and laughing. Pegtop now came up to us in no small surprise, but the adventure was at an end, and we returned to Mr Bangs to dinner.

Here we had an agreeable addition to our party in Sir Jeremy Mayo, and the family of the Admiral, Sir Samuel Semaphore, his lady, his two most amiable daughters, and the husband of the eldest.

Next morning we rode out to breakfast with a very worthy man, Mr Stornaway, the overseer of Mount Olive estate, in the neighbourhood of which there were several natural curiosities to be seen. Although the extent of our party startled him a good deal, he received us most hospitably. He ushered us into the piazza, where breakfast was laid, when uprose ten thousand flies from the breakfast table, that was covered with marmalade, and guava jelly, and nicely roasted yams, and fair white bread; and the fragrant bread-fruit roasted in the ashes, and wrapped in plantain leaves; while the chocolate and coffee pots—the latter equal in cubic content to one of the Wave’s water-butts emulated each other in the fragrance of the odours which they sent forth; and avocado pears, and potted calipiver, and cold pork hams, and really, I cannot repeat the numberless luxuries that flanked the main body of the entertainment on a side table, all strong provocative to fall to.

“You, Quacco—Peter—Monkey”—shouted Stornaway—“where are you, with your brushes; don’t you see the flies covering the table?” The three sable pages forthwith appeared, each with a large green branch in his hand, which they waved over the viands, and we sat down and had a most splendid breakfast. Lady Semaphore and I—for I have always had a touch of the old woman in me—were exceedingly tickled with the way in which the piccaniny mummas, that is, the mothers of the negro children, received our friend Bang. After breakfast, a regular muster took place under the piazza of all the children on the property, under eight years of age, accompanied by their mothers.

“Ah, Massa Bang,” shouted one, “why you no come see we oftener? you forget your poor piccaniny hereabout.”

“You grow foolish old man now,” quoth another.

“You no wort—you go live in town, an no care about we who make Massa money here; you no see we all tarving here;” and the nice cleanly looking fat matron, who made the remark, laughed loudly.

He entered into the spirit of the affair with great kindliness, and verily, before he got clear, his pockets were as empty as a half-pay lieutenant’s. His fee pennies were flying about in all directions.

After breakfast we went to view the natural bridge, a band of rock that connects two hills together, and beneath which a roaring stream rushes, hid entirely by the bushes and trees that grow on each side of the ravine. We descended by a circuitous footpath into the river course, and walked under the natural arch, and certainly never was any thing finer; a regular Der Freyschutz dell. The arch overhead was nearly fifty feet high, and the echo was superb, as we found, when the sweet voices of the ladies, blending in softest harmony—(lord, how fine you become, Tom!)—in one of Moore’s melodies, were reflected back on us at the close with the most thrilling distinctness; while a stone, pitched against any of the ivy-like creepers, with which the face of the rock was covered, was sure to dislodge a whole cloud of birds, and not infrequently a slow-sailing white-winged owl. Shortly after the Riomagno Gully, as it is called, passes this most interesting spot, it sinks, and runs for three miles under ground, and again reappears on the surface, and gurgles over the stones, as if nothing had happened. By the by, this is a common vagary of nature in Jamaica. For instance, the Rio Cobre, I think it is, which, after a subterranean course of three miles, suddenly gushes out of the solid rock at Bybrook estate, in a solid cube of clear cold water, three feet in diameter; and I remember, in a cruise that I had at another period of my life, in the leeward part of the Island, we came to an estate, where the supply of water for the machinery rose up within the bounds of the mill-dam itself, into which there was no flow, with such force, that above the spring, if I might so call it, the bubbling water was projected into a blunt cone, like the bottom of a cauldron, the apex of which was a foot higher than the level of the pond, although the latter was eighteen feet deep.

After an exceedingly pleasant day we returned home, and next morning, when I got out of bed, I complained of a violent itching and pain, a sort of nondescript sensation, a mixture of pain and pleasure in my starboard great toe, and on reconnoitring, I discovered it to be a good deal inflamed on the ball, round a blue spot about the size of a pinhead. Pegtop had come into the room, and while he was placing my clothes in order, I asked him “What this could be—gout, think you, Massa Pegtop—gout?”

“Gote, massa—gote—no, no, him chiger, massa—chiger—little something like one flea; poke him head under de kin, dere lay egg; ah, great luxury to creole gentleman and lady, dat chiger; sweet pain, creole miss say—nice for cratch him, him say.”

“Why, it may be a creole luxury, Pegtop, but I wish you would relieve me of it.”

“Surely, massa surely, if you wish it,” said Pegtop, in some surprise at my want of taste. “Lend me your penknife den, massa;” and he gabbled away as he extracted from my flesh the chiger bag-like a blue pill in size and colour.

“Oh, massa, top till you marry creole wife,—she will tell you me say true; ah, daresay Miss Mary himself love chiger to tickle him—to be sure him love to be tickle—him love to be tickle—ay, all Creole miss love to be tickle—he, he, he!”

By agreement, Mr Bang and I met Mr Stornaway this morning, in order to visit some other estates together, and during our ride I was particularly gratified by his company. He was a man of solid and very extensive acquirements, and far above what his situation in life at that time led one to expect. When I revisited the island some years afterwards, I was rejoiced to find that his intrinsic worth and ability had floated him up into a very extensive business, and I believe he is now a man of property. I rather think he is engaged in some statistical work connected with Jamaica, which, I am certain, will do him credit whenever it appears. Odd enough, the very first time I saw him, I said I was sure he would succeed in the world; and I am glad to find I was a true prophet. To return: Our chief object at present was to visit a neighbouring estate, the overseer of which was, we were led to believe from a message sent to Mr Bang, very ill with fever. He was a most respectable young man, Mr Stomaway told me, a Swede by birth, who had came over to England with his parents at the early age of eight years, where both he and his cousin Agatha had continued, until he embarked for the West Indies. This was an orphan girl whom his father had adopted, and both of them, as he had often told Mr Stornaway, had utterly forgotten their Swedish,—in fact, they understood no language but English at the time he embarked. I have been thus particular, from a very extraordinary phenomenon that occurred immediately, preceding his dissolution, of which I was a witness.

We rode up in front of the door, close to the fixed manger, where the horses and mules belonging to the busha are usually fed, and encountered a negro servant on a mule, with an umbrella-case slung across his back, and a portmanteau behind him, covered with the usual sheep’s fleece, and holding a saddle horse.

“Where is your master?” said Mr Bang.

“De dactor is in de hose,” replied quashie. “Busha dere upon dying.”

We ascended the rocky unhewn steps, and entered the cool, dark hall, smelling strong of camphor, and slid over the polished floors towards an open door, that led into the back piazza, where we were received by the head book-keeper and carpenter. They told us that the overseer had been seized three days before with fever, and was now desperately ill; and presently the doctor came forth out of the sick-room.

“Poor Wedderfelt is fast going, sir—cold at the extremities already very bad fever—the bilious remittent of the country, of the worst type.”

All this while the servants, male and female, were whispering to each other; while a poor little black fellow sat at the door of the room, crying bitterly—this was the overseer’s servant. We entered the room. which was darkened from the jealousies being, all shut, except one of the uppermost, which happening to be broken, there was a strong pencil of light cast across the head of the bed where the sick man lay while the rest of the room was involved in gloom.

The sufferer seemed in the last stage of yellow fever; his skin was a bright yellow, his nose sharp, and his general features very much pinched. His head had been shaven, and there was a handkerchief bound round it over a plantain leaf, the mark of the blister coming low down on his forehead, where the skin was shrivelled like dry parchment apparently it had not risen. There was also a blister on his chest. He was very restless, clutching the bedclothes, and tossing his limbs about; his mouth was ulcerated, and blood oozed from the corners; his eyes were a deep yellow, with the pupil much dilated, and very, lustrous; he was breathing with a heavy moaning noise when we entered, and looked wildly round, mistaking Mr Bang and me for some other persons. Presently he began to speak very quickly, and to lift one of his hands repeatedly close to his face, as if there was something in it he wished to look at. I presently saw that it held a miniature of a fair haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian girl; but apparently he could not see it, from the increasing dimness of his eyes, which seemed to distress him greatly. After a still minute, during which no sound was heard but his own heavy breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no one in the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively—it struck me is being like—I was certain of it—it was Swedish, which in health he had entirely forgotten, but now in his dying moments vividly remembered. Alas, it was a melancholy and a moving sight, to perceive all the hitherto engrossing thoughts and incidents of his youth and manhood, all save the love of one dear object, suddenly vanish from the tablet of his memory, ground away and abrased, as it were, by his great agony—or like worthless rubbish, removed from above some beautiful ancient inscription, which for ages it had hid, disclosing in all their primeval freshness, sharp cut into his dieing heart, the long smothered, but never to be obliterated impressions of his early, childhood. I could plainly distinguish the name Agatha, whenever he peered with fast glazing eyes on the miniature. All this while a nice little brown child was lying playing with his watch and seals on the bed beside him, while a handsome coloured girl, a slight young creature, apparently its mother, sat on the other side of the dying man, supporting his head on her lap, and wetting his mouth every now and then with a cloth dipped in brandy.

As he raised the miniature to his face, she would gently endeavour to turn away his hand, that he might not look at one whom she, poor thing, no doubt considered was usurping the place in his fluttering heart, that she long fancied had been filled by herself solely; and at other times she would vainly try to coax it out of his cold hand, but the dieing grasp was now one of iron, and her attempts evidently discomposed the departing sinner; but all was done kindly and quietly, and a flood of tears would every now and then stream down her cheeks, as she failed in her endeavours, or as the murmured, gasped name, Agatha, reached her ear.

“Ah!” said she, “him heart riot wid me now—it far away in him own country, him never will make me yeerie what him say again no more.”

Oh, woman, woman! who can fathom that heart of thine! By this time the hiccup grew stronger, and all at once he sat up strong in his bed without assistance, “light as if he felt no wound;” but immediately thereafter gave a strong shudder, ejecting from his mouth a jet of dark matter like the grounds of chocolate, and fell back dead whereupon the negroes began to howl and shriek in such a horrible fashion, that we were glad to leave the scene.

Next day, when we returned to attend the poor fellow’s funeral, we found a complete bivouac of horses and black servants below the trees in front of the house, which was full of neighbouring planters and overseers, all walking about, and talking, and laughing, as if it had been a public meeting on parish business. Some of them occasionally went into the room to look at the body as it lay in the open coffin, the lid of which was at length screwed down, and the corpse carried on four negroes shoulders to its long home, followed by the brown girl and all the servants, the latter weeping and howling,—but she, poor thing, said not a word, although her heart seemed, from the convulsive heaving of her bosom, like to burst. He was buried under a neighbouring orange-tree, the service being read by the Irish carpenter of the estate, who got half a page into the marriage service by mistake before either he or any one else noticed he was wrong.

Three days after this the admiral extended my leave for a fortnight, which I spent in a tour round this most glorious island with friend Aaron, whose smiling face, like the sun, (more like the nor’west moon in a fog, by the by,) seemed to diffuse warmth, and comfort, and happiness, wherever he went, while Sir Samuel and his charming family, and the general, and my dearie, and her aunt, returned home; and after a three weeks philandering, I was married, and all that sort of thing, and a week afterwards embarked with my treasure for I had half a million of dollars on freight, as well as my own particular jewel; and don’t grin at the former, for they gave me a handsome sum, and helped to rig us when we got to Ould England, where Lotus—Leaf was paid off, and I settled for a time on shore, the happiest, &c. &c. &c., until some years afterwards, when the wee Cringles began to tumble home so deucedly fast, that I had to cut and run, and once more betake myself to the salt sea. My aunt and her family returned at the same time to England, in a merchant ship under my convoy, and became our neighbours. Bang also got married soon after to Miss Lucretia Wagtail, by whom he got the Slap estate. But old Gelid and my other allies remain, I believe, in single blessedness until this hour.

MY TALE is told—my yarn is ended,—and were I to spin it longer, I fear it would be only bending it “end for end;” yet still I linger, “like the sough of an auld sang” on the ear, loath to pronounce that stern heart crushing word, that yet “has been, and must be,” and which, during my boisterous and unsettled morning, has been, alas! a too familiar one with me. I hope I shall always bless Heaven for my fair Blinks, although, as the day has wore on, I have had my own share of lee currents, hard gales, and foul weather; and many an old and dear friend has lately swamped alongside of me, while few new ones have shoved out to replace them. But suffering, that scathes the heart, does not always make it callous; and I feel much of the woman hanging about mine still, even now, when the tide is on the turn with me, and the iron voice of the inexorable First—Lieutenant, Time, has sung out, “Strike the bell eight,”—every chime smiting on my soul as if an angel spoke, to warn me, that my stormy forenoon watch is at length over—that the sun, now passing the meridian, must soon decline towards the western horizon, and who shall assure himself of a cloudless setting.

I have, in very truth, now reached the summit of the bald spray washed promontory, and stand on the slippery ledge of the cliff, that trembles to the thundering of the surge beneath; but the plunge must be made—so at once, Farewell all hands, and God bless ye. If, while chucking the cap about at a venture—but I hope and trust there has been no such thing—it has alighted on the head of some ancient ally, and pinched in any the remotest degree, I hereby express my most sincere and heartfelt regret; and to such a one I would say, as he said, who wrote for all time,

Thus I cut my stick while the play is good, and before the public gets wearied of me; and, as for the Log, it is now launched, swim, or founder; if those things be good, it will float from its own buoyancy; if they be naught, let it sink at once and for ever—all that Tom Cringle expects at the hands of his countrymen is—A CLEAR STAGE, AND NO FAVOUR.

THE END.