mass which makes the body of the island, running in various ranges through its whole length, culminates in the eastern part of it in the Blue Mountains, whose principal summit, the Blue Mountain Peak, is 7,500 feet high.  It is said that Columbus, wishing to give Queen Isabella an impression of the appearance of these, took a sheet of tissue paper, and crumpling it up in his hand, threw it on a table, exclaiming, ’There! such is their appearance.’  The device used by the great discoverer to convey to the mind of the royal Mother of America some image of her new-found realms, forcibly recurs to the mind of the traveller as he sails along the southeastern coast, and notices the strange contortions of the mountain surfaces.  But seen from the northern shore, at a greater distance, through the purple haze which envelops them, their outlines leave a different impression.  I shall always remember their aspect of graceful sublimity, as seen from Golden Vale, in Portland, and of massive sweetness, as seen from Hermitage House, in the parish of St. George.  The gray buttresses of their farthest western peak, itself over 5,000 feet in height, rose in full view of a station where I long resided, and the region covered by their lower spurs, ranging in elevation from seven to ten and twelve hundred feet, is that which especially deserves the name of the ‘well-watered land,’ or, as it is poetically rendered, the ‘isle of springs,’ of which Jamaica, or perhaps more exactly Xaymaca, is the Indian equivalent.  There you meet in most abundance with those crystal rivulets, every few hundred yards threading the road, and going to swell the wider streams which every mile or two cross the traveller’s way, laving his horse’s sides with refreshing coolness, as they hurry on in their tortuous course from the mountain heights to the sea.  Farther west the mountains and hills assume gentler and more rounded forms, particularly in the parish of St. Anne, the Garden of Jamaica.  I regret that I know only by report the scenes of Eden-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,