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When an Englishman has nothing to do, and a certain time to wait, his one resource is to walk about. A Frenchman sits down and lights a cigar, an Italian goes to sleep, a German meditates, an American invents some new position for his limbs as far as possible asunder from that intended for them by nature, but an Englishman always takes a walk. I had nothing to do. Even under the full fury of the sun walking is better than standing still. I would take a walk.

I moved slowly round the square, and by the time that I had reached an opposite corner all my clothes were wet through. On I went, however, down one dead street and up another. I saw no one but the pigs, and almost envied them their fleshlessness. I turned another corner, and I came upon the square again. That seemed to me to be the lowest depth of all that fiery Pandemonium, and with a quickened step I passed through but a corner of it. But the sun blazed even fiercer and fiercer. Should I go back and ask for a seat, if it were but on a bench in the government scullery, among the female negroes?

Something I must do, or there would soon be an end of me. There must be some inn in the place, if I could only find it. I was not absolutely in the midst of the Great Sahara. There were houses on each side of me, though they were all closed. I looked at my watch, and found that ten minutes had passed by since I had been on my legs. I thought I had wandered for an hour.

And now I saw an old woman--the first human creature I had seen since I left the light of the Governor's face; the shade I should say, meaning to speak of it in the most complimentary terms. "Madam," said I, "is there an inn here; and if so, where may it be?" "Inn!" repeated the ancient negress, looking at me in a startled way. "Me know noting, massa;" and so she passed on. Inns in Jamaica are called lodging-houses, or else taverns; but I did not find this out till afterwards.

"Oh, de Vellington tavern," said he; and taking me to a corner three yards from where we stood, he showed me the sign-board. "And now de two quatties," he said. I knew nothing of quatties then, but I gave him the sixpence, and in a few minutes I found myself within the "Wellington."

It was a miserable hole, but it did afford me shelter. Indeed, it would not have been so miserable had I known at first, as I did some few minutes before I left, that there was a better room up stairs. But the people of the house could not suppose but what every one knew the "Wellington;" and thought, doubtless, that I preferred remaining below in the dirt.

I was over two hours in this place, and even that was not pleasant. When I went up into the fashionable room above, I found there, among others, a negro of exceeding blackness. I do not know that I ever saw skin so purely black. He was talking eagerly with his friends, and after a while I heard him say, in a voice of considerable dignity, "I shall bring forward a motion on de subject in de house to-morrow." So that I had not fallen into bad society.

But even under these circumstances two hours spent in a tavern without a book, without any necessity for eating or drinking, is not pleasant; and I trust that when I next visit Jamaica I may find the seat of government moved to Kingston. The Governor would do Kingston some good; and it is on the cards that Kingston might return the compliment.

The inns in Kingston rejoice in the grand name of halls. Not that you ask which is the best hall, or inquire at what hall your friend is staying; but such is the title given to the individual house. One is the Date-tree Hall, another Blundle's Hall, a third Barkly Hall, and so on. I took up my abode at Blundle Hall, and found that the landlady in whose custody I had placed myself was a sister of good Mrs. Seacole. "My sister wanted to go to India," said my landlady, "with the army, you know. But Queen Victoria would not let her; her life was too precious." So that Mrs. Seacole is a prophet, even in her own country.

At the inns, as at the private houses, the household servants are almost always black. The manners of these people are to a stranger very strange. They are not absolutely uncivil, except on occasions; but they have an easy, free, patronizing air. If you find fault with them, they insist on having the last word, and are generally successful. They do not appear to be greedy of money; rarely ask for it, and express but little thankfulness when they get it. At home, in England, one is apt to think that an extra shilling will go a long way with boots and chambermaid, and produce hotter water, more copious towels, and quicker attendance than is ordinary. But in the West Indies a similar result does not follow in a similar degree. And in the West Indies it is absolutely necessary that these people should be treated with dignity; and it is not always very easy to reach the proper point of dignity. They like familiarity, but are singularly averse to ridicule; and though they wish to be on good terms with you, they do not choose that these shall be reached without the proper degree of antecedent ceremony.

"Halloo, old fellow! how about that bath?" I said one morning to a lad who had been commissioned to see a bath filled for me. He was cleaning boots at the time, and went on with his employment, sedulously, as though he had not heard a word. But he was over sedulous, and I saw that he heard me.

"I say, how about that bath?" I continued. But he did not move a muscle.

"Put down those boots, sir," I said, going up to him; "and go and do as I bid you."

"Who you call fellor? You speak to a gen'lman gen'lmanly, and den he fill de bath."

"James," said I, "might I trouble you to leave those boots, and see the bath filled for me?" and I bowed to him.

"'Es, sir," he answered, returning my bow; "go at once." And so he did, perfectly satisfied. Had he imagined, however, that I was quizzing him, in all probability he would not have gone at all.

There will be those who will say that I had received a good lesson; and perhaps I had. But it would be rather cumbersome if we were forced to treat our juvenile servants at home in this manner--or even those who are not juvenile.

I must say this for the servants, that I never knew them to steal anything, or heard of their doing so from any one else. If any one deserves to be robbed, I deserve it; for I leave my keys and my money everywhere, and seldom find time to lock my portmanteau. But my carelessness was not punished in Jamaica. And this I think is the character of the people as regards absolute personal property--personal property that has been housed and garnered--that has, as it were, been made the possessor's very own. There can be no more diligent thieves than they are in appropriating to themselves the fruits of the earth while they are still on the trees. They will not understand that this is stealing. Nor can much be said for their honesty in dealing. There is a great difference between cheating and stealing in the minds of many men, whether they be black or white.

There are good shops in Kingston, and I believe that men in trade are making money there. I cannot tell on what principle prices range themselves as compared with those in England. Some things are considerably cheaper than with us, and some much, very much dearer. A pair of excellent duck trousers, if I may be excused for alluding to them, cost me eighteen shillings when made to order. Whereas, a pair of evening white gloves could not be had under four-and-sixpence. That, at least, was the price charged, though I am bound to own that the shop-boy considerately returned me sixpence, discount for ready money.

The men in the shops are generally of the coloured race, and they are also extremely free and easy in their manners. From them this is more disagreeable than from the negroes. "Four-and-sixpence for white gloves!" I said; "is not that high?" "Not at all, sir; by no means. We consider it rather cheap. But in Kingston, sir, you must not think about little economies." And he leered at me in a very nauseous manner as he tied his parcel. However, I ought to forgive him, for did he not return to me sixpence discount, unasked?

There are various places of worship in Kingston, and the negroes are fond of attending them. But they love best that class of religion which allows them to hear the most of their own voices. They are therefore fond of Baptists; and fonder of the Wesleyans than of the Church of England. Many also are Roman Catholics. Their singing-classes are constantly to be heard as one walks through the streets. No religion is worth anything to them which does not offer the allurement of some excitement.

Very little excitement is to be found in the Church-of-England Kingston parish church. The church itself, with its rickety pews, and creaking doors, and wretched seats made purposely so as to render genuflexion impossible, and the sleepy, droning, somnolent service are exactly what was so common in England twenty years since; but which are common no longer, thanks to certain much-abused clerical gentlemen. Not but that it may still be found in England if diligently sought for.

But I must not finish my notice on the town of Kingston without a word of allusion to my enemies, the musquitoes. Let no European attempt to sleep there at any time of the year without musquito-curtains. If he do, it will only be an attempt; which will probably end in madness and fever before morning.

Nor will musquito-curtains suffice unless they are brushed out with no ordinary care, and then tucked in; and unless, also, the would-be-sleeper, after having cunningly crept into his bed at the smallest available aperture, carefully pins up that aperture. Your Kingston musquito is the craftiest of insects, and the most deadly.

JAMAICA--COUNTRY.

I have spoken in disparaging terms of the chief town in Jamaica, but I can atone for this by speaking in very high terms of the country. In that island one would certainly prefer the life of the country mouse. There is scenery in Jamaica which almost equals that of Switzerland and the Tyrol; and there is also, which is more essential, a temperature among the mountains in which a European can live comfortably.

I travelled over the greater part of the island, and was very much pleased with it. The drawbacks on such a tour are the expensiveness of locomotion, the want of hotels, and the badness of the roads. As to cost, the tourist always consoles himself by reflecting that he is going to take the expensive journey once, and once only. The badness of the roads forms an additional excitement; and the want of hotels is cured, as it probably has been caused, by the hospitality of the gentry.

And they are very hospitable--and hospitable, too, under adverse circumstances. In olden times, when nobody anywhere was so rich as a Jamaica planter, it was not surprising that he should be always glad to see his own friends and his friends' friends, and their friends. Such visits dissipated the ennui of his own life, and the expense was not appreciable--or, at any rate, not undesirable. An open house was his usual rule of life. But matters are much altered with him now. If he be a planter of the olden days, he will have passed through fire and water in his endeavours to maintain his position. If, as is more frequently the case, he be a man of new date on his estate, he will probably have established himself with a small capital; and he also will have to struggle. But, nevertheless, the hospitality is maintained, perhaps not on the olden scale, yet on a scale that by no means requires to be enlarged.

"It is rather hard on us," said a young planter to me, with whom I was on terms of sufficient intimacy to discuss such matters--"We send word to the people at home that we are very poor. They won't quite believe us, so they send out somebody to see. The somebody comes, a pleasant-mannered fellow, and we kill our little fatted calf for him; probably it is only a ewe lamb. We bring out our bottle or two of the best, that has been put by for a gala day, and so we make his heart glad. He goes home, and what does he say of us? These Jamaica planters are princes--the best fellows living; I liked them amazingly. But as for their poverty, don't believe a word of it. They swim in claret, and usually bathe in champagne. Now that is hard, seeing that our common fare is salt fish and rum and water." I advised him in future to receive such inquirers with his ordinary fare only. "Yes," said he, "and then we should get it on the other cheek. We should be abused for our stinginess. No Jamaica man could stand that."

These provision-grounds are very picturesque. They are not filled, as a peasant's garden in England or in Ireland is filled, with potatoes and cabbages, or other vegetables similarly uninteresting in their growth; but contain cocoa-trees, breadfruit-trees, oranges, mangoes, limes, plantains, jack fruit, sour-sop, avocado pears, and a score of others, all of which are luxuriant trees, some of considerable size, and all of them of great beauty. The breadfruit-tree and the mango are especially lovely, and I know nothing prettier than a grove of oranges in Jamaica. In addition to this, they always have the yam, which is with the negro somewhat as the potato is with the Irishman; only that the Irishman has nothing else, whereas the negro generally has either fish or meat, and has also a score of other fruits besides the yam.

The yam, too, is picturesque in its growth. As with the potato, the root alone is eaten, but the upper part is fostered and cared for as a creeper, so that the ground may be unencumbered by its thick tendrils. Support is provided for it as for grapes or peas. Then one sees also in these provision-grounds patches of coffee and arrowroot, and occasionally also patches of sugar-cane.

A man wishing to see the main features of the whole island, and proceeding from Kingston as his head-quarters, must take two distinct tours, one to the east and the other to the west. The former may be best done on horseback, as the roads are, one may say, non-existent for a considerable portion of the way, and sometimes almost worse than non-existent in other places.

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Jamaica is the copiousness of its rivers. It is said that its original name, Xaymaca, signifies a country of streams; and it certainly is not undeserved. This copiousness, though it adds to the beauty, as no doubt it does also to its salubrity and fertility, adds something too to the difficulty of locomotion. Bridges have not been built, or, sad to say, have been allowed to go to destruction. One hears that this river or that river is "down," whereby it is signified that the waters are swollen; and some of the rivers when so down are certainly not easy of passage. Such impediments are more frequent in the east than elsewhere, and on this account travelling on horseback is the safest as well as the most expeditious means of transit. I found four horses to be necessary, one for the groom, one for my clothes, and two for myself. A lighter weight might have done with three.

An Englishman feels some bashfulness in riding up to a stranger's door with such a cort?ge, and bearing as an introduction a message from somebody else, to say that you are to be entertained. But I always found that such a message was a sufficient passport. "It is our way," one gentleman said to me, in answer to my apology. "When four or five come in for dinner after ten o'clock at night, we do think it hard, seeing that meat won't keep in this country."

Hotels, as an institution, are, on the whole, a comfortable arrangement. One prefers, perhaps, ordering one's dinner to asking for it; and many men delight in the wide capability of finding fault which an inn affords. But they are very hostile to the spirit of hospitality. The time will soon come when the backwoodsman will have his tariff for public accommodation, and an Arab will charge you a fixed price for his pipe and cup of coffee in the desert. But that era has not yet been reached in Jamaica.

Crossing the same river four-and-twenty times is tedious; especially if this is done in heavy rain, when the road is a narrow track through thickly-wooded ravines, and when an open umbrella is absolutely necessary. But so often had we to cross the Waag-water in our route from Kingston to the northern shore.

It was here that I first saw the full effect of tropical vegetation, and I shall never forget it. Perhaps the most graceful of all the woodland productions is the bamboo. It grows either in clusters, like clumps of trees in an English park, or, as is more usual when found in its indigenous state, in long rows by the riversides. The trunk of the bamboo is a huge hollow cane, bearing no leaves except at its head. One such cane alone would be uninteresting enough. But their great height, the peculiarly graceful curve of their growth, and the excessive thickness of the drooping foliage of hundreds of them clustered together produce an effect which nothing can surpass.

The cotton-tree is almost as beautiful when standing alone. The trunk of this tree grows to a magnificent height, and with magnificent proportions: it is frequently straight; and those which are most beautiful throw out no branches till they have reached a height greater than that of any ordinary tree with us. Nature, in order to sustain so large a mass, supplies it with huge spurs at the foot, which act as buttresses for its support, connecting the roots immediately with the trunk as much as twenty feet above the ground. I measured more than one, which, including the buttresses, were over thirty feet in circumference. Then from its head the branches break forth in most luxurious profusion, covering an enormous extent of ground with their shade.

But the most striking peculiarity of these trees consists in the parasite plants by which they are enveloped, and which hang from their branches down to the ground with tendrils of wonderful strength. These parasites are of various kinds, the fig being the most obdurate with its embraces. It frequently may be seen that the original tree has departed wholly from sight, and I should imagine almost wholly from existence; and then the very name is changed, and the cotton-tree is called a fig-tree. In others the process of destruction may be observed, and the interior trunk may be seen to be stayed in its growth and stunted in its measure by the creepers which surround it. This pernicious embrace the natives describe as "The Scotchman hugging the Creole." The metaphor is sufficiently satirical upon our northern friends, who are supposed not to have thriven badly in their visits to the Western islands.

But it often happens that the tree has reached its full growth before the parasites have fallen on it, and then, in place of being strangled, it is adorned. Every branch is covered with a wondrous growth--with plants of a thousand colours and a thousand sorts. Some droop with long and graceful tendrils from the boughs, and so touch the ground; while others hang in a ball of leaves and flowers, which swing for years, apparently without changing their position.

The growth of these parasite plants must be slow, though it is so very rich. A gentleman with whom I was staying, and in whose grounds I saw by far the most lovely tree of this description that met my sight, assured me that he had watched it closely for more than twenty years, and that he could trace no difference in the size or arrangement of the parasite plants by which it was surrounded.

We went across the island to a little village called Annotta Bay, traversing the Waag-water twenty-four times, as I have said; and from thence, through the parishes of Metcalf and St. George, to Port Antonio. "Fuit ilium et ingens gloria." This may certainly be said of Port Antonio and the adjacent district. It was once a military station, and the empty barracks, standing so beautifully over the sea, on an extreme point of land, are now waiting till time shall reduce them to ruin. The place is utterly desolate, though not yet broken up in its desolation, as such buildings quickly become when left wholly untenanted. A rusty cannon or two still stand at the embrasures, watching the entrance to the fort; and among the grass we found a few metal balls, the last remains of the last ordnance supplies.

But Port Antonio was once a goodly town, and the country round it, the parish of Portland, is as fertile as any in the island. But now there is hardly a sugar estate in the whole parish. It is given up to the growth of yams, cocoas, and plantains. It has become a provision-ground for negroes, and the palmy days of the town are of course gone.

Nevertheless, there was a decent little inn at Port Antonio, which will always be memorable to me on account of the love sorrows of a young maiden whom I chanced to meet there. The meeting was in this wise:--

I was sitting in the parlour of the inn, after dinner, when a young lady walked in, dressed altogether in white. And she was well dressed, and not without the ordinary decoration of crinoline and ribbons. She was of the coloured race; and her jet black, crisp, yet wavy hair was brushed back in a becoming fashion. Whence she came or who she was I did not know, and never learnt. That she was familiar in the house I presumed from her moving the books and little ornaments on the table, and arranging the cups and shells upon a shelf. "Heigh-ho!" she ejaculated, when I had watched her for about a minute.

I hardly knew how to accost her, for I object to the word Miss, as standing alone; and yet it was necessary that I should accost her. "Ah, well: heigh-ho!" she repeated. It was easy to perceive that she had a grief to tell.

"Lady," said I--I felt that the address was somewhat stilted, but in the lack of any introduction I knew not how else to begin--"Lady, I fear that you are in sorrow?"

"Sorrow enough!" said she. "I'se in de deepest sorrow. Heigh-ho me! Well, de world will end some day," and turning her face full upon me, she crossed her hands. I was seated on a sofa, and she came and sat beside me, crossing her hands upon her lap, and looking away to the opposite wall. I am not a very young man; and my friends have told me that I show strongly that steady married appearance of a paterfamilias which is so apt to lend assurance to maiden timidity.

"It will end some day for us all," I replied. "But with you, it has hardly yet had its beginning."

"'Tis a very bad world, and sooner over de better. To be treated so's enough to break any girl's heart; it is! My heart's clean broke, I know dat." And as she put both her long, thin dark hands to her side, I saw that she had not forgotten her rings.

"It is love then that ails you?"

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