There is a saying in Hayti that the white man has no rights which the blacks are bound to recognise.

I walked forward after we had done talking. We had five hundred of the poor creatures on board on their way to the Darien pandemonium. The vessel was rolling with a heavy beam sea. I found the whole mass of them reduced into the condition of the pigs who used to occupy the foredeck in the Cork and Bristol packets. They were lying in a confused heap together, helpless, miserable, without consciousness apparently, save a sense in each that he was wretched. Unfortunate brothers-in-law! following the laws of political economy, and carrying their labour to the dearest market, where, before a year was out, half of them were to die. They had souls, too, some of them, and honest and kindly hearts. I observed one man who was suffering less than the rest reading aloud to a prostrate group a chapter of the New Testament; another was reading to himself a French Catholic book of devotion.

The dawn was breaking in the east when I came on deck in the morning. The Blue Mountains were hanging over us on our right hand, the peaks buried in white mist which the unrisen sun was faintly tinting with orange. We had passed Morant Bay, the scene of Gordon's rash attempt to imitate Toussaint l'Ouverture. As so often in the Antilles, a level plain stretched between the sea and the base of the hills, formed by the débris washed down by the rivers in the rainy season. Among cane fields and cocoa-nut groves we saw houses and the chimneys of the sugar factories; and, as we came nearer, we saw men and horses going to their early work. Presently Kingston itself came in sight, and Up Park Camp, and the white barracks high up on the mountain side, of which one had read and heard so much. Here was actually Tom Cringle's Kingston, and between us and the town was the long sand spit which incloses the lagoon at the head of which Kingston is built. How this natural breakwater had been deposited I could find no one to tell me. It is eight miles long, rising but a few feet above the water-line, in places not more than thirty yards acrossnowhere, except at the extremity, more than sixty or a hundred.

APPROACH TO KINGSTON

171

The thundering swell of the Caribbean Sea breaks upon it from year's end to year's end, and never washes it any thinner. Where the sand is dry, beyond the reach of the waves, it is planted thickly all along with palms, and appears from the sea a soft green line, over which appear the masts and spars of the vessels at anchor in the harbour, and the higher houses of Kingston itself. To reach the opening into the lagoon you have to run on to the end of the sandbank, where there is a peninsula on which is built the Port Royal so famous in West Indian story. Halfway down among the palms the lighthouse stands, from which a gun was fired as we passed, to give notice that the English mail was coming in. Treacherous coral reefs rise out of the deep water for several miles, some under water and visible only by the breakers over them, others forming into low wooded islands. Only local pilots can take a ship safely through these powerful natural defence works. There are but two channels through which the lagoon can be approached. The eastern passage, along which we were steaming, runs so near the shore that an enemy's ship would be destroyed by the batteries among the sandhills long before it could reach the mouth. The western passage is less intricate, but that also is commanded by powerful forts. In old times Kingston was unattackable, so strong had the position been made by nature and art combined. It could be shelled now over the spit from the open sea. It might be destroyed, but even so could not easily be taken.

I do not know that I have ever seen any scene more interesting than that which broke upon my eyes as we rounded the point, and the lagoon opened out before me. Kingston, which we had passed half an hour before, lay six miles off at the head of the bay, now inside the sand ridge, blue and hazy in the distance. At the back were the mountains. The mist had melted off, standing in shadowy grey masses with the sun rising behind them. Immediately in front were the dockyards, forts, and towers of Port Royal, with the guardship, gunboats, and tenders, with street and terrace, roof and turret and glistening vane, all clearly and sharply defined in the exquisite transparency of the

air. The associations of the place no doubt added to the impression. Before the first hut was run up in Kingston, Port Royal was the rendezvous of all English ships which, for spoil or commerce, frequented the West Indian seas. Here the buccaneers sold their plunder and squandered their gains in gambling and riot. Here in the later century of legitimate wars, whole fleets were gathered to take in stores, or refit when shattered by engagements. Here Nelson had been, and Collingwood and Jervis, and all our other naval heroes. Here prizes were brought in for adjudication, and pirates to be tried and hanged. In this spot more than in any other, beyond Great Britain herself, the energy of the Empire once was throbbing. The 'Urgent,' an old two-decker, and three gunboats were all that were now floating in the once crowded water; the 'Urgent,' no longer equipped for active service, imperfectly armed, inadequately manned, but still flaunting the broad white ensign, and as if grandly watching over the houses which lay behind her. There were batteries at the point, and batteries on the opposite shore. The morning bugle rang out clear and inspiriting from the town, and white coats and gold and silver lace glanced in and out as men and officers were passing to parade. Here, at any rate, England was still alive.

The channel at the entrance is a mile in width. The lagoon (the open part of it) may be seven or eight miles long and half as many broad. It forms the mouth of the Cobre river, one of the largest in Jamaica, on which, ten miles up, stands the original seat of government established by the Spaniards, and called after them Spanish Town. The fashion of past times, as old as the times of Thucydides, and continued on till the end of the last century, was to choose the sites for important towns in estuaries, at a distance from the sea, to be out of the reach of pirates. The Cobre, running down from Spanish Town, turns the plain through which it flows into a swamp. The swamp covers itself with mangroves, and the mangroves fringe the shore of the lagcon itself for two-thirds of its circuit. As Jamaica grew in wealth and population the trade was carried from Port Royal deeper into the bay.