A Walk in the West Indies.
The other day I took a walk among the mountains with others of our family. We started in the morning before the sun had time to gain his full heat, and walked along the bank of a river until we reached higher ground. From the top of one of the mountains we could see wide stretches of blue sea, and green sugar-cane fields, and the whole of Kingston lying in the broad valley far away and beyond us. We saw Port Royal and the old Spanish ship Urgent, lying at anchor in the harbor.
All this we looked at as we rested, and it was the best sort of resting, too. Then we turned our backs on it, and walked in the opposite direction. Higher and higher we climbed, and I found a wild rose, a white one, growing by the path, and some butterfly-weed further on—a veritable breath of America. The path is only wide enough for mules and donkeys, and people single file. We met some negro women with fruits on their heads, and the ground was covered with mangoes, green and yellow, some with large bites in them, for all the negroes eat them. Parts of the river crossed our path, sometimes with occasional little waterfalls; and we drank, partly from thirst and partly from pure pleasure in drinking water so clear and sweet and cold.
We passed a coffee-mill with big barbecues, and men spreading out the coffee on them with shovels. There seemed to be a great deal of it, but there are only a very few people here who have succeeded in making their "pile" by raising coffee. The big mill-wheel was silent; it is turned by water power, and was probably out of order. I never heard of anything Jamaican that wasn't the latter. It was deliciously cool up there, with a strong wind blowing, and occasional small patches of shade from thick-leaved mango-trees. There were plenty of banana-trees, but only a few palms. Palms grow better further down. The mountains were becoming misty already when we turned to go back. They generally do in the afternoon.
Gwendolen Hawthorne.
Jorden Town, Jamaica, B. W. I.