Captain Mayne Reid
"The Maroon"
Volume One—Chapter One.
A Jamaica Sugar Estate.
A sugar estate, and one of the finest in the “land of springs,” is that of “Mount Welcome.”
It is situated about ten miles from Montego Bay, in a broad valley, between two rounded ridges. These ridges, after running parallel for more than a mile, and gradually increasing in elevation, at length converge with an inward sweep—at their point of convergence, rising abruptly into a stupendous hill, that fairly merits the name which it bears upon the estate—the “mountain.”
Both the ridges are wooded almost down to their bases; the woods, which consist of shining pimento trees, ending on each side in groves and island copses, pleasantly interspersed over a park-like greensward.
The “great house” or “buff” of the estate stands under the foot of the mountain, just at the point of union between the two ridges—where a natural table or platform, elevated several feet above the level of the valley, had offered a tempting site to the builder.