A Descriptive Accont of the Island of Jamaica (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1790. Excerpt: ... ( ) Of those that are abundant in water, I shall select, out of a number that are blessed with this advantage, the local beauties of a particular one; and I should hope that the description will not be unpleasing to those who may not have had opportunities of exploring Nature in her most splendid scenes, and in her awful and sequestered glooms. I suppose myself to be standing upon a given eminence, and casting my enraptured light upon the views around. On dne side I look down from a verdant height upon a level and a beauteous lawn in which a bubbling spring, as. clear and polished as the watery brilliant, breaks out in fretful murmurs from a gravelly hill and winds a flow irriguous channel to the neighbouring river, which surrounds this lovely plain; and with a broad, expansive sweep, incloses it in three parts round, and then flows on, triumphant in its course and &rid with a full and meandering bed of waters divides opposing hills, and visits islands, rocks, and arches, in its course. It is pleasant to hear the waters, when with impetuous rush they roar upon the stony basements, which, when the floods have subsided, appear to form a bridge, over which the patient herds and the timid flocks may safely pass in quest of a forbidden pasture; and no less entertaining to observe where the projection of land appears to have scooped out a tranquil bay, in which the current of the river is restrained, and in which are seen innumerable shoals of fishes of various species and dimensions, which dart along the stream, or hang in quiet indolence upon the transparent surface. It now forsakes the deepened holes, and softly gurgling over stones and pebbles, appears to leave a pavement underneath, over which a traveller, when the floods have Vol. II. N subsided, subsided...