Summary
Jericho, a station, in the charge of the Rev. James Hume, and about fourteen miles northward of Spanish Town, is in the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale. The first part of the road to it lies through the celebrated pass called the Bog Walk. It is a gorge in which the Rio Cobre rolls on its way to the sea from the vale beyond. At the entrance the hills are low. Gradually they increase in height, pressing closer and closer, until the river, with the road hugging first the right and then the left bank, winds along at the base of stupendous perpendicular cliffs. The mountains are massed together, and clothed to their tops with forest trees, which cling to every overhanging rock, and occupy every nook. Creepers and orchids invest their branches, and tendrils hang in graceful festoons from their lofty boughs. Flowers light up the foliage with their bright colours, and butterflies of brilliant hues sport among them. The river, in its serpent-like course, sweeps along, now in quiet flow, now tumbling noisily over rapids formed by fallen rocks. About midway it is crossed by an old Spanish bridge built of timbers, laid over from pier to pier. Two block houses, or small batteries, of Spanish erection, one on a level with the pass, the other high upon a projecting precipice, once completely forbade a passage to a hostile force; they are now overgrown with bush.
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- The West IndiesTheir Social and Religious Condition, pp. 245 - 276Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1862