Summary
Many of our Christian friends assembled on the wharf to bid us adieu, when, on the afternoon of Thursday, the 3rd of November, we were somewhat hastily summoned to depart, by the arrival of the packet in the harbour. Our sojourn in Hayti had been a most pleasant one, and we left its shores with regret.
The voyage to Jamaica was short. On Saturday morning, when, a little before daylight, I went on deck, the mountains above Kingston began dimly to show their forms. Ahead of us gleamed the light which warns mariners off the low coral ridge, called the Palisades, and which, stretching for ten or eleven miles across an arm of the sea, forms the noble harbour of Kingston and a breastwork to the ocean. As the sun rose, the paddles were again put in motion, and the vessel was cautiously steered, through the narrow channel left by islets of coral, into the harbour's mouth. The darkness and mist fled away as the sun, struggling to free itself from the bank of clouds which encumbered its rising, with imperceptible steps lighted up the mountain peaks, then the prominent portions of their sides, and at last penetrated the hollows and ravines. One by one houses peeped forth from the gloom. The smoke of the early fires of Kingston then became visible over the rocky barrier which lay between us.
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- The West IndiesTheir Social and Religious Condition, pp. 179 - 207Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1862