spicious union. An intelligent
correspondent of the _Herald_ states his opinion that no ship and no
number of ships could force an entrance under the converging fire of the
forts, which bears upon the channel at a point where the least
divergence would land a ship upon a dangerous shoal.

Kingston is on the inside of the harbor, six miles across from Port
Royal. The city itself lies low, but as we approached it, just as the
sun had set, the mountains which rise behind it, a few miles distant, to
the height of three and five thousand feet, appeared to close around it
in a sublime amphitheatre of massive verdure. High up on the side of the
mountains we distinguished a white speck, which we were told was the
military cantonment of Newcastle, situated 4,400 feet above the sea,
chosen for the English soldiers on account of its salubrity. Formerly
the annual mortality among European soldiers in the island was 130 in
1,000, but since the Government has been careful to quarter them as much
as possible in these elevated sites, it has diminished to 34 in 1,000.

At last our vessel came to anchor at the wharf. We took a kind leave of
the pleasant-tempered captain and crew, who had been shut up with us in
the little craft during our seventeen days' tossing, and gave a farewell
of especial warmth to the fatherly mate, whose rough exterior covered
the warm heart of a seaman and the delicate feelings of a native
gentleman.

When we landed, the short tropical twilight was fast fading into night,
but light enough remained to show us into what a new world we had come.
The gloomy, prisonlike warehouses, the long rows of verandas before the
dwellings, the dusky throngs in the streets, the unintelligible _patois_
that came to our ears on every side, occasional glimpses of strange
vegetation, and, above all, the overpowering heat in December, all gave
us to feel that we were at last in that tropical world, every aspect of
which is so unlike our northern life.

After a hospitable reception from Mr. Whitehorne, the principal of the
Nuco Institute, I went up to the rooms of the American Mission, and,
ensconcing myself behind the mosquito curtains, proceeded to make
critical observations upon the buzzings outside, to satisfy myself
whether an insular range fed up these tormentors to the formidable vigor
of their continental brethren. Concluding from their timid pipings that
they were by no means an enemy so much to be dreaded--a conclusion wh