After having remained with Mr. Beans about ten days, on account of the shock his daughter had received by the extraordinary fate of her friend, and by which he was obliged, in a great measure, to forego her society for that time; I at last left Prospect Pen for the sugar estate of Plantagenet.

Among the other friendly peculiarities of those days in the hospitality of Jamaica, was the freedom with which gentlemen allowed their houses to be considered by the friends of their friends. The road was not marked by milestones, or inns, but by good fellows; so that, although the journey was but forty-seven miles, it took me three days to perform it; and I dare say, had it taken months, I should have only increased the warmth with which the shortness of my visits were complained of. I did, however, reach Plantagenet, and on the third day was there received by my relation, with that frank heart-in-hand-kindness which exists no where more gratifying to the stranger than in the West Indies.

I had heard of Plantagenet so often, that I had pictured to myself, as I supposed, a tolerably correct idea of it; but instead of beholding that beautiful and romantic scenery which had so often been represented to me, I found it consisted of a small plain, as level as a lake, chiefly covered with sugar-canes, and bounded on the south by a rocky mountain, shaggy with bushes, and plumed with trees of primeval growth and magnitude.