Grande, and Rio Cobre, but as these are all pronounced in the English
fashion, the music of the Spanish names is lost. Not one word of any
language but English (of a sort) is now heard in the colony. When
Columbus discovered the island in 1494, he called it Santiago,
St. James being the patron saint of Spain, but the native name of
Xaymaca (which being interpreted means "the land of springs")
persisted somehow, and really there are enough Santiagos already
dotted about in Spanish-speaking countries, without further additions
to them. When Admiral Penn and General Venables were sent out by
Cromwell to break the Spanish power in the West Indies, they succeeded
in capturing Jamaica in 1655, and British the island has remained ever
since. To this day the arms of Jamaica are Cromwell's arms slightly
modified, and George V is not King, but "Supreme Lord of Jamaica," the
original title assumed by Cromwell. The fine statue of Queen Victoria
in Kingston is inscribed "Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress
of India, and Supreme Lady of Jamaica."

Venables found that the Spaniards, craving for yet another Santiago,
had called the capital of the island Santiago de la Vega, "St. James
of the Plain," and to this day the official name of Spanish Town, the
old capital, is St. Jago de Vega, and as such is inscribed on all the
milestones, only as it is pronounced in the English fashion, it is now
one of the ugliest names imaginable. The wonderfully beautiful gorge
of the Rio Cobre, above Spanish Town, was called by the conquistadores
"Spouting Waters," or Bocas de Agua. This has been Anglicised into the
hideous name of Bog Walk, just as the "High Waters," Agua Alta, on the
north side of the island, has become the Wagwater River. The Spanish
forms seem preferable to me.

Some one has truly said that the old Spaniards shared all the coral