1714." It contains a great collection of elaborate and splendid
monuments, all sent out from England, and erected to various island
worthies. The amazing arrogance of an inscription on a tombstone of
1690, in the south transept, struck me as original. It commemorates
some Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, and after the usual eulogistic
category of his unparalleled good qualities, ends "so in the
fifty-fifth year of his age he appeared with great applause before his
God."

There is a peculiarly beautiful tree, the _Petraea_, which seems
to flourish particularly well in Spanish Town. When in flower in
February, neither trunk, leaves, nor branches can be seen for its
dense clusters of bright blue blossoms, which are unfortunately very
short-lived.

Four miles above Spanish Town the hideously named Bog Walk, the famous
gorge of the Rio Cobre, commences. I do not believe that there is a
more exquisitely beautiful glen in the whole world. The clear stream
rushes down the centre, whilst the rocky walls tower up almost
perpendicularly for five or six hundred feet on either side, and these
rocks, precipitous as they are, are clothed with a dense growth of
tropical forest. The bread-fruit tree with its broad, scalloped
leaves, the showy star-apple, glossy green above deep gold below,
mahoganies, oranges, and bananas, all seem to grow wild. The
bread-fruit was introduced into Jamaica from the South Sea Islands,
and the first attempt to transplant it was made by the ill-fated
_Bounty_, and led to the historical mutiny on board, as a result
of which the mutineers established themselves on Pitcairn Island,
where their descendants remain to this day. Whatever adventures marked
its original advent, the bread-fruit has made itself thoroughly at