We rounded the point of the Palisades--which is marked by some unfortunate cocoanut trees, which, having vainly struggled with the sea breeze to maintain the elegant stateliness of their race, have long since given up the contest, and resigned themselves to being stunted and broken into the appearance of magnified splint brooms planted upside down--and found ourselves at last in our desired haven, Kingston harbor. It is a broad and sheltered basin, fully entitled, I understand, to the standard encomium of a harbor of the first rank, namely, that it will float the united navies of the world. Due provision has been made by three strong forts near the entrance that the navies aforesaid shall not enter until the time of such auspicious 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.