Long tells us that “a certain number of posts of the hardest timber, generally _lignum vitæ_, brazilletto, or fustick, of about 18 feet in length and 6 to 8 inches in diameter, being first well-seasoned and hardened in smoke, were fixed at proper distances to the depth of 2 or 3 feet in the ground; then a wall of brick, enclosing these posts, was carried up with very strong mortar to the plate, which was pinned with wooden spikes to the tops of the posts. The main rafters were small, but being of the like hard wood, and perfectly well-seasoned, were sufficiently strong; these were likewise pinned upon each other, and at their angle of intersection at top formed a crutch to receive the ridge pole. The smaller rafters were of the lesser ebony trees, stripped of their bark, hardened in smoke, notched at bottom, and being placed at the distance of about 18 inches from each other, were pinned to the plate. Athwart these on all rafters a stratum of the wild cane (_Arundo Indica_, bamboo species), previously smoked, was tied on by way of wattling with straps made of the bark of mahoe or mangrove trees. Upon these wattles some mortar was laid, to the thickness of about 4 inches; and the whole covered with large pantiles, well bedded in. The thickness of these roofs, from the outward shell or tile-covering to the ceiling within, was about 8 or 10 inches. A canopy of so solid a texture was certainly well contrived to shelter the inhabitants from the disagreeable effects of a vertical sun,” and accordingly it is found by experience that these old Spanish houses are much cooler than our modern ones covered with shingles. After regretting the failure to establish a manufacture of tiles, and the importation of North American shingles, Long goes on to say: “The chief error the Spaniards committed in their buildings was the placing their ground floors too low; these were nearly on a level with the surface of the earth out of doors, or at most raised only a few inches higher.” In his time there were, he tells us, upwards of fifty Spanish houses remaining in Spanish Town “very little the worse for time or weather.” Of Spanish names given to towns and villages, St. Jago de la Vega (St. James of the plain) still survives in custom, although supplanted officially by Spanish Town. So also do Ocho Rios, Savanna-la-Mar (the plain by the sea) and Oracabessa; Esquivel became Old Harbour soon after the British occupation.