=Martha Brae=, one and a half miles inland from Falmouth, is supposed by some to have been the site of the old Spanish settlement of Melilla (which, however, was probably in St. James), which was abandoned soon after its establishment owing to the depredations of the French filibusters. “The secret gold mine” of the Spaniards is said to be in the neighbourhood of Martha Brae. The origin of the name has puzzled antiquaries, but Mr. G. F. Judah a few years ago discovered it in Rio Matibereon recorded in a patent of the year 1674. In the map in “The Laws of Jamaica” of 1683 the Para Mater Tiberen Rio is marked where the Martha Brae now flows. =Bryan Castle=, where Bryan Edwards’s “History of the British West Indies” was written, was, together with the neighbouring estate of Brampton (now called Brampton Bryan), acquired by him from Zachary Bayly in or before 1792. It is within three miles of the port of Rio Bueno. It afterwards became by purchase the property of Alexander Donaldson, whose estate went into bankruptcy, and is now in the possession of the heirs of Mr. A. W. Gordon. A view of the great house is given in James Hakewill’s “Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica” (London, 1825), the most artistic work ever published on the island. In 1825 the property contained 1402 acres of land, 300 of which were in sugar-canes, 600 in pasture and pimento, and the remainder was occupied by negroes and their provision grounds. The crops had then averaged during the previous twelve years 300 hogsheads of sugar, with the usual proportion of rum, and, in good seasons, 300 bags of pimento. There were employed 165 estate negroes, with the addition of extra labour. [Illustration: BRYAN CASTLE ] The great house is a typical Jamaica house of the period, solidly built, but without any pretensions to architectural beauty, and surrounded on all four sides by the usual verandah. When Hakewill wrote, Edwards’s books and furniture were still preserved in his study upstairs, where he compiled his history. His writing-table is now all that remains. From the only window of the room that was his study an extensive view is obtained across the Bryan Castle works and cane-fields in the foreground, and more cane-fields and woodlands in the distance, to the open sea in the neighbourhood of Falmouth.