At two o'clock we mounted our horses, and set out, accompanied by Messrs Twig and Flamingo, to dine with our Highland friend, Roderick Macgregor, Esq. We rode along the _interval_ or passage between two large cane-pieces, the richest on the estate, which was situated in a dead level, surrounded by low limestone hills. By the way, the locality of Ballywindle was very peculiar, and merits a word or two as we scull along. Stop, and I will paint it to the comprehension of all the world, as thus--Take a punch bowl, or any other vessel you choose approaching to the same shape, and fill it half full of black mould; pop three or four lumps of sugar into the centre, so that they may stick on the surface of the mould, without sinking above a half of their diameter. They are the works, boiling-house, still-house, trash-houses, and mill-houses. Then drop a large lump a little on one side, and balance a very tiny one on the top of it, and you have the small insulated hill on which the great house stands. As for the edges of the vessel, they are the limestone hills, surrounding the small circular valley, the faces of them being covered with Guinea grass pieces, sprinkled with orange and other fruit-trees; both grass and trees finding their sustenance of black earth, as they best may, amongst the clefts of the honey-combed limestone that crops out in all directions, of which indeed the hills are entirely composed, without any continuous superstratum of earth whatever. You see the place now, I suppose? Well, but to make it plainer still--take a sheet of paper, and _crumple_ it in your hand; then throw it on the table, and you have a good idea of one of those hills, and not a bad one of the general surface of the island taken as a whole. The ridges of the hills were in this case covered with high wood. So now let us get hold of our yarn once more. The field on the right hand, from a large sink-hole, as it is called, or aperture in the centre--I love to be particular--was called "Tom's Pot," and the cane patch on the left, "Mammy Polder's Bottom." I found that a level cane-piece, in such a situation, was always called a _Bottom_. Again, as for those sink-holes, or caverns in the rock, I can compare them, from their sinuosities, to nothing more aptly than the human ear. They generally seem to be placed in situations where they answer the purpose of natural drains to carry off the water; the one in question, for instance, always receiving the drainings of the little valley, and never filling; having a communication, beyond doubt, with some of the numberless streamlets, gullies, or small rivers (hence such natural syphons as the Fairywell), that cross one's path at every turn in this "land of streams," as the name Jamaica imports in the Charib tongue, as I have heard say.