Jamaica has picked up a good deal in these later days, but is not the thriving country it was before the abolition of slavery. Kingston is described as a formal city, with streets at right angles, and with generally ugly buildings. The fact is, that hardly any Europeans or even well-to-do Creoles live in the town, and, in consequence, there are long streets, which might almost belong to a city of the dead, where hardly a soul is to be seen: at all events, in the evenings. All the wealthier people—and there are a large number—have country seats—“pens,” as they call them, though often so charmingly situated, and so beautifully surrounded, that the term does not seem very appropriate. The sailor’s pocket-money will go a long way in Kingston, if he confines himself to native productions; but woe unto him if he will insist on imported articles! All through the island the white people are very English in their longings, and affect to despise the native luxuries. Thus, they will give you ox-tail soup when real turtle would be infinitely cheaper. “When yams, avocado pears, the mountain cabbage, plantains, and twenty other delicious vegetables may be had for the gathering, people will insist on eating bad English potatoes; and the desire for English pickles is quite a passion.” All the servants are negroes or mulattoes, who are greatly averse to ridicule or patronage; while, if one orders them as is usual in England, they leave you to wait on yourself. Mr. Trollope discovered this. He ordered a lad in one of the hotels to fill his bath, calling him “old fellow.” “Who you call fellor?” asked the youth; “you speak to a gen’lman gen’lmanly, and den he fill de bath.” The sugar-cane—and by consequence, sugar and rum—coffee, and of late tobacco, are the staple productions of Jamaica. There is one district where the traveller may see an unbroken plain of 4,000 acres under canes. The road over Mount Diabolo is very fine, and the view back to Kingston very grand. Jack ashore will find that the people all ride, but that the horses always walk. There are respectable mountains to be ascended in Jamaica: Blue Mountain Peak towers to the height of 8,000 feet. The highest inhabited house on the island, the property of a coffee-planter, is a kind of half-way house of entertainment; and although Mr. Trollope—who provided himself with a white companion, who, in his turn, provided five negroes, beef, bread, water, brandy, and what seemed to him about ten gallons of rum—gives a doleful description of the clouds and mists and fogs which surrounded the Peak, others may be more fortunate.