Jamaica is proud of its railway. The people of the country, remembering the difficulties of its building, and the frequent weaknesses of its finances, are glad the line is complete, and that it is possible to travel at good speed from one end of the island to another. In truth the history of the line from its beginning in 1845 to the present day is not lacking in interest. Parts of the track have been built by official and parts by private enterprise. The Government, I believe, started the building, and an American syndicate carried it forward. The American syndicate failed, and so the railway fell into the hands of the Government again, and there it has remained ever since. The carriages are miniature editions of the American saloons, and, in my opinion, are capable of vast improvement. Otherwise the stock is excellent, and the lines and curves and bridges everything that could be desired. Starting from Kingston, you can travel over a hundred miles of looped, single-track line to Montego Bay, or over thirty miles to Ewarton or seventy miles to Port Antonio. These are the three routes; the track to either of the places named is, of course, strewed with wayside stations. No matter which way you travel you will pass through most marvellous country. You will rattle across iron bridges, spanning rushing streams or wide romantic rivers. You will skirt great lagoons, half overgrown with mangrove and other swamp-land trees. You will steam across great yellow-green guinea-grass pastures, and then, by way of wonderful gradients, you will climb mountain chains and, from the dizzy height of your carriage window, look down at distant valleys half-screened by the green foliage of impenetrable forests. You will pass smoothly through delightfully cool forests, and wonder at the prodigality of nature when you cut through prairie land ablaze with the blooms of rare plants. You will in addition smell all the smells of the Indies, and you will be half-choked by the smoke and dust of the engine. Natives will grin at you from the hedgerows, and labourers will cease work in the plantations to stare open-mouthed at the incomprehensible railway train. You will pass homesteads and sugar mills, fruit farms and stockyards. Large-hatted planters will ride along roads skirting the railway track, and they will play with their ponies and give exhibitions of their horsemanship for the sake of any lady passenger who may or may not be your companion. The black guard, or conductor, will come and examine your ticket at every other station; and at most stopping places a little crowd of negroes will stare at you through the carriage window.