FEBRUARY 1. (Thursday.)
I left Cornwall for Spanish Town at six in the morning, accompanies by
a young naval officer,
the son of my next neighbour, Mr. Hill, of Amity, who was good enough
not only to
lend me a kitteren with a canopy to perform my journey in,
to send his son to be my cicerone on my tour. The road wound
through mountain-passes, or else on a shelf of rock so narrow—
though without the slightest danger—that one of the wheels was
frequently in the sea, while the other side was fenced by a line
of bold broken cliff, clothed with trees completely from their
brows down to the very edge of the water. Between eight and
nine we reached a solitary tavern called Blue-fields, where the
horses rested for a couple of hours. It had a very pretty garden
on the sea-shore, which contained a picturesque cottage, exactly
resembling an ornamental hermitage ; and leaning against one
of the pillars of its porch we found a young girl, who exactly
answered George Coleman's description of Yarico, "quite brown,
but extremely genteel, like a Wedgewood teapot." She told us
that she was a Spanish creole who had fled with her mother from
the disputes between the royalists and independents in the island
of Old Providence ; and the owner of the tavern being a relation
of her mother, he had permitted them to establish themselves in
his garden-cottage till the troubles of their own country should be
over. She talked perfectly good English, and said that there were
many of that nation established in Providence. Her name was
Antoinetta. Her figure was light and elegant ; her black eyes
mild and bright ; her countenance intelligent and good-humoured ;
and her teeth beautiful to perfection ; altogether, Antoinetta
was by far the handsomest creole that I have ever seen.
From Blue-fields we proceedeed at once to Lakovia ( a small
village), a stage of thirty miles. Here we found a realy of
horses, which conveyed us by seven o'clock to " the Gutturs,"
a house belonging to the proprietor of the post-horses, and
situated at the very foot of the tremendous May-day Mountains. the house
is an excellent one,
and we found good beds,
eatables, and, in short, everything that travellers could wish.
The distance from lakovia to " the Gutturs" is sixteen miles.
