month of March, sometimes even in February, and continue for two months, perhaps, or more. This being the time of getting in the crops, that is on the north side of the island, these early rains are a considerable impediment; and the roads being hollowed, and cut up, the planters find it a difficult task both to get home their canes, and to forward their produce to the shipping place; besides the deficiency of fuel occasioned by perpetual rains, which to the estates is a primary concern, as without this necessary article they cannot go on. The autumnal, or fall rains, as they are here called, usually happen in October and November, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. These are essentially necessary to the planter to bring forward his young canes, which are generally planted at this season in preference to the spring, as having a longer time to grow, and of course coming to greater perfection. The spring rains are by far the most violent. During the prevalence of these, the air is most insufferably sultry this extreme heat, joined to a still unagitated atmosphere, is a presage of the coming deluge. It comes on with an astonishing rapidity. The clouds gather in an instant, though the arch of heaven was pure and cloudless but the instant before, and the torrent pours down without giving warning to the negroes, who are employed in the fields, to retire from its fury. A terrible peal of thunder usually precedes it, and during

its continuance the firmament is rent with these awful sounds, which are sometimes so frightfully loud as to resemble the close report of the heaviest artillery; while the quick and vivid lightening, threatening destruction as it shoots across the sky, is truly terrific. These rains, often for weeks together, set in regularly at the same hour, and continue about the same length of time, viz. two or three hours; sometimes, however, they will continue whole days and nights, with little or no intermission. The autumnal rains are neither so heavy as those of the spring and autumn, nor are they usually accompanied with such terrible thunder and lightening. The rains, particularly those of the spring, are frequently partial; it often happens, that while the mountainous parts, which seldom have cause to complain of drought, are annoyed with daily torrents, the low country is parched up with excessive drought. Nay, the author has known a property almost burnt up by drought, while the neighbouring one, divided from it only by a ridge of hills, was blest by plenteous and daily showers; these passing along the one valley, never crossed over to the other; and this tantalizing partiality would continue for weeks. The heavy dews which generally fall here, during droughts, are a considerable help to vegetation.

It can hardly be said, that there are any particular seasons in this country when sickness is

The

more common among the white people than at other times. The author has found all times of the year nearly alike as to healthiness, when proper precautions have been observed. Of course, as in all countries, the vicissitudes of heat and cold, wet and dry, are dangerous to health, and in a hot climate more particularly so; the seeds of a disorder which may embitter a whole life, or sweep men rapidly off, may, and often are, laid in what at first appeared but a slight cold, caught by being exposed to these alternations. change from a long course of wet weather to dry, strange to say, is often productive of such colds, and vice versa. Those who enjoy the wholesome temperature of Great Britain doubtless.congratulate themselves on such a happiness, and rejoice that destiny has not placed them in the burning regions of the torrid zone, and exposed them to the pestilence and ravages of the yellow fever, and other hideous diseases. This self-congratulation is perfectly natural. But it is with dangers at a distance as it is with a person walking in a mist; the passing objects appear to him magnified to a frightful size, till a nearer approach convinces him of his mistake: not that it can be said there are no such things, but the terrors and dangers of them are mightily exaggerated. There is hardly a doubt that the yellow fever is any thing more than a malignant bilious fever, the extravasated fluid, diffused through the system,

producing that deep yellow tinge on the skin which gives name to the disease. As to its epidemic influence, and general mortal effects, much may be said on these subjects. The very terrors which the presence of such a disease must conjure up, have no doubt often operated fatally. Some years back the yellow fever made its appearance in various parts of the island, and swept off numbers. Consternation was spread in the vicinity of those parts where the disease most fatally prevailed. On this occasion there were numerous instances of people going to bed, in apparent perfect health, who, in forty or fifty hours, were corses. They, perhaps, lived on the same property with one who had died of this distemper, or had attended the funeral of some who had fallen victims to it. A slight head-ache was the first symptom that alarmed them; soon after which a burning fever succeeded, and all its dreadful concomitants; the unhappy patient sunk into a morbid despondency of mind, and yielded, in despair, to its direful progress. On many

estates, every white person on them were swept, in succession, off within the space of a week or two. But why, it may be asked, if this disease was thus infectious in its nature, and rapid and certain in its effects, were not the medical attendants infected and carried off by it? They were generally exempt from its rage, while their patients were thus in such numbers dying around them. In

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There are ineach class, of

short, there can hardly be a doubt of many of these unhappy men having become martyrs to self-created terrors. The yellow fever is a viruJent disease, but neither so infectious nor so inevitably mortal as some people believe; and, without entering into any investigation of the present mode of treating this disease, it is to be hoped, at least, that an improved and more effectual one will in time be adopted to meet so terrible a scourge of the human race. The yellow fever seldom, or never, visits the mountainous parts of the interior, nor are the negroes and brown people at all subject to it. deed some diseases peculiar to which something will be said when treating of the negroes. Besides the yellow, or bilious fever, intermittent fevers prevail in Jamaica, pleurisies, &c. but consumptions are little known. Young men, just arrived in the island, are peculiarly liable to febrile disorders; an excellent precaution against. which would be their residing, if possible, in a cool and healthy part of the interior for a few months, as a sort of seasoning. What strikingly evinces the propriety of such a step is the following circumstance :-About twelve years ago (from 1806), his Majesty's 16th regiment of foot arrived at Montego Bay from Halifax. It was then about 500 strong; and in the first year it was quartered at that place it lost from two to three hundred men by sickness. But since the