The West indies in 1837

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JAMAICA.

289

nature. We were disappointed in our hope of spend­ ing a few quiet hours at our inn. Three or four par­ ties of overseers in gigs, with servants following them with led horses, came in, in succession, to breakfast, and soon converted the place into a scene of bustle. They were on their way to Kingston Assizes ; but it is not an unusual custom to travel in this style on the Sabbath, visiting their friends on distant estates. The morning service at the Baptist mission station, com­ menced at ten o'clock. The chapel, which is capable of holding about three hundred, was completely filled, and some remained standing outside ; the whole were very attentive ; at the conclusion, a couple were mar­ ried, who had been long waiting in consequence of the refusal of the Rector of the parish to marry them with­ out a permit from the attorney, which they could not obtain.* Not long after the ceremony, the Lord's Supper was administered to about eighty communi­ cants. There was another short service in the evening, attended by a few who lived in the neighbourhood. 10th.—In the course of the morning, we visited the parish workhouse, which is situated about four miles from the Bay, in a valley surrounded by high moun­ tains, near the bed of a mountain stream. At present, this rivulet is only a few feet wide, but in the rainy season, it occupies a plain, across which a chain bridge has been attempted to be thrown, but became a ruin before it was completed. Its span was three hun­ dred and fifty feet. The workhouse is a neat, little building, recently erected. It has no treadmill, and its inmates, four or five in number only, were employed for hire as a penal gang, on the neighbouring estates, * See Appendix F, Sec. xii. C C


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