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BOG WALK, JAMAICA

There are no bogs along this beautiful drive. The name was originally “Bocas del Agua,” and has been corrupted to its present form

Early on the second day out from Cuba a heavy gray mass showed clear on the horizon to the southwest. It is reported by the historians that when Queen Isabella once asked Columbus what Jamaica looked like he crumpled up a sheet of stiff paper in his palm, then partly smoothing it displayed it to the Queen. The illustration was apt. Nowhere does a more crinkly island rise from the sea. Up to a height of 7000 feet and more the mountains rise sheer from the sea with only here and there the narrowest strip of white beach at the base. For the most part the tropical foliage comes unthinned down to the water. In early morn the crests of the hills are draped with clouds, and from the valleys betwixt them masses of white mist come rolling out as the rays of the sun heat the atmosphere. For forty miles or so you steam along this coast with scarce an acre of level land between the mountains and the deep until in the distance you descry the hollow in which Kingston lies embedded. A low lying sand bar runs parallel to the shore and perhaps a mile out, forming the barrier for the harbor which is indeed a noble bay well fit to shelter navies. But the barrier, though but a few feet above high water now, is sinking gradually, and the future of Kingston’s harbor is somewhat distressing. Once this low sandbar bore the most riotous and wicked town of history, for here stood Port Royal to which flocked the pirates and buccaneers of the Spanish Main, with their booty—doubloons, pieces of eight, beauteous Spanish señoritas and all the other attractive plunder with which the dime novels of our youth made us familiar. A right merry spot was Port Royal in those days and a pistol bullet or a swift stab in the back, though common enough, only halted the merriment for one man at a time. But fire purged Port Royal, and the pleasant pursuit of piracy began to fall into disrepute. Instead of treating the gallants who sailed under the Jolly Roger as gentlemen adventurers, civilized governments began to hang them—England being the last to countenance them in making Henry Morgan, wildest of the reckless lot, a baronet, and appointed him governor of Jamaica. Now Port Royal has shrunken to a fishing village, bordering upon the abandoned British naval station at the very harbor’s mouth.