Page:A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica.djvu/41

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CASCADE ON THE WINDWARD ROAD.

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The Cane River discharges itself into the sea, at about the distance of seven miles from Kingston, on the Windward Road. The road runs for some way on the sea-beach, passing Rock Fort, where there is a fine head of spring-water, from which the shipping is supplied, and from whence it is in contemplation to supply Up-park Camp and Kingston. Rock Fort is in its situation very like the Torre dei Confini, near Terracina, forming the boundary-mark between the dominions of the Pope and the King of Naples; on the right the same brilliant sea, on the left the same almost inaccessible mountains; the Fort guarding the narrow pass. Leaving his carriage at the Fall Tavern, a small well served inn, on the road-side, the traveller proceeds on horseback, through a deep ravine, between mountains of so great a height as scarcely to admit the rays of the sun. At the bottom the Cane River takes its devious way, sometimes stretching in a broad even bed, sometimes urging its impetuous course among rocks of considerable magnitude which impede its progress. The distance from the high road to the Fall is about two miles, and the river is crossed and re-crossed more than twenty times.

The Fall is formed by the junction at its head of the Cane and Lucky Valley rivers, which unite within a hundred yards of the spot, from whence they are precipitated into the gulph beneath, from a height of somewhat more than 200 feet. The road is tolerably good, having been formed with much labour for the traffic of the mules, for the supply and convenience of the estates and coffee mountains, which abound in its neighbourhood. For this purpose the rocks have been in two instances pierced (one of which is seen in the annexed Plate), and give a good miniature resemblance of the celebrated galleries of the Simplon.