Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1870-08-31
Letter from Jamaica.


We are permitted to publish the follow
ing extract from a private letter to a gen
tleman in this city:
. KINGSTON, JAMAICA, WEST INDuEsl
August ,, 1870.
Kingston is n city of about forty thou
sand mabitants, mostly Creoles. The pro-
portion of pure whites is very small, per-
haps one in twenty. So, also, is the pro-
portion of pure Africans. | should sup
pose, from all ! have heard, somewhat
greater than Of the whites The Creoles
vary in tint from brown to fair. The chief
business men of the city belong to this
class. some of them are quite wealthy
and they live in generous style, in elegant
mansions and with luxurious surround
lngs. The people of Jamaica are very
KIND ana hospltable. The police of the
city Is good and the order not dscreditable
Kingston has very large, substantial
churches; some of them are costly and ee-
CANT. | attended Cookies Chapelr last
Sabbath morning, and listened to an able
sermon on West India emancipation, (the
anniversary of which occurred August l.)
This chapel Wesleyan. is on the very spot
where Thomas Coke, more than Il hundred
years ago, planted the standard of Wesley
an Methodism. The best sittngs are i'm
the gallery. The ground floor is tagged,
and more than half the seats are simply
benches, without backs. The pulpit is in
the centre of the audience room. 1t is
high and below it-about high enough for
pulpit--is u reading desk. There is n
large organ in the gallery; and the sing
ing, which is congregational and very SUI
perior, is led by II small choir. TlEe
preacher read the liturgy, in which the
people generally joined. He preached in
full clerical dress I. c. i'm y black silk gown
and white necllband.
The church is of gothic architecture, but
without steeple or tower. 1t will seat a
| thousand persons.
Wesley Chapel is larger and more costly
| than Coke's. In this, also, as in most of
the Wesleyan chapels, is an organ of su-
perior tone and compass
The western part of the Island has been
| visited with unprecedented and destructive
! floods caused by heavy rains. In places
! the water rose to the height Of sixteen feet
| outside the river beds, sweeping away
| dwellings and causing much loss of proper
| ty and life. The season has been dry i'm
other parts of the Island, causing light
sugar crops.
Jamaica, contrary to the opinion of many
in the states, is Il healthy island. II is not
so hot here as in New York in June. A
! regular sea-breeZe, blowing almost every
| day, keeps the temperature down to a COM
| Portable point, the mercury ranging from
| 76 degrees to SO degree, Fahrenheit 1t has
never been above 92 degrees in forty wears,
and very rarely has it gone up to that
| figure.
Thunder showers are not usual. They
| sometimes come up very suddenly, and
| the roar and flash are awfully grand.
| Earthquakes are remembered to have oc-
CURED ut distant intervals, but never in a
| destructive degree; never to the extent of
| throwing down buildings or endangering.
| life.
| Kingston is free from plague and pesti-
| lence There has been no yellow fever, or
cholera this season. The physicians pro-
nounce it painfully healthy can i'm
agine few climates equally agreeable, none
superior.
Just now there is much interest felt in
the telegraphic connection Jamaica is to
have with the world around it by means of
| the submarine cable from Kingston to
| Aspinwall, (Colen.) Ii will be completed
TO Cuba before this letter shall have
reached you. Then Kingston. Jamaica,
can shake hands with New York and
| London and with the rest of mankind
! hope to send telegraphic message by
this line before sailing Thus you see the
| telegraphic circle is extending, and it will
! soon belt the globe and have its lateral
branches North and South to every civil
| lied nation of the world. *#%.