Omaha daily bee., 1907-01-20
LURE OF BEAUTY STRICKEN
TropiC Charms of the Island of Jamaica
and Its Capital.
HISTORY REDEEMED BY MANY ScoUReES
EARTHQUAKES, Fire and EnguIhnE Sea
Play Havoc with People and
Scenery-A Buried
City.

The island of Jamaica and Kingston, its
capital, possessed to an uncommon de-
gree the fatal lure of beauty and pleas
VI e. Julian Hawthorne, the author, who lived
there three years, says. ut has beauty
so intense and all-pervading that the senses
sometimes fairly ache in the contemplation
and perception Of it."
In a letter to the Chicago American Mr..
Hawthorne draws a detailed pen picture
of the island and its capital as follows
1t rises mountain-wise out of the azure
Caribbean, it's abrupt activities soaring
aloft till the purple Of their Jagged sum-
mits mlngles in lovely marriage with the
sky, while their feet of snow-white coral
and limestone are washed by the deeper
blue of the sea. To a height of near 500
feet it is clad with vegetation which, in
its splendor and profusion, makes the for
ests Of our northern regions seem bare and
poverty stricken.
Five lives grow there where one grows
here; and their color and depth Of tone,
as we'll as the huge size Of many Of them,
give the stranger new conception or
the vegetable powers of nature. The most
headlong precipces are unable to escape
from their embrace; have seen a wall of
rock fifty feet In sheer height covered
over every foot of its perpendicular sur
face with a network of vast roots, twist
ing together till they formed solid COW
ering of living wood three or four feet in
depth. Many of these trees are covered
with magnificent crimson or golden bios
SONS. which astonish an eye not accus-
toned TO look for flowers on the mon
archs of the forest.
Tbara ara treas In these DrimeVal woods
which rise smooth and vertical to a height
of 300 feet and then spread abroad hori-
zontally boughs, themselves larger than
the main boles Of most trees that we
know; and from these level branches de-
scend the long vegetable ropes of the la
mas some slender as Irvine, others thick
as ships cables; and parasitic vines twinf
round their vast trunks in a fury OF vi
tality that almost appals the imagination
Full of valleys.
The island is full of exquisite wales and
valleys. lost among the hills, revealing
themselves Unexpectedly to the enchanted
wanderer; musical torrents plunge dowr
the cliffs and fall along rocky beds otter
to be swallowed up in caverns from which
they never emerge, but proceed subterra'
neously to their goal in the ocean. WILD
orange trees, whose fruit surpasses any
| thing which we have ever learned to as
sociate with the name of the fruit, grow
in natural groves in the recesses Of the
mountains; ebony and mahogany stand In
great assemblies, and once, when 1 lodged
high up among the heights, where the
evenings were cool, I found these woods
to be the haEdlest for my evening fire
The bamboo, most graceful of all plants
with its exquisite curving stems, tufted
with delicate foliage, makeg the path de-
lightful, and palms of all species throne
like armies with banners and stand along
the coast like sentinels or like sirens wav-
ing their green streamers to beckon weary
mariners.
Fire Flies Light Scene.
At night the moon falls in deep radianoC
over these sumptuous scenes, and myriad'
of huge hreiies seem to sprinkle tbs
darkness of earth with fitting stars. Pic
turesque dwellings stand sequestered ir
glowing verdure, with airy verandas and
grotto-like interiors; they stand high VI
on the mountain sides, looking out across
the wide plains of the sea and over the
rolling masses of whispering leaves thai
descend beneath them to the margin OF the
shining beaches.
, engineer, cross the island in all directions
like smooth white ribbons bound upon III
\ surface, and one of them completely sur
rounds It, affording a drive Of more thar
300 miles, with the heights ascending Il
the clouds on one hand, while on the othel
| you look down through the Transparent
waves to the edlfces Of coral and tn
/ wavering weeds OF ocean that lie within
the toss Of a pebble at your feet But II 4
impossible so to portray this earthly para
disc as to prepare the traveller for what h
| will behold there. It outdoes all description
will behold there. 1t outdoes all description
but none who has seen It will ever lose It
lovely image from his memory.
City sinks in Sea.
| Here then, Is a beauty; and here also tn
destructive forces of nature are wont I
wreak themselves with unVovernsh'e IN
| appalling fury. History recalls how tn
earthquake Of centuries ago snnihilated 4
the drawing OF breath the rich and beau
tiful little city which lay at the entrdnc
Of what is now-Aor yesterday was-the haI
Dor OF Kingston; and ! have drifted In
boat over the spot where the city sank an
could stlIl discern through the deep gree
clearness Of the water the plan and out
! lines OF dwellings which had been ia
abodes Of the great buccaneers who ono
made the Caribbean byword OF adventur
and peril
One moment they reveled and quarrele
in the full enjoyment OF their reckless an
fierce vitality; the next they were engufe
by earth and sea. and vanished like tn
memory Of barbarous dream That CO
tastrophe left its mark upon the lmagins
! ton nf mankind wall ru.ou Ghr faa