Monday, 18th Jan. 1847.-- Bade adieu to Hampden friends, in whose society I felt at home, and to whose kindness I was deeply indebted, and set out for Carron Hall on horseback, in company with Mr Cowan and Mr Simpson of Port Maria. We had a long and weary ride of sixty odd miles to Goshen, where Mr Campbell has just arrived as successor to Mr Jameson. The scenery around is that of mountain grandeur, along with rank luxuriance; not a patch of bare rock being visible. Every spot of soil is productive; and even the mountain sides, where wood could not grow, were yet clad magnificently, gorgeously attired, indeed, with numberless parasitical plants. I was struck, however, in passing over so great an extent of country, to find that neither fragrance nor the music of singing birds characterized it. It seemed to illustrate forcibly the truth, that nature's gifts and graces are not characterized by an exclusive favoritism. There is distribution most wisely exercised by the God of nature. Seldom do we find fertility and fragrance, beauty and melody, and I may say native productiveness, and scientific ingenuity, or human activity combined. Jamaica possesses the shady palm and cocoa tree, the delicately tinted flower, the beautifully feathered bird; it wants, however the sturdy oak, the sweetly blooming rose whose odoriferous perfume every breath that blows scatters around, the loud and bold chorus of lark and blackbird in Scotland. Its waving bamboos and rich grasses may sprout up in a day, (some of them, I believe, growing at the rate of six inches
a day,) but they who sit under their shade listlessly idle away their hours in indifference and inactivity. In the climate, however, there is much adapted to the wants it creates in man. When travelling, wayworn and thirsty, the very sight of the lime, lemon, and orange
groves, the cocoa walks, &c., is refreshing; and more than once we dismounted at some green knoll to rest ourselves under some shady bush, and revive our drooping frames by a crust of bread and orange juice, or sugar cane. To sit under some lofty cedar, or spreading tamarind, or bread-fruit tree, is especially delightful, more particularly under the first; for its shade is not only reviving, but there is a sweet scent exhaled from its blossoms; and when the head is slightly fevered from exposure to a mid-day tropical sun, its leaves applied to the forehead are cooling indeed. Somehow or other, certain scripture phrases were then ever running in my mind as illustrated more fully by the circumstances of the journey, viz., 'The leaves that were for the healing of the nations,' with 'their whole head sick, and heart faint,' the 'water- brook' and 'course,' thirsted after 'rivers of waters in dry and parched lands,' 'wells in the desert,' 'wells without water,' 'wells of salvation.'
"The night dews are heavy and disagreeable. Were it not for this, night, with such clear moonlight as we have here, would be the best time for travelling."
[And so, in the heart of the missionary, every bush is a Burning Bush and bears a message]
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