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On passing the tropic of Cancer, you will be boarded by Mr. and Mrs. Cancer, in a very formal manner, (a venerable pair, infinitely older than Methusalem) who constantly attend the latitude of 23° 30', ready to shave all passengers who have never passed that way before; and though they are not fond of rum or brandy, yet they are fond to fee strong liquors given in generous portions to the failors; and when they meet with griping lowlife passengers, woe betide them! They will not only shave them with a rusty iron hoop, but lather them with pitch and tar, and duck them in the fea, till they had wished that they never were born; fo that it will be necessary to lay in five or fix gallons of rum more than your fea-stock for that day, and to take about ten gallons more to distribute occasionally to the failors; it is the only way to gain their affections; but observe, whenever you wish to give a bottle amongst them, let it be done after some severe toil, or bad weather, having previously got the consent of the captain, or mate, least they get drunk and neglect their duty, and you should be blamed. I love failors; they are generous, rough, uncouth beings; do not treat them with contempt or disrespect; though ragged, poor and dirty, they may be good flesh and blood; yet do not make free with them, that is, to be chattering to them, or asking foolish questions on deck, or elsewhere: keep them at a proper distance, and they will respect and ferve

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you, but behave familiar to them and they will infult and despise you.

On your arrival at Port-Royal, the negroes in small canoes, or bom-boats, coming along fide the ship with coffee, fruit, and vegetables, will attract your attention; but when you get up to Kingftown, if you had five more fenfes, they would be all engaged; the compounded stench of damaged beef, pork, herrings, butter, cheese, &c. &c. with fugar, rum and molasses, frying on the waves, together with the intense heat, and the horrid scene of poor Africans, male and female, busy at their labour with hardly rags sufficient to secret their nakedness, will affect you not a little. At night you will think the air is on fire, occafioned by a fort of infects called fire-flies, which sparkle like fire, a few of which, in the darkest room, give such light that you may read a book thereby, You will aso be surrounded by another kind of infects, about the size of midges, called mufquittoes, buzzing in your ears their disagreeable tunes: they have long tubes or stings, which they pierce through clothes or stockings till they get to the blood; the consequence is, that whereever they touch, the parts fester, and are troubled with such extreme itching, that if the hands were not tied, the wounded person could not avoid scratching; and those who don't take care of their nails, foon have their legs inflamed with difagreeable fores: I have heard of many young men's legs,

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legs, through the venom of the musquittoes, to turn to mortifications, whereby they lost their lives.

Each night when I lay on my bed,

My wearied limbs to rest,

Their humming fongs kept me in dread,
And fore my mind oppress'd.

They wounded me in ev'ry part,
My face and body o'er,

My legs and thighs oft felt their smart,
And were excessive fore.

As Ireland when much opprefs'd,
With creatures full of stings,
Was by St. Patrick once bless'd,
Who banish'd pois'nous things;
I often wish'd he had gone there,
And fhook his facred wand,
O'er all the ifle, and in the air,

And blefs'd both air and land.
'Till not a pois'nous spiteful thing
Above the earth had rang'd,
And vile musquittoes lost its sting,
And into midges chang'd.

The climate is intensely hot and sultry, day and night, throughout almost all seasons of the year, and is certainly very unfriendly to European constitutions, and would be more so were it not for the fea-breeze, which fets in every morning about nine or ten o'clock, increasing as the fun gathers strength, till he ascends to his miridian altitude. Europeans have blood richer and sweeter than the natives, natives, and till it becomes deluted or weakened by fickness, frequent perspirations, internally and externally, and other evacuations, they seldom enjoy a right state of health. If you take care of yourself in the beginning, you probably may prevent a fit of fickness which otherwise may prove fatal to you. I do not mean to advise you to -employ a doctor on every flight mark of indispofition; I would wish you to be your own doctor in simple cafes, and to study the nature of your conftitution; for the generality of West-India doctors are not only very exorbitant in their charges, but what is still worse, they are ignorant pretending quacks, apothecaries boys, and such trash, who having a smattering of Latin, hardly enough to pronounce the names of the few medicines they use, commit murder and destruction amongst the human race of every denomination; real physicians are rarely to be met with, indeed; I never heard of any there, save only Messrs. Grant and Broadbelt, the former of Kingston, and the latter of Spanish-town, whom you will find to be skilful and worthy characters; they have protracted the days of thousands. What numbers of counterfeit, or spurious creatures of that profeffion you will find dispersed all over that island; every druggist's boy from Great-Britain and Ireland, particularly from Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dublin, administers poifonous pills and stuff with as much consequence as Millwood or Mead. What pity, that man should be so grossly imposed

imposed on, or that physic should be thus abused by such vile pretenders.

"This gift of God to satan does ordain, " Polluted finks a prostitute for gain; "Barbers, perfumers, and a thousand more, "Start up physicians, all the forum o'er; "The greedy priest (the charge of foul's a'toil) "Forgets his flock, and ploughs the phyfic foil. "The frowsy baker, and shoe clouting tribe, " Curriers and taylors cry-" prescribe, prescribe." "All abdicate their lawful trades to follow "This injur'd science, and commence Apollo. "To count them all would fail the poet's lungs, "It asks an hundred mouths, an hundred tongues."

AIR. My Friend and Pitcher.

How happy is the doctor's fate

In that sweet clime: he once gets footing,
Ador'd by all on each eftate,

Enjoys his girl, and wants for nothing.
His pills and potions cost not much,
Tho' all his skill is a mere bubble,
He lives luxurious and gets rich,
And kills and cures with little trouble.

The following odd relation concerning myself, will convince you further of the nature of quacks: When I was a book-keeper in Clarendon, I was afflicted with a fever, till reduced to an insensible skeleton; during which time Tartar Emetic attended me every day; I swallowed all his nauseous preparations without service, (thank God I was not poisoned); at last I was given over by the quack