During the voyage our drum-major and a private fell down the hatch-way; the soldier was killed and the drum-major severely injured, so much so that it laid him up for ever afterwards.
After parade next morning the bell tolled, and the regiment were present to pay their last tribute to their comrade. The ship's captain read the beautiful and appropriate service for a burial at sea, and on reaching that portion, "we commit his body to the deep," it was slid out of the port, wrapped in a hammock, with a round shot at its feet, into the bright, blue, deep sea, to be seen no more until that day when the sea shall give up its dead.
On the 12th we cast anchor in the harbour of Trinidad, where two companies were landed on detachment. The town has no pretensions to size or elegance, it is, however, most picturesquely situated along the shore of the island, backed up by a curiously shaped hill with a large pitch lake on its summit. This is a very important port of the West Indies, particularly for the mail service, some eight or ten different lines reaching here monthly.
At four o'clock in the evening we left the anchorage under sail and steam, with a fresh evening breeze, running along at twelve knots an hour. On the 18th April, 1864, at 7 o'clock, a.m., the island of Jamaica was in sight. At nine o'clock we took a pilot on board to navigate the vessel through the intricate and dangerous narrows between the reefs. As the ship approached and rounded Port Royal, we cast anchor in Kingston harbour at eleven a.m. As we lay at anchor, the sight was indeed beautiful, the city with its white houses peeping out from amongst the dark green foliage; with Newcastle looming up in the distance with its white wooden barracks, on the side of St. Catharine's peak, with its lofty summit towering towards the heavens, the mountain covered with forests of mahogany, cedar, yellow sander and coffee plantations, and the valley covered with large green plantations of sugar-cane. Nature was indeed looking charming; the view in every direction was exquisite,—look where we would there were nature's beauties before us. The entrance to the harbour at the end of Port Royal, broken into little islands, where tradition says a town was submerged by an earthquake, the sparkling sea running here and there into creeks, bays and inlets, together with the evergreen foliage of tropical trees and flowers, made up a very attractive landscape, which gave us a most favourable impression of Jamaica. Directly in front of us are the landing-place and jetties, where several vessels are flying the flag of Old England.