six
o’clock
During these manifold goings and comings I naturally enlarged the circle of my acquaintance in the island , especially in Kingston , the mercantile capital ; and often does my heart glow within me , when the scenes I have witnessed in that land of fun and fever rise up before me after the lapse of many years , under the influence of a good fire and a glass of old Madeira . Take the following sample of Jamaica High Jinks as one of many . On a certain occasion I had gone to dine with Mr Isaac Shingle , and extensive American merchant , and a most estimable man , who considerately sent his gig down to the wherry wharf for me . At six o'clock I arrived at my friend 's mansion , situated in the upper part of the town , a spacious one-story house , overshadowed by two fine old trees , and situated back from the street about ten yards ; the intervening space being laid out in a beautiful little garden , raised considerably above the level of the adjoining thoroughfare , from which it was divided by a low parapet wall , surmounted by a green painted wooden railing . There was a flight of six brick steps from the street to the garden , and you ascended from the latter to the house itself , which was raised on brick pillars a fathom high , by another stair of eight , broad marble slabs . The usual verandah , or piazza , ran along the whole front , beyond which you entered a large and lofty , but very darksome hall , answering to our European drawing room into which the bedrooms opened on each side . It did strike me at first as odd , that the principal room in the house should be a dark dungeon of a place , with nothing but borrowed lights , until I again recollected that darkness and coolness were convertible terms within the tropics .