During the period when the Spanish ruled in Jamaica, two little girls – one Spanish and one a slave – were looking for crabs in a cane field, and as they chased a crab, it took refuge under a stone. When they moved the stone away, they heard a strange noise – the sound of bubbling water. They ran to town to tell what they had found, and the town’s people went out to investigate. They dug under the stone and found a stream. The discovery made them so happy they immediately freed the slave girl and named the creek El Rio Camarones, or the River of Crabs. For years, this was Montego Bay’s only source of drinking water, a period that ended in 1893 when water was piped into the town. The corner of Creek and Dome Streets in Montego Bay is the place where the girls found the crab and the creek. The Dome was built over the creek to provide protection for the water as well as to house “The Keeper of the Creek.”

 

Photo Courtesy @zoakart | Instagram

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