West African Islands

Chapter I. Page St

HELENA 1 The Marooned Portuguese — Capture of the Island in 1673 — Early Colonists — Loss of Trade — James Town — Jacob's Ladder — Vegetable Peculiarities — An Awkward Mistake — Longwood — A Eetrospeet — The Legend of Friar's Valley — Eefractory Garrisons — Lot and his Wife — Curious Eelics — Diana Peak — Napoleonic Souvenirs.

Chapter II. Ascension

28 Its History — Georgetown — Turtle — Green Mountain — The Hospital — A Precious Beverage — The Water Supply — Vegetation — Eelative Eank of Ladies — Island Scenery — Eiding-school Crater — Fossil Turtles' Eggs — Wide awakes — The Rollers — An American's Eeception.

Chapter III. Fernando Po

53 Beautiful Scenery — Cocoa Plantation — A Tropical Forest — The Boobies — Their Peculiarities — An Aboriginal Vil lage — A Trying Inspection — Irreclaimable Savages — Nature's Livery — Port Clarence — A Spanish Legend — History of the Island — Its Resources — Political Prisoners — An Ingenious Escape — Tropical Fruit — Padres— Tailed ]VIen — Strange Specimens of Humanity — The Strait — Cameroons Peak — Climate, CONTENTS. VI

Chapter IV. Pagk The Isles De Los

83 Factory Life — Turning the Tables on a Port Officer — Plague Ships — Unæsthetic Traders — Animal Life in the Bush — A Domestic Tragedy — Unadulterated Heathen — The Pioneers of Civilisation— The Trader and the Mis sionary—How we Colonise— Domestic Slavery — Amelia and Arethuse.

Chapter V. St

VINCENT .123 Intelligent Port Officials — A Collision — Porto Grande — A Game of Billiards — A Fandango— A Nice Quiet Night — Reasonable Hotel Charges — Famine — The Cape Verde Islands — Derelicts.

Chapter VI. San Antonio

144 The Sail Across — My Fellow Passenger — Strange Fishing — Janella — San Paolo — A Mountain Road — A Timid Bishop — Ribeira Grande — Wine-growers — Motley Troops — The Stick — Mutinies — Santa Cruz — The Biter Bit — Fresh Extortion — A Terra Incognita — Mineral Wealth.

Chapter VII. Goree

167 How to get there — Motley Inhabitants — French Polish — The Negro World of Fashion — The Citadel — Governor Wall — A Barbarous Sentence — Climate — A Sanguinary Revolution — French Aggression in Western Africa.

Chapter VIII. Grand Canary

187 Las Palmas — The Cathedral — The Islanders — Discovery of the Islands — The Spanish Conquest — Atrocities — The Aboriginal Inhabitants — Their Origin — Mummies — A Canarian Prejudice — Canaries. CONTENTS. VII

Chapter IX. Grand Canary

'210 Doramas— The Cave Village of Atalaya — Pleasant Society — The Pulex — Epidemics — Sanitation — San Isidro La brador — A Curious Service — The Image of Teror — An Optical Illusion — The Miraculous Island of St. Brandan ■ — Veracious Testimony.

Chapter X. Teneriffe

234 Santa Cruz — Spanish Soldiers — Plaza de la Constitucion ■ — The Town — The Alameda — The Cathedral — Nelson's Repulse at Santa Cruz — Our Lady of Candelaria — Com parative Superstitions.

Chapter XI. Teneriffe

258 Its Early History — The Massacre of Centejo — San Cris toval de la Laguna — The Perspiring Portrait — Orotava — El Puerto — Festas — The Orotava Murder — Garachica — The Great Lateral Eruption — Island Tradition — Storms.

Chapter XII. Teneriffe

284 Ascent of the Peak — El Pino del Dornajito — A Useful Shrub — La Estancia de Ios Ingleses — Improvisatori — Early Rising — The Mal Pais — La Rambleta — The Cone — The Crater — Bird's-Eye Scenery — The Descent — The Ice Cave.

Chapter XIII. Madeira

308 Coast Scenery — Birds of Prey — Funchal — Fire-Eaters — A Night's Romance — Nossa Senhora do Monte— A Novel Slide — Fruits and Flowers — Festivals — Wines — Wine-growers — The Grand Corral — Mountain Roads — S. Vincente — Santa Anna. CONTENTS.

Chapter XIV. Pagh Madeira

330 Masked Balls — A Crushing Misadventure — Discovery of the Island — The Fossil Forest of Canical — Excursions — The Waterfall — Corral das Freiras — The Poul de Serra — Camera de Lobos — Brazen Head — Santa Cruz — Hunt ing the Statesman — A Wicked Jest.

Chapter I. St

HELENA. The Marooned Portuguese — Capture of the Island in 1673 — Early Colonists — Loss of Trade — James Town — Jacob's Ladder — Vegetable Peculiarities — An Awkward Mistake — Longwood — A Retrospect — The Legend of Friar's Valley — Refractory Garrisons — Lot and His Wife — Curious Relics — Diana Peak — Napoleonic Souvenirs. The island of St. Helena was discovered in 1501 by a Portuguese explorer, who seems to be called, indifferently, Joao de Nova Gallego, Juan de Nova Castilla, Juan de Nova, or John de Niva, according to the taste of the writer. It was then densely wooded, and its shores abounded with seals and turtle, but he made no attempt to colonise it, and the first inhabitants of the island were some deserters, who were put on shore from a Portuguese ship, some fifteen years after its discovery.

These men had, B in accordance with the humane custom of those good old days, been punished by mutilation, having had their noses, ears, and right hands cut off; and, so runs the story, with them was a Portuguese of good family, named Fernandez Lopez, who, having been guilty of some misdemeanour at Bombay, had been mutilated by order of Albuquerque, the Portuguese governor, and shipped for Portugal as a prisoner. This man, not caring to face dishonour in his native country, induced the captain of the vessel to land him with the deserters ; the marooned men were given some seed, cattle, and provisions, and the ship continued its voyage to Lisbon. The family of Lopez, on ascertaining his whereabouts, sent him a variety of seeds and plants and a quantity of live stock ; the exiles proved industrious, and four years later, when they were all removed by the Portuguese Government, there was a good deal of land under cultivation.

The island remained uninhabited for some years, until a few slaves, of both sexes, escaped from a Portuguese slaver which called at the island for wood and water, and took refuge in the woods. These people multiplied rapidly, and cleared the overgrown plantations of the former deserters ; but, after an interval of fifteen or twenty years, the jealous Portuguese landed a party to exterminate them and their offspring. Some of them, however, must have contrived to have escaped the general slaughter, for when Sir John Cavendish, in his voyage round the world, visited St. Helena in 1588, he found it inhabited, and possessing a small town. His discovery of the island was accidental, for the Portuguese, although they made no attempt to colonise it them selves, had carefully kept its situation a secret from other European nations.

At the time of his visit, the natural resources of the island had been increased to such an extent, that he described it as being " extremely pleasant, and so full of fruit-trees and excellent plants, that it seemed like a fair and well cultivated garden, having long rows of lemon, orange, citron, pomegranate, date, and fig-trees, delighting the eye with blossoms, green and ripe fruit all at once." In 1645 the Dutch attempted to establish a settlement, but relinquished it to the English in 1651 ; and in 1668, the commander of a homeward bound East India fleet of English vessels, took formal possession of it in the name of Charles II. In the same year that monarch made it over to the East India Company. In 1672, the Dutch again obtained possession, through the treachery of one of the inhabitants; but in May, 1673, it was recaptured by Captain Eichard Munden, with three ships. b Almost throughout jts entire circumference of twenty-eight miles, the island presents' to the eye an unbroken wall of cliffs, varying from five hundred to a thousand feet in height; and there are only two places at which a landing can be effected, namely, James' Bay and Rupert's Bay.

The latter of these, having no water supply, is not habitable, but the Dutch had fortified both these positions ; and occupying them in force at the approach of the British ships, they considered themselves quite safe. Captain Munden, however, landed two hundred men on the rocks in Prosperous Bay, and one sailor, scaling the almost inaccessible cliffs, let down to his comrades a rope, by which they all climbed to the summit. This feat is still commemorated by the precipitous rock known as " Hold-fast Tom." The Dutch, being thus taken in rear, surrendered ; and the island has ever since remained a British possession. The East India Company invited settlers to emigrate to St. Helena from England ; and lands were assigned to them, on the condition that they would be forfeited if not cultivated within six months of the date of being put in possession.

Numbers of families, who had been reduced to beggary by the great fire of London, took advantage of this offer ; and slaves were also introduced from Madagascar. A Governor was appointed, with the munificent salary of one hundred pounds a year, and a public table was kept. It was part of the Governor's duty to preside at the daily banquet, and some of the settlers appear to have been such peculiar characters, that he found it necessary to draw up a code for the regula tion and behaviour of the guests. One paragraph of this code was to the effect " that nobody ought to sit at table with him that is not cleanly dressed, or that is drunk." Being situated in the direct track of vessels bound to and from the east, round the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena became a port of call for a large number of vessels, and the inhabitants rapidly made money by supplying them with fresh provisions ; while, on account of its importance in connection with the Indian trade, a large garrison was kept up.

From 1787 to 1815, it was also used as a depot for the recruits of the army of the East India Company; and at one time, nearly twelve thousand men were there stationed. From 1815 to 1821 it was, as everyone knows, the island-prison of the Emperor Napoleon; and in 1822, the East India Company resumed their jurisdiction over it. The island continued to prosper until the opening of the Suez Canal, which, by altering the route to the East Indies, deprived the inhabitants of their means of livelihood ; for there were no exports, and they had never done anything more than supply the passing shipping. This blow was followed by a reduction of the garrison, and of the naval squadron which had been kept up for the suppression of the slave trade; and when I visited the island in 1871 and 1873, the inhabitants were in a very poor way indeed, they having nothing to depend on but the precarious sale of supplies to the American whalers which make St. Helena a port of call.

In 1879, however, I found that a small export trade had sprung up, the colonists manufacturing fibre from the Phor - mium tenax, and growing coffee in small quantities. James Town, the capital of the island, is built in a ravine with almost vertical sides, the height to the east being called Rupert's Hill, and that to the west, Ladder Hill. These two mountains, which almost meet about a mile inland, gradually recede from one another as they approach the sea, and finally end abruptly on the shore in two perpendicular cliffs. The triangular space thus enclosed, on which the town is built, is 350 yards broad at the sea front, and about a mile and a quarter long. On the eastern side of the valley is a carriage-road, called the Side Path, which leads to the interior of the island. Landing at the sea-wall to the east of the town, one passes through a small crowd of people of diverse hues, and skirting one or two corrugated iron sheds, arrives at the drawbridge which spans the ditch of the old fortifications which defend the entrance of the ravine.

Although there is no necessity for any precaution now, the tradition of the days when Napoleon was here in durance vile is still kept up ; and at night, the drawbridge is raised, and the communication between the town and beach entirely cut off. Inside the defences, a diminutive and neglected public garden is passed, ' and one reaches the one long and straggling street of the town, which possesses no buildings of any merit, and whose yellow church is hideous. The name of Ladder Hill is derived from the steep wooden steps, known as Jacob's Ladder, which lead directly to its summit, 600 feet high. A coloured gentleman, who had attached himself to me in the capacity of guide, said it was the same one that the patriarch saw in his dream ; and I told him I could quite believe it, it seemed so old, dilapidated, and generally unsafe.

He appeared annoyed at my remarks concerning its want of repair, indignantly asserted that it was quite safe, and urged me to go and climb up it ; but I replied that I was not one of those persons who will rush in where angels fear to tread, and that the angels did feel nervous when on that ladder I knew from the pictures. To ascend these steps must be bad enough, but to descend must require an unusually steady head. I saw, however, several negresses coming down them, carrying baskets of vegetables and fruit on their heads ; and, such is the force of habit, making nothing either of the perpendicular height, which makes a stranger feel giddy, nor of the fact that in several places two or more of the wooden steps were wanting. St. Helena is so named because the island was discovered on the 21st of May, a day consecrated to Helena, wife of Constantine, mother of Constantine the Great, and daughter of Coel, King of Colchester, a monarch whose memory is still preserved in that poem which commemorates his convivial tendencies and fondness for violin trios.

This young woman, being divorced by her husband, repented and became a Christian. She then made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there dreamed a dream which led to the finding of the true Cross, and so was canonised. It is true that Gibbon says Helena was the daughter of an innkeeper in Nicomedia; but I have seen an inscription on a tablet, placed in the wall of a chapel in Colchester within the last decade, which informs the world that the building was founded by her ; and of course this must be quite satisfactory, and settles the question. The climate of the island is exceedingly healthy, the death-rate having, in several years, been as low as one per cent. ; and if the coloured population of Africans and Lascars could only be induced to adopt more cleanly habits, there seems to be no reason why it should not fall still lower.

The levels of land suitable for cultivation ranging from the sea level to 2700 feet in Diana Peak, almost anything will grow, provided that it be planted at an elevation where the temperature suits it. Tree-ferns and cabbage -wood grow luxuriantly on the main ridge of mountains, where there is plenty of mist, while fuchsias and brambles flourish near the water-courses ; and lower down, one finds Scotch fir, oak, and larch. Near the sea, however, no vegetation is found beyond a scanty growth of samphire ; and this causes the island to appear very barren from the outside. Gooseberry and currant-bushes grow to a large size and become evergreens, but will not bear fruit ; and all fruit trees that depend upon bees for impregnation are also barren, as the bee will not live on the island, and the point of Dr. Watts' celebrated idyll is consequently utterly lost upon the Sunday-school children.

The blackberry overran the whole island shortly after being introduced, but, on the other hand, cherries will not grow. The Conyga gum/mis era, a tree indigenous to the island, is also common to Tristan da Cunha ; from which it has been inferred that the two islands were once united. In the only street of James Town there is a fairly good hotel, named, I think, the Imperial Arms ; and on the occasion of my second visit to the island, I enjoyed a share of a rather awkward mistake there. I landed from the steamer quite early in the morning — about six o'clock — and rushed, in company with a crowd of passengers, to order breakfast at the hotel. We were piloted by one of our number, who said he knew the place well ; and invading the hotel, we rushed up the stairs before the servants were half up, our pilot conducting us down a passage which, he said, led to the coffee-room.

I did not think myself that he was going quite the right way ; but, as I had only been there once before and he said he was quite at home, I was too diffident to say anything. He ran to a door, opened it and entered a room, we all following. It was almost dark inside, but, as it was so early, we merely thought that the servants had not yet opened the shutters. In a few seconds, however, our eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and we were horrified at finding ourselves in a bed-room, with a lady and gentleman in bed both sitting up, attired in white night-caps with frills, and looking at us with a most serious expression of countenance. It was wonderful to see how the crowd melted away under the stony glare of that middle-aged British matron ; and though the gentleman kept demanding what we wanted, and what was the reason of our intrusion, we were all so shocked that we slunk away without finding words to answer.

Our guide had not a very happy time of it for the next few minutes ; but there was some truth in his remark that people in hotels ought to keep their doors locked. One of the chief objects of interest in St. Helena is the house at Longwood, in which Napoleon passed his six years of captivity. The plateau of Longwood, which is about 2000 feet above the level of the sea, and bounded by deep ravines, is reached by the tortuous Side Path. It is covered with fine grass, and is one of the best pasture-lands in the island, but is bleak and dreary ; though in former days, both it and the plateau of Deadwood were covered with forest, of which at the present time not a vestige remains. It is said that the goats and hogs which were introduced in 1502, and which at the time of Cavendish's visit had overrun the island, destroyed all the young trees then in existence as well as those that subsequently sprung up.

The ones beyond their reach arrived at maturity, decayed, and died in the ordinary course ; and there being no others to replace them, about 1724 the forest was in a great measure nothing but a forest of dead trees, and from this the name of Deadwood is derived. In 1731, an order was issued to the effect that all stray animals should be destroyed, but the mischief was then done ; and when we consider that the whole island, down to the verge of its encircling cliffs, was densely wooded at the time of its discovery, the number of trees destroyed . by these creatures must have been immense. In front of Longwood Old House are some cultivated fields, passing which one traverses a small enclosed front garden and arrives at a long, low building, which is the one in which Napoleon lived. Beyond one sees the pinnacle of rocks of various colours known as the Flagstaff Hill, and the dark square mass of the "Barn ;" close at hand stands Long wood New House, which was built for Napoleon, but being only furnished a short time before his death, was never occupied by him ; and a little further off is Marshal Bertrand's cottage.

Longwood Old House is now unfurnished and empty, with the ex ception of a laurel-crowned bust of the Emperor in the room in which he died, and crossed French and English flags over the fireplace in the entrance hall. The place is in good repair, all the havoc wrought by legions of relic-hunters having been made good, and similar acts of Vandalism now being sternly suppressed. The principal culprits were French sailors, for on the arrival of a vessel of that nationality at the island the whole crew was at once marched up to Longwood, and with the usual demonstrative excitability of Frenchmen, they used to tear the paper from the walls, and cut strips off the doors and windows with their knives. The repairs were carried out by the French Government, who endea voured to make the rooms as much as possible like what they had been when occupied by Napoleon ; and, having with some difficulty obtained specimens of the wall-papers which had been in the possession of an English marauder for more than thirty years, new papers exactly like the originals were manufactured in Paris and sent out to St. Helena.

Napoleon's tomb is in Slane's Valley, about a mile from Longwood, and is well cared for by the French sergeant in charge of it. The body was, as everyone knows, removed to France in a man-of-war by the Prince de Joinville, in 1840, and now rests under the dome of the Invalides, so that only the empty tomb remains in St. Helena. Over the grave itself, which is protected by a railing, is a decrepit willow, which many years ago was planted to replace the one that had been torn to pieces by enthusiastic relic-hunters, and the present one looks as if it would soon require a successor. The inner railing is further enclosed by an outer one of iron, and the intervening space, covered with turf, is planted with willow, cypress, and other funereal trees. Close at hand bubbles along the limpid stream at which Napoleon used to quench his thirst after his walk from Longwood, to this, his favourite resort.

It is difficult, in the present day, to put oneself in the position of the average Englishman of the year 1815, of the man who regarded Napoleon more in the light of a monster than as a human being, who daily heard him preached against as Antichrist and the personification of evil, who lent a credulous ear to all the ridiculous stories circulated concerning him, and implicitly believed that he ordered his sick and wounded soldiers at Jaffa to be poisoned in order to prevent them falling into the hands of their enemies ; but, viewed calmly after the lapse of sixty nine years, and with the judgment unbiassed by national animosities, it seems impossible to defend the action of the Castlereagh Ministry, in sen tencing the defeated Emperor to life-long exile ; and the British nation, by its tacit approval of this act, accepted the responsibility of it.

Undoubtedly the character of the first Napoleon was not one to be admired, and Emerson no doubt sums it up with great accuracy when he tells us that he was utterly destitute of generous sentiments, and had not the common merit of truth and honesty ; but all that should be beside the question. On escaping from Elba Napoleon landed on the shores of a mighty empire, and with only some three hundred followers with which to subdue a nation of thirty-five millions of people. As he advanced his progress resembled a national triumph, the troops sent to oppose him received him with shouts of joy, the hated symbols of the Bourbons were trampled under foot, and he entered Paris without a drop of blood having been shed in his behalf, an exploit which is unequalled in ancient or modern history. In a few weeks he was able to assume an appearance so formidable as again to threaten the destinies of Europe.

From this it was evident that the French nation preferred him as a ruler to the other candidates for the throne ; but Britain and the allies declined to allow France to enjoy the first prerogative of independence, namely, the choice of a form of government, rejected Napoleon's proposals for peace, and forced upon him a war in which fifty thousand lives were sacrificed. This has been defended on the grounds that there was no security in the Emperor's promises, but the worst was to follow after Waterloo. In Napoleon's letter of the 14th of July to the Prince Regent, the day before he surrendered himself to Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon, in Aix Roads, he says : " I come, like Themistocles, to seat myself on the hearth of the British people. I place myself under the protection of its Prince and laws, which I claim of your Royal Highness, as the most just, the most brave, and most generous of my enemies."

The appeal, however, was made to men more obdurate than Artaxerxes, and Castlereagh had no such idea of generosity. The protection which was sought from Great Britain, and which had always been granted to political exiles and even political criminals, was refused to the greatest military leader that the world has ever seen, and he was sent to break his spirit for nearly six years in the solitude of St. Helena, where his exile was embittered by the petty tyrannies of the Governor, Sir Hudson Lowe. Gibbon says, in speaking of the Romans when they first commenced to degenerate : " When a nation loses its generosity, it is a proof of its being on the decline." It is to be hoped, then, that the ungenerous treatment of our fallen foe was due rather to the influence of the men who governed the country, than to loss of principle in the nation at large, though upon the latter all the odium will necessarily fall.

To the westward of Ladder Hill, whose summit may be reached, by those who do not care to climb Jacob's Ladder, by a zigzag road, lies Friar's Valley ; so called from an isolated piece of columnar basalt, which, on account of its supposed resemblance to a capuchin, is called the Friar Rock. A legend tells us that the place where this rock now stands was once the site of a church, the incumbent of which was a man universally beloved and of wonderful piety. Naturally such a man would be marked down by the powers of darkness for their prey, and the priest one day met an Arcadian shepherdess, tending her goats on the adjoining hill, now known as " Goat Pound Ridge." Struck by her marvellous grace and beauty, the priest stopped and regarded her with admiring eyes ; and she, encouraged by his kind and benign aspect, begged him in a winning voice to assist her in collecting her flock, which had strayed far over the hillside, and which she was too tired to run after herself.

The gallant priest at once went to the assistance of beauty in distress, collected the goats together, and assisted her in driving them part of the way to her home. The shepherdess beguiled the time with artless conversation, and thanked the priest so eloquently with her lustrous eyes, that when he finally left her and returned to his own home, he could think of nothing but the en thralling loveliness of his new acquaintance. Of course, after this first meeting, the priest c continually met the fair shepherdess by accident in his rambles amongst the hills ; and the acquaintance ripened so rapidly under the warm sun of St. Helena, that before long he made a declaration of love. The damsel, however, if poor, was virtuous, and would listen to no amorous appeal which was not backed up by a small golden circlet and the magic word "marriage;" and the infatuated priest at length promised to break his vow of celibacy, and lead her to the altar.

The shepherdess, however, then put a new difficulty in his way. She vowed that she could never espouse him unless he renounced his own faith and adopted hers ; but what that was, the legend has neglected to inform us. The " easy descent " having been commenced, the priest did not make much difficulty about this new condition, and the wedding-day was fixed. F'or some incomprehensible reason the marriage was to take place in the church of which the priest was incumbent, though why they should choose a place of worship belonging to a religion in which she did not believe, and which he had abjured, is not stated ; and on the fateful day, the bride, accompanied by her attendant bridesmaids, met the renegade priest at the altar. Perhaps he was goino to perform the marriage ceremony himself, or perhaps he had obtained the services of some accommodating brother professional ; but, anyhow, just as the ring was being slipped upon the taper finger of the shepherdess, a fearful crash resounded, the earth opened, a suffocatingly sulphurous cloud veiled the scene for a few minutes, and when it had cleared away, every vestige of the church and wedding-party had disappeared, nothing remaining but the gaunt figure of the renegade priest, turned into stone.

St. Helena seems to have been particularly un fortunate in the garrisons which were selected for it by the East India Company, for the quiet island was seriously disturbed by four mutinies. The first occurred in 1684, when a portion of the troops mutinied, and, being joined by some disaffected colonists, ventured to attack the fort. They were, however, repulsed ; and the ringleaders being captured, one of them was hanged and four banished from the island. This lenient punishment perhaps contributed to the second mutiny, for six years later, in 1690, nearly the entire garrison mutinied, and murdered the Governor, Captain Joshua Johnson. The mutineers then seized all the adherents of the Government, and confined them on board a ship in the harbour ; and having spiked all the guns in the fortifications and destroyed all the ammunition, they then removed all the specie and spoil upon which they could lay their hands to another vessel, o and sailing away in her, escaped.