Journal of an African Cruiser

PREFACE

The following pages have afforded occupation for many hours, which might else have been wasted in idle amusements, or embittered by still idler regrets at the destiny which carried the writer to a region so little seductive as Africa, and kept him there so long. He now offers them to the public, after some labor bestowed in correction and amendment, but retaining their original form, that of a daily Journal, which better suited his lack of literary practice and constructive skill, and was in fitter keeping with the humble pretensions of the work, than a re-arrangement on artistic principles. At various points of the narrative, however, he has introduced observations or disquisitions from two or three common-place books, which he kept simultaneously with the Journal; and thus, in a few instances, remarks are inserted as having been made early in the cruise, while, in reality, they were perhaps the ultimate result of his reflection and judgment upon the topics discussed.

If, in any portion of the book, the author may hope to engage the attention of the public, it will probably be in those pages which treat of Liberia. The value of his evidence, as to the condition and prospects of that colony, must depend, not upon any singular acuteness of observation or depth of reflection, but upon his freedom from partizan bias, and his consequent ability to perceive a certain degree of truth, and inclination to express it frankly. A northern man, but not unacquainted with the slave institutions of our own and other countries – neither an Abolitionist nor a Colonizationist – without prejudice, as without prepossession – he felt himself thus far qualified to examine the great enterprise which he beheld in progress. He enjoyed, moreover, the advantage of comparing Liberia, as he now saw it, with a personal observation of its condition three years before, and could therefore mark its onward or retreating footsteps, and the better judge what was permanent, and what merely temporary or accidental. With these qualifications, he may at least hope to have spoken so much of truth as entirely to gratify neither the friends nor enemies of this interesting colony.

The West Coast of Africa is a fresher field for the scribbling tourist, than most other parts of the world. Few visit it, unless driven by stern necessity; and still fewer are disposed to struggle against the enervating influence of the climate, and keep up even so much of intellectual activity as may suffice to fill a diurnal page of Journal or Commonplace Book. In his descriptions of the settlements of the various nations of Europe, along that coast, and of the native tribes, and their trade and intercourse with the whites, the writer indulges the idea that he may add a trifle to the general information of the public. He puts forth his work, however, with no higher claims than as a collection of desultory sketches, in which he felt himself nowise bound to tell all that it might be desirable to know, but only to be accurate in what he does tell. On such terms, there is perhaps no very reprehensible audacity in undertaking the history of a voyage; and he smiles to find himself, so simply and with so little labor, acquiring a title to be enrolled among the authors of books!

CHAPTER I

Departure – Mother Carey's Chickens – The Gulf stream – Rapid Progress – The French Admiral's Cook – Nautical Musicians – The Sick Man – The Burial at Sea – Arrival at the Canaries – Santa Cruz – Love and Crime – Island of Grand Canary – Troglodytes near Las Palmas.

June 5,1843. – Towed by the steamer Hercules, we go down the harbor of New York, at 7 o'clock A.M. It is the fourth time the ship has moved, since she was launched from the Navy Yard at Portsmouth. Her first experience of the ocean was a rough one; she was caught in a wintry gale from the north-east, dismasted, and towed back into Portsmouth harbor, within three days after her departure. The second move brought us to New York; the third, from the Navy Yard into the North river; and the fourth will probably bring us to an anchorage off Sandy Hook. After a hard winter of four months, in New Hampshire, we go to broil on the coast of Africa, with ice enough in our blood to keep us comfortably cool for six months at least.

At 10 A.M. the steamer cast off, and we anchored inside of Sandy Hook; at 12 Meridian, hoisted the broad pennant of Commodore Perry, and saluted it with thirteen guns. At 3 P.M. the ship gets under way, and with a good breeze, stands out to sea. Our parting letters are confided to the Pilot. That weather-beaten veteran gives you a cordial shake with his broad, hard hand, wishes you a prosperous cruise, and goes over the side. His life is full of greetings and farewells; the grasp of his hand assures the returning mariner that his weary voyage is over; and when the swift pilot boat hauls her wind, and leaves you to go on your course alone, you feel that the last connecting link with home is broken. On our ship's deck, there were perhaps some heart-aches, but no whimpering. Few strain their eyes to catch parting glimpses of the receding highlands; it is only the green ones who do that. The Old Salt seeks more substantial solace in his dinner. It is matter of speculation, moreover, whether much of the misery of parting does not, with those unaccustomed to the sea, originate in the disturbed state of their stomachs.

7. – We are in the Gulf-stream. The temperature of the water is ten degrees above that of the air. Though the ship is deep, being filled with stores, and therefore sailing heavily, we are yet taken along eleven knots by the wind, and two or three more by the current. Swiftly as we fly, however, we are not quite alone upon the waters. Mother Carey's chickens follow us continually, dipping into the white foam of our track, to seize the food which our keel turns up for them out of the ocean depths. Mysterious is the way of this little wanderer over the sea. It is never seen on land; and naturalists have yet to discover where it reposes, and where it hatches its young; unless we adopt the idea of the poets, that it builds its nest upon the turbulent bosom of the deep. It is a sort of nautical sister of the fabled bird of Paradise, which was footless, and never alighted out of the air. Hundreds of miles from shore, in sunshine and in tempest, you may see the Stormy Petrel. Among the unsolvable riddles which nature propounds to mankind, we may reckon the question, Who is Mother Carey, and where does she rear her chickens?

9. – We are out of the Gulf-stream, and the ship is now rolling somewhat less tumultuously than heretofore. For four days, we have been blest with almost too fair a wind. A strong breeze, right aft, has been taking us more than two hundred and forty miles a day on our course. But the incessant and uneasy motion of the ship deprives us of any steady comfort. In spite of all precautions, tables, chairs, and books, have tumbled about in utter confusion, and the monotony is enlivened by the breaking of bottles and crash of crockery. As some consolation, our Log Book shows that we have made more than half of a thousand miles, within the last forty-eight hours. Land travelling, with all the advantages of railroads, can hardly compete with the continual diligence of a ship before a prosperous breeze.

11. – Spoke an American brig from Liverpool, bound for New York. Though the boat was called away, and our letters were ready, it was all at once determined not to board her; and, after asking the captain to report us, we stood on our course again. The newspapers will tell our friends something of our whereabouts; or, at least, that on a certain day, we were encountered at a certain point upon the sea.

13. – Wind still fair, and weather always fine. We have not tacked ship once since leaving Sandy Hook, and are almost ready to quarrel with the continual fair wind. There is nothing else to find fault with, except the performances of our French cook in the wardroom, who came on board just before we left New York, and made us believe that we had obtained a treasure. He told us that he had cooked for a French Admiral. We swore him to secrecy on that point, lest the Commodore should be disposed to engage the services of so distinguished an artist for his own table. But our self-congratulations were not of long continuance. The sugared omelet passed with slight remark. The beefsteak smothered in onions was merely prohibited in future. But when, on the second day, the potatoes were served with mashed lemon-peel, the general discontent burst forth; and we scolded till we laughed again at the dilemma in which we found ourselves. Next to being without food, is the calamity of being subjected, in the middle of the Atlantic, to the diabolical arts of the French Admiral's cook. At sea, the arrangements of the table are of far more importance than on shore. There are so few incidents, that one's dinner becomes, what Dr. Johnson affirmed it always to be, the affair of which a man thinks oftenest in the course of the day.

16. – All day, the wind has been ahead, and very light. This evening, a dead calm is upon the sea; but the sky is cloudless, and the air pure and soft. All the well are enjoying the fine weather. The commodore and captain walk the poop-deck; the other officers, except the lieutenant and young gentlemen of the watch, are smoking on the forecastle, or promenading the quarter-deck. A dozen steady old salts are rolling along the gangways; and the men are clustered in knots between the guns, talking, laughing, or listening to the yarns of their comrades – an amusement to which sailors are as much addicted as the Sultan in the Arabian Nights. But music is the order of the evening. Though a band is not allowed to a ship of our class, there are always good musicians to be found among the reckless and jolly fellows composing a man-of-war's crew. A big landsman from Utica, and a dare-devil topman from Cape Cod, are the leading vocalists; Symmes, the ship's cook, plays an excellent violin; and the commodore's steward is not to be surpassed upon the tambourine. A little black fellow, whose sobriquet is Othello, manages the castanets, and there is a tolerable flute played by one of the afterguard. The concerts usually commence with sentimental songs, such as "Home, sweet Home," and the Canadian Boat Song: but the comic always carries off the palm; "Jim along Josey," "Lucy Long," "Old Dan Tucker," and a hundred others of the same character, are listened to delightedly by the crowd of men and boys collected round the fore-hatch, and always ready to join in the choruses. Thus a sound of mirth floats far and wide over the twilight sea, and would seem to indicate that all goes well among us.

But the delicious atmosphere, and the amusements of the ship, bring not joy to all on board. There are sick men swinging uneasily in their hammocks; and one poor fellow, whose fever threatens to terminate fatally, tosses painfully in his cot. His messmates gently bathe his hot brow, and, watching every movement, nurse him as tenderly as a woman. Strange, that the rude heart of a sailor should be found to possess such tenderness as we seldom ask or find, in those of our own sex, on land! There, we leave the gentler humanities of life to woman; here, we are compelled to imitate her characteristics, as well as our sterner nature will permit.

22. – The sick man died last night, and was buried to-day. His history was revealed to no one. Where was his home, or whether he has left friends to mourn his death, are alike unknown. Dying, he kept his own counsel, and was content to vanish out of life, even as a speck of foam melts back into the ocean. At 11 A.M., for the first time, in a cruise likely to be fatal to many on board, the boatswain piped "all hands to bury the dead!" The sailor's corpse, covered with the union of his country's flag, was placed in the gangway. Two hundred and fifty officers and men stood around, uncovered, and reverently listened to the beautiful and solemn burial service, as it was read by one of the officers. The body was committed to the deep, while the ship dashed onward, and had left the grave far behind, even before the last words of the service were uttered. The boatswain "piped down," and all returned to their duties sadly, and with thoughtful countenances.

23. – At 4 A.M., the island of Palma and the Peak of Teneriffe are in full sight, though the lofty summit of the mountain is one hundred miles distant.

24. – At 5 A.M., anchored at Santa Cruz, capital of the island of Teneriffe. The health-officer informed us that we must ride out a quarantine of eight days. A fine precaution, considering that we are direct from New York! After breakfast, I went to the mole, to see the Consular Agent, on duty. While waiting in our boat, we were stared at by thirty or forty loafers (a Yankee phrase, but strictly applicable to these foreign vagabonds), of the most wretched kind. Some were dressed in coarse shirts and trowsers, and some had only one of these habiliments. None interested me, except a dirty, swarthy boy, with most brilliant black eyes, who lay flat on his stomach, and gazed at us in silence. His elf-like glance sparkles brightly in my memory.

One of the seamen in our boat spoke to the persons on shore in Spanish. I inquired whether that were his mother-tongue, and learned that he was a native of Mahon. On questioning him further, I ascertained that he was concerned in a tragedy of which I had often heard, while on the Mediterranean station, two or three years ago. A beautiful girl of sixteen, of highly respectable family, fell in love with a young man, her inferior in social rank, though of reputable standing. The affair was kept secret between them. At length, the lover became jealous, and, one evening, called his mistress out of her father's house, and stabbed her five or six times. She died instantly, and her murderer fled. It was believed in Mahon that he was drowned by falling overboard from the vessel in which he escaped. Nevertheless, that murderer was the man with whom I was speaking in the boat, now bearing another name, and a common sailor of our ship. He told me his real name; and I heard, afterwards, that, when drunk, he had confessed the murder to one of his messmates.

This incident illustrates what I have often thought, that the private history of a man-of-war's crew, if truly told, would be full of high romance, varied with stirring incident, and too often darkened with, deep and deadly crime. Many go to sea with the old Robinson Crusoe spirit, seeking adventure for its own sake; many, to escape the punishment of guilt, which has made them outlaws of the land; some, to drown the memory of slighted love; while others flee from the wreck of their broken fortunes ashore, to hazard another shipwreck on the deep. The jacket of the common sailor often covers a figure that has walked Broadway in a fashionable coat. An officer sometimes sees his old school-fellow and playmate taken to the gangway and flogged. Many a blackguard on board has been bred in luxury; and many a good seaman has been a slaver and a pirate. It is well for the ship's company, that the sins of individuals do not, as in the days of Jonas, stir up tempests that threaten the destruction of the whole.

The island of Grand Canary is one of the most interesting of the group at which we have now arrived. The population of its capital, the city of Las Palmas, is variously estimated at from nine thousand inhabitants, to twice that number. The streets, however, have none of the bustle and animation that would enliven an American town, of similar size. Around the city there is an aspect of great fertility; fields of corn and grain, palm-trees, and vineyards, occupy the valleys among the hills, and extend along the shores, twining a glad green wreath about the circuit of the island. The vines of Canary produce a wine which, two or three centuries ago, was held in higher estimation than at present, and is supposed by some to have been the veritable "sack" that so continually moistened the throat of Falstaff. The very name of Canary is a cheerful one, associated as it is with the idea of bounteous vineyards, and of those little golden birds that make music all over the world.

The high hills that surround the city of Las Palmas are composed of soft stone, the yielding quality of which has caused these cliffs to be converted to a very singular purpose. The poorer people, who can find no shelter above ground, burrow into the sides of the hill, and thus form caves for permanent habitation, where they dwell like swallows in a sand-bank. Judging from the number of these excavations, the mouths of which appear on the hill-sides, there cannot be less than a thousand persons living in the manner here described. Not only the destitute inhabitants of Grand Canary, but vagabonds from Teneriffe and the other islands, creep thus into the heart of the rock; and children play about the entrances of the caverns as merrily as at a cottage-door: while, in the gloom of the interior, you catch a glimpse of household furniture, and women engaged in domestic avocations. It is like discovering a world within the world.

CHAPTER II

Nelson's defeat at Santa Cruz – The Mantilla – Arrival at Porto Grande – Poverty of the inhabitants – Portuguese Exiles at the Cape de Verds – City of Porto Prayo – Author's submersion – Green Turtle – Rainy Season – Anchor at Cape Mesurado.

July 1. – Ashore at Santa Cruz. The population of the city is reckoned at six or eight thousand. The streets are clean, and the houses built in the Spanish fashion. Camels are frequent in the streets.

The landing at the Mole is generally bad, as Nelson found to his cost. It is easy to perceive that, even in ordinary times, the landing of a large party, though unopposed, must be a work of considerable difficulty. How much more arduous, then, was the enterprise of the great Naval Hero, who made his attack in darkness, and in the face of a well-manned battery, which swept away all who gained foot-hold on the shore! The latter obstacle might have been overcome by English valor, under Nelson's guidance; but night, and the heavy surf, were the enemies that gave him his first and only defeat. The little fort, under whose guns he was carried by his step-son, after the loss of his arm, derived its chief interest, in my eyes, from that circumstance. The glory of the great Admiral sheds a lustre even upon the spot where success deserted him. In the Cathedral of Santa Cruz are to be seen two English flags, which were taken on that occasion, and are still pointed out with pride by the inhabitants. I saw them five years ago, when they hung from the walls, tattered and covered with dust; they are now enclosed in glass cases, to which the stranger's attention is eagerly directed by the boys who swarm around him. The defeat of Nelson took place on the anniversary of the patron-saint of Santa Cruz; a coincidence which has added not a little to the saint's reputation. It was by no means his first warlike exploit; for he is said to have come to the assistance of the inhabitants, and routed the Moors, when pressing the city hard, in the olden time.

We wandered about the city until evening, and then walked in the Plaza. Here the ladies and gentlemen of the city promenade for an hour or two, occasionally seating themselves on the stone benches which skirt the square. Like other Spanish ladies, the lovely brunettes of Santa Cruz generally wear the mantilla, so much more becoming than the bonnet. There are just enough of bonnets worn by foreigners, and travelled Spanish dames, to show what deformities they are, when contrasted with the graceful veil. This head-dress could only be used in a climate like that of Teneriffe, where there are no extremes of heat or cold. It is a proverb that there is no winter and no summer here. So equable and moderate is the temperature, that, we were assured, a person might, without inconvenience, wear either thick or thin clothing, all the year round. With such a climate, and with a fertile soil, it would seem that this must be almost a Paradise. There is a great obstruction, however, to the welfare of the inhabitants, in the want of water. It rains so seldom that the ground is almost burnt up, and many cattle actually perish from thirst. It is said that no less than thirty thousand persons have emigrated from the island, within three years.

The productions of Teneriffe, for export, are wine and barilla. Of the first, the greater part is sent to England, Russia and the United States. About thirty thousand pipes are made annually, of which two thirds are exported. Little or no wine is produced on the southern slope of the island. The hills around Santa Cruz are little more than rugged peaks of naked rock. The scenery is wild and bold, but sterile; and scattered around are stupendous hills of lava, the products of former volcanic eruptions, but which have, for ages, been cold and wave-washed.

14. – Arrived at Porto Grande, in the island of St. Vincent's, one of the Cape de Verds. The harbor is completely landlocked by the island of St. Antonio, which stretches across its mouth. Still, there is, at times, a considerable swell. The appearance of the land is barren, desolate, and unpromising in the highest degree; and the town is in keeping with the scenery. Eighty or ninety miserable hovels, constructed of small, loose stones, in the manner of our stone-fences, stand in rows, with some pretence of regularity. Besides the Governor and his aid, there are here five white men, or rather Portuguese (for their claim to white blood is not apparent in their complexions), viz. the Collector, the American Consular Agent, a shop-keeper, whose goods are all contained in a couple of trunks, and two private soldiers. We called to see the Governor, and were politely received; he offered seats, and did the honors of the place with dignity and affability. His pay is one dollar per diem. He has five soldiers under his command, two of them Portuguese, and three native negroes, one of whom has a crooked leg.

The people here are wretchedly poor, subsisting chiefly by fishing, and by their precarious gains from ships which anchor in the port. The Collector informed me that there had been sixty whale-ships in the harbor, within the past year. The profits accruing from thence, however, are very inadequate to the comfortable support of the inhabitants. The adults are mostly covered with rags, while many of the children are entirely naked; the cats and dogs (whose condition may be taken as no bad test of the degree of bodily comfort in the community) are lean and skeleton-like. As to religion, I saw nothing to remind me of it, except the ruins of an old church. There has been no priest since the death of one who was drowned, a few years ago, near Bird Island, a large rock, at the mouth of the harbor. At the time of this fatal mishap, the reverend father was on a drunken frolic, in company with some colored women.

The Cape de Verd Islands derive their name from the nearest point of the mainland of Africa; they are under the dominion of Portugal, and, notwithstanding their poverty, furnish a considerable revenue to that country, over and above the expenses of the Colonial Government. This revenue comes chiefly from the duties levied upon all imported articles, and from the orchilla trade, which is monopolized by the Government at home, and produces 50,000 dollars per annum. Another source of profit is found in the tithes for the support of the Church, which, in some, if not all the islands, have been seized by the Government (under a pledge for the maintenance of the clergy), and are farmed out annually. These islands supply the Portuguese with a place of honorable exile for officers who may be suspected of heresy in politics, and hostility to existing institutions. They are advanced a step in rank, to repay them (and a poor requital it is) for the change from the delicious climate of Portugal, and the gaieties of Lisbon, to the dreary solitude, the arid soil, and burning and fever-laden air of the Cape de Verds. It is a melancholy thought, that many an active intellect – many a generous and aspiring spirit – may have been doomed to linger and perish here, chained, as it were, to the rocks, like Prometheus, merely for having dreamed of kindling the fire of liberty in their native land.