 Chapter 11 Part 1 of The Sea, Its Stirring Stories of Adventure, Peril and Heroism. Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Luke Dixie. The Sea, Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril and Heroism. Volume 1 by Frederick Wimper. Chapter 11. Round the World on a Man of War Continued. From the Horn to Halifax. Part 1. And now, the exgenesis of the service require us to tear ourselves away from gay and pleasant Valparaiso, and voyage in spirit round the horn to the South-East American Station, which includes the whole coast, from Terra del Fuego to Brazil and Guyana. Friendly ports, Rio and Montevideo, are open to the Royal Navy as stations for necessary repairs or supplies, but the only strictly British port on the whole station is that at the dreary Falkland Islands, to be shortly described. Every schoolboy knows that Cape Horn is even more dreaded than the other Cape of Storms, otherwise known as the Cape, par excellence. These days, the introduction of steam has reduced much of the danger and horrors of the passage round, though on occasions they are sufficiently serious. In fact, now that there is a regular tugboat service in the Straits of Magellan, there is really no occasion to go round it at all. In 1862, the writer rounded it, in a steamer of good power, when the water was as still as a mill pond, and the horn itself, a barren black, craggy, precipitous rock, towering above the utter desolation and bleakest solitudes of that forsaken spot, was plainly in sight. Captain Basil Hall and his officers and crew in 1820, when rounding Cape Horn, observed the remarkable phenomenon, which may account for the title of the Land of Fire bestowed upon it by Magellan. A brilliant light suddenly appeared in the northwestern quarter. At first, of a bright red, it became fainter and fainter till it disappeared altogether. After the lapse of four or five minutes, its brilliancy was suddenly restored, and it seemed as if a column of burning materials had been projected into the air. This bright appearance lasted from ten to twenty seconds, fading by degrees as the column became lower, till at length only a dull red mass was distinguishable for about a minute, after which it again vanished. The sailors thought it a revolving light, others that it must be a forest on fire, all who examined it carefully through a telescope agreed in considering it a volcano, like Stromboli, emitting alternately jets of flame and red-hot stones. The light was visible till morning, and although during the night it appeared to be not more than eight or ten miles off, no land was to be seen. The present writer would suggest the probability of its having been an electrical phenomenon. The naval station at the Falklands is at Port Stanley, on the eastern island, where there is a splendid landlocked harbour with a narrow entrance. The little port is, and has been, a haven of refuge for many a storm-beaten mariner, not merely from the fury of the elements, but also because supplies of fresh meat can be obtained there and, indeed, everything else. Wild cattle of old Spanish stock roam at will over many parts of the two islands. When the writer was there in 1862, beef was retailed at four pence per pound, and Port Stanley being a free port, everything was very cheap. How many boxes of cigars, pounds of tobacco, cases of hollands and demigods of rum were, in consequence, taken on board by his three hundred fellow passengers would be a serious calculation. The little town has not much to recommend it. It has, of course, a government house and a church, and barracks for the marine station there. It is, moreover, the headquarters of the Falkland Islands Company, a corporation much like the Hudson's Bay Company, trading in furs and hides and stores for ships and native trade. The three great characteristics of Port Stanley are the penguins, which are bound, and are to be seen waddling in troops in its immediate vicinity and stumbling over the stones if pursued. The kelp, which is so thick and strong in the water at the edge of the bay in places, that a strong boat crew can hardly get way enough on to reach the shore, and the peat bogs, which would remind an Irishman of his beloved erin. Peat is the principal fuel of the place, and what glorious fires it makes. At least so thought a good many of the passengers who took the opportunity of living on shore during the fortnight of the vessel's stay. For about three shillings and sixpence a day, one could obtain a good bed, meals of beef steaks and joints of fresh vegetables. Very welcome after the everlasting salt junk and preserved vegetables of the ship. With the addition of hot rum and water, nearly ad-libitum, then the privilege of stretching one's legs is something. After five or six weeks' confinement, there is duck and loon shooting to be had, or an excursion to the lighthouse a few miles from the town, where the writer found children of several years of age who had never even beheld the glories of Port Stanley, and yet were happy, and near which he saw on the beach sea-trees, for seaweed would be a misnomer, the trunks being several feet in circumference, slippery, gluttonous, marine vegetation uprooted from the depths of ocean. Some of them would create a sensation in an aquarium. The harbour of Port Stanley is usually safe enough, but in the extraordinary gales which often rage outside does not always afford safe anchorage. The steamship on which the writer was a passenger lay far out in the bay, but the force of a sudden gale made her drag her anchors, and but for the steam, which was immediately got up, she would have gone ashore. A sailing vessel must have been wrecked in the same position. Of course, the power of the engines was set against the wind, and she was saved. Passengers ashore could not get off for two days, and those on board could not go ashore. No boat could have lived, even in the bay during a large part of the time. The West Indian station demands our attention next. Unfortunately, it must not take the space it deserves, for it would occupy that required for ten books of the size of this, i. 20, to do it the barest justice. Why? Read Charles Kingsley's admirable work at last. One alas, of the last tasks of a well-spent life, and one will see England's interests in those islands, and must think also of those earlier days when Columbus, Drake and Raleigh sailed among the waters which divide them, days of geographical discovery worth speaking of, of grand triumphs over foes worth fighting, and of gain amounting to something. On the 31st July, 1499, Columbus on his third voyage sighted the three hills which make the south-eastern end of Trinidad. He had determined to name the first land he should sight after the Holy Trinity, and so he did. The triple peaks probably reminded him. Washington Irving tells us, in his Life of Columbus, that he was astonished at the verger and fertility of the country, having expected that it would be parched dry and sterile as he approached the equator, whereas he beheld beautiful graves of palm trees and luxuriant forests sweeping down to the seaside, with gurgling brooks and clear deep streams beneath the shade, the softness and purity of the climate, and the beauty of the country seemed, after his long sea voyage, to rival the beautiful province of Valencia itself. Columbus found the people a race of Indians fairer than any he had seen before, of good stature and of very graceful bearing. They carried square bucklers and had bows and arrows with which they made feeble attempts to drive off the Spaniards who landed at Punta-Arnal near Icaque, and who, finding no streams, sank holes in the sand and so filled their casks with fresh water, as is done by sailors nowadays in many parts of the world. And there, says Kingsley, that source of endless misery to these harmless creatures, a certain cacique, so goes the tale, took off Columbus' cap of crimson velvet and replaced it with a circle of gold which he wore. Alas for them, that fatal present of gold brought down on them enemies far more ruthless than the caribs of the Northern Islands, who had a habit of coming down in their canoes and carrying off the gentle arrow-axe to eat them at their leisure, after the fashion which Defoe, always accurate, has immortalised in Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe's island has been thought by many to be meant for Tobago, man Friday having been stolen in Trinidad. No scenery can be more picturesque than that afforded by the entrance to Port of Spain, the chief town in the colony of Trinidad, itself an island lying outside the delta of the great Orinoco river. On the mainland, wrote Anthony Trollop, that is the land of the main island, the coast is precipitous, but clothed to the very top with the thickest and most magnificent foliage. With an opera glass, one can distinctly see the trees coming forth from the sides of the rocks as though no soil were necessary for them, and not even a shelf of stone needed for their support. And these are not shrubs but forish trees with grand spreading branches, huge trunks and brilliant coloured foliage. The small island on the other side is almost equally wooded, but is less precipitous. There, and on the main island itself, are nooks and open glades where one would not be badly off with straw hats and Muslim pigeon pies and champagne. One narrow shady valley into which a creek of the sea ran made Trollop think that it must have been intended for the less noisy joys of some pool of Trinidad with his Creole of Virginia. The same writer, after describing the savannah, which includes a park and racecourse, speaks of the government house, then under repairs. The governor was living in a cottage, hard by. Were I that great man, said he, I should be tempted to wish that my great house might always be under repair, for I never saw a more perfect specimen of a pretty spacious cottage, opening as a cottage should do on all sides and in every direction. And then the necessary freedom from boredom, etiquette and governor's grandeur so hated by governors themselves, which must necessarily be bought about by such a residence. I could almost wish to be a governor myself, if I might be allowed to live in such a cottage. The buildings of Port of Spain are almost invariably surrounded by handsome flowering trees. A later writer tells us that the governors since have stuck to the cottage and the gardens of the older buildings have been given to the city as a public pleasure ground. Kingsley speaks of it as a paradise. Jack Assure, who, after a long and perhaps stormy voyage, would look upon any land as a haven of delight, will certainly think that he has at last reached a happy land. It is not merely the climate, the beauty, or the productions of the country, nor the West Indian politeness and hospitality, both proverbial, but the fact that nobody seems to do or wants to do anything and yet lives ten times as well as the poorer classes of England. There are 8,000 or more human beings in Port of Spain alone who toil not, neither do they spin, and have no other visible means of sustenance except eating something or other, mostly fruit, or the live long day, who are happy, very happy. The truth is that though they will and frequently do eat more than a European, they can almost do without food and can live like the Lazaroni on warmth and light. The best substitute for a dinner is a sleep under a south wall in the blazing sun, and there are plenty of south walls in Port of Spain. Has not a poor man under these circumstances the same right to be idle as a rich one? Everyone there looks strong, healthy and well fed. The author of Westwood Ho was not likely to be deceived and says, one meets few or none of those figures and faces, small, scruffless, squinny and haggard, which disgrace the civilisation of a British city. Nowhere in Port of Spain will you see such human beings as in certain streets of London, Liverpool and Glasgow. Everyone plainly can live and thrive if they choose and very pleasant is it to know that. And wonderfully well does that mixed and happy go lucky population assimilate. Trinidad belongs to Great Britain, but there are more Negroes, half-breeds, Hindus and Chinese than Britons by ten times ten. And the language of the island is mainly French, not English or Spanish. Under cool porticoes and through tall darkways are seen dark shops built on Spanish models and filled with everything under the sun. On the doorstep sit negresses in flashy Manchester prints and stiff turbans all aiding in the general work of doing nothing or offering for sale fruits, sweet meats or chunks of sugarcane. These women as well as the men invariably carry everything on their heads, whether it be a half-barrow load of yams, a few ounces of sugar or a beer bottle. One of the regrets of an enthusiastic writer must ever be that he cannot visit all the lovely and interesting spots which he may so easily describe. The present one, enamoured with San Francisco, which he has visited, and Singapore and Sydney, which is yet he hasn't. Would, if such writers as Charles Kingsley and Anthony Trollop are to be credited, add Trinidad to the list. Read the former's letter from a West Indian cottage or knee or the latter's description of a ride through the cool woods and seashore roads to be convinced that Trinidad is one of the most charming islands in the whole world. Bamboos keep the cottage gravel path up and as tubes carry the trickling cool water to the cottage bath. You hear a rattling as of boards or stiff paper outside your window. It is the clashing together of a fan palm with a leaf stalks ten feet long and fans more feet wide. The orange, the pineapple, the flower fence, poinsiana, the cocoa palm, the tall guinea grass and the grougrews, a kind of palm, acrochemia, sclerocarpa, the silk cotton tree, the tamarind and the Rosa del Monte bushes, 20 feet high and covered with crimson roses, tea shrubs, myrtles and clove trees intermingle with vegetation common elsewhere. Thus much for a mere chance view. The seamen ashore will note many of these beauties but his superior officers will see more. The cottage orney to which they will be invited with its lawn and flowering shrubs, tiny specimens of which we admire in hot houses at home, the grass as green as that of England and winding away in the cool shade of strange evergreens. The yellow coconut palms on the nearest spur of hill throwing back the tender blue of the distant mountains, groups of palms with perhaps Uthrinas umbrosa, boys immortalis they call them in Trinidad, with vermilion flowers, trees of red coral 60 feet high, interspersed, a glimpse beyond of the bright and sleeping sea and the islands of the Bocas floating in the shining waters and behind a luxuriously furnished cottage where hospitality is not a mere name but a very sound fact. What on earth can man want more? Kingsley in presence of the rich and luscious beauty, the vastness and repose to be found in Trinidad, sees an understandable excuse for the tendency to somewhat grandiose language which tempts perpetually those who try to describe the tropics and know well that they can only fail. He says, in presence of such forms and such colouring as this, one becomes painfully sensible to the poverty of words and the futility therefore of all word painting, of the inability to, of the senses to discern and define objects of such vast variety of our atheistic barbarism, in fact which has no choice of epithets, save such as great and vast and gigantic between such as beautiful and lovely and exquisite and so forth which are after all intellectually only one stage higher than the half-brute wah-wah with which the savage grunts his astonishment. Call it not admiration, epithets which are not perhaps intellectually as high as the God is great of the Muselman, who is wise enough not to attempt any analysis, either of nature or his feelings about her and wise enough also in presence of the unknown to take refuge in God. Monkeys of many kinds, jaguars, toucans, wildcats, wonderful anteaters, raccoons and lizards and strange birds, butterflies, wasps and spiders abound but none of those animals which resent the presence of man. Happy land. But the gun has fired. HMSC is getting all steam up. The privilege of leave cannot last forever. It is all aboard with abound. In the archipelago of the West Indies there are so many points of interest and so many ports which the sailor of the Royal Navy is sure to visit. There are important docks at Antigua, Jamaica and Bermuda while the whole station, known professionally as the North American and West Indian reaches from the north of South America to beyond Newfoundland, Kingston and Jamaica where England maintains a flagship and a Commodore, a dockyard and a naval hospital. Kingston Harbour is a grand lagoon nearly shut in by a long sand spit or rather bank called the Palisade at the point of which is Port Royal which about 90 years ago was nearly destroyed by an earthquake. Mr Trollope says that it is on record that hardy subs and hardier mids have ridden along the Palisade and have not died from sunstroke in the effort but the chances were much against them. The ordinary ingress and egress as to all parts of the island's coasts is by water. Our naval establishment is at Port Royal. Jamaica has picked up a good deal in these later days but it is not the thriving country it was before the abolition of slavery. Kingston is described as a formal city with streets at right angles and with generally ugly buildings. The fact is that hardly any Europeans or even well-to-do Criolas live in the town and in consequence there are long streets which might almost belong to a city of the dead where hardly a soul is to be seen at all events in the evenings. All the wealthier people and there are a large number have country seats, pens as they call them though often so charmingly situated and so beautifully surrounded the term does not seem very appropriate. The sailor's pocket money will go a long way in Kingston if he confines himself to native productions but woe unto him if he will insist on imported articles. All through the island the white people are very English in their longings and effect to despise the native luxuries. Thus they will give you oxtail soup when real turtle would be infinitely cheaper. When yams, avocado pears, the mountain cabbage, plantains and 20 other delicious vegetables may be had for the gathering people will insist on eating bad English potatoes and the desire for English pickles is quite a passion. All the servants are negroes or molatos who are greatly averse to ridicule or patronage while if one orders them as is usual in England they leave you to wait on yourself. Mr Trollock discovered this. He ordered a lad in one of the hotels to fill his bath calling him Old Fellow. Who you call Old Fellow? asked the youth. You speak to a gentleman gentlemanly and then he fill the bath. The sugarcane and by consequence sugar and rum, coffee and of late tobacco are the staple productions of Jamaica. There is one district where the traveller may see a broken plane of 4,000 acres under Canes. The road over Mount Diabolo is very fine and the view back to Kingston very grand. Jack ashore will find that the people all ride but that the horses always walk. There are respectable mountains to be ascended in Jamaica. Blue Mountain Peak towers to the height of 8,000 feet. The highest inhabited house on the island the property of a coffee planter is the kind of half way house of entertainment and although Mr Trollock who provided himself were the white companion who in his turn provided 5 Negroes beef, bread, water, brandy and what seemed to him about 10 gallons of rum gives a doleful description of the clouds and mists and fogs which surrounded the peak others may be more fortunate. The most important of the West Indian islands Cuba, Queen of the Antilles does not as we all know belong to England but is the most splendid appendage of the Spanish crown. Havana the capital has a grand harbour large, commodious and safe with a fine key at which the vessels of all nations lie. The sailor will note one peculiarity instead of laying alongside the ships are fastened end on usually the bow being at the key. The harbour is very picturesque and the entrance to it is defended by two forts which were taken once by England in Arbamael's time and now could be knocked to pieces in a few minutes by any nation which was ready with the requisite amount of gunpowder. End of Chapter 11 Part 1 Recording by Luke Dixie Chapter 11 Part 2 of the Sea It's stirring story of adventure, peril and heroism Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Florence Short The Sea It's stirring story of adventure, peril and heroism Volume 1 by Frederick Wimper Chapter 11 Round the World on a Man of War Continued From the Horn to Halifax Part 2 Havana is a very gay city and has some special attractions for the sailor among others being its good cigars and cheap Spanish wine and fruits Its greatest glory is the Paseo It's Hyde Park Guadabra alone, Corso, Cassini, Alameda where the Cuban bells and bows delight to promenade and ride There will you see them in bright coloured picturesque attire Sadly Europeanised and Americanised of late Though seated in the Vellante a kind of hanging cabriolet between two large wheels drawn by one or two horses on one of which the negro servant with enormous leggings white bridges, red jacket and gold lace and broad brim straw hat rides The Vellante is itself bright with polished metal and the whole turnout has an air of barbaric splendour These carriages are never kept in a coach house but are usually placed in the halls and often even in the dining room as a child's perambulator might with us Havana has an ugly cathedral and a magnificent opera house Slave labour is common in many of the sugar and tobacco planters are very wealthy Properties of many hundred acres under cultivation are common Mr. Trollup found in negroes well fed, sleek fat as Brewer's horses while no sign of ill usage came before him In crop times they sometimes work 16 hours a day and Sunday is not then a day of rest for them There are many Chinese Coulies also on the island Kingsley, speaking of the islands in general says that he was altogether unprepared for their beauty and grandeur Day after day this demer took him past a shifting diorama of scenery which he likened to Vesulius and Naples repeated again and again with every possible variation of the same type of delicate loveliness Under a cloud of sky and over the blue waters banks of light cloud turned violet and then to green and then disclosed grand mountains with the surf beating white around the base of tall cliffs and isolated rocks and the pretty country houses of settlers empowered in foliage and gay little villages and busy towns It was easy says that charming writer in presence of such scenery to conceive the exaltation which possessed the souls of the first discoverers of the West Indies What wonder if they seemed to themselves to have burst into fairyland to be at the gates of the earthly paradise with such a climate, such a soil such vegetation, such fruits what luxury must not have seen possible to the dwellers along those shores What riches too of gold and jewels might not be hidden among those forests shouted glens and peaks and beyond and beyond again ever new islands new continents perhaps an inexhaustible wealth of yet undiscovered worlds the resemblance to Mediterranean or more especially Neapolitan scenery is very marked like causes have produced like effects in each island is little but the peak of a volcano down whose shoulders lava and ash have slid toward the sea many carry several cones one of them a little island named Saba has a most remarkable settlement halfway up a volcano Saba rises sheer out of the sea 1500 or more feet and from a little landing place a stair runs up 800 feet into the very bosom of a mountain where in a hollow live some 1200 honest Dutchman and 800 negroes the latter were till of late years not only the slaves of the former but it is said that in reality it was just the other way the monks went off when and whether they pleased earned money on other islands and expected their masters to keep them when they were out of work the good Dutch lived peaceably aloft in their volcano grow garden crops and sell them to vessels or to surrounding islands they build the best boats in the West Indies up in their crater and lower them down the cliff to the sea they are excellent sailors and good Christians the volcano remain quiescent when the steamer stops at some little port or even single settlement the negro boats come alongside with luscious fruit and vegetables bananas and green oranges the sweet sop a fruit which looks like a strawberry and is as big as an orange the custard apples the pulp of which those who have read Tom Kringle's log will remember is fancy to have it resemblance to brains the avocado or alligator pears otherwise called midshipman's butter which are eaten with pepper and salt scarlet capsicums green and orange coconuts roots of yam and kush kush help to make up baskets as varied in color as the gaudy gowns and turbans of the women neither must the chunks of sugar cane be omitted which the colored gentlemen and ladies delight to know walking, sitting and standing increasing there by the size of their lips and breaking out often enough their upper front teeth rude health is in their faces their cheeks literally shine with fatness but in this happy archipelago there are door backs in the Guadalupe earthquake of 1843 5,000 persons lost their lives in the one town of Puanta Pedro alone the Sufria volcano 5,000 feet high rears many a peak to the skies and shows an ugly and uncertain humor smoking and flaming the writer so often quoted gives a wonderfully beautiful descriptions of this mountain and its surroundings as the sun rose level lights of golden green streamed round the peak right and left over the mountains but only for a while as the sky clouds vanished in his blazing rays earth clouds rolled up from the valleys behind reathed and weltered about the great black teeth of the greater and then sinking among them and below them shrouded the whole cone in purple darkness for the day while in the foreground blazed in the sunshine broad slopes of Cainfield below them again the town the port of Bastere with handsome houses and old fashioned churches and convent dating possibly from the 17th century in bowered in mangoes tamarinds and palm leaves and along the beach a market beneath a row of trees with canoes drawn up to be unladen and gay dresses of every hue the surf whispered softly on the beach the cheerful murmur of voices came off the shore and above it the tinkling of some little bell calling good folks to early mass a cheery brilliant picture as man could wish to see but marred by two ugly elements a mile away on a low northern cliff marked with many across was the lonely cholera cemetery a remembrance of the fearful pestilence which a few years since swept away thousands of the people and above frown that black giant now asleep but for how long the richness of the bircher which closed these islands to their highest peaks seems a miracle of green fur and yet is often gigantic forest trees the eye wanders over the green abyss and strains over the wealth of depths and heights compared with which fine English parks are mere shrubberies there is every conceivable green or rather of hues ranging from pale yellow through all greens into cobalt and as the wind stirs the leaves and sweeps the lights and shadows over hill and glen all is ever changing iridescent like a peacock's tail till the whole island from peak to shore with some glorious jewel in emerald with dents of sapphire and topaz hanging between blue sea and white surf below and blue sky and white cloud above and yet over all this beauty dark shadows hang the shadow of war and the shadow of slavery these seas have been oft reddened with the blood of gallant sailors and every other gully the skeleton of an Englishman here it was that Rodney broke the cross's line took and destroyed seven French ships of war and scattered the rest saving Jamaica and in Sooth the whole West Indies and bringing about the honorable peace of 1783 young lovely Roadstead of Domenica there Rodney caught up with a French just before and would have beaten them so much here but for his vessels being beckoned in that deep bay at Martinique now lined with gay houses was for many years the cul-de-sac Royal the rendezvous and stronghold of the French fleet that isolated rock hard by much the shape and double the size of the great pyramids is Sir Samuel Hood's famous diamond rock to which that brave old navigator literally tied with a hauser or two his ship the Centaur and turned the rock into a fortress from once to sweep the seas the rock was for several months rated on the books of the Admiralty as His Majesty's Ship Diamond Rock she had at last to surrender for want of powder to an overwhelming force 274's and 14 smaller ships of war but did not give in till 70 poor Frenchmen were lying killed or wounded and three of their gunboats destroyed her own loss being only two men killed and one wounded brave old sloop of war and once more those blends and forests of St. Usha remind us of Sir John Moore and Sir Ralph Abercrombie who fought not merely the French but their brigands negroes were rated by the revolution of 1792 but the good ship must proceed and as British naval interests are under consideration let her bows be turned to Bermuda a colony a fortress in a prison and where England owns an extensive floating dock dockyards and workshops Trollope says that its geological formation is mysterious it seems to be made of soft white stone composed mostly of little shells so soft indeed that you might cut Bermuda up with a handsaw and people are cutting up Bermuda with handsaws one little island that on which the convicts are established has been altogether so cut up already when I visited it two fat convicts were working away slowly at the last fragment Bermuda is the crater of an extinct volcano it is surrounded by little islets of which there is one for every day of the year in a space of 20 by 3 miles these are surrounded again by reefs and rocks and navigation is risky were the Bermudas the scene of Ariel's tricks they were first discovered in 1522 by Bermudes and Shakespeare seems to have heard of them for he speaks of the still Vex Bermudes Taleb says that there is more of the breed of Caliban in the islands than of Ariel though Caliban did not relish working for his master more than the Bermudian of today there was an amount of energy about him entirely wanting in the existing islanders there are two towns St. George and Hamilton on different islands the former is the headquarters of the military and the second out of the governor it is the summer headquarters of the admiral of the station the islands are in general wonderfully fertile and will with any ordinary cultivation give two crops of many vegetables in the year it has the advantage of the tropics plus those of more temperate climbs for tomatoes, onions, beetroot sweet potatoes, early potatoes as well as all kinds of fruits from oranges lemons and bananas to small berries it is not surpassed by any place in the world while our all route is one of its specialties it is the early market garden for New York shipbuilding is carried on as the islands abound in a stunted cedar good for the purpose when it can be found large enough the working population are almost all negroes and are lazy to a degree the plants are not much better and the climate is found to produce great lassitude it is the sea around the Bermudas more than the islands themselves perhaps that give its beauty everywhere the water is wonderfully clear and transparent while the land is broken up into narrow inlets and headlands and bays and promontories nooks and corners running here and there in capricious and ever-faring forms here with their bright blossoms are so abundant almost to the water's edge that the Bermudas might be called the Oleander Isles their Bermuda convict in Trollup's time seem to be rather better off than most English laborers he had a pound of meat, good meat too while the Bermudians were tugging at their teeth with tough morsels he had a pound and three quarters of bread more than he wanted vegetables, tea and sugar a glass of grog per diem tobacco money allowed in eight hours labor he was infinitely better off than most sailors of the merchant service St. George the military station of the colony commands the only entrance among the islands suitable for the passage of large vessels the narrow and intricate channel which leads to its land even being defended by strong batteries the lagoons and passages and sea canals between the little islands make communication by water as necessary as in Venice everyone keeps a boat or cedar canoe he will often do his business on one island and have his residence on a second Merck Wayne has a wonderful facility for description and his latest articles random notes of an idle excursion contain a picturesque account of the Bermudas and more particularly of Hamilton the leading port he says that he founded a wonderfully white town white as marble snow flower it was, says he a town compacted together upon the sides and tops of a cluster of small hills its outlying borders fringed off and thinned away under forests and there was no woody distance of curving coast or leafy island sleeping on a dimpled painted sea but was flecked with shining white points half concealed houses peeping out of the foliage there was an ample pier of heavy masonry upon this under shelter were some thousands of barrels containing that product which has carried the fame of many lands the potato with here and there an onion that last sentence is facetious for they grow at least two onions in Bermuda to one potato the onion is the pride and the joy of Bermuda it is her jewel, her gem of gems in her conversation her pulpit, her literature it is her most frequent and eloquent figure in Bermudian metaphor it stands for perfection absolute the Bermudian weeping over the departed exhausts praise when he says he was an onion the Bermudian extolling the living hero bankrupts applause when he says he is an onion the Bermudian setting his son upon the stage of life to dare and do for himself climaxes all supplication admonition comprehends all ambition when he says be an onion when the steamer arrives at the pier the first question asked is not concerning great war or political news but concerns only the price of onions all the writers agree that for tomatoes onions and vegetables generally the Bermudas are unequaled as noted before the market gardens of New York Jack who is fortunate enough to be on the west India and North American stations must be congratulated the country roads says the clever writer above quoted curve and wind hither and thither in the delightfulest way unfolding pretty surprises at every turn billowy masses of oleander that seem to float out from behind distant projections like the pink cloud banks of sunset, sudden plunges among cottages and gardens life and activity followed by a sudden plunges into the somber twilight and stillness of the woods glittering visions of white fortresses and beacon towers pictured against the sky on remote hilltops instances of shining green sea caught for a moment through opening headlands then lost again more woods in solitude and by and by another turn lays bare without warning the full sweep of the inland ocean enriched with its bars of soft color engraced with its wandering sails take any road you please you may depend upon it stay in it a half mile your road is everything that road ought to be it is bordered with trees and with strange plants and flowers it is shady and pleasant or sunny and still pleasant it carries you by the prettiest and peacefulest and most home like of homes and through stretches of forest that lie in a deep hush sometimes and sometimes are alive with the music of birds it curves always with continual promise whereas straight roads reveal everything at a glance and kill interest there is enough of variety sometimes you are in the level open with marshes thick, grown with flag glances that are 10 feet high on the one hand in potato and onion orchards on the other next you are on a hilltop with the ocean and the islands you presently throwed winds through a deep cut shut in by perpendicular walls 30 or 40 feet high marked with the oddest and abruptest stratum lines suggestive of sudden and eccentric old upheavals and garnished with here and there a clinging and venturous flower and here and there a dangling vine your way is along the sea edge and you may look down a fathom or two through the transparent water and watch the diamond like flash and play of the light upon the rocks and sands on the bottom until you are tired of it if you were so constituted as to be able to get tired of it but as there are spots in the sun and the brightest lights throw the deepest shadows everywhere so on the Bermuda coast there are in its rare storms dangers of no small kind among its numerous reefs and rocks the North Rock in particular is the monument which marks the grave of many a poor sailor in bygone days at the present time however tugboats and the use of steam generally have reduced the perils of navigation among the hundreds of islands that constitute the Bermuda group to a minimum the recent successful trip of Cleopatra's needle in a vessel of unique construction will recall that of the Bermuda floating dock which it will be remembered was towed across the Atlantic and placed in its present position Bermuda being from a naval point of view the most important port on the North American and West Indian stations it had long been felt to be an absolute necessity that a dock capable of holding the largest vessels of war should be built in some part of the island after many futile attempts to accomplish this object owing to the poorest nature of the rock of which the island is formed it was determined that misuse, Campbell Johnstone and Company of North Woolwich should construct a floating dock according to their patented inventions those built by them have been successful the dimensions of the dock for Bermuda which was afterwards named after that island are as follows length over all 381 feet length between caissons 330 feet breadth over all 124 feet breadth between sides 84 feet depth inside depth inside 53 feet 5 inches she is divided into 8 longitudinal watertight compartments and these again into sets of compartments called respectively load on and balance chambers several small compartments were also made for the reception of the pumps the machinery for moving caissons and cranes all of which were worked by steam she is powerful and large enough to lift an iron cloud having a displacement of 10,400 tons and could almost dock the Great Eastern the building of the Bermuda was begun in August 1866 she was launched in September 1868 and finally completed in May 1869 for the purposes of navigation two light wooden bridges were thrown across her on the foremost of which stood her compass on the after the steering apparatus she was also supplied with three lighthouses and several semaphores for signaling to the men of war which had her in tow either by night or day in shape she is something like a round bottom canal boat with the ends cut off from an interesting account of her voyage from Sheerness to Bermuda by one of those on board we gather the following information respecting her trip she numbered 82 hands under a staff commander there were also on board an assistant naval surgeon an Admiralty Commissioner and the writer of the book from which these particulars are taken the first rendezvous of the Bermuda was to be at the Nohr on the afternoon of the 23rd of June 1869 the Bermuda was towed to the Nohr by four ordinary Thames Tugs by HMSS Terrible Medusa, Buzzerd, and Wildfire on arriving at the Nohr off the light ship she found the Northumberland waiting for her the Tugs cast off and a Hauser was passed to the Northumberland which took her in tow as far as Nag Channel the Terrible bringing up a stern the Angicourt was now picked up and passing a Hauser on board the Northumberland Maritime tandem a Hauser was now passed to the Terrible from the stern of the Bermuda so that towing that vessel she might be kept from swaying from side to side the Medusa steamed on the quarter of the Northumberland and the Buzzerd acted as a kind of floating out rider to clear the way the North Foreland was passed the same evening at a speed of four knots an hour everything went well until the 25th she lost sight of land off the start point late in the afternoon of that day on the 28th she was halfway across the bay of Biscay when encountering a slight sea and a freshening wind she showed her first tendency to roll an accomplishment in which she was afterwards beaten by all her companions although the prognostications about her talents in this direction had been of the most lugubrious description it must be understood that the bottom of her hold so to speak was only some 10 feet under the surface of the water and that her hollow sides towered some 60 feet above it on the top of each gunnel were wooden houses for the officers with gardens in front and behind in which menu net sweet peas and other English garden flowers grew and flourished until they encountered the parching heat of the tropics the crew was quartered in the sides of the vessel and the top of the gunnels or quarter decks as they might be called communicated with the lower decks by means of a ladder 53 feet long end of chapter 11 part 2 chapter 11 part 3 of the sea it's stirring story of adventure, peril and heroism volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the sea it's stirring story of adventure, peril and heroism volume 1 by Frederick Wimper chapter 11 round the world on a man of war continued from the horn to Halifax part 3 to return however to the voyage her next rendezvous was at Porto Santo a small island on the east coast of the island of Madeira on July 4th about 6 o'clock in the morning land was signalled this proved to be the island of Porto Santo and she brought up about 2 miles off the principal town early in the afternoon having made the voyage from sheerness in exactly 11 days here the squadron was joined by the warrior, black prince and lapwing gunboat the helicon leaving them for Lisbon. Towards nightfall they started once more in the following order passing to the south of Bermuda the black prince and warrior led the team towing the Bermuda the terrible being towed by her in turn to prevent yawing and the lapwing following close on the heels of the terrible all went well until the 8th when the breeze freshened the dock rolling as much as 10 degrees towards 8 o'clock in the evening a mighty crash was heard and the whole squadron was brought up by signal from the lighthouses on examination it was found that the Bermuda had carried away one of the chains of her immense rudder which was swaying to and fro in a most dangerous manner the officers and men however went to work with a will and by one o'clock the next morning always made snug again and the squadron proceeded on its voyage during this portion of the trip the line of communication was established between the Bermuda and the warrior and almost daily presents of fresh meat and vegetables were sent by the officers of the iron clad unknown comrades on board the dock on the 9th the day following the disaster to the rudder they fill in with the northeast trade winds which formed the subject of great rejoicing signals were made to make all sail and reduce the quantity of coal burned in the boilers of the four steam vessels the next day the lapwing being shorter of coal than the others she was ordered to take the place of the terrible battleship now taking the lead by towing the black prince the lapwing however proved not to be sufficiently powerful for this service a heavy seas springing up the dock began to yore and behave so friscally that the squadron once more brought to and the old order of things was resumed on the 25th the lapwing was sent on ahead to Bermuda to inform the authorities of the close advent of the dock it was now arranged that as the terrible drew less water than any of the other ships she should have the honour of piloting the dock through the narrows a narrow, tortuous and shallow channel forming the only practicable entrance for large ships to the harbour of Bermuda on the morning of the 28th Bermuda lighthouse was sighted and the spitfire was shortly afterwards picked up having been sent by the Bermudan authorities to pilot the squadron as far as the entrance of the narrows she also brought the intelligence that it had been arranged that the viper and the vixen had been ordered to pilot the dock into harbour as they neared Bermuda the squadron were met by the naval officer in charge of the station who after having had interviews with the captains of the squadron and of the Bermuda rescinded the order respecting the vixen and the viper and the terrible was once more deputed to tow the Bermuda through the narrows just off the mouth of this dangerous inlet the Bermuda being in tow of the terrible only the dock became uncontrollable and would have done her best to carry her majesty ship to Halifax had not the warrior come to her aid after the spitfire and lapwing had tried ineffectually to be of assistance by this time however the water in the narrows had become too low for the warrior the Bermuda had therefore to wait until high water next morning in order to complete the last and as it proved the most perilous part of her journey after the warrior and the terrible had towed the dock through the entrance of the inlet the first named ship cast off the dock once more became unmanageable through a sudden gust of wind striking her on the quarter had the gust lasted for only a few seconds longer the dock would have stranded perhaps forever she righted however and the terrible steaming hard ahead she passed the most dangerous point of the inlet and at last rode securely into this water within a few cables length of her future birth after a singularly successful voyage of 36 days it says much for the naval and engineering skill of all concerned in the transport of this unwieldy mass of iron weighing 8,000 tonnes over nearly 4,000 miles of ocean without the loss of a single life indeed a solitary accident that can be called serious the conception execution and success of the project are wholly unparalleled in the history of naval engineering leaving Bermuda wither away to the real capital of America New York it is true that English men of war and for the matter of that vessels of the American Navy comparatively seldom visit that port which otherwise is crowded by the shipping of all nations there are reasons for this New York has not today a dock worthy of the name magnificent steamships and palatial ferry boats all lie alongside wharves or into slips which are semi-enclosed wards Brooklyn and Jersey City have however docks that had New York will ever forget his first impressions the Grand Hudson or the Great East River the glorious bay or the crowded island are like call for and deserve enthusiastic admiration if one arrives on a sunny day maybe not as ever agitates the surface of the noble Hudson or even the bay itself the latter landlock in the broad Atlantic the former skirted by the great Babylon of America and the wooded banks of Haboken round the lofty western hills a fleet of small craft with rakeish hulls and snowy sails steel quietly and softly while steamboats that look like floating islands almost pass them with lightning speed around is the shipping of every climb enormous ferry boats radiating in all directions forests of masts along the wharves bearing the flags of all nations and where so much is strange there is one consoling fact you feel yourself at home you are among brothers speaking the same language obeying the same laws professing the same religion professing the same religion New York City and Port of Entry New York County State of New York lies at the head of New York Bay so that there is a good deal of New York about it it is the commercial Emporium of the United States and if it ever has arrival it will be on the other side of the continent somewhere not far from San Francisco its area is practically the bulk of Manhattan or New York Island say 13 miles long by two wide its separation from the mainland is caused by the Harlem River which connects the Hudson and East Rivers and is itself spanned by a bridge and the Croton Aqueduct New York really possesses every advantage required to build a grand Emporium it extends between two rivers each navigable for the largest vessels while its harbor would contain the united or disunited navies as the case may be of all nations the Hudson River in particular is for some distance up a mile or more in width while the East River averages over two fifths of a mile the population of New York with its suburban appendages including the cities of Brooklyn and Jersey City is not less than that of Paris the harbor is surrounded with small settlements connected by charmingly situated villas and country residences it is towards its northern end that the masts commencing with a few stragglers gradually thickened to a forest of fortified islands either straight called the narrows seven miles from the lower part of the city and which is for the space of a mile about one mile wide it communicates with the outer harbor or bay proper which extends thence to sandy hook light 40 miles from the city and opens directly into the ocean forming one of the best roadsteads on the whole Atlantic coasts of America the approach to the city as above indicated is very fine the shores of the bay being wooded down to the water's edge and thickly studded with villagers, farms and country seats the view of the city itself is not so pre-possessing like all large cities it's almost impossible to find a point from which to grasp the grandeur in its entirety and the ground on which it is built is nowhere elevated therefore there is very little to strike the eye especially many a petty town makes a greater show in this respect those ferry boats the idea in the minds of most Englishmen is associated with boats that may pass over from one or two to a dozen or so people possibly a single horse or a donkey cart there you find steamers a couple of hundred or more feet long with on either side of the engines twenty or more feet space on the true deck there is accommodation for carriages carts and horses by the score above a spacious saloon for passengers they have powerful engines and will easily beat the average steamship on arrival at the dock they run into a kind of slip or basin with piles around stuck in the soft bottom which yield should she strike them and entirely do away with any fear of concussion I may hear ad notes an intelligent writer that during my whole travels in the states I found nothing more perfect in construction and arrangement than the ferries and their boats the charges for which are most moderate varying according to distances and ranging from one height knee upwards the sailor ashore in New York and how many many thousands visit it every year will find much to note the public buildings of the great city are not remarkable but the one great street Broadway which is about eight miles long and almost straight is a very special feature unceasing throngs of busy men and women, loungers idlers vehicles of all kinds street bars, omnibuses and carriages there are no cabs hardly in New York pass and re-pass from early morn to dewy eve while the shops always called stores rival those of the boulevards or region street some of the older streets were no doubt as Washington Irving tells us laid out after the old cow paths as they are as narrow and torturous as those of any European city the crowded state of Broadway at certain points rivals cheap side the writer saw in 1867 a light bridge which spanned the street and was intended for the use of ladies and timid pedestrians when in 1869 he re-passed through the city it had disappeared and on inquiry he learned the reason unprincipled roughs had station themselves at either end and levied blackmail toll on old ladies and unsophisticated country people so extreme is the difference between the intense heat of summer and the equally intense cold of winter in New York that the residents regularly get thin in the former and stout in the latter and what a sight are the two rivers at that time huge masses of ice crashing among themselves and making navigation perilous and sometimes impossible descending the stream at a rapid rate docks and slips frozen in the rigging and shrouds of great ships covered with icicles and the decks ready for immediate use as skating rinks the writer crossed in the ferry boat from Jersey City to New York in January 1875 and acquired a sincere respect for the pilot who wriggled and zigzagged his vessel through masses of ice against which a sharp collision would not have been a joke when on the following morning he left for Liverpool the steamship herself was a good model for a twelfth night cake ornament and had quite enough to do to get out from the wharf five days after in Mid-Atlantic he was sitting on deck in the open air reading a book so much milder at such times is it on the open ocean but our leave is over and although it would be pleasant to travel in imaginative company up the beautiful Hudson and visit one of the wonders of the world today a mere holiday excursion from New York we must away merely briefly noting before we go another of the wonders of the world a triumph of engineering skill the great Brooklyn bridge which connects the city with New York its span is about three-quarters of a mile large ships can pass under it while vehicles and pedestrians cross in mid-air over their past tops between two great cities making them one Brooklyn is a great place for the residences of well-to-do New Yorkers and the view from its heights an elevation covered with villas and mansions is grand and extensive apart from this Brooklyn is a considerable city with numerous churches and chapels public buildings and places of amusement the most depot of the whole west India and North American station and is often a great rendezvous of the Royal Navy it is situated on a peninsula on the southeast coast of Nova Scotia of which it is the capital its situation is very picturesque the town stands on the declivity of a hill about 250 feet high rising from one of the finest harbours in the world the city front is lined with handsome walks while merchants houses, dwellings and public edifices arrange themselves on tears stretching along and up the sides of the hill it has fine wide streets the principal one which runs round the edge of the harbour is capitally paved the harbour opposite the town where ships usually anchor is rather more than a mile wide and after narrowing to a quarter of a mile above the upper end of the town expands into Bedford Basin a completely landlocked sheet of water this grand sea lake has an area of 10 square miles and is capable of containing any number of navies Halifax possesses another advantage not common to every harbour of North America it is accessible at all seasons and navigation is rarely impeded by ice there are two fine lighthouses at Halifax that on an island off Sambro head is 210 feet high the port possesses many large ships of its own generally employed in the south sea whale and seal fishery it is a very prosperous fishing town in other respects the town of Halifax was founded in 1749 the settlers to the number of three and a half thousand largely composed of naval and military men whose expenses out had been paid by the British government to assist in the formation of the station soon cleared the ground from stumps etc and having erected a wooden government house and suitable warehouses for stores and provisions the town was laid out so as to form a number of straight and handsome streets planks, doors, window frames and other portions of houses were imported from the New England settlements and the more laborious portion of the work which the settlers executed themselves was performed with great dispatch at the approach of winter they found themselves comfortably settled having completed a number of houses and huts and covered others in a manner which served to protect them from the rigour of the weather they are very severe they were now assembled at Halifax about five thousand people whose labours were suddenly suspended by the intensity of the frost and there was in consequence considerable enforced idleness Halibut mentions the difficulty that the government had to employ the settlers by sending them out on various expeditions in palisading the town and in other public works in addition to forty thousand pounds granted by the British government for the embarkation and other expenses of the first settlers parliament continued to make annual grants for the same purpose which in 1755 amounted to the considerable sum of four hundred and sixteen thousand pounds the town of Halifax was no sooner built which colonists began to be alarmed and although they did not think proper to make an open avowl of their jealousy and disgust they employed their emissaries clandestinely in exciting the Indians to harass the inhabitants with hostilities in such a manner as should effectually hinder them from extending their plantations or perhaps indeed induce them to abandon the settlement the Indian chiefs however for some time took a different view of the matter waited upon the governor and acknowledged themselves subjects of the crown of England the French court there upon renewed its intrigues with the Indians and so far succeeded that for several years the town was frequently attacked in the night and the English could not stir into the adjoining woods without the danger of being shot scalped or taken prisoners among the early laws of Nova Scotia was one by which it was enacted that no debts contracted in England or in any of the colonies prior to the settlement of Halifax or to the arrival of the debtor should be recoverable by law in any court in the province as an asylum for insolvent debtors it is natural to suppose that Halifax attracted thither the guilty as well as the unfortunate and we may form some idea of the state of public morals at that period from an order of Governor Cornwallis which after reciting that the debt were usually attended to the grave by neither relatives or friends 12 citizens should in future be summoned to attend the funeral of each deceased person the Nova Scotians are popularly known by Canadians and Americans as blue noses doubtless from the colour of their nasal appendages in bitter cold weather it has already been mentioned that Halifax is now a thriving city but there must have been a period when the people were not particularly enterprising or else that most voracious individual Sam Slick greatly belied them Judge Halliburton in his immortal clockmaker introduces the following conversation with Mr Slick You appear, said I to Mr Slick to have travelled over the whole of this province and to have observed the country and the people with much attention Pray, what is your opinion of this present state and future prospects of Halifax? If you will tell me, said he when the folks there will wake up then I can answer you but they are fast asleep As to the province a splendid province and calculated to go ahead it will grow as fast as a virgini gal and they grow so amazing fast if you put one of your arms around one of their necks to kiss them by the time you've done they've grown up into women it's a pretty province I'll tell you good above and better below surface covered with pastures, meadows, woods and a nation's site of water privileges and under the ground full of mines it puts me in mind of the soup at Tremont House good enough at top but dip down and you have the riches the coal, the iron ore, the gypsum and what not as for Halifax it's well enough in itself though no great shakes neither a few sizeable houses with a proper site of small ones like half a dozen old hens with their broods of young chickens but the people, the strange critters they are all asleep they walk in their sleep and talk in their sleep and what they say one day they forget the next they say they were dreaming this was first published in England in 1838 all accounts now speak of Halifax as a well-built paved and cleanly city and of its inhabitants as enterprising end of chapter 11 part 3 read by Jane Vinnett chapter 12 part 1 of the sea it's a stirring story of adventure, peril and heroism volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the sea it's a stirring story of adventure, peril and heroism volume 1 by Frederick Quimper chapter 12 round the world on a man of war continued the African station part 1 and now we are off to the last of the British naval stations under consideration that of the African coast it is called in naval phraseology the west coast of Africa and Cape of Good Hope station and embraces not merely all that the words imply but a part of the east coast including the important colony of Natale commencing at latitude 20 degrees north above the Cape of Verde Islands it includes the islands of Ascension St Helena, Tristan de Kunha which is already described Ascension which is a British station with dockyard and fort garrisoned by artillery and marines is a barren island about 8 miles long by 6 broad its fort is in latitude 70 degrees 26 north longitude 140 degrees 24 west it is of volcanic formation and one of its hills rises to the considerable elevation of 2870 feet until the imprisonment of Napoleon at St Helena it was utterly uninhabited at that period it was garrisoned with a small British force and so good use was made of their time that it has been partly cultivated and very greatly improved irrigation was found as elsewhere to work wonders and as there are magnificent springs this was rendered easy vast numbers of turtle are taken on its shores and in consequence the soldiers prefer the soup of pee and effect to despise turtle steaks worth half a guinea piece in London and fit to rejoice the heart of an alderman the writers saw the same thing in Vancouver Island where at the boarding house of a very large steam sawmill the hand struck against the salmon so abundant on those coasts they insisted upon not having it more than twice a week for dinner and that it should be replaced by salt pork the climate of Ascension is remarkably healthy the object in occupying it is very similar to the reason for holding the Falkland Islands which serve as a depot for stores, coal and for watering ships cruising in the South Atlantic Sierra Leone is perhaps of all places in the world the last to which the sailor would wish to go albeit its unhealthiness has been as it's the case with Panama grossly exaggerated first we were told that when a clergyman with some little influence was pestering the prime minister for the time being for promotion the latter would appoint him to the bishopric of Sierra Leone knowing well that in a year or so the said bishopric would be vacant and ready for another gentleman Sierra Leone is a British colony and the capital is Freetown situated on a peninsula lying between the broad estuary of the Sierra Leone rivers connected with the mainland by an isthmus not more than one mile and a half broad the colony also includes a number of islands among which are many good harbours its history has one interesting point when in 1787 it became a British colony a company was formed which included a scheme for making it a home for free Negroes and to prove that colonial produce could be raised profitably without resorting to slave labour its prosperity was seriously affected during the French Revolution by the depredations of French cruisers and in 1808 the company ceded all its rights to the crown its population includes Negroes from 200 different African tribes many of them liberated from slavery and slave ships a subject which will be treated here after in this work one of the great industries of Sierra Leone is the manufacture of coconut oil the factories are extensive affairs it is a very beautiful country on the whole and when acclimatised Europeans find they can live splendidly on the products of the country the fisheries both sea and river are wonderfully productive and employ about 1500 natives boat building is carried on to some extent the splendid forests yielding timber so large that canoes capable of holding 100 men have been made from a single log like those already mentioned in connection with the northwest coast of America many of the West Indian products have been introduced sugar, coffee, indigo, ginger, cotton and rice thrive well as do Indian corn, the yam, plantain, pumpkins, banana, cocoa baobab, pineapple, orange, lime, guava, papua pomegranate, orange and lime poultry is particularly abundant it therefore might claim attention as a fruitful and productive country but for the malaria of its swampy rivers and low lands and now leaving Sierra Leone our good ship makes for the Cape of Good Hope passing mostly far out at sea down that coast along which the Portuguese mariners crept so cautiously yet so surely till Diaz and Dagama reached South Africa while the latter showed them the way to the fabled Cathaya, the Orient, India, China and the Spice Islands in the year 1486 the Cape of Capes-Parexons which rarely nowadays bears its full title was discovered by Bartholomew de Diaz the commander in the service of John II of Portugal he did not proceed to the eastward of it and it was reserved for the great Vasco de Gama afterwards the first viceroy of India an incident in whose career forms by the by the plot of L'Africain Maya Beer's grand opera to double it it was called at first Carbo Tumentoso the Cape of Storms but by royal desire was changed to that of Buon Esperanza, Good Hope the title it still bears Cape Colony was acquired by Great Britain in 1620 although for a long time it was practically in the hands of the Dutch a colony having been planted by their East India company the Dutch held it in this way till 1795 when the territory was once more taken by our country it was returned to the Dutch at the Peace of Amiens only to be snatched from them again in 1806 and finally confirmed to Britain at the general Peace of 1815 the population including the boars or farmers of Dutch descent Hottentots, Cuffiers and Malaise is not probably over 600,000 while the original territory is about 700 miles long by 400 wide having an area of not far from 200,000 square miles the capital of the colony is Cape Town lying at the foot as every schoolboy knows of the celebrated table mountain a recent writer Mr Boyle speaks cautiously of Cape Town and its people there are respectable but not very noticeable public buildings quote some old Dutch houses there are distinguishable chiefly by a superlative flatness and an extra allowance of windows the population is about 30,000 souls, white, black and mixed I should incline to think more than half fall into the third category they seem to be hospitable and good natured in all classes there is complaint of slowness in decision and general want of go about the place Dutch blood is said to be still too apparent in business, in local government and in society I suppose there is sound basis for these accusations since trade is migrating so rapidly towards the rival mart at Port Elizabeth but 10 years ago the entire export of wool passed through Cape Town last year as I find in the official returns 28 million pounds were shipped at the eastern port out of the whole 37 million pounds produced in the colony the gas lamps put up by a sort of coup d'etat in the municipality were not lighted until last year owing to the opposition of the Dutch town councillors they urged the decent people didn't want to be out at night and the ill disposed didn't deserve illumination such facts seem to show that the city is not quite up to the mark in all respects Simon's Bay near Table Bay where Cape Town is situated is a great rendezvous for the Navy there are docks and soldiers there and a small town the bay abounds in fish the Reverend John Milner chaplain of the Galatea says that during the visit of Prince Alfred large shoals of fish a sort of coarse mackerel were seen all over the bay numbers came alongside and several of them were harpooned with grains by some of the youngsters from the accommodation ladder later in the day a seal rose and continued fishing and rising in the most leisurely manner at one time it was within easy rifle distance and might have been shot from the ship fish and meat are so plentiful in the colony that living is excessively cheap the visit of his royal highness the sailor prince in 1867 will long be remembered in the colony that and the recent diamond discoveries prove that the people cannot be accused of sloth and want of enterprise on arrival at Simon's Bay the first vessels made out were the raccoon on which Prince Alfred had served his time as lieutenant the petrol just returned from landing poor Livingston at the Zambezi and the receiving ship Seringapatam soon followed official visits, dinner, ball and fireworks from the ships when the prince was to proceed to Cape Town all the ships fired a royal salute and the fort also as he landed at the jetty where he was received by a guard of honour of the 99th regiment the short distance from the landing place at the entrance to the main street was a pretty arch decorated with flowering sharps and the leaves of the silver tree on his way to this his royal highness was met by a deputation from the inhabitants of Simon's town and of the Malay population quote this was a very interesting sight the chief men dressed in oriental costumes with bright coloured robes and turbans stood in front and two of them held short ones decorated with paper flowers of various colours the duke shook hands with them and then they touched him with their wands they seemed very much pleased and looked at him in an earnest and affectionate manner several of the Malays stood round with drawn swords apparently acting as a guard of honour the crowd round formed a very motley group of people of all colours negroes, brown asiatics, hotentots and men women and children of every hue the policemen had enough to do to keep them back as they pressed up close round the duke unquote after loyal addresses had been received and responded to the prince and suite drove off for Cape Town the ride to which is graphically described by the chaplain and artist of the expedition quote the morning was very lovely looking to seaward was the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Hanglip and the high broken shores of Hotentot Holland seen over the clear blue water of the bay the horses carriages escort with their drawn swords all dashing at a rattling pace along the sands in the bright sunshine and the long lines of small breakers on the beach was one of the most exhilarating sights imaginable in places the cavalcade emerged from the sands up onto where the road skirts a rocky shore and where at this season of the year beautiful Aram lilies and other bright flowers were growing in the greatest profusion about four miles from Simon's Bay we passed a small cove called Fish Hook Bay where a few families of Malay fishermen reside a whale they had killed in the bay the evening before lay anchored ready for cutting in a small flag called by whalers a whiff was sticking up in it we could see from the road that it was one of the usual southern right whales which occasionally come into Simon's Bay and are captured there after crossing the last of the sands we reached Kalk Bay a collection of small houses where the people from Cape Town come to stay in the summer as we proceeded fresh carriages of private individuals and horsemen continued to join on behind and it was necessary to keep a bright look out to prevent them rushing in between the two carriages containing the Duke and Governor with their suites various small unpretending archers every poor man having put up one on his own account with flags and flowers spanned the road in different places between Simon's Town and Farmer Pecks a small inn about nine miles from the anchorage which used formally to have the following eccentric signboard the gentle shepherd of Salisbury Plain Farmer Pecks molten in pavo pro bono publico entertainment for man or beast all at the row le cacoste as much as you please excellent beds without any fleas nos patri am fugimos now we are here vivamos let us live by selling beer on don abois et à manger ici come in and try it whoever you be this house was decorated with evergreens and over the door was a stuffed South African leopard springing on an antelope a little further on after discussing lunch at a halfway house a goodly number of volunteer cavalry in blue and white uniforms appeared to escort the sailor prince into Cape Town the road passes through pleasant country but the thick red dust which rose as the cavalcade preceded was overwhelming it was a South African version of the Derby on a hot summer's day at various places parties of school children arrayed along the roadside sung the national anthem in little piping voices the singing being generally conducted by mild looking men in black gloves and spectacles at one place stood an old Malay playing God save the queen on a cracked clarionette who quite absorbed as he was in his music and apparently unconscious of all around him looked exceedingly comic there was everywhere a great scrambling crowd of Malays and black boys running and tumbling over each other shouting and laughing women with children tied on their backs old men and girls dressed in every conceivable kind of ragged rig and picturesque color with headgear of a wonderful nature huge Malay hats almost parasols in size and resembling the thatch of an English cornrig crowns of old black hats and ribbons of all proportions and colors swelled the procession as it swept along when the cavalry trumpet sounded trot the cloud of dust increased tenfold everybody apparently who could muster a horse was mounted so that ahead and on every side the carriage in which we were following the Duke was hemmed in and surrounded everything became mixed up in one thick cloud of red dust in which helmets, swords, hats, puggaries, turbans and horses almost disappeared the crowd hurrahed louder than ever pic squealed, dogs howled, riders tumbled off the excitement was irresistible oh this is fun stand up never mind dignity whoop and we were rushed into the cloud of dust to escape being utterly swamped and left a stern of the Duke standing up in the carriage and holding on in front to catch what glimpses we could of what was going on some of the archers were very beautiful they were all decorated with flowering shrubs flowers, particularly the arem lily and leaves of the silver tree in one the words welcome back were formed with oranges one of the most curious had on its top a large steamship with galatea inscribed upon it and a funnel out of which real smoke was made to issue as the Duke passed under six little boys dressed as sailors formed the crew and stood up singing rule Britannia end quote and so they arrived in Cape Town to have levées, receptions, entertainments and balls by the dozen end of chapter 12 part 1 read by Jane Bennett