ordered on foreign service—visit madeira, cape de verde, and goree—experiences on shore—sail for cape coast castle—difficulty of landing—the captain’s black lady—author appointed captain of h.m.s. favourite—proceed to accrah—sacred alligators.
after a refit and taking on board six months’ provisions and stores, as we were ordered to fit foreign, our signal was made to proceed to sea under sealed orders, taking with us a sloop of war. on the tenth day we anchored in funchal roads, madeira, with our consort. the day following was the natal day of our gracious queen, on which occasion we both fired a royal salute and dressed the ships with flags. the captain, with as many of the officers as could be spared, was invited to dine with the consul at funchal. at four o’clock the captain, two of my messmates and myself, left the ship, and in half an hour afterwards we reached the consul’s house, where we met an agreeable party, consisting of four english ladies and eight gentlemen. it was the month of june, and the weather was very warm, but it did not prevent us from seeing the town and visiting some of the nunneries. the former was scarcely worth our trouble, and the latter gave us, from the nuns’ [pg 235]appearance, no very high opinion of female beauty. we visited some of the vineyards. the vines, trained over arched trellis work, extend to some distance, and when in full leaf afford a delightful shade. the grapes are generally remarkably large and of a delicious flavour. the morning before sailing i found the best bower cable was two-thirds cut through by some small, sharp instrument on the turn round the bit-head. the hands were turned up and singly interrogated. nobody knew anything about it. all appeared anxious to find out the culprit, but in vain. had the cable parted in the night we should not have had room to have let go the small bower, and must have gone on the rocks.
in the afternoon we sailed, ran along the canary islands, and in five days afterwards anchored off the island of goree. this small, tolerably well-fortified island is a few miles from cape de verde. it possesses no harbour, but the anchorage off the town is good. it produces nothing but a few cotton bushes. the inhabitants are very poor. they manufacture cotton cloths, in which they clothe themselves. they are a mixture of black, brown and white. their features are more of the arabian than the african cast. they speak corrupt english, french and portuguese. they are very proud and equally independent. the better class live in small houses made of mud and clay, the inferiors in cone-shaped buildings something like indian kraals, formed [pg 236]neatly of bamboo and surrounded by a bamboo wall. the governor, colonel lloyd, gave us an invitation to dinner and a ball. i was one of the party. the former consisted of buffalo soup, fish, and muscovy ducks, the latter of a number of brown ladies dressed like bales of cotton. dancing with them might be compared to a cooper working round a cask. some few had tolerably regular features, and i noticed the captain making love like a greenland bear to the girl i danced with.
the second morning after our arrival i was sent with two cutters to haul the seine off the mainland about three miles to the westward of cape de verde. as soon as we had made the first haul, in which we had taken a quantity of herrings, about twenty of the inhabitants of that part of the coast rushed towards the fish with the intention of seizing them. i desired the marines we had with us to present their muskets in order to frighten them. it answered perfectly, and they retired. i then desired two of the seamen to take a quantity of the fish and lay them down at some short distance, and i beckoned to the natives to come and take them, which they did, tumbling over each other in the scramble. after having taken a quantity of herrings in three hauls, besides several larger fish, i proceeded with one of the marines and the coxswain to the town.
i found it a miserable place, much like goree, but three times the size, and surrounded by a high fence of thick bamboo matting, supported by [pg 237]long stakes. all i could purchase were two old muscovy ducks, some pumpkins, and a few cocoanuts. one of the ducks got adrift, and a long, lean, hungry girl caught it and ran off with it into the brushwood, where we lost sight of her. the people of goree informed us they were terrible thieves, and we proved it. the following day i again paid a visit to these patagonian people, for the greater part of the men at cape de verde were more than six feet in stature and very slight. they all carried long lances, principally because of the numerous pattigoes, or hyenas, in their neighbourhood. the purser, who was with me, purchased with some rum which the coxswain of the boat brought with him two sacks of beans and some oranges. i mentioned the loss of my duck the day before to a man who understood english and spoke it indifferently. as i stood alongside of him, both the purser and myself, who were five feet seven, appeared like pigmies. he was at least seven feet two inches, and had an amazing long lance in his hand. he laughed loud and long at my recital. “ah, buckra,” at last he chuckled out, “you takee care anoder time, eh! and you no lettee de duck run abay; if you do, anoder piccaninny girl hab it again, eh?”
“confound this fellow!” said the purser; “i believe he is a worse rogue than the girl. have you had enough of his palaver?” “almost too much,” answered i. “let us pull foot.” we returned to the boat, and after an hour’s row [pg 238]got on board. the following day i dined with commissary hamilton, who showed me a letter from the interesting mr. mungo park, who was surgeon of the regiment he belonged to. mr. hamilton told me he had set out with forty in his party, but that in consequence of sickness it was reduced to twenty-five; but notwithstanding these drawbacks park wrote in good spirits, and was determined to persevere in his journey to timbuctoo.
before we sailed i made another excursion on the mainland, and fell in with fourteen arabian travelling merchants. they were seated on the ground like london tailors, surrounded by their bales of goods, principally rough cotton, with six camels and two tame ostriches. the former were lying down, the latter walking about and searching for food among the short, rank grass and stones. some of the latter i observed they swallowed. i purchased from the merchants some ostrich eggs. they asked me to give them rum. one of them, who spoke a little english, and was interpreter for the others, told me they intended coming on board to see the ship, and to shake hands with the captain. i informed him he would feel himself highly flattered by such arabian condescension, but that they must make haste, as the ship would sail in a day or two. they all begged to shake hands with us, for the marine officer accompanied me. on returning to the boat we found two of the natives, who appeared at a distance more like maypoles [pg 239]than men, endeavouring to hold a conversation with the boat’s crew. the coxswain told me they had fallen in love with the boat-hook, and offered in exchange one of their lances. when we appeared their thoughts were turned from the boat-hook to the marine officer’s sword, and they requested him, by signs, to make an exchange. another native had joined the other two, armed with a musket. i made signs to him to let me look at it, but he would not trust it out of his hands. i remarked it was an old english worn-out gun without a hammer to the lock. perceiving that they were beginning to be troublesome, we jumped into the boat and threw them some biscuits, which they devoured with the appetite of wolves.
we had not been on board an hour when we were honoured with a visit from four of the arabians, who, without ceremony, went up to the captain and shook him by the hand, and asked him for the purser. the latter very opportunely made his appearance, when the captain pointed him out to the arab who spoke broken english. he soon left the latter, and accosted the former with unblushing effrontery, and asked him for a cask of flour. “and for what?” demanded the purser. “because i your good friend,” was the answer. “you are an impudent, beggarly rascal,” said our hasty-tempered purveyor of provisions to him. “what can i see in your precious ugly black face that will induce me to give you anything but a good kicking?” “patience and policy, messmate,” i said. [pg 240]“where is your philosophy? let your steward give them a few biscuits and a dram, and get rid of them.” to this proposal, after a grumble, he assented, and they departed.
the following morning we weighed, and made all sail for cape coast roads. on our passage we experienced heavy squalls of wind and rain, which frequently obliged us to clew all up. we anchored at sierra leone on the fourth day, and found the colony healthy. after remaining two days to complete our water, we left it, and proceeded to our destination. we anchored off cape coast a few days afterwards, at a respectable distance, as the surf breaks two miles from the shore. the ship’s boats on this part of the coast are useless. were they to attempt to land they would soon be swamped and knocked to pieces, and the crews drowned. native canoes of from eight to twenty paddles are only used, and it requires great caution and dexterity by the black boatmen to prevent their being upset. i once came off in a large canoe with twenty paddles. on the third rolling surf she was half filled, and i was washed out of the chair among the paddlers. as soon as the sails were furled, a large canoe came off from the governor with an invitation for the captain to dine with him. i remarked that the greater part of the coal-coloured crew of the canoe had the wool on their heads tied into about thirty tails an inch in length. a painter might have manufactured a tolerable gorgonian head from among them.
[pg 241]
on the following day we were visited by several flat-nosed, thick-lipped, black-skinned ladies, who came off with the express purpose of being married to some of the man-of-war buckras. they soon found husbands. in the afternoon a canoe came alongside with a tall grasshopper of a woman as ugly as sin and as black as the ace of spades, with a little girl about seven years old a shade, if possible, blacker, and as great a beauty as herself. one of the canoe men came on the quarter-deck with them. he made a leg and pulled one of the many tails of his wool, and addressed me as follows: “massa officer, massa buckra captain hab sent him wife off and him piccaninny.” saying this he gave me a note, which was addressed to his steward, the barber, who came and told me, to my amazement, that the animal on two ill-formed legs was to have the use of the captain’s cabin. thinks i to myself, “wonders will never cease. there is no accounting for taste. some people are over nice, some not nice enough.” about two hours after our gallant captain came on board, i presume love-sick, for he either looked love or shame-stricken. probably i was mistaken, as i concluded he had discarded the latter when he entered the service as an unmanly appendage.
whilst here i went on shore with some of my messmates, and dined with the mess at the castle off goat, boiled, broiled, roasted, stewed, and devilled, and some fish. in short they have nothing else except some half-starved [pg 242]fowls and muscovy ducks; sometimes, but not very often, buffalo beef, which is so tough that after you have swallowed it—for you cannot chew it—you are liable to indigestion for two months or so; so naturally they prefer young goat. the castle, which stands on an eminence, is strong on the sea face, but i presume it would not hold out long on the land side against a regular siege, but as i am no engineer, i will leave it, as moore’s almanac says of the hieroglyphic, to the learned and the curious. the town consists of small, low huts, the greater part of which are built of stakes and mud, whitewashed over, and thatched with palm leaves. i saw a spot of parched, arid ground which was designated a botanical garden. if it did not contain many exotics, it did a most savage tiger, which was enclosed in an iron cage.
we had been cruising along the coast, and sometimes anchoring for about five weeks, when the captain of the sloop of war was promoted from this fleeting world to a better. i was, in consequence, appointed as her captain, being in my ninth year as lieutenant when i obtained my promotion. i parted company with the frigate shortly afterwards, and anchored off accrah. a canoe soon came off with an invitation from the governor requesting my company to dinner. i accepted it and went on shore, where i was received by a young man who was more merchant than soldier, but who had command of the fort which commanded the roadstead and the town. he informed me that a little distance from [pg 243]the town was a large lagoon or lake in which were frequently found four or more large tame alligators. “for,” added he, “although the natives often suffer from their depredations, and once one of their children was devoured by one of these reptiles, they hold them sacred, and they are ‘fetiched’ or made holy.” “i should much like to see one,” said i. “i will,” answered he, “send for one of the cabaceers, or head men of the town, and we shall soon know if there are any in the neighbourhood.” a quarter of an hour had elapsed when in came a grave-looking black man dressed in blue serge, with a gold-headed long cane in his hand, the badge of his office. he informed the governor there was a large alligator at the bottom of the lake, and that if he would provide him with a white fowl and a bottle of rum, his people might possibly lure him out. about an hour expired when we heard a bustle not far distant, and a man came to apprise us that the alligator was in the town, that a marabout, or priest, was ready to fetich it, and only waited for us. we had not proceeded more than twelve yards from the fort when we saw the reptile, which was about eighteen feet long, in full trot after a man who held the unfortunate fowl destined to be the victim. as soon as we approached he turned short round. the reptile, with his upper jaw nearly thrown on the back of his head, was some time in turning, owing to its length and the shortness of its legs, and was again in chase of the man who held the fowl. the marabout now came after it, and [pg 244]when close to its tail, threw the rum over it, mumbling some strange sounds. it was then considered sacred, and death would have been the punishment of those who hurt it. before it came to the margin of the lagoon, the man with the poor fowl, which was more than half-dead with fright, slackened his pace, and threw it into the alligator’s mouth. the reptile then made for the water, sank to the bottom, and ate the miserable bird. we returned to dinner, which consisted of a hearty welcome, some excellent fish, fowl soup, boiled fowl with ham, and a roasted saddle of kid, with yams and plantains, pine-apples and oranges, madeira and sherry. in the evening i took leave of my hospitable host and repaired on board, and the following morning put to sea.
after cruising for six weeks in chase of the wind—for we saw nothing during that period except two slave ships from liverpool, from whom we procured a few indifferent potatoes—we again anchored off cape coast. i went on shore and paid my respects to the governor, general tourenne, in a new character. i had once dined with him when lieutenant of the frigate; he did not recollect me, but requested me whenever i was disposed to take up my residence at the castle, and to consider it my home during the time i remained on the station. “the ashantee, or assentee nation have,” continued he, “been very troublesome of late and have declared war against the fantee nation, who are under our protection, as it is through them all the [pg 245]commerce along the coast takes place, and of this, the ashantees, who are the inland nation, wish to partake. your being in the roads will in some measure check them.” i promised to visit the roads as often as my other duties would permit me, and if necessary assist with the marines.
