ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
FROM THE HORN TO HALIFAX.
The dreaded Horn—The Land of Fire—Basil Hall’s Phenomenon—A
Missing Volcano—The South American Station—Falkland Islands—A Free
Port and Naval Station—Penguins, Peat, and Kelp—Sea Trees—The West
India Station—Trinidad—Columbus’s First View of it—Fatal
Gold—Charles Kingsley’s Enthusiasm—The Port of Spain—A
Happy-go-lucky People—Negro Life—Letters from a Cottage
Ornée—Tropical Vegetation—Animal Life—Jamaica—Kingston
Harbour—Sugar Cultivation—The Queen of the Antilles—Its
Paseo—Beauty of the Archipelago—A Dutch Settlement in the Heart of
a Volcano—Among the Islands—The Souffrière—Historical
Reminiscences—Bermuda: Colony, Fortress, and Prison—Home of Ariel
and Caliban—The Whitest Place in the World—Bermuda Convicts—New
York Harbour—The City—First Impressions—Its fine Position—Splendid
Harbour—Forest of Masts—The Ferry-boats, Hotels, and
Bars—Offenbach’s Impressions—Broadway, Fulton Market, and Central
Park—New York in Winter—Frozen Ships—The great Brooklyn
Bridge—Halifax and its Beauties—Importance of the Station—Bedford
Basin—The Early Settlers—The Blue Noses—Adieu to America.
And now the exigencies 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 Guiana. 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_. In
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 tug-boat 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 a 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 north-western 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.
[Illustration: CAPE HORN.]
The naval station at the Falklands is at Port Stanley, on the eastern
island, where there is a splendid land-locked 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 fourpence 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 demijohns of rum were, in consequence, taken on
board by his 300 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 marines stationed there. It is,
moreover, the head-quarters 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 abound, 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’s 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 and 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 “sea-weed” would be a misnomer, the trunks being
several feet in circumference—slippery, glutinous, 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—ay, twenty—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 interest 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.
[Illustration: THE LANDING OF COLUMBUS AT TRINIDAD.]
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 verdure and fertility of the country, having expected
that it would be parched, dry, and sterile as he approached the equator;
whereas, he beheld beautiful groves of palm-trees, and luxuriant forests
sweeping down to the sea-side, 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 Arenal, near Icacque, and who, finding no streams, sank holes in
the sand, and so filled their casks with fresh water—as is done by sailors
now-a-days 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’s 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 Arrawaks, 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 Trollope,(110) “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 forest 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 muslin, pigeon-pies and champagne.
One narrow shady valley, into which a creek of the sea ran, made Trollope
think that it must have been intended for “the less noisy joys of some
Paul of Trinidad with his Creole Virginia.” The same writer, after
describing the Savannah, which includes a park and race-course, 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 governors’ grandeur, so
hated by governors themselves, which must necessarily be brought 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 building have been given to the city as a public
pleasure-ground. Kingsley speaks of it as a paradise.
Jack ashore, 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 the “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 subsistence except eating something or other—mostly fruit—all 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 Lazzaroni, 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?
Every one there looks strong, healthy, and well-fed. The author of
“Westward Ho!” was not likely to be deceived, and says: “One meets few or
none of those figures and faces—small, scrofulous, 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. Every one plainly can live and thrive if they
choose; and very pleasant it is 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, Hindoos, and
Chinese there 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 doorways are seen dark shops, built on Spanish models, and
filled with everything under the sun. On the doorsteps sit negresses, in
flashy Manchester “prints” and stiff turbans, “all aiding in the general
work of doing nothing,” or offering for sale fruits, sweetmeats, or chunks
of sugar-cane. 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.
[Illustration: VIEW IN JAMAICA.]
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 as yet he hasn’t, would, if such
writers as Charles Kingsley and Anthony Trollope are to be credited, add
Trinidad to the list. Read the former’s “Letter from a West Indian Cottage
Ornée,” or the latter’s description of a ride through the cool woods and
sea-shore 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 leaf-stalks ten feet long and fans
more feet wide. The orange, the pine-apple, and the “flower fence”
(_Poinziana_); the cocoa-palm, the tall Guinea grass, and the “groo-groos”
(a kind of palm: _Acrocomia sclerocarpa_); the silk-cotton tree, the
tamarind, and the Rosa del monte bushes—twenty 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 seaman ashore will note many of these beauties; but his superior
officers will see more. The _cottage ornée_, 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 cocoa-nut
palms on the nearest spur of hill throwing back the tender blue of the
distant mountains; groups of palms, with perhaps _Erythrinas umbrosa_
(_Bois immortelles_, they call them in Trinidad), with vermilion
flowers—trees of red coral, sixty 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 of the poverty of words, and the futility, therefore,
of all word-painting; of the inability, too, of the senses to discern and
define objects of such vast variety; of our æsthetic 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 Mussulman, who is
wise enough not to attempt any analysis, either of Nature or of his
feelings about her, and wise enough, also ... in presence of the unknown,
to take refuge in God.”
Monkeys of many kinds, jaguars, toucans, wild cats; wonderful ant-eaters,
racoons, 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. H.M.S. _Sea_ is getting all steam up. The privilege
of leave cannot last for ever: it is “All aboard!” Whither bound? 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 flag-ship and a
commodore, a dockyard, and a naval hospital.
[Illustration: KINGSTON HARBOUR, JAMAICA.]
Kingston Harbour is a grand lagoon, nearly shut in by a long sand-spit, or
rather bank, called “The Palisades,” at the point of which is Port Royal,
which, about ninety 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 Palisades, 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 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 Creoles 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, that 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 affect to despise the native luxuries. Thus, they will
give you ox-tail soup when real turtle would be infinitely cheaper. “When
yams, avocado pears, the mountain cabbage, plantains, and twenty 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 mulattoes, 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. Trollope discovered this.
He ordered a lad in one of the hotels to fill his bath, calling him “old
fellow.” “Who you call fellor?” asked the youth; “you speak to a gen’lman
gen’lmanly, and den he fill de bath.”
The sugar-cane—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 an unbroken plain 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 a kind of half-way house of entertainment; and although Mr.
Trollope—who provided himself with a white companion, who, in his turn,
provided five negroes, beef, bread, water, brandy, and what seemed to him
about ten 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 appanage of the Spanish crown. Havana, the capital, has a grand
harbour, large, commodious, and safe, with a fine quay, 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 quay. The harbour is very picturesque, and the entrance to it is
defended by two forts, which were taken once by England—in Albemarle’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.
[Illustration: HAVANA.]
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—its Hyde Park, Bois de Boulogne,
Corso, Cascine, Alamèda—where the Cuban belles and beaux 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 volante, 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 breeches, red jacket, and gold
lace, and broad-brimmed straw hat, rides. The volante is itself bright
with polished metal, and the whole turn-out 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, and many of the sugar and tobacco planters are
very wealthy. Properties of many hundred acres under cultivation are
common. Mr. Trollope found the negroes well-fed, sleek, and fat as
brewers’ horses, while no sign of ill-usage came before him. In crop times
they sometimes work sixteen hours a day, and Sunday is not then a day of
rest for them. There are many Chinese coolies, 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, the steamer took
him past a shifting diorama of scenery, which he likened to Vesuvius and
Naples, repeated again and again, with every possible variation of the
same type of delicate loveliness. Under a cloudless sky, and over the blue
waters, banks of light cloud turned to 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
embowered in foliage, and gay little villages, and busy towns. “It was
easy,” says that charming writer, “in presence of such scenery, to
conceive the exultation which possessed the souls of the first discoverers
of the West Indies. What wonder if they seemed to themselves to have burst
into fairy-land—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 seemed possible to the dwellers along those shores? What riches, too,
of gold and jewels, might not be hidden among those forest-shrouded glens
and peaks? And beyond, and beyond again, ever new islands, new continents,
perhaps, and inexhaustible wealth of yet undiscovered worlds.”(111)
The resemblance to Mediterranean, or, more especially, Neapolitan, scenery
is very marked. “Like causes have produced like effects; and each island
is little but the peak of a volcano, down whose shoulders lava and ash
have slidden toward the sea.” Many carry several cones. One of them, a
little island named Saba, has a most remarkable settlement _half-way up a
volcano_. Saba rises sheer out of the sea 1,500 or more feet, and, from a
little landing-place, a stair runs up 800 feet into the very bosom of the
mountain, where in a hollow live some 1,200 honest Dutchmen and 800
negroes. The latter were, till of late years, nominally the slaves of the
former; but it is said that, in reality, it was just the other way. The
blacks went off when and whither they pleased, earned money on other
islands, and expected their masters to keep them when they were out of
work. The good Dutch live 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. Long may
their 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 Cringle’s Log” will remember, is fancied to have an
unpleasant 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 cocoa-nuts, roots of yam, and
cush-cush, help to make up baskets as varied in colour as the gaudy gowns
and turbans of the women. Neither must the junks of sugar-cane be omitted,
which the “coloured” gentlemen and ladies delight to gnaw, walking,
sitting, and standing; increasing thereby 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 drawbacks: in the Guadaloupe
earthquake of 1843, 5,000 persons lost their lives in the one town of
Point-à-Pitre alone. The Souffrière volcano, 5,000 feet high, rears many a
peak to the skies, and shows an ugly and uncertain humour, smoking and
flaming. The writer so often quoted gives a wonderfully beautiful
description of this mountain and its surroundings. “As the sun rose, level
lights of golden green streamed round the peak, right and left, over the
downs; but only for a while. As the sky-clouds vanished in his blazing
rays, earth-clouds rolled up from the valleys behind, wreathed and
weltered about the great black teeth of the crater, 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
cane-field; below them again the town (the port of Basse Terre), with
handsome houses, and old-fashioned churches and convents, dating possibly
from the seventeenth century, embowered in mangoes, tamarinds, and
palmistes; 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 the low northern cliff, marked
with many a cross, was the lonely cholera cemetery, a remembrance of the
fearful pestilence which, a few years since, swept away thousands of the
people: and above frowned that black giant, now asleep: but for how long?”
The richness of the verdure which clothes these islands to their highest
peaks seems a mere coat of green fur, and yet is often gigantic forest
trees. The eye wanders over the green abysses, 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, seems some glorious jewel—an emerald, with tints 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
holds the skeleton of an Englishman.
Here it was that Rodney broke De Grasse’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 honourable peace of
1783. Yon lovely roadstead of Dominica: there Rodney caught up with the
French just before, and would have beaten them so much the earlier but for
his vessels being becalmed. 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,(112) to which that brave old navigator literally tied with a
hawser or two his ship, the _Centaur_, and turned the rock into a fortress
from whence 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—two
seventy-fours and fourteen smaller ships of war—but did not give in till
seventy poor Frenchmen were lying killed or wounded, and three of their
gun-boats destroyed, her own loss being only two men killed and one
wounded. Brave old sloop of war! And, once more, those glens and forests
of St. Lucia remind us of Sir John Moore and Sir Ralph Abercrombie, who
fought, not merely the French, but the “Brigands”—negroes liberated by the
Revolution of 1792.
[Illustration: THE _CENTAUR_ AT THE DIAMOND ROCK, MARTINIQUE.]
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 and
a prison, and where England owns an extensive floating dock, dock-yards,
and workshops.(113) 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
hand-saw. And people are cutting up Bermuda with hand-saws. 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,
and is surrounded by little islets, of which there is one for every day of
the year in a space of twenty by three 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 Bermudez, a Spaniard; and Shakespeare seems to have heard of
them, for he speaks of the
“Still vexed Bermoothes.”
Trollope 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 to-day, 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 head-quarters of the military, and the second that of the
governor. It is the summer head-quarters 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 advantages of the tropics, _plus_ those of more temperate climes.
For tomatoes, onions, beet-root, 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 arrowroot is
one of its specialities. It is the early market-garden for New York.
Ship-building 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. But the
whites are not much better; and the climate is found to produce great
lassitude.
[Illustration: BERMUDA, FROM GIBBS HILL.]
It is the sea round 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-varying forms. The oleander, with their
bright blossoms, are so abundant, almost to the water’s edge, that the
Bermudas might be called the “Oleander Isles.”
The Bermuda convict, in Trollope’s time, seemed to be rather better off
than most English labourers. 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; a pound of
vegetables; tea and sugar; a glass of grog per diem; tobacco-money
allowed, and eight hours’ labour. He was infinitely better off than most
sailors of the merchant service.
[Illustration: THE NORTH ROCK, BERMUDA.]
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-locked haven 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.
Every one keeps a boat or cedar canoe. He will often do his business on
one island and have his residence on a second. Mark Twain 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 found it a
wonderfully white town, white as marble—snow—flour. “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 among the cedar
forests, and there was no woody distance of curving coast or leafy islet
sleeping on the 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 Bermuda to 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—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 counsel,
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 unequalled; they have been called, 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 as sudden plunges into the sombre
twilight and stillness of the woods; glittering visions of white
fortresses and beacon towers pictured against the sky on remote hill-tops;
glimpses of shining green sea caught for a moment through opening
headlands, then lost again; more woods and solitude; and by-and-by another
turn lays bare, without warning, the full sweep of the inland ocean,
enriched with its bars of soft colour, and graced with its wandering
sails.
“Take any road you please, you may depend upon it you will not stay in it
half a mile. Your road is everything that a 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, which is a 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-lances that are ten feet high, on the one hand, and
potato and onion orchards on the other; next you are on a hill-top, with
the ocean and the islands spread around you; presently the road winds
through a deep cut, shut in by perpendicular walls thirty or forty 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 adventurous flower, and here and there a dangling vine; and
by-and-by, 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 are 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 coasts 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 by-gone days. At the present time, however,
tug-boats, and the use of steam generally, have reduced the perils of
navigation among the hundreds of islands which 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 porous nature of the rock of which
the island is formed, it was determined that Messrs. Campbell, Johnstone &
Co., of North Woolwich, should construct a floating-dock according to
their patented inventions: those built by them for Carthagena, Saigon, and
Callao having been completely 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 „
Breadth over all 124 „
Breadth between sides 84 „
Depth inside 53 „ 5 in.
She is divided into eight longitudinal water-tight 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 capstans, and cranes, all of which
were worked by steam. She is powerful and large enough to lift an ironclad
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, and on the after the steering
apparatus. She was also supplied with three lighthouses and several
semaphores for signalling to the men-of-war which had her in tow, either
by night or day. In shape she is something like a round-bottomed 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. Her crew numbered eighty-two hands, under
a Staff-Commander, R.N.; 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 Nore.
[Illustration: THE BERMUDA FLOATING DOCK.]
On the afternoon of the 23rd of June, 1869, the _Bermuda_ was towed to the
Nore by four ordinary Thames tugs, accompanied by H.M.SS. _Terrible_,
_Medusa_, _Buzzard_, and _Wildfire_. On arriving at the Nore off the
lightship she found the _Northumberland_ waiting for her. The tugs cast
off, and a hawser was passed to the _Northumberland_, which took her in
tow as far as Knob Channel, the _Terrible_ bringing up astern. The
_Agincourt_ was now picked up, and passing a hawser on board the
_Northumberland_, took the lead in the maritime tandem. A hawser was now
passed to the _Terrible_ from the stern of the _Bermuda_, so that by
towing that vessel she might be kept from swaying from side to side. The
_Medusa_ steamed on the quarter of the _Northumberland_, and the _Buzzard_
acted as a kind of floating outrider 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, when she lost sight of land off the Start Point
late in the afternoon of that day. On the 28th she was half-way 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 ten feet under the surface of the water, and that her
hollow sides towered some sixty feet above it. On the top of each gunwale
were wooden houses for the officers, with gardens in front and behind, in
which mignonette, 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
gunwales, or quarter-decks, as they might be called, communicated with the
lower decks by means of a ladder fifty-three feet long.
[Illustration: VOYAGE OF THE “BERMUDA.”]
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 six o’clock in the morning, land was signalled. This proved to be
the island of Porto Santo; and she brought up about two miles off the
principal town early in the afternoon, having made the voyage from
Sheerness in exactly eleven 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 ten degrees. Towards eight 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 all
was made snug again, and the squadron proceeded on its voyage. During this
portion of the trip, a 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 ironclad to their unknown
comrades on board the dock. On the 9th, the day following the disaster to
the rudder, they fell in with the north-east 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_, the latter ship now taking
the lead by towing the _Black Prince_. The _Lapwing_, however, proved not
to be sufficiently powerful for this service. A heavy sea springing up,
the dock began to yaw and behave so friskily 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’s 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 for ever. She
righted, however, and the _Terrible_ steaming hard ahead, she passed the
most dangerous point of the inlet, and at last rode securely in smooth
water, within a few cables’ length of her future berth, after a singularly
successful voyage of thirty-six 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 tons, over nearly
4,000 miles of ocean, without the loss of a single life, or, 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, whither 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 to-day a dock worthy of the name; magnificent
steamships and palatial ferry-boats all lie alongside wharfs, or enter
“slips,” which are semi-enclosed wharfs. Brooklyn and Jersey City have,
however, docks.
Who that has visited New York will ever forget his first impressions? The
grand Hudson, or the great East River, itself a strait: the glorious bay,
or the crowded island, alike call for and deserve enthusiastic admiration.
If one arrives on a sunny day, maybe not a zephyr agitates the surface of
the noble Hudson, or even the bay itself: the latter landlocked, save
where lost in the broad Atlantic; the former skirted by the great Babylon
of America and the wooded banks of Hoboken. Round the lofty western hills,
a fleet of small craft—with rakish hulls and snowy sails—steal quietly and
softly, while steamboats, that look like floating islands, almost pass
them with lightning speed. Around is the shipping of every clime; enormous
ferry-boats radiating in all directions; forests of masts along the wharfs
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.
[Illustration: MAP OF NEW YORK HARBOUR.]
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 a rival, 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 thirteen 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 harbour 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 harbour is surrounded with small settlements, connected by
charmingly-situated villas and country residences. It is toward its
northern end that the masts, commencing with a few stragglers, gradually
thicken to a forest. In it are three fortified islands. By the strait
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 harbour, or bay proper, which extends thence to Sandy Hook
Light, forty 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 villages, farms, and country seats. The view of the city
itself is not so prepossessing; like all large cities, it is 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 specially. 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 here add,”
notes an intelligent writer,(114) “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 halfpenny 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 and idlers, vehicles of all kinds,
street cars, 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 Regent 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 tortuous as those of
any European city. The crowded state of Broadway at certain points rivals
Cheapside. 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 learnt the reason. Unprincipled roughs had stationed themselves
at either end, and levied black-mail 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 riggings 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 zig-zagged 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.
[Illustration: BROOKLYN BRIDGE.]
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—Niagara, to-day 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 that 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 mast 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.
[Illustration: FERRY-BOAT, NEW YORK HARBOUR.]
Halifax is the northernmost depôt 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 south-east 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 wharfs, while
merchants’ houses, dwellings, and public edifices arrange themselves on
tiers, 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 land-locked sheet of water. This grand sea-lake has an area of
ten 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
3,500, 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, &c., 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, there very severe. There were now assembled at Halifax about
5,000 people, whose labours were suddenly suspended by the intensity of
the frost, and there was in consequence considerable enforced idleness.
Haliburton(115) mentions the difficulty that the governor had to employ
the settlers by sending them out on various expeditions, in palisading the
town, and in other public works.
In addition to £40,000 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 £416,000.
The town of Halifax was no sooner built than the French colonists began to
be alarmed, and although they did not think proper to make an open avowal
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 thereupon 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 dead were usually attended to
the grave by neither relatives or friends, twelve 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 been already 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 veracious individual, “Sam
Slick,” greatly belied them. Judge Haliburton, 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 the 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, it’s a splendid province, and calculated to go ahead; it
will grow as fast as a Virginny gall—and they grow so amazing fast, if you
put one of your arms round one of their necks to kiss them, by the time
you’ve done they’ve growed up into women. It’s a pretty province, I tell
you, good above and better below: surface covered with pastures, meadows,
woods, and a nation sight of water privileges; and under the ground full
of mines. It puts me in mind of the soup at _Tree_mont 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 sight 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.
[Illustration: THE ISLAND OF ASCENSION.]
[Illustration: TRISTAN D’ACUNHA.]