Sail from Plymouth.
The Eight Stones.
Peak of Tenerife.
Approach to Santa Cruz.
La Cueva de Los Guanches.
Trade with Mogadore.
Intercourse between Mogadore and Mombas.
Reason to regret Mombas having been given up.
Sail from Tenerife.
Search for rocks near the equator.
Arrival at San Salvador.
Appearance of Bahia.
State of the Country.
Slave Trade.
And results of Slavery.
Extension of the Slave Trade on the eastern coast of Africa.
Moral condition of the Negroes.
Middy's Grave.
Departure from Bahia.
Mr. "Very Well Dice".
The morning of the 5th July saw us running out of Plymouth Sound with a
light northerly wind, and hazy weather: soon after we were outside we
spoke H.M.S. Princess Charlotte, bearing the flag of Admiral Sir R.
Stopford, and as she was bound down channel we kept together for the next
three days: she had old shipmates on board, and was not the less an
object of interest on that account. Nothing worthy of particular notice
occurred during the run to Santa Cruz in Tenerife, which we made on the
18th of July; having in obedience to our instructions passed over the
presumed site of The Eight Stones, thus adding another though almost
needless testimony to their non-existence, at least in the place assigned
them in the old charts.
In passing the gut of Gibraltar we remarked the current setting us into
it: this I have before noticed in outward voyages: in the homeward, one
is generally too far to the westward to feel its effects. A small
schooner sailed for England on the 20th, and most of us took the
opportunity of sending letters by her. I learnt from the master of her
that a timber ship had been recently picked up near the island, having
been dismasted in a gale off the banks of Newfoundland; she was 105 days
drifting here.
PEAK OF TENERIFE.
We were not so fortunate on this occasion as to obtain a distant sea view
of the far-famed peak of Tenerife. There are few natural objects of
greater interest when so beheld. Rising at a distance of some 40 leagues
in dim and awful solitude from the bosom of the seemingly boundless waves
that guard its base, it rests at first upon the blue outline of the
horizon like a conically shaped cloud: hour after hour as you approach
the island it seems to grow upon the sight, until at length its broad
reflection darkens the surrounding waters. I can imagine nothing better
calculated than an appearance of this kind to satisfy a beholder of the
spherical figure of the earth, and it would seem almost incredible that
early navigators should have failed to find conviction in the unvarying
testimonies of their own experience, which an approach to every shore
afforded.
In approaching the anchorage of Santa Cruz, vessels should close with the
shore, and get into soundings before--as is the general custom--arriving
abreast of the town, where from the steepness of the bank, and its
proximity to the shore, they are obliged to anchor suddenly, a practice
never desirable, and to vessels short handed, always inconvenient:
besides calms sometimes prevail in the offing, which would prevent a
vessel reaching the anchorage at all.
LA CUEVA DE LOS GUANCHES.
Lieutenant Grey was most indefatigable in collecting information during
the short period of our stay at the island, as an examination of his
interesting work will at once satisfy the reader: he explored a cave
three miles to the north-east of Santa Cruz, known by tradition as La
Cueva de los Guanches, and reputed to be a burying-place of the
aboriginal inhabitants of the island: it was full of bones, and from the
specimens he brought away, and also from his description of all that he
examined, they appear to have belonged to a small-limbed race of men.
Besides the wine trade, a considerable traffic is carried on with the
Moors upon the opposite coast, who exchange gums and sometimes ivory for
cotton and calico prints, and occasionally tobacco.
TRADE WITH MOGADORE.
The chief port for this trade is Mogadore, from whence ships not
unfrequently sail direct to Liverpool.
A singular circumstance was mentioned to me by our first Lieutenant Mr.
Emery, as tending to prove the existence of commercial intercourse
between the various tribes in the interior, and the inhabitants of the
coast at Mogadore on the north-west coast of Africa, and Mombas on the
south-east. In the year 1830, certain English goods were recognized in
the hands of the Moors at Mogadore which had been sold two years
previously to the natives at Mombas. The great extent of territory passed
over within these dates, renders this fact somewhat extraordinary; and it
affords a reason for regretting that we did not keep possession of
Mombas, which would ere this have enabled us to penetrate into the
interior of Africa: we abandoned it, at the very time when the tribes in
the interior were beginning to find out the value of our manufactures,
especially calicoes and cottons.
From the best information that Lieutenant Emery had obtained among the
natives, it seems certain that a very large lake exists in the interior,
its banks thickly studded with buildings, and lying nearly due west from
Mombas.
It was Lieutenant Emery's intention to have visited this lake had he
remained longer at Mombas; the Sultan's son was to have accompanied him,
an advantage which, coupled with his own knowledge of the country and its
customs, together with his great popularity among the natives, must have
ensured him success. It is to be feared, that so favourable an
opportunity for clearing up the doubts and darkness which at present
beset geographers in attempting to delineate this unknown land, will not
soon again present itself.
SAIL FROM TENERIFE.
Having completed the necessary magnetic observations, and rated the
chronometers, we sailed from Tenerife, on the evening of the 23rd. It
should be noticed that the results obtained from our observations for the
dip of the needle, differed very materially from those given by former
observers: the experiments made by Lieutenant Grey in different parts of
the island, satisfied us that the variation could not be imputed to
merely local causes.
As in obedience to our instructions we had to examine and determine the
hitherto doubtful position of certain rocks near the Equator, about the
meridian of 20 degrees West longitude, we were obliged to take a course
that carried us far to the eastward of the Cape de Verd Islands; for this
reason we had the North-East trade wind very light; we finally lost it on
the 30th, in latitude 13 degrees 0 minutes North, and longitude 14
degrees 40 minutes West; it had been for the two previous days scarcely
perceptible.
The South-East trade reached us on the 8th of August, latitude 3 degrees
30 minutes North longitude 17 degrees 40 minutes West, and on the morning
of the 10th we crossed the Equator in longitude 22 degrees 0 minutes
West: when sundry of our crew and passengers underwent the usual
ceremonies in honour of old Father Neptune. A close and careful search
within the limits specified in our instructions justified us in
certifying the non-existence of the rocks therein alluded to: but before
we presume to pass any censure upon those who preceded us in the honours
of maritime discovery, and the labours of maritime survey, it will be
proper to bear in mind the ceaseless changes to which the earth's surface
is subject, and that, though our knowledge is but limited of the
phenomena connected with subterranean and volcanic agency, still, in the
sudden upheaval and subsidence of Sabrina and Graham Islands, we have
sufficient evidence of their vast disturbing power, to warrant the
supposition that such might have been the case with the rocks for which
our search proved fruitless. Nor are these the only causes that may be
assigned to reconcile the conflicting testimonies of various Navigators
upon the existence of such dangers; the origin of which may be ascribed
to drift timber--reflected light discolouring the sea, and causing the
appearance of broken water--or to the floating carcass of a whale, by
which I have myself been more than once deceived.
ARRIVAL AT SAN SALVADOR.
A succession of winds between South-South-East and South-East, with the
aid of a strong westerly current, soon brought us near the Brazils. We
made the land on the morning of the 17th, about 15 miles to the
north-east of Bahia, and in the afternoon anchored off the town of San
Salvador.
Though this was neither my first nor second visit to Bahia, I was still
not indifferent to the magnificent or rather luxuriant tropical scenery
which it presents. A bank of such verdure as these sun-lit climes alone
supply, rose precipitously from the dark blue water, dotted with the
white and gleaming walls of houses and convents half hidden in woods of
every tint of green; while here and there the lofty spires of some
Christian temple pointed to a yet fairer world, invisible to mortal eye,
and suggested even to the least thoughtful, that glorious as is this
lower earth, framed by Heaven's beneficence for man's enjoyment, still it
is not that home to which the hand of revelation directs the aspirations
of our frail humanity.
STATE OF THE COUNTRY AT BAHIA.
I had last seen Bahia in August, 1836, on the homeward voyage of the
Beagle; and it was then in anything but a satisfactory condition; the
white population divided among themselves, and the slaves concerting by
one bloody and desperate blow to achieve their freedom. It did not appear
to have improved during the intervening period: a revolutionary movement
was still contemplated by the more liberal section of the Brazilians,
though at the very period they thus judiciously selected for squabbling
with one another, they were living in hourly expectation of a rising, en
masse, of the blacks. That such an insurrection must sooner or later take
place--and take place with all the most fearful circumstances of long
delayed and complete revenge--no unprejudiced observer can doubt.
SLAVE TRADE.
That selfish and short-sighted policy which is almost invariably allied
with despotism, has led to such constant additions by importation to the
number of the slave population, that it now exceeds the white in the
ratio of ten to one, while individually the slaves are both physically
and in natural capacity more than equal to their sensual and degenerate
masters. Bahia and its neighbourhood have a bad eminence in the annals of
the Brazilian slave-trade. Upwards of fifty, some accounts say eighty
cargoes, had been landed there since the Beagle's last visit: nor is the
circumstance to be wondered at when we bear in mind, that the price of a
slave then varied from 90 to 100 pounds, and this in a country not
abounding in money.
The declining trade, the internal disorganization, and the rapidly
augmenting slave population of Bahia, all tend to prove that the system
of slavery which the Brazilians consider essential to the welfare of
their country, operates directly against her real interests. The
wonderful resources of the Brazils will, however, never be fully
developed until the Brazilians resolve to adopt the line of policy
suggested in Captain Fitzroy's interesting remarks upon this subject. To
encourage an industrious native population on the one hand, and on the
other to declare the slave-trade piratical, are the first necessary steps
in that march of improvement, by which this tottering empire may yet be
preserved from premature decay.
RESULTS OF SLAVERY.
It would, however, be a vain imagination, to suppose that this wiser and
more humane determination will be spontaneously adopted by those most
implicated in this debasing and demoralizing traffic. Indeed it appears
from the best information obtained on the subject, that since the
vigilance of our cruizers has comparatively put a stop to the trade on
the west coast of Africa--where it has received a great
discouragement--it has been greatly extended on the east. Could it but
have been foreseen by our Government that their efforts upon the west
coast, would in proportion as they were successful, only tend to drive
the traders in human flesh to the eastward, it is probable that Mombas
would have still been retained under our dominion; for such a possession
would have enabled us to exercise an effectual control in that quarter:
as it is, it gives additional reason to regret that the place was ever
abandoned. The horrors of the passage--horrors which no imagination can
heighten, no pen adequately portray--are by this alteration in the chief
seat of the accursed trade most fearfully augmented. The poor victims of
cruelty and fraud and avarice, in their most repulsive forms, are packed
away between decks scarcely three feet high, in small vessels of 30 or 40
tons, and thus situated have to encounter the cold and stormy passage
round the Cape: the average mortality is of course most frightful, but
the smallness of the vessels employed decreases the risk of the
speculators in human flesh, who consider themselves amply repaid, if they
save one living cargo out of every five embarked!
MORAL CONDITION OF THE NEGROES.
In the meantime cargoes of slaves are almost weekly landed in the
neighbourhood of Bahia: the thousand evils of the vile system are each
day increasing, and with a rapid but unregarded footstep the fearful hour
steals on, when a terrible reckoning of unrestrained revenge will repay
all the accumulated wrongs of the past, and write in characters of blood
an awful warning for the future!
So far as we could learn, no attempts are made by the masters to
introduce the blessings of Christianity among those whom they deprive of
temporal freedom. The slave is treated as a valuable animal and nothing
more: the claims of his kindred humanity so far forgotten as they relate
to his first unalienable right of personal freedom, are not likely to be
remembered in his favour, in what concerns his coheritage in the sublime
sacrifice of atonement once freely offered for us all! He toils through
long and weary years, cheered by no other hope than the far distant and
oft delusive expectation that a dearly purchased freedom--if for
freedom's blessings any price can be too costly--will enable him to look
once more upon the land of his nativity; and then close his eyes,
surrounded by the loved few whom the ties of kindred endear even to his
rude nature.
It would swell this portion of the work to an unreasonable extent, to
give any lengthened details of the working of a system, about which among
my readers no two opinions can exist. Let it suffice to say, that the
Europeans are generally better and less exacting masters than the
Brazilians. Among the latter it is a common practice to send so many
slaves each day to earn a certain fixed sum by carrying burdens, pulling
in boats, or other laborious employment; and those who return at night
without the sum thus arbitrarily assessed as the value of their day's
work, are severely flogged for their presumed idleness.
MIDDY'S GRAVE.
During our brief stay at Bahia I paid a visit to the grave of poor young
Musters, a little Middy in the Beagle during our last voyage, who died
here on the 19th May, 1832, from the effects of a fever caught while away
on an excursion up the river Macacu. He was a son of Lord Byron's Mary,
and a great favourite with all on board. Poor boy! no stone marks his
lonely resting place upon a foreign shore, but the long grass waves over
his humble grave, and the tall palm tree bends to the melancholy wind
that sighs above it. As I paid his memory the tribute due to his many
virtues and his early death, I breathed a prayer that the still and
placid beauty of the spot where his mortal remains return to their
kindred dust, may typify the tranquil happiness of that world of spirits
with which his own is now united!
MR. "VERY WELL DICE."
On the afternoon of Friday the 25th, we left the magnificent bay of
Bahia, and after obtaining an offing, stood away to the southward and
eastward. I was much amused by a story of Grey's a day or two after we
sailed: it seems he had mistaken the Quartermaster's usual call in
conning the ship of "Very well, dice" (a corruption of "very well, thus")
for a complimentary notice of the man at the helm; and anxious to know
the individual who so distinguished himself, had two or three times gone
on deck to see "Mr. Very well Dice:" finding a different helmsman each
time, completely confounded him; and when I explained the matter, he
joined me in a hearty laugh at the mistake!