ST. JAGO.
The reader may naturally expect to be informed of the reasons that
have induced me thus to seek his acquaintance. In one word -- I am a
colonist. In England, a great deal is said every day about colonies
and colonists, but very little is known about them. A great deal is
projected; but whatever is done, is unfortunately to their prejudice.
Secretaries of State know much more about the distant settlements of
Great Britain than the inhabitants themselves; and, consequently, the
latter are seldom able to appreciate the ordinances which (for their
own good) they are compelled to submit to.
My own experience is chiefly confined to one of the most
insignificant of our colonies, -- insignificant in point of
population, but extremely important as to its geographical position,
and its prospects of future greatness, -- but the same principle of
government applies to all the British settlements.
A few years ago, I was the victim of medical skill; and being
sentenced to death in my own country by three eminent physicians, was
comparatively happy in having that sentence commuted to banishment.
A wealthy man would have gone to Naples, to Malta, or to Madeira; but
a poor one has no resource save in a colony, unless he will
condescend to live upon others, rather than support himself by his
own exertions.
The climate of Western Australia was recommended; and I may be
grateful for the alternative allowed me.
As I shall have occasion hereafter to allude to them incidentally, I
may mention that my two brothers accompanied me on this distant
voyage.
The elder, a disciple of Aesculapius, was not only anxious to gratify
his fraternal solicitude and his professional tastes by watching my
case, but was desirous of realizing the pleasures of rural life in
Australia.
My younger brother (whose pursuits entitle him to be called
Meliboeus) was a youth not eighteen, originally designed for the
Church, and intended to cut a figure at Oxford; but modestly
conceiving that the figure he was likely to cut would not tend to the
advancement of his worldly interests, and moreover, having no
admiration for Virgil beyond the Bucolics, he fitted himself out with
a Lowland plaid and a set of Pandaean pipes, and solemnly dedicated
himself to the duties of a shepherd.
Thus it was that we were all embarked in the same boat; or rather, we
found ourselves in the month of April, 1841, on board of a certain
ill-appointed barque bound for Western Australia.
We had with us a couple of servants, four rams with curling horns --
a purchase from the late Lord Western; a noble blood-hound, the gift
of a noble Lord famous for the breed; a real old English
mastiff-bitch, from the stock at Lyme Park; and a handsome spaniel
cocker. Besides this collection of quadrupeds, we had a vast
assortment of useless lumber, which had cost us many hundred pounds.
Being most darkly ignorant of every thing relating to the country to
which we were going, but having a notion that it was very much of the
same character with that so long inhabited by Robinson Crusoe, we had
prudently provided ourselves with all the necessaries and even
non-necessaries of life in such a region. Our tool chests would have
suited an army of pioneers; several distinguished ironmongers of the
city of London had cleared their warehouses in our favour of all the
rubbish which had lain on hand during the last quarter of a century;
we had hinges, bolts, screws, door-latches, staples, nails of all
dimensions -- from the tenpenny, downwards -- and every other
requisite to have completely built a modern village of reasonable
extent. We had tents, Macintosh bags, swimming-belts, several sets
of sauce-pans in graduated scale, (we had here a distant eye to
kangaroo and cockatoo stews,) cleavers, meat-saws, iron skewers, and
a general apparatus of kitchen utensils that would have satisfied the
desires of Monsieur Soyer himself. Then we had double and
single-barrelled guns, rifles, pistols, six barrels of Pigou and
Wilkes' gunpowder; an immense assortment of shot, and two hundred
weight of lead for bullets.
Besides the several articles already enumerated, we had provided
ourselves with eighteen months' provisions, in pork and flour,
calculating that by the time this quantity was consumed, we should
have raised enough to support our establishment out of the soil by
the sweat of our brows. And thus from sheer ignorance of colonial
life, we had laid out a considerable portion of our capital in the
purchase of useless articles, and of things which might have been
procured more cheaply in the colony itself. Nor were we the only
green-horns that have gone out as colonists: on the contrary,
nine-tenths of those who emigrate, do so in perfect ignorance of the
country they are about to visit and the life they are destined to
lead. The fact is, Englishmen, as a body know nothing and care
nothing about colonies. My own was merely the national ignorance.
An Englishman's idea of a colony (he classes them altogether) is,
that it is some miserable place -- the Black-hole of the British
empire -- where no one would live if he were allowed a choice; and
where the exiled spirits of the nation are incessantly sighing for a
glimpse of the white cliffs of Albion, and a taste of the old
familiar green-and-yellow fog of the capital of the world.
Experience alone can convince him that there are in other regions of
the world climes as delightful, suns as beneficent, and creditors as
confiding, as those of Old England.
The voyage, of course, was tedious enough; but some portion of it was
spent very pleasantly in calculating the annual profits which our
flocks were likely to produce.
The four noble rams, with their curly horns, grew daily more valuable
in our estimation. By the sailors, no doubt, they were rated no
higher than the miserable tenants of the long-boat, that formed part
of the cuddy provisions. But with us it was very different. As we
looked, every bright and balmy morning, into the pen which they
occupied, we were enabled to picture more vividly those Arcadian
prospects which seemed now brought almost within reach. In these
grave and respectable animals we recognised the patriarchs of a vast
and invaluable progeny; and it was impossible to help feeling a kind
of veneration for the sires of that fleecy multitude which was to
prove the means of justifying our modest expectations of happiness
and wealth.
Our dogs also afforded us the most pleasing subjects for speculation.
With the blood-hound we were to track the footsteps of the midnight
marauder, who should invade the sanctity of our fold. The spaniel
was to aid in procuring a supply of game for the table; and I
bestowed so much pains upon his education during the voyage, that
before we landed he was perfectly au fait in the article of
"down-charge!" and used to flush the cat in the steward's pantry with
the greatest certainty and satisfaction.
Jezebel, the mastiff-birch, was expected to assist in guarding our
castle, -- an honourable duty which her courage and fidelity amply
warranted us in confiding to her. Of the former quality, I shall
mention an instance that occurred during the voyage. We had one day
caught a shark, twelve feet long; and no sooner was he hauled on deck
than Jezebel, wild with fury, rushed through the circle of eager
sailors and spectators, and flew directly at the nose of the
struggling monster. It was with difficulty that she was dragged away
by the admiring seamen, who were compelled to admit that there was a
creature on board more reckless and daring than themselves.
We were now approaching the Cape Verd Islands. I daresay it has been
frequently mentioned, that there is in these latitudes a vast bed of
loose sea-weed, floating about, which has existed there from time
immemorial, and which is only found in this one spot of the ocean; as
though it were here compelled to remain under the influence of some
magic spell. Some navigators are of opinion that it grows on the
rocks at the bottom of the sea, beneath the surface on which it
floats. Others maintain that it has been drifted across the
Atlantic, having issued from the Gulf of Mexico. Here, however, it
is doomed to drift about hopelessly, for ever lost in the wilderness
of waters; on the surface of which it now vegetates, affording
shelter to small crabs, and many curious kinds of fishes.
One of the latter which we caught, about an inch in length, had a
spike on his back, and four legs, with which he crawled about the
sea-weed.
We approached the Island of St. Jago, sailing unconsciously close to
a sunken rock, on which (as we afterwards learnt) the "Charlotte" had
struck about six weeks before whilst under full sail, and had gone
down in a few minutes, barely allowing time for the crew to escape in
their boat.
Notwithstanding we had been five weeks at sea when we dropped anchor
in Porto Praya roads, the appearance of the land was by no means
inviting to the eyes. A high and extremely barren hill, or large
heap of dry earth, with a good many stones about it, seemed to
compose the Island. Close to us was the town, a collection of white
houses that looked very dazzling in the summer sun. Beside, and
running behind it, was a greenish valley, containing a clump of
cocoa-nut trees. This was the spot we longed to visit; so, getting
into the captain's boat, we approached the shore, where a number of
nearly naked negroes rushing into the sea (there being no pier or
jetty) presented their slimy backs at the gun-wale, and carried us in
triumph to the beach. The town boasted of one hotel, in the only
sitting-room of which we found some Portuguese officers smoking pipes
as dirty as themselves, and drinking a beverage which had much the
appearance of rum and water. There was no one who could speak a word
of English; but at length a French waiter appeared, who seemed
ravished with delight at the jargon with which we feebly reminded him
of his own lively language "when at home." Having ordered dinner, we
wandered off in search of the coca-nut valley, and purchased bananas
for the first time in our lives, and oranges, the finest in the world.
Those who have been long at sea know how pleasant it is to walk once
more upon the land. It is one of the brightest of the Everlasting
flowers in the garland of Memory.
We walked along the sea-beach, as people so circumstanced must ever
do, full of gladsome fancies. There was delight for us in the varied
shells at our feet; in the curious skeletons of small fishes,
untimely deceased; in the fantastic forms of the drifted sea-weed; in
the gentle ripple of the companionable waves by our side. And little
Fig, the spaniel, was no less pleased then ourselves. He ran before
us rejoicing in his fleetness; and he ran back again in a moment to
tell us how glad he was. Then as a wave more incursive than its
predecessor unexpectedly wetted his feet, he would droop his tail and
run faster with alarm, until the sight of some bush or bough, left
high and dry by the last tide, awakened his nervous suspicions, and
dreading an ambuscade, he would stop suddenly and bark at the
dreadful object, until we arrived at his side, when, wagging his tail
and looking slyly up with his joyous eyes, he would scamper away
again as though he would have us believe he had been all the time
only in fun.
What profound satisfaction is there in the freedom of land after so
long a confinement! The sunshine that makes joyous every object
around us finds its way into the deeps of the heart.
And now we determined to bathe. So we crossed over a jutting rock,
on the other side of which was a beautiful and secluded little bay,
so sheltered that the waves scarcely rippled as they came to kiss the
shell-covered beach. Here we soon unrobed; and I was the first to
rush at full speed into the inviting waters. Before I got up to my
middle, however, I saw something before me that looked like a dark
rock just below the surface. I made towards it, intending to get
upon it, and dive off on the other side; but lo! as I approached, it
stirred; then it darted like a flash of lightning towards one side of
the bay, whilst I, after standing motionless for a moment, retreated
with the utmost expedition.
It was a ground-shark, of which there are numbers on that coast.
We lost no time in putting on our clothes again, and returned in
rather a fluttered state to the inn.