It was melancholy to behold: it seemed as if the human race were extinct. The town was built on a wide ravine running down to the sea; the houses were of stone, and handsome; the streets regular and paved, which proves that it had formerly been a place of some importance; but it is surprising that a spot so barren as this island generally is should ever have had any mercantile prosperity. Whatever it did enjoy, I should conceive must have been anterior to the Portuguese having sailed round the Cape of Good Hope; and the solidity and even elegance of construction among the buildings justifies the supposition.
The walls were massive, and remained entire; the churches were numerous, but the roofs of them and the dwelling-houses had mostly fallen in. Trees had grown to a considerable height in the midst of the streets, piercing through the pavements and raising the stones on each side; and the convent gardens were a mere wilderness. The cocoa-nut tree had thrust its head through many a roof, and its long stems through the tops of the houses; the banana luxuriated out of the windows. The only inhabitants of a town capable of containing ten thousand inhabitants, were a few friars who resided in a miserable ruin which had once been a beautiful convent. They were the first negro friars I had ever seen; their cowls were as black as their faces, and their hair grey and woolly. I concluded they had adopted this mode of life as being the laziest; but I could not discover by what means they could gain a livelihood, for there were none to give them anything in charity.
The appearance of these poor men added infinitely to the necromantic character of the whole melancholy scene. There was a beauty, a loveliness, in these venerable ruins, which delighted me. There was a solemn silence in the town; but there was a small, still voice, that said to me: "London may one day be the same—and Paris; and you and your children's children will all have lived and had their loves and adventures; but who will the wretched man be, that shall sit on the summit of Primrose Hill, and look down upon the desolation of the mighty city, as I, from this little eminence, behold the once flourishing town of St Jago?"
The goats were browsing on the side of the hill, and the little kids frisking by their dams. "These," thought I, "perhaps are the only food and nourishment of these poor friars." I walked to Port Praya, and returned to my floating prison, the slave ship. The officer who was conducting her home, as a prize, was not a pleasant man; I did not like him: and nothing passed between us but common civility. He was an old master's mate, who had probably served his time thrice over; but having no merit of his own, and no friends to cause that defect to be overlooked, he had never obtained promotion: he therefore naturally looked on a young commander with envy. He had only given me a passage home, from motives which he could not resist; first, because he was forced to obey the orders of my late captain; and, secondly, because my purse would supply the cabin with the necessary stock of refreshments, in the shape of fruit, poultry, and vegetables, which are to be procured at Port Praya; he was therefore under the necessity of enduring my company.
The vessel, I found, was not to sail on the following day, as he intended. I therefore took my gun, at daybreak, and wandered with a guide up the valleys, in search of the pintados, or Guinea fowl, with which the island abounds; but they were so shy that I never could get a shot at them; and I returned over the hills, which my guide assured me was the shortest way. Tired with my walk, I was not sorry to arrive at a sheltered valley, where the palmetto and the plantain offer a friendly shade from the burning sun. The guide, with wonderful agility, mounted the cocoa-nut tree, and threw down half a dozen nuts. They were green, and their milk I thought the most refreshing and delicious draught I had ever taken.
The vesper bells at Port Praya were now summoning the poor black friars to their devotion; and a stir and bustle appeared among the little black boys and girls, of whose presence I was till then ignorant. They ran from the coverts, and assembled near the front of the only cottage visible to my eye. A tall elderly negro man came out, and took his seat on a mound of turf a few feet from the cottage; he was followed by a lad, about twenty years of age, who bore in his hand a formidable cowskin. For the information of my readers, I must observe that a cowskin is a large whip, made like a riding whip, out of the hide of the hippopotamus, or sea-cow, and is proverbial for the severity of punishment it is capable of inflicting. After the executioner came, with slow and measured steps, the poor little culprits, five boys and three girls, who, with most rueful faces, ranged themselves, rank and file, before the old man.
I soon perceived that the hands were turned up for punishment; but the nature of the offence I had yet to learn: nor did I know whether any order had been given to strip. With the boys this would have been supererogatory, as they were quite naked. The female children had on cotton chemises, which they slowly and reluctantly rolled up, until they had gathered them close under their armpits.
The old man then ordered the eldest boy to begin his Pater Noster; and simultaneously the whipper-in elevated his cowskin by way of encouragement. The poor boy watched it, out of the corner of his eye, and then began "Pattery nobstur, qui, qui, qui—(here he received a most severe lash from the cowskin bearer)—is in silly," roared the boy, as if the continuation had been expelled from his mouth by the application of external force in an opposite direction—"sancty fisheter nom tum, adveny regnum tum, fi notun tas, ta, ti, tu, terror," roared the poor fellow, as he saw the lash descending on his defenceless back—
"Terror indeed," thought I.
"Pannum nossum quotditty hamminum da nobs holyday, e missy nobs debitty nossa si cut nos demittimissibus debetenibas nossimus e, ne, nos hem-duckam in, in, in temptationemum, sed lillibery nos a ma—ma—" Here a heavy lash brought the very Oh! that was "caret" to complete the sentence.