In two hours, we arrived at St. Anne de Chaves. The town is spread out upon the circular shore of the bay, nearly half a mile in extent, and is defended by a stone fort, situated on the extreme point of the cape. There are three or four hundred houses, which, with few exceptions, are small, and constructed of wood. A long stone building is appropriated as the residence of the governor, and contains the public offices. The only remarkable edifices besides, are a large wooden church, looking very like a barn, and a smaller one of stone. The streets are unpaved, but kept remarkably clean, and not without an especial reason. The great, and almost only, article of commerce is coffee, which is kept in the houses, and dried daily in the streets. As soon as the sun is up, therefore, servants sweep the streets, as carefully as if it were a parlor-floor, and bring out large quantities of coffee, which they spread upon the ground to dry. At night, it is carried in. More than half the street, at the proper season, is covered with coffee yet in the husk. The exports of this article amount annually to about a million of pounds, producing from seventy to eighty thousand dollars. The only whites residing on the island, with one exception, are about sixty Portuguese; the number of colored inhabitants is estimated at fifteen thousand.
Black priests are plenty in the streets, walking about in bombazine robes, with the crisp hair shaven from their crowns. The Jesuits invariably followed hard upon the heels of the early Portuguese adventurers, in their African discoveries; but I am not aware that their efforts to Catholicise the natives have anywhere produced such permanent results, as in this island. To be sure, the religion of the inhabitants seems to amount to little more than the practice of a few external rites; for they have both the appearance and character of dishonesty and treachery, and are said to be addicted to all sorts of vice. So far as the black priests possess any influence, however, it is believed to be used conscientiously, and with excellent effect; nor, though provoked to smile at these queer specimens of the cloth, could I indulge the impulse without being self-convicted of narrowness and illiberally. St. Augustine, and other Fathers of the church, if I have heard aright, were of the same sable hue as the priests of St. Anne de Chaves.
The currency of the island is wretched. Coppers are the sole coin in use, in all domestic transactions, and pass at ten times their intrinsic value. They are said to be introduced mainly by the American merchantmen, who do most of the trade with the island.
The foreign business is chiefly transacted by Mr. Lippitt, a Hamburgh merchant, at whose house we were hospitably received. He set his best fare before us; and some of the party not only ate at his table, but slept beneath his roof. The others took lodgings at the house of Madam Domingo, a fat black lady, whose first husband, a merchant of considerable business, had left her a large mansion, several slaves, some children, and other desirable property. A young, dandy-looking negro succeeded to the vacant place in her house and heart, and now does the honors of the establishment. The largest room had a singular aspect of familiarity to our eyes; its walls being adorned with prints of American origin, among which were portraits of all the Presidents of the United States, previous to General Harrison. These, perhaps, were the gift of some merchant-captain to his hospitable landlady; or, more probably, they had been hung up in compliment to the national sensibilities of Madam Domingo's most frequent guests. Tawdry mirrors and chandeliers completed the decoration of the apartment. A supper of coffee and hard-boiled eggs, beds harder than the eggs, and a bill equally difficult of digestion, comprise all that is further to be said of the fashionable hotel of St. Anne de Chaves. After a good breakfast with our Hamburgh friend, we all embarked in the gig, and, spreading our canvass to the breeze, reached the ship in an hour and ten minutes.
23.—Ashore with the caterer of the mess, marketing for sea-stores; a difficult task among a set of people who, though poor, care little about making a profit by selling what they have. Many of them would not take money, requiring in payment some article of clothing, especially shirts, or, as the next grand desideratum, trowsers. By careful research among the small plantations we were able to pick up a few goats, pigs, and fowls, and came off with materials to keep the mess in good humor for at least ten days. None but sea-faring men can appreciate the great truth, that amiability is an affair of the stomach, and that the disposition depends upon the dinner.
We found the soil very fertile. Groves of cocoa-nuts cover many acres together. Beneath the shade, coffee trees were in full bearing; and bananas, plantains, and corn, flourished luxuriantly. The people are all blacks, speak Portuguese, and—a circumstance that affords the voyager an agreeable variety, after seeing so much nakedness—wear clothes. Their habitations are scattered among the trees. It is usual to have one house for rainy weather, for sleeping, and for storage, and another as a kitchen, and for occupation during the day. The first is close, the other has merely corner-posts, supporting a roof sufficiently light to make a shade.
Part of the day was spent in picking up shells upon the shore. Occasionally, I unhoused a "soldier-crab," who had taken up free quarters in some unoccupied cone, and became so delighted with its shelter as never to move without dragging it at his heels along the sand.
24.—6 P.M., a horrid accident has just occurred. As the gig was coming alongside, under sail, the tiller broke, and the coxswain who was steering, fell overboard. He was a good swimmer, and struck out for the ship, not thirty yards distant, while the boat fell off rapidly to the leeward. In less than half a minute, a monstrous shark rose to the surface, seized the poor fellow by the body, and carried him instantly under. Two hundred men were looking on, without the power to afford assistance. We beheld the water stained with crimson for many yards around—but the victim was seen no more! Once only, a few seconds after his disappearance, the monster rose again to the surface, displaying a length of well nigh twenty feet, and then his immense tail above the water, as if in triumph and derision. It was like something preternatural; and terribly powerful he must have been, to take under so easily, and swallow, in a moment, one of the largest and most athletic men in the ship. Poor Ned Martin!
25.—Again visited the town, where we found an American brig, the Vintage of Salem, Captain Frye. She is from the South Coast, homeward bound, with a cargo of gum copal. The Captain had some letters for the squadron, which were now eleven months old. My own gave an account of the President's visit to Boston, the Bunker Hill Celebration, and other events of that antediluvian date. Epistolary communication is, at the best, a kind of humbug. What was new and true, when written, has become trite and false, before it can be read. It assures of nothing—not even of the existence of the writer; for his hand may have grown cold, since the characters which it traced began their weary voyage in quest of us; and all of which we can be absolutely certain is, that many unexpected events have happened, and many expected ones have failed to happen, betwixt the sealing of the letter and the unfolding it again. Until the ocean be converted into an electric telegraph, through which intelligence will thrill in an instant, there can be no real communication between the sailor and his far-off friends. And yet, after all, how pleasant it is to write letters!—how much pleasanter to receive them! I acknowledged the receipt of these musty epistles, by the same vessel that conveyed them to me.
I have seen but one equipage in the capital of St. Thomas, but that was a sufficiently remarkable one; a small, three-wheeled vehicle, like a velocipede, with a phaeton-top to it. Drawn by two negroes, and pushed by three, it rolled briskly to the door of the church, and there deposited a plump and youthful dame, as black as ebony. From the deference shown her by the priests, I inferred that it was my good fortune to behold the leading belle of St. Anne de Chaves.