We heard only the coo of the great wood-pigeons among the gorgeous foliage, or the sweet notes of the little golden-colored canary birds, as they twittered about us when we scared them from their nests, which they usually build in the barrancas or watercourses, such being the coolest places in that volcanic isle.
CHAPTER XI.
HOW TOM WAS TATTOOED.
My companion was a short and thick-set sailor, about forty years of age, and whose figure was suggestive of great muscular strength; his hair was cut short, but his whiskers were of the most voluminous description, as he was anxious to conceal as much as possible of the strange circles, stripes, and grotesque designs with which his sun-burned face was covered, and which by their form and blackness, imparted a hideous aspect to features that otherwise were rather good and pleasing.
He was an intelligent man, and well read, for the humble class to which he belonged.
"Aye, Master Rodney," said he, on perceiving that I was still surveying him with something of wonder (and his face was a point on which he was particularly sensitive); "you see what a precious figure-head those 'tarnal niggers on the coast of Africa made for me."
"How did this happen, Tom?" said I, filling his drinking-horn.
"About twenty years ago, Master Rodney, I belonged to the Arrow, a smart Liverpool bark of two hundred and twenty tons register. I made many voyages in her to South America, but at last, as bad luck, or my destiny (as men say in the play) would have it, she was chartered for the West Coast of Africa, to trade with the natives, but not in black cattle, for slavery was never our line of business.
"We sailed from the Mersey in June, and early in August found ourselves at the mouth of the Congo river, after a prosperous voyage; but on the night we made the land, a heavy gale came on, and it veered round all the points of the compass in an hour. The sea and sky were as black as they could be, and every thing else was black too, except the breakers on the shore to leeward, and heaven knows they were white enough,—too white and too near to be pleasant.
"Our skipper handled the Arrow well, and she obeyed every touch of the helm as a horse might do its bridle; she was sharply built, but heavily sparred, and no other square-rigged craft upon the sea could beat her on a wind.