The anchorage of this solitary isle is a sheltered creek, overshadowed by a high pyramidal mountain, having on its summit the remains of two great crosses, erected of old by the pious and adventurous followers of Juan de Nova, a Portuguese mariner who flourished in the days of King Alfonzo Africanus.
The heat was so great now that the atmosphere in the cabin rendered one absolutely breathless; and with pleasure, Hartly and I, clad in light clothes, with broad straw hats, furnished to us by kind Captain Baylis, accompanied him and his wife ashore next morning after anchoring, and landed at the little town, which is fortified, and the harbour of which frequently forms a rendezvous for our African squadron. The longboat with her crew afterwards came off for fresh water and turtles. The superintendence of collecting these was left to the chief mate, while with Hartly (who had been there before), Captain Baylis and I set forth on a ramble over the island, which is only nine miles long by six miles broad.
An undefinable interest is excited when landing on a lonely little island after a long sea voyage; and for ages Ascension has been a species of halfway house, or resting-place for ships between Europe and the Cape.
We resolved to visit the Sailor's Post-office, a cranny in the rocks, known for ages to the mariners of all nations, who were wont to deposit their letters there, closed up in a bottle, to be taken away by the first ship which passed in an opposite direction—a custom which the Dominican, Father Navarette, mentions as being old, at the time of his visit in 1673.
The little isle is barren, but having been rent by volcanic throes, it has hills of pumice-stone and calcined rocks, with abrupt precipices overhanging sterile ravines that are full of black ashes. Here and there a solitary goat might be seen cropping the scanty herbage, or perched upon a sharp pinnacle, snuffing the sea breeze that waved its solemn beard. Where a spring gurgled from the rocks into the sea the turtle were seen in plenty, and there our boat's crew came in search of them. There also lay the skeletons of great numbers, which seamen, in mere wantonness, had turned on their backs, and left thus to die.
From the summit of the pyramidal hill which overlooks the anchorage we could survey the boundless ocean, spreading away towards the distant shores of Africa, the still more distant coast of Peru, and the unexplored waves of the Southern Sea, all glassy, heaving, and vibrating like a mighty mirror under the vertical glare of the tropical sun.
Fanning ourselves with banana leaves, for at times we gasped in the heat, we trod among ashes ankle deep, and over rocks where the power of the sun had turned to fine salt the spray cast upon them by the sea.
At last we reached the Sailor's Post-office, and examined the cleft in the rocks, where the bottles or cases containing many a letter that carried to the hearts and homes of generations long since gone to dust, hope and happiness, or it might be sorrow and woe—the tidings of loved and lost ones far away in lands and seas that were then so little known and so little traversed; and then combining prose with poetry, we sat down to discuss some light sherry, pale ale, and sandwiches, which the worthy Captain Baylis insisted on conveying for us in a travelling-bag slung over his shoulder.
As evening drew on, the sterile rocks and impending bluffs, the great rugged pyramidal hill that towered over the anchorage, the little town of Ascension, with its battery and gaudy Union Jack, all assumed a dusky red hue; and when the sun sank westward, the shadow of the Princess at her anchor was thrown far across the bright blue water of the creek. Our last boat with turtle, bananas, fish, and fresh water, was to leave the harbour at sunset; so we were preparing to descend, when an object lying among some stones at the bottom of the cleft in the rock, caught Hartly's eye.
Scrambling among ashes and black pumice-stone, he reached, and drew it forth.