On the 23d, we ranged along the north-east side of St. Yago, the largest of the Cape de Verd Islands, but it was so completely enveloped in opaque clouds, that we could see no object distinctly upon it. It is, I believe, more verdant than any of the others, possessing groves of cocoa-nut trees, and bananas. The volcanic wastes of the island of Mayo, lying to the eastward of St. Yago, were not obscured by a single cloud, and the industry of man did not appear in any part of it to have subdued the sterility of nature. It was completely bare of vegetation, except an impoverished brushwood. I could only discover two or three solitary cocoa-nut trees; notwithstanding, at the end of this island nearest to us, there was a small town, possessing some apparent neatness, but without a single tree or any shelter to refrigerate the scorching rays of the sun. I observed a flag projecting from a window, which probably was the house of the governador: there was not an inhabitant to be seen, they were, no doubt, indulging in a sesta. The officers of a British ship of war, who had just come to anchor off the town, were preparing to go on shore, and might perhaps rouse some of them from their lethargy. This was a ship of about 20 guns, and we imagined she belonged to the Sierra Leone or African station, in which those islands might be included. No fortifications were visible any where, and it may be inferred, that the mother country regards so little the importance of those islands, that no precautions were ever adopted for their defence. The fogs by which they are usually obscured are attributed by some to vapours arising from the salt lakes; but as the same general law may be supposed to govern such condensations of fog, common to them as well as to the Canaries and other islands of a high elevation, I should be more disposed to think that they originate in the profuse exhalations in those latitudes, and in the increased power of attraction attached to the volcanic materials of which those accumulated masses of land are composed, thereby more effectually drawing around them this gloomy mantle. And, although I am not informed as to the circumstance, it is probable that the density and quantum of haziness are much greater when the sun is in the northern tropic, and diminishes as he recedes towards the southern. From the Cape de Verds, the same favouring gale continued to swell our sails. In traversing this tropic, the heavens present the most beautiful and romantic pictures, and the ocean some of its gayest inhabitants for contemplation. It is here the rapturous scene of the celestial spring. Towards the evening’s sun especially, the firmament is seen glowing with purple, orange, and every beauteous, delicate, and rich colour, of such transparency and matchless brilliancy, that cannot be imagined, as it is never seen in a northern latitude. The diffusion of such an infinite variety of warm tints and other hues, mingled in elegant groups, around the whole horizon, enhances the vigorous power of the sapphire back-ground, or rather the rich blue ethereal canopy to which they form a deep edging, or grand and resplendent fringe. In vain would the most accomplished artist attempt its delineation; he could only look up with admiration and amazement, and, lost in wonder, the hand would be found to refuse guidance to his pencil.
“For who can paint like nature? Can Imagination boast,
In all her gay creation, hues like hers?”
When the beautiful and sublime scenes I have ineffectually attempted to give a faint idea of, fade away in the shades of night, and are succeeded by the glory of the stellar hemisphere, turn the eye to the deep, and a blaze of marine illuminations, frequently seen around the ship, in some degree compensates for their loss. This effect is occasioned by the small blubber fish floating near the surface, and Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like these. The brilliant appearance, in these waters, of the bonita, albacore, pilot fish, &c. is only surpassed by the extraordinary change and rapid suffusion of delicate colours succeeding each other during the dying moments of the dolphin. The flying fish are seen in large numbers, taking their flight from the water, alarmed by the approach of the vessel, or the pursuit of the dolphin and other fish, to which they are a prey. The nautilus, commonly called by sailors “the Portuguese man of war,” moves on in slow majesty, with its sail above the water, and secure from the attacks of its neighbours by its poisonous qualities: it lowers and erects its sail at pleasure, which is something like the slice of a large lemon, only that the rind is of a pinkish hue, and the other parts nicely shaded. Here also is the shark, which may be called the destroying demon of the ocean, skulking “about, seeking whom he may devour,” with understood horror of purpose both by man and the marine inhabitants. His approach is soon announced by a general hue and cry from the sailors, who are among his deadliest foes. All are instantly up in arms. Their animated and entire devotion to their purpose, in which every feeling is interested, can scarcely be equalled by the pleasurable emotions of a sportsman at the moment a fox is breaking cover. Every artifice is used by throwing out pieces of pork at the end of ropes, which he voraciously follows to the side of the ship; the weapons of death are ready; and, after striking him, and a struggle ensuing to get him on board, if, by any effort of his strength, he break away, which I have seen, great is the sullen vexation and disappointment shown by the crew. He is usually accompanied by three or four pilot fish, about the size of a whiting: they are extremely beautiful, and appear in the water as if fastened upon his back, near the head.
On the 23d of April, in 12° 34′ north latitude, I was, for the first time in my life, under a vertical sun, now by degrees moving through the northern tropic, and gradually dispensing his benign influence to the regions of the north.
On the 1st of May, in 2° north latitude, and 22° west longitude, an officer from the Rockingham, Captain Waugh, a free trader from the East Indies, boarded us, to solicit some trifles they wanted, and particularly newspapers, which their passengers, including some ladies, he stated, were extremely desirous to see. There was a peculiar pleasure in having even a transient intercourse with a ship at sea, and being enabled to relieve, in any degree, their wants. The social feelings, the fellow sympathies of man, were revived with renewed vigour by the idea of our having, on the wide and solitary ocean, been mutually so long separated from our own proper element and exposed to the perils of the deep, and by the new sight of our countrymen, after having been confined to the view only of those within the compass of the few yards that enclosed the space of the brig. It increased the kindly emotions in the awakened thoughts of absent country, and especially of the dear family circle of home.
“Home! There is a magic in that little word!
It is a mystic circle that surrounds
Pleasures and comforts never known beyond
The hallow’d limit.”