“Tom Tillson,” was the answer from aloft.
“A glass of grog for you, Tom, if it proves to be the land, and you have kept your eyes open to good purpose!” said the captain, preparing himself to go to the mast-head, where the mates followed him.
They were satisfied that Tom had fairly won his glass of grog, I suppose; for, after some time, when I went aloft, I saw a high blue-pointed mountain rising out of the sparkling sea with ranges of lower hills beneath it.
As we drew in with the shore, we could distinguish the fields of sugar-cane surrounded by lime-trees, and the white houses of the planters, and the huts of the negroes; and I thought that I should very much like to take a run among the lofty palmetto and the wild cotton-trees and the fig-trees, and to chase the frolicsome monkeys I had heard spoken of among their branches. A light silvery mist hung over the whole scene, and made it look doubly beautiful. I asked Peter what land it was, for I thought that we had arrived at America itself. He laughed, and said that it was only a little island called Saint Christopher’s; and that he’d heard say that it was first discovered by the great admiral who had found out America, and that he had called it after his own name. Peter, though he could not read, had a great store of information, which he had picked up from various people. He was not always quite correct; and that was from not being able to read, as he was less able to judge of the truth of what people told him; but altogether, I learned a great deal from his conversation.
We came to an anchor before the town of Basseterre, the capital of the island. It was a clean handsome-looking place, and a number of ships lay before it; while behind it, rising from the wide valley, richly cultivated and beautiful in the extreme, rose the lofty and precipitous crags of Mount Misery, 3700 feet high. It may well be so-called, for it would be pain and misery to have to climb up it, and still greater not to be able to come down again!
After the events I have before described, we had come south till we fell in with the trade-winds, which had brought us on a due westerly course to this place. I did not go on shore; but I heard the captain say that the merchants and planters were very civil and polite to him. They had, however, suffered very much in the late war with France. It was in the year 1782 that a French general, the Marquis de Bouille, having eight thousand men with him, besides a fleet of twenty-nine sail of the line, commanded by the Admiral Count de Grasse, captured the island from the English. It was, however, restored to Great Britain when the war ended the following year.
We had a quantity of fruit brought off to us, which did most of us a great deal of good, after living so long on salt provisions. I remember how delicious I thought the shaddock—which is a fruit something like a very large orange. Its outer coat is pale, like a lemon, but very thick. It is divided into quarters by a thin skin, like an orange; and the taste—which is very refreshing—is between a sweet and an acid. The colour of the inside of some is a pale red—these are the best; others are white inside. Peter told me that he had heard that the tree was brought from the coast of Guinea by a Captain Shaddock, and that the fruit has ever since borne his name.
We spent three or four days at anchor before this beautiful place; and then, having landed two or three of our passengers, and put Walter Stenning on board a vessel returning to England, once more made sail for our destination. The trade-wind still favoured us, though it was much lighter than it had been before we entered the Caribbean Sea.
“Jack,” said Peter to me the afternoon we left Basseterre, “I’ve good news for you. The captain wants a lad in the place of Sam Dermot, whom he has left on board a homeward-bound ship, for he found that he was not fit for a sea-life, and Mr Gale has been speaking a word in your favour. I don’t say it’s likely to prove as pleasant a life as you lead forward, but if you do your duty and please him, the captain has the power to advance your interests—and I think he is the man to do it.”
This was good news, I thought; and soon afterwards Mr Gale told me to go into the cabin. The captain, who was looking over some papers, scarcely raised his head as I entered. “Oh, Jack Williams—is that your name, boy?” said he. “You are to help Roach, the steward. Go to him; he’ll show you what you are to do.” The steward soon gave me plenty of work cleaning up things; for the captain was a very particular man, and would always have everything in the best possible order.