138 THE VOYAGE. [ch. vi. 



February 26th. About 280 miles from Bahia. We have 

 been singularly unlucky in not meeting with any homeward- 

 bound vessels, but I suppose [at] Bahia we certainly shall 

 be able to write to England, ibince writing the first part of 

 [this] letter nothing has occurred except crossing the Equa- 

 tor, and being shaved. This most disagreeable operation 

 consists in having your face rubbed with paint and tar, 

 which forms a lather for a saw, which represents the razor, 

 and then being half drowned in a sail filled with salt water. 

 About 50 miles north of the line we touched at the rocks of 

 St. Paul ; this little speck (about \ of a mile across) in the 

 Atlantic has seldom been visited. It is totally barren, but 

 is covered by hosts of birds ; they were so unused to men 

 that we found we could kill plenty with stones and sticks. 

 After remaining some hours on the island, we returned on 

 board with the boat loaded with our prey.* From this we 

 went to Fernando Noronha, a small island where the [Bra- 

 zilians] send their exiles. The landing there was attended 

 with so much difficulty owing [to] a heavy surf that the 

 Captain determined to sail the next day after arriving. My 

 one day on shore was exceedingly interesting, the whole 

 island is one single wood so matted together by creepers 

 that it is very difficult to move out of the beaten path. I 

 find the Natural History of all these unfrequented spots 

 most exceedingly interesting, especially the geology. I have 

 written this much in order to save time at Bahia. 



Decidedly the most striking thing in the Tropics is the 

 novelty of the vegetable forms. Cocoa-nuts could well be 

 imagined from drawings, if you add to them a graceful 

 lightness which no European tree partakes of. Bananas 

 and plantains are exactly the same as those in hothouses, 

 the acacias or tamarinds are striking from the blueness of 

 their foliage ; but of the glorious orange trees, no descrip- 

 tion, no drawings, will give any just idea ; instead of the 

 sickly green of our oranges, the native ones exceed the 

 Portugal laurel in the darkness of their tint, and infinitely 

 exceed it in beauty of form. Cocoa-nuts, papaws, the light- 



* There was such a scene here. Wickham (1st Lieutenant) and I were the 

 only two who landed with guns and geological hammers, &c. The birds by 

 myriads were too close to shoot ; we then tried stones, but at last, proh pvdor I 

 my geological hammer was the instrument of death. We soon loaded the boat 

 with birds and eggs. Whilst we were so engaged, the men in the boat were 

 fairly fighting with the sharks for such magnificent fish as you could not see 

 in the London market. Our boat would have made a fine subject for Snyders, 

 such a medley of game it contained." From a letter to Herbert. 



