CHAP. IV.] THE VOYAGE HOME. 223 



ain. There is a small fort mounting rather heavy guns, with 

 a little pier beside it, where there is fair landing in moderate 

 weather. There is, moreover, a large crane at the end of the 

 pier, and a very slight shift of the trade-wind makes it neces- 

 sary to rig a chair, or a bight of a rope, as the case may be, on 

 the chain, and hoist up a new arrival. A neat little church is 

 prominent in the middle of the town, and there is a good ma- 

 chine-shop ; a water distillery, in case of the supply on the isl- 

 and running short ; a barrack for about a couple of hundred 

 marines ; a street of officers' quarters — neat little square houses 

 with trim square gardens, and a full complement of ladies and 

 healthy-looking children, and showy subtropical flowers ; a com- 

 modious hospital, and a large Government store. 



All day one can see little parties of marines and Kroomen 

 going to or returning from their work, or calling at certain 

 hours at the store for rations to take home to their wives, and 

 officers strolling about in their white tropical undress and " pug- 

 geries," or superintending fatigue-parties at work on the roads 

 or in the yard. 



Every thing trim and neat and precise, for Ascension, in one 

 curious respect, stands alone among all the isles of the sea. It, 

 or I suppose I should say "she," is in commission as one of 

 Her Majesty's ships, a tender to the Flora^ the guard-ship at 

 the Cape of Good Hope, and is at present under the genial 

 and popular command of Captain East. All the inhabitants 

 of the island are more or less in connection with the service, 

 and a few years ago discipline was kept up as rigidly on shore 

 as if the island had been in truth a ship on a foreign station ; 

 smoking was allowed only at certain hours of the day, and 

 man-of-war routine was enforced not only upon the island staff, 

 but upon strangers also. Of late years discipline seems to have 

 been everywhere, to a certain extent, relaxed ; and in the Island 

 of Ascension, as elsewhere, there is a great increase of commu- 

 nity of feeling and human sympathy throughout the different 



