iSj6.] /75 APPEARANCE. 355 



bottom of the deepest valleys, and others mounted on the crests of the 

 lofty hills. Some of the views are striking ; for instance that from near 

 Sir W. Doveton's house, where the bold peak called Lot is seen over a 

 dark wood of firs, the whole being backed by the red water-worn 

 mountains of the southern coast. O.i viewing the island from an 

 a-Eiuence, the first circumstance which strikes one, is the number of the 

 roads and forts : the labour bestowed on the public works, if one 

 forgets its character as a prison, seems out of all proportion to its extent 

 or value. There is so little level or useful land, that it seems surprising 

 how so many people, about 5,000, can subsist here. The lower orders, 

 or the emancipated slaves, are I believe extremely poor : they complain 

 of the want of work. From the reduction in the number of public 

 servants, owing to the island having been given up by the East India 

 Company, and the consequent emigration of many of the richer people, 

 the poverty probably will increase. The chief food of the working class 

 is rice with a little salt meat; as neither of these articles are the 

 products of the island, but must he purchased with money, the low 

 wages tell heavily on the poor people. Now that the people are blessed 

 with freedom, a right which I believe they value fully, it seems probable 

 that their numbers will quickly increase : if so, what is to become of 

 the little state of St. Helena ? 



My guide was an elderly man, who had been a goatherd when a boy, 

 and knew every step amongst the rocks. He was of a race many 

 times crossed, and although with a dusky skin, he had not the disagree- 

 able expression of a mulatto. He was a very civil, quiet old man, and 

 such appears the character of the greater number of the lower classes. 

 It was strange to my ears to hear a man, nearly white and respectably 

 dressed, talking with indifference of the times when he was a slave. 

 With my companion, who carried our dinners and a horn of water, 

 which is quite necessary, as all the water in the lower valley is saline, 

 I every day took long walks. 



Beneath the upper and central green circle, the wild valleys are quite 

 desolate and untenanted. Here, to the geologist, there were scenes of 

 high interest, showing successive changes and complicated disturbances. 

 According to my views, St. Helena has existed as an island from a very 

 remote epoch; some obscure proofs, however, of the elevation of the 

 land are still extant. I believe that the central and highest peaks form 

 parts of the rim of a great crater, the southern half of which has been 

 entirely removed by the waves of the sea : there is, moreover, an 

 external wall of black basaltic rocks, like the coast-mountains of 

 Mauritius, which are older than the central volcanic streams. On the 

 higher parts of the island, considerable numbers of a shell, long thought 

 a marine species, occur embedded in the soil. It proves to be a 

 Cochlogena, or land-shell of a very peculiar form ;* with it I found six 

 other kinds ; and in another spot an eighth species. It is remarkable 

 that none of them are now found living. Their extinction has probably 



* It deserves notice, that all the many specimens of this shell found by 

 me in one spot, differ, as a marked variety, from another set of specimea* 

 procured from a different spot. 



