July.] 



PORT PRAYA. 



271 



We returned from our walk just in time for me to attend the market, 

 where I intended to purchase the necessary fruit and vegetables. I 

 therefore took leave of my new friends, who would not suffer me to 

 depart until I had promised to dine with them, and repaired to the 

 market; which proved to be quite destitute of such articles as I 

 wanted. At the suggestion of one of the islanders, however, I made 

 out a list of the productions I wished to purchase, and he engaged to 

 have them all ready at the landing by sundown. 



Having now some time on my hands before dinner, I thought I 

 could not better dispose of it than in surveying the town, and the ad- 

 jacent country, in order to acquire a more accurate idea of their trade, 

 productions, &c. 



The inhabitants of Praya are mostly negroes, "bond and free," 

 amounting to about three thousand, of whom four hundred are " mili- 

 tia on duty, or soldiers, as they are called. There are not more than 

 forty whites in the town ; and all the officers, except half a dozen, are 

 mulattoes — even their chaplain is black. The population of the 

 whole island I understood to be about twelve thousand, generally 

 black, or of a mixed colour, a few of the better rank excepted. The 

 face of the country is irregular and mountainous ; in some places 

 quite steril, but in general highly fertile and productive. 



Cotton is the principal production of St. Jago ; but maize, sugar, 

 coffee, and the vine are cultivated with considerable success. Among 

 its fruits are oranges, citrons, lemons, limes, tamarinds, pomegranates, 

 pine-apples, cocoanuts, custard-apples, quinces, grapes, plantains, musk 

 and water-melons, guavas, papaws, bananas, pumpkins, and other 

 tropical fruits. There are also some cedar-trees, with a pine which 

 produces tar. The animals are beeves, horses, asses, mules, deer, 

 goats, hogs, civet cats, and a species of monkeys, with a black face 

 jind long tail. Of the feathered tribes, there are domestic fowls, 

 ducks, guinea-hens, paroquets, parrots, pigeons, turtle-doves, crab- 

 catchers, curlews ; and, in fact, birds of almost every description, some 

 of which are very valuable for their plumage. 



But notwithstanding the abundance which is, or might be, raised on 

 this island, there is no commerce, and the price of refreshments for 

 ships which stop here for supplies is far too high to be termed reason- 

 able. For a bullock they charge from thirty to thirty-live dollars ; 

 for long-haired African sheep, four dollars apiece ; milch goats, 

 three dollars ; hogs of a middling size, five dollars ; turkeys, one 

 dollar and a half; fowls, four dollars a dozen. Fruit and vegetables, 

 however, of all kinds, may be bought of the slaves at a moderate 

 price. The cistern which supplies the shipping with water is at the 

 bottom of the hill on which the castle is erected, and about a quarter 

 of a mile from the beach. The water, however, is not of the best 

 quality, being somewhat brackish to the taste, particularly in dry 

 seasons, at which times there is often a scarcity of provisions and all 

 the necessaries of life. Indeed, I was credibly informed that these 

 periods of famine are sometimes so severe that great numbers of the 

 poor wretched ntgro slaves perish for want. The governor derives 

 his chief profit from the sales of cattle to the ships which touch here, 



