April.] ST. HELENA. 481 



can write the epitaph of Bonaparte ! of him who claimed the attributes 

 of a god, setting up and putting down kings — destroying nations, and 

 creating empires ! 



Bonaparte's sepulchre is overhung or shaded by three weeping- 

 willows of a very large size ; and a few yards to the south of it is a 

 spring, from which he always took his water. This interesting spot 

 is distant from Jamestown about two miles and a half, and is approached 

 by an excellent road connecting the two places. We next visited the 

 house in which he resided, and the room in which he breathed his 

 last. We afterward inspected the new palace which was erected for 

 him by the British government ; but of which death prevented his be- 

 coming a tenant. 



As most of my readers will expect a particular description of this 

 celebrated island, and as our brief stay did not permit me to make many 

 observations, I shall take the liberty of inserting some extracts from 

 Purdy's New Sailing Directory ; a very, valuable work, from which I 

 have already derived considerable assistance in making out the sailing 

 directions of this journal, finding them to agree so exactly with my own 

 observations. The author is John Purdy, Esq., hydrographer for the 

 admiralty of Great Britain ; a gentleman to whom the commercial 

 world is much indebted, on both sides the Atlantic. 



I presume every one knows that this island derived its name from 

 the circumstance of its having been first discovered on St. Helen's day 

 in the year 1502, by the Portuguese admiral Joao da Nova Galego. 

 "In 1513 it became the voluntary abode of Fernandez Lopez, a Portu- 

 guese nobleman, on returning in disgrace from India ; who, being left 

 here with a few servants and some useful animals, assiduously culti- 

 vated its resources. In a few years he was recalled to his country, 

 and imparted the advantages of St. Helena to the East India trade." 

 Thomas Cavendish, in his famous cruise around the globe, visited the 

 island in 1588, and found, as he has said, "divers handsome buildings 

 and houses ; a church, tiled and whitened very fair ; a causey made 

 up with stones, reaching into a valley by the seaside." This valley 

 he describes as the " fairest and largest low spot in all the island, and 

 is exceedingly sweet and pleasant, and planted in every place either 

 with fruit or with herbs." 



In pursuing this description Cavendish says, " There are fig-trees 

 which bear fruit continually, and very plentifully ; for on every tree you 

 may see blossoms, green figs, and ripe figs, all at once ; and it is so all 

 the year long. There is also a great store of lemon-trees, orange-trees, 

 pomegranate-trees, and date-trees, which bear fruit as the fig-trees do, and 

 are planted carefully and very artificially, with pleasant walks under and 

 between them. In every void place is planted parsley, sorrel, basil, 

 fennel, aniseed, mustard-seed, radishes, and many very good herbs. 

 The fresh-water brook runneth through divers places of this orchard, 

 and may be made to water any tree in the valley." The English ship 

 Bonaventure, Captain James Lancaster, was here in 1593, and re- 

 mained about three weeks. 



It seems that more than one hundred and thirty years elapsed from 

 the time of its first discovery, before any attempts were made to colo* 



Hh 



