4 



VOYAGE FROM ENGLAND 



had so recently emerged from a dreary atmosphere, the enjoyment of this, to 

 him, new-born paradisaical climate, resembled more a feeling of sudden and 

 happy enchantment, than an elemental and natural delight, with which Provi- 

 dence had blessed a particular portion of the globe. 



On the 22d, we made the Cape de Verd Islands, and took our course betwixt 

 the islands of St. Anthony, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and St. Nicholas, to the west- 

 ward, Sal and Bonavista being to the eastward of us. The isle of Sal is fre- 

 quented by the Americans for salt, which is collected upon it. 



On the 23d, we ranged along the north-east side of St. Yago, the largest of 

 the Cape de Verd Islands, but it was so completely enveloped in opaque clouds, 

 that we could see no object distinctly upon it. It is, I believe, more verdant 

 than any of the others, possessing groves of cocoa-nut trees, and bananas. 

 The volcanic wastes of the island of Mayo, lying to the eastward of St. Yago, 

 were not obscured by a single cloud, and the industry of man did not appear in 

 any part of it to have subdued the sterility of nature. It was completely bare of 

 vegetation, except an impoverished brush-wood. I could only discover two 

 or three sohtary cocoa-nut trees ; notwithstanding, at the end of this island 

 nearest to us, there was a small town, possessing some apparent neatness, but 

 without a single tree or any shelter to refrigerate the scorching rays of the sun. 

 I observed a flag projecting from a window, which probably was the house of the 

 governador : there was not an inhabitant to be seen, they were, no doubt, indulg- 

 ing in a sesta. The officers of a British ship of war, who had just come to 

 anshor off the town, were preparing to go on shore, and might perhaps rouse 

 some of them from their lethargy. This was a ship of about 20 guns, and we 

 imagined she belonged to the Sierra Leone or African station, in which those 

 islands might be included. No fortifications were visible any where, and it may 

 be inferred, that the mother country regards so little the importance of those 

 islands, that no precautions were ever adopted for their defence. The fogs by 

 which they are usually obscured are attributed by some to vapours arising 

 from the salt lakes ; but as the same general law may be supposed to govern 

 such condensations of fog, common to them as well as to the Canaries and other 

 islands of a high elevation, I should be more disposed to think that they ori- 

 ginate in the profuse exhalations in those latitudes, and in the increased power of 

 attraction attached to the volcanic materials of which those accumulated masses 

 of land are composed, thereby more effectually drawing around them this gloomy 

 mantle. And, although I am not informed as to the circumstance, it is pro- 

 bable that the density and quantum of haziness are much greater when the sun 



