HISTORICAL . 
3 
days, it having sailed just that time before his arrival. He does not 
seem to have molested the St. Helenians, for he took his departure 
after twelve days ; and the next visit of the English appears to have 
been in the year 1591, when Captain Kendall, commanding one of 
three ships which undertook the first trading voyage to India, and 
having only reached the Cape of Good Hope, was obliged to return, 
and called at the Island. One of the ships, commanded by Captain 
Lancaster, succeeded in reaching India, and on its return he visited 
®t. Helena on the 3rd April, 1593, remaining there nineteen days, 
bhe place does not then appear, notwithstanding the flourishing 
condition in which it was found by Captain Cavendish only five 
} ears before, to have been a very desirable residence, for it is recorded 
that Captain Lancaster found there one of the crew of Captain 
Kendall’s ship, who was so overjoyed at once more beholding the 
faces of his countrymen, and the prospect of revisiting his native 
country, that for eight days he took no rest and died for want of 
sleep. 
Probably the next visit of the English was when Captain 
Lancaster again arrived there, on the 16th June, 1603, on his return 
a second time from India, with two out of a fleet of four ships, that 
bad left England in the interest of the East India Company. It 
became, about this time — little more than a century after its dis- 
covery — a resort of Dutch and Spanish ships, as well as English ; and 
Portuguese authority seems to have lessened, through that power 
being interested in acquiring possessions elsewhere, and the Island 
w as f° r awhile deserted, though still used by the captains and crews of 
ships as a South Atlantic Post Office. It was customary to place 
letters under huge boulders of stone, marked in a conspicuous 
manner, so that the crews of ships returning from India mP'ht 
obtain news from home. An interesting record of this period is still 
to be seen on a rude block of lava, measuring nearly five feet high 
and two feet six inches wide, which has been preserved by bein«- subse- 
quently built into a large mass of masonry or mausoleum, in the James- 
town lower burial ground, erected “ In Honour of the Memory of 
Mistress Ann Pyke, a.d. 1716,” but hideous enough to terrify the 
ghost of that good lady, should it ever indulge in midnight rambles. 
I lie Dutch traders to the East were the next to appropriate this 
deserted oceanic highway resting-place. They took possession of and 
retained it until the year 1651, when, in consequence of their esta- 
b 2 
