to satisfy a beholder of the spherical figure of the earth, and it would seem almost incredible that early navigators should have failed to find conviction in the unvarying testimonies of their own experience, which an approach to every shore afforded.
In approaching the anchorage of Santa Cruz, vessels should close with the shore, and get into soundings before--as is the general custom--arriving abreast of the town, where from the steepness of the bank, and its proximity to the shore, they are obliged to anchor suddenly, a practice never desirable, and to vessels short handed, always inconvenient: besides calms sometimes prevail in the offing, which would prevent a vessel reaching the anchorage at all.
LA CUEVA DE LOS GUANCHES.
Lieutenant Grey was most indefatigable in collecting information during the short period of our stay at the island, as an examination of his interesting work will at once satisfy the reader: he explored a cave three miles to the north-east of Santa Cruz, known by tradition as La Cueva de los Guanches, and reputed to be a burying-place of the aboriginal inhabitants of the island: it was full of bones, and from the specimens he brought away, and also from his description of all that he examined, they appear to have belonged to a small-limbed race of men.
Besides the wine trade, a considerable traffic is carried on with the Moors upon the opposite coast, who exchange gums and sometimes ivory for cotton and calico prints, and occasionally tobacco.
TRADE WITH MOGADORE.
The chief port for this trade is Mogadore, from whence ships not unfrequently sail direct to Liverpool.
A singular circumstance was mentioned to me by our first Lieutenant Mr. Emery, as tending to prove the existence of commercial intercourse between the various tribes in the interior, and the inhabitants of the coast at Mogadore on the north-west coast of Africa, and Mombas on the south-east. In the year 1830, certain English goods were recognized in the hands of the Moors at Mogadore which had been sold two years previously to the natives at Mombas. The great extent of territory passed over within these dates, renders this fact somewhat extraordinary; and it affords a reason for regretting that we did not keep possession of Mombas, which would ere this have enabled us to penetrate into the interior of Africa: we abandoned it, at the very time when the tribes in the interior were beginning to find out the value of our manufactures, especially calicoes and cottons.
From the best information that Lieutenant Emery had obtained among the natives, it seems certain that a very large lake exists in the interior, its banks thickly studded with buildings, and lying nearly due west from Mombas.
It was Lieutenant Emery's intention to have visited this lake had he remained longer at Mombas; the Sultan's son was to have accompanied him, an advantage which, coupled with his own knowledge of the country and its customs, together with his great popularity among the natives, must have ensured him success. It is to be feared, that so favourable an opportunity for clearing up the doubts and darkness which at present beset geographers in attempting to delineate this unknown land, will not soon again present itself.
SAIL FROM TENERIFE.
Having completed the necessary magnetic observations, and rated the chronometers, we sailed from Tenerife, on the evening of the 23rd. It should be noticed that the results obtained from our observations for the dip of the needle, differed very materially from those given by former observers: the experiments made by Lieutenant Grey in different parts of the island, satisfied us that the variation could not be imputed to merely local causes.
As in obedience to our instructions we had to examine and determine the hitherto doubtful position of certain rocks near the Equator, about the meridian of 20 degrees West longitude, we were obliged to take a course that carried us far to the eastward of the Cape de Verd Islands; for this reason we had the North-East trade wind very light; we finally lost it on the 30th, in latitude 13 degrees 0 minutes North, and longitude 14 degrees 40 minutes West; it had been for the two previous days scarcely perceptible.
The South-East trade reached us on the 8th of August, latitude 3 degrees 30 minutes North longitude 17 degrees 40 minutes West, and on the morning of the 10th we crossed the Equator in longitude 22 degrees 0 minutes West: when sundry of our crew and passengers underwent the usual ceremonies in honour of old Father Neptune. A close and careful search within the limits specified in our instructions justified us in certifying the non-existence of the rocks therein alluded to: but before we presume to pass any censure upon those who preceded us in the honours of maritime discovery, and the labours of maritime survey, it will be proper to bear in mind the ceaseless changes to which the earth's surface is subject, and that, though our knowledge is but limited of the phenomena connected with subterranean and volcanic agency, still, in the sudden upheaval and subsidence of Sabrina and Graham Islands, we have sufficient evidence of their vast disturbing power, to warrant the supposition that such might have been the case with the rocks for which our search proved fruitless. Nor are these the only causes that may be assigned to reconcile the conflicting testimonies of various Navigators upon the existence of such dangers; the origin of which may be ascribed to drift timber--reflected light discolouring the sea, and causing the appearance of broken water--or to the floating carcass of a whale, by which I have myself been more than once deceived.
ARRIVAL AT SAN SALVADOR.
A succession of winds between South-South-East and South-East, with the aid of a strong westerly current, soon brought us near the Brazils. We made the land on the morning of the 17th, about 15 miles to the north-east of Bahia, and in the afternoon anchored off the town of San Salvador.
Though this was neither my first nor second visit to Bahia, I was still not indifferent to the magnificent or rather luxuriant tropical scenery which it presents. A bank of such verdure as these sun-lit climes alone supply, rose precipitously from the dark blue water, dotted with the white and gleaming walls of houses and convents half hidden in woods of every tint of green; while here and there the lofty spires of some Christian temple pointed to a yet fairer world, invisible to mortal eye, and suggested even to the least thoughtful, that glorious as is this lower earth, framed by Heaven's beneficence for man's enjoyment, still it is not that home to which the hand of revelation directs the aspirations of our frail humanity.
STATE OF THE COUNTRY AT BAHIA.
I had last seen Bahia in August, 1836, on the homeward voyage of the Beagle; and it was then in anything but a satisfactory condition; the white population divided among themselves, and the slaves concerting by one bloody and desperate blow to achieve their freedom. It did not appear to have improved during the intervening period: a revolutionary movement was still contemplated by the more liberal section of the Brazilians, though at the very period they thus judiciously selected for squabbling with one another, they were living in hourly expectation of a rising, en masse, of the blacks. That such an insurrection must sooner or later take place--and take place with all the most fearful circumstances of long delayed and complete revenge--no unprejudiced observer can doubt.
SLAVE TRADE.
That selfish and short-sighted policy which is almost invariably allied with despotism, has led to such constant additions by importation to the number of the slave population, that it now exceeds the white in the ratio of ten to one, while individually the slaves are both physically and in natural capacity more than equal to their sensual and degenerate masters. Bahia and its neighbourhood have a bad eminence in the annals of the Brazilian slave-trade. Upwards of fifty, some accounts say eighty cargoes, had been landed there since the Beagle's last visit: nor is the circumstance to be wondered at when we bear in mind, that the price of a slave then varied from 90 to 100 pounds, and this in a country not abounding in money.
The declining trade, the internal disorganization, and the rapidly augmenting slave population of Bahia, all tend to prove that the system of slavery which the Brazilians consider essential to the welfare of their country, operates directly against her real interests. The wonderful resources of the Brazils will, however, never be fully developed until the Brazilians resolve to adopt the line of policy suggested in Captain Fitzroy's interesting remarks upon this subject. To encourage an industrious native population on the one hand, and on the other to declare the slave-trade piratical, are the first necessary steps in that march of improvement, by which this tottering empire may yet be preserved from premature decay.