(Illustration: Chart of North Western Africa)
The soil of St Thomas consists of a red and yellow marl, or clay, of great fertility, which is kept soft and mellow by the heavy dews which fall nightly, contributing greatly to vegetation, and preventing it from being dried up by the great heats; and so great is the luxuriant fertility of the soil, that trees immediately spring up on any spots left uncultivated, and will grow as high in a few days as would require as many months with us. These sprouts are cut down and burnt by the slaves, and their ashes are used as manure for the sugarcanes. If planted in January, the canes are ready to be cut in June, and those which are planted in February become ripe in July; and in this manner they keep up a succession throughout the whole year. In March and September, when the sun is vertical, the great rains set in, accompanied with cloudy and thick weather, which is of great service to the sugar plantations. This island produces yearly above 150,000 arobas of sugar, each containing thirty-one of our pounds, of which the king receives the tenth part, which usually produces from 12,000 to 14,000 arobas, though many of the planters do not pay this tythe fully. There are about sixty ingenios driven by water, for bruising the canes and pressing out the juice, which is boiled in vast chaldrons, after which it is poured into pans in the shape of sugar-loaves, holding from fifteen to twenty pounds each, in which it is purified by means of ashes. In some parts of the island, where they have not streams of water, the canes are crushed by machines worked by the Negroes, and in others by horses. The bruised canes are given to the hogs, which hardly get any other food, yet fatten wonderfully, and their flesh is so delicate and wholesome as to be preferred to that of poultry. Many sugar refiners have been brought here from Madeira, on purpose to endeavour to manufacture the sugars of St Thomas more white and harder than its usual produce, but in vain. This is alleged to proceed from the extreme richness of the soil injuring the quality of the sugar; just as with us, wines produced in soils of too great fertility are apt to have a peculiar flavour. Another cause of this is supposed to proceed from the climate of the island being too hot and too moist, except in the month of June, July, and August, at which season a fresh dry wind blows from Ethiopia to this island; and they then make their best sugars.
The planters are obliged, to ship off their sugars as soon as they can procure shipping, because they would become liquid if attempted to be kept for a length of time. At present, not above two-thirds of the island are appropriated to the cultivation of sugar; but any person who comes to this island for the purpose of settling, whether from Spain or Portugal, or any other country, may procure from the royal intendant as much land as he is able to cultivate, and at a moderate price. The esculent root which is known in the Spanish islands by the name of batata, is here named ingame by the Negroes, and is their principal food, either boiled or roasted under the ashes. There are different kinds of this root produced on the island, but that which is known by the name of igname cicorero is preferred by the merchant vessels, all of which purchase considerable quantities as a sea-stock for their homeward voyage, and the Negroes cultivate them largely for the express purpose of supplying the ships367. This island is distinguished by a high mountain in the middle, thickly covered by tall, straight, and verdant trees, and its summit is continually enveloped in clouds, whence water is diffused in numerous streams all over the island. A large shallow stream flows through the city of Pouoasan, supplying it with abundance of excellent water, which the inhabitants reckon of a medicinal quality, and allege that St Thomas would not be habitable if it were not for this river and its other numerous springs and rivulets. The native trees are chiefly barren, and though some olives, peaches, and almonds, were planted by the early settlers, which soon grew with great luxuriance, they never bore any fruit, and this has been the case with all stone fruits that have been tried. But the cocoa-nut palm, brought hither from Ethiopia, has thriven satisfactorily. Repeated attempts have been made to cultivate wheat, but always unsuccessfully, though tried at different seasons of the year; as the ear would never fill, but always ran up to straw and chaff only.
In March and September, the sky is always overcast with clouds and mists, and continual rains prevail, which season is considered by the inhabitants as their winter. In May, June, July, and August, which they call Mesi di Vento, or windy months, the prevalent winds are from the south, southeast, and southwest; but the island is sheltered by the continent from the north, northeast, and northwest winds; The summer months are December, January, and February, when the heat is excessive, and the atmosphere being continually loaded with vapour, occasions the air to feel like the steam of boiling water. The shores of this island abound in many kinds of fish, and, during the months of June and July, the inhabitants catch a kind which they name le chieppe, which are singularly delicate. In the seas between this island and the coast of Africa, there are prodigious multitudes of whales, both of the large and small kinds.
–Should you, Sir, be unsatisfied with my ill-written and confused information, I beg of you to consider that I am merely a seaman, unpracticed in literary composition.
We are still obliged to continue the account of the Portuguese discoveries historically, from the want of any regular journals of their early voyages along the African coast. In the original efforts of the illustrious Don Henry, although the progress was extremely slow, we have much to admire in the character of that prince, who possessed genius to stretch beyond the trammels of custom and authority, boldly thinking for himself, pointing out the way of extending the knowledge of our globe by maritime discoveries, and persevering nobly in his renewed efforts, in spite of the timid ignorance of his unexperienced pilots and mariners. But it is not easy to explain the continuance of that slow progress, which was even retarded during the years which elapsed between the demise of that prince of mariners in 1463, and that of Alphonso in 1481; when the increased experience of the Portuguese, in their frequent voyages to the new discovered Atlantic islands and African coast, ought to have inspired them with fresh vigour and extended views of discovery and commerce. The military character of Alphonso may, however, explain this in a great degree, as all his energies were directed towards the extension of dominion in the Moorish kingdom of Fez; and the business of discovery was devolved as a burdensome and unprofitable task on the farmers of the trade to the coast of Africa, which appears to have become extensive and lucrative, after the discovery of Guinea and its islands, and the establishment of the sugar colonies in these islands. We learn, likewise, from the preceding voyage of the Portuguese pilot to the island of St Thomas, that the mariners still confined themselves almost entirely to creeping along the coast, from cape to cape, and from island to island, not daring to trust themselves to the trackless ocean, under the now sure guidance of the heavenly luminaries; but which they then did not sufficiently understand, nor did they possess sufficient instruments for directing their course in the ocean. It would appear that they had then no other method of computing the longitude but by means of the log, or dead reckoning, which is liable to perpetual uncertainty from currents and lee-way, and which a storm, even of short continuance, must have thrown into total confusion. Their instruments and methods for determining even the latitudes, appear to have then been imperfect and little understood. In the sequel of this deduction, we shall find the first Portuguese squadron which sailed for India, conducted across the Indian ocean by a Moorish pilot.
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