Journal of an African Cruiser | Page 5

last words of
the service were uttered. The boatswain "piped down," and all returned
to their duties sadly, and with thoughtful countenances.
23.--At 4 A.M., the island of Palma and the Peak of Teneriffe are in full
sight, though the lofty summit of the mountain is one hundred miles

distant.
24.--At 5 A.M., anchored at Santa Cruz, capital of the island of
Teneriffe. The health-officer informed us that we must ride out a
quarantine of eight days. A fine precaution, considering that we are
direct from New York! After breakfast, I went to the mole, to see the
Consular Agent, on duty. While waiting in our boat, we were stared at
by thirty or forty loafers (a Yankee phrase, but strictly applicable to
these foreign vagabonds), of the most wretched kind. Some were
dressed in coarse shirts and trowsers, and some had only one of these
habiliments. None interested me, except a dirty, swarthy boy, with most
brilliant black eyes, who lay flat on his stomach, and gazed at us in
silence. His elf-like glance sparkles brightly in my memory.
One of the seamen in our boat spoke to the persons on shore in Spanish.
I inquired whether that were his mother-tongue, and learned that he was
a native of Mahon. On questioning him further, I ascertained that he
was concerned in a tragedy of which I had often heard, while on the
Mediterranean station, two or three years ago. A beautiful girl of
sixteen, of highly respectable family, fell in love with a young man, her
inferior in social rank, though of reputable standing. The affair was
kept secret between them. At length, the lover became jealous, and, one
evening, called his mistress out of her father's house, and stabbed her
five or six times. She died instantly, and her murderer fled. It was
believed in Mahon that he was drowned by falling overboard from the
vessel in which he escaped. Nevertheless, that murderer was the man
with whom I was speaking in the boat, now bearing another name, and
a common sailor of our ship. He told me his real name; and I heard,
afterwards, that, when drunk, he had confessed the murder to one of his
messmates.
This incident illustrates what I have often thought, that the private
history of a man-of-war's crew, if truly told, would be full of high
romance, varied with stirring incident, and too often darkened with,
deep and deadly crime. Many go to sea with the old Robinson Crusoe
spirit, seeking adventure for its own sake; many, to escape the
punishment of guilt, which has made them outlaws of the land; some,

to drown the memory of slighted love; while others flee from the wreck
of their broken fortunes ashore, to hazard another shipwreck on the
deep. The jacket of the common sailor often covers a figure that has
walked Broadway in a fashionable coat. An officer sometimes sees his
old school-fellow and playmate taken to the gangway and flogged.
Many a blackguard on board has been bred in luxury; and many a good
seaman has been a slaver and a pirate. It is well for the ship's company,
that the sins of individuals do not, as in the days of Jonas, stir up
tempests that threaten the destruction of the whole.
The island of Grand Canary is one of the most interesting of the group
at which we have now arrived. The population of its capital, the city of
Las Palmas, is variously estimated at from nine thousand inhabitants, to
twice that number. The streets, however, have none of the bustle and
animation that would enliven an American town, of similar size.
Around the city there is an aspect of great fertility; fields of corn and
grain, palm-trees, and vineyards, occupy the valleys among the hills,
and extend along the shores, twining a glad green wreath about the
circuit of the island. The vines of Canary produce a wine which, two or
three centuries ago, was held in higher estimation than at present, and is
supposed by some to have been the veritable "sack" that so continually
moistened the throat of Falstaff. The very name of Canary is a cheerful
one, associated as it is with the idea of bounteous vineyards, and of
those little golden birds that make music all over the world.
The high hills that surround the city of Las Palmas are composed of
soft stone, the yielding quality of which has caused these cliffs to be
converted to a very singular purpose. The poorer people, who can find
no shelter above ground, burrow into the sides of the hill, and thus form
caves for permanent habitation, where they dwell like swallows in a
sand-bank. Judging from the number of these excavations, the mouths
of which appear on the hill-sides,