My First Cruise | Page 6

example of industry and perseverance,
in which qualities they are somewhat wanting generally. Still it is
wonderful to see what black men can do when left free with a good
example before them. Monrovia is really a very respectable-looking
city. There are a number of stone warehouses full of goods near the
water, and a good many dwelling-houses of brick, nicely furnished, and
of two storeys high, but the greater number of the habitations are of
wood, on brick foundations. There are several churches, four or five at
least, with black or coloured preachers. The greater part of the principal
inhabitants are engaged in trade, exchanging palm oil, ivory, cam-wood,
which is a valuable dye, for European or American manufactures. They
have also a number of vessels manned by Liberian sailors, which sail
along the coast to collect the produce of the country. Uncle Tom took
me on shore, but we remained only a very short time, so that I cannot
give you a more particular account of the place. Leaving the coast of
Africa, we stood across the Atlantic towards that of America. We had
left the land some four or five days when the wind fell, and we lay
becalmed, one side and then the other dipping provokingly into the
smooth, glassy, and shining water, and very nearly rolling our masts
out. It was so hot, too, that the pitch bubbled up through the seams in
the deck, and Dickey Snookes declared we could have roasted our
dinners on the capstern-head. I believe, indeed, that we could. I was
very glad when the sun went down, and the night came, but it was not
so very much cooler even then, and most of the watch below remained
on deck to swallow some fresh air, but very little any one of us
benefited by it. The next day, at all events, I thought that we should get
a breeze, but it was much the same. Hot! oh, how hot it was! We all

went gasping about the decks, not knowing what to do with ourselves,
and the sea shone so brightly that it was positively painful to look at it.
I daresay that it would have been much worse on shore, for, at all
events, the air we breathed was pure and clear, though it was pretty
well roasted. It was curious to see the same chips of wood and empty
hampers, and all the odds and ends thrown overboard, floating around
us day after day. We had been a week thus becalmed when I was sent
aloft, as the midshipmen occasionally are, to see what was to be seen. I
did not expect to see anything, but I did, and that was a long, thin, dark
blue line away to the north-east. I reported it to the officer of the watch.
He said it was all right, and that we should have a breeze before long,
and ordered the watch to trim sails. The blue line increased in width till
it could be seen from the deck, and on it came, growing broader and
broader every instant. Sure enough it was a breeze stirring up the
surface of the ocean. In a little time the upper sails felt its influence,
and then the topsails began to bulge out, and the courses moved, and
away we glided through the still smooth water faster than we had done
for many a day. For some hours we ran on till a sail was reported right
ahead still becalmed. As we drew near we discovered her to be a large
topsail schooner, with a very rakish appearance. She was still becalmed,
but as we brought the breeze up with us her sails bulged out, and she
began to glide through the water. There were many discussions as to
what she was; some thought her an honest trader, others a slaver; some
said she was American, and others Spanish or Portuguese. "One thing
is in her favour," observed old Gregson, "she does not attempt to run
away." "Good reason, Greggy," said Dickey Snookes aside to me, "she
can't--just see what she will do when she gets the wind!" Though I had
never seen a slaver, the stranger came exactly up to my idea of what a
slaver was like. We always at sea call a vessel, whose name and
country we don't know, a stranger. Still she did not run away even
when she got the breeze, but hove her topsail to the mast, and kept
bobbing gracefully away at us as we came up, while the stars and
stripes of the United States flew out at her peak. All doubts as to the
honesty of her character were dissipated when an officer standing at her
gangway hailed and asked what frigate we were.