Page:Mrs Elwood 1843.pdf/25

Rh written, to be published by Mr. Colburn; the "New Monthly Magazine" was to receive contributions from her pen; and for a publication of Mr. Heath, she was to illustrate the female characters in Scott's novels, some of which were written from memory, but, through the kindness of Mr. Hutton, a gentleman at Cape Coast Castle, she was enabled to re-peruse them there, "with a pleasure which only those who have been placed in similar circumstances can understand." Indeed, during her short abode in Africa, her pen appears, notwithstanding the climate, and other various calls upon her attention, to have been quite indefatigable. The voyage to Cape Coast, where they landed on the 1st of August, seems to have been unattended by any incident of interest, beyond its having given rise to a beautiful "Address to the Polar Star," which derived particular interest from appearing in the same magazine which, on the 1st of January, 1839, gave an account of her melancholy and untimely end. In her letters to her friends, she gives several pleasing accounts of her feelings in that distant part of the world, where she states she was enacting "a sort of female Robinson Crusoe." In one place she says, "I am very well, and very happy; my only regret—the emerald ring that I fling into the dark sea of life to propitiate fate—is the constant sorrow I feel whenever I think of those whose kindness is so deeply treasured." In another, written on the morning of her death, she describes the place as infinitely superior to all she ever dreamt of. "The castle is a fine building, with excellent rooms, on three sides surrounded by the sea. I like the perpetual dash on the rocks; one wave comes up after another, and is for ever dashed to pieces, like human hopes, that