Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/226

 208

��Captain George Hamilton Perkins, U.S.N.

��[April,

��The Sumter arrived on the coast in October, 1S59, making her first anchor- age in the lovely harbor on the west side of Prince's Island. That island, in about 1° 30' north latitude, covered with all the luxuriance of tropical growth and verdure, and broken into every conceivable shape of pin- nacle, castellated rock and chasm, and frowning precipice, streaked with silvery threads of leaping streams in their dash to the sea, is indeed one of the most enchanting spots the eye ever rested on. The chief inhabitant of the lovely isle was Madame Ferrara, a woman of French extraction, who lived alone in a big, rambling house, surrounded by slaves, who cultivated her plantations and prepared the cocoa, palm oil, yams, and cocoanuts, for the trade that sought her doors.

Filling up with water, the Sumter proceeded to the island of Fernando Po, a Spanish possession close in to the mainland, in the Bight of Biafra, where she met several English and French men-of-war, and received orders for her future movements.

The first thing to do, in accordance with the custom of the squadron, was the enlisting of fifteen or twenty negroes, known as Kroomen, whose home is in the Kroo country in upper Guinea, just south of Liberia. They did all the heavy boat-work of the ship, thus lightening the work of the crew, and saving them as much as possible from exposure to the effects of the deadly climate. Great, strapping, muscular fellows, many of them, with forms that an Apollo might envy, they were trained from infancy to be as much at home in the water as upon the land, and could swim a dozen leagues at sea or pull at the oar all day long without seeming fatigue. Wonderfully expert

��in their handling of boats, especially in the heavy surf that- rolls in upon the coast with ceaseless volume and resist- less power, its perilous line almost unbroken by a good harbor, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Gibraltar, their services in communi- cating with the shore were simply inval- uable. The head Kroomen exercised despotic power over their respective gangs, and the men were given fanciful names, and so entered on the purser's books. Bottle-o'-Beer, Jack Frying- Pan, Tom Bobstay, Upside Down, and the like, were favorite names ; and our fun- loving young sailing-master hints, in his letters of the time, that the archives of the fourth auditor's office at Washing- ton may possibly embalm the names of certain Annapolis belles that had been borne by some of these sable folk!

The cruising ground embraced the coasts of Upper and Lower Guinea, and the coast of Biafra, with occasional visits of recruit and recreation to Cape Town and St. Helena. The work was arduous, monotonous, and exhausting, especially during the rainy season, when the decks were continually deluged with water, and dry clothing was the exception, not the rule. The weather was always hot, often damp and sultry, and the atmosphere on shore so pestilential, that no one was permitted to remain there after sundown. But that rule was no deprivation, as the dangers of the passage through the relentless breakers, alive with sharks, were so great, that few cared to visit the shore except when absolutely necessary. The vessels cruised mostly in sight of the coast to watch the movements of the merchantmen, all more or less under suspicion as slavers, watching their chances to get off with a cargo.

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