gave
us, from the nuns' appearance, no very high opinion of female beauty. We
visited some of the vineyards. The vines, trained over arched trellis
work, extend to some distance, and when in full leaf afford a delightful
shade. The grapes are generally remarkably large and of a delicious
flavour. The morning before sailing I found the best bower cable was
two-thirds cut through by some small, sharp instrument on the turn round
the bit-head. The hands were turned up and singly interrogated. Nobody
knew anything about it. All appeared anxious to find out the culprit, but
in vain. Had the cable parted in the night we should not have had room to
have let go the small bower, and must have gone on the rocks.

In the afternoon we sailed, ran along the Canary Islands, and in five days
afterwards anchored off the island of Goree. This small, tolerably
well-fortified island is a few miles from Cape de Verde. It possesses no
harbour, but the anchorage off the town is good. It produces nothing but a
few cotton bushes. The inhabitants are very poor. They manufacture cotton
cloths, in which they clothe themselves. They are a mixture of black,
brown and white. Their features are more of the Arabian than the African
cast. They speak corrupt English, French and Portuguese. They are very
proud and equally independent. The better class live in small houses made
of mud and clay, the inferiors in cone-shaped buildings something like
Indian kraals, formed neatly of bamboo and surrounded by a bamboo wall.
The Governor, Colonel Lloyd, gave us an invitation to dinner and a ball. I
was one of the party. The former consisted of buffalo soup, fish, and
Muscovy ducks, the latter of a number of brown ladies dressed like bales
of cotton. Dancing with them might be compared to a cooper working round a
cask. Some few had tolerably regular features, and I noticed the captain
making love like a Greenland bear to the girl I danced with.

The second morning after our arrival I was sent with two cutters to haul
the seine off the mainland about three miles to the westward of Cape de
Verde. As soon as we had made the first haul, in which we had taken a
quantity of herrings, about twenty of the inhabitants of that part of the
coast rushed towards the fish with the intention of seizing them. I
desired the marines we had with us to present their muskets in order to
frighten them. It answered perfectly, and they retired. I then desired two
of the seamen to take