blue: I used to fancy that if I could only have collected
some of it in a bottle, and taken it home to show my friends,
it would have come out as a fair blue-violet cloud m the gray
air of Cambridge. ,
Just before the sudden dark came down, and when the s
was taking a curve out of the horizon of sea, all the clou s
gathered round the three islands, leaving the sky a pure
amethyst pink, and as a good-night to them the sun outlined
them with rims of shining gold, and made the snow-clad
Peak of Teneriffe blaze with star-white light. In a lew
minutes came the dusk, and as we neared Grand Canary, out
o f its cloud-bank gleamed the red flash of the lighthouse on
the Isleta, and in a few more minutes, along the sea leve ,
sparkled the five miles of irregularly distributed lights ot
Puerto de la Luz and the city of Las Palmas.
I will not here go into the subject of the Canary Islands,
because it is one upon which I foresee a liability to become
diffuse. I have visited them now five times; four times
merely calling there on my way up and down to the Coast,
but on the other occasion spending many weeks on them ;
and if I once start on the subject of their beauties, their
trade, and their industries, why, who knows to what size this
volume may not grow ?
We reached Sierra Leone at 9 A.M. on the 7th of January
and as the place is hardly so much in touch with the general
public as the Canaries are1 I may perhaps venture to go more
into details regarding it. The harbour is formed by the long
low strip of land to the north called the Bullam shore, and
to the south by the peninsula terminating m Cape Sierra
Leone, a sandy promontory at the end of which is situated
a lighthouse of irregular habits. Low hills covered with
tropical forest growth rise from the sandy shores of the Cape,
and along its face are three creeks or bays, deep inlets showing
1 Sierra Leone has been known since the voyage of Hanno of Carthage
in the sixth century B.C., but it has not got into general literature to any
great extent since Pliny. The only later classic who has noticed it is
Milton, who in a very suitable portion of Paradise Lost says of Notus
and Afer, “ black with thunderous clouds from Sierra Lona.” Our occupation
of it dates from 1787-
through their narrow entrances smooth beaches of yellow
sand, fenced inland by the forest of cotton-woods and palms,
with here and there an elephantine baobab.
The first of these bays is called Pirate Bay, the next
English Bay, and the third Kru Bay. The wooded hills of
the Cape rise after passing Kru Bay, and become spurs of
the mountain, 2,500 feet in height, which is the Sierra Leone
itself. There are, however, several mountains here besides
the Sierra Leone, the most conspicuous of them being the
peak known as Sugar Loaf, and when seen from the sea
they are very lovely, for their form is noble, and a wealth of
tropical vegetation covers them, which, unbroken in its, continuity,
but endless in its variety, seems to sweep over their
sides down to the shore like a sea, breaking here and there
into a surf of flowers.
It is the general opinion, indeed, of those who ought to know
that Sierra Leone appears at its best when seen from the sea,
particularly when you are leaving the harbour homeward
bound ; and that here its charms, artistic, moral, and residential,
end. But, from the experience I have gained of it, I have no
hesitation in saying that it is one of the best places for getting
luncheon in that I have ever happened on, and that a more
pleasant and varied way of spending an afternoon than going
about its capital, Free Town, with a certain Irish purser, who. is
as well known as he is respected among the leviathan old
negro ladies, it would be hard 9 * to find. Still it must be
.admitted it is rather hot. ■
Free Town is situated on the northern base of the mountain,
afid extends along th e ' sea-front with most business-like
wharves, quays, and warehouses. Viewed from the harbour,
“ The Liverpool of West Africa,” 1 as it is called, looks as if it
were built of gray stone, which it is not. When you get ashore,
you will find that most of the stores and houses— the majority
•of which, it may be remarked, are in a state of acute dilapidation—
are of painted wood, with corrugated iron roofs. Here
and there, though, you will see a thatched house, its thatch
1 Lagos also likes to bear this flattering appellation, and has now-a-
■days more right to the title.