A NIGHT WITH THE BOOBIES.
A WEST INDIAN SKETCH.
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Redonda is a small island, about mid-channel between Montserrat and Nevis, and in appearance is very much like a haycock, except that its summit is quite green. In fact, though called an island, it is nothing more than an uninhabited rock, about three miles in circumference; and is chiefly remarkable from its being the breeding-place of numberless sea-birds, of the pelican species, which, from their extreme stupidity, are called Boobies.
In the month of March, 1857, the brig Lion was at anchor in Plymouth roads, Montserrat, waiting for cargo; but the season having been backward, no cargo had yet arrived. We had done all that we could to pass away the time, and find work for the hands. We had “stripped ship,” mended every bit of canvas that could be mended, and refitted everything that could be refitted; and now there was nothing left to occupy the men’s time but the sailors’ busy idleness—picking oakum and knotting yarns.
It was early morning, and the decks had been washed and holystoned, and everything cleaned and polished. The men were amusing themselves by washing and shaving, scrubbing trousers, patching old dunnage, and such like; while I, weary of turning out and turning in, without any more definite object in view than getting through the day, was lazily lolling on the bulwarks, looking up at the soaring peaks of the mountains which the clouds now enveloped, and now disclosed, giving full scope to the imagination to indulge in visions of grandeur, which would hardly have been realised had the whole been presented to the view.
The prospect before me was in the highest degree interesting, if not positively magnificent. There was the grey town of Plymouth sleeping, as it were, on the margin of the sea; such a lovely sea, too, as in the temperate latitudes is rarely seen, holding the island like a gem in its pure bosom, and mirroring there the vessels at anchor, the moving boats, and the varied shore. Farther on was the high cliff, the old fort jutting out from its side, and the towering hills of the Souffrien in the distance. From the town, upwards, was one gentle acclivity, covered with beautifully cultivated estates, and the most lovely verdure. A succession of small valleys, covered with cane patches and pasture, intermingled with slight elevations, upon which here and there the planters’ mountain pen could be distinguished; nestling beneath which could be seen clusters of neat-looking huts, the negroes’ villages forming the foreground of the picture; while the original beauty of the landscape was enhanced and diversified by the various hues of the crops just approaching maturity. The bright and gorgeous colours that light up a West Indian landscape have no parallel in the temperate