orm. The
governor's orderly alone sported a pair of trousers, and these were on
permanent duty, being transferred from one to the other as their turn
for that service came on.

I paid my respects to the governor, who, although a Portuguese, chose to
follow the fashion of the island, and was as black as most of his
subjects. After a few French compliments, I took my leave. I was
curious to see the old town of St. Jago which had been abandoned; and
after a hot walk of two hours over uncultivated ground covered with fine
goats, which are the staple of the island, I reached the desolate spot.

It was melancholy to behold; it seemed as if the human race were
extinct. The town was built on a wide ravine, running down to the sea;
the houses were of stone, and handsome; the streets regular and paved,
which proves that it had formerly been a place of some importance; but
it is surprising that a spot so barren as this island generally is,
should ever have had any mercantile prosperity. Whatever it did enjoy,
I should conceive must have been anterior to the Portuguese having
sailed round the Cape of Good Hope: and the solidity and even elegance
of construction among the buildings justifies the supposition.

The walls were massive and remained entire; the churches were numerous,
but the roofs of them and the dwelling-houses had mostly fallen in.
Trees had grown to a considerable height in the midst of the streets,
piercing through the pavements and raising the stones on each side; and
the convent gardens were a mere wilderness. The cocoa-nut had thrust
its head through many a roof, and its long stems through the tops of the
houses; the banana luxuriated out of the windows. The only inhabitants
of a town capable of containing ten thousand inhabitants, were a few
friars, who resided in a miserable ruin which had once been a beautiful
convent. They were the first negro friars I had ever seen; their cowls
were as black as their faces, and their hair grey and woolly. I
concluded they had adopted this mode of life as being the laziest; but I
could not discover by what means they could gain a livelihood, for there
were none to give them anything in charity.

The appearance of these poor men added infinitely to the necromantic
character of the whole melancholy scene. There was a beauty, a
loveliness, in these venerable ruins, which delighted me. There was a
solemn silence in the town; but there was a small, still voice, that