.
There are several churches, four or five at least, with black or
coloured preachers. The greater part of the principal inhabitants are
engaged in trade, exchanging palm oil, ivory, cam-wood, which is a
valuable dye, for European or American manufactures. They have also a
number of vessels manned by Liberian sailors, which sail along the coast
to collect the produce of the country. Uncle Tom took me on shore, but
we remained only a very short time, so that I cannot give you a more
particular account of the place. Leaving the coast of Africa, we stood
across the Atlantic towards that of America. We had left the land some
four or five days when the wind fell, and we lay becalmed, one side and
then the other dipping provokingly into the smooth, glassy, and shining
water, and very nearly rolling our masts out. It was so hot, too, that
the pitch bubbled up through the seams in the deck, and Dickey Snookes
declared we could have roasted our dinners on the capstern-head. I
believe, indeed, that we could. I was very glad when the sun went down,
and the night came, but it was not so very much cooler even then, and
most of the watch below remained on deck to swallow some fresh air, but
very little any one of us benefited by it. The next day, at all events,
I thought that we should get a breeze, but it was much the same. Hot!
oh, how hot it was! We all went gasping about the decks, not knowing
what to do with ourselves, and the sea shone so brightly that it was
positively painful to look at it. I daresay that it would have been
much worse on shore, for, at all events, the air we breathed was pure
and clear, though it was pretty well roasted. It was curious to see the
same chips of wood and empty hampers, and all the odds and ends thrown
overboard, floating around us day after day. We had been a week thus
becalmed when I was sent aloft, as the midshipmen occasionally are, to
see what was to be seen. I did not expect to see anything, but I did,
and that was a long, thin, dark blue line away to the north-east. I
reported it to the officer of the watch. He said it was all right, and
that we should have a breeze before long, and ordered the watch to trim
sails. The blue line increased in width till it could be seen from the
deck, and on it came, growing broader and broader every instant. Sure
enough it was a breeze stirring up the surface of the ocean. In a
little time the upper sails felt its influence, and then the