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 said to me:  “London may one day be the same—­and Paris; and you and your children’s children will all have lived and had their loves and adventures; but who will the wretched man be, that shall sit on the summit of Primrose Hill, and look down upon the desolation of the mighty city, as I, from this little eminence, behold the once flourishing town of St Jago?”

The goats were browsing on the side of the hill, and the little kids frisking by their dams.  “These,” thought I, “perhaps are the only food and nourishment of these poor friars.”  I walked to Port Praya, and returned to my floating prison, the slave ship.  The officer who was conducting her home, as a prize, was not a pleasant man; I did not like him:  and nothing passed between us but common civility.  He was an old master’s mate, who had probably served his time thrice over; but having no merit of his own, and no friends to cause that defect to be overlooked, he had never obtained promotion:  he therefore naturally looked on a young commander with envy.  He had only given me a passage home, from motives which he could not resist; first, because he was forced to obey the orders of my late captain; and, secondly, because my purse would supply the cabin with the necessary stock of refreshments, in the shape of fruit, poultry, and vegetables, which are to be procured at Port Praya; he was therefore under the necessity of enduring my company.

The vessel, I found, was not to sail on the following day, as he intended.  I therefore took my gun, at daybreak, and wandered with a guide up the valleys, in search of the pintados, or Guinea fowl, with which the island abounds; but they were so shy that I never could get a shot at them; and I returned over the hills, which my guide assured me was the shortest way.  Tired with my walk, I was not sorry to arrive at a sheltered valley, where the palmetto and the plantain offer a friendly shade from the burning sun.  The guide, with wonderful agility, mounted the cocoa-nut tree, and threw down half a dozen nuts.  They were green, and their milk I thought the most refreshing and delicious draught I had ever taken.

The vesper bells at Port Praya were now summoning the poor black friars to their devotion; and a stir and bustle appeared among the little black boys and girls, of whose presence I was till then ignorant.  They ran from the coverts, and assembled near the front of the only cottage visible to my eye.  A tall elderly negro man came out, and took his seat on a mound of turf a few feet from the cottage; he was followed by a lad, about twenty years of age, who bore in his hand a formidable cowskin.  For the information of my readers, I must observe that a cowskin is a large whip, made like a riding whip, out of the hide of the hippopotamus, or sea-cow, and is proverbial for the severity of punishment it is capable of inflicting.  After the executioner came, with slow and measured steps, the poor little culprits, five boys and three girls, who, with most rueful faces, ranged themselves, rank and file, before the old man.