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Wanderings in West Africa from Liverpool to Fernando Po
Wanderings in West Africa from Liverpool to Fernando Po Author:Richard F. Burton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. A DAY AT TENERIFE. 2ND September. '' No place appeared to her more fitted to dissipate melancholy and restore peace to the perturbed mind t... more »han Teneriffe." Alex, von Hitmboldt. " In Tenerife, for a time brief, I wandered all around, Where shady bowers and lively flowers Spontaneously abound. "Where posies rare perfume the air In festoons o'er your head, Brave sheep and cows in pastures browse Without remorse or dread." Lines by a West African Poet. "FROM fair Madeira's purple coast we turned," having there left our stewardess and our little band of consumptives. The Madeirans, like the Pisans, complain that strangers expect the climate to make for them new lungs, hence the populousness of the cemeteries. The invalids, being all foreigners, had given us scanty trouble: as a rule, the Madeira-bound English are a bore. The natural national fierceness of the islanders is exasperated by ill health, and bad temper finds a vent upon fellow-passengers. They object to " Palm-oil ruffians " or " Coast lambs," as supercargos and skippers are politely termed, coming between the wind and their nobility. Though they can hardly treat civil and military officials, home-returning, quite so cavalierly, they will complain with all their half lungs that the ship is made a "sick-bay." They have endless grievances : to mention only one, the proprietors of the A. S. S. line have been so troubled with correspondence concerning naked lights and lucifer matches, that it is hardly possible to obtain fire for a cigar. After leaving Madeira, our party was reduced to four divisions, viz., the official at the first table, and the commercial, the slaver, and the negro composing the starboard mess. We were borne from the Isle of Wood with a stiff breeze, though no...« less