When I left, in 1865, the western coast of the Dark Continent, its
transit and traffic were monopolised by the A(frican) S(team) S(hip) Company, a monthly line established in 1852, mainly by the late Macgregor Laird. In 1869 Messieurs Elder, Dempster, and Co., of Glasgow, started the B(ritish) and A(frican) to divide the spoils. The junior numbers nineteen keel, including two being built. It could easily 'eat up' the decrepit senior, which is now known as the A(frican) S(tarvation) S(teamers); but this process would produce serious competition. Both lines sail from Liverpool on alternate Saturdays, and make Funchal, with their normal unpunctuality, between Fridays and Sundays. This is dreary slow compared with the four days' fast running of the 'Union S. S. C.' and the comfortable 'Castle Line,' alias the Cape steamers.
The B. and A. s.s. Senegal is a fair specimen of the modern West
African trader 'improved:' unfortunately the improvements affect the
shareholders' pockets rather than the passengers' persons. The
sleeping-berths are better, but the roomy, well-lighted, comfortable old
saloon, sadly shorn of its fair proportions, has become the upper story
of a store-room. The unfortunate stewards must catch fever by frequent
diving into the close and sultry mine of solids and fluids under
floor. There being no baggage-compartment, boxes and bags are stowed
away in the after part, unduly curtailing light and air; the stern
lockers, once such pleasant sleeping-sofas, and their fixed tables are
of no use to anything besides baskets and barrels. Here the surgeon, who, if anyone, should have a cabin by way of dispensary, must lodge his medicine-chest. Amongst minor grievances the main cabin is washed every night, breeding a manner of malaria. The ice intended for passengers is either sold or preserved for those who ship most cargo. Per contra, the cook is good, the table is plentiful, the wines not over bad, the stewards civil, and the officers companionable.
Both lines, however, are distinctly traders. They bind themselves to no
time; they are often a week late, and they touch wherever demand calls
them. The freight-charges are exorbitant, three pounds for fine goods
and a minimum of thirty-six shillings, when fifteen per ton would
pay. The White Star Line, therefore, threatens concurrence. Let
us also hope that when the Gold Mines prosper we shall have our special
steamers, where the passenger will be more prized than the puncheon of
palm-oil. But future rivals must have a care; they will encounter a
somewhat unscrupulous opposition; and they had better ship American
crews, at any rate not Liverpudlians.
The night and the next day were spent at sea in a truly delicious
climate, which seemed to wax softer and serener as we advanced. Here the
moon, whose hue is golden, not silvern, has a regular dawn before
rising, and an afterglow to her setting; and Venus casts a broad cestus
of glimmering light upon the purple sea. Mount Atlas, alias the Pike of
Teyde, gradually upreared his giant statue, two and a half miles high: travellers speak of seeing him from Madeira, a distance of some 260 (dir. geog.) miles; but this would be possible only were both termini 15,000 feet in altitude. The limit of sight for terrestrial objects under the most favourable conditions does not exceed 210 miles. Yet here it is not difficult to explain the impossible distances, 200 miles instead of 120, at which, they say, the cone has been sighted: mirage or refraction accounts for what the earth's convexity disallows.
We first see a low and regular wall of cloud-bank whose coping bears
here and there bulges of white, cottony cloud. Then a regular pyramid, at this season white as snow, shows its gnomon-like point, impaling the cumuli. Hour by hour the outlines grow clearer, till at last the terminal cone looks somewhat like a thimble upon a pillow--the cumbre, or lofty foundation of pumice-plains. But the aspect everywhere varies according as you approach the island from north, south, east, or west.
The evening of January 9 showed us right abeam a splendid display of the
Zodiacal Light, whose pyramid suggested the glow of a hemisphere on
fire. The triangle, slightly spherical, measured at its base 22 degrees
to 24 degrees and rose to within 6" of Jupiter. The reflection in the
water was perfect and lit up with startling distinctness the whole
eastern horizon.