Many of the marines appeared well contented with their
situation; they think it better to serve their one-and-twenty
years on shore, let it be what it may, than in a ship; in this
choice, if I were a marine, I should most heartily agree.
The next morning I ascended Green Hill, 2840 feet high,
and thence walked across the island to the windward point.
A good cart-road leads from the coast-settlement to the
houses, gardens, and fields, placed near the summit of the
central mountain. On the roadside there are milestones, and
likewise cisterns, where each thirsty passer-by can drink
some good water. Similar care is displayed in each part of the
establishment, and especially in the management of the
springs, so that a single drop of water may not be lost: indeed
the whole island may be compared to a huge ship kept
in first-rate order. I could not help, when admiring the
active industry, which had created such effects out of such
means, at the same time regretting that it had been wasted on
so poor and trifling an end. M. Lesson has remarked with
justice, that the English nation would have thought of making
the island of Ascension a productive spot, any other
people would have held it as a mere fortress in the ocean.
Near this coast nothing grows; further inland, an occasional
green castor-oil plant, and a few grasshoppers, true
friends of the desert, may be met with. Some grass is scattered
over the surface of the central elevated region, and the
whole much resembles the worse parts of the Welsh mountains.
But scanty as the pasture appears, about six hundred
sheep, many goats, a few cows and horses, all thrive well on
it. Of native animals, land-crabs and rats swarm in numbers.
Whether the rat is really indigenous, may well be doubted;
there are two varieties as described by Mr. Waterhouse;
one is of a black colour, with fine glossy fur, and
lives on the grassy summit, the other is brown-coloured and
less glossy, with longer hairs, and lives near the settlement
on the coast. Both these varieties are one-third smaller than
the common black rat (M. rattus); and they differ from it
both in the colour and character of their fur, but in no
other essential respect. I can hardly doubt that these rats
(like the common mouse, which has also run wild) have
been imported, and, as at the Galapagos, have varied from
the effect of the new conditions to which they have been
exposed: hence the variety on the summit of the island
differs from that on the coast. Of native birds there are
none; but the guinea-fowl, imported from the Cape de
Verd Islands, is abundant, and the common fowl has likewise
run wild. Some cats, which were originally turned out
to destroy the rats and mice, have increased, so as to become
a great plague.
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