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My friend thanked me, but said books were not often seen aboard the Rainbow; nor were they found in many other merchant-craft, for that matter, in those days. We found the brig just ready to haul out into the outer basin, preparatory to putting to sea. She was a fine large craft, and had been built for a privateer in the war-time.
Near this 'written rock' is King James's Well, a pure stream which in former times supplied the shipping. The scene in the harbour is by no means lively, although the three or four dismantled merchant-craft, dreary as the settlement, have now disappeared. A little white-painted colonial steamer, a dwarf paddle-wheeler, the Prince of Wales, lies moping and solitary off foul Krutown Bay.
As we neared her, however, she dwindled in size, and proved a rather dirty-looking merchant-craft with an auxiliary screw. On asking whence she came, she informed us that she was from Calcutta, and that she had a letter for me. It proved to be from Canning, in no respect more encouraging than his former letters, and therefore, in so far, confirmatory of the propriety of my present move.
The King's ships were few, but they were supplemented by an ever-increasing supply of armed merchant-craft; and in the French war at the end of Henry's reign is the premonition of the great struggle with Spain, in which one most characteristic feature was the comparative reliance of England on sails and of her rivals on oars.
The merchant-craft that traded along this part of the coast were usually small vessels with insignificant cargoes, and, when outward bound, carried only such bulky articles as salt, iron, and rum, with toys and trinkets; which, though sufficiently attractive to the black savages of Dahomey and Ashantee, were not the sort of merchandise that pirates cared to pick up.
All their efforts were employed in keeping clear of one another, warding off a collision with long poles, amid a hubbub of curses and abuse. Into this huddled, swaying mass of war-galleys and merchant-craft mingled together now dashed the Athenian triremes, wrecking every vessel which they met.
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