It was easy to distinguish the different races; the Yatoffes are tall men, not very stoutly built; most of them are soldiers. I have seen ten of them standing together, the lowest not less than six feet two or three inches. The Foulahs, from the Ashantee country are another race; they are powerful and muscular, ill-featured, badly disposed, and treacherous. The Mandingoes are a smaller race than the others, but they are well disposed and tractable. This island of slaves is kept in subjection by slaves only who are enrolled as soldiers, miserably equipped; a cap and a jacket were all they owed to art; nature provided the rest of their uniform. The governor's orderly alone sported a pair of trousers, and these were on permanent duty, being transferred from one to the other as their turn for that service came on. I paid my respects to the governor, who, although a Portuguese, chose to follow the fashion of the island, and was as black as most of his subjects. After a few French compliments, I took my leave. I was curious to see the old town of St. Jago which had been abandoned; and after a hot walk of two hours over uncultivated ground covered with fine goats, which are the staple of the island, I reached the desolate spot. It was melancholy to behold; it seemed as if the human race were extinct. The town was built on a wide ravine, running down to the sea; the houses were of stone, and handsome; the streets regular and paved, which proves that it had formerly been a place of some importance; but it is surprising that a spot so barren as this island generally is, should ever have had any mercantile prosperity. Whatever it did enjoy, I should conceive must have been anterior to the Portuguese having sailed round the Cape of Good Hope: and the solidity and even elegance of construction among the buildings justifies the supposition. The walls were massive and remained entire; the churches were numerous, but the roofs of them and the dwelling-houses had mostly fallen in. Trees had grown to a considerable height in the midst of the streets, piercing through the pavements and raising the stones on each side; and the convent gardens were a mere wilderness. The cocoa-nut had thrust its head through many a roof, and its long stems through the tops of the houses; the banana luxuriated out of the windows. The only inhabitants of a town capable of containing ten thousand inhabitants, were a few friars, who resided in a miserable ruin which had once been a beautiful convent. They were the first negro friars I had ever seen; their cowls were as black as their faces, and their hair grey and woolly. I concluded they had adopted this mode of life as being the laziest; but I could not discover by what means they could gain a livelihood, for there were none to give them anything in charity.