February 25th
The drinking water is also beginning to spoil. It was agreed to raise the ration of wine per person from 2 dcl to 2.5 dcl. Zeffirino moved that the increase apply only to persons over the age of thirteen, but a group of about twenty Frenchmen, who call themselves Egalitarians, opposed it, so that children will receive the same share as everyone else. Mr. Mangin then moved that volunteers from the ranks of the French hold classes in French for the others, with classes to be held every day before noon on the rear deck. Eight Frenchmen and one Frenchwoman raised their hands to volunteer. We crossed paths with another ship.
February 27th
This morning the mountainous cliffs of the first island of Cape Verde rose up before us. There are ten of them altogether. The captain is heading for the southernmost one, São Tiago. Giacomo read us the encyclopedia entry: a Genoan discovered the island in the fifteenth century. The port we’re heading for is called Tarrafal. We should arrive tomorrow afternoon or evening. Cape Verde belongs to Portugal and trades mainly in salt, sand, and slaves. The shipmaster said we might see some whales. There were no meetings or classes held, as people were eager and agitated.
February 28th
We spent the whole day sailing through the islands. We proposed to the captain that we dump the old drinking water and replace it with a fresh supply, but the captain said that water was very expensive in Cape Verde and if we wanted to replace it, it would cost us more than a week’s worth of food. Vito Ferroni declared that he didn’t see why we hadn’t filled up on fresh water when we were in the Canary Islands, where it was free.
Toward evening we dropped anchor at the mouth of a large gulf. People were looking forward to spending a few hours on dry land tomorrow, but the first officer said we’d paid for passage to Brazil, not a tourist excursion to Cape Verde. Decio, Giacomo, and Haymard went to the captain, but he confirmed the officer’s words, saying these waters were Portuguese territory and we didn’t have permission to leave the ship. But tomorrow morning, he said, local traders would come aboard and we could buy fresh fruit, meat, and bread from them.
March 1st
This morning everyone rushed on deck to wait for the arrival of the Portuguese traders’ boats. There was a village at the south end of the gulf with Negro women and children standing in the surf collecting sand from the water and making it into large piles, which the men then carried away on carts drawn by donkeys and animals that looked like buffalo. Other women stood on shore breaking rocks with hammers. I took out my telescope and inspected the inhabitants. The women were stout, almost naked, tattooed, and not very pretty. Thanks to my telescope, I was the first to see the boats rowing toward us from the harbor.
Cape Verdeans don’t look Portuguese, they have different traits than Europeans do, and most of them are mestizo. They were selling practically everything, fruit, meat, pigs and fowl, all sorts of tools, even wooden dolls and rattles. I bought six coconuts, two dozen oranges, and a big conch shell for Elisabetta.
Nothing much was discussed at the meeting. We agreed that instead of singing and improvised entertainment, which there was plenty of time for during the day when we had nothing to do, the more educated settlers would hold lectures for the others, and when there was no lecture in store, the older and more experienced settlers would talk about their experiences and how they had come to their worldview. The day after tomorrow, as long as there’s nothing more important to deal with, Louis Gabat is going to tell us about the February revolution.
The meeting broke up early and Elisabetta and I went for a stroll on deck. I gave her the conch shell, but nothing came of it.
March 3rd
Louis Gabat comes from the southern Alps, where news of the revolution in Paris had arrived with a two-day delay. The people were happy, he said, and the newspapers wrote that the February revolution was the first step toward the renewal of humanity and the present belonged to the future now. In Digne, where Louis Gabat lived, they held a great celebration for five hundred people. There were two rows of tables with musicians in between and pyramids of rifles and revolutionary banners on either side. The citizens ate and drank and made toasts to the liberation of the world, to the triumph of the people’s rights, to putting an end to the past, to equality, to the freedom of all nations. The local priest toasted to fraternity, saying that Christ had raised up the old age into the new age as a token of love and happiness for the whole world. Both of the local newspapers changed their names, the Alpine Daily to the Socialist Daily and the Alpine Gleaner to the Alpine Republican. But a few months later, the revolutionary élan had faded away and the citizens’ trust was betrayed. The newspapers changed their names back again, the Alpine Daily even going so far as to add the subtitle Fervent friend of the nation and public order. Louis Gabat made up his mind to join the underground movement that was preparing a new revolution to protect what had been won. In June, he and his friends took over the subprefecture in Forcalquier and were making ready to move on Digne when Marseille sent out the National Guard against them. More than fifty of his companions and his best friend perished in the fratricidal battle. Gabat fled to Paris, where he hid for a while, pondering the question of why his countrymen were killing each other and arriving at the conviction that a fraternal bond was not a bond of blood but a moral one. During that same time he also made up his mind to leave Europe and go work and begin a family in some settlement overseas, where politics and tyranny had not yet come of age.
March 4th
At ten-thirty this morning there was a tragic accident. One of the Negroes, while impregnating the stay lines, tumbled into the sea. The captain had a cutter put in, but it leaked from every side and he declared that to send his sailors out in it would mean their certain death. So the sailors pulled the cutter up and watched the Negro struggle in the waves until he drowned. A sadness reigned on board. The only one who showed no sign of mourning for the Negro was the first officer, who was in fact responsible for his death, since he had sent him to work even though he knew that during the night he had had a high fever. Haymard moved that at tomorrow’s meeting we speak about equality among races and the moral unacceptability of slavery and that we extend a special invitation to the two Negro sailors and the cook. The motion was accepted unanimously by those who heard it. Decio moved that we all pitch in for equipment for three people and invite the Negroes to come to the settlement with us and found a new world where it wouldn’t be important what race a person was. Zeffirino said that it was a generous motion, but one on which only the assembly could decide (Zeffirino likes to call the meetings assemblies). And that in his opinion inviting the Negroes to join the settlement was at the very least premature and could threaten the outcome of our moral and ideological investment. He said by no means did he intend to excuse the first officer, but on the other hand it was plain that the Negroes didn’t exactly break their backs at work. Decio declared that he refused to speak to such an idiot and that he firmly hoped the admission of the Negroes into the settlement would be approved tomorrow.