Europeans tent, or baggage-cover indicated will be repaired to my
in nca‘ satisfaction. Or if I say to sucb a person : ‘ Just cast
your eye about tbe camp, and see wbat ougbt to be
done,’ I bave discovered that such an order is too
general to be followed ; but any particular order will
be mechanically obeyed. A promise of promotion, or
higher pay, or a display of tender solicitude, create no
impression, and as yet I know no motive powerful
enough to excite the European or West African aborigine
to distinguish himself by what I call an assiduous
interest in his work. The only people on whom my
words take due effect and create a prolonged impression
are the foreign coloured employes.
“ How, to what may I attribute this absence of intelligent
interest in their work which is characteristic of Ot
he European and thè West Coast native ? Is it to
the climate ? Then why does it not affect Albert and
myself ? I admit to enjoying a vitality unusual to me
in Europe—to a buoyant feeling, - to an irresistible
desire to b.e on the move, for bodily activity, and for
personal exertion of every description. As for Albert,
he is never otherwise than full of life and action.”
v But perhaps Frank and others may feel strange
yet, or—
“ May be they are not well.
Infirmity doth still neglect all office
Whereto onr health is bound ; we are not ourselves
When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind
To suffer with the body. I ’ll forbear
* * * * *
To take the indisposed and sickly fit
For the sound man.”
But of all the rabid absurdities I have encountered Europeans
in Africa.
in the tropics, the preaching of a young fool on the
merits of intoxicants, who has heard from some old fool
that there is nothing like whisky, astonishes me most.
Mr. Puffyface, while in a semi-maudlin state, has been
heard declaring, in the hearing of our youthful enthusiast,
that “ after fourteen years acquaintance with
the African fever, despite all that may be said against
it, there is nothing like whisky after all for the curing,
of it.” I t reminds me very much of what I heard in
the ague regions of the South-western States, and recalls
to my memory the South-western saddle-hag with its
inevitable whisky-bottle. But, for the benefit of the
after-comers, let me prick this bloated bubble. Show
me one of these old bloaters on the West Coast of Africa,
and I will show you a sham and a delusion; I will
prove to him and to all spectators that his supposed
immunity does not rise from his devotion to whisky,
but simply to his expertness in the art known. to
nautical men as “ sojering.” A few hours hard work or
marching in the interior would lay the lazy lion as low
as a dead donkey. Grin and whisky “ topers ” have
lived long elsewhere than on the Niger and the Congo.
But if you meet him on the African coast, a glance at
his shirt or linen, after twelve hours wearing, will tell
the whole truth to you as clearly as'similar evidence
would be deemed invaluable by a police-detective.; You
will be able to gauge the amount of bodily exertion he
has been undergoing. If it is free from stains of body
exudation, then he has been simply “ sojering,” and it