shortly dies. Some say it is because the natives who get
their living by hammock-carrying poison them, others say
the tsetse fly finishes them off; and others, and these I
believe are right, say that entozoa are the cause. Small,
lean, lank, yellow dogs with very erect ears lead an awful
existence, afflicted by many things, but beyond all others by
the goats, who, rearing their families in the grassy streets,
choose to think the dogs intend attacking them. Last, but
not least, there is the pig— a rich source of practice to the
local lawyer.
The lawyer in Sierra Leone flourishes like the green bay-
tree. All the West Coast natives, when the fear of the
dangers of their own country-fashion law is off them, and
they are under European institutions— I very nearly said
control, but that would have been going too far become
exceedingly litigious, more litigious naturally in Sierra Leone
because they have more European institutions there, among
others trial by jury. Any law case, whether he wins it or
not, is a pleasure to the African, because it gives him an opportunity
of showing off his undoubted powers of rhetoric, and
generally displaying himself. But there is no law case that
gives the Sierra Leonean that joy that he gets out of summon-,
ing a white man, for he can get the white man before a jury of
his fellow Sierra Leoneans— what they please to call in that
benighted place a jury of his peers— and bully and insult
him.
There is usually a summons or so awaiting a West Coast
boat, and many a proud vessel has dropped anchor in Free
Town harbour with one of her officers in a ventilator and
another in a coal bunker. On one vessel by which 1^ was a
passenger, it was the second officer who was “ wanted.” Regaining
the ship after a time on shore, we found the deck in
an uproar. The centre of affairs was an enormous black lady,
bearing a name honoured in English literature, and by profession
a laundress, demanding that the body of the second mate
in any condition should be rendered over to the hand of the law
(represented by four Haussa policemen) on a warrant she held
against him for not having discharged his washing-bill last
time the steamer was in Sierra Leone. Now this worthy
man, tired by his morning labour, working cargo in the stewing
heat, and strong in the virtue of an unblemished life here,
had gone to sleep in his cabin, out of which he was routed
and confronted with his accusatrix and the small frightened
man she had got with her, whom she kept on introducing as
“ my brudah, sah.” Unfortunately for the lady, it was not the
same gallant officer who held the post of second mate, but
another, and our injured innocent, joining in the chorus, returned
thanks for his disturbance in language of singular
fluency. He is the only man I have ever met whose powers
of expression were equal to his feelings, and it is a merciful
providence for him it is so, for what that man feels sometimes
I think would burst a rock.
The lady and her brother went crestfallen ashore, but the
policemen stayed on board until we left, getting exceedingly
drunk the while. Looking over the side, I saw one of them
fold himself over the gunwale of the boat in which they were
going ashore with his head close to the water. His companions
heeded not, and I insisted on my friend the quartermaster
rescuing the sufferer, and arranging him in the bottom of the
boat, for not only was he in danger of drowning, but of acting
as an all too tempting live-bait for the sharks, which swarm
in the harbour. The quartermaster evidently thought this
was foolish weakness on my part, for it “ was only a policeman,
and what are policemen but a kind of a sort of a custom
house officer, and what are custom house officers but the very
deuce ? ”
This, however, was not on the Batanga, but in the days
before I was an honorary aide-de-camp, remember. This
voyage out on the Batanga not even Sierra Leone could find
anything to summon us for.