settled6 am°Unt °f each article to be Paid> and the affair was
The somewhat cumbrous wage the Kruboy gets at the end
ot his term o f service, minus those things he has had on account
an plus those things he has “ found,” is certainly a source of
great worry to our friend. He obtains a box from, the carpenter
o f the factory, or buys a tin one, and puts therein his
tobacco and small things, and then he buys a padlock and
locks his box o f treasure up, hanging the key with his other
ju-jus round his neck, and then he has peace regarding this
section o f his belongings. Peace at present, for the day must
some time dawn when an experimental genius shall arise
among his fellow countrymen, who will try and see if one key
will not open two locks. When this possibility becomes
known I can foresee nothing for the Kruboy but nervous
breakdown ; for even now, with his mind at rest regarding the
things in his box, he lives in a state o f constant anxiety about
those out o f it, which have to lie on the deck during the
return voyage to his home. He has to keep a vigilant eye on
them by day, and sleep spread out over them by night, for
„ ° bls companions stealing them. Why he should take
all this trouble about his things on his voyage home I can’t
make out, if what is currently reported is true, that all the
wages earned by the working boys become the property of
the elders o f his tribe when he returns to them. I myself rather
doubt if this is the case, but expect there is a very heavy tax
levied on them, for your Kruboy is very much a married man
and the elders o f his tribe have to support and protect his
wives and families when he is away at work, and I should not
wonder if the law was that these said wives and families
revert to the S ta te ” i f the boy fails to return within something
like his appointed time. There must be something
besides nostalgia to account for the dreadful worry and apprehension
shown by a detained Kruboy. I am sure the tax is
heavily taken m cloth, for the boys told me that if it were
made up into garments for themselves they did not have
to part with it on their return. Needless to say, this makes
our friend turn his attention to needlework during his return
voyage, and many a time I have seen the main deck looking
as i f it had been taken possession o f by a demoniacal Dorcas
working party.
Strangely little is known o f the laws and language o f these
Krumen, considering how close the association is between
them and the whites. This arises, I think, not from the difficulty
o f learning their language, but from the ease and fluency
with which they speak their version of our own— Kru-English,
or “ trade English,” as it is called, and it is therefore unnecessary
for a hot and wearied white man to learn “ Kru mouth.”
What particularly makes me think this is the case is, that I
have .picked up a little of it, and I found that I could make a
Kruman understand what I was driving at with this and my
small stock of Bassa mouth and Timneh, on occasions when I
wished to say something to him I did not want generally
understood. But the main points regarding Krumen are well
enough known by old coasters— their willingness to 'work if
well fed, and their habit of engaging for twelve-month terms
o f work and then returning to “ we country.” A trader who
is satisfied with a boy gives him, when he leaves, a bit of
paper telling the captain of any vessel that he will pay the
boy’s passage to his factory again, when he is willing to come.
The period that a boy remains in his beloved “ we country”
seems to be until his allowance of his own earnings is e x pended.
One can picture to one’s self some sad partings in
that far-away dark land, f My loves,” says the Kruboy to
his families, his voice heavy with tears, “ I must go. There
is no more cloth, I have nothing between me and an easily-
shocked world but this decayed filament o f cotton.” And
then his families weep with him, or, what is more likely, but
not so literary, expectorate with emotion, and he tears
himself away from them and comes on board the passing
steamer in the uniform of Gunga Din— nothing much before
and rather less than half of that behind, and goes down Coast
on the strength of the little bit of paper from his white master
which he has carefully treasured, and works like a nigger in the
good sense of the term for another spell, to earn more goods
for his home-folk.
Those boys who are first starting on travelling to work, and
those without books, have no difficulty in getting passages on
the steamers, for a captain is glad to get as many on board as
he can, being sure to get their passage money and a premium
for them, so great is the demand for Kru labour. But even
this help to working the West Coast has been much interfered
with of late years by the action o f the French Government in
imposing a ta x per head on all labourers leaving their ports on
the Ivory Coast. This tax, I believe, is now removed or much
reduced ; but as for the Liberian Republic, it simply gets its
revenue in an utterly unjustifiable way out of taxing the
Krumen who ship as labourers. The Krumen are no property
o f theirs, and they dare not interfere with them on shore ; but
owing to that little transaction in the celebrated Rubber