The White Man's Grave; a visit to Sierra Leone, in 1834

Front matter

THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVE. VOL. I. LONDON : PRINTED EY SAMUEL BENTLEY, Dorset Street, Fleet Street. THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVE A VISIT TO SIERRA LEONE, in 1834. BY F. HARRISON RANKIN. It is quite customary to ask in the morning, how many died last night. M. A. Falconbridge. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. (successor to henry colburn.) 1836. TO THE HON. W. H. MACAULEY, CHIEF JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT OF MIXED COMMISSION AT SIERRA LEONE, THESE VOLUMES ARE OFFERED, SEEKING A "BRIEF IMMORTALITY" FOR THE MEMORY OF SCENES TO WHICH HIS FRIENDSHIP AND HOSPITALITY GAVE ADDITIONAL INTEREST.

Preface

. Majesty, moving in royal progresses, is preceded by a graduated line of peers. The noblest follow in the wake of the less noble, and the latest creations place them selves before the titles of ancient date. The etiquette of books enforces the same rule. The last portion written, fa cetiously named the Preface, takes its station in front of the volume, and claims the first notice of the reader ; whence it may occasionally chance to be mistaken by exoterics and the uninitiated for the first-born, and to enjoy a respect due to its subsequent but elder brethren. It is the Esau of chapters. It is Epilogue preface. borrowing the privilege and larynx of Prologue. In consequence of this clever rule of precedence, the Preface is enabled to speak advisedly. Its dicta on the sub jects and objects of the volume are clearly results of experience, not shadowy vatici nations.

In the present case, therefore, it can state that the aim of the following pages has been to import sundry African facts into England ; that these facts re gard a colony little visited and little known, but, like all matters little known, the ground of much theory. Few spots upon the earth's face have been so uniformly pronounced deformities without having been seen. None hesitate to condemn it. It is deemed a land of miasma, contagion, and death. It bears the terrific and poetic title of the " White Man's Grave." Its aspect is generally suspected to present a uniformity of flats,

PREFACE.

. IX spongy with swamps, and dotted with tombstones, over which poisonous fogs eternally brood. Such opinions are prevalent, — they so occupy the mind as to supplant the interest due to the colony, as the centre and head-quarters of opera tions for suppressing the traffic in slaves on the African coast, and as the asylum and foster-mother of the captives when emancipated from the chains and confinement of their prison-ship. With regard to the climate of Sierra Leone, and its effect on the constitution of Europeans, facts which cannot be contro verted, and which none could desire to find assailable, expect in some measure to disperse the prejudices which have long mystified our ideas of the colony. In connexion with the subject of Slavery, it may be observed, that since the following notice of it was written, Government has given fresh attention to

PREFACE.

. X the treaties existing with Spain. If the new convention with that power be not in all respects perfect, it at least enlarges the scope enjoyed by the British for checking the maritime traffic in slaves. The recent increase in the number of captured slave-ships on the coast, by our men-of-war, painfully proves the extent to which the trade is carried on. I have not touched, even, I believe, in cidentally, on the expense of the colony to the mother-country. The reason was, that I have introduced no topic which did not either fall under personal observation, or excite a personal interest. The opinion that Sierra Leone is expensive, is only one of many fallacies hastily and unwisely adopted. One circumstance must be con sidered, which will reconcile the most eco nomical of philanthropists, whoever he may be, to the continued maintenance of the settlement ; namely, that the large

PREFACE.

. XI Parliamentary grants are absorbed, not by the colony for its civil administration, but by the means employed to enforce the suppression of the slave-trade. Premiums, at so much sterling per head, for liberated captives, many hundreds of whom may be captured in the same vessel ; the maintenance of these unfortunate outcasts when received and adopted into the British territory; the vast establishment of the Liberated African Department, with its superintendents, officers, and clerks ; the complex and expensive machinery of the Courts of Mixed Commission, for deciding on the legality of captures ; — these, and these alone, call for considerable grants of money. The vituperated colony nearly repays the whole of its own civil expenses by its custom house receipts and other revenues. Were Sierra Leone to be immediately abandon ed, and Jamaica to be appointed as the

PREFACE.

. future seat of adjudication and emancipa tion of the victims of the slave-commerce, no saving would be effected ; but on the establishment of the above-named courts and departments upon that island, to Jamaica would be transferred the parlia mentary grants, with one simple alter ation — that the grants must be consider ably increased. The only question to be determined is, whether England shall continue to spend a portion of her re venue in the noble work of liberating the negro captive, and of crushing the system which makes our fellow-men arti cles of an infamous commerce. If so, the expense will be less at Sierra Leone than if a spot were selected more distant from the scene of rapine, and less congenial to the constitution of the liberated. Separating, then, the cost of the colony itself from the cost of a process by no means inherently connected with it, it will be

PREFACE.

. XIII admitted that Sierra Leone is actually one of the least burdensome of our foreign possessions in a pecuniary point of view. An attempt to excite a favourable in terest in a spot which has hitherto looked in vain for an advocate, and to endeavour to stem the tornado of public prejudice, is at least chivalric, if it prove not successful. The beautiful peninsula has, hitherto, received the rough treatment commonly accorded to the forlorn. "Strike him hard, for he has no friends," seems to be a general rule applicable to places as well as to persons. It will be seen, that in the texture of the subsequent leaves, details concerning permanent phenomena, the origin and cus toms of surrounding tribes, and natural productions have been avoided : the float ing froth has been skimmed, and little of the solid substance put forward in dry form. It has been so, first, because many might

PREFACE.

. otherwise have been deterred from seek ing acquaintance with the interesting but scandalised little colony, whose gossip may amuse ; and secondly, because the admirable work of Dr. Winterbottom, published about forty years ago, records such matters and phenomena as are per manent in that part of the world, with an elaborate research and sagacious discri mination that would render rivalry as hopeless as it is unnecessary. At the pe riod of that publication, the colony was an infant, and none could foretell its present characteristics, describe its diversified po pulation, or develope the working of the system for suppressing the slave-trade ; neither did experience permit opinion respecting the effect of climate on a European constitution. Native customs have not changed ; the products of the country are the same ; the peculiarities of different tribes have not varied ; and to

PREFACE.

. XV such as desire to step from the con fines of the English colony, and to study by what neighbours it is surrounded, the volumes of Dr. Winterbottom will give information as applicable to the present moment as to that at which they were penned. In casting the eye over the map of Africa, it is gratifying to note, scattered along the shores of that vast and barbarous continent, the names of European settlements ; centres of spreading civiliza tion, wholesome as the well-springs in her own parched and desolate deserts. The Cape of Good Hope, Cape Coast, and then the American Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and the French Goree, and Al giers, may be regarded as so many bright points for the wide radiation of know ledge and improvement. Reflecting on what the Americans, French, and English at these settlements may effect, and what

PREFACE.

. Mohammed Ali has already effected in Egypt, the dreams of the African phi lanthropist may be allowed to picture a future happier than the past. March 1836. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

Chapter I. Arrival

Approach towards Sierra Leone. — A courteous Pilot.— Black Servants.— The Head of the Law Somnolency — Insect Companions. — Early Impres sions First Morning Scene. — Animation A Funeral. . .... Page 1

Chapter II. The Peninsula

Geographical Notice. — Extent. — Analogy between Colonies and Caterpillars. — General Tur ner's proposed addition of Territory. — Surrounding Nations . — Timmanees.—Bulloms.—Liberia.—Dif ference of nature and object between the American and the English Colonies. ... CONTENTS. XVIII

Chapter III. Freetown

— THE CAPITAL. Beautiful Situation. — Public Buildings. — The Church. — Its Metamorphoses. — Clock contro versies. — Chapels. — "Lady Hunting Tom's Col lection." — Fort Thornton. — Attack of the Tim manees. — Barracks Singular distribution of the Town Page 41

Chapter IV

voluntary colonists. — Christians. THE SETTLERS. First Nucleus of Black Population. — Old Man's Narrative. — American War. — Loyalty and Losses. — Nova Scotia. — Offer of Mr. Clarkson. — Arrival at Sierra Leone. — Disappointments and Sufferings. — Agricultural Advancement. — Disaffection. — Pre sent Degeneracy, and Causes. . . 79

Chapter V

voluntary colonists. — Christians. the maroons. Their origin. — Independence acknowledged by the Spanish and English in Jamaica. — The Maroon CONTENTS. XIX war. — Removal to Nova Scotia. — Exportation to Sierra Leone. — Rencontre with the Settlers. — Polygamy Danger of preaching against Sin. — Want of Jealousy. — Maroon Chiefs. — Character of the Maroons. — Costume. — Neglect of Agricul ture. ...... Page 102 Page 102

Chapter VI

voluntary colonists. — Mussulmans. FOULAHS AND MANDINGOS. Test of Wealth. — Costume. — Foulah Nations of the Interior — -Teemba and Timbuctoo Gold Merchants. — Slave Traffickers. — Propagandists. — Wealth in Cattle. — Artisans. — Talisman Manufac turers. — Blacksmiths and Tailors. — Royal and privileged Trades. — Leather-working. — Cunning of Gold Merchants. — Their Roguery, and Ali Sannee's Confession thereof. — Mode of Gold-finding Divining Rod Theories. — Kidnapping. 119

Chapter VII

voluntary colonists. — Pagans. THE KROOMEN. Undress Tattooed face. — Voluntary toil. — Kroo Nation. — Grain Coast. — Quest of White Men. XX CONTENTS. — Canoe Voyages — their object. — Idea of Riches. — Question of their impoverishing the Colony. — Kroo-town. — District of Bachelors — its silence. — Misnomers. — National Opposition to the March of Intellect. — Their Krikkegry-boo, or Dance of Death Allegory Musical Instrument. — The Carabas.— Kroo Wrestling-parties. — Kroomen held in contempt by the Black Residents . Page 143

Chapter VIII. Voluntary

colonists. EUROPEANS. Numbers. — Motives. — Classes. — Analogy be tween the English and the Kroomen. — State of So ciety. — A Household Houses. — Unceremonious Visitors. —Innovation. — Sensitiveness. — Polite Dic tion Servants. — Mary. — Ornamental Hair. — Cookery. — The Reformation and Pancakes. — Din ner Parties. — Races. — Dignity Ball anecdote. — A conscious Beauty. — Riding. — Chasing Co quettes. — Contrast between Town and Country. — A Wish 164

Chapter IX

liberated population — or " Captives.' NEGROES. Preponderance of Emancipated Slaves — Low con dition — Employments — Gradual Improvement. — CONTENTS. XXI Markets—Barter.— Tribes.— Tattooing and Scars. —Akoos — their Rebellion.— A Battle.— Victory of the British.— Black Freemasons.— Red Flags Papaws— Huts— Ambition.— A Papaw Marriage Plighted Vows and a Fracture.— Subserviency of Women— Betsy Carew.— Earrings, a painful Orna ment — Congo-town — Yaloffs — Handsome Cos tume — " Evil Eye" of Yaloff Maidens. Page 202

Chapter X. Court Of Justice

TRIAL BY A JURY OF NEGROES. A close Carriage.— The Judge about to be hanged. — A Mistake. — Court-house. — Banna, the Kid napper. — Interpretation. — King Tom's Oath. An Execution. — A Prophecy. — The Rusty Sword. — Lucid Police Order. — Crimes amongst Savages. — Freetown Gaol. — Galley Slaves. . . 233

Chapter XI. Black Preachers And Negro Education

African taste for Oratory. — Sects Reverend Pilot and Reverend Blacksmith. — A Simile. Sunday in Freetown. — Battle of Epithets. — Ride to Uncle Dickey's Chapel. — Panegyric upon Uncle Dickey by an Enthusiast A Grass-house. — CONTENTS. The Service and Sermon-Eloquence. — Expound ing. — A Negro's account of Melchizedec. — False Grounds for encouraging ignorant Preachers. — Schools. — Game at Infant Baptism. — Missionaries. — Negro Literature. — Paternal Stimulus. — State of the Press Page 259 CHAPTER XH. AMUSEMENTS OF THE NEGROES OF THE CAPITAL. SONG AND DANCE. Music and Dancing — Tomtoms. — The Koonking and Tallala. — Fascination. — Songs. — Objections of the Whites against the Dances of the Blacks. — Interference. — Akoo wild Dance. — Melancholy Dance of Women. — Sympathy wasted. — Chance Festivity. — Dancing on Horseback. . . 282

Chapter XIII. Villages Of Sierra Leone

Location of captured Slaves.— Districts of the Peninsula.— Census. — Managements. — Disadvan tages under which Managers labour Ride to Regent. — Mountain Scenery. — Animals Tipsy Chamelions. — Town of Regent. — Children's ter ror at White Men Interesting information from a reclaimed Ibbo. — Kidnapping Children. CONTENTS. XXIII Gratitude. — Market. — Magic. — An Incantation. — Case of Cannibalism at Regent. Cannibals of the Western Coast. — Cargo of Church Clocks. — Sugar-loaf Mountain. — Wild Beasts. — Audacity of Leopards and Monkeys. — Ride to Kissey. — Albino Children of Negroes. — Serracoolas. — Meeting with Mungo Park's last Guide. — Evil Road. — Mountain Torrent. — A Negro Jockey. — Idiots and aged Negroes. — Fever Hospital at Kissey. — Contagion. — Native Customs. — Kola Seed Comparative value of a Wife and a Horse. — Native Villages. . . • • .311 EMBELLISHMENTS.

VOL. I. View of Sierra Leone, Foulah Blacksmith, Frontispiece. Page 128. VOL II. Devil Temple, . . . Frontispiece. Pa Souba, .... Page 250. THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVE.

Chapter I. Arrival

Approach towards Sierra Leone. — A courteous Pilot. — Black Servants. — The Head of the Law. — Somnolency. — Insect Companions. — Early Impressions First Morning Scene. — Animation. — A Funeral. For three weary days our gallant ship had apparently become aware of its approach towards an evil shore. No longer cutting a rapid and gay path through legions of waves, she had lingered as if reluctant to bear her crew to the land of pestilence and death. The atmosphere, so clear around the Cape de Verds, had thickened with mist ; respiration was im- VOL. I. b AKRIVAL. peded by the heavy, hot air; the sea, too, had grown sluggish : the dolphins, those rainbows of the deep, and the high wheeling tropic bird, the only snow-flake of these regions, had disappeared. Every object around wore a grave and warning aspect.

This external gloom produced its effect upon the ship's company. The evening sports and songs on deck had ceased to follow the toils of the day ; the men had lost pleasure in their amusements, and many speculated upon their chance of surviving. One alone, the second mate — and a fine tight fellow he was, ever foremost in duty or in a joke, — found room for a wager upon the subject. He was not destined to return ; and he died far from his native land. Sierra Leone labours under a singularly bad reputation ; and he who for the first time bids farewell to England, his home, and his friends, for this colony, may fairly understand the feelings of the soldier who leads a forlorn hope. In the cabin, conversation naturally turned to ARRIVAL. 3 the ill reports of the settlement; and our captain, who was a religious man, more frequently than at the commence ment of our voyage, put aside the chart for meditation over the Bible.

The contrast, perhaps a casual one, between the joyous luxury of the golden sea surrounding the sweet Canary Islands, and the close, dull, unhealthy atmosphere which now girded us, made serious havoc amongst our gayer tendencies. In fact, we believed the usual stories of the white man's grave, the place of our des tination ; and such belief is no friend to merriment. No one, however, seemed to entertain fear for himself; each lament ed the probable fate of his friend : but that happy reliance upon one's own good fortune which allows men to seek danger, and nerves them on through all the un certainties of life, forbade despondency. The shore of Africa became visible under our lee, — a low, shelvy land, which extends for several degrees in an almost uniformly dead level. Upon that b ARRIVAL. shore the captain of his Majesty's survey ing ship had, the year before, been trea cherously destroyed by the savages.

At length, towering mountains, blue and dim in distance, were perceived ahead rising from the water. The sunset, and through the darkness which ensued within a few minutes, gleams of light shot from the hill sides ; others appeared ; then clusters, spreading from the horizon to a considerable height. Sierra Leone was before us ; and the number of these fires — which were of burning forests — proved the extent and loftiness of its mountain ranges. Whilst slowly creeping onwards, a long stream of phosphoric flashings mark ed the advance of a boat. A black pilot, of very American externals, boarded us. We were at the mouth of the estuary. The pilot underwent a cumbrous cate chism, as is usual when intercourse with mankind has been nearly cut off for weeks. It was novel to find a black treating a white man with aristocratic independence.

ARRIVAL. In due time, however, his dignity condescended to unbend itself "a few," as he would have expressed it ; but never so far as to allow us to forget that he was a free black man of Freetown, capital of the free colony for the location of freed slaves. If his manner was not free, it was because he was perfectly free to treat his equals according to his own good pleasure. " How far is it to the town ?" meekly inquired the captain. " A few, I guess," was drawled out as a sufficient answer. " Shall we not soon drop anchor ?" " When we get there, I judge." The captain made a different tack. " Pray, sir, is the colony considered healthy at present 1" " More or less, I expect." " Have there been many deaths amongst the white residents lately?" All pressed round, intently listening to catch the answer to a question so full of interest.

After a pause it was repeated. ARRIVAL. " Can you inform us, sir, whether many whites have died lately ?" " Can't ye clew up the mainsail ?" was the sole reply. The captain, thus foiled, and super seded in command, quietly descended into the cabin, opened his book, nor came again on deck. Having thus formidably displayed his nonchalance to the commander, our sable friend grew affable ; satisfied with having demolished the master, he spoke more civilly to the men. Fortune kindly pro tected me from repulse. Perhaps he held a mere passenger lightly ; perhaps his ebony heart had been melted at the sight of a white lady, a fellow-voyager, a phenomenon nearly as rare as a palm-tree in England, and doubtless as great an ob ject of curiosity. Amidst the tornado of questions which now burst upon him, he civilly ended the anxiety of friendship by assuring me of the perfect health of the Chief-Justice.

Friends long parted by time and distance have an electric affi- ARRIVAL. 7 nity towards each other, and before the anchor had plunged into the deep, I found myself seated in the pilot's boat and darting to the wharf. Sensations are matters not to be prated about ; their intensity, however, is encouraged by situ ations of extreme novelty, and here every thing was new. Four Kroos, tattooed and unclothed savages, with complexions well suited to the night, pulled to the shore. Exhausted with overpowering heat, I leaned back in the boat, marking the lines of fire which glanced from the water when ruffled by the splash of the oars, listening to the harsh uncouth voices of the men, who maintained their conver sation in their native language, and spe culating upon my reception where a visit had been promised but not announced.

The town, although close at hand, was not to be perceived. No light shone from any window ; those which had been seen from the sea, of woods purposely fired for health or for agricultural preparation, were hidden by the intervening mountain. ARRIVAL. A singularly heavy stillness prevailed. When the boat struck, one of the Kroos leaped upon the wharf, and, with but small ceremony, lifted the white man from his seat, and placed him once more upon land. For many days the heat had been most relaxing. On shipboard, the naked feet and almost naked persons of the sailors had been matters of positive envy to those whose station compelled more attention to outward show than to comfort. Any change had seemed to promise some release from the persecution of warmth ; and a vague, indefinite expectation had arisen that the shore might prove cooler than the baked and cracking decks.

I had, however, no sooner landed than a furnace appeared to have opened its parching breath upon me. The first feel ing was that of suffocation, succeeded by a sudden faintness, which had nearly caused a fall : a volume of heat rushed upwards from the ground, and some moments elapsed before I could proceed, ARRIVAL. 9 leaning for support upon the muscular arm of the Kroo guide. Little does a stranger dream that habit will reconcile him to this temperature, and that per chance, as often happens, the glow of the tropics may be esteemed luxurious. Utter darkness reigned, no object but the mere outline of the men was visible ; but, to compensate for the abeyance of eyesight, another sense was unexpectedly assailed. In this climate, the air around and above, and the earth beneath, salute the newly arrived visitor with a flood of sound.

Every thing denotes life : a constant buzz of crickets, and of a thousand loquacious insects, bewilders the ear. Few impressions are more remarkable than that excited by the endless whiz and hum of our swarming and creeping fellow-creatures. The open air, the sheltered piazza, the enclosed room, are so many orchestras of pigmy trumpeters, to whose concerts, however, the ear soon learns to give little heed. Our path lay up an abrupt bank of B ARRIVAL. forty or fifty feet, upon the crown of which, immediately over the sea, stands Freetown. The Kroo guide paused at the gates of a large court-yard. Bells and knockers being European luxuries un known in Sierra Leone, he summoned attention by a long and loud cry. He had stopped at the mansion of a gentle man whose high rank in the colony was at once denoted by the crowd of servants who rushed from the house, armed with lanthorns and torches, to investigate the nature of the intrusion.

An Englishman's idea of a black man is usually formed upon the model of those negroes, with flat noses and rouleau lips, who trail through the streets in quest of stray pence, and endeavour to increase the pity which their hideous countenances excite, by most pathetic drawings suspended round their necks, of a kneeling African in chains, writhing under the flagellations of a merciless white man. As well might we attempt to study the nature and qua lities of an Arabian or a Barb by look- ARRIVAL. 11 ing upon the sorry jade which boasts no higher pretensions than the shafts of a sandcart. The slaves who find their Avay from the West India plantations to Eng land are totally unlike the majority of the free natives of Africa : they are, with few exceptions, specimens of the lowest grade of mankind, and are taken from certain tribes despised by their black neighbours.

Amongst the more intellectual and more cultivated, as noble features, as lofty an expression, as fine a countenance is discovered as Europe could offer. The group which came forward with lights to answer the summons of the Krooiran were chiefly youths, and all were dressed alike in the simplest of li veries. It consisted of loose white trousers, and a white shirt, very full and open, which contrasted strongly with the jet of head and chest, arms and feet. I never saw a body of servants picturesque before ; these certainly were so. Escorted by the whole of them, we arrived at the house of ARRIVAL. his honour, distant at few paces. I have spoken of the darkness of night ; the time might have been nine o'clock, yet were the inhabitants already in profound slumber. In England, the ready police would have bustled out and captured our party, who strenuously endeavoured to break the peace ofthe neighbourhood.

Euphony was not the forte of my zealous black assistants ; to create a noise sufficient to awaken the sleepers, was their sole object. To the task they lent surprising energy; yet every modulation between a scream and a growl, with the occasional harmony of both, were long ineffectual. Finally, a jalousie aloft was heard to open slowly, and a nightcapped head was perceived protruding, which proved to be no other than the Head of the law himself. A few moments realised to me the widely-celebrated hospitality and generous welcome of a tropical host. My excellent friend deemed the offices of his servants necessary, and invited me ARRIVAL. 13 to witness the process of arousing them from their slumber ; an amusing task, al though not by any means an easy one. Their deathlike drowsiness was mention ed, and that strange and unconquerable aversion to the repose of a bed, which leads them to choose for their resting place any spot where they may chance to find themselves when dismissed from the labours of the day.

On this occasion the heavy major-domo was discovered lying upon his back on the top of the staircase leading to the kitchen ; his outstretched legs were dangling upon the steps, the upper portion of his body was reposing upon the floor of the verandah. Many rough efforts were necessary in order to still the booming tones issuing from his black proboscis ; and, as soon as domestic arrangements had been concluded under his auspices,he again carelessly threw him self upon the bare boarding ofthe corridor, and recommenced his sostenuto solo. The lethargy of sleeping negroes is mira culous ; nothing short of excessive per- ARRIVAL. sonal violence can shake it from them : the bite of the insects, and their excur sions over the face and body at night, by no means disturb them; they acquire a habit of striking these intruders even whilst soundly asleep, — so that should they receive a smart blow upon the face or even a kick upon the head from a friend desirous of awakening them, the chance is that their hand is instantly and mechanically raised to clap the injured part or rub it, under the dreaming im pression that the pain has been caused by a cockroach or musquito : the hand falls, and they slumber on.

Cannibals have quiet consciences. Far from cool England, sleep was long denied the white man, simmering upon his hard mattress, with its single covering (and even that too weighty) of a slight cotton sheet ; the wise precaution of examination having been duly taken, to dis cover whether any treacherous scorpion or sly centipede lurked beneath the pil low. Night, the friend of the weary, ARRIVAL. here becomes his foe, and calls in an army of enemies to join in hostility. The enormous cockroach crawls over the body, and, if permitted, nibbles the end of the fingers, producing a wound of tedious cure. The prying mantis swarms ; a fat, loathsome green insect, held in great awe by the blacks, who believe that it causes blindness by attacking the eye with its crablike claws. Musquitoes are not frequent, it is true ; since, according to report, the climate of Sierra Leone is too deadly even for these persecutors of the human race, the offspring of pestilential marshes : yet, a single musquito in the chamber will destroy all hope of repose.

The little bug-a-bugs, small amber ants, infesting every house, and eating away its woodwork, spread themselves thickly over the bed ; large tarantulas fall from the ceiling upon the sleepers ; gigantic black crickets ingeniously perch themselves near the ear in some hidden nook, and " grate harsh music :" but, above all, the intoler able prickly heat plunges into the white ARRIVAL. man its thousand stings, and makes him start from his couch in despair. For long I attributed this torture to the malice of insects. Sleep had not long condescended to visit me, when the rolling of morning gun fire intimated sunrise. Dimness still hovered around, when almost instanta neously the full glare of tropical daylight flashed forth, and discovered the gorgeous mountain-on-mountain scenery of the colony.

Immediately in front, towering behind the town, rose the Barrack Hill ; Leicester Mountain and the Sugar Loaf beyond, — a peak of nearly three thousand feet in height, clothed to the summit with forests of palms, locust, and pullow, or wild cotton trees, whose lofty and rich foliage brought the view apparently close to the eye. Wide streets presented an assem blage of houses and huts of every shape, of every material, of every style of architecture, and of none; each generally sur rounded by gardens crowded with the ARRIVAL. 17 dark orange and lime trees, the soft green banana and plantain, with their broad leaf, and the grotesque papaw, whose slender shaft, graced by a handful of leaves and a cluster of green and orange fruit, creates the idea of a vegetable beau of refined lankness, sumptuously coronet ed with thick ringlets and luscious whiskers.