his bounty, if there be but a leaf of tobacco for each; his mother, if living, has a handsome present. All this is done in order "to get him a good name:" what remains is delivered to his father" to buy him a wife." One so liberal does not long want a partner: the father obtains a wife for him; and after a few months of ease and indulgence, be sets off afresh for Sierra Leone, or some of the factories on the coast, to get more money. By this time he is proud of being acquainted with "white man's fashion;" and takes with him some raw, inexperienced youngster, whom he initiates into his own profession, taking no small portion of the wages of the éléve for his trouble. In due time his coffers are replenished; he returns home; confirms his former character for liberality; and gives the residue of his wealth to his father to "get him another wife." In this way he proceeds perhaps for ten or twelve years, or more, increasing the number of his wives, and establishing a great character among his countrymen; but scarcely a particle of his earnings is at any time applied to his own use.' p. 93, 94.

One of the most singular parts of their character, is their extreme love for their own country, and their confident belief in its vast superiority over all others. Every action of their lives bears a reference to it. All their exertions are to obtain wherewithal they may return and live there. Like the Swiss, the Scottish Highlanders, the Piedmontese and the Gallicians, they ramble from it only to love it the better, and to enable them to live, where alone they can be happy, at home.

The indifference of Kroomen' (says Mr. Ludlam) to European arts and European comforts, made me once think them a very dull race of men, to say the least. I was struck when I first came to Africa with the different manner in which a Krooman and a Mandingo man (a Mohammedan) viewed an English clock. It was a new thing to both of them. The Krooman eyed it attentively for about a minute, but with an unmoved countenance, and then walked away to look at something else, without saying a word. The Mandingo man could not sufficiently admire the equal and constant motion of the pendulum; his attention was repeatedly drawn to it; he made all possible inquiries as to the cause of its motion; he renewed the subject next morning, and could hardly be persuaded that the pendulum had continued to "walk," as he called it, all night. In general, I think, the case is nearly the same. They have little or no curiosity about things which are of no use in their own country; they are careless about our comforts and luxuries; none of them have been rendered necessary by habit, and they would often be inconsistent with the principal objects of their pursuit. But Kroomen are sufficiently acute and observant, where the occasion calls their minds into action; but it is rather from a general view of their character and conduct that I say this, than from particular specimens of ingenuity. They have not the use of letters, and will not permit their children to learn; they talk miserably bad English; living by daily labour, which is paid for

in European goods, they have no occasion for manufactures of their own. They have but few opportunities, therefore, of displaying peculiar talents. They make their own canoes, several of their implements of agriculture, and some trifling musical instruments: I know not of any thing else worthy of notice. I ought not to omit, however, that they sometimes plead in their own defence with much art. The evidence against one of the very last I examined on a charge of theft was so strong, that few men would have had the boldness to deny the charge. The culprit, however, began a long speech with expressing his sorrow that I was not born a Krooman, and proceeded to enlarge on the superior ability I should in that case have possessed to distinguish between truth and falsehood, in all cases wherein Kroomen were concerned; not forgetting the security against deception which I might possibly have obtained by means of those fetishes of which white men knew not the value or the use. Had I possessed but these advantages, I should have known, he argued, how much more safely I might rely on his veracity than on all the evidence produced against him; although it was backed by the unfortunate circumstance of the stolen goods being found in his possession.' p. 99, 100.

The next communication of the commissioners, is a sort of journal of observations by Mr. Ludlam during his voyage to the Gold Coast; and it contains a number of details, chiefly useful in a geographical and nautical point of view. The natives in most parts of the coast are fond of designating themselves by English names. Thus, we find one king called king George; probably out of the respect in which our royal family's known attachment to the slave-trade (before it was prohibited and made a felony) caused them to be held in that country. Others call themselves by appellations somewhat less dignified; such as, Pipe of Tobacco, Bottle of Beer, and so forth.

The next article is a very curious one. Governor Columbine, having a desire of opening some direct communication with the native princes, found an agent admirably well suited to his purpose in the person of John Kizell. He was a native African, and son of a chief. When a boy, he had been made a prisoner, and sold on the coast. Every effort had been made by his father to reclaim him by ransom; but he was carried to Charlestown in North America. He had inlisted, with many others, under sir H. Clinton's proclamation, and served in the American war. He came out to Africa with the Nova Scotian blacks. Being an intelligent man, of excellent character, and the warmest lover of his country, the governor employed him in a negotiation, for the purposes of the abolition, with the chiefs in the Sherbro river. The object of this judicious mission was to turn the natives, if possible, from those slave-trading habits which the long endurance of European iniquity has made so prevalent amongst them. The article now before us contains some most interesting

extracts from his sable excellency's diplomatic correspondence. We can freely recommend his style to the European Kizells→→→→ our Malmsburies and Freres-or the paragraph writers of the East as no bad models of conciseness and perspicuity. The following passage exhibits, among other things, the material difference between African and European princes.

'I went to Sumano with the head man I gave him the things you sent for him: he was glad, and all his people. I then showed them your letter. The young people were thankful for the word they heard, but there were some that did not like it. I then asked them, From the time your fathers began to sell slaves to this day, what have you got by it? Can any of you show me how much money you have; how much gold; how many slaves, and vessels, and cattle; how many people you have? They said, none. Then I turned to their king: I asked him in what was he better than his people? He said he was the poorest: he said he only talked palavers when any one brought them to him to talk. I then asked him, what they gave him for his trouble? He said, nothing. I then told him,' Our king wants to make you rich; and you must hearken to what he says.' He said, that my king talked right; he wanted the country to be free. He then promised that he would give land for that good work, but that he cannot do any thing before he sees all the rest of the kings. p. 115.

Our diplomatist found himself, as happens elsewhere, counteracted by rival powers, viz. the slave-traders, whose interests were much endangered by his mission. The following account is humiliating to all who have real English feelings in their bosoms.

'I then went to Safer. There were 100 people there with the king. When I came, the first word was, Are you come? It is you that have got all the slave vessels taken out of our river. You are come to make war on us:' with much more to this effect. I told the king I was sent to him: why would he not hear what I had to say before he began to make these charges? There was a young man with the king, who said, Kizell, says he, is sent to you: why will you not wait till you hear what he has to say? The king said this was right. I gave the governor's letter to him. He said, I should not read it to him: he had a white man that could read it to him. He sent for Crundell; and when he came, the letter was given to him. Crundell looked at it, and immediately cursed and swore, and raved: he told the king and his people that the governor was a nuisance: He is like Bonaparte: he wants to take the country from you. As for Kizell, he is the worst man the governor could pick out at Sierra Leone to send to you. Kizell is a troublesome, undermining man. The people of Sierra Leone want to take the country, as they have taken my goods from me,' (probably alluding to the capture of slave ships). I then got up and called Mr. Taylor, a mulatto man, who was present, to

bear witness to all that Crundell had said, as he would, sooner or later, be called to account for it. I told him I knew he did not want the slave-trade to stop: he wished to kill the people's children and to drink their blood. He said he did not know what I meant. As for selling slaves, God had ordered them to sell slaves: if God did not like it, why did he not put a stop to it? I told him that God had ordered him not to swear: why did he not obey him in this too? Mr. Taylor then told him, that what he had said against the governor was not right: the governor loved the people, and did not like they should continue in slavery: the letter he had sent was a friendly letter: if Kizell had not been a trusty man, the governor would not have sent him; Yet you, Crundell, tell the people not to hear him.' Crundell asked, why had they not rather sent him the act, and desired him not to sell slaves? but now he would sell slaves. I told him that he knew the law already, but that he wanted to fatten on the people's blood.' p. 116, 117.

In all his negotiations, Kizell found the utmost aid from the old treaty between the king of England and the Sherbro chiefs. But they did not fail now and then to complain of the British monarch for the slave-trading policy of his government. I told 'them,' says he, to look at Tasso: all the young people of that 'place had been sold: the town was now broken up, and had 'none but old people in it. As I spoke, they all hung down 'their heads. They said, " All the letter says is truth: all you "6 say is the truth; we can say nothing against it." Then I said 'they must leave off these practices. They said, "They knew "that the kings of England and Sherbro were friends in the "old time; the old people had told them so: but the king of "England had thrown them away, and had sent his ships to buy "them, although the agreement was, that they were not to be ແ sold, as they were his people." This was rather a home observation, and might have puzzled a more experienced and regular diplomatist. But our ambassador got out of the difficulty as well as Talleyrand himself could have done. He told them, I have heard so too; but it is a subject on which I can't give an answer. You must send a man to the governor, and he 'will give you an answer.' The following picture of the character and condition of the people, and of their king, is curious. We also see in it the effects of the slave-trade but too visibly.

'I will now describe how the natives live in this country. They are all alike, the great and the poor; you cannot tell the master from the servant at first. The servant has as much to say as his master in any common discourse, but not in a palaver, for that belongs only to the master. Of all people I have ever seen, I think they are the kindest. They will let none of their people want for victuals: they will lend, and not look for it again: they will even lend clothes to each other, if they want to go any where: if strangers come to them,

they will give them water to wash, and oil to anoint their skin, and give them victuals for nothing: they will go out of their beds that the strangers may sleep in them. The women are particularly kind. The men are very fond of palm wine; they will spend a whole day in looking for palm wine. They love dancing; they will dance all night. They have but little, yet they are happy whilst that little lasts. At times they are greatly troubled with the slave-trade, by some of them being caught under different pretences. A man owes money; or some one of his family owes it; or he has been guilty of adultery. In these cases, if unable to seize the party themselves, they give him up to some one who is able, and who goes and takes them by force of arms. On one occasion, when I lived in the Sherbro, a number of armed men came to seize five persons living under me, who, they said, had been thus given to them. We had a great quarrel: I would not give them up: we had five days' palaver: there were three chiefs against me. I told them if they did sell the people whom they had caught at my place, I would complain to the governor. After five days' talk, I recovered them. Sometimes I am astonished to see how contented they are with so little; I consider that happiness does not consist in plenty of goods.

The king is poorer than any of his subjects. I have many a time gone into the houses of their kings. Sometimes I have seen one box, and a bed made of sticks on the ground, and a mat, or two country cloths, on the bed. He is obliged to work himself if he has no wives and children. He has only the name of king, without the power: he cannot do as he pleases. When there is a palaver, he must have it settled before the rest of the old men, who are all looked upon as much as the king; and the people will give ear to them as soon as they will to the king.' p. 125-127.

So various is the condition of kings in different countries! From this and other parts in Kizell's letters, a king is in these tribes really regarded as a sort of evil or burthen; if we may use the expression-a bore. Thus he says, when a present comes to the king, he gets but little of it. If he is old, they will sometimes tell him he has long eaten of the country, and it is time 'for the young people to eat as he has done. If the present con'sists of rum, they all must have a taste of it, if there is not 'more than a table spoonful for each. If tobacco, and there is 'not enough to give every one a leaf, it must be cut so that all 'may have a piece. If it is a jug of rum, the king gets one bot'tle full.' What a country this for poor kings to live in! The trade is really not fit for a gentleman. No revenue-no privy purse-no favourites no droits of admiralty-no sums for outfits, for fêtes, for separate households. Even the word of the poor prince goes no further than another man's; and, at a palaver, his promise is not listened to with more, if so much, attention!

VOL. I. New Series.

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