plant and build, as in similar cases a white man assuredly would have been, they were allowed to loaf, lie, and cheat through a life equally harmful to themselves and others. 'Laws of labour,' says an African writer, [Footnote: Sierra Leone Weekly Times, July 30, 1862.] 'may be out of place (date?) in England, but in Sierra Leone they would have saved an entire population from trusting to the allurements of a petty, demoralising trade; they would have saved us the sight of decayed villages and a people becoming daily less capable of bearing the laborious toil of agricultural industry. To handle the hoe has now become a disgrace, and men have lost their manhood by becoming gentlemen.' I shall presently return to this subject.

Thus the four colonies which successively peopled Sá Leone were composed of destitute paupers from England, of fugitive Nova Scotian serviles, of outlawed Jamaican negroes, and of slave-prisoners or criminals from every region of Western and inner Africa.

The first society of philanthropists, the 'Sierra Leone Company,' failed, but not without dignity. It had organised a regular government, and even coined its own money. In the British Museum a silver piece like a florin bears on the obverse 'Sierra Leone Company, Africa,' surrounding a lion guardant standing on a mountain; the reverse shows between the two numbers 50 and 50 two joined hands, representing the union of England and Africa, and the rim bears 'half-dollar piece, 1791,' the year of the creation of the colony. The Company's intentions were pure; its hopes and expectations were lofty, and the enthusiasts flattered themselves that they had proved the practicability of civilising Africa. But debt and native wars ended their career, and transferred, on January 1, 1808, their rights to the Crown. The members, however, did not lose courage, but at once formed the African Institution, the parent of the Royal Geographical Society.

The government of the Crown colony has undergone some slight modifications. In 1866 it was made, with very little forethought, a kind of government-general, the centre of rule for all the West African settlements. The unwisdom of this step was presently recognised, and Sá Leone is now under a charter dated December 17, 1874, the governor-in-chief having command over the administration of Bathurst, Gambia. Similarly farther south, Lagos, now the Liverpool of West Africa, has been bracketed, foolishly enough, with the Gold Coast.

The liberateds, called by the people 'Cruits,' and officially 'recaptives,' soon became an important factor. In 1811 they numbered 2,500 out of 4,500; and between June 1819 and January 1833 they totalled 27,167 hands. They are now represented by about seventeen chief, and two hundred minor, tribes. A hundred languages, according to Mr. Koelle, increased to a hundred and fifty by Bishop Vidal, and reduced to sixty by Mr. Griffith, are spoken in the streets of Freetown, a 'city' which in 1860 numbered 17,000 and now 22,000 souls. The inextricably mixed descendants of the liberateds may be a total of 35,430, more than half the sum of the original settlement, 53,862. Being mostly criminals, and ergo more energetic spirits, they have been the most petted and patronised by colonial rule. There were governors who attempted to enforce our wise old regulations touching apprenticeship, still so much wanted in the merchant navy; but disgust, recall, or death always shortened their term of office. Naturally enough, the 'Cruits' were fiercely hated by Colonists, Settlers, and Maroons. Mrs. Melville reports an elderly woman exclaiming, 'Well, 'tis only my wonder that we (settlers) do not rise up in one body and kill and slay, kill and slay! Dem Spanish and Portuguese sailors were quite right in making slaves. I would do de same myself, suppose I were in dere place.' 'He is only a liberated!' is a favourite sneer at the new arrivals; so in the West Indies, by a curious irony of fate, 'Willyfoss nigger' is a term of abuse addressed to a Congo or Guinea 'recaptive.' But here all the tribes are bitterly hostile to one another, and all combine against the white man. After the fashion of the Gold Coast they have formed themselves into independent caucuses called 'companies,' who set aside funds for their own advancement and for the ruin of their rivals.

The most powerful and influential races are two—the Aku and the Ibo. The Akus [Footnote: This is a nickname from the national salutation, 'Aku, ku, ku?' ('How d'ye do?')] or Egbas of Yoruba, the region behind Lagos, the Eyeos of the old writers, so called from their chief town, 'Oyo,' are known by their long necklaces of tattoo. They are termed the Jews of Western Africa; they are perfect in their combination, and they poison with a remarkable readiness. The system of Egba 'clanship' is a favourite, sometimes an engrossing, topic for invective with the local press, who characterise this worst species of 'trades-union,' founded upon intimidation and something worse, as the 'Aku tyranny' and the 'Aku Inquisition.' The national proverb speaks the national sentiment clearly enough: 'Okàn kau lè ase ibi, ikoko li asi ìmolle bi atoju ìmolle taù, ke atoju ibi pella, bi aba kû ara enni ni isni 'ni' ('A man must openly practise the duties of kinship, even though he may privately belong to a (secret) club; when he has attended the club he must also attend to the duties of kinship, because when he dies his kith and kin are those who bury him').

The Ibos, or 'Eboes' of American tales, are even more divided; still they feel and act upon the principle 'Union is strength.' This large and savage tribe, whose headquarters are at Abo, about the head of the Nigerian delta, musters strong at Sá Leone; here they are the Swiss of the community; the Kruboys, and further south the Kabenda-men being the 'Paddies.' It is popularly said that while the Aku will do anything for money, the Ibo will do anything for revenge. Both races are astute in the extreme and intelligent enough to work harm. Unhappily, their talents rarely take the other direction. In former days they had faction-fights: the second eastern district witnessed the last serious disturbance in 1834. Now they do battle under the shadow of the law. 'Aku constables will not, unless in extreme cases, take up their delinquent countrymen, nor will an Ebo constable apprehend an Ebo thief; and so on through all the different tribes,' says the lady 'Resident of Sierra Leone.' If the majority of the jury be Akus, they will unhesitatingly find the worst of Aku criminals innocent, and the most innocent of whites, Ibos, or Timnis guilty. The Government has done its best to weld all those races into one, and has failed. Many, however, are becoming Moslems, as at Lagos, and this change may have a happier effect by introducing the civilisation of El-Islam.

Trial by jury has proved the reverse of a blessing to most non-English lands; in Africa it is simply a curse. The model institution becomes here, as in the United States, a better machine for tyranny than any tyrant, except a free people, ever invented. The British Constitution determines that a man shall be tried by his peers. Half a dozen of his peers at Sá Leone may be full-blooded blacks, liberated slaves, half-reformed fetish-worshippers, sometimes with a sneaking fondness for Shángo, the Egba god of fire; and, if not criminals and convicts in their own country, at best paupers clad in dishclouts and palm-oil. The excuse is that a white jury cannot be collected among the forty or fifty eligibles in Freetown. It is vain to 'challenge,' for other negroes will surely take the place of those objected to. No one raises the constitutional question, 'Are these half-reclaimed savages my peers?' And if he did, Justice would sternly reply, 'Yes.' The witnesses will forswear themselves, not, like our 'posters,' for half a crown, but gratis, because the plaintiff or defendant is a fellow-tribesman. The judge may