CLVII.
Sierra Leone, West Coast of Africa, March 14, 1860.
Two days’ steaming brought us from Bathurst, Gambia river, to this, the oldest English settlement on the west coast of Africa. It is situated upon a broad bay at the entrance of the Sierra Leone river, with high hills and peaks in the distance. The soil looks reddish, like that of New Jersey, but is thoroughly charged with iron. The vegetation is decidedly tropical, producing palm oil, ginger, spices, gum, bread-fruit, oranges, bananas, pineapples, etc. The heat is oppressive.
The fever epidemic has destroyed fifty-eight out of ninety-eight white residents within thirty days. The Catholic mission is closed, the bishop and the priests under his charge having died. The other missions also suffered, but not to the same extent. One of the prominent colored missionaries of the English Episcopal church I found to be a native of Charleston, South Carolina. He had lost his white German wife by fever.
I visited the schools for the education of the young males and females, and found them getting on very well in their studies. The sons of negroes who have been slaves in other countries, and who are traders and general dealers, appreciate the importance of education; but those of the villages and in the suburbs live in that listless manner characteristic of the negro. They perform but little labor, sufficient only to procure rum and tobacco as luxuries, for nature furnishes yams and other necessaries of life without much effort, preferring to bask and sleep in the rays of the broiling sun, which are death to the white man.
The French consul, to whom I had a letter and with whom I dined, drove me to his villa on the shore, some miles from town, a beautiful spot, where nature appeared in all her loveliness; but the insidious fever had closed the mission edifice in the neighborhood. We drove through villages at different times and in different directions up and down the coast, among hedges of lime trees twenty feet high, filled with fruit, resembling the wild vegetation of Venezuela. The umbrella-topped palm grows in profusion. The oleander and other hot-house plants with us, standing fifteen feet high, in bloom, as in the West Indies; pine-apple bushes laden with fruit are growing in a wild state; and the wide-spreading branches of the mango offer opportunity for repose, but the threatened fever for the white man breaks the charm.
The African fever this year has carried off thousands of the negroes also. The present population, mostly black, is computed to be forty thousand. The garrison is English, but the officers only are white, the soldiery consisting of natives and captured slaves, who are apprenticed. The vessels in the harbor during the epidemic, a few months since, lost in some cases captains, officers, crews, and even the cats on board, leaving the vessel riding alone at anchor. We don’t sleep ashore as yet on any occasion.
The few white residents left are most hospitable, and my letters were such as to furnish all the civilities the settlement can afford. A wealthy German merchant, who has a native wife, as most persons have on the African coast, did all the honors for the Vaterland, a German missionary, whom I knew at Teneriffe, and who had left for his health, having given me letters.
The thermometer stands at from eighty-eight to ninety-seven in the shade, so that a piece of ice from the steamer, sent as a present by the officers of our ship to their friends and acquaintances, is esteemed a great luxury. White umbrellas are in vogue.
The next steamer will bring out the new Governor and English Bishop, his predecessor being dead. The Spanish consul and vice-consul both died, and the acting French consul has just been decorated by the Spanish Queen for services rendered during the crisis.
The English steamer Pluto is in port, having just returned from St. Helena after the capture of the American bark Orion with eight hundred and fifty slaves. These are apprenticed for a number of years, and a bounty of five pounds or twenty-five dollars her head is paid to the officers of the ship by the English government in addition to the thirty-five shillings per ton upon the hull. The vessels are then condemned and sawn in two. Several such half hulks lie on the beach here. I noticed two American schooners in port, fine rakish looking vessels, appearing as if they were for what they call here the “black-bird trade.” Our American officers, whom I met in the Canary islands, complain that they cannot get prizes, as the English have spies all along the coast and get information, which they can afford to pay for, as John Bull pays such large prize money, while our people pay only in sympathy.
An amusing incident has just occurred. A negro soldier came on deck and handed me a note. I found he spoke but little English jargon, which the negroes use, and I asked him where he came from. He said he was a captured slave, and now received half-pay for military service. At that moment he recognised a Portuguese passenger as the man who had sold him on the coast. His eye glistened with anger as he spoke to the person, and said, “You sold me.” The Portuguese could not recollect him, as he was one out of one hundred and sixty which he admitted he bought, and sold at a profit of twenty-eight dollars per head. On further conversation, the negro admitted that he was now very glad of the change.
The brig Harris, an American, has lately been taken. The English had watched the vessel for a long time as suspicious, and, in fact, knew what it was up to, but it is policy for them to wait until the negroes are on board; thus they get apprentices and the bounty money. In the evening the Englishman visited the ship, the cargo was already on board, the hatches closed, and some negroes lying on deck, who were reported as native sailors of the coast. The crew were pulling the tails of pigs to make them squeal, to prevent the hearing of noise from the hold, where officers stood with revolvers, threatening the negroes if they did not keep quiet. The hatches were down twenty minutes. The commander left, satisfied that the game was not yet bagged, and went away, when an English captain informed him that he had seen the negroes going on board. Had it not been for this information the American would have been off. He was watched, boarded, and commanded to haul down his flag and give up his papers. The American denied the right to board him, according to treaty. Then, said the commander, I will detain you until I find an American cruizer, and you will be delivered up and tried as a pirate. The effect was produced, and a compromise took place. The Englishman turned his back, the flag was hauled down, and the papers were thrown overboard, officers and men permitted to leave with their effects, and the vessel seized as a prize, without nationality of papers, or flag.