At a later period, I add, that no bad result ensued, either to the captain, myself, or the eight seamen, who were detained ashore on the above occasion. This good fortune may be attributable to the care with which we guarded ourselves from the night-air and the damps; and besides, we left the coast immediately, and, after a brief visit to Sierra Leone, pursued our homeward course to America. On another occasion, a lieutenant, a surgeon, and six men, belonging to our squadron, were detained on shore at Cape Mount, all night, after being capsized and wet. What were their precautions, I am unable to say; but, all the officers and men were attacked by fever, more or less severely, and in one instance fatally. [Footnote: While revising these sheets for the press, the writer hears of an example which may show the necessity of the health-regulations imposed on the American squadron. The U.S. ship Preble ascended the River Gambia to the English settlement of Bathurst, a distance of fifteen miles, to protect the European residents against an apprehended attack of the natives. Although the ship remained but one or two days, yet, in that brief space, about a hundred cases of fever occurred on board, proving fatal to the master, a midshipman, and seventeen of the crew.] And now we leave Liberia behind us, with our best wishes for its prosperity, but with no very anxious desire to breathe its fever-laden atmosphere again. There is enough of interest on the African station; but life blazes quickly away, beneath the glare of that torrid sun; and one year of that climate is equivalent to half a dozen of a more temperate one, in its effect upon the constitution. The voyager returns, with his sallow visage, and emaciated form, and enervated powers, to find his contemporaries younger than himself—to realize that he has taken two or three strides for their one, towards the irrevocable bourne; and has abridged, by so much, the season in which life is worth having for what may be accomplished, or for any zest that may be found in it.
Before quitting the coast, I must not forget that our cruising-ground has a classical claim upon the imagination, as being the very same over which Robinson Crusoe made two or three of his voyages. That famous navigator sailed all along the African shore, between Cape de Verd and the Equator, trading for ivory, for gold dust, and especially for slaves, with as little compunction as Pedro Blanco himself. It is remarkable that De Foe, a man of most severe and delicate conscience, should have made his hero a slave-dealer, and should display a perfect insensibility to anything culpable in the traffic. Morality has taken a great step in advance, since that day; or, at least, it has thrown a strong light on one spot, with perhaps a corresponding shadow on some other. The next age may shift the illumination, and show us sins as great as that of the slave-trade, but which now enter into the daily practice of men claiming to be just and wise.
CHAPTER XXI.
Sierra Leone—Sources of its Population—Appearance of the Town and surrounding Country—Religious Ceremonies of the Mandingoes—Treatment of liberated Slaves—Police of Sierra Leone—Agencies for Emigration to the West Indies—Colored Refugees from the United States—Unhealthiness of Sierra Leone—Dr. Fergusson—Splendid Church—Melancholy Fate of a Queen's Chaplain—Currency—Probable Ruin of the Colony.
October 15.—We arrived off the point of Sierra Leone, last night, and were piloted up to the town, this morning.
This is one of the most important and interesting places on the coast of Africa. It was founded in 1787, chiefly through the benevolent agency of Mr. Granville Sharp, as a place of refuge for a considerable number of colored persons, who had left their masters, and were destitute and unsheltered in the streets of London. Five years later, the population of the colony was recruited by above a thousand slaves, who had fled from the United States to Nova Scotia, during the American revolution. Again, in 1800, there was an addition of more than five hundred maroons, or outlawed negroes, from Jamaica. And finally, since 1807, Sierra Leone has been the receptacle for the great numbers of native Africans liberated from slave-ships, on their capture by British cruisers. Pensioners, with their families, from the black regiments in the West Indies, have likewise been settled here. The population is now estimated at about forty-five thousand; a much smaller amount, probably, than the aggregate of all the emigrants who have been brought hither. The colony has failed to prosper, but not through any lack of effort on the part of England. It is the point, of all others on the African coast, where British energy, capital, and life, have been most profusely expended.
The aspect of the Cape, as you approach it from the sea, is very favorable. You discern cultivated hills, the white mansions of the wealthy, and thatched cottages, neat and apparently comfortable, abodes of the poorer class. Over a space of several miles, the country appears to be in a high state of improvement. One large village is laid out with the regularity of Philadelphia, consisting of seven parallel streets, kept free from grass, with thatched huts on either side, around which are small plots of ground, full of bananas and plantain trees. The town itself is a scene of far greater activity than any other settlement on the West Coast. Great numbers of negroes, of various tribes and marks, are to be seen there. So mixed, indeed, is the colored population, that there is little sympathy or sense of fellowship among them. The Mandingoes seem to be the most numerous, and are the most remarkable in personal appearance. Almost without exception, they are very tall figures, and wear white robes, and high caps without visors.
These Mandingoes hold the faith of Mahomet, and at the time of our arrival, were celebrating the feast of the Ramazan. Several hundreds of them paraded through the streets in a confused mass, occasionally stopping before some gentleman's house, and enacting sundry mummeries, in consideration of which they expected to receive a present. In front of a house where I happened to be, the whole body were ranged in order; and two of them, one armed with a gun, and the other with a bow and arrow, ran from end to end of the line, crouching down and pretending to be on the watch against an enemy. At intervals, their companions, or a portion of them, raised a cry, like those which one hears in the mosques of Asia. The above seemed to compose nearly all the ceremony; and our liberality was in proportion to the entertainment, consisting merely of a handful of coppers, scattered broadcast among the multitude. When this magnificent guerdon was thus proffered to their acceptance, they forthwith forgot their mummery, and joined in a general scramble. The king, or chief, now stept forward, and protested energetically against this mode of distribution; it being customary to consign all the presents to him, to be disposed of according to his better judgment. However, the mob picked up the coppers, and showed themselves indifferently well contented.