“If all three lights I see ahead, I port my helm and show my red,
For green to green and red to red are perfect safety, ‘Go ahead.’
But if to starboard red appear, it is my duty to keep clear.
To act as judgment says is proper, port or starboard, back or stop her.
But when in danger or in doubt I always keep a good look-out.
In danger with no room to turn, I ease her, stop her, or go astern.”
Skippers of these West African liners become well known to the voyagers who pass backwards and forwards at regular intervals, and it is my good fortune to sail with one of the most popular of them. The manner Captain Pooley is regarded by travellers may be gauged from the fact that three on this journey are making the third voyage designedly on his ship and another had altered the date of starting by a fortnight to again be with him.
Twenty years along the West Coast of Africa and among its native population has not dulled the sympathy of Captain Pooley towards that race. All that can possibly be done for the deck passengers, taken on at the various ports, is effected. Canvas awnings are put up to protect the men “and especially the women and babies,” as he explains, from the downpours of the wet season.
The skipper is a storehouse of stories about the Krumen. He tells a tale related by a fellow Captain against himself. He was carrying two white, Rotterdam hogs to the Oil Rivers and noticed one of his Kru sailors seated on the ground, gazing into the pen where the animals were kept. Placing his hand on the Kruman’s woolly pate, he said, “Hullo, my frien’, you look your brudder, eh?”
Turning his face upwards the Kruman answered, “Massa Capin, he no be my brudder,” adding, with a twinkle, “he be white.”