and the old French 'Serrelionne' was the most correct translation. The reason is disputed; some invoke the presence of the Queen of the Cats, others the leonine rumbling of the re-echoed thunder. The latter suggested the Montes Claros of the Portuguese. Cà da Mosto in 1505 tells us that the explorers 'gave the name of Sierra Leone to the mountain on account of the roaring of thunder heard from the top, which is always buried in clouds.' But the traveller, entering the roadstead, may see in the outline of Leicester Cone a fashion of maneless lion or lioness couchant with averted head, the dexter paw protruding in the shape of a ground-bulge and the contour of the back and crupper tapering off north-eastwards. At any rate, it is as fair a resemblance as the French lion of Bastia and the British lion of 'Gib.' Meanwhile those marvellous beings the 'mammies' call 'the city' 'Sillyown,' and the pretty, naughty mulatto lady married to the Missing Link termed it 'Sa Leone.' I shall therefore cleave to the latter, despite 'Mammy Gumbo's' box inscribed 'Sa leone.'
Presently the lighthouse, four to five miles distant from the anchorage, was seen nestling at the base of old Cabo Ledo, the 'Glad Head,' the Timni 'Miyinga,' now Cape 'Sa Leone.' Round this western point the sea and the discharge of two rivers run like a mill-race. According to Barbot (ii. 1) 'the natives call Cabo Ledo (not Liedo) or Tagrin (Cape Sa Leone) 'Hesperi Cornu,' the adjoining peoples (who are lamp-black) Leucsethiopes, and the mountain up the country Eyssadius Mons.' All the merest conjecture! Mr. Secretary Griffith, of whom more presently, here finds the terminus of the Periplus of Hanno, the Carthaginian, in the sixth century B.C., and the far-famed gorilla-land. [Footnote: This I emphatically deny. Hanno describes an eruption, not a bush-fire, and Sa Leone never had a volcano within historic times. There is no range fit to be called Theôn Ochema (Vehicle of the Gods), which Ptolemy places on the site of Camarones Peak, and there is no Notou Keras, or Horn of the South. Lastly, there is no island that could support the gorilla: we must go further south for one, to Camarones and Corisoo in the Bight of Benin.]
Formerly the red-tipped lantern-tower had attached to it a bungalow, where invalids resorted for fresh air; it has now fallen to pieces, and two iron seats have taken its place. Over this western end of the peninsula's northern face the play of the sea-breeze is strong and regular; and the wester and north-wester blow, as at Freetown, fifty days out of sixty. The run-in from this point is picturesque in clear weather, and it must have been beautiful before the luxuriant forest was felled for fuel, and the land was burnt for plantations which were never planted. A few noble trees linger beside and behind the lighthouse, filling one with regret for the wanton destruction of their kind. Lighthouse Hillock, which commands the approach to the port, and which would sweep the waters as far as the Sá Leone River, will be provided with powerful batteries before the next maritime war. And we must not forget that Sá Leone is our only harbour of refuge, where a fleet can water and refit, between the Gambia and the Cape of Good Hope.
The northern face of the Sá Leone peninsula is fretted with little creeks and inlets, bights and lagoons, which were charming in a state of nature. Pirate's Bay, the second after the lighthouse, is a fairy scene under a fine sky; with its truly African tricolor, its blue waters reflecting air, its dwarf cliffs of laterite bespread with vivid leek-green, and its arc of golden yellow sand, upon which the feathery tops of the cocoa-palms look like pins planted in the ground. To the travelled man the view suggests many a nook in the Pacific islands. The bathing is here excellent: natural breakwaters of black rock exclude the shark. The place derives its gruesome name from olden days, when the smooth waters and the abundant fish and fruit tempted the fiery filibusters to a relache. It was given in 1726 by Mr. Smith, surveyor to the Royal African Company, after Roberts the pirate, who buried 'his loot' in the Isles de Los, had burned an English ship. There is also a tradition that Drake chose it for anchoring.
Beyond Pirate's Bay, and separated by a bushy and wooded point, lies Aberdeen Creek, a long reach extending far into the interior, and making, after heavy rains, this portion of the country
Both land and island twice a day.
The whole site of Sa Leone is quasi-insular. Bunce or Bunch River to the north, and Calamart or Calmont, usually called Campbell's Creek, from the south, are said to meet at times behind the mountain-mass; and at all seasons a portage of a mile enables canoes to paddle round the hill-curtain behind Freetown. This conversion of peninsula into islet is by no means rare in the alluvial formations further south.
Aberdeen Creek abounds in sunken rocks, which do not, however, prevent a ferry-boat crossing it. Governor Rowe began a causeway to connect it with the next village, and about a third of the length has already been done by convict labour. Aberdeen village is a spread of low thatched huts, lining half-cleared roads by courtesy called streets. Murray Town and Congo Town bring us to King Tom's Point. Here is the old Wesleyan College, a large whitewashed bungalow with shingled roof, upper jalousies, and lower arches; the band of verdure in front being defended from the waves by a dwarf sea-wall and a few trees still lingering around it. The position is excellent: the committee, however, sold it because the distance was too great for the boys to walk, and bought a fitter place near Battery Point. Thus it became one of the many Government stores. A deep indentation now shows Upper Town or Kru Town, heaps of little thatched hovels divided by remnants of bush. It is, despite its brook, one of the impurest sites in the colony: nothing can teach a Kruman cleanliness; a Slav village is neatness itself compared with his. This foul colony settled early in Sá Leone, and in 1816 an ordinance was passed enabling it to buy its bit of land. The present chief is 'King' Tom Peter, who is also a first-class police-constable under the Colonial Grovernment; and his subjects hold themselves far superior to their brethren in the old home down coast. 'We men work for cash-money; you men work for waist-cloth.' Again 'pig-iron and tenpenny nails!'
Beyond this point, at a bend of the bight, we anchor a few hundred feet from the shore, and we command a front view of roadstead and 'city.' St. George's Bay, the older 'Baie de France,' would be impossible but for the Middle Ground, the Scarcies Bank, and other huge shoals of sand pinned down by rocks which defend the roadstead from the heavy send of the sea. It is supplied with a tide-rip by the Tagrin, Mitomba, Rokel, or Rokelle, the Sá Leone River, which Barbot makes the ancients term Nia (Nia), and which the Timni tribe call Robung Dakell, or Stream of Scales. Hence some identify it with Pliny's 'flumen Bambotum crocodilis et hippopotamis refertum.' Its northern bank is the low Bullom shore, a long flat line of mud and mangrove, on which all the fevers, Tertiana, Quartana, and Co., hold their court. The sea-facing dot is Leopard, anciently Leopold, Island, where it is said a leopard was once seen: it is, however, a headland connected by a sandspit with the leeward-most point of the coast. The Bullom country takes a name after its tribe. A score of years ago I was told they were wild as wild can be: now the chief, Alimami (El-Imám) Sanúsi, hospitably receives white faces at his capital, Callamondia. Moreover, a weekly post passes through Natunu to Kaikonki via Yongro, Proboh, and Bolloh.
Inland (east) of the Bulloms, or lowlanders, dwell the Timnis, who drove to seaward the quondam lords of the land. Kissy, Sherbro, and Casamansa are all named from their 'Reguli.' They retain a few traditional words, such as 'potu,' meaning a European: similarly in Central Africa the King of Portugal is entitled Mueneputo. Butter is also 'Mantinka,' the Lusitanian Mantêiga, and a candle is Kandirr. Although 'the religion of Islam seems likely to diffuse itself peaceably over the whole district in which the colony (Sá Leone) is situated, carrying with it those advantages which seem ever to have attended its victory over negro superstition,' [Footnote: Report of Directors of Sierra Leone Company to the House of Commons, quoted by Winterbottom and the Rev. Mr. Macbriar.] the tribe has remained pagan.