Running the eye west of the Battery, a few wooden houses or sheds, some of them overhanging the dwarf cliff, the black rocks, and the red-yellow sands, lead to Taylor's warehouses, a huge pile of laterite still unfinished. Here the traditional 'man and boy' may sometimes be seen working in the cooler and more comfortable hours. Beyond it, on a level with the water, stands the new camber, where we shall land. Then comes the huge block built by Mr. Charles Heddle, of Hoy, who by grace of a large fortune, honourably made at Freetown, has become proprietor of a noble château and broad lands in France. It has now been converted into the Crown commissariat-store. The sea-frontage has a clear fall of eighty feet, whereas, from the street behind the wooden upper story, it appears below the average height. Very mean are the custom-house and adjoining coal-shed. Governor 'Dangan's Wharf,' a contemptible jetty, and its puny lighthouse have at length made way for a quay, along which ships, despite sunken rocks, were expected to lie; but the sea soon broke down the perpendicular wall, and now it is being rebuilt with a 'batter.' A hollow square behind it shows the workmen blasting the material, a fine-grained grey granite, which seems here, as at Axim, to be the floor-rock of the land. No wonder that the new harbour-works have cost already 70,000l., of which 50,637l. are still owed, and that the preposterous wharfage-duty is 10s. per ton. To avoid this and the harbour-dues, ships anchor, whenever they safely can, in the offing, where the shoals are Nature's breakwaters. West of the quarry-hollow, in my day a little grassy square, are the old Commissariat-quarters, now a bonded warehouse. This building is also a long low cottage viewed from inland, and a tall, grim structure seen from the sea. On a higher level stands St. George's, once a church, but years ago promoted to a cathedral-dignity, making Freetown proud as Barchester Towers. We shall presently pass it and its caricature, the pert little Wesleyan church to its east. The extreme west of the triangle-base is occupied by the gaol. No longer a 'barn-like structure faced by a black wall,' it is a lengthy scatter of detached buildings, large enough to accommodate half the population, and distinguished by its colour, a light ashen grey. Behind this projecting site lies King Jimmy's Bridge, a causeway through whose central arch a stream of sparkling water winds its way seawards.
Below King Jimmy's Bridge is the only antiquity which Sá Leone knows. Here, according to some, Sir Francis Drake, the discoverer of California and her gold, the gallant knight of whom the Virgin Queen said that 'his actions did him more honour than his title,' left his name upon the buttress of primitive rock. Others have (correctly?) attributed the inscription to Sir John Hawkins, the old naval worthy whose name still blossoms in the dust at Sá Leone as the 'first slaver.' The waters and the tramp of negro feet have obliterated the epigraph, which was, they say, legible forty years ago. The rock is covered with griffonages; and here some well-cut square letters easily read—
M. A. RVITER.
VICE-AMIRALL-
VAN-HOLLANT.
Near this 'written rock' is King James's Well, a pure stream which in former times supplied the shipping.
The scene in the harbour is by no means lively, although the three or four dismantled merchant-craft, dreary as the settlement, have now disappeared. A little white-painted colonial steamer, a dwarf paddle-wheeler, the Prince of Wales, lies moping and solitary off foul Krutown Bay. At times a single gunboat puts in an appearance. There may be a French steamer with a blue anchor on a white flag bound for Sherbro, or the Isles de Los; and a queer Noah's Ark kind of craft, belonging to Mr. Broadhurst, a partner in Randall and Fisher's, runs to the river Scarcies and others. These are the grandees of the waters. The middle class is composed of Porto Loko [Footnote: Porto Loko—not Locco—derives its name from a locust-tree, whose fruit is an ingredient in 'palaver sauce;' and Winterbottom (I.4), who calls it Logo, derives the word from the land of that name.] boats, which affect the streams and estuaries. Originally canoes, they were improved to the felucca-type of the Portuguese, and the hulls reminded Cameron and myself of the Zanzibarian 'Mtepe.' A strong standing-awning of wood occupies the sternward third; the masts number two or three, with a short jib, and there are six oars on each side, worked by men on foot, who alternately push and pull—a thoroughly novel process in rowing. The Sá Leone boats which carry passengers on shore are carefully named, but apparently never washed: they want the sunshades of the Bathurst craft. The commonalty of the sea is the host of dug-outs, in which the sable fisherman, indolently thrown back, props his feet upon the gunwales and attaches a line to each big toe. These men land little more than enough for their own subsistence, and the market-supply is infinitesimal compared with what industry and proper appliances might produce.
The background of the 'city' is a green curtain of grass and fruit-trees, amongst which predominate the breadfruit, an early introduction; the prim dark mango, somewhat like an orange multiplied by two, or three, and palms, ever present in equinoctial lowlands. On the heights above the settlement there is room for cool country-seats, where European exiles might live comparatively safe from fever and the more deadly dysentery. A white lodge peeping from a densely wooded mountain-flank, originally Carnes's Farm and now Heddle's Farm, was called Mount Oriel (Oriole?) by Mrs. Melville, the wife of a pensioned judge of the Mixed Customs Court, who lived here seven years. Her sketch of a sojourn upon the Lioness Range is not tempting: young gentlemen who intend leading brides to the deadly peninsula should hide the book from their fair intendeds. I cannot, however, but admire the 'word-painting' of the scenery and the fidelity of those descriptions concerning which I have a right to form an opinion. The book [Footnote: A Residence in Sierra Leone. By a Lady. London: Murray, 1849.] was edited by the late Mrs. Caroline Norton.
Though not more than 550 feet above sea-level, the climate of Heddle's Farm is said to be wholly different from that of the lower town. The property was bought by Government for a song, and now it occasionally lodges a sick governor or a convalescent officer. During my last visit the Sa Leonites spoke of building a sanatorium at Wilberforce village, alias Signal Hill, where a flag announces the approach of vessels. The tenement rose to nearly the first story, when it stopped short for want of funds. Now they talk of a white regiment being stationed at the 'White Man's Grave,' and propose barracks high up the hills beyond sight of the town-frontage. The site was pointed out to me where the artillery-range now is, and beyond where a dwarf thatch shows the musketry-ground of the West India regiment. We shall sight from afar, when steaming out southwards, the three white dots which represent quarters on Leicester Cone; now they are hidden in frowsy fog-clouds. But all these heights have one and the same disadvantage. You live in a Scotch mist, you breathe as much water as air, and you exchange fever and dysentery for rheumatism, and lumbago, and all that dire cohort.
Presently the health-officer with his blue flag gave us pratique, and the fort-adjutant with his red flag carried off our only soldier. The latter, with a hospitality rare, it is to be hoped, in British regiments, would hardly recognise his quondam shipmates. We were duly interviewed, in most civilised style, by a youth who does this work for Mr. George A. Freeman, manager of the 'West African Reporter.' Then the s.s. Senegal was attacked and captured by a host of sable visitors, some coming to greet their friends, other to do a little business in the washing and the shoreboat lines.
The washerwoman lost no time in showing up, although her charges have been greatly reduced. She formerly demanded nearly treble as much as in London; now, however, she makes only sixteen to twenty shillings a month, not bad pay in a place where living costs threepence, and comfortable living sixpence, a day. These nymphs of the wash-tub are painfully familiar and plain. The dress is a bright cotton foulard bound on like the anatomy of a turban and garnished, as were our grandmothers' nightcaps, with huge front bows. Gaudy shawls cover white cotton jackets; and skirts of bright, showy longcloth suggest the parrot or the cockatoo. The ornaments are large gold earrings and necklaces of beads or coral. I could not but remark the difference of tone. There was none of the extreme 'bumptiousness' and pugnacious impudence of twenty years ago; indeed, the beach-boys, nowhere a promising class, were rather civil than otherwise. Not a single allusion to the contrast of 'white niggahs and black gen'lemen.' Nor did the unruly, disorderly African character ever show itself, as formerly it often did, by fisticuffing, hair-pulling, and cursing, with a mixture of English and Dark-Continent ideas and phraseology, whose tout ensemble was really portentous.
The popular voice ascribes this immense change for the better to the energetic action of Governor S. Rowe (1876); and if so his statue deserves to stand beside that of Pope Henessy. We could not fairly complain of the inordinate noise, which would have been the death of a sick traveller. Niger cannot speak without bawling. The charge for landing was only threepence; en revanche the poor fellows stole every little thing they could, including my best meerschaum.