In this section of the nineteenth century it is the custom to admit that the climate is bad and dangerous; but that it has often been made the scape-goat of European recklessness and that much of the sickness and death might be avoided. The improvement is attributed to the use of quinine, unknown to the early settlers, and much is expected from sanatoria and from planting the blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus), which failed, owing to the carelessness and ignorance of the planters. A practical appreciation of the improvement is shown by the Star Life Assurance Society, which has reduced to five per cent. its former very heavy rates. Lastly, the bad health of foreigners is accounted for by the fact that they leave their own country for a climate to which they are not accustomed, where the social life and the habits of the people are so different from their own, and yet that they continue doing all things as in England.
But how stand the facts at the white man's Red Grave? Mrs. Havelock and the wife of the officer commanding the garrison are the only Europeans in the colony, whereas a score of years ago I remember half a dozen. Even the warmest apologisers for the climate will not expose their wives to it, preferring to leave them at home or in Madeira. During last March there were five deaths of white men—that is, more than a third—out of a total of 163. What would the worst of English colonies say to a mortality of 350 per thousand per annum? Of course we are told that it is exceptional, and the case of the insurance societies is quoted. But they forget to tell us the reason. A mail steamer now calls at Freetown once a week, and the invalid is sent home by the first opportunity. Similarly a silly East Indian statistician proved, from the rare occurrence of fatal cases, Aden to be one of the healthiest stations under 'the Company.' He ignored the fact that even a scratch justified the surgeons in shipping a man off on sick leave.
I quite agree with the view of Mr. Frederick Evans: [Footnotes: The Colonies and India, Dec. 24, 1881.] 'Let anyone anxious to test the nature of the climate go to Kew Gardens and sit for a week or two in one of the tropical houses there; he may be assured that he will by no means feel in robust health when he leaves.' The simile is perfect. Europeans living in Africa like Europeans as regards clothing and diet are, I believe, quite right. We tried grass-cloth, instead of broadcloth, in Western India, when general rheumatism was the result. In the matter of meat and drink the Englishman cannot do better than adhere to his old mode of life as much as possible, with a few small modifications. Let him return to the meal-times of Queen Elizabeth's day—
Sunrise breakfast, sun high dinner,
Sundown sup, makes a saint of a sinner—
and especially shun the 9 A.M. breakfast, which leads to a heavy tiffin at 1 P.M., the hottest and most trying section of the day. With respect to diet, if he drinks a bottle of claret in England let him reduce himself in Africa to a pint 'cut' with, water; if he eats a pound of meat he should be contented with eight ounces and an extra quantity of fruit and vegetables. In medicine let him halve his cathartics and double his dose of tonics.
From its topographical as well as its geographical position the climate of Freetown is oppressively hot, damp, and muggy. The annual mean is 79.5° Fahr.; the usual temperature of the dwellings is from 78° to 86° Fahr. Its year is divided into two seasons, the Dries and the Rains. The wet season begins in May and ends with November; for the last five years the average downfall has been 155 inches, five times greater than in rainy England. These five months are times of extreme discomfort. The damp heat, despite charcoal fires in the houses and offices, mildews everything—clothes, weapons, books, man himself. It seems to exhaust all the positive electricity of the nervous system, and it makes the patient feel utterly miserable. It also fills the air with noxious vapours during the short bursts of sunshine perpendicularly rained down, and breeds a hateful brood of what the Portuguese call immundicies—a foul 'insect-youth.' Only the oldest residents prefer the wet to the dry months. The Rains end in the sickliest season of the year, when the sun, now getting the upper hand, sucks the miasmatic vapours from the soil and distributes them to mankind in the shape of ague and fever, dysentery, and a host of diseases. The Dries last from November to April, often beginning with tornadoes and ending with the Harmatan, smokes or scirocco. The climate is then not unlike Bombay, except that it lacks the mild East Indian attempt at a winter, and that barometric pressure hardly varies.
During my last visit to Sá Leone I secured a boat, and, accompanied by Dr. Lovegrove, of the A.S.S. Armenian, set out to inspect the lower bed of the Rokel and the islands which it waters. Passing along Fourah Bay, we remarked in the high background a fine brook, cold, clear, and pure, affording a delicious bath; it is almost dry in the Dries, and swells to a fiumara during the Rains. Its extent was then a diminutive rivulet tumbling some hundreds of feet down a shelving bed into Granville Bay, the break beyond Fourah. On the way we passed several Timni boats, carrying a proportionately immense amount of 'muslin.' Of old the lords of the land, they still come down the river with rice and cocoa-nuts from the Kwiah (Quiah) country, from Porto Loko, from Waterloo, and other places up stream. They not unfrequently console themselves for their losses by a little hard fighting; witness their defence of the Modúka stockade in 1861, when four officers and twenty-three of our men were wounded. [Footnote: Wanderings in West Africa, vol. i pp. 246-47.] Some of the boats are heavy row-barges with a framework of sticks for a stern-awning; an old Mandenga, with cottony beard, sits at each helm. They row simplices munditiis. At Sá Leone men are punished for not wearing overalls, and thus the 'city' becomes a rag-fair. The Timni men are dark negroids with the slightest infusion of Semitic blood; some had coated their eyebrows and part of their faces with chalk for ophthalmia. They appeared to be merry fellows enough; and they are certainly the only men in the colony who ever pretend to work. A Government official harshly says of them, 'I would willingly ascribe to the nearest of our neighbours and their representatives in Freetown, of whom there are many, some virtues if they possessed any; but, unfortunately, taken as a people, they have been truly described by able and observant writers as dishonest and depraved.' Mr. Secretary evidently forgets the 'civilising' and infectious example of Sá Leone, versus the culture of El-Islam.
Arrived at Bishopscourt, we disembarked and visited the place. Here in old days 'satisfaction' was given and taken; and a satirical medico declared that forty years of rencontres had not produced a single casualty. He was more witty than wise; I heard of one gentleman who had been 'paraded' and 'winged.' Old Granville Town, which named the bay, has completely disappeared; the ruins of the last house are gone from the broad grassy shelf upon which the first colonists built their homes.
From Granville Bay the traveller may return by the 'Kissy Road.' Once it was the pet promenade, the Corso, the show-walk of Freetown; now it has become a Tottenham Court Road, to which Water, Oxford, and Westmoreland Streets are preferred. The vegetation becomes splendid, running up to the feet of the hills, which swell suddenly from the shelf-plain. The approach to Sá Leone is heralded by a row of shops even smaller and meaner than those near the market-place. There are whole streets of these rabbit-hutches, whose contents 'mammy,' when day is done, carries home in a 'bly'-basket upon her head, possibly leaving 'titty' to mount guard upon the remnant. The stock in trade may represent a capital of 4l., and the profits 1s. a day. Yet 'daddy' styles himself merchant, gets credit, and spends his evenings conversing and smoking cigars—as a gentleman should—with his commercial friends.
Passing the easternmost end of the peninsula, and sailing along the Bullom ('lowland') shores, we verified Dr. Blyden's assertion that this 'home of fevers' shows no outward and visible sign of exceeding unhealthiness. The soil is sandy, the bush is comparatively thin, and the tall trees give it the aspect of a high and dry land. We then turned north-east and skirted Tasso Island, a strip of river-holm girt with a wall of mangroves. It had an old English fort, founded in 1695; the factors traded with the Pulo (Fulah) country for slaves, ivory, and gold. It was abandoned after being taken by Van Ruyter, when he restored to the Dutch West Indian Company the conquests of Commodore Holmes. The rich soil in 1800 supported a fine cotton plantation, and here Mr. Heddle kept a 'factory.' The villagers turned out to gaze, not habited like the Wolofs of Albreda, but clad in shady hats and seedy pantaloons.