gets a shape in his cloth. I will go and ask
him again this thing.” And he went to the
spider, and took him another offering, and said:
“Oh, my lord, teach me more things.”
And he sat and watched him for many days. By
and by he saw more (his eyes were opened) and he saw
the spider made his net on sticks, and so he went
home and got fine bush rope that he had collected,
and taken there, to make his game nets with, and he
brought them to the bush near the spider, and fixing
the strings on to the bush he made a new net and he
got shape into it, and he made more nets this way,
and every net he made was better. And his wife
was pleased and gave him sons, and by and by the man
saw that he did not want all the sticks of a bush to
make his net on, only some of them; and so he took
these home and put them up in his house, and made
his nets there, and after a time his wife said:
“Why do you make the stuff for me with that bush
rope? Why do you not make it with something
finer?” And he went into the bush and took
offerings to the spider and said: “Oh,
my lord, teach me more things!” And he sat
and watched the spider, but the spider only went on
making stuff out of his belly. And the man said:
“Oh, my lord, you pass me. I cannot do
this thing.” And as he went home he thought
and saw that there are trees, and there are bush ropes,
thick bush rope and thin bush rope, and then there
is grass which was thinner still, and he took the
grass, and tried to make a net with it, and did this
thing and made more nets and every net he made was
better. And his wife was pleased and said “This
is good cloth.” And the man lived to be
very old and was a great chief and a great hunter.
For it is good for a man to be a great hunter, and
it is good for a man to please women. This is
the origin of the cloth loom.
It was in the old time, and men have got now thread
on spools from the white man, for the white man is
a great spider; but this is how the black man learnt
to make cloth.
{14} Sierra Leone has been known since the voyage
of Hanno of Carthage in the sixth century B.C., but
it has not got into general literature to any great
extent since Pliny. The only later classic who
has noticed it is Milton, who in a very suitable portion
of Paradise Lost says of Notus and Afer, “black
with thunderous clouds from Sierra Lona.”
Our occupation of it dates from 1787.
{15} Lagos also likes to bear this flattering appellation,
and has now-a-days more right to the title.
{28} Along the Coast, and in other parts of Africa,
the coarser, flat-sided kinds of banana are usually
called plantains, the name banana being reserved for
the finer sorts, such as the little “silver
banana.”
{37} From Point Limbok, the seaward extremity of Cameroons
Mountain, to Cape Horatio, the most eastern extremity
of Fernando Po, the soundings are, from the continent,
13, 17, 20, 23, 27, 29, 30, 34 fathoms; close on to
the island, 35 and 29 fathoms.
