To the Gold Coast for Gold eBook

In our older and more energetic colonial days we had a garrison on the Isles de Los.  They found the climate inferior to the Banana group, off Cape Shilling.  Factory Island still deserves its name.  Here M. Verminck, of Marseille, the successor of King Heddle, has a factory on the eastern side, an establishment managed by an agent and six clerks, with large white dwellings, store-houses, surf-boats, and a hulk to receive his palm-oil.  The latter produces the finest prize-cockroaches I have yet seen.

My lack of strength did not allow me to inspect the volcanic craters said to exist in these strips, or to visit any of the ‘devil-houses.’  Mr. G. Neville, agent of the steamers at Lagos, gave me an account of his trip.  Landing near the French factory, he walked across the island in fifteen minutes, followed the western coast-line, turned to the south-west, descended a hollow, and found the place of sacrifice.  Large boulders, that looked as if shaken down by an earthquake, stood near one another.  There were neither idols nor signs of paganism, except that the floor, which resembled the dripstone of Tenerife, was smoothed by the feet of the old worshippers.  When steaming round the south-western point we saw—­at least so it was said—­the famous ‘devil-house’ which gave the islands their Portuguese name.

Factory is divided by a narrow strait from Tumbo Island, and the latter faces the lands occupied by the Susus.  These equestrian tribes, inhabiting a grassy plain, were originally Mandengas, who migrated south to the Mellikuri, Furikaria, and Sumbuyah countries, and who intermarried with the aboriginal Bulloms, Tonko-Limbas, and Baggas.  All are Moslems, and their superior organisation enabled them to prevail against the pagan Timnis, who in 1858-59 applied to the Government of Sierra Leone for help, and received it.  Of late years the chances of war have changed, and the heathenry are said to have gained the upper hand.  The Susus are an industrious tribe, and they trade with our colony in gum, ground-nuts, and benni, or sesamum-seed.

It is uncommonly pleasant to leave these hotbeds and once more to breathe the cool, keen breath of the Trades, laden with the health of the broad Atlantic.

CHAPTER XI.

SIERRA LEONE:  THE CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.

After a pleasant run, not in a ‘sultry and tedious Pacific,’ covering 490 miles from Bathurst, we sighted a heavy cloud banking up the southern horizon.  As we approached it resolved itself into its three component parts, the airy, the earthy, and the watery; and it turned out to be our destination.  The old frowze of warm, water-laden nimbus was there; everything looked damp and dank, lacking sweetness and sightliness; the air wanted clearing, the ground cleaning, and the sea washing.  Such on January 17, 1882, was the first appearance of the redoubtable Sierra Leone.  It was a contrast