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Then he found a river full of the smell of fever and mud, with green stuff growing far into its waters, and a current that made the flatiron gasp and grunt. "We will turn up here," said Bai-Jove-Judson, and they turned up accordingly; Mr. Davies wondering what in the world it all meant, and the Kroo boys grinning.
But, no matter what tricks it played, a Kroo boy rode it as easily as though it were a horse in a merry-go-round. It was a wonderful exhibition. It furnished all the thrills that one gets when watching a cowboy on a bucking bronco, or a trained seal. Again and again a log, in wicked conspiracy with another log, would plan to entice a Kroo boy between them, and smash him.
Anchored at eleven A.M. A boat being sent ashore, brought news of the death of Mr. Sawyer, the missionary. He left a wife, now the only white person at the place. The boats landed at Settra Kroo, to settle a palaver. The matter in question was the violence offered by the natives to Captain Brown, master of an American vessel, in striking and attempting to kill him.
At half-past four, the pinnace, schooner's boat, and Kroo canoe, were despatched, well manned and armed, to bring the schooner out of the river. At eleven, Captain Smith returned on board, and informed us, that, at sunset, they boarded the Spanish schooner Victoria Felicita, armed with one long nine-pounder and twenty men, and that they took possession of her with scarcely a show of resistance.
I have been informed by some persons who have visited the Kroo country, that they have seen in the huts of the natives, silver forks and spoons, knives and forks, table-cloths, towels, &c. &c., things which they never bought, but which they had, no doubt, stolen from their employers.
"Then we had better try the native headman he talked about." Brown smiled, "I've no use for bushmen, but didn't see much use in telling Montgomery I'd been on the Coast before. For one thing, his boys were not all Kroos. You know the Kroo by his blue forehead-stripe, but I saw two or three with another mark. Thought them Gold Coast Fantis, and a Fanti fisherman is useful on board ship.
The Portuguese cook and steward dropped their collective duties from the first alarm; the Kroo cook left the rice steamer because "steam no more lib"; and any one who felt hunger or thirst on board, foraged for himself, or went without satisfying his wants. Nobody helped the sick, or chided the drunken. Each man lived for himself alone or died, as the mood seized him.
When any person dies in the Kroo, or Fish countries, unless the deceased may have expressed a wish to the contrary, his friends apply to the Fetish-men to know how he came by his death, when they invariably fix on some obnoxious character, either man or woman, as having been the cause.
In the Congo, a white man standing in the sun without a hat is a spectacle sufficiently thrilling to excite the attention of all, and at once Captain Hughes of the Nigeria sent a cargo boat to the rescue, and on the shoulders of naked Kroo boys Mrs.
But Fanny never liked her black uncles; on the steamer the Kroo boys learned to give her the length of her chain, and so we were forced to plunge to her rescue into the valley of heat. Perhaps she thought we were again going to lock her up on the steamer, or perhaps that it was a friendly game, for she ran from us as fast as from the black boys.
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