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Two days afterwards a Kruboy went down and was brought to grass almost insensible from the choke-damp; his hands clenched the rope so tightly that their grip was hard to loose. We then mounted to 'the outcrop' near the ridge-summit, 100 yards north-north-east. This reef-crest is a tongue of quartz and quartzite veining grey granite: it was found dug out and cleared all round by the people. Mr.
For to the Kruboy, "Panier," as he calls "Spaniard," is a name of horror worse even than Portugee, although he holds "God made white man and God made black man, but dem debil make Portugee," and he also remembers an unfortunate affair that occurred some years ago now, in connection with coffee-growing.
The only fourfooted beast we saw was the small bush-antelope with black robe, of which a specimen was brought home, and the only accident was the stinging of a Kruboy by a spider more spiteful than a scorpion. Reaching the ground after a ten minutes' walk, we examined the principal reef as carefully as we could. The strike is nearly north-south, the dip easterly, and the thickness unknown.
The Kruboy much prefers being paid off in goods. I well remember an exquisite scene between Captain and King Koffee of the Kru Coast when the subject of engaging boys was being shouted over one voyage out. The Captain at that time thought I was a W.W.T.A.A. and ostentatiously wanted Koffee to let him pay off the boys he was engaging to work the ship in money, and not in gin and gunpowder.
There was no medico within hail; and, had there been, we should have hesitated to call him in. For five visits to a sick Kruboy six guineas have been charged; 5l. for tapping a liver and sending two draughts and a box of pills, and 37l. 10s. for treating a mild tertian which lasted a week. The late M. Bonnat cost 80l. for a fortnight.
And in order to prevent any Kruboy being carried off as a slave by mistake, which would have prejudiced these useful allies, the slavers persuaded them always to tattoo a band of basket-work pattern down their foreheads and out on to the tip of their broad noses: this is the most extensive bit of real tattoo that I know of in West Africa, and the Kruboys still keep the fashion.
There must be something besides nostalgia to account for the dreadful worry and apprehension shown by a detained Kruboy. I am sure the tax is heavily taken in cloth, for the boys told me that if it were made up into garments for themselves they did not have to part with it on their return.
Wherein his charm lies is difficult to describe, and you certainly want the patience of Job, and a conscience made of stretching leather to deal with the Kruboy in the African climate, and live. In his better manifestations he reminds me of that charming personality, the Irish peasant, for though he lacks the sparkle, he is full of humour, and is the laziest and the most industrious of mankind.
But circumstances did not, and so nowadays, just as a hundred years ago, you must get the Kruboy to help you if you are going to do any work, missionary or mercantile, from Sierra Leone to Cameroon.
Black hands, however, do not suffer much at the hands of such firms, for the Swedish Agents are a quiet, gentlemanly set of men, in the best sense of that much misused term, and they do not employ on their beaches such a staff of black helpers as the English houses, so the two or three Kruboys on a starvation beach can fairly well fend for themselves, for there is always an adjacent village, and in that village there are always chickens, and on the shore crabs, and in the river fish, and for the rest of his diet the Kruboy flirts with the local ladies.
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