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The landing is good; a reef has been converted into a jetty and little breakwater; behind this segment of a circle we disembarked without any danger of being washed out of the boat, as at S'a Leone, Cape Coast Castle, and Accra.
So I waited patiently, and a quarter of an hour later he accomplished a masterly movement which brought him within the shadow of the wagon. "S'a bona muntu," I remarked quietly. "What is the business that brings you by such a crooked path to my wagon to-night?" "Au!" ejaculated the mysterious one in some confusion.
Like most juniors here, the youth knew French, or rather Gaboon-French; it was somewhat startling to hear clearly and tolerably pronounced, "M'sieur, veux-tu des macacques?" But the jargon is not our S'a Leone and West-coast "English;" the superior facility of pronouncing the neo-Latin tongues became at once apparent.
Every village swarms with hogs, the filthy wealth of the old Saxon proprietor, and their habits are disgusting as their forms are obscene. Every Anglo-Indian will understand what I mean. My memory of "Congo chop" is all in its favour: I can recommend it even to "Fin Bee." The people of S'a Leone declare that your life is safe when you can enjoy native food.
They live through all their sense at the same time; and, being philosophers without knowing it, keep the measure of their desires in accordance with the brevity of life. I approach a much-patronised tavern, and see inscribed above the entrance this quatrain in Neopolitan patois: "Amice, alliegre magnammo e bevimmo N fin che n'ce stace noglio a la lucerna: Chi sa s'a l'autro munno n'ce verdimmo?
The action, which is certainly a very expressive one, seemed to meet with the royal approval, for the king acknowledged it by the slightest possible uplifting of the right hand as he seated himself in his chair and the guard formed up behind him. Then, gazing at me steadfastly for a moment, he said: "S'a bon', umulungu!"
I need hardly say that the speakers are foul-mouthed as the Anglo-African of S'a Leone and the "English" Coast; they borrow the vilest words from foreign tongues; a spade is called a spade with a witness, and feminine relatives are ever the subject of abuse; a practice which, beginning in Europe with the Slav race, extends more or less throughout the Old World.
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