servants. One
evening the Governor was coming out of his house with a small
despatch-box, when, to his surprise, he was stopped by the sentry, an
old African.

"But I'm the Governor," said the astonished administrator, "and I had
that order made myself. You mustn't stop me."

"Me no care if you be Gubnor or not," replied the imperturbable African.
"The corporal gib de order, and you no can pass." And Her Majesty's
representative had to turn back and leave his despatch-box at home.

The greatest objection to the African, however, is the strange fact that
no amount of care or attention on the part of his instructors can ever
make him a good or even a fair shot. In the 1st West India Regiment
there are still a few Africans remaining, most of whom have from twelve
to eighteen years' service; and who have annually expended their rounds
without hitting the target more than once or twice during the whole
musketry course. Give these men a rifle rested on a tripod, and tell
them to align the sights upon some given mark, and they cannot do it.
They will frequently aim a foot or two to the right or left of an object
only a few yards distant. Every possible plan has been tried to make
them improve, but all have equally failed; and, in consequence, Africans
are not now enlisted. Still, although on account of this failing,
African troops could never, in these days of long-range firing, meet
Europeans in the field, a battalion of Africans would be quite good
enough for bush fighting against an enemy like the Ashanti, a still
worse marksman, and worse armed; or against tribes armed with the spear
or assegai.

Of course one reason of the African's dulness is that until he enlists,
that is until he is from twenty-four to thirty years of age, he has
never exercised his mind in any way; and the long years of mental
idleness have produced a sluggishness which makes it extremely difficult
for him to acquire anything new that requires thought. After enlisting,
he picks up a species of unintelligible English, but that is the most
that he can do. It is pitiful to see these men, some of them now old,
struggling day after day, according to regulation, in the regimental
school, to learn their letters. It is to them the greatest punishment
that could be inflicted, and though they attend school for years, they
rarely succeed in doing more than master the alphabet.

In former days, whenever the cargo of a captured slaver was landed at
Sierra L