bjects to suit
different patrons. They supply the body-guard of princes; procure
especial tribes for personal attendants; furnish laborers for farms;
fill the _harems_ of debauchees; pay or collect debts in flesh; and in
cases of emergency take the place of bailiffs, to kidnap under the
name of sequestration. If a native king lacks cloth, arms, powder,
balls, tobacco, rum, or salt, and does not trade personally with the
factories on the beach, he employs one of these dexterous gentry to
effect the barter; and thus both British cotton and Yankee rum ascend
the rivers from the second hands into which they have passed, while
the slave approaches the coast to become the ebony basis of a bill of
exchange!

It has sometimes struck me as odd, how the extremes of society almost
meet on similar principles; and how much some African short-comings
resemble the conceded civilizations of other lands!

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Dr. Lugenbeel's "Sketches of Liberia.": 1853. p. 45, 2d ed.

CHAPTER XVI.

The month of November, 1827, brought the wished-for "dry season;" and
with it came a message from the leader of a caravan, that, at the full
of the moon, he would halt in my village with all the produce he could
impress. The runner represented his master as bearing a missive from
his beloved nephew Ahmah-de-Bellah, and declared that he only lingered
on the path to swell his caravan for the profit of my coffers.

I did not let the day pass before I sent an interpreter to greet my
promised guest with suitable presents; while I took advantage of his
delay to build a neat cottage for his reception, inasmuch as no Fullah
Mahometan will abide beneath the same roof with an infidel. I
furnished the establishment, according to their taste, with green
hides and several fresh mats.

True to his word, Mami-de-Yong made known his arrival in my
neighborhood on the day when the planet attained its full diameter.
The moment the pious Mussulman, from the high hills in the rear of my
settlement, espied the river winding to the sea, he turned to the
east, and raising his arms to heaven, and extending them towards
Mecca, gave thanks for his safe arrival on the beach. After repeated
genuflections, in which the earth was touched by his prostrate
forehead, he arose, and taking the path towards Kambia, struck up a
loud chant in honor of the prophet, in which he was joined by the
interminable procession.

It was quite an imposing sight--this Oriental