he sun.
They are an energetic, brave, lively set of fellows, and very
trustworthy; indeed, I do not know how we should have got on without
them. They work very hard, and when they have saved money enough to buy
themselves one or more wives, according to their tastes, they return to
their own country to live in ease and dignity. As they generally assume
either the names of the officers with whom they have served, or of some
reigning prince or hero of antiquity, it is extraordinary what a number
of retired commanders and lieutenants, not to speak of higher
dignitaries, are to be found in Krooland. Sierra Leone has been so
often described that I will not attempt to draw a picture of its
romantic though deceitful beauties. Its blue sky and calm waters, its
verdant groves and majestic mountains, its graceful villas and flowering
shrubs, put one in mind of a lovely woman who employs her charms to
beguile and destroy those who confide in her.

On turning to my log, I find that on the --, at dawn, we unmoored ship,
and under all plain sail ran out of the river of Sierra Leone. As soon
as we were clear of the land we shaped a course for the mouth of the
Sherbro River, a locality notorious for its numerous slave depots. On
our way thither we chased several sail, but some of them got off
altogether, and others proved to be either British cruisers, foreign
men-of-war, or honest traders; so that not a capture of any sort or kind
did we make. It was for no want of vigilance, however, on our part;
early and late, at noon and at night, I was at the masthead on the
look-out for a sail. I knew that if I did not set a good example of
watchfulness, others would be careless; for I held the responsible post,
with all the honour and glory attached to it, of first lieutenant of the
_Gadfly_.

"Mr Rawson," said the captain one day to me, in a good-natured tone, as
I was walking the quarter-deck with him, "you will wear yourself out by
your never-ceasing anxiety in looking out for slavers. There may be
some, but my opinion is that they are a great deal too sharp-sighted to
let us catch them in the brig. We may chance to get alongside one now
and then in the boats and up the rivers, but out here it's in vain to
look for them."

He was new to the coast, and the climate had already impaired his usual
energy.

"Never fear, sir," I answered; "we may have a chance as well as others;
and at all events it shall not be said that we did not