RANKIN'S VISIT TO SIERRA LEONE.

FOR the correctness of the statements, the truth of the pictures, or the likeness of the characters in Mr. RANKIN'S excursion to " the White Man's Grave," we cannot hold ourselves responsible; nor, if they be as true as they look, can we determine, from any personal knowledge, how far artistical skill may have seized upon the most striking features from the most favourable points of view, and grouped them in a manner to produce an effect greater than the reality itself. We can vouch, however, that the Visit to Sierra Leone is one of the most delightful books of travelling impressions that we have met with for many a day. The ground is new, and interesting ; the subjects it furnishes are gorgeous, luxuriant, grotesque, curious, or striking ; a gloomy mystery hangs over its death-dealing climate, which few feel inclined to penetrate; and the uses or pretended uses of the colony, as the headquarters for checking slavery and as a settlement for civilizing the slaves, render information of any kind desirable. Fortunately, materials so rich and rare have fallen into the hands ea workman fully capable of doing them justice. Mr. RANKIN Imil8 sufficient scientific knowledge to appreciate the Importance of physical and statistical science, and to use their results when necessary, although deep investigations were not his object. His Mabry and general accomplishments seem extensive ; but are she soi hi their effects, or in occasional illustrative allusions, and not in any formal display. The writer moreover has a poetical mind, a keen perception of the beautiful and the ridiculous ; his manner and style are in turn vivacious, elegant, forcible, jocose, and pointed ; and he has a fund of good sense at bottom, which serves him larth in Ins selection of' images and his judgment of persons and things.

So far as we can gather from his book, the motive of Mr. RANKIN'S pilgrimage to Sierra Leone was,literally to pay a visit. Some twelvemonth before his actual voyage, his friend, Mr. W. 11. MACAULEY, had been appointed Chief udge, and made our author promise to come and see him in the White Man's Grave. With a courage and a punctuality alike memorable, Mr. RANKIN departed to fulfil his engagement; and was so delighted with the People, the place, its appearance and capabilities, and perhaps with his own escape safe and (as he fancies) sound, that he stands forward as the defender and panegyrist of the colony,—not only for its beauty—which no one disputes; the apparent excellence of Its site—for which it was chosen ; its uses connected with abolition purposes—which are still vouched for by the Abolitionists; its fertile soil and rich productions—which it possesses in common witlynost other tropical regions,—but for its comparative salubrity, and its advantages as a locality for White settlers. The reasons drawn from his own observation and experience are of small account: he seems to have remained in the colony but a short time; he might have been there during the healthy season, and possessed some

peculiarity of constitution. His arguments derived from the geographical position of Sierra Leone and the mountainous nature of the country are specious, but can avail nothing against bills of mortality. When be attributes Iblly and something worse to the plans on which the settlement was founded, we can readily believe him, and think it probable enough that ignorance might have given death to many hundreds of deluded people and a bad name to the colony to boot. Equally credible is it that the White soldiers (especially such soldiers as were sent to Sierra Leone) killed themselves by debauchery, drunkenness, and mad exposure to the night dews, as well as that experience has discovered improved methods of guarding gentlemen and ladies, who can submit to restraint, against the effiaos ot-jihe climate. It may be true that many of the Governors (not all, for there is the instance of DENHAM) have been old and worn-out men when appointed; but " Death, all-eloquent," is too inneh for mortal rhetorician,— if Death really be opposed to him, which Mr. RA:11u :a denies. Since the colony has got rid of the White privates, he asserts that the proportion of deaths amongst the residents is less than in many other tropical places not reputed peculiarly unhealthy; and he maintains his views by some statistical tables, which, though not exact, probably give, as he says, an average sufficiently accurate to determine proportions. The dreadful mortality in merchant-ships he appears satisfactorily to explain, by showing that all vessels bound ho the Western coast are indeed chartered to Sierra Leone (on account of its possessing the only customhouse), but that they infect their crews in the pestiferous rivers of the flat, swampy, miasma-breeding coast whither they proceed to take in their cargoes after anchoring for one day at Freetown to " enter," and give it in England the credit of their losses.

But never mind the climate. Neither we nor our subscribers,

we trust, are going there. Let us turn to other matters alike pleasanter to see and to read about,—the appearances of nature; the productions of art, or rather of man, since art is not; and the habits and modes of life amongst the expatriated Whites and the equally expatriated Blacks,—for the population of Sierra Leone, like that of the ancient mistress of the world, is a chance-medley of various nations. And upon such subjects as these, the shortness of Mr. RANKIN'S stay was as favourable to his book as to his health. The rugged, magnificent scenery of the bold and declivitous Mountain of the Lions, thickly clothed with the gigantic trees of the tropics, and carpeted with a countless variety of plants and flowers, as well as all the strange and wonder-raising features of such luxuriant soils, had not time to pall upon his sight or sicken his heart with their teeming rankness. He saw, with all the zest of novelty, the different materials for observation offered by specimens of so many nations in almost every stage of civilization and barbarism, from the governor and the high officials, through the subordinate commercial residents, the nautical sojourners, the prosperous Black gentleman, emulating English fashions in a stone house of two stories, although without a coat to his back, and the various temporary and permanent Coloured inhabitants of the colony, down to the last new comers in a captured slave cargo, waiting the decision of the Mixed Commission Court as to

whether they should be liberated or given up to their kidnapper,—a knotty point, dependent (so diplomacy has ruled) upon the latitude in which the ship is taken. His excursions were happily made from the fulness of health, and not listlessly in search of it; having neither public nor private business to attend to, he had only to see, to listen, and to learn ; and what was best of all, he departed before the heat of the climate, by inducing the lassitude of debility, had deadened his perception and subdued his viyacity, or use had brought him down to the dead level of colonial views.

In a work of this kind, extracts are to the reviewer what the antsganist 1.ay was to the animal of the schoolmen : he is so attrseted by equal forces in opposite directions, that it might be impossible to decide, unless the order of time offered a means of txtr!eation. Of this we avail ourselves without further consideration, and open with the

FIRST NIGHT AND MORNING AT SIERR• LEONE.

•

Sleep was long denied the White man, simmering upon l us hard mattress, With its Bin& covering (and even that toosweighty) of a slight cotton sheet ; the we precaution of examination having been duly taken, to discover whether any treacherous scorpion or sly centipede lurked beneath the pillow. Night, the friend of the weary, here becoince his foe, and calls in an army of enemiea to join in hostility. The enormous cockroach crawls over the body, and, if permitted, nibbles the end of the fingers, producing a wound of tedious cure. The prying mantis swarms ; a fat, loathsome, green inaect, held in great awe by the Blacks, who believe that it causes blindness, by attacking the eye with its crablike claw& alusquitoes are not frequent, it ia true, since, acceording to report, the climate of Sierra Leone is too deadly even for these persecutors of the human race—the offspring of pestilential marshes; yet a single musquito in the chamber will destroy mill hope of repose. The little bug-a-bilge, small amber ants, infesting every houseond eating away its wood-work, spread themselves thickly over the bed ; large tarantulas fall from the ceiling upon the sleepers ; gigantic black crickets ingeniously pen-h themselves near the ear in seine hidden nook, and "grate limas music; ' but, ubove all, the intolerable prickly heat plunges into the White loan its thousand stings, and makca him start from his couch in despair. For long I attributed this torture to the malice of insects.

Sleep had not long condescended to visit me, when the rolling of morninggun fire intimated sunrise. Dininess still hovered around, when almost instantaneously the full glare of tropical daylight flashed forth, and discovered the gorgeous mountain-on-mountain scenery of the colony. Immediately in front, towering behind the town, rose the Barrack lull ; Leicester Mountain and the Sugar Loaf beyond,—a peak of nearly three thousand feet in height, clothed to the alumina with forests of palms, locust, and pullow, or wild cotton-trees, whose lofty and rich foliage brought the view apparently close to the eye. Wide streets presented an assemblage of houses and huts of eve' y shape, of every material, of every style of architecture, and of none ; each generally surrounded by gardens crowded with the dark orange and lime trees, the soft greets banana and plantain, with their broad leaf, and the grotesque papaw, wl ose slender shaft, graced by a handful of leaves and a cluster of green and orange fruit, creates the idea of a vegetable beau of refined lankness, sumptuously ci roneted with thick ringlets and luscious whiskers. From the mountain paths descended groups of maidens bringing produce for the esrly market, bearing on the head calabashes filled with red and black pines, bananas, sour sops, water-melons, mangoes, and other temptations for the palate. Next came the more loaded matrons, with the privileged distinction of partial drapery, carrying their little ebony piccaninies fastened to the back, and gene rally in sound sleep. Men too walked into the town, each exercising hi a un doubted right of choice with regard to dress, whether any or none, much or little. These principally brought bundles of coarse grass, fresh cut by the road

side, for the day's entertainment of the Freetown horses. Strings of convicts, fettered and bound together by clanking chains' were dragging themselves to their compulsory labours. In fact, all became bustle, noise, and confusion in the vicinity.

The market-place was situated within a few yards of the window at which I atom], deeply interested in the .novelty of the scene. It presented a moving

mass of screaming, quarrelling., and bartering personages,— blacks, browns, Mennae, histres, sepias, umbers, let, ebony, and carbonated,—such as might have risen lions the ashes of Pompeii or Herculaneum, after having been charred. I fixed at once on the real locality of Babel.

Pigs, knit even to pity, were snuffing up the hot dust; cows, or, as they are there called, " bulls, suckling their young calves, were straying through the a

streets, ccontpanied by wandering sheep, with smooth, glossy coats of white and black, and frolicsome goats in abundance. Goats almost exclusively supply the town with milk; some few " bulls " are milked occasionally, but seldom. Here be it remarked that physiologists consider some human atttibutes to be universally found even in the most dissimilar vat ieties of our species. One instantly struck me, as the tattooed and solemn Akoo servant entered the chamber with the early cup of coffee : the milk had received a fair proportion of water, the mixture was perfectly English. It is decidedly a climacteriatie of humanity, although unrecognized by Pythagoras or Prichard, that milkmen are prone to dilute.

Whilst sipping the aromatic nectar,—and he who would taste coffee most throw aside Mocha, and breakfast at Sierra Leone,—as I lazily leaned through the jalousie to watch the graceful crown-birds, the purple and saffron cundoo, and the thousand glittering lizards which ran flashing in the morning sun up every wall and tree around, and in the first enjoyment of return to land, inspired by the loveliness of the prospect, the genial glow of a cloudless climate, and the briskness of the moving scene, had lost every gloomy association with the colony, my eye caught an early funeral procession, that slowly accompanied to one of the cemeteries the corpse of a young White lady who had died on the previous evening. This, thought I, is indeed Sierra Leone, the European's grave.

Continuing the consecutive order, let us take

THE COLONIAL cAPITAL, FREETOWN.

The aspect of the country immediately behind Freetown is bold and imposing; It is a succession of evergreen mountains soaring one above another.

No site for a town more lovely could have been selected, had charms to the eye been the sole guide. It is not possible that gloomy forebodings should thrust themselves forward when a stranger arrives, and for the first time looks upon the glowing bosom of the estuary, scarcely rippled by the light airs and gentle tides of these latitudes ; the quiet Bull= shore, green to the water's edge; the bold sweep of that amphitheatre of undulating mountains, which appear to be embracing the capital for its protection, gaping with enormous ravines and dark vallies, and clothed with never-fading forests. The town itself is picturesque. It rises from the water's edge, and gradually creeps up the sides of the surrounding hills, with its white dwellings and prolific gardens; whilst in the distance, emerging from high woods appear the country mansions of White gentlemen, with patches of ground devoted to the produce of coffee and fruits. The style in which the houses are generally built throws an Oriental character over the view ; they are as often of wood as of stone, and are washed white or yellow ; piazzas, with pillars at due intervals, support the verandahs, and secure a shady walk in the open air even during mid:day; the verandahs exhibit rows of jalousies, a kind of Venetian blind, painted green; and the roofs, principally formed of layers of thin dry wood called shingles, project to a distance, with wide eaves. The greater number of dwellings stand in a court-yard or in a garden, causing the extent of space °peered by buildings to be much greater than in a European town of equal population, and giving it, from the foliage of luxuriant trees, a healthy and

i

fresh appearance. It s flanked on either side by a brook of clear water, which never fails in the most intense weather of die dry season. The channel of these streams may be easily traced by the abundant vegetation. The prolific .00anty of Nature, which makes the spot so beautiful and so exciting, and

almost invests the busy streets with the charms of the country, is, however, one of the causes of that evil name which pestilence has fixed upon Sierra Leone. The public ways are no sooner watered by the first showers of the wet season, than they appear to be converted into fields ; the most frequented thoroughfares become nearly impassable from the dense herbage that rises beneath the feet, particularly the indigo, which is constantly cut down to allow

the common movements of the inhabitants. • • a In the midst of the town three peculiarities are immediately noticed : the total absence of nuiformity in costume, the dead silence which reigns in streets where no waggon, mitt, or dray of any kind is employed, and the want of inns and hotels, no such accommodation existing when I visited it. White strangers are not induced to select Sierra Leone as a watering-place, or for a summer excursion. All Europeans, therefore, with the exception of naval men whom, home floats with them, who arrive at the colony, seek it for sonic definite purpose and in connexion with established residents. If public officers, public residences are ready fur them, destined for their reception ; if mercantile, intending to settle permanently, letters of introduction easily pectire a welcome and hospitality. Alt hotel was established a few years since; it was not wanted, and the speculation failed.

NVe find already that we must pass far more rapidly through the volumes than this mode of proceeding would allow : but before turning to sketches of nien and manners, we will extract a description of some of the public buildings, as furnishing a specimen of the writer's more pointed style, and of his manner of conveying useful hints under the guise of a lively joke.

Iii the European quarter, fronting the sea, are situated the principal public buildings ; s • of them prodigies of architectutal effort in the opinion of the Blacks, since they rise to the height of three stories. Government house is a large wooden box, supported upon a story of atone wotk, and presenting an appearance resembling a flour-cloth manufactory. 'rlie sole pomp which announces its diguity consists in a Black soldier pacing beneath a nide piazza at the entrance, and a carriage-way, more or namental than useful, guarded by two grim stone lions, the only animals of the name to be found in the Mountain of Lions. The Commissariat is likewise a huge planked building, painted white in mutation of Government House, but of more massive and lofty pretensions. The militar, , too, loitering in its precincts, in the pride of red coats and black coon. tenances, are more numerous and equally haughty. But the church stands foremost, it it yet stands at all, in importance and interest. It is bailed by the distant voyager as nearly the only Christian temple upon the coast ; for I am given to understand that there is none at the British settlement on the Gambia. It is a sataka (Dail-temple) to the savage Satanworshipping Bulloni, a stumbling-block to the contetnptuous Milssulinan, sanctuary to the matrimonially-disposed cannibal, a rough ashlar to colonial masons, a hobby of successive Governors, and an item in the national expeediture of 80,0001. It has been many years in progress; soil, although several times finished, has constantly had portions taken down in order that the taste of different influential patrons of the arts might find indulgence. When I first saw it, the tower was endeavouring to rise under the languid efforts of many black rnasons ; and when, upon finally quitting the colony to return to England, I bid a last farewell to the place where the snore devotional uf the European residents are wont to take their Sunday morning siestas, nearly three tiers of stone-work had been added. The arches of time choir-windows had origi nally been Gothic, but a fastidious Governor preferring the circular to the pointed, the walls were pulled in pieces to allow of the change. The first tower, being considered as too diminutive, was nplaced after a soles of years by one of more ponderous dimensions ; this again, being deemed unnecessarily large, shared the fate of its predecessor ; amid the present bids fair to satirize its designers as severely as either of those now no more. In former days, the market is stated to have been held within the shade of the sanctuary, and its floor to have been covered with the half-naked women and piccaninies who bought and vended ; the rapid putt efac of meat, which speedily renders the air around intolerable, must have dispersed any odour of sanctity that might have otherwise survived this indecent misappropriation. It is out difficult to understand with what feeliugs and opinions the grave Maimmetan Foulalls and Alandingos, so tenacious of the sanctity of their own mosques, must have beheld this desecration.

Not the least valuable and interesting part of the book is the distinct account of the different classes which inhabit the capital,. together with the sketches of their habits and life. FIOIII these chapters we will quote several passages. The general character of the Krootnen, who travel nearly four hundred miles in search of employment at Sierra Leone, is pretty well known ; but Mr. RANKIN'S pencil gives something of novelty and much of sprightliness to this peculiar race.

In seeking White man's society, the Kroo base steady view to the acquisition of wealth. Accustomed to the most abject want, a trifle is a treasure to him. Ile arrives young at Freetown, and labours as an apprentice for the advantage of a Keno master ; arid when sufficiently old, after two or three years of obedience, upon his own account. Ile takes apprentices in his nun, mind receives their wages. Of twenty shillings a month, earned by himself, he does not probably spend one. He is sparing in his expenses, frugal in his diet, and pays no tailor's bills. Intent upon adding to his income, his industry never flags; and, above all, he is an accomplished thief. At the age of forty he has generally succeeded in amassing about thirty pounds sterling, and has tL n attained the summit of earthly grandeur. Ile lays out the useless coin in marketable articles, fi,r his native home is guiltless of a metallic currency, and returns to dwell with his people as a " gentleman." Now the term gentleman is a vague one, and does not specifically point out the future station of the Kroo ; with us there are gentlemen farmers, gentlemen of the Jury, of the press, of the swell numb, of the House of Commons, of the long robe. A Kroo gentleman belongs to neither of these honourable fraternities, but describes the class as being •• rich too much, plenty of wife." An otium cum diguitate crowns his old age, the reward of a youth devoted to toil. In payment of this useful and at present indispensable class of labourers, some thousands sterling are supposed to be annually drawn from the colony ; a supposition which has caused opinions unfavourable to the employment of the Kroos. Ibis fear is quite gratuitous ; for it must be remembered, that no coin is carried away to embarrass the bank, had there been one, which there is not. The merchant and the community, on the contrary, are much benefited by e consumption of profitable merchandise ; which, being carried to distant markets, will increase the demand for English Manufactures in proportion to the spreading knowledge of their utility and value. There are no Kroo women in Sierra Leone ; it would answer no good purpose to bring them. The Kroos are practical political economists of the modern school, and do not wed until mature age and adequate income justify the joys of matrimony. Kroo Town, therefore, presents an unrivalled instance of a bachelor village. I have strolled through the clusters of their square, looselywattled sheds, arranged without order, unfurnished and comfortless, which constitute this Most strange suburb of Freetown, and thought of monasteries. Groups of naked men are seen busy in low-voieed gossip-palaver,•or, lying drowsily on the bare ground, courtiog sleep after labour, before huts without windowe and scarcely of sufficient size to permit a tall man to extend his limbs to their full length ; but no woman could be espied. Hut after hut presents the saroe dull scene, —the earth, the hovel, and the inhabitant, motionless and a similar tint. About a thousand males are congregated together in this community of bachelors. The hollow Silence which broods over this uoiseleas quarter of the umnarried suggests several reflections.

WHITE MEN'S DOMICILES.

The houeehold of a European presents a strange mixture of the luxurious and the uncomfortable, the sensual and the oppressive. The house itself is planned 'with studiona care f ir comfort. It consists of one budding witliin another, as it were ; or in a shell of piazzas and verandahs. The verandahs are altogether unlike the green iron railings and painted roofs which essay to throw an Eastern splendour upon the rural villa arouud London : thee are wide and lofty rooms, extending the whole length of the home, having, in their outer walls, at regular intervals, windows called jalousies, capable of being closed with strong Venetian Minds against the sudden and impetuous fury of the tornado, and the unwholesome sight7air, but at other times remaining open. The walls between the jalousies are painted or papered, and may be mnaniented with paintings; the floors are sometimes matted or carpeted. They are furnished with tables, chairs, and ottomans ; and are in fact occupied as the most pleasant apartments during the heat of the day, for the breeze flour the ocean pours through them its a cool stream unceasingly. Here the leisure hours are spent, visits received, and the lighter repasts taken ; and, when timid sleep cannot be tempted to enter the close and sultry chamber, it will often steal upon a hard couch in the verandah. The inner rooms are spacious, and boast one or two fire-places,—au anomaly to the stranger who arrives at any period between October and May, with a spirit sinking beneath the sun's tyranny ; but very grateful, indeed indispensable, during the inclement chill of June and July and the remaining wintry months of wind and water. The furniture is rather useful than plentiful. Sofas and couches remind of languor and invite to indulgence. It is common to see upon

side-table, ready for constant use, the porous water-bottle, with neck like a swan and body like an aldermau ; and by its side in a cooler, mostly very warm, a little yellow oil called butter, and sold like oil by liquid measure ; together with a small ill-favoured roll uf bread, harsh from the acidity of the palm-wine I:avene

Admitting for a moment that our tourist has established his position respecting the health of the colony, its heat must still be a drawback sufficient to daunt those who have the means of living in England. And even those who possess such peculiarities of constitution as to feel "the glow of the tropics luxurious" after a while, may be deterred by the social condition of the settlement. There are no White ladies, or next to none, for there is only one unmarried! Or even if this circumstance were remedied, who can remove such disagreeable accompaniments to

A SIERRA LEONE DINNER-CARTV ?

Time dinner-parties are far from lively. Profusion of viands, fruit., and wine, and a hospitable reception, strive to coontei balance the uniformity of suffocating air and a reunion of the same individuals perpetually repeated. The variegated locust, painted in purple, red, and green, leaping into the soup-plate; the large black cricket plunging into the wineglass; the fit-bodied mantis plumping into the hot-spiced pepper-pot, which needs no such addition, are novelties; but any charm the novelty may possess soon subsides. Every contrivance to create a cool sensation fails: in vain the refreshing orange and lime flower float in the finger-glass; in vain the water in its porous red-ware jar evaporates, and sprinkles the globular surface with dew ; in vain the claret, Madeira, and Sauterne, have been for hours exposed to the sea-lneeze,:the bottles encased in wet cotton and standing in a cooler: heat reigns triumphant, favoured by the cloth clothing ceremoniously worn at such times. Matteis of local interest there are none to excite conversation ; and during a great part of the year arrivals from England are too few to afford new foreigu topics. (Affix follows dinner, the horses are ordered, and the guests separate.

As yet we have said nothing about the present condition of the liberated slaves, or of the future prospects of the colony : we have not accompanied the author in his rides, his walks, or his seatrips, or even mentioned his excursion amongst the Timmanees of the main land, where four hundred rola-seeds buy a horse, and forty a wife. If they looked for distinction in the columns of the Spectator, the Negro convert has preached—the wretched slave has suffered in vain, and been freed in a way that smacks marvellously of servitude : the exigencies of our space compel us to pass them by with this brief notice. We must not, however lose a scene of pure farce and mingled cant and blasphemy, which took place on a trial for kidnapping a boy in order to sell him as a slave. But let us not exalt ourselves too much : except the peculiarities of the dialect and customs, we occasionally have scenes at home quite as injurious to religion, destructive of gravity, and offensive to taste.

The first witness I heard called was a Negro, who could not speak a syllable of English. " What is your name?" inquired the counsel : no answer was given. Up rose the interpreter, a civil, well-meaning Black, but no great linguist. The question was now put in one of the twenty languages current in Freetown. When the name had been ascertained, his notion, of an oath was sought ; and, as might be expected, none was discovered. In vain the counsel

its of heaven and i

of hell, n vain the Chief Justice queried as to truth and its reward and untruth and its punishment. its reward and untruth and its punishment. " Where will you go when you die?" The interpreter, having exchanged words with the witness, gave back as

answer—" That man (pointing to witness) can say, him go in ground when

him die."

" Ay ; but ask him where he will go if he tell a lie." Interpreter—" That man can say, him go in ground."

" But, after he is in the ground, where will he live?"

Interpreter—" That man can say, him dead, him no live." "Ask him if he will kiss this book?" handing a closed volume, which might have been the Testament or Cbilde Harold.

Interpreter—" That man say, him can kiss book." " Ask him what the book is ? "

Interpreter—" He say, he no sabby the book." " Why, then, did he offer to kiss the book?" Interpreter---" He say, he can kiss book."

"Ask if, in his own crumb), there exists any ceremony by which he would

feel himself bound to tell the truth ?"

This was a long sentence to be interpreted and the interpreter, having paused to consider, exchanged a word or two with the witness, and then said, "He say, him can tell truth."

Witness descended from the box unquestioned as to evidence, being lamentably ignorant of the force of an English oath. His sole excuse was, that he had never before heard of it, nor comprehended it now.

"Call the next witness—King Tom."

King Tom came forward; a tall, upright, splendid form. Ile was a Kroo • man by nation, and wore the sparity, luimcloth ; the utmost an independent Kroo will rielt1 to the exacting modesty of the Whites. His Majesty spoke the usual English of the place, that lingua Franca of the blacks, sometimes well termed the talkee-talkee language. Few of the barbarous African tribes possess a form of oath ; of these few are the remarkable inhabitants of the Krim coast. King TO111 was sworn ; first according to the Kroo rite, and next, to make assurance doubly sure, upon the English Testament. After putting himself into various dignified attitudes, Kinu Tom drew himself to his full height. An (Armee of the court approached hiiiii, bearing a paper containing salt. Tom extended his hand, and having placed the tip of his finger to his tongue, took up upon it a portion of the sacred article. Ile paused ; raising his eyes to heaven, he slowly pointed his salted finger upwards at the utmost perpendicular stretch of his arm ; then stooping, he steadfastly looked upon the ground, mingling its dust with the salt : lastly, with solemn visage and demeanour, he put to his tongue the imprecatory mixture.. Not a word was spoken. He had probably dedicated himself to the powers above and below. His truth was now inviolable. Death would not have conquered his veracity.

Out form required that he should now kiss the Bible ; and this he did to the edification of the spectators. Its contents he did not understand!, and if he had understood them he would have scoffed. No Krooman has ever been known to become a corevert to Christianity ; and I believe this tribe alone have to a man withstood the efforts of the Missionaries.

Looking at the nature of our remarks and the number of our extracts, it is needless to recommend the book. Almost as needless is it to comment upon its faults; for they little affect the pleasure of the reader. To any complaints about the absence of profound or scientific investigations, the writer may reply, I told you at starting that such matters were designedly eschewed. And if some of his stories and jokes are rather minutely told, and might have been spared as regards their direct bearing upon his subject, they will at least raise a hearty laugh. They carry, however, an appearance of manufacture, and excite doubts in the reader's mind how far the naked truth may have been dressed up in other parts, where it was more desirable to have the exact reality.After all, these interpolations seem chiefly to be artist-like additions, that might have been there if they were not, and by no means affect the general character of the scene.