By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War by G. A. Henty (book club recommendations .txt) 📖

“Look at the boats coming out.”

A score of boats, each containing from ten to twelve men, approached the ship. They remained at a short distance until the harbor master came on board and pronounced the ship free from quarantine. Then the boats made a rush to the side, and with shouts, yells, and screams of laughter scrambled on board. Frank was at once astonished and amused at the noise and confusion.

“What on earth do they all want?” he asked Mr. Goodenough.

“The great proportion of them don't want anything at all,” Mr. Goodenough answered, “but have merely come off for amusement. Some of them come to be hired, some to carry luggage, others to tout for the boatmen below. Look at those respectable negresses coming up the gangway now. They are washerwomen, and will take our clothes ashore and bring them on board again this afternoon before we start.”

“It seems running rather a risk,” Frank said.

“No, you will see they all have testimonials, and I believe it is perfectly safe to intrust things to them.”

Mr. Goodenough and Frank now prepared to go on shore, but this was not easily accomplished, for there was a battle royal among the boatmen whose craft thronged at the foot of the ladder. Each boat had about four hands, three of whom remained on board her, while the fourth stood upon the ladder and hauled at the painter to keep the boat to which he belonged alongside. As out of the twenty boats lying there not more than two could be at the foot of the ladder together, the conflict was a desperate one. All the boatmen shouted, “Here, sar. This good boat, sar. You come wid me, sar,” at the top of their voices, while at the same time they were hard at work pulling each other's boats back and pushing their own forward. So great was the struggle as Frank and Mr. Goodenough approached the gangway, so great the crowd upon the ladder, that one side of the iron bar from which the ladder chains depend broke in two, causing the ladder to drop some inches and giving a ducking to those on the lower step, causing shouts of laughter and confusion. These rose into perfect yells of amusement when one of the sailors suddenly loosed the ladder rope, letting five or six of the negroes into the water up to their necks. So intense was the appreciation by the sable mind of this joke that the boatmen rolled about with laughter, and even the victims, when they had once scrambled into their boats, yelled like people possessed.

“They are just like children,” Mr. Goodenough said. “They are always either laughing or quarreling. They are good natured and passionate, indolent, but will work hard for a time; clever up to a certain point, densely stupid beyond. The intelligence of an average negro is about equal to that of a European child of ten years old. A few, a very few, go beyond this, but these are exceptions, just as Shakespeare was an exception to the ordinary intellect of an Englishman. They are fluent talkers, but their ideas are borrowed. They are absolutely without originality, absolutely without inventive power. Living among white men, their imitative faculties enable them to attain a considerable amount of civilization. Left alone to their own devices they retrograde into a state little above their native savagery.”

This was said as, after having fixed upon a boat and literally fought their way into it, they were rowed towards the shore. On landing Frank was delighted with the greenness of everything. The trees were heavy with luxuriant foliage, the streets were green with grass as long and bright as that in a country lane in England. The hill on which the barracks stand was as bright a green as you would see on English slopes after a wet April, while down the streets clear streams were running. The town was alive with a chattering, laughing, good natured, excitable population, all black, but with some slight variation in the dinginess of the hue.

Never was there such a place for fun as Sierra Leone. Every one was brimful of it. Every one laughed when he or she spoke, and every one standing near joined freely in the conversation and laughed too. Frank was delighted with the display of fruit in the market, which is probably unequaled in the world. Great piles there were of delicious big oranges, green but perfectly sweet, and of equally refreshing little green limes; pineapples and bananas, green, yellow, and red, guava, and custard apples, alligator pears, melons, and sour sops, and many other native fruits.

Mr. Goodenough purchased a large basket of fruit, which they took with them on board the ship. The next morning they started down the coast. They passed Liberia, the republic formed of liberated slaves, and of negroes from America, and brought up a mile or two off Monrovia, its capital. The next day they anchored off Cape Palmas, the headquarters of the Kroomen. A number of these men came off in their canoes, and caused great amusement to Frank and the other passengers by their fun and dexterity in the management of their little craft. These boats are extremely light, being hollowed out until little thicker than pasteboard, and even with two Kroomen paddling it is difficult for a European to sit in them, so extremely crank are they. Light as they are the Krooboy can stand up and dive from his boat without upsetting it if he take time; but in the hurry and excitement of diving for coppers, when half a dozen men would leap overboard together, the canoes were frequently capsized. The divers, however, thought nothing of these mishaps, righting the boats and getting in again without difficulty. Splendidly muscular fellows they were. Indeed, except among the Turkish hamals it is doubtful whether such powerful figures could be found elsewhere.

“They would be grand fellows to take with us, Mr. Goodenough,” Frank said.

“Yes, if they were as plucky as they are strong, one could wish for nothing better; but they are notorious cowards, and no offer would tempt them to penetrate into such a country as that into which we are going.”

Stopping a few hours at Cape Coast Castle, Accra, and other ports they at last arrived at Bonny.

“It is not tempting in appearance,” Frank said, “certainly.”

“No,” Mr. Goodenough replied, “this is one of the most horribly unhealthy spots in Africa. As you see, the white traders do not dare to live on shore, but take up their residence in those old floating hulks which are thatched over, and serve as residences and storehouses. I have a letter from one of the African merchants in London, and we shall take up our abode on board his hulk until we get one of the coasting steamers to carry us down. I hope it will not be many days.”

The very bulky luggage was soon transferred to the hulk, where Frank and Mr. Goodenough took up their residence. The agent in charge was very glad to receive them, as any break in the terrible monotony of such a life is eagerly welcomed. He was a pale, unhealthy looking man, and had just recovered from an unusually bad attack of fever. Like most of the traders on the coast he had an immense faith in the power of spirits.

“It is the ruin of them,” Mr. Goodenough said to Frank when they were alone. “Five out of six of the men here ruin their constitutions with spirits, and then fall an easy prey to the fever.”