Round the black man's garden . ; and by the families of little red crabscollected on the snaky-looking roots, that edged intothe water as a splash from the oars warned them ofour proximity. Turning a sharp corner, and passing under anarchway of overhanging branches, so low that wehad to duck our heads, w^e found ourselves in asmall shady creek, bright with the reflection of theglorious vegetation that lined its banks. Just infront of us w^as a high palisade of stout poles, abovew^hich peeped the palm-thatched roofs of the at an opening, We were received by BlackFace, John Brow
Round the black man's garden . ; and by the families of little red crabscollected on the snaky-looking roots, that edged intothe water as a splash from the oars warned them ofour proximity. Turning a sharp corner, and passing under anarchway of overhanging branches, so low that wehad to duck our heads, w^e found ourselves in asmall shady creek, bright with the reflection of theglorious vegetation that lined its banks. Just infront of us w^as a high palisade of stout poles, abovew^hich peeped the palm-thatched roofs of the at an opening, We were received by BlackFace, John Brown, and Green Head, whohelped us out of our boat, and led us into the hutof the first-named king. It w^as a curiously civilisedabode to find in such a place and among such savagesurroundings,—glazed wdndoWS, well-painted w^allsadorned with some fair prints, and mahogany chairs,sideboard, and dining-table, the latter covered withsiphons, with of course a due proportion of the in-evitable square-face. Having partaken of a mix-. JU-JU PRIEST, WAR CANOES. 315 ture of these, and uttered the mystic word Boo,which is de rigueur on such occasions, our hostsoffered to show us their war-canoes ; so skirting thetown, we followed a narrow path and dived into thebush, a tangled mass of lovely flowering creepersand si2:antic ferns, over which towered some of thelargest cocoa-palms I had ever seen. A short walkbrouo-ht us to the shed in which the war-canoeswere kept—huge unwieldy-looking things dug outof the trunk of a single tree, about three feet broadand fifty or sixty in length. They present, however,an imposing appearance fully manned, with the fiftypaddles simultaneously flashing in the by was the old harracoon in which the Por-tuguese used to store the slaves prior to embarkation,—a long, low, one-storeyed stone building withoutwindows, a very dismal dungeon in which to spendthe last hours on ones native land. On the margin of the creek close by, half buriedin the m
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidroundblackma, bookyear1893
