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 tom can tell you. I don't say it's an instrument suited for serenading your lady-love with, but that is a thing I don't require of an instrument. All else the tom-tom can do, and do well. It can talk as well as the human tongue. It can make you want to dance or fight for no private reason, as nothing else can, and be you black or white it calls up in you all your Neolithic man.

Many African instruments are, however, sweet and gentle, and as mild as sucking doves, notably the xylophonic family. These marimbas, to use their most common name, are all over Africa from Senegal to Zambesi. Their form varies with various tribes—the West African varieties almost universally have wooden keys instead of iron ones like the East African. Personally, I like the West African best; there is something exquisite in the sweet, clear, water-like notes produced from the strips of soft wood of graduated length that make the West African keyboard. All these instruments have the sound magnified and enriched by a hollow wooden chamber under their keyboard. In Calabar this chamber is one small shallow box, ornamented, as most wooden things are in Calabar, with poker work—but in among the Fan, under the keyboard were a set of calabashes, and in the calabashes one hole apiece and that hole covered carefully with the skin of a large spider. While down in Angola you met the xylophone in the imposing form you can see in the frontispiece to this volume. Of the orchid fibre-stringed harp, I have spoken elsewhere, and there remains but one more truly great instrument that I need mention. I have had a trial at playing every African instrument I have come across, under native teachers, and they have assured me that, with application, I should

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Rh more stringent and exacting for everybody. The rewards of prudence and intelligence are more ample and the penalties of heedlessness and adherence to routine are greater than ever before; every one is forced to "keep up." The more the machines do, the more the rational animal, man, needs to bring brains to bear to rise above the machines. In a sense, our whole society is machine-ridden; it is our fate; it is the price we pay for living in an age of steam, with all the glories of which we boast. The man who has won most of all from the progress is the man who possesses executive power and organizing ability. We get together vast masses of capital and hundreds of laborers, and the happiness or misery of thousands comes to depend on the man whose judgment and knowledge decide what shall be done, and how. We cannot break out of this intense and exacting social organization without sacrificing our means of comfort and throwing thousands into distress; hence we pay the man who can manage the organization a monopoly price for his rare and indispensable abilities.

Next to these, however, who are not capitalists and who are so few that they can hardly be spoken of as a class, the wage-earners have won. They run a greater risk than formerly of interruptions of work and of being compelled to sacrifice routine knowledge which they have acquired. These are weighty risks, and they are weightier in proportion as the organization is more intense, because the higher the organization the harder it is, having once fallen out of it, to get into it again. What the landlords and capitalists will do under the strain which the changes have thrown on them remains to be seen.

The new position of the wage-earner, economically speaking, is the cause of his gain in political power.

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 new ideas, ideas that were going to be profitable for him but detrimental to the community in which he put them into practice. That awful night battle in the woods which had gained him the medals—he had them buttoned up in an inside pocket, not even showing the ribbons where anybody could see them—had also left him with a long livid scar down the left side of his face, a heavy scar running from the top of his ear to the point of his chin. In some manner the nerves and muscles around his mouth had become involved in the matter and now the left corner of his mouth was drawn upward permanently, not much but it had changed his appearance surprisingly. When he smiled, that corner didn't, and it gave his face an amazingly sinister look.

He hurried eagerly out of the depot, looking boyish and jaunty in his uniform and overseas cap. He had a grip and in the side pocket of his tunic a German officer's automatic that he had brought home as a souvenir.

Now that he was home, the first thing was to see Vyvyan. God! wouldn't it be grand to have her in his arms again, to feel her lithe, supple body pliant and vibrant against his? He hailed a taxi and gave the address, ordering the driver "to step

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 succeed in becoming a rather decent performer on the harp and xylophone, and had the makings of a genius for the tom-tom, but my greatest and most rapid triumph was achieved on this other instrument. I picked up the hang of the thing in about five minutes, and then, being vain, when I returned to white society I naturally desired to show off my accomplishment, but met with no encouragement whatsoever—indeed my friends said gently, but firmly, that if I did it again they should leave, not the settlement merely, but the continent, and devote their remaining years to sweeping crossings in their native northern towns—they said they would rather do this than hear that instrument played again by any one.

This instrument is made from an old powder keg, with both ends removed; a piece of raw hide is tied tightly round it over what one might call a bung-hole, while a piece of wood with a lump of rubber or fastening is passed through this hole. The performer then wets his hand, inserts it into the instrument, and lightly grasps the stick and works it up and down for all he is worth; the knob beats the drum skin with a beautiful boom, and the stick gives an exquisite screech as it passes through the hole in the skin which the performer enhances with an occasional howl or wail of his own, according to his taste or feeling. There are other varieties of this instrument, some with one end of the cylinder covered over and the knob of the stick beating the inside, but in all its forms it is impressive.

Next in point of strength to the human vocal and instrumental performers come frogs. The small green one, whose note is like that of the cricket's magnified, is a part-singer, but the big bull frog, whose tones are all his own, sings in Handel Festival sized choruses. I don't much mind

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Rh made it necessary. Whenever the wars with the French or Indians involved great danger and large effort, united action became necessary, and proposals for a permanent union were made; and the exigency of the struggle with the mother-country finally brought about such a union, under difficulties and in spite of great reluctance. The union was formed on the model of the United Netherlands and was not a completely new device. It took experience of the faults of the confederation to force the new constitution of 1787, not because anybody had proved that it would be speculatively better but because the old system had become intolerable. The constitution of the United States is as much an historical growth as any political institution in existence. Its framers did not invent it at all; they took what lay before them. The Union was a fact and a necessity — no one dared to break it up and leave the thirteen colonies to get on, as best they could, as independent members of the family of nations. The republican character of the government was given in the habits and the existing institutions of the colonies. The new union was chiefly distinguished from the old by greater integration of the central power. The need of power to levy taxes had been distinctly felt; the need of a federal supreme court had been experienced and experience had even indicated the character which the tribunal must have. The federal executive offered greater difficulty, and for this the constitution-makers went back to the English constitution as they understood it, that is, to the conception of the English Whigs of the first half of the last century. The student of the English constitution finds the germs of the peculiar features of the present English constitution in the reigns of William and Anne, but it is not strange that American


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 either of these, but the one I hate is a solo frog who seems eternally engaged at night in winding up a Waterbury watch. Many a night have I stocked thick with calamity on that frog's account; many a night have I landed myself in hailing distance of Amen Corner from having gone out of hut, or house, with my mind too full of the intention of flattening him out with a slipper, to think of driver ants, leopards, or snakes. Frog hunting is one of the worst things you can do in West Africa.

Next to frogs come the crickets with their chorus of "she did, she didn't," and the cicadas, but they knock off earlier than frogs, and when the frogs have done for the night there is quiet for the few hours of cool, until it gets too cool and the chill that comes before the dawn wakes up the birds, and they wake you with their long, mellow, exquisitely beautiful whistles.

The aforesaid are everyday noises in West Africa, and you soon get used to them or die of them; but there are myriads of others that you hear when in the bush. The grunting sigh of relief of the hippos, the strange groaning, whining bark of the crocodiles, the thin cry of the bats, the cough of the leopards, and that unearthly yell that sometimes comes out of the forest in the depths of dark nights. Yes, my naturalist friends, it's all very well to say it is only a love-lorn, innocent little marmoset-kind of thing that makes it. I know, poor dear, Softly, Softly, and he wouldn't do it. Anyhow, you just wait until you hear it in a shaky little native hut, or when you are spending the night, having been fool enough to lose yourself, with your back against a tree quite alone and that yell comes at you with its agony of anguish and appeal out of that dense black world of forest which the moon, be she never so strong, can-

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252 statesmen of the time of George III did not recognise the force and tendency of English constitutional arrangements which never reached their full operation until the nineteenth century.

So far, therefore, our constitution-makers were guided by history and experience. Their contests, as is well known, took place over the adjustment of local interests and not over theories of government — there is no ground in history for the notion that they evolved out of their own wisdom the form of government under which we live. They really showed their wisdom by throwing aside all political dogmatism and making a plain, practical plan for attaining the necessary ends of civil government for the nation. They put in no definitions, no dogmas, no phrases, no generalities. We have not indeed been free from political dogmatism; we have had a great deal of it, but its source is not in the constitution. It is in the Declaration of Independence, where broad propositions containing no meaning, or any meaning each man chooses, stand in singular incongruity by the side of plain and business-like specifications of the grounds for declaring independence. It is not without reason that some have talked about bringing the constitution into accord with the Declaration of Independence; they did not find in the former document the dogmatic assumptions which they wanted. They had to seek them in the latter document, where they are as much to the purpose as the resolutions of a reform club about things in general would be, if appended to a statute.

Take, for instance, the latest case of political dogmatism. The mismanagement of cities has become intolerable and it has been proposed in order to check the abuse to give property especial power in municipal


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 on it." His hungry eyes recognized the building, even in the dark, two blocks away and his glance sought their old apartment. Yes, there was a light. She was home! That is, if she still lived there. He added that as an afterthought, as a dreadful possibility. Then he grunted and grinned. Vyv would be waiting; he remembered how she had sobbed and promised that night he left.

He gave the driver a handsome tip for his speed and, hurrying inside, eagerly scanned the names beside the letter boxes. Yes, there it was in the same place—Vyvyan Lovejoy. What a surprise his coming would be to her; he hadn't written for two monthsthere'd been so much else to do. He tried the hall door on the chance that it might be open. It was. He hurried softly upstairs and with his breath catching in his throat knocked at the familiar third floor door. He heard a sort of scuffling sound inside but no one came. He knocked again, loud and a little impatiently.

Then the door opened slightly. Tony's ready arms dropped to his sides and his eyes suddenly flashed fire. For holding the door was a man, a ratty-looking young fellow with a crook's face but sensual lips and a passionate nose. He was in his shirtsleeves.

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 not enlighten, and which looks all the darker for the contrast of the glistening silver mist that shows here and there in the clearings, or over lagoon, or river, wavering twining, rising and falling; so full of strange motion and beauty, yet, somehow, as sinister in its way as the rest of your surroundings, and so deadly silent. I think if you hear that yell cutting through this sort of thing like a knife and sinking despairingly into the surrounding silence, you will agree with me that it seems to favour Duppy, and that, perchance, the strange red patch of ground you passed at the foot of the cotton tree before night came down on you, was where the yell came from, for it is red and damp and your native friends have told you it is so because of the blood whipped off a sasa-bonsum and his victims as he goes down through it to his under-world home.

Seen from the sea, the Ivory Coast is a relief to the eye after the dead level of the Grain Coast, but the attention of the mariner to rocks has no practical surcease; and there is that submarine horror for sailing ships, the Bottomless pit. They used to have great tragedies with it in olden times, and you can still, if you like, for that matter; but the French having a station 15 miles to the east of it at Grand Bassam would nowadays prevent your experiencing the action of this phenomenon thoroughly, and getting not only wrecked but killed by the natives ashore, though they are a lively lot still.

Now although this is not a manual of devotion, I must say a few words on the Bottomless pit. All along the West Coast of Africa there is a great shelving bank, submarine, formed by the deposit of the great mud-laden rivers and the earth-wash of the heavy rains. The slope of what the scientific term the great West African bank is, on the whole,

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Rh affairs. This is opposed on the ground that it would limit the suffrage. The dogmatic assumption here is that the privilege of all men to vote on all subjects is of sacred and inviolable and absolute right, which the state may not infringe upon on any grounds of expediency. In truth there are no such absolute rights at all in the individual. The community has a right to good government; this is the fixed and paramount consideration in politics and the question as to who may share, or how, in the public affairs, depends on what arrangement will best conduce to good government. A wide suffrage is based on the experience that it conduces more to good government than a narrow one. Those who hold any other doctrine must justify, as they can, the exclusion of women, children, idiots, felons, paupers, and those who cannot read, those who pay no poll-tax, or other exclusions which the laws of various states provide for.

The proposition I have laid down, that institutions and political arrangements cannot be arbitrarily created, finds its proof also in the attempt which the constitution-makers did make to foresee political exigencies and to provide for them by special devices. Most of these were devices against democracy, and every one of them has been brought to naught. The fathers never intended to have the President elected by a grand democratic plébiscite, for they were under impressions which were hostile to democracy, would have held any such project dangerous, if practicable, and would not have judged it likely to produce a good selection. They adopted the device of the electoral college to prevent this. At the fourth election, the first one at which there was a real contest, their plan broke down. It was amended in detail, but in its subsequent working a mass of tradition and unwritten law has


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 very regular, except opposite Piccaninny Bassam, where it is cut right through by a great chasm, presumably the result of volcanic action. This chasm commences about 15 miles from land and is shaped like a V, with the narrow end shorewards. Nine miles out it is three miles wider and 2,400 feet deep, at three miles out the sides are opposite each other and there is little more than a mile between them, and the depth is 1,536 feet; at one mile from the beach the chasm is only a quarter of a mile wide and the depth 600 feet—close up beside the beach the depth is 120 feet. The floor of this chasm is covered with grey mud, and some five miles out the surveying vessels got fragments of coral rock.

The sides of this submarine valley seem almost vertical cliffs, and herein lies its danger for the sailing ship. The master thereof, in the smoke or fog season (December—February), may not exactly know to a mile or so where he is, and being unable to make out Piccaninny Bassam, which is only a small native village on the sand ridge between the surf and the lagoon, he lets go his anchor on the edge of the cliffs of this Bottomless pit. Then the set of the tide and the onshore breeze cause it to drag a little, and over it goes down into the abyss, and ashore he is bound to go. In old days he and his ship's crew formed a welcome change in the limited dietary of the exultant native. Mr. Barbot, who knew them well, feelingly remarks, "it is from the bloody tempers of these brutes that the Portuguese gave them the name of Malagens for they eat human flesh," and he cites how "recently they have massacred a great number of Portuguese, Dutch and English, who came for provisions and water, not thinking of any treachery, and not many years since, (that is to say,

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 With a lunge, Tony flung the door wide open, almost overturning the other man as he did so, and plunged into the room.

"Where's Vyvyan?" he demanded.

She came hurrying out of the bedroom, wrapped in a beautiful negligee that he had bought her. He could see that she had on only pajamas beneath it and that her legs were bare.

"Who are you?" she demanded furiously. "And what do you mean by breaking in here this way?"

Tony caught his breath; she didn't recognize him.

"Why, I'm Tony. I know I've changed a little," his fingers unconsciously felt that awful scar on his left cheek, "but surely you—"

"Tony!" she exclaimed in amazement and came closer to stare wonderingly up into his face. "Why they reported you killed about six weeks ago; it was in the papers."

"Well, I wasn't. I'm right here, and as good as ever." Then he suddenly remembered that strange man, who had closed the door by now and was waiting behind him. He whirled, facing, them both accusingly. "Who's that?" he demanded, and in his voice was a tone that made Vyvyan cringe.

"A—a friend of mine," she answered.

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 would be much crowded that Night; and by this, said he, a Man may judge of the People's Inclinations. The Play which is to be acted to Night is one that extenuates Vice without condemning it, and that contains all the false Arguments that can be brought in Defence of Gallantry, which, if examin'd, will prove to be nothing less than fashionable Wickedness. The House is always full when Honesty is brought on the Stage to be laugh'd at, or when the shining Character in the Play be the Character of an harden'd Villain, that calls himself a fine Gentleman. This People forgets how Glory, and the Character of a fine Gentleman, was acquir'd of old. 'Twas Virtue, and a Love for their King and Country, that made the Gentleman. But now the Learning of the Age has turn'd the Dust of a Campaign into sweet Powder; and those which should weild a Sword, have now learn'd the fashionable Airs of managing a Snuff-Box. The Writers of Plays well know which Way the People's Affections tend; and, to comply with their deprav'd Humour, have always introduc'd Virtue and Innocence in the utmost Distress, as if Affliction were their inseparable Attendant, whilst Vice is generally brought in in Triumph, and by a false Gloss assumes the Appearance of Virtue. This is not to change Names, but Things, even Things of the greatest Consequence. But let us hasten to the Play-House, where, by the Acclamations of the People, you may confirm what I have said, as well as by what you will see represented on the Stage.

We went thither accordingly, and found all that Tckbrff had said to be true; for the House was soon fill'd, and by good Luck we got to a Seat were we could see all that was done in the House very distinctly. But as our greatest Pleasures have their Alloy of Bitterness, it here prov'd my Case; for I had propos'd a great deal of Pleasure to myself in


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 The Cannibal King in the "Kedah Annals."

The story of the cannibal king on pp. 71–77 of the "Hikayat Marong Mahawangsa" (J.R.A.S., S.B., No. 72, May, 1916), differs a good deal in setting and incident from the similar tale in Number 531 of Fausböll's series of the "Maha-Sutasoma-Jataka" (vol. V, p. 246 seq. of the translation by Francis in Cowell's edition): but these two tales have so many points of agreement that it is difficult to suppose they are unconnected. 1 shall mention a few of the chief differences, as they occur in the course of the narrative: but my main purpose will be to draw attention. to points of resemblance.

The openings differ. In the Indian story the king of Benares developesdevelops [sic] cannibal propensities in accordance with Buddhist ideas of transmigration, because in a previous existence he has been a Yakkha or ogre; and he has occasion first to taste human flesh, because one day a dog steals his plate of meat and the king's cook (a man) dishes up instead a portion of flesh cut from a fresh corpse in the cemetery.

In the Malay story, the cannibal king of Kedah is the son of an ogress or Gĕrgasi; and he first tastes human blood, when one day his cook, a woman, cutting her finger by accident lets the blood drip into a vegetable curry and there is no time to prepare another dish.

Incidentally one may surmise that the detail of the "fresh corpse" in the Indian version is an instance of the old Buddhist custom (similar to the Parsi habit) of exposing corpses to be eaten by birds of prey; and one may compare Groeneveldt's "Notes on the Malay Archipelago and Malacca," s.v. Tun-Sun, in "Essays Relating to Indo-China, Second Series," vol. I. p. 240, where however the dying are so exposed.

After the opening the two stories agree in many details. In both, the king takes great pleasure in his horrid meal, even before he is aware of its ingredients. In both, the cook is threatened with death in default of confession as to the recipé! In both, the cook confesses, and the king, so far from being shocked, orders more of the gruesome fare, battening first on prisoners from the gaol and later kidnapping the bodies of innocent people to supply the royal table; until at last there is uproar in the realm.

In the Indian tale the cook is caught taking flesh from the body of a woman he has just killed; in the Malay, the king is attacked by a bravo and a great fight ensues. In both tales, the king's


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 "A friend of yours, eh?" he repeated bitterly and stared contemptuously at the other.

He whirled and rushed back to the bedroom. There in the closet, all mixed up with Vyvyan's things, he found a man's shoes, half a dozen masculine suits, even a man's pajamas. His things had been there when he went to war; but they were all gone now—these things were strange, evidently the property of that rat-faced crook in the parlor. Tony rushed back there, trembling with fury.

"So you two-timed me, you little bitch!" he snarled through gritted teeth. "I s'pose you been feedin' him out o' the money I had Klondike O'Hara send you every week."

"No, Tony," gasped Vyvyan breathlessly. Her hands fluttered to her throat and she seemed to find it almost impossible to speak. "Tony, you mustn't think what you're thinkin'. I never looked at another man all the time you was gone, not until that report about you bein' killed; I swear to God I didn't."

"Well, you didn't wait long after; a woman don't go to livin' with a man the first night she meets him. You didn't take the trouble to find out if that report was true; you didn't wait for a little while to see if I might come back, like I did.

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 in 1677) an English ship lost three of its men; a Hollander fourteen; and, in 1678, a Portuguese, nine, of whom nothing was ever heard since."

From Cape Palmas until you are past the mouth of the Taka River (St. Andrew) the coast is low. Then comes the Cape of the Little Strand (Caboda Prazuba), now called, I think, Price's Point. To the east of this you will see ranges of dwarf red cliffs rising above the beach and gradually increasing in height until they attain their greatest in the face of Mount Bedford, where the cliff is 280 feet high. The Portuguese called these Barreira Vermelhas; the French, Kalazis Rouges; and the Dutch, Roode Kliftin, all meaning Red Cliffs. The sand at their feet is strewn with boulders, and the whole country round here looks fascinating and interesting. I regret never having had an opportunity of seeing whether those cliffs had fossils on them, for they seem to me so like those beloved red cliffs of mine in Kacongo which have. The investigation, however, of such makes of Africa is messy. Those Kacongo cliffs were of a sort of red clay that took on a greasy slipperiness when they were wet, which they frequently were on account of the little springs of water that came through their faces. When pottering about them, after having had my suspicions lulled by twenty or thirty yards of crumbly dryness, I would ever and anon come across a water spring, and down I used to go—and lose nothing by it, going home in the evening time in what the local natives would have regarded as deep mourning for a large family—red clay being their sign thereof. The fossils I found in them were horizontally deposed layers of clam shells with regular intervals, or bands, of red clay, four or five feet across; between the layers some of the shell

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 ministers, moved by popular clamour, warn their master; and he rejecting the warning is expelled from his country, peaceably in the Indian version and taking his sword and cook with him, ignominiously in the Malay story after a desperate onslaught on the palace, whence he escapes by a private door.

In the Indian story, the king after a number of adventures in the jungle is converted from cannibalism by Sutasonia, an incarnation of the Buddha in a previous existence—for the "Jatakas" purport to be stories of the Buddha's earlier births: he is brought to Benares a changed man, and is welcomed by the son who reigns in his stead. In the Kedah version, the king mates with a girl of good family in a remote part of the country and, after once more escaping his enraged pursuers, is lost sight of; but the son of that union is restored to reign in the capital by virtue of the magical sagacity of an elephant in detecting the royal infant and by virtue of the king of Siam's warrant.

When it is remembered that in Buddhist countries the "Jatakas" are known not only to the literate but in popular folk-lore, it becomes reasonable to infer that the Kedah tale has been borrowed from a Siamese source. Man-eating ogres are usual enough; but in the two tales considered, coincidence of small detail seems to demand explanation more particular than the common uniformity of the human mind in the invention of folk-tales.

For a parallel in Sinhalese legendary history those interested may consult p. 234 of my "Catalogue of European Manuscripts in the India Office Library, vol. I, part I."


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 No, you grabbed somep'm else right away. And I don't see any mourning among your clothes; they're all just as wild and gay as ever. A lot you cared about me, outside of a meal ticket." Suddenly he "saw red"; his mind seemed frozen with rage. Automatically his hand darted to that pistol in his pocket. "You didn't give a damn about me, you lousy little"

The dreadful word he flung at her was drowned in the roar of the gun. She clutched at her throat and fell, a fluffy, blood-stained heap. The man had dodged and was trying to hide behind a chair. But Tony mowed him down with deadly precision. Then he secreted the empty pistol under the cushion of an overstuffed chair and hurried out of the apartment, still carrying his bag.

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 layers were 40 or more feet above the present beach level. Identical deposits of shell I also found far inland in Ka Congo, but that has nothing to do with the Ivory Coast.

Inland, near Drewin, on the Ivory Coast, you can see from the sea curious shaped low hills; the definite range of these near Drewin is called the Highland of Drewin; after this place they occur frequently close to the shore, usually isolated but now and again two or three together, like those called by sailors the Sisters. I am much interested in these peculiar-shaped hills that you see on the Ivory and Gold Coast, and again, far away down South, rising out of the Ouronuogou swamp, and have endeavoured to find out if any theories have been suggested as to their formation, but in vain. They look like great bubbles, and run from 300 to 2,000 feet.

The red cliffs end at Mount Bedford and the estuary of the Fresco River, and after passing this the coast is low until you reach what is now called the district of Lahu, a native sounding name, but really a corruption from its old French name La-Hoe or Hou.

You would not think, when looking at this bit of coast from the sea, that the strip of substantial brown sand beach is but a sort of viaduct, behind which lies a chain of stagnant lagoons. In the wet season, these stretches of dead water cut off the sand beach from the forest for as much as 40 miles and more.

Beyond Mount La-Hou on this sand strip there are many native villages—each village a crowded clump of huts, surrounded by a grove of coco palm trees, each tree belonging definitely to some native family or individual, and having its owner's particular mark on it, and each grove of palm trees slanting uniformly at a stiff angle, which gives

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 you no cause to ask which is the prevailing wind here, for they tell you bright and clear, as they lean N.E., that the S.W. wind brought them up to do so.

Groves of coco palms are no favourites of mine. I don't like them. The trees are nice enough to look on, and nice enough to use in the divers ways you can use a coco-nut palm; but the noise of the breeze in their crowns keeps up a perpetual rattle with their hard leaves that sounds like heavy rain day and night, so that you feel you ought to live under an umbrella, and your mind gets worried about it when you are not looking after it with your common sense.

Then the natives are such a nuisance with coco-nuts. For a truly terrific kniff give me even in West Africa a sand beach with coco-nut palms and natives. You never get coco-nut palms without natives, because they won't grow out of sight of human habitation. I am told also that one coco will not grow alone; it must have another coco as well as human neighbours, so these things, of course, end in a grove. It's like keeping cats with no one to drown the kittens.

Well, the way the smell comes about in this affair is thus. The natives bury the coco-nuts in the sand, so as to get the fibre off them. They have buried nuts in that sand for ages before you arrive, and the nuts have rotted, and crabs have come to see what was going on, a thing crabs will do, and they have settled down here and died in their generations, and rotted too. The sandflies and all manner of creeping things have found that sort of district suits them, and have joined in, and the natives, who are great hands at fishing, have flung all the fish offal there, and there is usually a lagoon behind this sort of thing which contributes

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 its particular aroma, and so between them the smell is a good one, even for West Africa.

The ancient geographers called this coast Ajanginal Æthiope, and the Dutch and French used to reckon it from Growe, where the Melaguetta Coast ends. Just east of Cape Palmas, to the Rio do Sweiro da Costa, where they counted the Gold Coast to begin, the Portuguese divided the coast thus. The Ivory, or, as the Dutchmen called it, the Tand Kust, from Gowe to Rio St. Andrew; the Malaguetta from St. Andrew to the Rio Lagos; and the Quaqua from the Rio Lagos to Rio de Sweiro da Costa, which is just to the east of what is now called Assini.

It is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and nowadays least known bits of the coast of the Bight of Benin; but, taken altogether, with my small knowledge of it, I do not feel justified in recommending the Ivory Coast as either a sphere for emigration or a pleasure resort. Nevertheless, it is a very rich district naturally, and one of the most amusing features of West African trade you can see on a steamboat is to watch the shipping of timber therefrom.

This region of the Bight of Benin is one of enormous timber wealth, and the development of this of late years has been great, adding the name of Timber Ports to the many other names this particular bit of West Africa bears, the Timber Ports being the main ports of the French Ivory Coast, and the English port of Axim on the Gold Coast.

The best way to watch the working of this industry is to stay on board the steamer; if by chance you go on shore when this shipping of mahogany is going on you may be expected to help, or get out of the way, which is hot work, or difficult. The last time I was in Africa we on the

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was after midnight. He saw no one on his way out. He had seen no one on his way in. He felt sure he was safe from identifying witnesses.

Two blocks away he hailed a taxi and gave the driver the name of one of the best hotels in town. The police, even if they were looking for Tony Guarino, would never think of looking for him at a hotel like that.

There were many uniforms on the streets and even in the lobby of the rather expensive hotel to which he went. It was not a conspicuous costume. He registered as J. H. Stevens, Denver, Colo., and was shown to a handsome room with private bath.

He removed his tunic and stretched out in an easy chair to smoke and think. He had killed Vyvyan and her new lover. There was no doubt of that; three or four shots from a Luger aimed with his skill would finish anybody. And he did not regret his act. Vyvyan never had loved him; he could see it now. In fact, he felt a sense of relief that her mouth was shut forever. She could have

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 shipped 170 enormous bulks of timber. These logs run on an average 20 to 30 feet long and 3 to 4 feet in diameter. They are towed from the beach to the vessel behind the surf boats, seven and eight at a time, tied together by a rope running through rings called dogs, which are driven into the end of each log, and when alongside, the rope from the donkey engine crane is dropped overboard, and passed round the log by the negroes swimming about in the water regardless of sharks and as agile as fish. Then, with much uproar and advice, the huge logs are slowly heaved on board, and either deposited on the deck or forthwith swung over the hatch and lowered down. It is almost needless to remark that, with the usual foresight of men, the hatch is of a size unsuited to the log, and therefore, as it hangs suspended, a chorus of counsel surges up from below and from all sides.

The officer in command on on this particular hatch presently shouts "Lower away," waving his hand gracefully from the wrist as though he were practising for piano playing, but really to guide Shoo Fly, who is driving the donkey engine. The tremendous log hovers over the hatch, and then gradually, "softly, softly," as Shoo Fly would say, disappears into the bowels of the ship, until a heterogeneous yell in English and Kru warns the trained intelligence that it is low enough, or more probably too low. "Heave a link!" shouts the officer, and Shoo Fly and the donkey engine heaveth. Then the official hand waves, and the crane swings round with a whiddle, whiddle, and there is a moment's pause, the rope strains, and groans, and waits, and as soon as the most important and valuable people on board, such as the Captain, the Doctor, and myself, are within its reach to give advice, and look down

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 Hereafter I visited the Bernam river (the southern limit of the State) and went up as far as Simpang—the end of the deeper portion of the river and where poles take place of oars for navigation further up stream.

On the Bernam I steamed up as far as Kampong Chankat Berhitam a distance I put down at not less than 76 miles. Taking boat at Berhitam I went up 7 to 9 miles further and found soundings to be 10 to 17 feet as far as Simpang, where the river divides and shallows.

[The following extract from the Diary of the Resident Officer at Langat describes the superstitious feelings of Malays, common among other orientals also, towards the Tiger.]

"At 10 A. M. a great noise of rejoicing with drums and gongs approaching Jugra by the river was heard, and on my questioning the people, I was told Raja Yakob had managed to shoot a Jugra with a spring gun, behind Tiger hill, and was bringing it in state to the Sultan. I went over to the Sultan's at Raja Yakob's request, to see the attendants on the slaughter of a Tiger. The animal was supported by posts and fastened in an attidudeattitude [sic] as nearly as possible approchingapproaching [sic] the living. Its mouth was forced open, its tongue allowed to droop on one side, and a small rattan attached to its upper jaw was passed over a pole held by a man behind. This finished, two swords were produced and placed crosswise, and a couple of Panglimas selected for the dance; the gongs and drums were beaten at quick time, the man holding the rattan attached to the tiger's head pulled it, moving the head up and down, and the two Panglimas, after making their obeisance to the Sultan rushed at the swords and holding them in their hands commenced a most wild and exciting dance. They spun around on one leg, waving their swords, then bounded forward and made a thrust at the tiger; moving back quickly with the point of the weapon facing the animal; they crawled along the ground and sprung over it uttering


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 the hatch to see what is going on, that rope likes to break and comes clawing at us a mass of bent and broken wire, and as we scatter, the great log goes with a crash into the hold. Fortunately, the particular log I remember as indulging in this catastrophe did not go through the ship's bottom, as I confidently expected it had at the time, nor was any one killed, such a batch of miraculous escapes occurring for the benefit of the officer and men below as can only be reasonably accounted for by their having expected this sort of thing to happen.

Quaint are the ways of mariners at times. That time they took on quantities of great logs at the main gangway, well knowing that they would have to go down the hatch aft, and that this would entail hauling them along the narrow alley ways. This process was effected by rigging the steam winches aft, then two sharp hooks connected together by a chain at the end of the wire hawser were fixed into the head of the log, and the word passed "Haul away," water being thrown on the deck to make the logs slip easier over it, and billets of wood put underneath the log with the same intention, and the added hope of saving the deck from being torn by the rough hewn, hard monster.

Now there are two superstitions rife regarding this affair, The first is, that if you hitch the hooks lightly into each side of the log's head and then haul hard, the weight of the log will cause the hooks to get firmly and safely embedded in it. The second is, that the said weight will infallibly keep the billets under it in due position.

Nothing short of getting himself completely and permanently killed shakes the mariner's faith in these notions. What often happens is this. When the strain is at its highest the hooks slip out of the wood, and try and scalp any

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 defiant yells, they cut and parried at supposed attacks, finally throwing down their weapon and taunting the dead beast by dancing before it unarmed. This done Tuas told me the carcase was at my disposal.

"The death of this tiger now establishes the fact of the existence of tigers here, for asserting which I have been pretty frequently laughed at. However, this is not the Jugra pest, a brute whose death would be matter for general rejoicing, the one now destroyed being a tigress 8 feet long and 2 feet 8 inches high."

[The following paragraphs respecting "Breeding Pearls," extracted from Land and Water under the dates annexed to them, may be of interest.]

The glass tube now before me, so kindly provided by Her Highness the Ranee of Sarawak as a test of the credulity of the inhabitants of the British Isles, contains a few genuine seed pearls of the Meleagrina and five small marine shells—Cowries or Cypraea, sub-genus Trivia of Gray, which represent the rice. The specifice distinctions of these small trivia are so minute that this individual species has been from time to time variously described. It is the Cypren oryza of Linnaeus and of Lamarck; C. intermedia of Kiener; C. insecta of Mighels, and will doubtless receive other designations from daring conchologists, who delight in a religious dissent from the opinions of their predecessors. The so-called rice is a marine shell of the genus Cypraea, the end or apex of each example carefully filed or ground off to represent the effect of having been fed upon by the pearls. The whole is a deliberate and barefaced imposture, and it is to be hoped that when some generations hence this miserable myth again crops up in the repetitive operations of history, some more powerful pen than mine may find employment in denouncing the shamieless attempt to impose upon the credulity of the scientific world.

(Signed).

December 25, 1878.


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 one that's handy, and now and again they succeed. There was a man helping that day at Axim whom the Doctor said had only last voyage fell a victim to the hooks; they slipped out of the head of the log and played round his own, laying it open to the bone at the back, cutting him over the ears and across the forehead, and if that man had not had a phenomenally thick skull he must have died. But no, there he was on this voyage as busy as ever with the timber, close to those hooks, and evidently with his superstitious trust in the invariable embedding of hooks in timber unabated one fraction.

Sometimes the performance is varied by the hauling rope itself parting and going up the alley way like a boa constrictor in a fit, whisking up black passengers and boxes full of screaming parrots in its path from places they had placed themselves, or been placed in, well out of its legitimate line of march. But the day it succeeds in clawing hold of and upsetting the cook's grease tub, which lives in the alley-way, that is the day of horror for the First officer and the inauguration of a period of ardent holystoning for his minions.

Should, however, the broken rope fail to find, as the fox-hunters would say, in the alley-way, it flings itself in a passionate embrace round the person of the donkey engine aft, and gives severe trouble there. The mariners, with an admirable faith and patience, untwine it, talking seriously to it meanwhile, and then fix it up again, may be with more care, and the shout, "Heave away!"—goes forth again; the rope groans and creaks, the hooks go in well on either side of the log, and off it moves once more with a graceful, dignified glide towards its destination. The Bo'sun and Chips with their eyes on the man at the winch, and let us

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 put up, and thus ascertained where to find him again when requisite, retraced his steps to the mountain, meditating divers plans of vengeance. On his way, he met a rich Jew proceeding to Hirschberg, and it instantly occurred to him that he might make this man an instrument of his revenge. He forthwith assumed the precise form and features, and dress of the traveller who had insulted him, and joining the Israelite, entered into friendly converse with him, and under pretence of a short cut, led him out of the road into a thicket, where, suddenly seizing him in the most ferocious manner by the beard, he shook him soundly, and then throwing him roughly on the ground, tied him neck and heels, and took from him his purse, which contained a large amount in gold and jewels. He then, by way of adieu, kicked and cuffed the unhappy Jew, until he well nigh became a jelly, after which satisfactory exercise the Gnome left his victim half dead among the bushes, and went his way.

As soon as the sufferer had recovered from his awful panic, and satisfied himself by pinching his poor bruised arms and legs that he was not dead, he set up a doleful howling, and bawled piteously for help, and well he might, for left there, in the depth of the forest, and unable to rise, what was to save him from dying of hunger where he lay? His cries brought to his assistance a grave, respectable-looking person, apparently a burgess of some neighbouring town,


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 hope their thoughts employed in the penitential contemplation of their past sins, so as to be ready for the consequences likely to arise for them if the rope parts again, do not observe the little white note—underbill—as a German would call it, which is getting nearer and nearer the end of the log, which has stuck to the deck. In a few moments the log is off it, and down on Chips' toes, who returns thanks with great spontaneity, in language more powerful then select. The Bo'sun yells, "Avast heaving, there!" and several other things, while his assistant Kruboys, chattering like a rookery when an old lady's pet parrot has just joined it, get crowbars and raise up the timber, and the Carpenter is a free man again, and the little white billet reinstated. "Haul away," roars the Bo'sun, "Abadeo Na nu de um oro de Kri Kri," join in the hoarse-voiced Kruboys, "Ji na oi," answers the excited Shoo Fly, and off goes that log again. The particular log whose goings on I am chronicling slewed round at this juncture with the force of a Roman battering ram, drove in the panel of my particular cabin, causing all sorts of bottles and things inside to cast themselves on the floor and smash, whereby I, going in after dark, got cut. But no matter, that log, one of the classic sized logs, was in the end safely got up the alley-way and duly stowed among its companions. For let West Africa send what it may, be it never so large or so difficult, be he never so ill-provided with tackle to deal with it, the West Coast mariner will have that thing on board, and ship it—all honour to his determination and ability.

The varieties of timber chiefly exported from the West African timber ports are Oldfieldia Africana, of splendid size and texture, commonly called mahogany, but really

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 teak, Bar and Camwood and Ebony. Bar and Cam are dye-woods, and, before the Anilines came in these woods were in great request; invaluable they were for giving the dull rich red to bandana handkerchiefs and the warm brown tints to tweed stuffs. Camwood was once popular with cabinet makers and wood-turners here, but of late years it has only come into this market in roots or twisty bits—all the better these for dyeing, but not for working up, and so it has fallen out of demand among cabinet makers in spite of its beautiful grain and fine colour, a pinky yellow when fresh cut, deepening rapidly on exposure to the air into a rich, dark red brown. Amongst old Spanish furniture you will find things made from Cam-wood that are a joy to the eye. There has been some confusion as to whether Bar and Camwood are identical—merely a matter of age in the same tree or no—but I have seen the natives cutting both these timbers, and they are quite different trees in the look of them, as any one would expect from seeing a billet of Bar and one of Cam; the former is a light porous wood and orange colour when fresh cut, while 500 billets of Bar and only 150 to 200 of Cam go to the ton.

There are many signs of increasing enterprise in the West African timber trade, but so far this form of wealth has barely been touched, so vast are the West African forests and so varied the trees therein. At present it, like most West African industries, is fearfully handicapped by the deadly climate, the inferiority and expensiveness of labour, and the difficulties of transport.

At present it is useless to fell a tree, be it ever so fine, if it is growing at any distance from a river down which you can float it to the sea beach, for it would be impossible to

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 drag it far through the Liane-tangled West African forest.

Indeed, it is no end of a job to drag a decent-sized log even two hundred yards or so to a river. The way it is done is this. When felling the tree you arrange that its head shall fall away from the river, then trim off the rough stuff and hew the heavy end to a rough point, so that when the boys are pully-hauling down the slope—you must have a slope—to the bank, it may not only be able to pierce the opposing undergrowth spearwise more easily than if its end were flat or jagged, but also by the fact of its own weight it may help their exertions.

I have seen one or two grand scenes on the Ogowé with trees felled on steep mountain sides, wherein you had only got to arrange these circumstances, start your log on its downward course to the river, get out of the fair way of it, and leave the rest to gravity, which carried things through in grand style, with a crashing rush and a glorious splash into the river. You had, of course, to take care you had a clear bank and not one fringed with dead-trees, into which your mighty spear would embed itself and also to have a canoe load of energetic people to get hold of the log and keep it out of the current of that lively Ogowé river, or it would go off to Kama Country express. But this work on timber was far easier than that on the Gold or Ivory Coasts, whence most timber comes to Europe, and where the make of the country does not give you so fully the assistance of steep gradients.

After what I have told you about the behaviour of these great baulks on board ship you will not imagine that the log behaves well during its journey on land. Indeed, my belief in the immorality of inanimate nature has been

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Rh falling thick and fast away I went again. Slowly and sadly dragged a few of the days after my return to the Seminary, and I was very homesick, but "after a storm there comes a calm," and so it was in my case. My sorrows were soon lost in study, and I again felt happy, if happiness there can be away from "home, sweet home." Our term closes this week on Thursday, and Friday I hope to see home and friends once more. I have studied hard this term, and aside from my delight at going home, there is a sweetness in approaching rest to me. This term is the longest in the year, and I would not wish to live it over again, I can assure you. I love this Seminary, and all the teachers are bound strongly to my heart by ties of affection. There are many sweet girls here, and dearly do I love some new faces, but I have not yet found the place of a few dear ones filled, nor would I wish it to be here. I am now studying Silliman's Chemistry and Cutter's Physiology, in both of which I am much interested. We finish Physiology before this term closes, and are to be examined in it at the spring examinations, about five weeks after the commencement of the next term. I already begin to dread that time, for an examination in Mount Holyoke Seminary is rather more public than in our old academy, and a failure would be more disgraceful then, I opine; but I hope, to use my father's own words, "that I shall not disgrace myself." What are you studying now? You did not mention that item in your last letters to me, and consequently I am quite in the dark as regards your progress in those affairs. All I can say is, that I hope you will not leave poor me far behind.…Your affectionate sister


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 much strengthened by observing the conduct of African timber. Nor am I alone in judging it harshly, for an American missionary once said to me, "Ah! it will be a grand day for Africa when we have driven out all the heathen devils; they are everywhere, not only in graven images, but just universally scattered around." The remark was made on the occasion of a floor that had been laid down by a mission carpenter coming up on its own account, as native timber floors laid down by native carpenters customarily come, though the native carpenter lays Norway boards well enough.

When, after much toil and tribulation and uproar, the log has been got down to the river and floated, iron rings are driven into it, and it is branded with its owner's mark. Then the owner does not worry himself much about it for a month or so, but lets it float its way down and soak, and generally lazy about until he gets together sufficient of its kind to make a shipment.

One of the many strange and curious things they told me of on the West Coast was that old idea that hydrophobia is introduced into Europe by means of these logs. There is, they say, on the West Coast of Africa a peculiarly venomous scorpion that makes its home on the logs while they are floating in the river, three-parts submerged on account of weight, and the other part most delightfully damp and cool to the scorpion's mind. When the logs get shipped frequently the scorpion gets shipped too, and subsequently comes out in the hold and bites the resident rats. So far I accept this statement fully, for I have seen more than enough rats and scorpions in the hold, and the West Coast scorpions are particularly venomous, but feeling that in these days it is the duty of every one to keep their belief for

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 religious purposes, I cannot go on and in a whole souled way believe that the dogs of Liverpool, Havre, Hamburg, and Marseilles worry the said rats when they arrive in dock, and, getting bitten by them, breed rabies.

Nevertheless, I do not interrupt and say, "Stuff," because if you do this to the old coaster he only offers to fight you, or see you shrivelled, or bet you half-a-crown, or in some other time-honoured way demonstrate the truth of his assertion, and he will, moreover, go on and say there is more hydrophobia in the aforesaid towns than elsewhere, and as the chances are you have not got hydrophobia statistics with you, you are lost. Besides, it's very unkind and unnecessary to make a West Coaster go and say or do things which will only make things harder for him in the time "to come," and anyhow if you are of a cautious, nervous disposition you had better search your bunk for scorpions, before turning in, when you are on a vessel that has got timber on board, and the chances are that your labours will be rewarded by discovering specimens of this interesting animal.

Scorpions and centipedes are inferior in worrying power to driver ants, but they are a feature in Coast life, particularly in places—Cameroons, for example. If you see a man who seems to you to have a morbid caution in the method of dealing with his hat or folded dinner napkin, judge him not harshly, for the chances are he is from Cameroon, where there are scorpions—scorpions of great magnitude and tough constitutions, as was demonstrated by a little affair up here that occurred in a family I know.

The inhabitants of the French Ivory Coast are an exceedingly industrious and enterprising set of people in commercial matters, and the export and import trade is computed by a recent French authority at ten million

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 francs per annum. No official computation, however, of the trade of a Coast district is correct, for reasons I will not enter into now.

The native coinage equivalent here is the manilla—a bracelet in a state of sinking into a more conventional token. These manillas are made of an alloy of copper and pewter, manufactured mainly at Birmingham and Nantes, the individual value being from 20 to 25 centimes.

Changes for the worse as far as English trade is concerned have passed over the trade of the Ivory Coast recently, but the way, even in my time, trade was carried on was thus. The native traders deal with the captains of the English sailing vessels and the French factories, buying palm oil and kernels from the bush people with merchandise, and selling it to the native or foreign shippers. They get paid in manillas, which they can, when they wish, get changed again into merchandise either at the factory or on the trading ship. The manilla is, therefore, a kind of bank for the black trader, a something he can put his wealth into when he wants to store it for a time.

They have a singular system of commercial correspondence between the villages on the beach and the villages on the other side of the great lagoon that separates it from the mainland. Each village on the shore has its particular village on the other side of the lagoon, thus Alindja Badon is the interior commercial centre for Grand Jack on the beach, Abia for Anamaquoa, or Half Jack, and so on. Anamaquoa is only separated from its sister village by a little lagoon that is fordable, but the other towns have to communicate by means of canoes.

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 turned him up for that Spingola killing any time she liked, and she was just the type to do it if something made her jealous or mad. Yes, he could breathe easier now that she was gone.

So he had been reported killed, eh? He wondered if Vyvyan had been lying about that, if she had only used it as a subterfuge to try to justify her conduct. He must know; for the answer to that question would have a large part in shaping his future course of action.

He reached for the telephone at his elbow and called Klondike O'Hara's saloon.

"Lemme talk to Klondike," he said in a hoarse, disguised voice.

"Klondike was bumped off about six months ago," answered a strange voice.

"That's too bad. I been away for some time and I hadn't heard about it. What I wanted was to find out where I could reach a Wop kid that used to work for Klondike—Tony Guarino, his name was."

"Him? Aw, he got patriotic and joined the army right after war was declared. And he was killed in France just a week or so before the Armistice."

"How do you know he was?"

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 Grand Bassam, Assini, and Half Jack are the most important places on the Ivory Coast. The main portion of the first-named town is out of sight from seaboard, being some five miles up the Costa River, and all you can see on the beach are two large but lonesome-looking factories. Half Jack, Jack a Jack, or Anamaquoa—there is nothing like having plenty of names for one place in West Africa, because it leads people at home who don't know the joke to think there is more of you than there naturally is—gives its name to the bit of coast from Cape Palmas to Grand Bassam, this coast being called the Half Jack, or quite as often the Bristol Coast, and for many years it was the main point of call for the Guineamen, old-fashioned sailing vessels which worked the Bristol trade in the Bights.

This trade was established during the last century by Mr. Henry King, of Bristol, for supplying labour to the West Indies, and was further developed by his two sons, Richard, who hated men-o'-war like a quaker, and William who loved science, both very worthy gentlemen. After their time up till when I was first on the Coast, this firm carried on trade both on the Bristol Coast and down in Cameroon, which in old days bore the name of Little Bristol-in-Hell, but now the trade is in other hands.

According to Captain Binger, there are now about 30 sailing ships still working the Ivory Coast trade, two of them the property of an energetic American captain, but the greater part belonging to Bristol. Their voyage out from Bristol varies from 60 to 90 days, according as you get through the Horse latitudes—so-called from the number of horses that used to die in this region of calms when the sailing vessels bringing them across from South America

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 "It was in the papers—in a list of killed and wounded. Say, who are you, anyway?"

But Tony had hung up. And in his eyes flamed a great elation. So it was true. Everybody here at home thought he was dead. No longer would the police or the Spingola mob be looking for Tony Guarino. That his appearance was changed even more than he realized was proven by the fact that even Vyvyan had not recognized him at first. His old identity was dead; he would let it stay dead and go on his way as a new man. That course would cause his family no suffering; they already had done, of course, the same grieving as if he really had been killed. He laughed aloud. What a break!

He arose late, after a good sleep, and went down to a large store adjoining the hotel, where he purchased a complete outfit of civilian clothes. Leaving instructions to have the packages delivered to his hotel room immediately, he returned to the hotel lobby, purchased the morning papers and ascended to his room.

He found the killing of Vyvyan and her lover featured prominently in all the papers. And it was played up as a deep mystery. He discovered from the articles that the man in the case was "Frog"

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 lay week out and week in short alike of wind and water.

In old days, when the Bristol ship got to the Coast she would call at the first village on it. Then the native chiefs and head men would come on board and haggle with the captain as to the quantity of goods he would let them have on trust, they covenanting to bring in exchange for them in a given time a certain number of slaves or so much produce. This arrangement being made, off sailed the Guineaman to his next village, where a similar game took place all the way down Coast to Grand Bassam.

When she had paid out the trust goods to the last village, she would stand out to sea and work back to her first village of call on the Bristol Coast to pick up the promised produce, this arrangement giving the native traders time to collect it. In nine cases out of ten, however, it was not ready for her, so on she went to the next. By this time the Guineaman would present the spectacle of a farmhouse that had gone mad, grown masts, and run away to sea; for the decks were protected from the burning sun by a well-built thatch roof, and she lounged along heavy with the rank sea growth of these seas. Sometimes she would be unroofed by a tornado, sometimes seized by a pirate parasitic on the Guinea trade, but barring these interruptions to business she called regularly on her creditors, from some getting the promised payment, from others part of it, from others again only the renewal of the promise, and then when she had again reached her last point of call put out to sea once more and worked back again to the first creditor village. In those days she kept at this weary round until she got in all her debts, a process that often took her four or five years, and cost the lives of half her crew from fever, and then her consorts

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 drafted a man or so on board her and kept her going until she was full enough of pepper, gold, gum, ivory, and native gods to sail for Bristol. There, when the Guineaman came in, were grand doings for the small boys, what with parrots, oranges, bananas, &c., but sad times for most of those whose relatives and friends had left Bristol on her.

In much the same way, and with much the same risks, the Bristol Coast trade goes on now, only there is little of it left, owing to the French system of suppressing trade. Palm oil is the modern equivalent to slaves, and just as in old days the former were transhipped from the coasting Guineamen to the transatlantic slavers, so now the palm oil is shipped off on to the homeward bound African steamers, while, as for the joys and sorrows, century-change affects them not. So long as Western Africa remains the deadliest region on earth there will be joy over those who come up out of it; heartache and anxiety over those who are down there fighting as men fought of old for those things worth the fighting, God, Glory and Gold; and grief over those who are dead among all of us at home who are ill-advised enough to really care for men who have the pluck to go there.

During the smoke season when dense fogs hang over the Bight of Benin, the Bristol ships get very considerably sworn at by the steamers. They have letters for them, and they want oil off them; between ourselves, they want oil off every created thing, and the Bristol boat is not easy to find. So the steamer goes dodging and fumbling about after her, swearing softly about wasting coal all the time, and more harshly still when he finds he has picked up the wrong Guineaman, only modified if she has stuff to send home, stuff which he conjures the Bristol captain by the

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 Merlin, owner of a North Side gambling house and reputed bootlegger. The death weapon had not been found and there were no known clews to the perpetrator of the crime. Detective Sergeant Ben Guarino was in charge of the case.

Tony read that last line three times then laughed uproariously. So Ben was a detective sergeant now. Well! Well! Wouldn't it be funny if they met some time? Then Tony's face hardened. Perhaps it wouldn't be so funny.

When the packages arrived, Tony donned his new outfit, then descended to the street. After a hearty breakfast he went out to the old neighborhood. It was an almost irresistible temptation to rush to the little grocery store and see the family but he steeled himself and turned in the opposite direction. He saw many people that he knew but he gave no sign of recognition, and none of them even gave him a second glance.

He spent the day in various illicit bar-rooms, listening to everything he could hear, asking as many and as detailed questions as he dared. He found the situation about as he had expected. The booze traffic was making the gangsters wealthy, and already the competition over the enormous profits

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 But if the working of heate were not mittigated by the moiſture of aire and of water, & wer reduced by due proportion to temperatneſſe. And therefore God ſetteth to the well of heate the well of all humour, as Macrobius ſaith, that the violence of heat might be tempered by the preſence of humour ſet, to withſtand it. And ſo the ſhape of the world may bée ſaued: for elſe by too great heate it ſhuld ſodeinly faile. Alſo moiſture ioyneth togethers the partes of the earth. For the earth is ſo drie, that euery part thereof ſhoulde fall from other; if it were not moiſtened with moiſture of water.

Therefore kinde made mountaines and hills hollow, and the earth with caues, vautes, and cliffes in places, and full of holes. That ſo by cauſe of voydneſſe ſhould bée great drawing in of ayre and of water, to ſlake the kindly drieng of the earth, and the partes thereof, that elſe woulde fall. And ſo as bloud doth, running through the vaines of the bodie, the ſame doth moyſture in the vains of the earth. For it moyſteneth the drineſſe of the earth, and diſpoſeth it to beare fruit. And moyſture hath certeine properties and effectes, that be the firſt and kindly. And ſome that bée ſecundarye, and ſome Caſuall, as other qualyties haue. By kinde moiſture is moueable, fléeting, and euill bounding in it ſelfe but yet it is ſtaide by other bound, as ſayth the Philoſopher. And it maketh moue from the middle outward, and ſhedding it ſelfe in fleeting, it ſhould deſtroy whollye his ſubiect; if nothing letted the fleeting therof, the which ſhoulde bounde his fléeting by reduction to the middle. As wée ſee that of drineſſe of grauell to the Sea, cliffes and ſtronds ſtopped, and holde in the floud of the Sea and turneth it ſomewhat inwarde. Alſo by kinde, moiſture maketh things ſofte.

For by withdrawing and ſpréading thereof, it ſlacketh and draweth abroad, and maketh ſofte the harde compact partes of the matter. And it happeneth that moyſture maketh harde: as wée ſée in Poſtumes and Botches, in the which colde humours come togethers, and ſmiting the moſt partes to the colde middlewarde, they come thicke and harde. And oftentimes the partes chaunge into Skliroſim, that is hardneſſe. The ſame happeneth of ouermuch heate, waſting the moiſt partes, the which when they bé waſted, the greate partes and ſadde be thruſt togethers, and made harde.

Alſo by kinde, moiſture cleanſeth: for by ſoftening therof, and of the parte, by the which it is ſhadde, it ſlacketh the ſenowing partes, and departeth them asſunder, and maketh them ſlipper and ſlidinge, and moueth and waſheth them awaye, as it is ſéene, namely, in water that is moiſt, and waſheth by kinde, and moſt cleanſeth hoarie things. And that is ſpeciallye if it helpe the moiſture: as it is ſéene in Branne of Wheat or of Rie; and in the root of a plant that is named and properly called Bryonie in Latine, and alſo in Sope, & in Meale of Beanes, and in other ſuch. For all theſe waſh away the filth of the face and of all the bodie, and maketh pure and cleane. Alſo for he moueth kindly from the middle towarde the vtter partes, and that moouing is not full ſtrong of it ſelfe, but ſtowe in compariſon to the moouing of the heate: and ſo moiſture ſheddeth it ſelfe principally into the ſideward, and ſtretcheth not much vpward without helpe of heate. But other while heate hath maſterie therin, and worketh therein, the moſt matter béeing obedient, ſtretcheth it ſelfe euery whether, but moſt vpward, & in length: for the ſtrength of heate beareth it vpwarde, & ſheddeth euen to the uttermoſt partes: And ſo it is lifted up and drawen in length. And bodyes, in the which heate hath the maiſtery, kindly and generally they bée higher, longer, and more ſlender, then ſuch bodyes, in the which much moiſture hath the maſterye and little heate worketh, contrarye cauſe is found. And therefore hot men, as cholerike, the ſubſtantiall humour of heate béeing obedient to the working, be more longer, that is to witte, the flumaticke, and in all extremytyes of the bodye, the other partes

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 love he bears him to keep, and ship by him when he is on his way home from windward ports, or to let him have forthwith.

Sometimes the Bristolman will signal to a passing steamer for a doctor. The doctors of the African and British African boats are much thought of all down the Coast, and are only second in importance to the doctor on board a telegraph ship, who, being a rare specimen, is regarded as, ipso facto, more gifted, so that people will save up their ailments for the telegraph ship's medical man, which is not a bad practice, as it leads commonly to their getting over those ailments one way or the other by the time the telegraph ship arives. It is reported that one day one of the Bristolmen ran up an urgent signal to a passing mail steamer for a doctor, and the captain thereof ran up a signal of assent, and the doctor went below to get his medicines ready. Meanwhile, instead of displaying a patient gratitude, the Bristolman signalled "Repeat signal." "Give it'em again," said the steamboat captain, "those Bristolmen ain't got no Board schools." Still the Bristolman kept bothering, running up her original signal, and in due course off went the doctor to her in the gig. When he returned his captain asked him, saying, "Pills, are they all mad on board that vessel or merely drunk as usual?" "Well," says the doctor, "that's curious, for it's the very same question Captain N. has asked me about you. He is very anxious about your mental health, and wants to know why you keep on signalling 'Haul to, or I will fire into you, and the story goes that an investigation of the code and the steamer's signal supported the Bristolman's reading, and the subject was dropped in steam circles.

Although the Bristolmen do not carry doctors, they are

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 was beginning to become acrimonious. Killings were liable to commence any time.

One man had held complete control of the situation for some little time after Prohibition came in. Then he was killed by being thrown from his horse on the Lincoln Park bridle path—what a horribly prosaic death for a gangster, for a man who had lived violently and who had every right to expect to die the same way. All of his lieutenants had tried to succeed him but none had been strong enough to gain the support of a majority of the gang. So they had split, each taking those loyal to him, and now there were half a dozen main gangs spread over the city, each holding sovereignty over a certain section and daring the others to trespass.

Tony could see that the big profits ultimately would go to the man with a well-oiled organization which was run as any other business enterprise. For he knew that the average gangster—even the leaders—had no more executive ability than the revolver with which he ruled. The only thing he knew was the old law of the survival of the fittest—might made right and the devil took the hindmost. But when you fought him with brains as well as strength, you had him licked.

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 provided with grand medicine chests, the supply of medicines in West Africa being frequently in the inverse ratio with the ability to administer them advantageously.

Inside the lid of these medicine chests is a printed paper of instructions, each drug having a number before its name, and a hint as to the proper dose after it. Thus, we will say, for example, 1 was jalap; 2, calomel; 3, croton oil; and 4, quinine. Once upon a time there was a Bristol captain, as good a man as need be and with a fine head on him for figures. Some of his crew were smitten with fever when he was out of number 4, so he argues that 2 and 2 are 4 all the world over, but being short of 2, it being a popular drug, he further argues 3 and 1 make 4 as well, and the dose of 4 being so much he makes that dose up out of jalap and croton oil. Some of the patients survived; at least, a man I met claimed to have done so. His report is not altogether reproducible in full, but, on the whole, the results of the treatment went more towards demonstrating the danger of importing raw abstract truths into everyday affairs than to encouraging one to repeat the experiment of arithmetical therapeutics.

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 Tony's inquiries showed him that the best executive of the lot was Johnny Lovo, who had his headquarters in Cicero, a rather large but somewhat frowsy suburb which joined the city on the west. Though the stranger could not discern where the city left off and the suburb began, Cicero was a separate entity with its own government and the city police had no right to meddle there. It impressed Tony as an ideal place from which to operate and that night he went out to see Johnny Lovo.

Those were the days before the present great secrecy as to gang leaders' movements and whereabouts was necessary and Tony had no difficulty in locating his man at his headquarters on an upper floor of a hotel whose appearance was far better than its reputation.

Lovo was a short, squat, dark man of perhaps thirty-five, with fine clothes, a large diamond ring and stickpin, and a ready smile on his not unhandsome face, who constantly chewed a long black cigar. He had been prominent in Cicero for some years as an operator of vice and gambling dens. Prohibition had merely placed in his hands another weapon with which to continue his pursuit of enormous wealth.

Tony liked him instantly. Here was a man who

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is one distinctive charm about fishing—its fascinations will stand any climate. You may sit crouching on ice over a hole inside the arctic circle, or on a Windsor chair by the side of the River Lea in the so-called temperate zone, or you may squat in a canoe on an equatorial river, with the surrounding atmosphere 45 per cent. mosquito, and if you are fishing you will enjoy yourself; and what is more important than this enjoyment, is that you will not embitter your present, nor endanger your future, by going home in a bad temper, whether you have caught anything or not, provided always that you are a true fisherman.

This is not the case with other sports; I have been assured by experienced men that it "makes one feel awfully bad" when, after carrying for hours a very heavy elephant gun, for example, through a tangled forest you have got a wretched bad chance of a shot at an elephant; and as for football, cricket, &c., well, I need hardly speak of the unchristian feelings they engender in the mind towards umpires and successful opponents.

Being, as above demonstrated, a humble, but enthusiastic, devotee of fishing—I dare not say, as my great predecessor Dame Juliana Berners says, "with an angle," because my

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 not only could act and give orders but who could plan.

"I just got out of the army two days ago," explained Tony without preliminaries. "And I want to get in this racket. I'd like to join up with you."

"Yes?" [sic] Who are you?" asked Lovo with the natural suspicion of his kind.

"Tony—Camonte." His former identity was dead; he intended to let it remain so.

"Ever been with any mob before?" Lovo's keen eyes were examining him thoroughly.

"Yes, sir. I was Klondike O'Hara's main lieutenant before the war. But of course I don't want that known now; I want to forget it."

"Don't blame you. That was small time stuff."

"Not so small," defended Tony quickly. "My end used to run around three hundred a week."

"Really?" Lovo was viewing him with heightened interest. "You must have been clever."

"I was," admitted Tony frankly, then added proudly: "And I never pulled any rough stuff either, no second-story jobs or stick-ups or anything like that."

"I understand," smiled Lovo. Already his quick mind had seen the picture of Tony's former activities. "And I think you may be very valuable to

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 conscience tells me I am a born poacher,—I need hardly remark that when I heard, from a reliable authority at Gaboon, that there were lakes in the centre of the island of Corisco, and that these fresh-water lakes were fished annually by representative ladies from the villages on this island, and that their annual fishing was just about due, I decided that I must go there forthwith. Now, although Corisco is not more than twenty miles out to sea from the Continent, it is not a particularly easy place to get at nowadays, no vessels ever calling there; so I got, through the kindness of Dr. Nassau, a little schooner and a black crew, and, forgetting my solemn resolve, formed from the fruits of previous experiences, never to go on to an Atlantic island again, off I sailed. I will not go into the adventures of that voyage here. My reputation as a navigator was great before I left Gaboon. I had a record of having once driven my bowsprit through a conservatory, and once taken all the paint off one side of a smallpox hospital, to say nothing of repeatedly having made attempts to climb trees in boats I commanded, but when I returned, I had surpassed these things by having successfully got my main-mast jammed up a tap, and I had done sufficient work in discovering new sandbanks, rock shoals, &c., in Corisco Bay, and round Cape Esterias, to necessitate, or call for, a new edition of The West African Pilot.

Corisco Island is about three miles long by 1$3⁄4$ wide: its latitude 0°56 N., long. 9°20$1⁄2$ E. Mr. Winwood Reade was about the last traveller to give a description of Corisco, and a very interesting description it is. He was there in the early sixties, and was evidently too fully engaged with a drunken captain and a mad Malay

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 me in time. But you'll have to start at the bottom, of course, and I'll have to test you awhile first. I'll give you a job driving a truck at a hundred dollars a week."

Tony's heart sank. Driving a truck—he who had never been a roustabout but always a white collar gangster, who had never done any but the smoother and more gentlemanly types of gangster activity, and who had been somewhat of a figure in that small-time pre-war gangland. But then these were different times and this was a much bigger game that he wanted to sit in.

"All right, sir," he assented. "But I don't want to do that any longer than I have to; there's plenty of common hoods that can be hired for jobs like that."

"You can shoot?" queried Lovo softly.

"Yes; I have."

"In the army, you mean?"

"Yes. And before I went into it."

"Interesting. No, I don't think you'll be driving a truck very long Got a gat now?"

"No, sir."

"We'll furnish you one You broke?"

"No, sir. I got about six grand of my own."

"Good. But don't let anybody else know it.

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 cook to go inland. In his days small trading vessels used to call at Corisco for cargo, but they do so no longer, all the trade in the Bay now being carried on at Messrs. Holt's factory on Little Eloby Island (an island nearer in shore), and on the mainland at Coco Beach, belonging to Messrs. Hatton and Cookson.

In Winwood Reade's days, too, there was a settlement of the American Presbyterian Society on Corisco, with a staff of white men. This has been abandoned to a native minister, because the Society found that facts did not support their theory that the island would be more healthy than the mainland, the mortality being quite as great as at any continental station, so they moved on to the continent to be nearer their work. The only white people that are now on Corisco are two Spanish priests and three nuns; but of these good people I saw little or nothing, as my headquarters were with the Presbyterian native minister, Mr. Ibea, and there was war between him and the priests.

The natives are Benga, a coast tribe now rapidly dying out. They were once a great tribe, and in the old days, when the slavers and the whalers haunted Corisco Bay, these Benga were much in demand as crew men, in spite of the reputation they bore for ferocity. Nowadays the grown men get their living by going as travelling agents for the white merchants into the hinterland behind Corisco Bay, amongst the very dangerous and savage tribes there, and when one of them has made enough money by this trading, he comes back to Corisco, and rests, and luxuriates in the ample bosom of his family until he has spent his money—then he gets trust from the white trader, and goes to the

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 Rent a safety deposit box to-morrow at that bank across the street and put it away. Never carry a lot of money around with you; it isn't healthy. Be here at noon to-morrow."

And Tony became a real modern gangster, a member of a big, powerful, wealthy organization that collected more than a third of all the profits that came from liquor, gambling and vice in America's second largest city and a considerable territory around it.

Tony spent most of his time driving alcohol from the innumerable stills that were being operated for Lovo in all the western suburbs to the big plant in Cicero where the whisky was manufactured. He was never molested by officers; they were all being paid by Lovo. His only concern was hi-jackers, who were beginning to become active. But he always carried two guns—a six-shooter and an automatic—in the truck and his lips tightened when he thought of hi-jackers.

At last an idea came to Tony. Why not have all the trucks equipped with enclosed cabs of steel and bullet-proof glass so that an attacked driver could defend himself and his employer's goods with impunity? He went to Lovo and presented his idea.

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 "Great!" approved the gang leader. "I'll have it carried out at once. Here's a little bonus." From a thick roll he peeled off a hundred dollar bill and tossed it across the desk. "I think you've driven a truck long enough, Tony. Be here at nine to-night; I've got a little job I want you to handle for me."

Tony returned to Lovo's office promptly at the appointed hour, feeling considerably elated. He had been promoted; he was going to get somewhere in this racket yet.

"The North Side gang's been cutting into my territory," explained Lovo, and his dark eyes glittered with a hard, vindictive light that Tony had never seen in them before. "I don't want to open up a big battle with them if I can help it. But I do want to throw a good scare into the saloonkeepers and hold them in line so they won't buy from anybody else. Now, here's what you're to do."

Tony listened carefully to his instructions, then hurried out with both his hip pockets very heavy. Fifteen minutes later he walked slowly into a large corner saloon in a rather ratty district. Lounging against the bar, he ordered a drink and paid for it. Then he walked nonchalantly down the room until he finally stood at the end of the bar, a position

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 from which his eyes and guns would command the situation without possibility of upset.

In addition to himself and the owner, who was acting as his own bartender, there were perhaps forty men in the place, the loud, rough, mixed crowd that one would expect to find in a frowsy saloon in a cheap neighborhood. Deliberately Tony lit a cigarette, then with an incredibly quick movement he pulled his two guns. One he pointed down the bar, while the muzzle of the other roved about.

"Step right up, boys, and have a drink," he commanded quietly. "It's all on me."

They stared at him in amazement. But the guns looked ominous and, though obviously puzzled by the whole proceeding, the men flocked to the bar. The surprised owner nervously began serving, his glance often wandering to that revolver pointing fixedly at him.

After that first drink, Tony quietly commanded them to have another, and another and another. Whisky, gin, wine, beer—it was all swilled down until not another drink was left in the house. Then, with one of the guns, Tony motioned the owner to him.

"Don't buy any more stuff from that North Side

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 outfit," he commanded in a low tone. "Stick with Lovo, where you started. If you don't, the next time I drop in one of these pets of mine is liable to go off. Good-night!"

He backed out of the door, ran half a block, and dodged through an alley to the next street, where he hailed a taxi.

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 Rh would surely die. Her husband suddenly reminded her of God, and her manner changed at once.

"When she invited me to partake of the supper she had prepared I saw her looking at me very earnestly. There was no sign of death in her face. Then she was alive, and I recognized God's likeness in her features. It was then that I learned the first of the three great truths—what people are made of—and I discovered that in every human heart there is—love.

"I was greatly rejoiced to learn that God had already revealed to me one of the truths of which he had spoken. It was then that I smiled for the first time. But I had not yet learned all, for I could not understand what people do not need, nor yet what sustains life.

"I began to live with you and had been here a year when a man came and ordered boots that were to last one year and at the expiration of that time to be in perfect order. Looking at him, I saw standing behind him my old friend


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 72 the Angel of Death. No one but myself saw him at the time, but I recognized him immediately, and I knew that before sunset that day the soul of the rich man would be called to heaven.

"God's second truth was then revealed to me. I already knew what people are made of, and I now learned what they do not need. (It is not necessary for people to care for the future needs of the body.) The knowledge of the second truth caused me to smile a second time. I was rejoiced to see again my old comrade the Angel of Death, for through him God had revealed to me his second truth.

"Still, I was not able to understand all, for I had yet to learn what it is that sustains life. I continued to live with you while awaiting the last of God's revelations tome. In the sixth year the woman came, bringing the twin girls with her. I recognized them at once, and for the first time learned in what manner their lives had been saved. I recalled how the mother


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 Rh pleaded for the sake of these children that her soul might remain in her body, and I believed her when she said that without father and mother it would be impossible for them to live.

"Yet this strange woman has fed and clothed them and brought them up, and when her heart was moved with pity for the children she shed tears. I saw at once that God lived in her, and then I understood what sustains life. Through these little ones I learned that God had revealed to me the third truth, and also that I was at last forgiven. I smiled, therefore, for the third time."


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this point the form of the angel was revealed to Simeon and his wife. It was all in white, and about it shone a light so bright that it was impossible to look at it. And the angel spoke again. The voice became louder and louder and seemed not as if it proceeded from him, but from heaven, and the shining angel said:

"I learned that man lives not for himself alone, but for the love of humankind. It was not revealed to the mother what was necessary for the life of her children. It was not revealed to the rich man what was most necessary for him. It is not revealed to any one what he or she will most need—boots or slippers—before the sun sets.

"When I was a man my life was saved, but


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 Rh by what means I found out—that it was love in the heart of the man who first passed me, and whose heart prompted him to return and care for me. Both he and his wife took pity on me and loved me.

"The orphaned children are alive, but not through any means arising from a discussion of their future. It was love in the heart of a strange woman that saved their frail lives. All people live not for the care of themselves, but for the love of others.

"I knew before that God gave life to the people, but now I understand what his object was. I have learned that God did not wish his people to live independently of each other, and therefore did not reveal to each individual what is necessary for him or her alone. He wished that they should live in harmony as one people, and he revealed to them only that which was necessary for their mutual happiness.

"Now I understand that it is the people's duty to provide for their own physical needs,


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76 But without love for one another in their hearts this existence is a mere animal one, for they alone are really alive who live for love.

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

And the angel sang a song of glory, to God, and the solemn majesty of his voice caused the house to tremble. The ceiling opened, and a pillar of fire ascended from earth to heaven.

Simeon and his wife and children fell to the floor unconscious.

The angel spread his wings and departed for his celestial home.

When the shoemaker awoke the room presented its former appearance, and he found himself alone with his family.


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 be, o much the greater would his own Offence appear to Allworthy, and o much the greater, had he Reaon to imagine, would be his Reentment.

He feigned, therefore, fome Excue of Buines for his Departure, and promied to return oon again; and took leave of his Brother with o well-diembled Content, that, as the Captain played his Part to the ame Perfection, Allworthy remained well atisfied with the Truth of the Reconciliation.

The Doctor went directly to London, where he died oon after of a broken Heart; a Ditemper which kills many more than is generally imagined, and would have a fair Title to a Place in the Bill of Mortality, did it not differ in one Intance from all other Dieaes, viz. That no Phyician can cure it.

Now, upon the mot diligent Enquiry into the former Lives of thee two Brothers, I find, beides the cured and hellih Maxim of Policy above-mentioned, another Reaon for the Captain’s Conduct: The Captain, beides what we have before aid of him, was a Man of great Pride and Fiercenes,


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 and had always treated his Brother, who was of a different Complexion, and greatly deficient in both thee Qualities, with the utmot Air of Superiority. The Doctor, however, had much the larger Share of Learning, and was by many reputed to have the better Undertanding. This the Captain knew, and could not bear. For, tho’ Envy is at bet a very malignant Paion, yet is its Bitternes greatly heightened by mixing with Contempt towards the ame Object; and very much afraid I am, that whenever an Obligation is joined to thee two, Indignation, and not Gratitude, will be the Product of all three.


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Talk:Weird Tales/Volume 25/Issue 4/The Last Hieroglyph

Copyright
No renewal - per https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/cinfo/weirdtales -- Beardo (talk) 03:36, 5 March 2024 (UTC)


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 Containing Scenes of matrimonial Felicity in different Degrees of Life, and various other Tranactions during the firt two Years after the Marriage between Captain Blifil, and Mis Bridget Allworthy.  Shewing what Kind of a Hitory this is; what it is like, and what it is not like.

HO’ we have properly enough entitled this our Work, a Hitory, and not a Life; nor an Apology for a Life, as is more in Fahion; yet we intend in it rather to purue the Method of