To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative by Verney Lovett Cameron;Sir Richard Francis Burton
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page 24 of 310 (07%)
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gambles, he overdresses himself, and he indulges in love-intrigues till he
has exhausted his means, and then he makes 'boss' pay for all. With a terrible love of summonsing, and a thorough enjoyment of a law-court, he enters into the spirit of the thing like an attorney's clerk. He soon wearies of the less exciting life in the wilder settlements, where orgies and debauchery are not fully developed; home-sickness seizes him, and he deserts his post; probably robbing house or till. Even a black who has once visited Sá Leone is considered spoilt for life, as if he had spent a year in England. Hence the eccentric Captain Phil. Beaver declared that he 'would rather carry a rattlesnake than a negro who has been in London.' I have met with some ugly developments of home-education. One was a yellow Dan Lambert, the son of a small shopkeeper, who was returning--dubbed a 'Templar'--from the Land of Liberty. He was not a pleasant companion. His face was that of a porker half-translated; he yelped the regular Tom Coffee laugh; and when asked why Sá Leone had not contributed to the Crimean Widow Fund, he uttered the benevolent wish that 'the damned ---- and their brats might all starve like their husbands.' Another was a full-blooded negro, a petty huckster at the 'Red Grave,' who, in his last 'homeward' voyage, had met at Madeira the Dean and Deaness of Oxbridge. The lady resolved to keep up the creditable acquaintanceship: so strong is feminine love for the 'black lion.' Shortly afterwards Niger paid his promised visit, which he described graphically and sans sense of shame--how he had been met at the station by a tall gentleman in uniform and gold-laced hat, how he was invited to enter a carriage, and how great was his astonishment when the 'officer' preferred standing in the open air behind to accompanying him inside. After this naïve _début_ he showed tact. Mr. Dean wished to know if anything could be done towards advancing the interesting guest in his 'profession'--not trade. We talk of an English school-master, but a |
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