gangway, so great the crowd upon the ladder, that one side of the
iron bar from which the ladder chains depend broke in two, causing
the ladder to drop some inches and giving a ducking to those on the
lower step, causing shouts of laughter and confusion. These rose
into perfect yells of amusement when one of the sailors suddenly
loosed the ladder rope, letting five or six of the negroes into the
water up to their necks. So intense was the appreciation by the
sable mind of this joke that the boatmen rolled about with laughter,
and even the victims, when they had once scrambled into their boats,
yelled like people possessed.

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

This was said as, after having fixed upon a boat and literally
fought their way into it, they were rowed towards the shore. On
landing Frank was delighted with the greenness of everything. The
trees were heavy with luxuriant foliage, the streets were green
with grass as long and bright as that in a country lane in England.