Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/245

 SIEERA-LEONE. I97 people now mostly wear European clothes, and build themselves houses with separate compartments and ventilating passages, fitted with foreign bedsteads, strong boxes, and the like. In this region there are scarcely any European settlers, the dangerous climate obliging most foreigners to depart after transacting their business with the utmost despatch. Hence the influence of the whites is felt rather indirectly, and especially through the Senegalese coloured people and the Wolof traders, by whom the Euro- pean commercial houses are represented in all the coast villages and far inland. Topography. The most remote European station in the Nunez basin is the pleasant hamlet of Bohe, perched on the slope of a verdant hill on the left bank, some 50 miles from the mouth of the estuary. Here is a monument to the memory of Rene Caillie, who started from this place in 1827 on his famous journey to Timbuktu. East of Kakendl, as Boke was then called, and on the route to Futa-Jallon, follow the two large villages of Bamhaya and Konsotomi, lying in a delightful and salu- brious district, where the orange groves, banana, coffee, and tobacco plantations are watered by perennial sparkling streams. The district, inhabited by friendly Fulahs, offers every prospect of success to European settlers. Vakaria, residence of the Landuman kings, lies a short distance below Boke, near a "sacred" wood, affording a retreat to the "Simons," or wizards, who can change themselves into lions to destroy their enemies. Near Yakaria till recently was to be seen the " gallows of death," where the wretched victim, with broken arms and legs, was left to be slowly engulfed in the waters of the rising tide, unless his sufferings were shortened by a passing shark or crocodile. About twelve miles lower down over against the French station of Bel-Air, stands Kasasocobuli, another capital, where the Nalu '*' king of kings " still holds his court. Victoria^ a factory founded by the English, lies on the right bank, at the point where the tortuous E-io Nunez merges in the broad marine estuary. Of the numerous factories on the Eio Pongo the most important is Boffa, which is also a customhouse and a Roman Catholic missionary station. In the Mallecory basin the only place of any note is Beuty, lying in a comparatively healthy district on the left bank of the river. Although Beuty is the official residence of the Administrator- General, and occupied by a French garrison, English, introduced by the Sierra-Leone traders, continues to be the current language of intercourse. On the Tombo headland, facing the Los Archipelago,, has recently been founded the station of Konakri, which promises to rapidly increase as a port of call for passing steamers. It is also one of the stations of the Atlantic cable connecting Europe with the Gold Coast and the Gaboon. The Los Islands, which the native chiefs have leased to English traders, have in recent times lost much of their commercial importance. Sierra-Leone. Like so many mountains in other parts of the world, one of the crests of the