Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/61

 S I E S I E 45 Most of the inhabitants depend upon trade, and are collected at the north end of the peninsula, in FREETOWN (g-.u)and the neigh- bouring villages. Freetown has a good supply of pure water, and great improvements in sanitation have recently been effected. Among the villages in the peninsula may be mentioned Kissy (founded in 1817), the seat of two hospitals for male and female incurables, Gloster (1816), Bathurst (1818), Leopold (1817), Charlotte (1818), Regent (1812), Leicester (1809). According to the census returns of 1880, there were in Sierra Leone 18,660 Episcopalians, 17,098 Wesleyans and Methodists, 2717 of Lady Huntingdon's connexion, and 369 Roman Catholics. Since 1861-62 there has been an independent Episcopal Native Church ; but the Church Missionary Society, which in 1804 sent out the first missionaries to Sierra Leone and has spent about 500,000 on the colony, still maintains certain educative agencies. Fourah Bay college, built by the society on the site of General Turner's estate (1 miles east of Freetown) and opened in 1828 with six pupils, one of whom was Bishop Crowther, was affiliated in 1876 to Durham university, and has a high -class curriculum. Other institutions are the grammar-school (1846), the "Wesleyan high school, and the Annie Walsh Memorial Female Institution. The following figures show the average value of the principal exports in recent years : Benni Cola Gin- Ground Palm Palm Rub- Gum Seed. Nuts. ger. Nuts. Kernels. Oil. ber. Copal.

1877-81 6,847 23,731 11,989 30,808 12,607 116,822 35,869 41,941 12,671 1882 10,001 25,047 7,916 15,217 13,545 101,164 47,217 96,674 11,262 1883 H,7'21 31,661 13,409 11,282 12,326 81,578 21,954 89,782 14,780 1884 3,776 40,002 16,304 4,846 17,674 68,377 17,774 50,894 12,539 "With the exception of the ginger, most of these products are brought down the rivers from the interior, and the development of trade has been grievously hampered by inter-tribal wars in non-British territory. A considerable falling off is observable in those articles which require cultivation or labour, or are bulky in transit. Cola nuts have steadily increased in quantity, that part of the Limba country where they are principally grown being in comparative peace. The supply of india-rubber has decreased, partly through destruction of the trees, partly through war in the Yonnie country. Gum copal is brought from the northern rivers. The Mendi country sends a good deal of rice, which is also grown largely in Sherbro. The total value of all the exports was on an average for 1877-81 382,620, and for 1882-83 413,148. The corresponding figures for the imports were 424,447 and 429,273. The most northerly territory belonging to the colony is the little group of the Los Islands (Islas de los Idolos), about 80 miles north- north-west of Freetown to the south of Sangareah Bay. Tamara or Futabar to the west and Factory Island to the east "enclose, like an atoll, an inner basin, in the centre of which lies the much smaller Crawford Island. " The highest point is a knoll some 450 feet above sea-level in Tamara. All these islands are richly clothed with palm trees and flowering underwood. Factory Island is occupied by a French trading settlement. At one time the islands were a great seat of the slave-trade and about 1812-13 were garrisoned by British troops for the suppression of the traffic. The climate was then found to be exceedingly fatal. The small island of Matakong, 25 miles south-east, is also British. On the mainland the watershed between the Great Scarcies and the Mellicoury (Mellacoree) has been adopted as the boundary between the French and English protectorates or annexation- areas. The Great Scarcies river (Rio dos Carceres) appears to take its rise in the highlands of the Futa-Jallon not far from the sources of the Senegal, but its upper course has not been completely explored. It is navigable for boats a long way inland, though the ascent from the sea is interrupted by rapids a short distance above Kambia, an important Mohammedan town. The Little Scarcies has its headwaters to the north-east of Falaba, a town of the Sulima country, built in 1768 and visited by Laing (1822), Winwood Reade (1869), and Zweifel and Moustier (1879). The Rokelle or Mabile river, which falls into the Sierra Leone estuary, is formed by the drainage of the Koranko country. On a creek which reaches the estuary near the Rokelle mouth stands (at the head of navigation) the important township of Port Lokko, a mission station of the Church Missionary Society. The maritime country between the Scarcies and Sierra Leone is called North Bullom (i.e., low land) ; the tribe of the same name has been expelled from much of its territory by the Susus (whose country is the unexplored tract to the south of 11 N. lat.) and the Timmanehs (Timnis). At the angle of Yawry Bay lies the mouth of the Ribbi or Kates river, and about 10 miles farther south is the common outflow of the Kamaranka and the Bompe. At the south side of the bay the small cluster of Plantain Islands corresponds to the Banana Islands on the north off Cape Shilling, which were crded to the British in 1819 and are noted for their healthiness. Southward opens the broad estuary of the Sherbro (popularly river), which lies between the island of Sherbro, annexed in 1862, and the territory of the same name. The estuary receives the Bagru from the Manoh-Bagru country and the Jong river, whose headstream, the Bampanna, rises far inland in the same country as the Rokelle and has a breadth of 200 feet at Mayosso. From the sea the Jong is navigable for steamers to Matonghbah (or Matubah). It is connected by the Little Bum Creek with the Great Bum river, which passes through the Mendi country and descends into the alluvial seaboard by rapids at Motappau. The Bum loses itself in a curious network of lagoons and creeks separated from the ocean by the long low tract of Turner's peninsula. The upper Kittam joins it from the east, and by another creek communicates with the Palma or Cassi Lake (20 miles long), which in its turn has a connexion with the Gallinas river (7 S. lat. ). On the narrow strip of land between the ocean and the lake lies Lavanna, an important trading port, where a short line of railway has been laid down. Parallel with the Gallinas flows the Moah or Sulimah river (falls at Whidaro), at the mouth of which is the town of Sulimah ; and about 10 miles farther east is the Manoh river. The countries inland be- tween the Manoh and the Sulimah are Gbemna or Massaquoi, Soro, M'perri, Barrie, Cowrah, &c. History. Sierra Leone (in the original Portuguese form Sierra Leona) was known to its native inhabitants as Romarong or the Mountain, and received the current designation from the Portuguese discoverer Piedro de Cintra (1462) on account of the lion-like roaring of the thunder on its hill-tops. An English fort was built on the Sierra Leone estuary towards the close of the 17th century, but was soon afterwards abandoned. In 1786 Dr Smeathman proposed his scheme for founding on the peninsula a colony of liberated African slaves ; and in 1787 Captain Thompson, having purchased the territory from Naimbana or King Tom of the Timmanehs, commenced the settlement with 400 Negroes and 60 (Europeans. Owing mainly to the utter shiftlessness of the settlers and partly to a hostile attack by a body of natives, this first attempt proved a com- plete failure. In 1791 Falconbridge collected the surviving fugitives and laid out a new settlement (Granville's Town) ; and the pro- moters of the enterprise Granville Sharp, "William Wilberforce, William Ludlam, Sir Richard Carr Glynn, &c., hitherto known as the St George's Bay Company obtained a charter incorporat- ing them as the Sierra Leone Company (31 Geo. III. c. 55). In 1792 Clarkson introduced into the colony 1200 Negroes from the Bahamas and Nova Scotia. Afzelius the botanist and Nordenskjbld the mineralogist were sent out to explore the capabilities of the country ; but the latter soon after died at Port Lokko (Port Logo). In 1794 the settlement, which had been again transferred to Freetown, was plundered by the French. An attempt to found a similar colony on Bulama (mouth of the Rio Grande) was a com- plete failure (Dalrymple and Beaver). In 1800 the company was allowed to make laws not repugnant to those of England, but in 1807 it was glad to transfer all its rights to the crown. Sydney Smith's jest that Sierra Leone had always two governors, one just arrived in the colony and the other just arrived in England, is but a slight exaggeration. There were eight changes between 1808 and 1824, and as many between 1865 and 1881. The names of Zachary Macaulay. Sir Charles Macarthy, Sir Stephen J. Hill, Sir Arthur Kennedy, Sir Samuel Rowe, and A. E. Havelock deserve to be mentioned. In 1825 General Turner concluded a treaty placing Turner's peninsula, &c. , under British protection ; but effect was not given to it till 1881. In 1875 the mouths of the Kates, Kamaranka, Bompe, and Cockboro were annexed, and in 1883 the seaboard towards the Liberian frontier. British influence has been Eeacefully advancing inland under Sir Samuel Rowe. In 1866 ierra Leone was made the seat of government of the new general government of the British settlements on the West Coast of Africa (comprising Sierra Leone, Gambia, the Gold Coast, and Lagos, each of which was to have a legislative council) ; but in 1874 the Gold Coast and Lagos were raised to a separate government, and the Gambia alone remains attached to Sierra Leone. Besides the older works of Falconbridge (1794), Winterbottom (1803), Walker (1847), Shrewe (1847), Poole (1850), see the various works of Robert Clarke (Sketches of the Colony of Sierra Leone, 1863, &c.) and Dr Africanus B. Horton an der Sierra-Leone-Kiiste," in Petermann's Mitt., 1883. (H. A. W.) SIEYES, EMMANUEL JOSEPH (1748-1836), one of the chief political thinkers and writers of the period of the French Revolution and the first empire, was born at Frejus (Var) on 3d May 1748. He was destined for the church, was educated by the Jesuits, became a licentiate of the canon law, and, having early distinguished himself by the astuteness and originality of his ideas, was appointed vicar-general by the bishop of Chartres. He shared the political fervour of the party of advance, and was fearlessly logical in working out the new and as yet indistinct princi-