Page:West African Studies.djvu/599

 slaves bought by his favoured slaves (now become petty chiefs or head boys) belonged to him as he belonged to Manilla Pepple; but owing to his accumulated riches and numerous followers he was beginning to take rank as a chief and head of a House. One must not think that the assistance given by an owner of slaves to here and there one, as described above, is all pure philanthropy; it is nothing of the kind, for for every hundred pounds worth of trade the slave does on his own account nowadays means £25 into the coffers of his master. In the early sixties this profit was not so great, but it represented in those days a ten to fifteen per cent. commission to the head of the House.

There were five kinds of commission paid by the European traders to the heads of Houses. There were Ex Bar, Custom Bar, Work Bar, Gentlemen's Dash and Boys' Dash, and as a slave who had been allowed to trade by his master rose in the social scale he marked the different stages he passed through by being allowed gradually to claim these various commissions on his own oil from the Europeans; thus at first he would get only the boys' dash,=1 pes of small Manchester cloth, value about 2s., and a fisherman's red cap, worth about 3d. The latter was supposed to go to his pull-away boys to buy palm wine. The second stage in his progress would be marked by his being allowed to take the gentlemen's dash, consisting of two pes of cloth, value 2s. 6d. each. The third he would be allowed to receive a portion of the work bar on his oil, sometimes only a third, gradually increasing until he would be allowed to claim the whole work bar. On arriving at this latter stage he would be expected to provide a war canoe and men and arms for the same, ready at any moment to turn out and fight for the general good