Page:West African Studies.djvu/659

 structions from the man I relieved. I fear my old captain got to know this, for he used to come on deck almost always in my watch, and sometimes ask me the time, which I very rarely could tell him. One night he caught me nicely. I was fast asleep, when suddenly I felt something very peculiar on my face. I put my hands up to rub my eyes as one does when just awakening, and, to my horror, my face was covered with palm oil, our captain standing at the cabin door laughing away. "What is the matter?" he said; "has anything happened?" "Yes," I replied; "you have given me the contents of the oil-can." I need scarcely tell you I did not sleep much on watch after that. The wonder to me now is that we did not lose more lives during that trying time.

Rumours of wars, as they were called, amongst the natives occasionally reached us, but we were left pretty much unmolested. One day the captain and I had a free fight with fifty or sixty natives, some of whom had stolen a cask from our store, which I happened to discover. We got our cask back and a few of them had more than they bargained for. Another time while I was on board a ship fitting out for home, the captain of her saw a native chief coming alongside who was heavily in his debt, so he made up his mind, without saying a word to any one, to make him a prisoner, so he invited him downstairs to have a glass of wine, leaving the forty or so people who had accompanied their chief in his canoe on deck. The captain then quietly locked him up, the chief shouted for assistance, his people rushed down and the tables were soon turned, for they took the captain prisoner and nearly killed him into the bargain, one man striking him with a sword nearly severed his hand from his arm, the two or three whites on board were powerless.