These qualities are
admirably developed in our headman, Toby Johnson, and his gang. I should
not travel again with Krumen on the Gold Coast.
Another of their remarkable characteristics is the fine union of the
quarrelsome with the cowardly. Like the Wanyamwezi of East-Central Africa,
they will fight amongst themselves, and fight furiously; but they feel no
shame in telling their employers that they sell their labour, not their
lives; that man can die but once; that heads never grow again, and that to
battling they prefer going back to 'we country.' If a ship take fire all
plunge overboard like seals, and the sound of a gun in the bush makes them
run like hares. Yet an English officer actually proposed to recruit a
force of these recreants for field-service in Ashanti. He probably
confounded them with the Wasawahili, the 'Seedy-boys' of the east coast, a
race which some day will prove useful when the Sepoy mutiny shall repeat
itself, or if the difficulties in Egypt be prolonged. A few thousands of
these sturdy fellows would put to flight an army of hen-hearted Hindus or
Hindis.
We left Cape Palmas at 5 P.M., and duly respected the five-fathom deep
'Athole Rock,' so called from the frigate which first made its
acquaintance.
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