280 HE MORNING FIGURE 2.-HOME DRESS FOR THE COUNTRY. The HOME con Tde Me Rate TOILET consists of a black poulter ME DRESS, designed for the country, com front, with plaits on the middle of the back, giving without seam at the waist. A cording of the same, in Gothic pattern, with small buttons, forms the or nament. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. CLXXI. AUGUST, 1864.-VOL. XXIX. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the Dis trict Court for the Southern District of New York. VOL. XXIX.-No. 171.-T flowers-and Teneriffe, where, wishing to hire a horse to ride into the country, a pony was led out from the stable, through the bedroom and best parlor, into the street. His only excursion was to a mildewed town, Laguna, in which the most remarkable sight to a traveling club-man was the extraordinary fatness of the fleas. When we add that in the next chapter he calls the sea a "monotonous and over-rated element," and declares dinner the great event of the nautical day, the reader will perceive that an habitué of the London clubs is after all but a man, subject, like the commonest mortals, to weariness and hunger. As you approach the West African coast life in a little ill-furnished steamer is not enchanting. "At half-past eight," says Mr. Reade, "we used to sit down to a breakfast of edible cinders. We had tea and coffee; but as the tea was usually made in yesterday's coffeeboiler, and vice versa, choice became a mere matter of form. At twelve we spoiled our dinner with cheese and biscuits, and at four o'clock the cook spoiled it again. At ten all the lights were put out, and each man retired to his oven. ." That is a day in the tropics. "If pleasure is one's object in traveling," remarks this philosopher of the clubs, every purpose is answered by reading a volume of adventures, drinking a cup of strong tea, and allowing one's imagination to wander. Thus one can make charming discoveries; and the custom is common enough; but to shackle the ethereal explorer with a vile body which savages can detain, and malaria enfeeble, is one of those vulgar errors which only young foolish men fall victims to." It is not many men who can own so gracefully to the possession of youth and folly. Mr. Reade has not a high opinion of the people or the country he visited. Englishmen seldom have, unless the country is England and the people John Bulls. At Sierra Leone he found the negroes speaking broken English, not more religious or honest than the average run of a London crowd, as profane as sailors, and as litigious as English squires; and having been persuaded at Exeter Hall that they were a set of black saints, he was much disappointed. He does not tell us what the Sierra Leonites thought of him; but as his first adventure among them was to assist-to the extent of looking on-at a violation of the revenue laws, no doubt they judged him but “so so." "I went ashore," he writes, "with two French traders, one of whom carried a very heavy and suspicious-looking carpet bag, the other an open box of cigars. On the quay we were confronted by two custom-house officers (colored). “One of these made a movement toward the carpet bag, which was intercepted by the gentleman with the cigars. "'I assure you,' he said, politely, that I have brought them ashore simply for my own smoking.' "A negro's attention, like a child's, is riveted by the least thing which is held up before it. The two officials immediately closed upon the cigars; the carpet bag progressed rapidly toward the town. "You see,' continued the Frenchman, speak. ing with great deliberation, ‘that there is only one pound here. They are a hundred and ten to the pound. Would you like to count them, gentlemen?' "The carpet bag turned a corner. "I buy them,' continued the French trader, keeping his eyes fixed upon the huge orbits of the negro's, 'from a gentleman with whom I am personally acquainted, and—' "But where is de oder gentleman wid de-' "And I can assure you that they are really excellent.' "As I told you before, gentlemen, I am not at liberty to sell them, but I shall be most happy to present you each with one. Will you give yourself the trouble to take one, Sir?' "He crammed one into each of their hands, and having favored them with a few more urbane speeches and with a quantity of bows, left them to the enjoyment of their small gratuity, and me to the suspicion that they were little better than Continental douaniers. "The next day was Sunday, and in the morning I had a valise carried up to the house to which I had been invited. When I offered the man sixpence, the ordinary fee, he demanded an extra sixpence for breaking the Sabbath."" He complains that their dress is somewhat "loud;" that they imagine themselves to be genuine Englishmen, which would be an unpardonable offense in any body; and that a negro jury is pretty sure to decide against a white man. Some of his stories of Sierra Leone jurytrials read curiously like tales of Irish Justice, and perhaps are equally true. In fact, if we may believe Mr. Reade, the blacks of this English colony are quite as disagreeable as ignorant Englishmen, and in precisely the same way. When he comes to Liberia our traveler moralizes on republics; he prefers monarchies-being a Briton-and remarks, in justification of his taste, that "the earth should be a reflection of heaven, and heaven is an empire”—with colonies, Mr. Reade? The steamer stopped at Cape Palmas to take in a crew of Krumen, the handy billies of this coast, men of immense strength, tractable sayages, great pickpockets, gluttons, drunkards; fond of their mothers, their country, and the flesh of dogs. Of these dissipated giants Mr. Reade chose five, to serve him as a boat's crew in his exploration of African rivers. They were called Smoke-Jack, Dry Toast, Cockroach, Poto'-Beer, and Florence Nightingale; received five dollars per month, a red cap, and a blue flannel shirt; and came aft every day to ask the name of their employer and inquire after the health of his near relatives. Such is African breeding. At Cape Coast Castle, where poor Letitia Landon died and was buried, he asked to be shown her grave. "My companion answered by pointing to my feet, and I found I was stand- | pikes, if we may believe Mr. Reade; there are ing on the grave of L. E. L." revenue officers; and by a singular law, if a The King of Ashantee is prohibited by law cock crows it is forfeited to the crown--for which from having at any time more than three thou- reason the "bird of morn" is ingeniously muzsand three hundred and thirty-three wives; his zled in Ashantee. As for law and lawsuits, government must therefore be called a limited think of this: "A man has a fowl killed by anmonarchy; and it appears to have some features other man's dog. After three years have elapsed in common with other monarchies. The tax- he enters his indictment, suing not only for the gatherer is found in every market-place; there fowl itself, but for the eggs which it would have is even an income tax; the country has turn- laid, and for the chickens which it would have hatched in those three years." Surely, Daho- | will make all your people dust, and your town mey needs but a few "modern improvements" ashes. to make of it a first-class monarchy. "KING GEORGE (to his men). Go out and get your guns. If there is trouble, kill Krinji first, but do not hurt the great white man. "COMMANDANT. What are they all running "KRINJI. The king has told them to kill a sheep for your dinner. They run quickly because they love you. From Dahomey the steamer turned off to Fernando Po, a cheerful island, where the bite of an insect is often fatal, and a gentleman bitten on the leg by a mosquito had to suffer amputa-out for? tion. The English on this coast have a habit of drinking brandy-and-water, of which the consequences are fatal, though our traveler was assured every where that no white man could exist on the coast without it. It appears to be as fatal to drink as to remain sober, though "society" does not acknowledge the fact, nor dilute its brandy. At last, and by a roundabout way, made pleasant to the reader by much delightful gossip and some useful information, Mr. Reade arrived at the Gaboon, the trading station, which, as Mr. Du Chaillu's readers will remember, was that enterprising hunter's head-quarters. Of Mr. Du Chaillu's friends, the Mpongwe, Mr. Reade tells us not much that is new, but he gives them the same character, of shrewd and unscrupulous traders, which his predecessor gave. Here is a story of a pilot and interpreter which is too characteristic to be omitted: "COMMANDANT. Oh, tell the king if I stop to dinner I shall lose the tide. I must go now. "KRINJI. Well, King George, I ask the white man not to be angry about my palaver. You are my friend, and I do not wish to see you dead. So he says that he will go now, but if you do not send my wife in three days he will bring a ship with big guns to burn your town. "The commandant, on hearing afterward how he had been tricked, was too much amused to be angry; but matters became more serious when Krinji, piloting a man-of-war, ran her aground, that he might have opportunities of plunder. A warrant was issued against him; he disappeared, and probably victimized the human race in some other quarter of the coast." We must here mention that the great desire "Krinji was the salaried pilot and interpreter of Mr. Reade's heart was to shoot a gorilla. of the local government. He could speak Dikělě, Alas, he had to leave Africa with this desire unShekani, and Panwe or Fanh, the three dialects satisfied. His first sight of the great ape was at of the interior, as well as French, English, Span- the Gaboon; he writes: "One day Mongilomba ish, and Portuguese. But when a negro is tal- came and told me that there was a fresh-killed ented white men suffer. A new commandant gorilla for sale. I went down to the beach, having arrived in the Gaboon, he made the usual and saw it lying in a small canoe which it alcomplimentary visit to King George, a powerful most filled. It was a male, and a very large chieftain across the water, one of whose subjects one. The preserved specimen can give you no had run away with Krinji's wife. Preparations idea of what this animal really is, with its skin having been made for a big palaver, the follow-yet unshriveled and the blood scarce dry upon ing conversation ensued in full native coun- its wounds. The hideousness of its face, the cil. grand breadth of its breast, its massive arms, and, above all, its hands, like those of a human giant, impressed me with emotions which I had not expected to feel. But nothing is perfect. The huge trunk dwindled into a pair of legs, thin, bent, shriveled, and decrepit as those of an old man." "COMMANDANT. King George, the king of my country has sent me to take care of this river. I have come to bid you good-day. hope that we shall be friends. I "KRINJI (interpreting). King George, the commandant says he has heard that one of your people has taken away my wife. He says that you must send her back directly. "KING GEORGE. Your wife is nothing to me. Tell the commandant I can not trouble myself about a little palaver like that. "KRINJI. King says he is very much pleased to see a great white man like you. He would like very much to be your friend. "COMMANDANT. Tell the king I am very much pleased to hear those words. If he takes care of the French so that they have good trade, I will take care that he does not remain unrewarded. It is only by promoting peace and concord that our mutual interests will be benefited. "KING GEORGE. What does he say? "KRINJI. He says strong words. He says, Are yon blind, that you do not see the men he has brought here with guns and swords? If you do not bring my wife very quickly here, he Here we may as well conclude the account of Mr. Reade's experiences of the gorilla. He ascended the Muni and the Fernand Vaz, explored in a somewhat too hasty manner the hunting ground of Mr. Du Chaillu; saw several dead gorillas, and the tracks and marks of living ones; heard the roar of one which ran away from him; but never got a shot at one. His experiences and observations, so far as they go, confirm in a remarkable manner the correctness of Mr. Du Chaillu's statements; he names the same kings, and tribes; he vouches for the cannibalism of the Fans, once smiled at as an incredible tale; he dined with Quengueza, and hunted with the Bakalai. What he saw with his own eyes proved his predecessor's narrative true; but he declines to believe that Mr. Du Chaillu himself shot gorillas. He believes that no white man has ever encountered the great ape; and he does not at all give credit to Mr. Du Chaillu's |