Part 7 (1/2)
That night, with great labour, Sanders, furbishi+ng his rusty Latin, and filling in gaps, ustus, Centurions of Nero, Caesar and Emperor, Sleep sweetly with the Gods”
”We are they who cainian, found
”Marcus Septiypt, and with him Decimus Superbus, but by the will of Caesar, and the favour of the Gods, we sailed to the black seas beyond Here we lived, our shi+ps suffering wreck, being worshi+pped by the barbarians, teaching thereetings to Roate ”
Sanders shook his head when he had finished reading, and said it was ”rum”
CHAPTER III
BOSAMBO OF MONROVIA
For riedy of African colonisation Now it h at the Ochori no ht, when conversation flags in the little circle about the fires in fishi+ng camps, shall the sleepy-eyed be roused to merriment by stories of Ochori meekness All this has coh at present the Liberian Government is not aware of the fact
With all due respect to the Republic of Liberia, I say that the Monrovians are naturally liars and thieves
Once upon a tiht be added to the State, a warshi+p was acquired-if I reht it was presented by a disinterested shi+powner The Government appointed three admirals, fourteen captains, and as orgeous but ill-fitting uniforms The Government would have appointed a crew also, but for the fact that the shi+p was not big enough to hold any larger number of people than its officers totalled
This tiny man-of-war of the black republic went to sea once, the ad it in turn to stoke and steer-a very pleasing and novel sensation, this latter
Co back into the harbour, one of the admirals said-
”It is my turn to steer now,” and took the wheel
The shi+p struck a rock at the entrance of the harbour and went down The officers escaped easily enough, for your Monrovian swims like a fish, but their unifore operations should be attempted to refloat the warshi+p, the Governht not
”We knohere she is,” said the President-he was sitting on the edge of his desk at Governers-”and if we ever want her, it will be co more would have been done in the matter but for the fact that the British Ad, and issued orders forthwith for the place where it lay to be buoyed
The Liberian Govern applied (I suspect the captain of HMS Dwarf, as a reed, and the bell-buoy was anchored to the sub noise, did that bell, and the people of Monrovia felt they were getting their money's worth
But all Monrovia is not made up of the freed American slaves ere settled there in 1821 There are people who are described in a lordly fashi+on by the true Monrovians as ”indigenous natives,” and the chief of these are the Kroomen, who pay no taxes, defy the Government, and at intervals tweak the official nose of the Republic
The second day after the bell was in place, Monrovia awoke to find a co in the bay, and that in spite of a heavy swell The bell was still, and two ex-ad fish on the foreshore, borrowed a boat and rowed out to investigate The explanation was simple-the bell had been stolen
”Now!” said the President of the Liberian Republic in despair, ”may Beelzebub, who is the father and author of all sin, descend upon these thieving Krooht it was stolen Yet another bell was put to the buoy, and a boat-load of ad and falling with the swell, and the ” was ht it sounded, but in the early , at the dark hour before the sun corew fainter and fainter
”Brothers,” said an ad away from the bell”
But the explanation was that the bell had drifted away from them, for, tired of half measures, the Kroomen had come and taken the buoy, bell and all, and to this day there is no mark to shohere a sometienious soul who planned and carried out this theft was one Bosaolaise, and untrustworthy, informed the police, and with some ceremony Bosambo was arrested and tried at the Supreh treason” and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude
They took Bosaaoler
”My friend,” he said, ”I have a big ju-ju in the forest, and if you do not release reat toraoler philosophically, ”but I receive two dollars a week for guarding prisoners, and if I let you escape I shall lose my job”