nothing in favour of the state of Tower Hill Barracks as regards internal order or economy, the entire of the buildings requiring repairs, painting, and cleaning; the iron pillars supporting the galleries being literally eaten away by rust, and no faint outline of the Ordnance blue remaining. I know not whether it arose from climate, apathy, ignorance or indolence, but in 1843 and early in 1844, there could not be any public building or barrack, which reflects so little credit upon those in charge of them as Tower Hill, Sierra Leone. A guard-room, with non-commissioned officers quarters over it, completes the range of buildings within the walls; outside is a barrackmaster's house, and lower down the hill is the hospital, which for comfort, regularity, and attention to the patients, is not to be excelled in any command. On the southern point of the hill is a small dry and well laid out parade ground, sufficiently large for company drill, and the ordinary garrison parades; the latter during my period of service in Africa, never exceeded the important and complicated movements required in marching to church every Sunday morning, which were generally correctly and imposingly executed, under the able superintendence of the senior officer in barracks, aided by the experience and talents of the Fort Adjutant, and enlivened by the band, consisting of three buglers playing, or more correctly speaking braying, three different tunes, or the same tune three different ways at the one time. The garrison of Sierra Leone consists of the Governor (Colonel commanding), a Fort Adjutant, the Staff Surgeon, who is principal Medical Officer on the coast, and an Assistant Staff Surgeon, the regulated number of officers and men for two companies of the West India regiments. The guards are too numerous for this weak force; a barrack-guard, hospital, Government House, resident commissariat, officers' quarters, commissariat stores, custom house, and battery guards, employ nearly one-third of the troops, giving them not three nights in bed; the total strength being as follows:-one Colonel, two Captains, six Subalterns, three Staff, ten Serjeants, four Drummers, and two hundred rank and file. Considering the exposed and isolated situation of the colony, surrounded by warlike, hostile, and by no means unenlightened nations, constantly at variance with each other, and also that we are striking at the root of their hereditary prejudices, and reducing their revenues by attempting to abolish what they long have deemed a legitimate and honourable traffic, the slave trade; the present garrison of Sierra Leone, barely equal to the duty demanded from it, would be totally inadequate to repel any hostile movement, much less to defend our colony or protect the Governor. There was a local militia of five hundred men, which assisted the regular troops in expeditions to enforce the rights of the British Government, punish refractory chiefs, open the roads for the merchants from the interior, and many other such like services; but by a policy attended with economy and fraught with danger, the militia body has been reduced to a skeleton, one hundred men alone remaining as a gaol guard, who receive, when on duty, a trifling gratuity. It is true the duty of the militia was strictly speaking confined to the colony, but we always found them willing to extend their services beyond the prescribed limits, and on many occasions they proved gallant and serviceable auxiliaries. It ought to be borne in mind that formerly a strong and efficient regiment, the Royal African corps, garrisoned Sierra Leone and the Gambia; and by a recent arrangement Cape Coast Castle is now to be protected; thus a force of two companies are called upon to perform the duties hitherto allotted to five companies, aided if necessary by five hundred well-disciplined militia. One example will serve to illustrate the weakness and insufficiency of the present garrison, and its total inability to enforce the power of our Government if called upon to do so. The chiefs in a neighbouring river having refused to give up the timber purchased and paid for by certain merchants of Freetown, two Subalterns and fifty men were dispatched to compel their obedience, or take summary persuasive measures, right being preferable among honest traders to might. Although the garrison was then one hundred rank and file stronger than it is at present, (the company of the 1st West India regiment being sent to Cape Coast,) scarcely sufficient men to perform the daily necessary duties remained, and if a reinforcement was required, it must be furnished from the scanty number left to defend the garrison; happily, however, the gallant officer who conducted the expedition to Macbelly, resembled in every respect Lord Grizzle with his victorious army, for he advanced some miles into Africa, and conquered all his foes, having found no foes withal to fight with. Had the militia been like what it was in olden times, a strong reserve of one or two hundred men could have been furnished, and Freetown not be left without troops: but the zeal, esprit du corps, and consequent efficiency of the militia, has vastly diminished since they were shaken off as useless, and no longer the defenders of their colony. Formerly they had stated times for training, frequent parades, were instructed by officers of the line, and on all festival and grand days brigaded with the regular forces, presenting a well-organized, well-appointed and formidable body of one thousand to twelve hundred men; likely, nay, certain to produce a powerful effect, not only on the natives in and from the neighbourhood of our settlement, but on those at a distance, and in the interior of Africa. The constant influx of strangers, dealers, gold merchants, travellers, messengers, religionists, mendicants, spies, and sic omne genus, constantly coming to Freetown, as the mart and depôt for European goods and merchandize, attended the parades of our troops for amusement or information, and, struck by their uniform, arms, regularity and movements, conveyed back to their own nations, countrymen and chiefs, like all travellers, ancient and modern, European and African, a somewhat exaggerated account of the power, might, and grandeur of Great Britain; thus inducing many of the inhabitants of Central Africa, over whom we neither could nor can exercise dominion, to court the alliance and follow the dictates of the English Government, which, from embellished tales, they imagined could crush them by marching an army into the interior, or connecting themselves as allies with some neighbouring rival. But should the troops of our colony be once defeated, become insignificant in the opinion of the natives, who possess craft, experience, and subtilty to be able to calculate, as is expressed, "the length of their own reach," all the treasure lavished, the lives lost in founding, forming, and retaining Sierra Leone will have been all in vain, all to no purpose; and slavery in its most hideous form will return, and flourish in full plenitude under the muzzles of our cannon, and in the very heart of our principal and most valuable settlement on the west coast of Africa. The best view, a bird's-eye one, of Freetown and its vicinity, is from a hill immediately behind, and commanding the barracks, something like Captain Dalgetty's "Drumsnab." From this elevation the town resembles a vast chess-board, so regular, precise, and mathematically arranged are its tenements and divisions, its streets and alleys. The Ritomba river winding its tortuous course, its densely wooded headlands, numerous estuaries and scattered islands; the Bullom shore and forest green, fading into a distant point; the Isles de Los, sixty miles off, strongly marked in the horizon; the lofty Sugar-loaf Mountain clothed with dense jungle and timber to its summit and capt in clouds; the harbour and its Hoating houses, the heavy-looking timber ship, the rakish low black hull slaver, the solitary vessel moored in quarantine, with cargo complete, sails all bent, and only waiting for a fresh crew, her former one having fallen victims to the river pestilence; the merchantman just dropping her anchor, the last link which connects us with home, valuable, dearly fondly prized, because those links are always few and far between; and the barracks with their fortifications hovering over the town, affording shelter and safety, should danger threaten from foreign or domestic foes, form a tout ensemble by no means flat, tame, or uninteresting. One thing must strike the dullest and most casual observer, the total absence of all regular cultivation, the dearth of agriculture and industry. The brushwood and timber have been cleared away in every direction, and the hills and mountains denuded of wood and weeds, but the hands of the sturdy husbandman are wanting; the axe and the fire are not succeeded by the plough or the hoe, no smiling crops clothe the ground, no rice or guinea-corn fields, no millet patches, no cocoa groves, no sugar or coffee plantations, no orchards teeming with rich golden fruits of the tropics, no provision grounds, no vegetable gardens, no pastures, nothing to indicate man's presence, man's wants, man's efforts to supply them; nothing but the indigenous grasses, unreclaimed or imperfectly cultivated land, a half-burnt tree, a stunted patch of bush, loose stones, rocks, and immense fissures in the red glaring soil cut by the periodical torrents rushing impetuously from the mountains, -presenting a blank, dreary, and melancholy picture, bearing on its face the stamp of Africa, of rude, uncivilized Western Africa. I must admit that to this there are exceptions, for the vicinity of the other settlements in the colony exhibit partial signs of industry and exertion, and arrow-root, yams, sweet potatoes, cassava, a scanty supply of indifferent fruit, poultry, and other commodities are conveyed from them to the capital, to be disposed of in the market. Freetown, so called because it is open to and the resort of the various tribes of Western and Central Africa, has congregated within its limits a motley band of denizens, sheltered in houses, huddled in huts, or screened from the scorching sun and heavy rains by native mats. Kroomen, Foulahs, Mandingoes, Accoes, Congoes, Tosoos, Keremanties, Jollofs, Timaneese, Yarribbas, Arabs from Senegal, Sego, or even Timbuctoo; the followers of the Prophet, the worshippers of thunder, converted savages, and unreclaimed pagans, liberated Africans, and slaves captured by British cruizers; Brazilian, Spanish and Portuguese dealers in " ebony," chavU. S. MAG., No. 198, MAY, 1845. F men in human flesh, Yankee notion sellers, English merchantmen, Jews and Gentiles, Christians and unbelievers, present the materials of a population as various, incongruous, in some instances offensive and repulsive, as the most fastidious taste could relish or the most romantic imagination pourtray, but in keeping with the scenery and country they belong to, or are settlers in. Perhaps it may not be out of place to give a brief sketch of a few of the most interesting denizens which form this motley crowd. The Kroomen, natives of the Kroo country, distant about one hundred and fifty miles from Sierra Leone, are a hardy, industrious, and powerful race of men. They are chiefly employed as sailors in loading and unloading European merchantmen, conveying vessels up the river for cargoes of timber, ground nuts, palm oil, or ivory, as porters in warehouses on wharfs, and occasionally as water and woodmen, servants and grooms. Every ship, man-of-war or trader, engages a crew of Kroomen to perform the drudgery of the ship, and in some measure save the Europeans from the fatal effects attendant on excessive labour in a tropical and pestilential climate. Balanced in his light canoe, with gunwale scarcely above the surface of the ocean, the adventurous Krooman literally skims across the sea, regardless of shoals, of sharks, and other monsters of the deep, separated from him by a thin shell of wood, so light and thin as to be borne easily upon his brawny shoulders; meeting the inward-bound ship some distance from the land, he offers the fresh fish, just caught, and so acceptable to the landsman after a long and heavy voyage; like lightning he plays round and round the vessel, as she speeds on her course, and with no covering save a cloth round his loins, regardless of the intense heat of a vertical sun, plys his unwearied paddle until he secures to himself the berth of head-man on board the vessel. A broad ivory armlet round the wrist with his name engraved thereon marks the chief, and through his arrangements a gang or native crew are speedily engaged; his wages vary from eight to ten dollars a month, the subordinates four to six, with beef, biscuit, and rum. Whenever the chief sends a message the bearer of it brings the armlet as a voucher of his authority, but although he possesses great power over his immediate followers, they never acknowledge a slavish submission to his will. Nothing can surpass the frames, symmetry, and grace of the Kroomen; the muscles of the throat, chest, arms, loins and legs, from constant exercise, exposure, and early use, are developed to an extent astonishing to the European eye; the bull-like neck, the bullet head well set upon the broad shoulders, the limbs of gigantic mould, the graceful and easy carriage under the most strenuous exertions, the open and hearty expression of countenance, the merry ringing laugh and good-humoured reply to the white man's banter, form the characteristics of a race not to be excelled for physical powers by any nation. The Kroos are tattooed on the face, breast, and back, and a deep blue indigo line is traced from the forehead perpendicularly down the bridge of the nose to the upper lip, which, although impressed in infancy, remains indelible. The Kroos are emigrants to various parts of Africa from their native land, and remain voluntary exiles until they collect a purse sufficient for their simple ideas of luxury; with this they return home, and sometimes are prudent and thrifty enough to remain contented, but they too often squander the hard-earned gold, and return to toil once more for a fresh supply; but whether they engage their services for a brief space or a considerable length of time, one clause invariably forms a part of their agreement, permission, at the expiration of their service, to return or be sent back to Krooland. Polygamy is practised by the Kroos, and a wife purchased for a certain number of bullocks. As with all savage nations, the females perform the household and other drudgery, cultivate the patch of land, pound the cassava, make the fofoo, prepare the meals, while the lord and master remains enjoying all the delight of indolence. The Kroos are, however, kind to their women, and affectionate to their offspring. One singular feature in their character is leaving their wives at home; and a Kroo female is never met with at Sierra Leone. Both sexes disdain superfluous garments; a hat, a cap, or handkerchief on the head, a cloth round the loins, and both men and women consider themselves amply clothed; the gentler sex occasionally indulge in the luxury of a bit of country cloth, like a sheet, wrapped round them, leaving their breasts and upper portion of their bodies always exposed; putting in practice, though ignorant of the saying, "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." The west part of Freetown is occupied by the Kroomen, who live in comfortable, well-ventilated, thatched cabins, extending from the road leading from King Tom's Point to the sea-shore, enabling them thus swiftly to launch their light canoes, which dot the beach, and follow their almost amphibious avocations. Along the road are stalls covered with palm-leaves, or mats high enough only to admit the sellers of dried and smoked fish, corn, cakes, rice, bundles of wood, Kola nuts, and palm oil, to sit squat like groups of monkeys, while, scattered in various parts, the Kroos employ their time in gambling at Warra hazard, and other native amusements; on particular occasions they dance to the loud-sounding tom-tom and sonorous bullock horns; wrestling matches and feats of strength varying the pastimes. On the death of a chief or a leading Krooman, a preparation is made for their feast of fish, palm-oil, and balls of fofoo, rum of the strongest, most deleterious, and poisonous quality is in abundance; the principal friends of the deceased dress themselves in British, French, Brazilian, and Spanish naval uniforms, purchased easily at the auction of the effects of some of the poor fellows who have, like many others before them, fallen a sacrifice to the pestilential climate, which deals tolerably equal with all European nations. A portion in front of a hut is selected for the deck of a man-of-war, and in it the various evolutions used in working a ship are performed, watches set, orders issued, officers posted on duty, others lounging about; the gun and ward rooms are also introduced, and with no little accuracy and effect they mimic, ridicule and satirize their former masters and employers. The eccentricities of many British officers are represented to life, even if accident should lead them to be present, and the body is followed to its place of interment by an array of Captains, Commanders, Lieutenants, Pursers, and Marine Officers, at a distance exhibiting a brilliant display of various uniforms, but which on being approached, turn out black representations of our naval heroes. The Kroomen have emigrated to distant parts of Africa, and in small |