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Life, Scenery and Customs in Sierra Leone and the Gambia
Life Scenery and Customs in Sierra Leone and the Gambia Author:Thomas Eyre Poole Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE FIRST NIGHT ON SHORE. 15 CHAPTER III. FIRST NIGHT ON SHORE.—MORNING BEVERAGE.—COOLNESS OF THE AIR. DELIGHTFUL SITUATION OF MY FIRST ABODE. THE PA... more »RADE GROUND AND FORT.— UNPROTECTED AND DANGEROUS STATE OF THE PARADE GROUND. APPEARANCE OF THIS SPOT AT THIS EARLY HOUR. — CHARACTER OF MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN ; THEIR DRESS, OCCUPATION, AND ARTICLES OF SALE.— GREEGREES, OR CHARMS. WOMEN, AND THEIR CURIOUS METHOD OF CARRYING, OR TOTTING, SUCH THINGS AS BOTTLES AND BASINS ON THBIR HEADS. THEIR SINGULAR AND UNNATURAL USE OF THE HAND.—PARTIALITY OF THE MEN FOR GUNS AND WEAPONS.—A GROUP OF NATIVES AT EASE. BREAKFAST.—THE PIAZZA ; THE IDLE HOUR, AND EVIL OF THE " OPEN HOUSE" SYSTEM. The kind care of my host had provided me with a most comfortable apartment for the night, to which I gladly retired, well pleased with my new friends, but little inclined to sleep. The close of a passage is too exciting in its incidents to allow of much repose on first landing. There is too much confusion, bustle, and strangeness about what you see and hear, to get rest. You are pretty much like a whirligig, or some unfortunate insect, which has been thrown into themidst of a variety of eddies and currents, which irresistibly send it round and round, until you yourself become giddy at watching it, and your attention is over-strained, your senses too rapidly and powerfully acted upon to calm down soon, or easily, into quiet. You may contentedly lay your head on your pillow, and resolutely shut your eyes, and patiently count over again and again your fingers to induce sleep, but it is of Do use. You have left the vessel and are no longer on the heaving waters; but the motion follows you to your bed, and you are rolling backwards and forwards, up and down, in spite of yourself....« less