Kroomen and Fishmen are different people from the Bushmen. The two former classes inhabit the sea-shore exclusively, and living apart from other African tribes, are governed by their elders under a somewhat democratic system. The Bushmen do not suffer the Kroos and Fishes to trade with the interior; but, in recompense for the monopoly of traffic with the strongholds of Africa's heart, these expert boatmen maintain despotic sway along the beach in trade with the shipping. As European or Yankee boats cannot live in the surf I have described, the Kroo and Fishmen have an advantage over their brothers of the Bush, as well as over the whites, which they are not backward in using to their profit. In fact, the Bushmen fight, travel, steal and trade, while the Kroos and Fishes, who for ages have fringed at least seven hundred miles of African coast, constitute the mariners, without whose skill and boldness slaves would be drugs in caravans or _barracoons_. And this is especially the case since British, French, and American cruisers have driven the traffic from every nook and corner of the west coast that even resembled _a harbor_, and forced the slavers to lay in wait in open roadsteads for their prey. The Kroo canoe, wedge-like at both ends, is hollowed from the solid trunk of a tree to the thickness of an inch. Of course they are so light and buoyant that they not only lie like a feather on the surface of the sea, so as to require nothing but freedom from water for their safety, but a canoe, capable of containing four people, may be borne on the shoulders of one or two to any reasonable distance. Accordingly, Kroomen and Fishmen are the prime pets of all slavers, traders, and men-of-war that frequent the west coast of Africa; while no one dwelling on the shore, engaged in commerce, is particularly anxious to merit or receive their displeasure.