In British West African colonies the relations between Government and Commerce are unique. Alone among the Powers she has developed a caste attitude, until to-day the distinction is not a little embarrassing. The British official is quite a good fellow when you get him alone, but, as a class, they form a distinctly objectionable “set.” This is apparent the first day on board ship, when the “sorting out” commences, and if the weather is good this process provides not a little amusement to an observant passenger. Usually there are but three groups of travellers on a “coast” steamer—the official, the merchant and the missionary. As we have travelled a good deal in these ships, many occasions have presented themselves for watching the arranging and rearranging of this little floating town. The last time we set out from Liverpool was the most entertaining of any. Running down the channel, a youth, who had apparently never travelled before, wished me “Good day,” with the apparent intention of pacing the deck, but upon his discovering that I was neither an official, nor a missionary, he inwardly argued “a trader,” and promptly made off! Another and yet another pursued the same tactics, until by a process of elimination they “discovered” the officials. “Steward” was then called and all the “official chairs” were placed in a semi-circle in the best part of the deck. That this monopolized the only comfortable section of the upper deck did not appear to concern these gentlemanly youths. [Illustration: CATARACT REGION BELOW STANLEY POOL, BELGIAN CONGO.] In the dining-saloon the chief steward had placed us at one of the lower tables, but learning from the captain of certain instructions given him by one of the Directors, with whom I was on friendly terms, this man came forward and with profuse apologies asked me to accept an entirely different place in the saloon, saying that he “thought I was a trader!” Once I met a young Sierra Leone merchant, who told me that a certain official in the Protectorate had been taken ill with a bad fever at his factory; that he had nursed him through it with all the care of a relative; that this official, when he was at last able to leave, appeared deeply grateful for all that had been done for him, and the merchant believed he had made a lifelong friend. A few months afterwards business called him to Freetown, and passing along one of the streets, he met two or three officials, one of whom was the friend whom he had so carefully nursed. To his amazement, he only received a curt nod and a plain intimation that further intercourse was undesirable. It is to be hoped that such conduct is rare, but the general attitude of the younger British officials is becoming almost intolerable.