“With adverse blast upturns them from the South ... black with thund’rous clouds from Sierra Leone.” Sierra Leone as it exists to-day is, owing to segregation and up-to-date sanitation, comparatively healthy for Europeans. The progress of the Colony has been phenomenal during the last fifteen years, and the credit is chiefly due to two energetic and far-seeing Governors in the persons of Sir Frederick Cardew and Sir Leslie Probyn, who foresaw the great benefit that would accrue by opening up the Protectorate, and this has been done by building lines of railway into the rich palm-kernel belts and encouraging the natives to gather the natural products of the country for export. The revenue of the Colony, which in 1898 was only £117,000, had increased to £618,000 in 1913, and although the expenditure has proportionately increased, the finances of the Colony may be looked upon as satisfactory. Freetown, the chief port and the seat of the Government, is a city with a population of about 35,000 inhabitants, of which about two-thirds belong to a class known as Creoles, the majority of whom are the descendants of the liberated slaves. It is beautifully situated, at the foot of a circle of hills on the summits of which are barracks belonging to the Garrison Artillery, the West India and the West African Regiment; and a short distance beyond lies Hill Station, the residence of the majority of the European officials stationed in the Colony—Sugar Loaf, a beautiful wooded mountain which rises to a height of nearly 3,000 feet, forming a picturesque background. Altogether the natural beauties of Freetown and its surroundings are many, though it is frequently asserted by the jaded or bored temporary resident, that to enjoy the view really one must see it from the stern of one of Messrs. Elder, Dempster’s ships homeward bound. [Illustration: COTTON TREE STATION, 9 A.M. BUNGALOW TRAIN, FREETOWN.]