On arriving at Sierra Leone, some of us landed to visit the garrison and pay our respects to the governor, Colonel O’C----r. The barracks, on the top of the hill overlooking the town, were clean and comfortable; and the officers quite a jolly lot for men stationed in “the white man’s grave,” as Sierra Leone was then called. The soldiers were smart, well set up, strongly-framed negroes, equal I should say, if well led, to a deal of hard fighting. We found the governor at home, enjoying his pleasant quarters in a private residence, with great equanimity and smiling composure. He was a soft, oily-looking gentleman, considerably yellowed by the fierce glare of the town. He lay on a couch, decked out with white muslin mosquito-curtains; and gently turning round as we entered, looked like a lump of yellow butter floating in a basin of iced water; and we youngsters were considerably cooled down as we rushed rather heedlessly into the great man’s _sanctum sanctorum_. He, however, gracefully ducked his head under the curtains, and waved a ripple of welcome to us all from his extended hands. He was evidently accustomed to unquestioning obedience, so we sat down without saying a word. The room was full of niggers. It was something wonderful to see them clustered round the bell-shaped muslin curtains of his couch, like busy black flies on a loaf of white crystallised sugar. One had managed to thrust his naked arm, like an antenna, under the folds of the transparent dome, and with a long, white, horse-tail fan, was waving mysterious passes around the yellow, sphinx-shaped head of the presiding deity. Other attendants, with solemn, ebony-wooded heads, were squatting around the place, tossing up and down their lank arms in the most bewildering manner. Now and again they would insert their hands under the arm-pits, then sharply raise them, and with a whack, extend their palms upon the wall. I slipped out of the room, and asked the gallant colonel’s orderly the meaning of this mystic performance. “You see, sir,” he said, “those niggers squatting round the room are waiting to relieve the others on duty at the colonel’s cot; we makes ’em sit still, for when they goes about they scents mighty strong, and if they sits quite still they gets like rancid cocoa-oil; so to make them as sweet as possible, we orders them to keep alive, pegged down.” Poor black wretches! they were writing their misery on the wall, in a manner quite incomprehensible to the gallant colonel. I next paid a visit to the bishop, who gave me the impression of suffering from a deadly climate, and great despondency as to the prospects of converting the heathen--in fact, he seemed on the point of leaving his flock in this world without the prospect of meeting even one of his black sheep in the next.