But the Kruboys of the steamers take English names which, to say the least, are not dignified, and are more absurd when the ship’s officers call them out in anger—and the ship’s officers are always angry when they talk to the Kruboys. Frying-Pan, Black Kettle, Crowbar, Ham and Eggs, Liver and Bacon, Bottle of Beer, Whisky, Bag of Rice, Weariness, Three O’clock, Daybreak, Half a Dinner, Castor Oil, Every Day, To-morrow, Never Tire, Sea Breeze, Jim Crow, Two Pounds Six, Smiles, Silence, My Friend, Gunpowder, Bayonet, Cartridge, Crocodile, Misery, Get-your-hair-cut, Tom Tom, Pagan and Shoo Fly are names I have heard. While we are on this subject we may as well get acquainted with the Kru English, which is the “Pigeon English” of the coast. All Kruboys “speak English Mouth” in this peculiar dialect. To people of intelligence and cultivation it is always very offensive at first. They especially cannot bear to hear white people use it; nor does it seem to them in the least degree necessary. Good English is as simple and they think would be quite as easily understood by the black man. I remember well how it first affected me. I was disgusted when I was told that I would soon be speaking it myself. The first change in my feelings took place when I found that it had its method and its idiom. It is not “any old English.” There is correct and incorrect Kru English. It may properly be regarded as a dialect. The African languages, however they may differ in vocabulary, have a common idiom. Kru English is simply the idiom of the African languages with an English vocabulary. There are some irregularities and a small number of importations from other tongues, the principal foreign word being “sabey” for “know,” from the French “savez.” One of its principal features is the use of the verb “live” for the verb “to be.” I stand in the doorway and call: “Half a Dinner!” and the answer comes back faintly: “I live for come.” If I want to ask a boy whether Shoo Fly has arrived, I say: “Shoo Fly live?” And as Shoo Fly never arrives when he is expected I probably get the answer: “Shoo Fly no live;” or, “Shoo Fly no lib;” or possibly, “He lib for chop, massa.” To “find” a thing is to search for it, though one may not find it at all; and a man will say: “I find him, find him, long time and never look him.” There is a great dearth of prepositions in the African languages; and in Kru language the word “for” serves all prepositional uses. It seldom uses more than one demonstrative, and the word “them” is forced to do this reluctant service. I ask: “What for them man Weariness he no work to-day?” and perhaps get the answer: “He live for sick. He live close for die.” There are certain stock phrases that one hears all the time: “You sabey Englis mouf?” “I hear him small, small.” “Massa, I no sabey them palaver.” “Them man he make me trouble too much.” “I go one time” (“one time” is “at once”), or “I go come one time.”