It is in accord with native etiquette that these men coming home should arrive very much dressed, in new clothes, starched linen and infinite jewelry. This dressing is done on the open deck and occupies sometimes the entire day before the arrival, to the delight of the white passengers, who also give much kindly and gratuitous advice, which the native takes in good part. But in spite of their assistance there is nearly always something a little “off” in the completed toilet. One individual, grandly dressed, had his new shoes on the wrong feet. They had been made on a very crooked last and the effect was more grotesque than one would suppose. He looked as if he expected to walk with his legs crossed. Well, we may enjoy all this with very kindly feelings towards the native. But the fun is all spoiled when the ship’s officer perpetrates a practical joke apparently for our amusement. These passengers, men and women, in places where the sea is rough, are lowered into the boat by a chair, which is fastened to the end of a long rope suspended from a crane. The chair looks perfectly safe and comfortable as it sits on the deck. The native gets into it without hesitation. The rope is then drawn up by the crane till the chair is raised from the deck and goes swinging out over the bounding main. Its occupant, if it be a woman with a baby, for instance, screams with fright, and perhaps as the chair moves off flings her baby back on the deck, trusting to Providence for its landing; but the African baby leads a charmed life. Meanwhile the woman shuts her eyes and resigns herself to her fate. The chair is lowered to the boat below, and if the sea be rough and the boat heaving and tossing there is a very dangerous moment as the chair first comes in contact with it. The women are always lowered with care. But in lowering these much-dressed men—usually several at once—the officer in charge frequently makes it a point to “capsize” them, by letting the chair come down on the gunwale of the surf-boat, or on a thwart, so as to spill the occupants into the boat and into the six inches of very dirty water in the bottom of it, head first, or on their backs. Not to speak of the bruised and bleeding condition which sometimes results from this treatment, the native’s toilet is deranged, his clothes perhaps torn, and he goes ashore in woeful dishabille. No one enjoys this joke but the officer himself.