The Congregational Observer

SIERRA LEONE.

The following letter from a correspondent of the New York Express, will be interesting to our readers. It gives a rather alarming description of the climate which the Mendian missionaries are about to encounter.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, 1841.

To give you a description of Sierra Leone, would be to present you a Babylon and the confusion of tongues, with its immorality and licentiousness, and without its grandeur. It is populated by Africans of all tribes, who have been released from the slave holders, by Mandingos, Timminees, Jolis, and Joulahs from the adjoining territories, who are all Mahometans and in the depths of ignorance and uncivilization. The greater part go naked, and with no more than a small cloth to cover their waists. They live upon rice, cassada, yams, palm oil, nuts, and fruit, which is plentiful here of all kinds, and grows spontaneously. Their nightly dances and amusements are rude and unharmonious, and anything but decent in gesture; but they appear not to be aware of such outrages to decency, and I am sorry to say white men do not discourage it. I paid a visit, a short time since to one of the native kings living on the Bullom shore, called Mooder, opposite Sierra Leone, and was hospitably entertained in the stranger's house three days. He is a Mahometan, has 200 wives, and daughters and sons without end. He made his wives wait upon us; serve up our meals in the English fashion; and both fetched and brought us back in his canoe, rowed by ten of his own sons. The houses are built of mud and thatched with straw, of a conical shape, with piazzas all round, and he has a mosque of the same materials, near which there is a large wood fire, where the boys sit in a circle around to repeat the Koran. He speaks good English and is on good terms with the Colonial Government, who occasionally send him presents.

In speaking of Africa, it cannot be of any other than the worst of characters as regards health and comfort. Money is made quick, but health and life is sacrificed also. Death, by the fever of the country, sweeps away its victims and leaves no time for atonement. This year our Governor, Sir John Jeremie, died, who had spent the last 16 years of his life in a tropical clime. The Commissariat died, and innumerable others. It is awful to witness such mortality in this place, justly termed a painted sepulchre, the white man's grave. Every new comer must have a seasoning, which, if he surmounts, he stands a chance. Three years is as long as any man can endure here without a change to recruit. When a person is seasoned, he is sure to do well if he have continued health, as profits upon goods brought for trade are enormous.

The rainy season commences in June, and lasts till November, when sickness prevails to an alarming extent. The rains come in with violent tornados, thunder and lightning, and cease in the same manner.

Our dress here consists of white trousers and jacket, straw hat, &c.—but on public occasions we wear European coats, hats, &c. In the rains we wear thick and warm woolens, or blanket trousers and jackets. It is most tremendous rain—sweeping all before it, and actually battering through the shingles of the houses.

The exports from this coast consist of gold, in rings and dust, ivory, camwood, palm oil, hides, skins, ground nuts, coffee, ginger, country cloths, teak, timber, arrow root, peppers, gum, wax, &c. and the imports are Manchester goods, paints, arms, ammunition, spirits, tobacco, salt, breads, coral, hardware, crockery ware, and all sorts of provisions and stores. We have three or four vessels trading from British North America, who are laden entirely with provisions, which here always meet a quick sale. Vessels, rigging and sails are to be purchased at less than half price by auction, which have been condemned as engaged in the slave trade, many of which are quite new.