-#> Pepper and Gold 



In the year 1555 Master William Towerson organised 

 an expedition to the " Guinea Grain Coast " (Liberia), the same 

 River Cestos being his principal objective. Two ships, called 

 the Hart and the Hinde^ started from Newport in the Isle 

 of Wight on September 30th. They slightly overshot their 

 mark.^ Captain Towerson describes very vividly his first sight 

 of the (Liberian) coast : *' The land . . . full of woods and 

 great rocks hard aboard the shore, and the billows beating 

 so sore that the seas brake upon the shore as white as snow, 

 and the water mounted so high that a man might easily discern 

 it four leagues off." On nearing the River St. Vincent 

 (evidently that which is now known as the Sino), they " met 

 with divers boats of the country, small, long, and narrow, and 

 in every boat one man and no more. We gave them bread 

 which they did eat and were very glad." The description given 

 is very similar to the present approach to the river and port 

 of Sino : " Directly before the mouth of it there lieth a ledge 

 of rocks ... so that a boat must run in along the shore a 

 good way between the rocks and the shore before it come 

 to the mouth of the river ; and being within it, it is a great 

 river, and divers other rivers fall into it : the going into it 

 is somewhat ill, because that at the entering the seas do go 

 somewhat high ; but being once within, it is as calm as the 

 Thames," 



As to the inhabitants on this coast, '* They are mighty 

 big men, and go all naked except something before their 

 privy parts, which is like a clout about a quarter of a yard 



' It will be noticed repeatedly in these early voyages to West Africa that 

 most of the ships — Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French — seem to have made 

 Liberia their first objective after rounding Cape Verde. No doubt this was a 

 good deal connected with the currents and wind, but also the desire to avoid 

 the treacherous shoals and the intricate archipelagos of islands which lie off the 

 intdrvening coast of Northern Guinea. 



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