Liberia ^ 



back from a most successful trade. The Hart reached the south 

 coast of Ireland on May yth, 1556, The Hinde parted company 

 with her consort on March ist, in a tornado off the Guinea 

 Coast, and was apparently never seen again, though there was 

 no record of whether she was completely lost. Undaunted by 

 these dangers, however, Master William Towerson (who, after 

 landing on the south coast of Ireland and buying two sheep 

 from " the wild Kerns," had brought up his good ship the Hart 

 to Bristol) started off again on September 14th, in the same 

 year, from Harwich to Bristol, and from Bristol sailed to Sierra 

 Leone. Near the Cestos River they fell in with some French 

 ships, who told them that they, the French, had just had a 

 little battle with the Portuguese, who were now determining 

 to bar the way on the part of foreign ships to the Gold Coast. 

 The French had sunk one of the Portuguese ships, and they 

 proposed to Master Towerson that he should join in his 

 fortunes with them. They obtained water from one of the 

 Liberian rivers, and bought ivory from the natives. They also 

 landed their men with *' harquebuses, pikes, long bows, crossbows, 

 partisans, long swords, and swords and daggers," in pursuit of 

 two elephants, whom they " stroke divers times with harquebuses 

 and long bows," without apparently doing them much harm. 

 Their subsequent adventures in fighting the Portuguese do not 

 come within the scope of this book. Captain Towerson visited 

 the coast of Liberia a third time in 1577. 



A voyage in 1562 was made by a number of English 

 adventurers, one of whom, Robert Baker, afterwards a prisoner 

 for ransom (salvage) in France, solaced his captivity by re- 

 counting his adventures in doggerel rhyme {Hakluyt^ vol. ii. 

 p. 518). These occurred, to begin with, on the coast of 

 Liberia. He seems to have found the Kruboys of that period 

 stark naked, though this may only have been due to facetious 



66 



