" SNUFF- AND-BUTTER "-COLOURED PROGENY. 325 



man, a bright exception to the generality of the 

 clerical order on the Coast, he being a well-informed 

 and unprejudiced man, who carries out his princi- 

 ples in practice as well as in theory, which amongst 

 the class is rarely the case, otherwise there would 

 not be so many " snuff-and-butter"-coloured chil- 

 dren running about the yards of the different 

 mission houses as there are. However, as my com- 

 panion, an old Coast bird, observed to me, " there 

 is some excuse, their regular trade is dull, and 

 little enough is got out of it ; the climate is hot — 

 parsons are but men, and accidents will happen 

 in the best regulated families — they might do 

 worse." 



There is one strange discrepancy in the native 

 moral system that extends along the whole Coast, 

 which missionaries never seem to have attempted 

 to rectify. This is the frailty and total absence of 

 virtue amongst the women. No disgrace is im- 

 puted to a woman who admits the immoral advances 

 of a white man ; on the contrary, the husband en- 

 courages affairs of this nature, for he benefits and 

 makes a profit by the liaison. There is no fear of 



