36 KROOMEN AND FISHMEN. 



article of considerable exportation. Kroomen 

 are also employed in great numbers as trading 

 men on the coast; and it is said that where 

 confidence is reposed in them, they are found 

 not undeserving of it. Their moral character is 

 better than that of their brethren the Fishmen; 

 but they are not so fine a race of men, and are 

 comparatively useless on board a ship. 



The great object of the Krooman or the Fish- 

 man is to get as many v^^ives as will support him 

 in idleness in his own country. The instant, 

 therefore, that he has earned and stolen money 

 enough to purchase one, he sets out with two 

 or three of his companions in a canoe for the 

 Kroo country. On his arrival he lays his trea- 

 sures before the father of his intended ; and if 

 they are considered sufficient, he enjoys her 

 society for a week. He then leaves her with 

 her family to set about obtaining another by his 

 next trip ; he returns to Sierra Leone, and goes 

 on board a ship upon the coast to earn the price 

 of a second wife ; and he repeats the process 

 until he has a colony of wives at Cape Palmas, 

 or in its neighbourhood, and then retires from 

 active life, not upon his fortune, but upon his 



