96 



'BLACK TOWN. 1 



To our right, in rear of the fronting e dicky,' 

 and at hoth flanks of the city, is the native town, 

 — a filthy labyrinth, a capricious arabesque of 

 disorderly lanes, and alleys, and impasses, here 

 broad, there narrow ; now heaped with offal, 

 then choked with ruins. It would be the work 

 of weeks to learn the threading of this planless 

 maze, and what white man would have the heart 

 to learn it ? Curiosity may lead us to it in 

 earliest morning, before the black world returns 

 to life. During the day sun or rain, mud or 

 dust, with the certain effluvia of carrion and 

 negro, make it impossible to flaner through the 

 foul mass of densely crowded dwelling-places 

 where the slaves and the poor ' pig ' together. 

 The pauper classes are contented with mere sheds, 

 and only the mildness of the climate keeps them 

 from starving. The meanest hovels are of palm- 

 matting, blackened by wind or sun, thatched 

 with cajan or grass, and with or without walls 

 of wattle-and-dab. They are hardly less wretched 

 than the w^est Ireland shanty. Internally the 

 huts are cut up into a ' but ' and a £ ben/ and 

 are furnished with pots, gourds, cocoa rasps, low 

 stools hewn out of a single block, a mortar 

 similarly cut, trays, pots, and troughs for food, 

 foul mats, and kitandahs or cartels of palm-fibre 



