GBEEGREES 
85 
and as they all speak, read and write Arabic 5 
by correspondence with each other they can 
easily defeat, or make victorious the party 
they may select, for they have the entire 
control of the armies of the people who 
employ them, and being more intelligent 
than headmen generally are, they impose 
upon them shockingly. 
The Mahommedans, by the power of those 
"war cooks" and various other stratagems^ 
not a few % in number, have acquired the 
ascendency in many places, which but a few 
years since were under the control of real 
Pagans. Indeed all the Mahommedan chiefs 
in the Sherbro and Mendi countries are 
usurpers, and hold their towns not by right 9 
but by might. They manage to put down, 
or out of the way ( by administering poison 
if nothing else will do ) those who have 
much influence in the country. It is thought 
that king Peer-Oharly, and others who died 
while I was in Africa, were poisoned by their 
doctors, — who were Mahommedans. 
Greegrees afford security from all evil, 
and give instruction in all cases of emer- 
gency. They are emphatically their light 
