GRAVE OF ‘ JACK-BE-OFF.’ 
95 
and more cultivated. ‘ King Will’s’ town is a scattered 
village on the right bank, beautifully placed as far as 
the eye is concerned, amid fine specimens of Palm, 
Cocoa and Bamboo. The houses are well built, of a 
somewhat conical shape, but nicely and securely wattled 
with Bamboo and Palm-leaves; they have generally a 
raised floor of Bamboo, and are tolerably clean. The 
inmates were not backward in offering an invitation to 
enter, but the closeness of the air externally, and the 
smoke which burst forth at the little doomay, literally 
choked the rising wish to become more acquainted with 
the internal arrangements. Near the beach, under a 
little Palm-tree, lies the burying-place of ‘ Jack-be-off,’ a 
man who had served on board a vessel of war ; his bottle — 
said to contain rum? — some calabashes, a frying-pan, and 
brass-pot were scattered over his grave, while the mys- 
terious Fetiche, or god, a little mass of clay enveloped in a 
bit of rag, and suspended by a stick, kept supposed watch 
over all that was mortal of “ poor Jack.” What reader 
can hear of such absurd superstition, and not wish 
fervently that some of the numerous Krumen and Fish- 
men, who frequent Sierra Leone, should be made the 
objects of express religious solicitude ; and that before 
too much is expected from the interior, we might behold 
some opening fruit on the immediate coast and among 
the people with whom our African colonists are holding 
constant intercourse. 
The facilities, however, which the vicinity of this in- 
teresting nation affords, and their devoted attachment to 
