reproach. She, who is first compelled to give
in, retires deeply mortified, and most probably
starts away to the bush and hangs herself.
Suicide in Africa is chiefly by hanging; and
the native always leaves home, goes into the
bush, and often passes two or three days in
profound melancholy before commission of
the fatal act. The friends of the deceased,
upon this, claim the adversary as a slave, and
sometimes her family also, as an indemnification
for the loss which they have sustained.
A tolerably complicated case of this kind is
now before me:

Two women quarrel; one hangs herself
and, upon this, her husband claims the other,
Accooah; whom, together with her mother,
he seizes and treats much in the same way
that Mr. Groarkoo treated Mrs. Karunpah.
In order to release them, Accooah's uncle
pays the ransom demanded—- a certain number
of ounces of gold-dust—and then ensues
a quarrel between Accooah's brother and
the widower.

The consequence of this second quarrel
is, that Accooah's brother hangs himself.
Thereupon her uncle claims the widower and
all his family; demanding, as the alternative,
a much larger number of ounces of gold as a
ransom, than he had paid for Accooah, which
is duly given to him. But the widower is
advised to take the case into an English
court, and there it is decided that, as the
man hanged himself, no one is guilty of
murder; and, as he took his own life away, his
own friends must be the sufferers by his loss.
With much difficulty and very unwillingly,
Accooah's uncle is compelled to restore the
gold-dust he had received.

After this, Accooah appeals against the
widower, demanding the return of the
money paid for her and her mother. A
judgment is given in her favour. I believe
that Accooah's female adversary, and her
brother, chose suicide as the amplest means
of revenge they had in their power; knowing
that it would be certain to entail great suffering
on their opponents. And I believe this to
be the motive that animates suicides in
Africa in all similar cases; so that doubtless
the decisions in our courts, unfavourable to
the pretensions of the family of the deceased
person, will put a check to this crime.

The letters referring to Accooah's case are
so long, the sentences so involved, and the
statements often so unintelligible to ordinary
readers, that it would be useless to insert
them entire; but one extract—a final appeal
—I cannot refrain from placing before the
reader in Accooah's own words. Throughout,
she endeavours to defend herself from the
charge of having caused the death of her
opponent, pleads at last her inability, as a
woman, to do or say anything injurious, with
charming naïveté:

So I, poor woman, am not able to kill any one in
the world at all. But the said Luerrah said that I
make his wife hanged herself.

So long as [because] I quarrel with her, I make her
hanged herself! through this he claimed poor woman
3. So I am woman, I could not say anything, so I
brought him before you to ask him the reason for
your servant, for I sware that I could not able to do
this.

All this time he can not hear me, so I said: Well,
I am woman. I got nothing to say; but we all under
Queen. I must summon you, and hear what they
say first, but I could not allow you to take me 3 for
nothing.

In spite of the administration of English
justice (rough and informal as it necessarily
is), never, I suppose, has so small a result
been seen in the way of actual good to
any people as we see at once when we
reflect on the number of English stations and
Dutch stations; of Danish and French, and
Spanish stations that have existed on the
Gold Coast for the last two hundred years.
Of course those who are brought into
actual and immediate contact with
Europeans are more or less affected by it, but not
always for good. Also, the small class of
dealers who spring up round the stations,
and the African merchants are, some of them,
as civilised—if not more so—than those with
whom they trade. But the number of these
compared to that of all the inhabitants of
the coast is so small, that it is impossible
to estimate the proportion one bears to the
other.

No doubt this is partly to be attributed
to difficulties inherent in dealing with the
African; but I believe that it is chiefly
owing to Europeans themselves. The fact is,
that we Europeans who go to the Gold Coast
do not go to work, that is, to do real, honest,
downright hard work. We do not go to
colonise. We never settle there, or take out
wives and children and servants. We do
not encumber ourselves with philanthropic
motives or aims. We go because we
expect to make money fast in some way or
other; and, when we get out and find no
society, and not much practical work or
possibility of work, all our fine feelings (if we
ever had them) ooze out of us. The first half-
dozen attacks of fever demoralise us; and,
like the natives, we live to eat, to drink, and
to sleep.

THE SMALLPORT MONTE-CRISTO.

WE were by no means generally popular
at Smallport.

The "we" in the above sentence means
my half-brother, James Chowler, our dear
friend Purkis, and myself.

Yet, were there justice at watering-
places, we should have been not only popular
but gratefully beloved; seeing that we
furnished to the small community assembled at
this small place a theme for gossip and
speculation, and, what was more valuable
still, not a little vituperation and scandal.

What call had the like of us to go and set