File:A voice from the Congo - comprising stories, anecdotes, and descriptive notes (1910) (14596972919).jpg

Identifier: voicefromcongoco00ward (find matches)
Title: A voice from the Congo : comprising stories, anecdotes, and descriptive notes
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Ward, Herbert, 1863-1919
Subjects: Ward, Herbert, 1863-1919 Africa, Central -- Description and travel Africa, Central -- Social life and customs
Publisher: New York : Charles Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Connecticut Libraries

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me claiminga prize, each one arguing that as he entered for theevent he was justly entitled to reward. Angry words were soon followed by blows, andduring the remainder of the afternoon I found mvselfin the midst of a violent, turbulent mob of peoplewho were apparently bereft of all reason. The various chiefs next came to me for paymentnot only for their services, but also for the services oftheir people who had run in the race, and also for thegunpowder which they had expended in the morning,in order, so they said, to give the affair a good send-off. It was late that night before my station resumedits normal quiet, and as I stretched myself out for thenight, it was with the full conviction that the timefor introducing sporting events in that part of thecountry was not yet ripe. * * if: ;fc H1 Kroo boys, brought down by outward-bound shipsfrom the Kroo Coast, were generally employed aspersonnel in the trading houses situated around themouth of the Congo. Their services were paid for in
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L * I -i Studies bv the Author ODDITIES 153 kind—flint-lock guns and cotton cloth—and it wascustomary each Sunday to allow the Kroo Boys toview the contents of the stores so that they mightfeast their eyes upon the bales of cloth, the hogs-heads of rum, and the piles of bran-new guns. The Kroo Boys were christened by the sailors ofthe ships that brought them from their homes on theKroo Coast, their names being frequently prickedin tin plates which they wore around their necks. It was somewhat incongruous to see a gigantic KrooBoy christened Butterfly. Other favoured nameswere: Wash-a-Crocodile/ Snowball, Tin-pot,Flying Jib, and Sea-breeze. These names im-parted a comic aspect to life in a trading house, when,for example, one would hear that Pea Soup hadstolen from Saturday Night, or that a quarrel wasgoing on between Red Herring and Bottle-of-Beer. ***** Among the little band of Zanzibaris who accompan-ied me in my canoe journey down the Upper Congowere two men who bore singular n

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