From
Their Own Accounts Of The Dreadful State Of Trade; And The Awful And
Unparalleled Series Of Losses They Have
Had, from the upsetting of
canoes, the raids and robberies made on them and their goods by
"those awful bush
Savages"; you would, if you were of a trustful
disposition, regard the black trader with an admiring awe as the man
who has at last solved the great commercial problem of how to keep a
shop and live by the loss. Nay, not only live, but build for
himself an equivalent to a palatial residence, and keep up, not only
it, but half a dozen wives, with a fine taste for dress every one of
them. I am not of a trustful disposition and I accept those
"losses" with a heavy discount, and know most of the rest of them
have come out of my friend the white trader's pockets. Still I can
never feel the righteous indignation that I ought to feel, when I
see the black trader "down in a seaport town with his Nancy," etc.,
as Sir W. H. S. Gilbert classically says, because I remember those
bush factories.
Mr. Glass, however, was not a trader who made a fortune by losing
those of other people; for he had been many years in the employ of
the firm. He had risen certainly to the high post and position of
charge of the Rembwe, but he was not down giddy-flying at Gaboon.
His accounts of his experiences when he had been many years ago away
up the still little known Nguni River, in a factory in touch with
the lively Bakele, then in a factory among Fans and Igalwa on the
Ogowe, and now among Fans and Skekiani on the Rembwe, were
fascinating, and told vividly of the joys of first starting a
factory in a wild district.
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