He Has To Keep A
Vigilant Eye On Them By Day, And Sleep Spread Out Over Them By
Night, For Fear Of His Companions Stealing Them.
Why he should take
all this trouble about his things on his voyage home I can't make
out, if what is currently reported is true, that all the wages
earned by the working boys become the property of the Elders of his
tribe when he returns to them.
I myself rather doubt if this is the
case, but expect there is a very heavy tax levied on them, for your
Kruboy is very much a married man, and the Elders of his tribe have
to support and protect his wives and families when he is away at
work, and I should not wonder if the law was that these said wives
and families "revert to the State" if the boy fails to return within
something like his appointed time. There must be something besides
nostalgia to account for the dreadful worry and apprehension shown
by a detained Kruboy. I am sure the tax is heavily taken in cloth,
for the boys told me that if it were made up into garments for
themselves they did not have to part with it on their return.
Needless to say, this makes our friend turn his attention to
needlework during his return voyage and many a time I have seen the
main deck looking as if it had been taken possession of by a
demoniacal Dorcas working party.
Strangely little is known of the laws and language of these Krumen,
considering how close the association is between them and the
whites. This arises, I think, not from the difficulty of learning
their language, but from the ease and fluency with which they speak
their version of our own - Kru-English, or "trade English," as it is
called, and it is therefore unnecessary for a hot and wearied white
man to learn "Kru mouth." What particularly makes me think this is
the case is, that I have picked up a little of it, and I found that
I could make a Kruman understand what I was driving at with this and
my small stock of Bassa mouth and Timneh, on occasions when I wished
to say something to him I did not want generally understood. But
the main points regarding Krumen are well enough known by old
Coasters - their willingness to work if well fed, and their habit of
engaging for twelve-month terms of work and then returning to "We
country." A trader who is satisfied with a boy gives him, when he
leaves, a bit of paper telling the captain of any vessel that he
will pay the boy's passage to his factory again, when he is willing
to come. The period that a boy remains in his beloved "We country"
seems to be until his allowance of his own earnings is expended.
One can picture to one's self some sad partings in that far-away
dark land.
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